ΉӨЦƧΣ ӨF ΉΛDΣƧ

PERCY KEPT ON GRUMBLING that he was tired of being a corpse. Lucia had to remind him that it wasn't permanent, but every time he looked over he avoided eye contact.

He might still love her, but zombie Lucia wasn't exactly a sight to him. She failed to realize it was because of how much it pained him to see her so...well, dead.

They trudged toward the heart of Tartarus, their bodies moved at a slow pace, their flesh almost foreign to them, causing every step to be challenging. 

Their arms looked like bleached leather pulled over sticks. Their skeletal legs seemed to dissolve into smoke with every step.

Percy was particularly worried that the Death Mist might cling to them forever, even if they somehow managed to survive Tartarus.

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking like an extra from The Walking Dead.." He groaned.

Under their feet, the ground glistened a nauseating purple, pulsing with webs of veins. In the dim red light of the blood clouds, Death Mist.

Lucia snorted, "Relax Kelphead, let's think about getting out of here first."

Lucia was well aware that she looked like a mess.

Her hair was frizzy, her eyes blown out and lifeless, and her skin almost...well—falling off the bone—!

It was gross.

Super gross.

But vanity was the last thing on her mind as she felt herself getting closer to what she wanted, which was escaping Tartarus.

She could practically feel the doors of death calling to her. She became warmer the closer they got. Like she could almost feel how close she was to reaching the surface again, to reaching home.

It could have been a cruel delusion, but Lucia actually found comfort in this premonition.

Ahead of them was the most depressing view of all.
Spread to the horizon was an army of monsters—flocks of winged arai, tribes of lumbering Cyclopes, clusters of floating evil spirits. Thousands of evil creatures, maybe tens of thousands, all milling restlessly, pressing against one another, growling and fighting for space—as if they were fighting for front view at a concert.

Bob led them toward the edge of the army.

About thirty yards from the nearest monsters, Bob turned to face the duo.

"Stay quiet and stay behind me," he advised. "They will not notice you."

"We hope," Percy muttered.

On the Titan's shoulder, Small Bob woke up from a nap. He purred seismically and arched his back, turning skeletal then back to calico. At least he didn't seem nervous.

Percy stared at the swarm of vicious monsters. "Well, I hope we won't have to worry about bumping into any friends in this crowd."

Bob grinned. "Yes, that is good! Now, let's go. Death is close."

"The Doors of Death are close," Lucia corrected, then sighed. "I'm just glad you are not the titan of foresight."

They plunged into the crowd. Lucia shuddered, she was afraid the Death Mist would fade right off her.

Don't be fooled, she had been among large hordes of monsters before, in fact, she lived among them—all kinds.

But Kronos and the Princess Andromeda were different. So was the army of monsters she fought during the Battle of Manhattan.

Here, Lucia was the invader. She was never supposed to be here, stuck in Tartarus. She was the one who crash-landed into their world uninvited.

A few feet away, a group of empousai tore into the carcass of a griffin while other griffins flew around them, squawking in outrage.

A six-armed Earthborn and a Laistrygonian giant pummeled each other with rocks, though Lucia wasn't sure if they were fighting or just messing around.

A dark wisp of smoke that might be an eidolon seeped into a cyclops made the monster hit himself in the face, then drifted off to possess another victim

Lucia whispered, "Percy, look." A stone's throw away, a guy in a cowboy outfit was cracking a whip at some fire-breathing horses.

The wrangler wore a Stetson hat on his greasy hair, an extra-large set of jeans, and a pair of black leather boots. From the side, he might have passed for human until he turned, and the duo saw that his upper body was split into three different chests, each one dressed in a different-color Western shirt.

It was Geryon, who had tried to kill Percy and Lucia two years ago in Texas.

Lucia cringed then sighed in annoyance, her ribs throbbed where the arai had unleashed Geryon's dying curse back in the forest. She wanted to march up to the three-bodied rancher, punch him square in the face, and call him a dickhead.

She figured that wouldn't help much though.

Then Lucia started anxiously wondering how many other old enemies of hers were in the crowd. She shook that thought away with a shudder.

She began to realize that every battle ever won had only been a temporary victory. No matter how strong or lucky she was, no matter how many of them she destroyed, Lucia would eventually fail because these monsters...they lasted forever. They were immortal.

But she also knew that mortals could be monsters, and when she thought of Bob, Iapetus, and Tyson, she hardly thought of evil.

