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dotshiiki · 7 years

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CoL, chpt 16

XVI: ANNABETH

The odds were definitely not in their favour.

Annabeth had heard that line somewhere—she vaguely recalled some movie everyone had been crazy about last summer—and it definitely applied to their situation now.

Still, like she'd said to Percy, they'd faced these monsters before (albeit not all at once) and she'd been in plenty of impossible fights. Three against three hundred on the Williamsburg Bridge came to mind. Though that was with an invulnerable Percy.

He was definitely not invulnerable now.

But she hadn't come all this way only to fail this close to the Doors of Death. Piper and the others had promised to get the Doors to them, and they had done so. Annabeth had promised they'd be there to meet the Doors, and so they would.

Now your ingenuity will be called upon yet again. It will be up to you to ensure the pattern no longer repeats.

Annabeth hadn't yet figured out what the daemon meant. She did know how to craft a quick battle strategy, though.

'We need to spread them out!' she yelled to the others. 'Divide them so they can't concentrate their attacks!'

'I'll take the birds,' said Will. 'Time for a rematch.'

He stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out the loudest, shrillest taxicab whistle Annabeth had ever heard him produce. She could practically see its vibrations ripple through the air. Nearly all the Stymphalian birds fell to the ground in shock. So did half the monsters.

'Holy hippocampi,' said Percy, rubbing his ears. 'I bet you never have trouble getting a cab downtown.'

'Don't waste it,' Thalia ordered. 'Attack!' In a flurry of gold and silver arrows, she and Will made short work of the birds.

'We will take the big ones,' Bob said with a decisive sweep of his broom. He barrelled towards the tallest monster: Hyperion, blazing in bright gold. Small Bob bounded alongside him and together they ripped through an entire pack of Gegenees on their way. The ogres wailed as they went from being six-armed giants to total amputees.

Damasen launched himself at Kampê as she came swooping in, spitting a stream of ancient Minoan that didn't sound like praise for Will's virtuoso whistling. Foul-smelling acid splattered the ground beneath them. The red giant's beefy arms closed around Kampê's multi-headed waist and tackled her to the ground. He wrestled her as if she were the Maeonian drakon he'd slain daily for thousands of years.

The monsters, once their eardrums had recovered from their shock, came at them in earnest. There were so many of them! Laistrygonians hurled fireballs from across the valley. Dracaenae slithered over the bumpy ridges with their teeth bared. Gryphons dive-bombed them from the air.

A hydra thundered towards Annabeth, acid shooting from at least five heads. One of the steaming jets sizzled over her and she barely ducked in time. She ran, dodging more corrosive missiles while trying to find her footing on the undulating terrain.

A swollen, pulsing vein caught her foot and tripped her. Annabeth face-planted—which turned out to be fortunate when the air burst into flame where her head had been a split second ago. A giant with skin that looked like it had been painted with Cheez Whiz let out a satisfied burp.

Annabeth scrambled to her feet. She was caught between the hydra and Cacus the fire-breather. Great. One monster could liquefy her; the other could fry her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw flashes of the battle raging in the valley. Nico was locked in combat with a manticore. Will shot down a nest of basilisks swarming him. She didn't see Percy, but she heard him yelling, 'You want a fight? Come and get it, then, Bull-Head!' The army of monsters were keeping her friends so busy, she couldn't count on back-up anytime soon.

'How'd you like to be cooked, demigod?' Cacus sniggered. 'Fried? Barbecued?' He opened his mouth to deliver another spurt of fire. At the same time, one hydra head bore down on her. Acid glistened green on its pointed teeth.

Annabeth swung her sword and sliced off its head. She dove out of the way of Cacus's flaming breath. It hit the hydra right in its stump.

With an angry howl, the hydra turned its remaining heads towards Cacus.

'It was an accident!' Cacus protested. A river of acid engulfed him. When it cleared, all Annabeth could make of him was an orange lump of smoking Cacus-and-cheese.

'Goddamn Canadians!' Percy cursed as he ran by, pelted by fireballs from the Laistrygonians.

'Over here!' Annabeth hollered at him.

One look and Percy understood. He swerved and turned around to run at the hydra. The Laistrygonians' fireballs soared into a pack of telekhines and vaporised them.

