We stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble: DOA RECORDING STUDIOS.

Underneath, stenciled on the glass doors: NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING.

"Good rules," Nico shrugged. Thalia, Percy and Jason rolled their eyes at him. He would think that, having spent so much time with ghosts.

It was almost midnight, but the lobby was brightly lit and full of people. Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses and an earpiece.

I turned to my friends. "Okay. You remember the plan."

"You made a plan?" Zoë raised an eyebrow.

"Nope. That was all Annabeth."

"The plan," Grover gulped. "Yeah. I love the plan."

"A plan Grover seems to hate," Nico noted drily.

"Yeah, Annabeth didn't have much faith in her plan either."

Annabeth said, "What happens if the plan doesn't work?"

"Don't think negative."

"Right," she said. "We're entering the Land of the Dead, and I shouldn't think negative."

"Positivity is key," Apollo said in old man's voice.

"Is that you trying to sound wise?" Athena gave him a strange look. Apollo merely shrugged.

I took the pearls out of my pocket, the three milky spheres the Nereid had given me in Santa Monica. They didn't seem like much of a backup in case something went wrong.

"You'd be surprised," Triton told them. The pearls had been used by his parents, his sisters and even himself. They were very useful.

Annabeth put her hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Percy. You're right, we'll make it. It'll be fine."

She gave Grover a nudge.

"Oh, right!" he chimed in. "We got this far. We'll find the master bolt and save your mom. No problem."

"You better," Zeus grumbled, glad to see someone taking his bolt seriously, even if it were only in the book.

I looked at them both, and felt really grateful. Only a few minutes before, I'd almost gotten them stretched to death on deluxe water beds, and now they were trying to be brave for my sake, trying to make me feel better.

"That wasn't really you who got them stretched out though," Theseus pointed out. Percy muttered something about still feeling guilty.

Artemis took a closer look at Percy. She wondered if it were because of his young age and love for his mother that was keeping him from acting like other heroes. No matter, there were many more books. She would keep track of how his behaviour changed as he grew older. She was sure it would.

I slipped the pearls back in my pocket. "Let's whoop some Underworld butt."

Hades sent Percy a scathing look.

We walked inside the DOA lobby.

Muzak played softly on hidden speakers. The carpet and walls were steel gray. Pencil cacti grew in the corners like skeleton hands. The furniture was black leather, and every seat was taken. There were people sitting on couches, people standing up, people staring out the windows or waiting for the elevator. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them all just fine, but if I focused on any one of them in particular, they started looking...transparent. I could see right through their bodies.

"How quaint," Demeter scoffed.

"It has a certain beauty to it," Persephone agreed much to her mother's horror. They hadn't even gotten to the Underworld yet!

The security guard's desk was a raised podium, so we had to look up at him.

He was tall and elegant, with chocolate-colored skin and bleached-blond hair shaved military style. He wore tortoiseshell shades and a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag.

"Who is he trying so hard for? The ghosts?" Jason asked, eyes wide at how fancy the guard was.

"The ghosts have feelings!" Nico shot back. Percy and Thalia nodded solemnly in agreement. Jason pouted at them.

I read the name tag, then looked at him in bewilderment. "Your name is Chiron?"

"There's only one Chiron and you've met him," Hercules said in exasperation.

"Spelling wise, Chiron and Charon are nearly identical," Thalia defended Percy, glaring at Hercules. The older hero rolled his eyes and looked away.

He leaned across the desk. I couldn't see anything in his glasses except my own reflection, but his smile was sweet and cold, like a pythons, right before it eats you.

"Sounds accurate," Nico sighed.

"He isn't that bad!" Hades objected angrily.

"What a precious young lad." He had a strange accent—British, maybe, but also as if he had learned English as a second language. "Tell me, mate, do I look like a centaur?"

"N-no."

"Sir," he added smoothly.

"What a jerk," Orion said.

"I'd rather call him sir than Mr. D," Percy joked. He regretted it immediately when Dionysus gave him a poisonous glare. The glare intensified when Hermes and Apollo started joking around about it.

"Sir," I said.

He pinched the name tag and ran his finger under the letters. "Can you read this, mate? It says C-H-A-R-O-N. Say it with me: CARE-ON."

"Care-on isn't very care-ing," Hestia joked.

Percy was the only one to laugh. "What? That was funny."