The fact that good still existed even in the darkest of places, even in a realm like Tartarus... was what kept Lucia motivated to get out of there and get back to her friends.

If evil has to exist, goodness would be born to fight it every single time.

Seeing the monsters assembled in Tartarus, Lucia felt as hopeless as the spirits in the River Cocytus. Yet, she inhaled sharply and only focused on seeing Nico on the other side of this hell.

Evil was always here, regenerating, bubbling under the surface. Evil will always live. But the same is true for heroes. The same is true for those willing to fight against it.

Maybe monsters kept coming back forever. But so did demigods.

Generation after generation, Camp Half-Blood had endured. And Camp Jupiter. Even separately, the two camps had survived.

Now, if the Greeks and Romans could come together, they would be even stronger.

There was still hope. She and Percy had come this far. The Doors of Death were almost within reach.

Lucia grinned.

"What's wrong?" Percy whispered.

With her zombie Death Mist disguise, Lucia probably looked like she was grimacing in pain.

"Nothing," she said. "I was just—"

Somewhere in front of them, a deep voice bellowed: "IAPETUS!"
༄

A TITAN STRODE TOWARD THEM, casually kicking the lesser monsters out of his way.

He was roughly the same height as Bob, with elaborate Stygian iron armor, a single diamond blazing in the center of his breastplate. His cold eyes were an icy blue, resembling glaciers. His hair was the same color, cropped down into a military cut.

A battle helmet shaped like a bear's head was tucked under his arm. From his belt hung a sword the size of a surfboard.

Percy murmured, "He looks familiar. I don't think I've ever met him before..."

Lucia grumbled, "He kind of looks like...Oh!"

The Titan stopped in front of Bob. He clapped him on the shoulder. "Iapetus! Don't tell me you don't recognize your own brother!"

"No!" Bob agreed nervously, he glanced at Lucia who shook her head, her expression reading 'Oh don't you look at me'. "I won't tell you that."

The other Titan threw back his head and laughed. "I heard you were thrown into the Lethe. Must've been terrible! We all knew you would heal eventually. It's Koios!"

"Of course," Bob said. "Koios, Titan of..."

"The North!" Koios said.

"I know!" Bob shouted.

They laughed together and took turns hitting each other in the arm.

Miffed by all the jostling, Small Bob crawled onto Bob's head and began making a nest in the Titan's silver hair.

"Poor old Iapetus," said Koios. "They must have laid you low indeed. Look at you! A broom? A servant's uniform? A cat in your hair? Truly, Hades must pay for these insults. Who was that demigod who took your memory? Bah! We must rip him to pieces, you and I, eh?"

"Ha-ha." Bob swallowed. "Yes, indeed. Rip him to pieces."

Percy's fingers closed around his pen.

Compared to Bob's simple way of speaking, Koios sounded like he was reciting Shakespeare. Lucia knew that alone was probably enough to make Percy irritated.

Lucia was ready with her weapon, but so far Koios didn't seem to notice either of the two demigods. And Bob hadn't betrayed them yet, though he'd had plenty of opportunities. "Ah, it's good to see you...." Koios drummed his fingers on his bear's-head helmet. "You remember what fun we had in the old days?"

"Of course!" Bob chirped. "When we, uh..."

"Holding down our father, Ouranos," Koios said.

"Yes! We loved wrestling with Dad...."

"We restrained him."

"That's what I meant!"

"While Kronos cut him to pieces with his scythe."

"Yes, ha-ha." Bob looked mildly ill. "What fun."

"You grabbed Father's right foot, as I recall," Koios said. "And Ouranos kicked you in the face as he struggled. How we used to tease you about that!"

"Silly me," Bob agreed.

Koios bellowed out a laugh. "Our poor brother Kronos never did learn. His head got bigger after that. The first time he tried to take over he was stopped by his own mother and son. And then he gets dissolved by those impudent demigods. Pathetic! He's always been a hardhead. Thinking he's better than us all, well look at him now bits and pieces of his essence remain, but nothing you could put together again. I suppose some injuries even Tartarus cannot heal."

"Alas!" Bob said

"But the rest of us have another chance to shine, eh?" He leaned forward conspiratorially.

"These giants may think they will rule. Let them be our shock troops and destroy the Olympians—all well and good. But once the Earth Mother is awake, she will remember that we are her eldest children. Mark my words. The Titans will yet rule the cosmos."