'Missed me again!' he taunted the Laistrygonians. 'You guys suck at dodgeball!'

Annabeth decapitated two more hydra heads; Percy took care of the others. Right on cue, the Laistrygonians' missiles slammed into the stumps and sealed them off. The hydra flopped to the ground and disintegrated.

'Nice one!' Percy yelled. He jabbed at the ground and directed a Stygian spray at the Laistrygonians. They howled as it pelted them in the eyes. Annabeth and Percy took the chance to stab them in the back.

Five more monsters down. What was it now, fifty to go?

They turned their attention back to the battle. Damasen had won his fight with Kampê and now had the giant Antaeus in a headlock. Bob was holding his own against three enemies at once: he lambasted the bear twins, Agrius and Oreius, with his broom like they were naughty children, pausing only to poke the Cyclops Polyphemus in the eye with the spear end. Meanwhile, an army of hellhounds had turned on the gryphons, directed by Nico and his Stygian sword. The Clazmonian sow weaved crazily among them; Annabeth was stunned to see Thalia on its back, clinging tightly with her knees as she fired a quick succession of arrows into a coven of empousai. Small Bob snarled as he grappled with the Nemean Lion. The latter's mouth opened wide to bite the sabre-tooth tiger's head off, but Will shot an arrow straight into its maw.

A deafening clang reverberated through the air. The Doors of Death had reached the ground at last. The monsters' battle line—what remained of it, anyway—broke as those who weren't currently engaged in a fight raced hungrily towards it.

'No!' Annabeth cried. 'We have to get there first!'

Percy took her hand and they scrambled over the bumps and ridges of the heart. They weren't going to make it; the monsters were closer. Already the first of them had reached the silver-panelled elevator. The triple-torso-ed giant Geryon lassoed a ranch rope to one side of its black frame, securing it to the ground. Lashing down the other side was the lizard-like old waterbed salesman, Procrustes. Annabeth's wrists smarted at the mere memory of those ropes stretching her out once upon a time.

A trio of snake-headed ladies in gaudy flower prints rushed for the Doors. One of them had a flimsy scarf wrapped around her face, bandit-style, except it had a gap for her fanged mouth rather than her eyes.

The silver panels slid open, but before Medusa and her sisters could get in, a fat woman with thick snake coils in place of legs tried to slide ahead of them.

'No cutsies!' cried one of the Gorgons, shoving Echidna out of her way. 'We got here first!'

'Show some respect for your elders!' Echidna chided.

'Elders? Pah! Who made you older?'

Geryon tied off his ranch rope and inserted himself between the squabbling ladies and the Doors. 'Just who was doing all the work here, then? What didja think, the Doors just lash themselves down, huh?'

'Oh, right, take all the credit, you old cowherd,' snapped Procrustes.

'Shu up, Crusty.'

'It's big enough for all of us!' Medusa shouted. 'As long as someone stays to hold the button.'

'You can stay—you've already got your finger on it!'

Thank the gods for monster squabbles. Their bickering over who had to hold the Doors for the others gave Annabeth and Percy a chance to catch up. Percy broke up the argument by opening up a fountain in the monsters' midst. Jets of Tartarus river water shot out in all directions like a lawn sprinkler. Crusty got a blast of Lethe and wandered away, looking dazed. Geryon cursed as he was doused by liquid fire. A shower of Cocytus set the two Gorgons weeping. Echidna screamed as she was hit by Stygian water. Medusa snatched her scarf away from her face and flung it aside, where it lay sizzling in acidic Acheron.

'Look away!' Annabeth cried.

'Don't worry, I got this!' Thalia galloped up, still on the back of the Clazmonian sow. Her arrows flew straight and true, slamming through all three of Geryon's chests at once. She leapt off the pig just before it ploughed into the remaining monsters at the Doors. They scattered like skittles toppled by a bowling ball. Thalia activated her shield, Aegis, and thrust it at Medusa.

The Gorgon reared back in shock. Possibly the sight of her own ugly face was too distressing for her. Annabeth wondered if she'd actually looked in a mirror before.

Percy reacted first. Riptide came swinging down on Medusa's neck for the second time in history.