They all shook their heads at Hestia and Percy's bad sense of humor.

"Charon."

"Amazing! Now: Mr. Charon."

"Mr. Charon," I said.

"Well done." He sat back. "I hate being confused with that old horse-man.

"He wishes he was as cool as that 'old horse-man'," Hercules narrowed his eyes. No one insulted his favorite teacher, especially where he could hear it. He felt a pang of guilt again for nearly causing Chiron's death but thankfully his father had prevented it.

No one contradicted Hercules either. As much as they didn't like him, they loved Chiron.

And now, how may I help you little dead ones?"

"At least he's polite," Orion shrugged.

Hercules hummed in disbelief, remembering his own encounter with Charon.

His question caught in my stomach like a fastball. I looked at Annabeth for support.

"We want to go the Underworld," she said.

Charon's mouth twitched. "Well, that's refreshing."

"It is?" Athena asked confused. "Isn't that what most ghosts would want rather than sitting around in the studio?"

"You would think that wouldn't you?" Hades retorted.

"It is?" she asked.

"Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No 'There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon.'" He looked us over. "How did you die, then?"

I nudged Grover.

"Oh," he said. "Um...drowned...in the bathtub."

"I see a good excuse to how you 'died' wasn't in the plan then?" Perseus asked unimpressed. That should've been the first thing they thought of!

"Of all things drowning too," Apollo shook his head at Percy.

"All three of you?" Charon asked. We nodded.

"Big bathtub." Charon looked mildly impressed.

Hades groaned, just knowing that Charon would be asking for a big bath tub after that. He didn't even need it but he would still want it.

"I don't suppose you have coins for passage. Normally, with adults, you see, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last cable bill. But with children...alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you'll have to take a seat for a few centuries."

Hera's mouth fell open. "Is he always that greedy?"

"Looks like time has made him greedier," Persephone shook her head grimly.

"Oh, but we have coins." I set three golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash I'd found in Crusty's office desk.

"Well, now..." Charon moistened his lips. "Real drachmas. Real golden drachmas. I haven't seen these in..."

His fingers hovered greedily over the coins.

We were so close.

"And yet so far," Jason whispered. That feeling was the worst.

Then Charon looked at me. That cold stare behind his glasses seemed to bore a hole through my chest. "Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"

Hades sniffed. At least it seemed as if Charon was doing his job properly. "There's a reason I keep him around," he told his Furies. Charon had better make sure that if any of those demigods were to enter the Underworld, it was as ghosts.

"No," I said. "I'm dead."

Charon leaned forward and took a sniff. "You're not dead. I should've known. You're a godling."

"We have to get to the Underworld," I insisted.

"He won't let you in," Alecto said, flexing her talons. She privately hoped he would. Maybe this time, her lord would allow her and her sisters to have some fun with the ferryman.

Charon made a growling sound deep in his throat.

Immediately, all the people in the waiting room got up and started pacing, agitated, lighting cigarettes, running hands through their hair, or checking their wristwatches.

"What? They're his guards now?" Hephaestus questioned in surprise.

"Wouldn't surprise me if Charon told them, they'd have a chance to get down quicker if they were to act as his guards," Tisiphone cackled. She too wanted to get a chance at knocking some sense into Charon.

"Leave while you can," Charon told us. "I'll just take these and forget I saw you."

He started to go for the coins, but I snatched them back.

"Good for you Percy," Apollo cheered. "Don't let anyone rob you!"

"But robbing is fun," Hermes lightly protested.

"No service, no tip." I tried to sound braver than I felt.

Charon growled again—a deep, blood-chilling sound. The spirits of the dead started pounding on the elevator doors.

"It's a shame, too," I sighed. "We had more to offer."

"Bribery," Hermes sighed. "You're a good one. I'm surprised you're not related to me."

"It's definitely not the first thing I would've thought of doing," Orion admitted.

I held up the entire bag from Crusty's stash. I took out a fistful of drachmas and let the coins spill through my fingers.

Charon's growl changed into something more like a lion's purr. "Do you think I can be bought, godling? Eh...just out of curiosity, how much have you got there?"

"Greedy little..." Hades growled angrily. Charon never changed and no amount of money was enough for him. And he was always begging for more when he barely did his job. Did Hades say anything about him letting spirits sit around for hundreds of years before Charon felt ready to bring them in? To think, for just a moment, Hades had though he had changed.

