The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

carcasses, he was afraid he might pull an
empousa
and try to devour it.
    At least he had Annabeth. They would find a way out ofTartarus. They
had
to. He didn’t think much of fates and prophecies, but he did believe in one thing: Annabeth and he were supposed to be together. They hadn’t survived so much just to get killed now.
    ‘Things could be worse,’ Annabeth ventured.
    ‘Yeah?’ Percy didn’t see how, but he tried to sound upbeat.
    She snuggled against him. Her hair smelled of smoke, and if he closed his eyes he could almost imagine they were at the campfire at Camp Half-Blood.
    ‘We could’ve fallen into the River Lethe ,’ she said. ‘Lost all our memories.’
    Percy’s skin crawled just thinking about it. He’d had enough trouble with amnesia for one lifetime. Only last month, Hera had erased his memories to put him among the Roman demigods. Percy had stumbled into Camp Jupiter with no idea who he was or where he came from. And a few years before that he’d fought a Titan on the banks of the Lethe, near Hades’s palace. He’d blasted the Titan with water from that river and completely wiped his memory clean. ‘Yeah, the Lethe,’ he muttered. ‘Not my favourite.’
    ‘What was the Titan’s name?’ Annabeth asked.
    ‘Uh …  Iapetus . He said it meant the
Impaler
or something.’
    ‘No, the name you gave him after he lost his memory. Steve?’
    ‘Bob,’ Percy said.
    Annabeth managed a weak laugh. ‘Bob the Titan.’
    Percy’s lips were so parched, it hurt to smile. He wondered what had happened to Iapetus after they’d left him in Hades’s palace … if he was still content being Bob, friendly, happyand clueless. Percy hoped so, but the Underworld seemed to bring out the worst in everyone – monsters, heroes and gods.
    He gazed across the ashen plains. The other Titans were supposed to be here in Tartarus – maybe bound in chains, or roaming aimlessly, or hiding in some of those dark crevices. Percy and his allies had destroyed the worst Titan, Kronos, but even
his
remains might be down here somewhere – a billion angry Titan particles floating through the blood-coloured clouds or lurking in that dark fog.
    Percy decided not to think about that. He kissed Annabeth’s forehead. ‘We should keep moving. You want some more fire to drink?’
    ‘Ugh. I’ll pass.’
    They struggled to their feet. The rest of the cliff looked impossible to descend – nothing more than a crosshatching of tiny ledges – but they kept climbing down.
    Percy’s body went on autopilot. His fingers cramped. He felt blisters popping up on his ankles. He got shaky from hunger.
    He wondered if they would die of starvation, or if the firewater would keep them going. He remembered the punishment of Tantalus , who’d been permanently stuck in a pool of water under a fruit tree but couldn’t reach either food or drink.
    Jeez, Percy hadn’t thought about Tantalus in years. That stupid guy had been paroled briefly to serve as director at Camp Half-Blood. Probably he was back in the Fields of Punishment . Percy had never felt sorry for the jerk before, but now he was starting to sympathize. He could imagine whatit would be like, getting hungrier and hungrier for eternity but never being able to eat.
    Keep climbing
, he told himself.
    Cheeseburgers
, his stomach replied.
    Shut up
, he thought.
    With fries
, his stomach complained.
    A billion years later, with a dozen new blisters on his feet, Percy reached the bottom. He helped Annabeth down, and they collapsed on the ground.
    Ahead of them stretched miles of wasteland, bubbling with monstrous larvae and big insect-hair trees. To their right, the Phlegethon split into branches that etched the plain, widening into a delta of smoke and fire. To the north, along the main route of the river, the ground was riddled with cave entrances. Here and there, spires of rock jutted up like exclamation points.
    Under Percy’s hand, the soil felt alarmingly warm and smooth. He tried to grab a handful, then realized that, under a thin layer of dirt and debris, the ground was a single vast membrane … like skin.
    He almost threw up, but forced himself not to. There was nothing in his stomach but fire.
    He didn’t mention it to Annabeth, but he started to feel like something was watching them – something vast and malevolent. He couldn’t zero in on it, because the presence was all around them.
Watching
was the wrong word, too. That implied eyes, and this thing was