“We are,” Pluto agreed. “But you invoked me so strongly that you allowed me to appear…if only for a moment. ”
“I didn’t invoke you. ”
But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. For the first time, willingly, she’d embraced her lineage as a child of Pluto. She’d tried to understand her father’s powers and use them to the fullest.
“When you come to my house in Epirus,” Pluto said, “you must be prepared. The dead will not welcome you. And the sorceress Pasiphaë—”
“Pacify?” Hazel asked. Then she realized that must be the woman’s name.
“She will not be fooled as easily as Sciron. ” Pluto’s eyes glittered like volcanic stone. “You succeeded in your first test, but Pasiphaë intends to rebuild her domain, which will endanger all demigods. Unless you stop her at the House of Hades…”
His form flickered. For a moment he was bearded, in Greek robes with a golden laurel wreath in his hair. Around his feet, skeletal hands broke through the earth.
The god gritted his teeth and scowled.
His Roman form stabilized. The skeletal hands dissolved back into the earth.
“We do not have much time. ” He looked like a man who’d just been violently ill. “Know that the Doors of Death are at the lowest level of the Necromanteion. You must make Pasiphaë see what she wants to see. You are right. That is the secret to all magic. But it will not be easy when you are in her maze. ”
“What do you mean? What maze?”
“You will understand,” he promised. “And, Hazel Levesque…you will not believe me, but I am proud of your strength. Sometimes…sometimes the only way I can care for my children is to keep my distance. ”
Hazel bit back an insult. Pluto was just another deadbeat godly dad making weak excuses. But her heart pounded as she replayed his words: I am proud of your strength.
“Go to your friends,” Pluto said. “They will be worried. The journey to Epirus still holds many perils. ”
“Wait,” Hazel said.
Pluto raised an eyebrow.
“When I met Thanatos,” she said, “you know…Death…he told me I wasn’t on your list of rogue spirits to capture. He said maybe that’s why you were keeping your distance. If you acknowledged me, you’d have to take me back to the Underworld. ”
Pluto waited. “What is your question?”
“You’re here. Why don’t you take me to the Underworld? Return me to the dead?”
Pluto’s form started to fade. He smiled, but Hazel couldn’t tell if he was sad or pleased. “Perhaps that is not what I want to see, Hazel. Perhaps I was never here. ”
PERCY WAS RELIEVED when the demon grandmothers closed in for the kill.
Sure, he was terrified. He didn’t like the odds of three against several dozen. But at least he understood fighting. Wandering through the darkness, waiting to be attacked—that had been driving him crazy.
Besides, he and Annabeth had fought together many times. And now they had a Titan on their side.
“Back off. ” Percy jabbed Riptide at the nearest shriveled hag, but she only sneered.
We are the arai, said that weird voice-over, like the entire forest was speaking. You cannot destroy us.
Annabeth pressed against his shoulder. “Don’t touch them,” she warned. “They’re the spirits of curses. ”
“Bob doesn’t like curses,” Bob decided. The skeleton kitten Small Bob disappeared inside his coveralls. Smart cat.
The Titan swept his broom in a wide arc, forcing the spirits back, but they came in again like the tide.
We serve the bitter and the defeated, said the arai. We serve the slain who prayed for vengeance with their final breath. We have many curses to share with you.
The firewater in Percy’s stomach started crawling up his throat. He wished Tartarus had better beverage options, or maybe a tree that dispensed antacid fruit.
“I appreciate the offer,” he said. “But my mom told me not to accept curses from strangers. ”
The nearest demon lunged. Her claws extended like bony switchblades. Percy cut her in two, but as soon as she vaporized, the sides of his chest flared with pain. He stumbled back, clamping his hand to his rib cage. His fingers came away wet and red.
“Percy, you’re bleeding!” Annabeth cried, which was kind of obvious to him at that point. “Oh, gods, on both sides. ”
It was true. The left and right hems of his tattered shirt were sticky with blood, as if a javelin had run him through.
Or an arrow…
Queasiness almost knocked him over. Vengeance. A curse from the slain.
He flashed back to an encounter in Texas two years ago—a fight with a monstrous rancher who could only be killed if each of his three bodies was cut through simultaneously.
“Geryon,” Percy said. “This is how I killed him. …”
The spirits bared their fangs. More arai leaped from the black trees, flapping their leathery wings.
Yes, they agreed. Feel the pain you inflicted upon Geryon. So many curses have been leveled at you, Percy Jackson. Which will you die from? Choose, or we will rip you apart!
Somehow he stayed on his feet. The blood stopped spreading, but he still felt like he had a hot metal curtain rod sticking through his ribs. His sword arm was heavy and weak.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered.
Bob’s voice seemed to echo from the end of a long tunnel: “If you kill one, it gives you a curse. ”