Persephone seeing Hades get worked up, took hold of his hand to try and calm him.

"A lot," I said. "I bet Hades doesn't pay you well enough for such hard work."

Hades' mouth fell open in outrage as he glared at Percy. Beside him, Nico and Thalia shook their heads.

"How dare you?!"

"I was lying!" Percy tried. "I just needed to get into the Underworld and what better way than to stroke Charon' ego?"

Hades sighed. "The idiot is going to be insufferable now."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it. How would you like to babysit these spirits all day? Always 'Please don't let me be dead' or 'Please let me across for free.' I haven't had a pay raise in three thousand years. Do you imagine suits like this come cheap?"

Hades twitched.

"All Charon ever does is ask for a pay raise. For new clothes. Without even properly doing his job," Persephone revealed. Aphrodite peeked over the book. Now Charon seemed like someone she would actually get along with! Not that she didn't think that not doing one's job was a good idea, it's just so few appreciated the need for good clothes!

"It does help though," Nico mumbled quietly. "Charon's slow enough bringing in new spirits that we get the chance to properly sort them out."

"You deserve better," I agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."

Hades twitched again, his glower deepening.

With each word, I stacked another gold coin on the counter.

"It's just bribery Uncle. It's the oldest trick in the book," Hermes tried to placate. Hades gave a stiff nod, his from not changing in the slightest.

Charon glanced down at his silk Italian jacket, as if imagining himself in something even better. "I must say, lad, you're making some sense now. Just a little."

I stacked another few coins. "I could mention a pay raise while I'm talking to Hades."

"You didn't actually do that right?" Ariadne asked dubiously. "You were just lying to him right?"

Percy refused to look at her. Tisiphone and her sisters cackled in amusement.

He sighed. "The boat's almost full, anyway. I might as well add you three and be off."

Hades glowered fiercely at the book. Then at Percy and Hercules. Percy glanced at Hercules. "You bribed him too?"

Hercules looked down for a second, before reluctantly shaking his head. "Battled him into it."

He stood, scooped up our money, and said, "Come along."

We pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at our clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things I couldn't make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling, "Freeloaders."

"Better than you," Hades mumbled angrily. "I'll remember this Charon. Maybe you deserve another punishment."

"That causes a decrease in traffic, my lord," Alecto pointed out quietly, knowing the type of punishment Hades was thinking of. Hades growled before perking up again.

"You're going to burn all his clothes?" Persephone asked in amusement.

"Oh, I'll do more than burn them. I'll throw them into Tartarus," Hades promised. There would be no pay raise either.

He escorted us into the elevator, which was already crowded with souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass.

Charon grabbed two spirits who were trying to get on with us and pushed them back into the lobby.

"Right. Now, no one get any ideas while I'm gone," he announced to the waiting room. "And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for another thousand years. Understand?"

"How will he know who did it?" Orion asked, a little curious.

"He'll punish everyone," Nico said absent-mindedly. "Probably, I mean," he added when he realized he'd spoken out loud. Hades nodded in agreement, muttering curses about how lazy Charon was.

Thalia, Percy and Jason shot him amused looks to which Nico simply rolled his eyes.

He shut the doors. He put a key card into a slot in the elevator panel and we started to descend.

"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Annabeth asked.

"Nothing," Charon said.

"For how long?"

"Forever, or until I'm feeling generous."

"Which is never," Persephone rolled her eyes.

"Oh," she said. "That's...fair."

Charon raised an eyebrow. "Whoever said death was fair, young miss? Wait until it's your turn. You'll die soon enough, where you're going."

Perseus glanced at Hercules. "If Hercules can get out, so can they. Its fine," he said to reassure himself and Theseus. His voice didn't sound very convincing, nor did Theseus' pale face help matters.

"We'll get out alive," I said.

"Ha."

I got a sudden dizzy feeling. We weren't going down anymore, but forward. The air turned misty. Spirits around me started changing shape. Their modern clothes flickered, turning into gray hooded robes. The floor of the elevator began swaying.

"The land of the dead," Hestia murmured quietly. "They all go back to their roots."

I blinked hard. When I opened my eyes, Charon's creamy Italian suit had been replaced by a long black robe. His tortoiseshell glasses were gone. Where his eyes should've been were empty sockets—like Ares's eyes, except Charon's were totally dark, full of night and death and despair.

