The House of Hades(Heroes of Olympus, Book 4)

NINE DAYS.

As she fell, Annabeth thought about Hesiod, the old Greek poet who’d speculated it would take nine days to fall from earth to Tartarus.

She hoped Hesiod was wrong. She’d lost track of how long she and Percy had been falling – hours? A day? It felt like an eternity. They’d been holding hands ever since they’d dropped into the chasm. Now Percy pulled her close, hugging her tight as they tumbled through absolute darkness.

Wind whistled in Annabeth’s ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if they were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon. Her recently broken ankle throbbed, though she couldn’t tell if it was still wrapped in spiderwebs.

That cursed monster Arachne. Despite having been trapped in her own webbing, smashed by a car and plunged into Tartarus, the spider lady had got her revenge. Somehow her silk had entangled Annabeth’s leg and dragged her over the side of the pit, with Percy in tow.

Annabeth couldn’t imagine that Arachne was still alive, somewhere below them in the darkness. She didn’t want to meet that monster again when they reached the bottom. On the bright side, assuming there was a bottom, Annabeth and Percy would probably be flattened on impact, so giant spiders were the least of their worries.

She wrapped her arms around Percy and tried not to sob. She’d never expected her life to be easy. Most demigods died young at the hands of terrible monsters. That was the way it had been since ancient times. The Greeks invented tragedy. They knew the greatest heroes didn’t get happy endings.

Still, this wasn’t fair. She’d gone through so much to retrieve that statue of Athena. Just when she’d succeeded, when things had been looking up and she’d been reunited with Percy, they had plunged to their deaths.

Even the gods couldn’t devise a fate so twisted.

But Gaia wasn’t like other gods. The Earth Mother was older, more vicious, more bloodthirsty. Annabeth could imagine her laughing as they fell into the depths.

Annabeth pressed her lips to Percy’s ear. ‘I love you.’

She wasn’t sure he could hear her – but if they were going to die she wanted those to be her last words.

She tried desperately to think of a plan to save them. She was a daughter of Athena. She’d proven herself in the tunnels under Rome, beaten a whole series of challenges with only her wits. But she couldn’t think of any way to reverse or even slow their fall.

Neither of them had the power to fly – not like Jason, who could control the wind, or Frank, who could turn into a winged animal. If they reached the bottom at terminal velocity … well, she knew enough science to know it would be terminal.

She was seriously wondering whether they could fashion a parachute out of their shirts – that’s how desperate she was – when something about their surroundings changed. The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. She realized she could see Percy’s hair as she hugged him. The whistling in her ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute they’d been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below them, Annabeth could see the bottom. For a moment she was too stunned to think properly. The entire island of Manhattan could have fitted inside this cavern – and she couldn’t even see its full extent. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape – at least what she could see of it – was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To Annabeth’s left, the ground dropped away in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.

The stench of sulphur made it hard to concentrate, but she focused on the ground directly below them and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid – a river.

‘Percy!’ she yelled in his ear. ‘Water!’

She gestured frantically. Percy’s face was hard to read in the dim red light. He looked shell-shocked and terrified, but he nodded as if he understood.

Percy could control water – assuming that was water below them. He might be able to cushion their fall somehow. Of course Annabeth had heard horrible stories about the rivers of the Underworld. They could take away your memories, or burn your body and soul to ashes. But she decided not to think about that. This was their only chance.

The river hurtled towards them. At the last second, Percy yelled defiantly. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed them whole.
VI