'Percy, look out!' Annabeth ran her sword through one of the Gorgons, but the other one gored him with her tusk. 'Percy!'

Blood poured from his arm. He swung Riptide anyway. 'Die, Beano!'

'It's Steno!' cried the monster in outrage, before exploding in a cloud of sulphurous mist.

'I'm okay!' Percy gasped, clutching at his injured arm. 'Get the Doors!'

Thalia got there first and jammed her fist on the button. 'How's this thing work?'

'Not yet!' Annabeth said. 'The Doors will close if you hold it down.' She jammed her foot in between the silver panels to hold them open. 'And then someone—one of us has to—' Her voice caught in her throat. This was it—the final hurdle, and the one she had not yet found a solution to. All the way through Tartarus, she'd been so focused on surviving each step that she hadn't thought ahead enough to the inevitable problem at the end.

'Hold the button for twelve minutes.' Echidna's glare was pure venom. The Styx fountain had left pock marks on her cheeks. 'Not that any of you will have the chance to—aghhh!' A red-boulder-sized fist slammed into her out of nowhere and she reeled back.

'Hello, sister.' Damasen's voice was almost pleasant. 'It's been a while.'

'You man-loving fool,' Echidna snarled. 'Do you think you're a match for me? I am the mother of monsters!'

Damasen didn't dignify this with a response. He simply grabbed Echidna by the tail and swung her around like a lasso. Her shrill scream pierced the air, then cut off abruptly when Damasen released her and she sailed right into the Gryphon-hellhound melée. The mother of monsters disappeared into their whirl of teeth, fangs, and claws.

'Get to the doors!' Damasen bellowed.

Will and Nico limped towards them with their arms around each other's shoulders. Annabeth couldn't tell which of the pair was supporting the other. Bob and his cat ran up to help them along. The monsters that were left followed hot on their heels.

Before they could close the distance, a fissure opened in the ground. Thalia threw up her shield, probably anticipating another deadly fountain.

What rose from the earth was worse: a young man with sandy hair and a long claw scar running diagonally down his right cheek.

Annabeth's breath caught in her throat. She heard her own voice come out in a strange, foreign whimper.

'It can't be,' Thalia whispered. 'Why—how can he be here?'

Luke turned to Percy and addressed him directly. 'Don't you see, Percy? This is your journey. You came to Tartarus to find yourself. And here I am.' His voice, high, cold, and cruel, emanated from the air rather than from his mouth. It seemed to be cobbled together from harsh whispers, dragged with great effort from the furthest corners of Tartarus.

'No—you're not—I'm not—' Percy threw his hands up to ward Luke away.

No, not Luke. Kronos.

But that couldn't be right. Kronos was supposed to be fractured into so many pieces that he could never reform at all, let alone take Luke's form.

Then again, Bob and Damasen were supposed to be decorations on Tartarus's armour, their souls lost to Chaos. Annabeth had already seen so many impossible things down here. What was one more?

'What did you think you would find at the heart of Tartarus, Percy Jackson? All these monster—' Kronos spread his hands, although the monster army was already mostly decimated, and what remained of it edged away from the Titan. 'Me.' He crossed his arms over his chest and appraised them with eyes of gold steel. 'All part of who you are. Who are you, in the end? What are you?'

Ghostly shades danced in the space between them like a movie on fast-forward. It was Eris and Chaos and the Caves of Night all over again, dredging up the worst acts of a man's life through the lens of fear and hate. It was The Life and Times of Percy Jackson, starring Luke Castellan—no, starring Kronos!Luke, or maybe it should be Kronos!Percy. In this version, Percy's power was completely unchecked, greater and more terrible than he'd ever been.

Toilets exploded, only in this blast, everything collapsed—Clarisse was buried in the Camp Half-Blood outhouse; the Argo II blew apart and sank; his and Annabeth's apartment crumbled into rubble. Earth and sea shook in a wild frenzy—Mount St Helens erupted into a sky of ash; hurricanes ravaged Manhattan. Water burst from the orifices of fossilised shells, but also living creatures—monsters, though Annabeth could easily imagine them to be humans, too, and it was not water that spouted from their ears and mouths.