He saw me looking, and said, "Well?"

"Nothing," I managed.

I thought he was grinning, but that wasn't it. The flesh of his face was becoming transparent, letting me see straight through to his skull.

Thalia and Jason flinched. Percy nodded along as Nico gave a tiny shrug, indicating its normalcy.

The floor kept swaying.

Grover said, "I think I'm getting seasick."

When I blinked again, the elevator wasn't an elevator anymore. We were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was poling us across a dark, oily river, swirling with bones, dead fish, and other, stranger things—plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.

"The River Styx," Annabeth murmured. "It's so..."

"Polluted," Charon said. "For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across—hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true.

"What a waste," Hera sighed.

The demigods bristled, knowing exactly how hard it was to let go of their hopes and dreams. They weren't thrown away lightly.

Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me."

Mist curled off the filthy water. Above us, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the color of poison.

Panic closed up my throat. What was I doing here? These people around me...they were dead.

"Took you longer than I expected," Hades remarked, a little calmer now that Charon and his greed wasn't being explicitly mentioned.

Annabeth grabbed hold of my hand.

Aphrodite gave a tiny squeal of excitement, as she read on.

Under normal circumstances, this would've embarrassed me, but I understood how she felt. She wanted reassurance that somebody else was alive on this boat.

The other demigods could understand that. The gods, to their credit, tried but when they had immortality pesky things like death were just a nuisance. Not something to fear.

I found myself muttering a prayer, though I wasn't quite sure who I was praying to. Down here, only one god mattered, and he was the one I had come to confront.

Hades' scowl returned, though he knew that the matter of his innocence would become clear very soon.

The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see. A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stones—the howl of a large animal.

Hercules straightened. That howl could have only been from "Cerberus," he whispered faintly. Theseus and Perseus heard him and groaned.

"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."

The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. A woman holding a little girl's hand. An old man and an old woman hobbling along arm in arm. A boy no older than I was, shuffling silently along in his gray robe.

"They're all so young," Demeter said in horror.

"Death doesn't discriminate," Persephone told her mother.

"He really doesn't," Percy whispered to his friends, remembering the quest where he'd met and rescued Death.

Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don't forget to mention my pay raise."

"I hope you do," Ariadne shook her head. The Furies cackled again.

He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He warbled something that sounded like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.

"Greedy..." Hades trailed off into a mutter of curses.

We followed the spirits up a well-worn path.

I'm not sure what I was expecting—Pearly Gates, or a big black portcullis, or something. But the entrance to the Underworld looked like a cross between airport security and the Jersey Turnpike.

"There are so many deaths, I need a whole new system to keep track of the spirits?" Hades asked in horror.

"Well...yes," They confessed. Hades looked exhausted already.

There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.

The howling of the hungry animal was really loud now, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. The three-headed dog, Cerberus, who was supposed to guard Hades' door, was nowhere to be seen.

"He's there alright," Hercules promised.

The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

"What do you figure?" I asked Annabeth.

"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."

"That's right. The biggest area of the Underworld," Hades shook his heads. "Mortals have no ambitions. Or belief in themselves."

The demigods held their tongues.

"There's a court for dead people?"

"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos,

Percy and Nico both made a face at his name. Ariadne caught the looks on their face at the mention of her father, but she wholeheartedly agreed with them and so said nothing.

Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare—people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward—the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields."

Percy and Nico exchanged a glance. Sometimes, the story of why someone would go to Asphodel was bigger than that.

"And do what?"

Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."

"That's not so bad," Demeter huffed.

"It's awful," the others disagreed.

"Harsh," I said.

"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."

"What is it?" Perseus questioned, a tremor in his voice. Percy gestured towards the book.

A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.

"Someone to punish," Tisiphone said gleefully.

"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.

"Oh, yeah." I did remember now. We'd seen him on TV a couple of times at the Yancy Academy dorm. He was this annoying televangelist from upstate New York who'd raised millions of dollars for orphanages and then got caught spending the money on stuff for his mansion, like gold-plated toilet seats, and an indoor putt-putt golf course. He'd died in a police chase when his "Lamborghini for the Lord" went off a cliff.

"What a disgusting man," Artemis spat angrily. "He deserves everything you're going to throw at him," she told Hades.

