"Such a shame," he said, and I got the feeling that he really meant it, that we'd be breaking his heart if we went. "We just added an entire new floor full of games for platinum-card members." He held out the cards, and I wanted one. I knew that if I took one, I'd never leave. I'd stay here, happy forever, playing games forever, and soon I'd forget my mom, and my quest, and maybe even my own name. I'd be playing virtual rifleman with groovy Disco Darrin forever. Grover reached for the card, but Annabeth yanked back his arm and said, "No, thanks." We walked toward the door, and as we did, the smell of the food and the sounds of the games seemed to get more and more inviting. I thought about our room upstairs. We could just stay the night, sleep in a real bed for once....
Then we burst through the doors of the Lotus Casino and ran down the sidewalk. It felt like afternoon, about the same time of day we'd gone into the casino, but something was wrong. The weather had completely changed. It was stormy, with heat lightning flashing out in the desert. Ares's backpack was slung over my shoulder, which was odd, because I was sure I had thrown it in the trash can in room 4001, but at the moment I had other problems to worry about. I ran to the nearest newspaper stand and read the year first. Thank the gods, it was the same year it had been when we went in. Then I noticed the date: June twentieth. We had been in the Lotus Casino for five days.
We had only one day left until the summer solstice. One day to complete our quest.
17 WE SHOP FOR
WATER BEDS
It was Annabeth's idea.
She loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, and told the driver,
"Los Angeles, please."
The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."
"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked.
He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first." Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card.
He looked at it skeptically.
"Swipe it," Annabeth invited.
He did.
His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign.
The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"
"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. I could tell she liked the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change." Maybe she shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninetyfive the whole way through the Mojave Desert. On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. I told Annabeth and Grover about my latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more I tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited my memory. I couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though I was sure it was somebody I knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord" ... some special name or title....
"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."
"Maybe ..." I said, though neither sounded quite right.
"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described." I shook my head. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit ... I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice." Annabeth's eyes widened.
"What?" I asked.
"Oh ... nothing. I was just—No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—"
"Like what?"
"I—I don't know," she said. "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt." I wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She looked pale.
"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," I said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"
"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."
I whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat."
"Why, thank you."
"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," I said. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?"
Grover shook his head, clearly mystified.
Annabeth was looking at me as if she knew my next question, and was silently willing me not to ask it.
"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" I asked her. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?"
"Percy ... let's not talk about it. Because if it isn't Hades ... No. It has to be Hades." Wasteland rolled by. We passed a sign that said CALIFORNIA STATE LINE, 12 MILES. I got the feeling I was missing one simple, critical piece of information. It was like when I stared at a common word I should know, but I couldn't make sense of it because one or two letters were floating around. The more I thought about my quest, the more I was sure that confronting Hades wasn't the real answer. There was something else going on, something even more dangerous.