The worst part: none of it was accidental, the slips of a young demigod unaware of the true extent of his powers. This was the unrestricted madness of a man fully cognisant of the damage he could do and wreaking it intentionally on his enemies. This Percy stood calmly in the centre of each scene of devastation, orchestrating the chaos with calculated malice.

It settled into a final, still frame that settled over Percy himself, superimposing frosty golden eyes and a dangerous expression onto his face. Kronos!Percy's lip curled in a cruel, satisfied smile. The most terrifying part was that this look was not completely foreign to Annabeth. This was the Percy who had choked Akhlys in her own poison, slayed Arachne without a trace of remorse, and vowed a terrible vengeance upon Gaia.

Riptide trembled in Percy's hands, so violently that Annabeth feared he would drop the sword at any moment. It was this small gesture of fear that reminded her that the Percy standing next to her was real and complicated—a whole person with a dark side that he struggled to control.

And for better or worse, he was her whole person. He always had been.

She reached over and closed her fingers over his.

'Percy,' she whispered. 'Percy, you're not him.'

'I'm no different,' he said miserably. Dark shadows swam in the haunted seas of his eyes. 'I've done terrible things. I turned into a—a monster. Like Luke.'

Annabeth cupped his face in her hands, the way Piper had once done to force reason back into her scattered mind. She made Percy look straight at her. 'You listen to me, Seaweed Brain. You never went as far as Luke. And even if you did—Luke chose right in the end. You know that. You were there. Don't let Kronos get into your head!'

Percy's expression cleared. 'Annabeth,' he said. 'You're right.'

'Of course I am.'

'No.' The deep rumble of Bob's voice boomed across the valley. 'Not Kronos. You are not my brother!'

Small Bob leapt onto Kronos's back, claws outstretched. In Luke's form, Kronos should have been flattened when the sabre-toothed tiger pounced, but he remained upright, shaking furiously in an attempt to dislodge the enormous cat from his back. Small Bob held fast, his claws digging into Kronos's skin.

Kronos howled with pain, but it wasn't the inchoate cry of a tenaciously reforming Titan, or even a human scream. It was deep and full and reverberating, shaking the ground itself and causing the scarlet clouds to thicken like congealed blood.

Bob swiped at Kronos with his broom. The spear point should have cut through Kronos's body. Instead, Kronos spun like a top, and both broom and cat were sucked into a whirlwind that seemed to be all gnashing teeth and flashing blades. When it settled, he was no longer Luke nor Kronos, but the armoured vortex of Tartarus himself.

'My cat!' Bob cried. Silver tears glinted angrily in the corners of his luminescent eyes.

'A pest,' boomed Tartarus. 'Exterminated now. Like you all will be shortly.' He surveyed them with his swirling abyss of a face. 'Mortals,' he chortled. 'Such malleable minds. How far can they stretch before you break?' Between his massive purple claws was something mangled and unspeakable. He dragged it out like an elastic band, longer and longer until it broke with an ominous snap. 'Perhaps I will keep you alive for a while longer to find out.'

'No thanks,' Percy said, as if Tartarus's last mind game hadn't twisted him up inside at all. 'Our heads are a no-stretching zone.'

'Yeah,' Annabeth added, trying to sound braver than she felt. 'We've handled everything your little universe threw at us.'

Damasen caught Annabeth's eye and shook his head as if to say, stop, let me handle this. He stepped forward. 'Really, Father, playing with demigods? Has your life gotten so mundane?'

'You!' Tartarus's eyes narrowed. 'I will destroy you. Like I did before. You and your pesky Titan friend. And this time, I will swat your demigod pets, too.'

'Yes, well, that didn't go so well last time, did it?' Damasen said. 'Because here we are again.'

With that, he lunged at his father. The air around Tartarus buzzed and shimmered like he was trying to revert to an unbridled vacuum, but Damasen's strong grasp held Tartarus's physical form in place. Bob leapt over the fissure and landed a square punch to Tartarus's head. His knuckles came away bleeding, but grim satisfaction flooded his face.

Together, the Titan and the giant wrestled Tartarus back from the Doors, giving Will and Nico the chance to cross the fissure and join the others. Will and Nico hobbled straight into the lift and collapsed on the floor, clearly wiped out by their previous fights. Thalia, standing with one foot blocking the door, drew her bow and took aim.