"Thank you for your endorsement," he told her drily.

I said, "What're they doing to him?"

"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur—the Kindly Ones will set up an eternal torture for him."

The thought of the Furies made me shudder. I realized I was in their home territory now. Old Mrs. Dodds would be licking her lips with anticipation.

Alecto stared at Percy furiously, with an odd gleam in her eyes. She wouldn't deny, she was hoping for a chance to torture him.

"But if he's a preacher," I said, "and he believes in a different hell..."

Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn—er, persistent, that way."

"That was Grover just casually insulting humans again, wasn't it?" Thalia asked, a little amused.

"Yep. Its a gift."

We got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground at my feet, but I still couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

Then, about fifty feet in front of us, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.

"Cerberus," Hercules said grimly. He remembered his fight with Cerberus, avoiding those heads. It hadn't been easy and he had to be careful not to hurt Cerberus as well. He looked at Percy. There could be no fighting Cerberus if they wanted a peaceful talk with Hades.

I hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at me.

My jaw hung open. All I could think to say was, "He's a Rottweiler."

"A what?" Hades narrowed his eyes, trying to determine if Percy was insulting Cerberus there.

"Its a type of dog breed. I think it explains better if you read. Probably," Percy shrugged.

I'd always imagined Cerberus as a big black mastiff. But he was obviously a purebred Rottweiler, except of course that he was twice the size of a woolly mammoth, mostly invisible, and had three heads.

"Which is better then?"

"They're different types of dogs. There is no better. They're all wonderful," Percy stated matter-of-factly. Hades looked at Percy for a moment before agreeing wholeheartedly. There was nothing better than a dog.

"Who knew dogs would get them to semi-like each other?" Nico whispered to Thalia. The older girl merely shook her head.

The dead walked right up to him—no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

"I'm starting to see him better," I muttered. "Why is that?"

"I think..." Annabeth moistened her lips. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."

"That's a scary thought," Orion shook his head.

The dog's middle head craned toward us. It sniffed the air and growled.

"It can smell the living," I said.

"Now that's a scary thought," Orion corrected himself. Perseus and Theseus had their heads in their hands.

"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to me. "Because we have a plan."

"Athena always has a plan," Jason quoted. "Hopefully a good plan?"

Percy merely shrugged. "We like to improvise."

"Right," Annabeth said. I'd never heard her voice sound quite so small. "A plan."

We moved toward the monster.

The middle head snarled at us, then barked so loud my eyeballs rattled.

"Ouch," Apollo muttered. That sounded too strange to react in any other way.

"Can you understand it?" I asked Grover.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I can understand it."

"What's it saying?"

"I don't think humans have a four-letter word that translates, exactly."

"Is that Grover's way of saying Cerberus has a potty mouth?" Hermes gasped delightedly.

"Only for intruders. Otherwise he is perfectly well behaved," Hades sniffed.

"I'm going to bet Arion is still worse," Percy said quietly. That horse cursed more than Percy had ever thought possible.

I took the big stick out of my backpack—a bedpost I'd broken off Crusty's Safari Deluxe floor model. I held it up, and tried to channel happy dog thoughts toward Cerberus—Alpo commercials, cute little puppies, fire hydrants. I tried to smile, like I wasn't about to die.

"That's your big plan?" Zoë asked incredulously, eyes wide.

"Hence the need for improvisation," Percy told her.

"Hey, Big Fella," I called up. "I bet they don't play with you much."

"I try!" Hades argued.

"That wasn't an accusation. I was just trying to distract Cerberus," Percy explained. The god huffed but relaxed, at his words.

"GROWWWLLLL!"

"Good boy," I said weakly.

I waved the stick. The dog's middle head followed the movement. The other two heads trained their eyes on me, completely ignoring the spirits. I had Cerberus's undivided attention. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.

"Huh, it might actually work. That's how Reyna's dogs react when they want to be played with," Jason said in surprise. Percy had made it sound as if it had gone terribly. Beside him, Percy grimaced.

"Fetch!" I threw the stick into the gloom, a good solid throw. I heard it go ker-sploosh in the River Styx.

Jaws dropped to the ground.

"Too good a throw," Dionysus chuckled.

"You had one job," Thalia shook her head at Percy, who only shrugged.

Cerberus glared at me, unimpressed. His eyes were baleful and cold.