"Hmm," Bob said. "The giants may not like that."

"Spit on what they like," Koios said. "They've already passed through the Doors of Death, anyway, back to the mortal world. Polybotes was the last one, not half an hour ago, still grumbling about missing his prey. Some demigods he was after got swallowed by Nyx. Never see them again, I wager!"

Lucia gripped Percy's wrist. Through the Death Mist, he couldn't read her expression very well, but he saw the alarm in her glowing purple eyes.

If the giants had already passed through the Doors, then at least they wouldn't be hunting through Tartarus for Percy and Lucia.

The problem was that meant their friends in the mortal world were in grave danger. All of the earlier fights with the giants had been in vain. Their enemies would be reborn as strong as ever. Lucia needed to get back to them, needed to fight with them...

"Well!" Koios drew his massive sword. The blade radiated a cold deeper than the Hubbard Glacier. "I must be off. Leto should have regenerated by now. I will convince her to fight."

"Of course," Bob murmured. "Leto."

"Leto....." Lucia repeated in a hush, "I know that name...."

"Your parental grandmother." Percy whispered back, "Apollo and Artemis's mother"

Lucia recalled reading the story of her father and Artemis' birth from one of the informational books in the Apollo cabin. Hera used the goddess of childbirth Eileithyia to torture Leto to feel immense pain and have complications during birth.

Before that, Every immortal shunned away the woman in labor because Hera decided she was an enemy. The queen of the heavens tormented Leto with the dragon Python and drove her from each place she tried to settle until finally, the island of Delos emerged from the sea, an island believed to be unattached to the ocean floor.

Lucia was upset that Hera blamed Leto instead of her whore of a husband.

A part of her couldn't even blame Leto if she decided to join Gaea's side, but she knew how dangerous just having that thought was.

Koios laughed. "You've forgotten my daughter, as well? I suppose it's been too long since you've seen her. The peaceful ones like her always take the longest to re-form. This time, though, I'm sure Leto will fight for vengeance. The way Zeus treated her after she bore him those fine twins? Outrageous!"

Lucia bit her tongue. Percy looked over at Lucia in disbelief. They both realized at the same time that Koios was related to her.

It made sense. This guy Koios looked vaguely familiar because he had Artemis's cold eyes and Apollo's smile....Lucia's smile.

The Titan was their grandfather, Leto's father. Lucia's great-grandfather.

Percy held his head as if the thought pained him. Lucia would be lying if she said it wasn't taking her a second to accept the truth too.

"Well! I'll see you in the mortal world!" Koios chest-bumped Bob, almost knocking the cat off his head. "Oh, and our two other brothers are guarding this side of the Doors, so you'll see them soon enough!"

"I will?"

"Count on it!" Koios lumbered off, almost knocking over Percy and Lucia as they scrambled out of his way. Before the crowd of monsters could fill the space, Percy motioned for Bob to lean in.

"You okay, big guy?" Percy whispered.

Bob frowned. "I do not know. In all this"— he gestured around them—"what is the meaning of okay?"

"Fair point," Lucia muttered. She peered toward the Doors of Death, though the crowd of monsters blocked them from view. "So two more Titans are guarding our exit? That's not good."

Lucia looked toward Bob. The Titan's distant expression worried her.

"Do you remember Koios?" Percy asked gently and warily. "All that stuff he was talking about?"

Bob gripped his broom. "When he told it, I remembered. He handed me my past like...like a spear. But I do not know if I should take it. Is it still mine, if I do not want it?"

"No," Lucia said firmly. "Bob, you can be whoever you want to be...You can't change the past but you can make your future."

The kitten jumped off Bob's head. He circled the Titan's feet, bumping his head against the Titan's pants cuffs. Bob didn't seem to notice.

"I think you can choose, Bob," Percy ventured. Breaking his silence. "Take the parts of Iapetus's past that you want to keep. Leave the rest. Like Luz said, your future is what matters."

"Future..." Bob mused. "That is a mortal concept. I am not meant to change, Friend." He gazed around him at the horde of monsters. "We are the same...forever."

"Who says?" Lucia hissed, slightly taking Bob and Percy aback. "Zeus? You? Gaea? Cause right now I see a friend. Not an enemy. I call bullshit—"

"Luz ease up on the poor guy—"

"If you were the same," Lucia scolded, "Percy and I would be dead already. You'd have our blood on your hands. You would be up there fighting a war you don't even know you want to be a part of. Okay fine maybe we weren't meant to be friends, but we are. You've kept us going Bob you need to see that. you're a great friend..."