'I can't get a clear shot,' she said. 'Do you think they can take him out? What happens to Tartarus if, well, Tartarus is killed?'

'They won't be able to,' Annabeth said. She watched Damasen and Bob grapple with Tartarus, torn between running to help and the knowledge that she'd be more likely to accidentally stab her friends than to contribute to the fight.

Tartarus's initial shock at being jumped by the two deities had worn off. He was actually laughing, almost playfully, as they rolled around in a blur of flailing limbs, like a father roughhousing with his kids.

'This is it, then, isn't it?' Thalia asked. 'Someone has to stay and—and send the rest of you home.' She slung her bow over her back and went to the elevator button.

'Oh no, you don't,' Percy said. 'I'm sending you all back. No, don't start Wise Girl.' He held a finger to Annabeth's lips, stalling her protest. 'I was the one who dragged you all down here.'

Annabeth shook her head fiercely and said, 'We chose to come.'

'I can't leave anyone behind!' Percy insisted. 'Not again.' His eyes flickered to the trio of fighters. 'I have to stay with them. But you guys can have a chance. I can hold it for twelve minutes. Please—'

'We're not leaving you,' Thalia snarled. 'Why do you think we came in the first place?'

Damasen gave a colossal roar and slammed Tartarus so hard, he skidded back five feet. The earth shuddered and the fissure in the ground widened. Damasen pushed Bob away from the fight, yelling something Annabeth couldn't hear. Bob broke away and ran back to the Doors.

'Friends! I will press the button!'

'Bob, no!' Percy said. 'I owe you from last time.'

'We owe you from last time,' Annabeth corrected.

Bob nudged Thalia out of the way and took her place at the button. 'This is how it was,' he said simply, with a brief glance at Damasen, locked in battle with Tartarus.

'But—'

Bob looked at them sadly. 'Patterns repeat,' he said. 'Stories don't change after all. Perhaps it is simply our fate. For us, escaping this place is an impossible thing.'

'No!' Annabeth refused to believe it. 'You've already done the impossible. You escaped Chaos. You won't be stuck repeating the same pattern as before.'

Stuck.

The answer came to her in one brilliant flash, as clear as the lightning that streaked down with the Doors.

'Get in the lift,' she ordered. 'All of you.'

'Annabeth, no,' Percy said, his eyes wide. He thought she meant to stay behind with Damasen. 'You can't do this.'

Thalia must have thought the same thing. 'We won't let you! If someone needs to stay—' She gulped and looked at her hands. 'If someone needs to stay,' she repeated more firmly, 'it should be me.'

Annabeth cut her off before she could argue further. 'Don't worry,' she told them. 'I have a plan.'

'Annabeth…'

'Trust me.' She gave Thalia and Percy a shove towards the elevator. 'Hold the door and wait for me.'

She sheathed her sword and ran towards Damasen and Tartarus, shouting for the giant to come back. The cat-hair gloves she had woven earlier were still in her pocket, along with the ball of spider silk. She pulled the gloves on and fingered the ball. It was tiny. Would it be enough?

Against all odds, Damasen forced Tartarus into the fissure. For one insane, hopeful moment, Annabeth thought he had won. But then she saw one hooked claw emerge. Tartarus would be climbing out any second, angrier and more dangerous than ever.

'What are you doing?' Damasen growled. 'I sent Bob to help—'

'I need the silk,' Annabeth gasped. 'From Arachne's web. You wound it on a stick—'

Damasen pulled the thin branch he'd used to de-lint them from the inside of his shirt.

'I can get us all out,' Annabeth said. 'Bring that, and come with me.'

Damasen's eyes narrowed. 'I trust you, Annabeth Chase,' he said, and it was a mandate as well as an affirmation.

Together, they sprinted for the Doors. 'Cut the ropes!' she ordered. 'Everyone, get in!'

She didn't look to see if they obeyed. Tartarus had hauled himself out of the fissure. Each footstep he took towards them drew splintered scars in the ground. Annabeth grabbed the stick of Arachne's web from Damasen. She attached the strands of her own ball to it.

'Playtime's over,' Tartarus growled at Damasen. 'Glad to see you aren't entirely useless at fighting. But this game is getting monotonous.'