"He didn't get his stick. That was terrible," Persephone shook her head. Cerberus was a sweetheart and deserved the chance to play. She promised herself that she would play with Cerberus herself when this was all over.

So much for the plan.

Cerberus was now making a new kind of growl, deeper down in his three throats.

"Please tell me you don't get attacked by Cerberus," Theseus pleaded.

"We don't get attacked by Cerberus," Percy responded. Theseus studied him for a moment, before sighing in relief. "You aren't lying. Okay. We can get through this." Perseus nodded beside him.

"Um," Grover said. "Percy?"

"Yeah?"

"I just thought you'd want to know."

"Yeah?"

"Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice. After that...well...he's hungry."

"You said you don't get attacked!" Perseus countered.

"You better not. Cerberus might get sick from eating you," Hades grumbled.

"Wait!" Annabeth said. She started rifling through her pack.

Uh-oh, I thought.

"Five seconds," Grover said. "Do we run now?"

"Grover is clearly the only one having good ideas," Hermes shook his head in dismay.

Annabeth produced a red rubber ball the size of a grapefruit. It was labeled WATERLAND, DENVER, CO. Before I could stop her, she raised the ball and marched straight up to Cerberus.

"What's that going to do?" Hades sounded confused, before he narrowed his eyes. "It better not hurt Cerberus!"

She shouted, "See the ball? You want the ball, Cerberus? Sit!"

Several gods blinked in surprise.

Thalia let out a laugh. "That's Annabeth for you."

Cerberus looked as stunned as we were.

All three of his heads cocked sideways. Six nostrils dilated.

"Sit!" Annabeth called again.

I was sure that any moment she would become the world's largest Milkbone dog biscuit.

"You have a lot of faith in people don't you?" Nico observed. Percy could only shrug.

But instead, Cerberus licked his three sets of lips, shifted on his haunches, and sat, immediately crushing a dozen spirits who'd been passing underneath him in the EZ DEATH line. The spirits made muffled hisses as they dissipated, like the air let out of tires.

"Poor spirits," Alecto licked her lips, imagining it as a new form of torture.

"It has potential," Megaera agreed, though they'd have to modify it so the spirits would actually feel pain.

Annabeth said, "Good boy!"

She threw Cerberus the ball.

He caught it in his middle mouth. It was barely big enough for him to chew, and the other heads started snapping at the middle, trying to get the new toy.

"Hey like Zeus and Poseidon. From Percy's dream," Apollo thought out loud.

Zeus and Poseidon glowered but the others burst out laughing.

"Drop it.'" Annabeth ordered.

Cerberus's heads stopped fighting and looked at her. The ball was wedged between two of his teeth like a tiny piece of gum. He made a loud, scary whimper, then dropped the ball, now slimy and bitten nearly in half, at Annabeth's feet.

"She's impressive," Artemis agreed. She privately wondered whether Annabeth would be interested in joining the Hunt. They could use girls like her.

"Good boy." She picked up the ball, ignoring the monster spit all over it.

She turned toward us. "Go now. EZ DEATH line—it's faster."

"It really is Athena who has the plan huh?" Hephaestus rose an eyebrow.

"Annabeth's always the brains of the operation," all four of the future demigods agreed on that.

I said, "But—"

"Now.'" She ordered, in the same tone she was using on the dog.

"That's how you know to listen," Hermes joked. "Artemis does it to me all the time."

Artemis rolled her eyes, but the smile on her face told everyone she was amused as well.

Grover and I inched forward warily.

Cerberus started to growl.

"Stay!" Annabeth ordered the monster. "If you want the ball, stay!"

Cerberus whimpered, but he stayed where he was.

Hades shook his head. His pride and joy...distracted by a mere toy. Then he frowned, he obviously needed to spend more time with Cerberus. What if he was feeling neglected?

"We both will," Persephone whispered to Hades, correctly guessing his thoughts.

"What about you?" I asked Annabeth as we passed her.

"I know what I'm doing, Percy," she muttered. "At least, I'm pretty sure... ."

Grover and I walked between the monster's legs.

Please, Annabeth, I prayed. Don't tell him to sit again.

"Ye of little faith," Jason shook his head at Percy.

"It was a valid thought!" Percy defended. "Only to you Kelp Head. Only to you," Thalia told him.