Percy's eyes softened, and he nodded in agreement. "She's right...Bob, you've been the best friend we could ask for."

Bob's silver eyes looked darker than usual. He held out his hand, and Small Bob the kitten jumped into it. The Titan rose to his full height. "Let us go, then, friends. Not much farther."

Stomping on Tartarus's heart wasn't nearly as much fun as it sounded.

The purplish ground was slippery and constantly pulsing, Lucia tried to not think of it too much out of fear of throwing up.

Every time she stepped down it was on a squishy surface.

It looked flat from a distance, but up close it was made of folds and ridges that got harder to navigate the farther they walked.

Gnarled lumps of red arteries and blue veins gave the demigods some footholds when they had to climb, but the going was slow.

And of course, the monsters were everywhere. Packs of hellhounds prowled the plains, baying and snarling and attacking any monster that dropped its guard. Arai wheeled overhead on leathery wings, making ghastly dark silhouettes in the poisonous clouds.

Percy stumbled. His hand touched a red artery, and he stiffened.

"There's water in here," he said. "Actual water."

Bob grunted. "One of the five rivers. His blood."

"His blood?" Lucia stepped away from the nearest clump of veins. "I knew the Underworld rivers all emptied into Tartarus, but—"

"Yes," Bob agreed. "They all flow through his heart."

"How fun." She murmured.

Percy traced his hand across a web of capillaries, he shuddered.

"We should hurry," Lucia rested a hand on his shoulder. "If we can't..."

Her voice trailed off. Ahead of them, jagged streaks of darkness tore through the air—like lightning, except pure black.

"The Doors," Bob said. "Must be a large group going through."

Lucia suddenly felt a bitter taste in her mouth. Spikes of anxiety shot through her.

Even if Nico succeeded and her friends from the Argo II managed to find the other side of the Doors of Death, how could they possibly fight the waves of monsters that were coming through, especially if all the giants were already waiting for them?

"Do all the monsters go through the House of Hades?" She asked. "How big is that place?"

Bob shrugged. "Perhaps they are sent elsewhere when they step through. The House of Hades is in the earth, yes? That is Gaea's realm. She could send her minions wherever she wishes."

Percy cursed, "Monsters coming through the Doors of Death to Epirus is fucking bad enough. Now you're saying there's a possibility these creatures can be deposited anywhere Gaea wants them to go—Camp Half-Blood, Camp Jupiter, or in the path of the Argo II before it could even reach Epirus—"

"If Gaea has that much power," Lucia cut him off, "then couldn't she control where we end up?"

Percy huffed, "I hate that you thought of that. Can you try to be less smart please?"

Bob scratched his chin. "You are not monsters. It may be different for you."

"Great," Percy said in exasperation. "Great great great."

Lucia understood his frustration, she was so close to being free from this hellscape.

So close she could almost taste it.

And she didn't relish the idea of Gaea waiting for them on the other side, ready to teleport them into the middle of a mountain; but at least the Doors were a chance to get out of Tartarus.

It wasn't like they had a better option. She just had to hold on to hope that she wasn't going to rot down here...

Bob helped them over the top of another ridge. Suddenly the Doors of Death were in plain view—

"Holy shit—"

"Not holy at all actually."

Lucia glared at Percy, "Oh shut up you kelp head."

A freestanding rectangle of darkness stood at the top of the next heart-muscle hill, about a quarter mile away, surrounded by a horde of monsters.

The Doors were still too far away to make out much detail, but the Titans flanking either side were familiar enough. The one on the left wore shining golden armor that shimmered with heat.

"Hyperion," Lucia muttered.

Percy grumbled,  "That guy just won't stay dead."

The one on the right wore dark blue armor, with ram's horns curling from the sides of his helmet. Lucia had only heard of him before, but it was definitely Krios, the Titan that Jason had killed in the battle for Mount Tam.

"Bob's other brothers," Lucia observed. The Death Mist shimmered around her, temporarily turning her face into a grinning skull.

Percy winced, he looked away.

"Bob, if you have to fight them, can you?" Lucia asked.

Bob hefted his broom like he was ready for a messy cleaning job. "We must hurry," he said, which she noticed wasn't an answer. "Follow me."