'Fight me, then!' Annabeth challenged.

Tartarus's laugh sounded like the chorus of a firing squad. 'You? As easy as swatting a gnat, puny demigod.' To prove it, he flicked his gnarled hand at her the way you would shoo a pesky fly.

This was the moment she had to get absolutely right. Annabeth feinted to the right, in front of the elevator button. Tartarus's hand came up to smack her and she flung the skeins of Arachne's sticky silk between them.

'It would hold fast even the most powerful god,' Arachne had said. 'I defy any of them to escape its pull!' Annabeth was counting on that now.

The silk connected with Tartarus's fingers just before he slapped the spot where her head had just been, and landed on the silver button. Annabeth fell to the ground, her heart racing at her narrow escape.

But she'd done it.

The Doors of Death began to close.

Tartarus tried to pull his hand away. Annabeth saw confusion flicker across his face when the silk held fast. Rage was hot on its heels, but she didn't stop to watch. She picked herself up and dashed for the Doors.

For one terrifying moment, she thought she was going to miss it, that the panels would slam shut and leave her behind to face the incensed god she'd just tricked. But of course her friends would never let that happen. Percy stood in the centre of the Doors, reaching out both hands to her. He pulled her safely into the elevator, into the circle of his arms.

The Doors slid shut, catching the end of her ponytail in it. It didn't matter. She was inside. They were all inside.

Bob and Damasen shouldered one panel each, holding them firmly shut. The elevator began its rattling, earth-shaking ascent. A tinny voice from an invisible speaker crooned absurdly about taking chances and jumping off the edge.

Annabeth's pulse wouldn't slow down. She'd taken an insane gamble. If she had miscalculated, if Arachne's silk didn't hold, if Tartarus was just too powerful…well, then they would die here in this elevator, lost in the limbo of whatever happened when the button was not held for twelve minutes. She would have forfeited all their lives for the chance that all of them could make it out.

But if it worked…

If it worked, nobody would be left behind.

The seconds dragged by with nothing to mark them except her own furious heartbeat. The elevator shuddered like it might jerk them all into a million pieces at any moment.

Just a little longer, just one more minute. She repeated it like a prayer in her head, as if the mantra could buy them the twelve minutes they needed. Her eyes locked arbitrarily on the silver sweat beading on Bob's forehead as he and Damasen held the Doors in place. It rolled off the bridge of the Titan's nose and splashed to the floor, inches from Annabeth's own face. She must have sunk to her knees at some point, although she couldn't recall when. The air in the elevator had a crushing weight to it, like the number of molecules in it was multiplying and expanding into all the available space.

Annabeth had read about scuba divers who rose to the surface too quickly, rupturing their lungs when the air pressure changed too abruptly. It probably felt something like this—the swell of her chest as her lungs fought with the outside air to expel carbon dioxide; the dizzying pinch in her back of her nasal passages; the thundering of blood in her ears.

'Thirty seconds,' Bob murmured.

She didn't think she'd last ten. Bob was nothing but silver spots dancing in a sea of black. Percy's arms had fallen away from her. She couldn't pinpoint the moment they had gone slack.

Annabeth wasn't entirely sure she didn't dream the soft ding. The world became a kaleidoscope of sound and colour. A flash of light reflecting off glass. Someone's strangled yelp. A single calf-brown eye. Bob's soothing rumble: 'We are friends!'

Soft hands brushed the hair from her forehead. Someone tipped a glass against her lips. Annabeth's mouth, expecting liquid fire, tried to object, but the nectar that slipped down her throat instead was tart, sweet, and refreshing, like ice-cold cherry lemonade on a hot summer's day.

Her eyes flew open.

'Thank the gods!' said Piper.

It took Annabeth a moment to adjust to the scene. They were in a large cavern so dark that made her think at first that they hadn't left Tartarus after all. The only light came from the headlamps that Piper and the others wore, flashing bright beams like aerial spotlights off the cave walls whenever they moved.

Bob and Damasen stood by the Doors with their hands held above their heads in a gesture of surrender. Facing them were Jason, Frank, and Tyson, all armed and ready for a fight.

'Stop!' Annabeth called to them. 'Don't hurt Bob and Damasen—they got us out!'

