The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

the elevator car. She had one last glimpse of the Maeonian drakon shaking an ogre like a sock puppet, Damasen jabbing at Tartarus’s legs.
    The god of the pit pointed at the Doors of Death and yelled:
Monsters, stop them!
    Small Bob the sabre-toothed crouched and snarled, ready for action.
    Bob winked at Annabeth. ‘Hold the Doors closed on your side,’ he said. ‘They will resist your passage. Hold them –’
    The panels slid shut.

LXXII
     

ANNABETH
     
    ‘P ERCY, HELP ME!’ A NNABETH YELPED.
    She shoved her entire body against the left door, pressing it towards the centre. Percy did the same on the right. There were no handles, or anything else to hold on to. As the elevator car ascended, the Doors shook and tried to open, threatening to spill them into whatever was between life and death.
    Annabeth’s shoulders ached. The elevator’s easy-listening music didn’t help. If all monsters had to hear that song about liking piña coladas and getting caught in the rain, no wonder they were in the mood for carnage when they reached the mortal world.
    ‘We left Bob and Damasen,’ Percy croaked. ‘They’ll die for us, and we just –’
    ‘I know,’ she murmured. ‘Gods of Olympus, Percy, I know.’
    Annabeth was almost glad of the job of keeping the Doors closed. The terror racing through her heart at least kept herfrom dissolving into misery. Abandoning Damasen and Bob had been the hardest thing she’d ever done.
    For years at Camp Half-Blood, she had chafed as other campers went on quests while she stayed behind. She’d watched as others gained glory … or failed and didn’t come back. Since she was seven years old, she had thought:
Why don’t
I
get to prove my skills? Why can’t
I
lead a quest?
    Now, she realized that the hardest test for a child of Athena wasn’t leading a quest or facing death in combat. It was making the strategic decision to step back, to let someone else take the brunt of the danger – especially when that person was your friend. She had to face the fact that she couldn’t protect everyone she loved. She couldn’t solve every problem.
    She hated it, but she didn’t have time for self-pity. She blinked away her tears.
    ‘Percy, the Doors,’ she warned.
    The panels had started to slide apart, letting in a whiff of … ozone? Sulphur?
    Percy pushed on his side furiously and the crack closed. His eyes blazed with anger. She hoped he wasn’t mad at her, but if he was she couldn’t blame him.
    If it keeps him going, she thought, then let him be angry.
    ‘I will kill Gaia,’ he muttered. ‘I will tear her apart with my bare hands.’
    Annabeth nodded, but she was thinking about Tartarus’s boast. He could not be killed. Neither could Gaia. Against such power, even Titans and giants were hopelessly outmatched. Demigods stood no chance.
    She also remembered Bob’s warning:
This may not be the last sacrifice you must make to stop Gaia.
    She felt that truth deep in her bones.
    ‘Twelve minutes,’ she murmured. ‘Just twelve minutes.’
    She prayed to Athena that Bob could hold the UP button that long. She prayed for strength and wisdom. She wondered what they would find once they reached the top of this elevator ride.
    If their friends weren’t there, controlling the other side …
    ‘We can do this,’ Percy said. ‘We
have
to.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Annabeth said. ‘Yeah, we do.’
    They held the Doors shut as the elevator shuddered and the music played, while somewhere below them a Titan and a giant sacrificed their lives for their escape.

LXXIII
     

HAZEL
     
    H AZEL WASN’T PROUD OF CRYING.
    After the tunnel collapsed, she wept and screamed like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. She couldn’t move the debris that separated her and Leo from the others. If the earth shifted any more, the entire complex might collapse on their heads. Still, she pounded her fists against the stones and yelled curses that would’ve earned her a mouth-washing with lye soap back at St Agnes Academy.
    Leo stared at her, wide-eyed and speechless.
    She wasn’t being fair to him.
    The last time the two of them had been together, she’d zapped him into her past and shown him Sammy, his great-grandfather – Hazel’s first boyfriend. She’d burdened him with emotional baggage he didn’t need and left him so dazed they had almost been killed by a giant shrimp monster.
    Now here they were, alone again, while their friendsmight be dying at the hands of a monster army, and she was