We made it through. Cerberus wasn't any less scary-looking from the back.

Annabeth said, "Good dog!"

She held up the tattered red ball, and probably came to the same conclusion I did—if she rewarded Cerberus, there'd be nothing left for another trick.

Athena's proud smile morphed into worry. "She's okay right?" Percy nodded and Athena relaxed, her relief evident.

She threw the ball anyway. The monster's left mouth immediately snatched it up, only to be attacked by the middle head, while the right head moaned in protest.

While the monster was distracted, Annabeth walked briskly under its belly and joined us at the metal detector.

"How did you do that?" I asked her, amazed.

"She's a girl with many talents," Perseus mused, surprised himself at her ingenuity.

"Obedience school," she said breathlessly, and I was surprised to see there were tears in her eyes. "When I was little, at my dad's house, we had a Doberman..."

"Another type of dog?" Hestia wondered. The future demigods nodded.

"Never mind that," Grover said, tugging at my shirt. "Come on!"

We were about to bolt through the EZ DEATH line when Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. Annabeth stopped.

She turned to face the dog, which had done a one-eighty to look at us.

"Cerberus," Hades said softly. His poor dog!

Cerberus panted expectantly, the tiny red ball in pieces in a puddle of drool at its feet.

"Good boy," Annabeth said, but her voice sounded melancholy and uncertain.

The monster's heads turned sideways, as if worried about her.

Hercules' eyes widened in surprise. He would never have thought it was possible for Cerberus to care about a human. Cerberus definitely hated him, though that may have been due to the mild strangling Hercules had preformed to get Cerberus in and out of the Underworld.

"I'll bring you another ball soon," Annabeth promised faintly. "Would you like that?"

"Did she?" Hades demanded. You didn't lie to his dog.

"It's the Underworld. She'd have to be dead to even try to go there again," Demeter told him crossly. Hades relented.

The monster whimpered. I didn't need to speak dog to know Cerberus was still waiting for the ball.

"Good dog. I'll come visit you soon. I—I promise." Annabeth turned to us. "Let's go."

"But she didn't," Hades muttered quietly.

"Should we tell him about Cerberus and Mrs. O'Leary?" Nico muttered to Percy and Thalia. "Too many questions for right now. He'll find out when it happens," Percy replied. Thalia agreed. Jason pouted at being left out of the conversation again, but didn't complain. He didn't even know who this Mrs. O'Leary was.

Grover and I pushed through the metal detector, which immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights. "Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"

Cerberus started to bark.

"Time to run," Orion said, a little worried again.

We burst through the EZ DEATH gate, which started even more alarms blaring, and raced into the Underworld.

A few minutes later, we were hiding, out of breath, in the rotten trunk of an immense black tree as security ghouls scuttled past, yelling for backup from the Furies.

Demeter sniffed at the mention of the rotting tree but said nothing. The others sighed in relief that they had made it through.

Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"

"That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"

"No," Grover told me. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!"

"I mean, I thought it was obvious from the beginning?" Thalia questioned, a mock-serious look on her face.

"Poor Grover must have forgotten from all the stress," Nico shook his head in mock-dismay.

Percy told them both to shut up, which they did after snickering together.

I wasn't sure about that. I thought maybe Annabeth and I had both had the right idea. Even here in the Underworld, everybody—even monsters—needed a little attention once in a while.

The Furies, Hades and Persephone all looked at Percy speculatively at that.

I thought about that as we waited for the ghouls to pass. I pretended not to see Annabeth wipe a tear from her cheek as she listened to the mournful keening of Cerberus in the distance, longing for his new friend.

"Done," Aphrodite closed the book. "Who wants to read next? Seems like its going to get really interesting now." Theseus and Perseus groaned at it being even more 'interesting' but straightened, also wanting to hear about it.

"Here Aphrodite. I'll read next," Hestia offered. Aphrodite passed the book to Ares, who sent it to Hestia for her., while she took the time to fix herself up. Hestia took a moment to find the right page before she began reading....We Find Out The Truth, Sort Of

Exams are over and I am here with the next chapter. Also Hades really loves his dog, as he should. Of course Hades is only getting started. Who'll be worse? Book Hades or Story Hades?

On a side note, this quarantine is just dragging on and I really hope all of you are safe out there. You can find me on tumblr as celestialtitania, and I'm always free to talk with you guys. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!