'They're—oh,' Frank said. Jason lowered his gladius.

'We are friends!' Bob said again.

'Friends?' Tyson asked. He hadn't relaxed his grip on his club.

'Yeah,' Percy croaked. Grover was crouched next to him, supporting his shoulders. 'Hey, G-man.' He craned his head to look at Tyson. 'You okay, Big Guy?'

Tyson dropped his club and tackled Percy in a bear hug. 'You are okay, brother!'

'Ow—yeah—ribs, Tyson—'

'We came to save you!' Tyson announced proudly. 'Leo made a good ship! It breathes fire!'

Leo looked up from where he was helping Will regain consciousness and aimed an air-fist-bump towards Tyson. 'Festus is versatile, mi amigo.'

'And we found Death and made him send his Doors to you,' Tyson continued.

Annabeth noticed the slender figure then, standing slightly apart from the others with his arms crossed. She had never seen Thanatos before, and she was struck by how finely chiselled his pale face was. She didn't know what she expected Death to look like, but it was a little disconcerting to find that he was actually, well, hot.

Frank went over to him as Reyna and Hazel pulled Thalia and Nico from the elevator, leaving it empty.

'Thank you,' he said to Thanatos.

Thanatos inclined his head slightly. 'I trust the debt is repaid,' he said, arching one elegant eyebrow.

Frank nodded solemnly. Thanatos's eyes drifted to Frank's breast pocket. His lips quirked in what might have been a smile. Then he and the Doors disappeared.

'Where are we?' Annabeth asked.

'Kilauea,' Piper said. 'In Hawaii.'

'What?'

'Correct me if I'm wrong,' said Percy, 'but isn't Hawaii, like, an island? Where' the beaches and palm trees?'

'It's a volcanic island—a whole lot of them, in fact,' Jason said. 'We're inside a lava tube.'

Percy made a face. 'You're telling me we're inside a volcano? Great. The last time I was in one of these—'

'Stop complaining, Fish Boy,' Jason said. 'Would you rather we left you in Tartarus?'

'Don't know what you're complaining about, anyway,' Leo said. 'Volcanoes are awesome!'

'Good for forges,' Tyson agreed.

Hazel coughed discreetly. 'Ahem. Kazumura Cave is also the deepest cave in America. We figured the furthest underground we could get, the better our chances of projecting the Doors into Tartarus. This was easier than going all the way to Epirus.'

'Good call,' Nico said, coming round at the same time that Grover muttered, 'Of course it had to be underground.'

'Thanks, guys,' Annabeth said. The warmth spreading through her might be a side effect of the nectar Piper had fed her, but she thought it was more than that. They'd escaped Tartarus. Her friends had come through for them on this end—and she hadn't expected to find all eight of them banding together from the four corners of the country. For a girl who'd grown up believing herself unwanted, the reminder that she did have a family she could count on would never cease to be an incredible gift.

And now she had two more people—Titan, giant, whatever—to add to that expanding family.

Annabeth got to her feet and held out her hands to Bob and Damasen.

'You were right, Annabeth Chase,' Damasen said. 'And you wrote us a new fate.'

Bob's grin was so wide, it practically split his face in two. He pulled her into a hug, and then did the same with every other demigod, even the ones he'd only just met.

'Hawaii,' he mused.

'Sun, stars, and sky,' Percy told him encouragingly.

'It's in the west,' Nico added.

Bob laughed. 'I have not been Lord of the West for a very long time, friend Nico. But this is good.'

'Which way do we go?' Damasen asked.

'We can leave together,' Annabeth said, but Damasen shook his head.

'We will make our own paths now, Annabeth Chase. You have given us that gift.' He looked like he quite relished the idea.

'Down that tunnel,' Jason said, pointing. 'That's the way we came.'

Bob nodded. 'Farewell, friends!' he said. 'The sky is waiting.'

He took Damasen's hand and together, the Titan and the giant loped off up the tunnel.

Annabeth wasn't sure how the people of Kilauea would feel about two immortal beings joining their community, but the Mist would probably take care of that.

She put her arm around Percy and looked at all her friends.

'Let's go home,' she said.

No, this is not the end. Two more chapters to come! But yes, the story is wrapping up. Hope you've all been enjoying the ride!

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