The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

– the one named Percy Jackson.’
    Annabeth fought down a snarl of her own. She forgot about her fear. She wanted to jump over the boulder and slash the monsters to dust with her knife … except she didn’t have it any more.
    ‘Believe me,’ said the mall girl. ‘Gaia has called us, and we’re going to have
so
much fun. Before this war is over,mortals and demigods will tremble at the sound of my name – Kelli!’
    Annabeth almost yelped aloud. She glanced at Percy. Even in the red light of the Phlegethon, his face seemed waxy.
    Empousai
, she mouthed.
Vampires.
    Percy nodded grimly.
    She remembered Kelli. Two years ago, at Percy’s freshman orientation, he and their friend Rachel Dare had been attacked by
empousai
disguised as cheerleaders. One of them had been Kelli. Later, the same
empousa
had attacked them in Daedalus’s workshop. Annabeth had stabbed her in the back and sent her … here. To Tartarus.
    The creatures shuffled off, their voices getting fainter. Annabeth crept to the edge of the boulder and risked a glimpse. Sure enough, five women staggered along on mismatched legs – mechanical bronze on the left, shaggy and cloven-hooved on the right. Their hair was made of fire, their skin as white as bone. Most of them wore tattered Ancient Greek dresses, except for the one in the lead, Kelli, who wore a burnt and torn blouse with a short pleated skirt … her cheerleader’s outfit.
    Annabeth gritted her teeth. She had faced a lot of bad monsters over the years, but she hated
empousai
more than most.
    In addition to their nasty claws and fangs, they had a powerful ability to manipulate the Mist. They could change shape and charmspeak , tricking mortals into letting down their guard. Men were especially susceptible. The
empousa
’sfavourite tactic was to make a guy fall in love with her, then drink his blood and devour his flesh. Not a great first date.
    Kelli had almost killed Percy. She had manipulated Annabeth’s oldest friend, Luke, urging him to commit darker and darker deeds in the name of Kronos.
    Annabeth
really
wished she still had her dagger.
    Percy rose. ‘They’re heading for the Doors of Death,’ he murmured. ‘You know what that means?’
    Annabeth didn’t want to think about it, but sadly this squad of flesh-eating horror-show women might be the closest thing to good luck they were going to get in Tartarus.
    ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘We need to follow them.’

IX
     

LEO
     
    L EO SPENT THE NIGHT WRESTLING with a forty-foot-tall Athena.
    Ever since they’d brought the statue aboard, Leo had been obsessed with figuring out how it worked. He was sure it had primo powers. There had to be a secret switch or a pressure plate or something.
    He was supposed to be sleeping, but he just couldn’t. He spent hours crawling over the statue, which took up most of the lower deck. Athena’s feet stuck into sick bay, so you had to squeeze past her ivory toes if you wanted some painkillers. Her body ran the length of the port corridor, her outstretched hand jutting into the engine room, offering the life-sized figure of Nike that stood in her palm, like,
Here, have some Victory!
Athena’s serene face took up most of the aft pegasus stables, which were fortunately unoccupied. If Leo were a magic horse, he wouldn’t have wanted to live in a stall with an oversized goddess of wisdom staring at him.
    The statue was wedged tight in the corridor, so Leo had to climb over the top and wriggle under her limbs, searching for levers and buttons.
    As usual, he found nothing.
    He’d done some research on the statue. He knew it was made from a hollow wooden frame covered in ivory and gold, which explained why it was so light. It was in pretty good shape, considering it was more than two thousand years old and had been pillaged from Athens, toted to Rome and secretly stored in a spider’s cavern for most of the past two millennia. Magic must’ve kept it intact, Leo figured, combined with really good craftsmanship.
    Annabeth had said … well, he tried not to think about Annabeth. He still felt guilty about her and Percy falling into Tartarus. Leo knew it was
his
fault. He should have got everyone safely on board the
Argo II
before he started securing the statue. He should have realized the cavern floor was unstable.
    Still, moping around wasn’t going to get Percy and Annabeth back. He had to concentrate on fixing the problems he could fix.
    Anyway, Annabeth had said the statue was the key