XLVI
PERCY
If the sobbing ghoul was Bob’s idea of help, Percy was pretty sure he didn’t want it.
Nevertheless, Bob trudged forward. Percy felt obliged to follow. If nothing else, this area was less dark – not exactly light, but with more of a soupy white fog.
‘Akhlys!’ Bob called.
The creature raised her head, and Percy’s stomach screamed, Help me!
Her body was bad enough. She looked like the victim of a famine – limbs like sticks, swollen knees and knobby elbows, rags for clothes, broken fingernails and toenails. Dust was caked on her skin and piled on her shoulders as if she’d taken a shower at the bottom of an hourglass.
Her face was utter desolation. Her eyes were sunken and rheumy, pouring out tears. Her nose dripped like a waterfall. Her stringy grey hair was matted to her skull in greasy tufts, and her cheeks were raked and bleeding as if she’d been clawing herself.
Percy couldn’t stand to meet her eyes, so he lowered his gaze. Across her knees lay an ancient shield – a battered circle of wood and bronze, painted with the likeness of Akhlys herself holding a shield, so the image seemed to go on forever, smaller and smaller.
‘That shield,’ Annabeth murmured. ‘That’s his. I thought it was just a story.’
‘Oh, no,’ the old hag wailed. ‘The shield of Hercules. He painted me on its surface, so his enemies would see me in their final moments – the goddess of misery.’ She coughed so hard it made Percy’s chest hurt. ‘As if Hercules knew true misery. It’s not even a good likeness!’
Percy gulped. When he and his friends had encountered Hercules at the Straits of Gibraltar, it hadn’t gone well. The exchange had involved a lot of yelling, death threats and high-velocity pineapples.
‘What’s his shield doing here?’ Percy asked.
The goddess stared at him with her wet milky eyes. Her cheeks dripped blood, making red polka dots on her tattered dress. ‘He doesn’t need it any more, does he? It came here when his mortal body was burned. A reminder, I suppose, that no shield is sufficient. In the end, misery overtakes all of you. Even Hercules.’
Percy inched closer to Annabeth. He tried to remember why they were here, but the sense of despair made it difficult to think. Hearing Akhlys speak, he no longer found it strange that she had clawed her own cheeks. The goddess radiated pure pain.
‘Bob,’ Percy said, ‘we shouldn’t have come here.’
From somewhere inside Bob’s uniform, the skeleton kitten mewled in agreement.
The Titan shifted and winced as if Small Bob was clawing his armpit. ‘Akhlys controls the Death Mist,’ he insisted. ‘She can hide you.’
‘Hide them?’ Akhlys made a gurgling sound. She was either laughing or choking to death. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘They must reach the Doors of Death,’ Bob said. ‘To return to the mortal world.’
‘Impossible!’ Akhlys said. ‘The armies of Tartarus will find you. They will kill you.’
Annabeth turned the blade of her drakon-bone sword, which Percy had to admit made her look pretty intimidating and hot in a ‘Barbarian Princess’ kind of way. ‘So I guess your Death Mist is pretty useless, then,’ she said.
The goddess bared her broken yellow teeth. ‘Useless? Who are you?’
‘A daughter of Athena.’ Annabeth’s voice sounded brave – though how she did it, Percy didn’t know. ‘I didn’t walk halfway across Tartarus to be told what’s impossible by some minor goddess.’
The dust quivered at their feet. Fog swirled around them with a sound like agonized wailing.
‘Minor goddess?’ Akhlys’s gnarled fingernails dug into Hercules’s shield, gouging the metal. ‘I was old before the Titans were born, you ignorant girl. I was old when Gaia first woke. Misery is eternal. Existence is misery. I was born of the eldest ones – of Chaos and Night. I was –’
‘Yes, yes,’ Annabeth said. ‘Sadness and misery, blah blah blah. But you still don’t have enough power to hide two demigods with your Death Mist. Like I said: useless.’
Percy cleared his throat. ‘Uh, Annabeth –’
She flashed him a warning look: Work with me. He realized how terrified she was, but she had no choice. This was their best shot at stirring the goddess into action.
‘I mean … Annabeth is right!’ Percy volunteered. ‘Bob brought us all this way because he thought you could help. But I guess you’re too busy staring at that shield and crying. I can’t blame you. It looks just like you.’
Akhlys wailed and glared at the Titan. ‘Why did you inflict these annoying children on me?’
Bob made a sound somewhere between a rumble and a whimper. ‘I thought – I thought –’
‘The Death Mist is not for helping!’ Akhlys shrieked. ‘It shrouds mortals in misery as their souls pass into the Underworld. It is the very breath of Tartarus, of death, of despair!’
‘Awesome,’ Percy said. ‘Could we get two orders of that to go?’
Akhlys hissed. ‘Ask me for a more sensible gift. I am also the goddess of poisons. I could give you death – thousands of ways to die less painful than the one you have chosen by marching into the heart of the pit.’
Around the goddess, flowers bloomed in the dust – dark purple, orange and red blossoms that smelled sickly sweet. Percy’s head swam.
‘Nightshade,’ Akhlys offered. ‘Hemlock. Belladonna, henbane or strychnine. I can dissolve your innards, boil your blood.’
‘That’s very nice of you,’ Percy said. ‘But I’ve had enough poison for one trip. Now, can you hide us in your Death Mist, or not?’
‘Yeah, it’ll be fun,’ Annabeth said.
The goddess’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fun?’
‘Sure,’ Annabeth promised. ‘If we fail, think how great it will be for you, gloating over our spirits when we die in agony. You’ll get to say I told you so for eternity.’
‘Or, if we succeed,’ Percy added, ‘think of all the suffering you’ll bring to the monsters down here. We intend to seal the Doors of Death. That’s going to cause a lot of wailing and moaning.’
Akhlys considered. ‘I enjoy suffering. Wailing is also good.’
‘Then it’s settled,’ Percy said. ‘Make us invisible.’
Akhlys struggled to her feet. The shield of Hercules rolled away and wobbled to a stop in a patch of poison flowers. ‘It is not so simple,’ the goddess said. ‘The Death Mist comes at the moment you are closest to your end. Your eyes will be clouded only then. The world will fade.’
Percy’s mouth felt dry. ‘Okay. But … we’ll be shrouded from the monsters?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Akhlys said. ‘If you survive the process, you will be able to pass unnoticed among the armies of Tartarus. It is hopeless, of course, but if you are determined, then come. I will show you the way.’
‘The way to where, exactly?’ Annabeth asked.
The goddess was already shuffling into the gloom.
Percy turned to look at Bob, but the Titan was gone. How does a ten-foot-tall silver dude with a very loud kitten disappear?
‘Hey!’ Percy yelled to Akhlys. ‘Where’s our friend?’
‘He cannot take this path,’ the goddess called back. ‘He is not mortal. Come, little fools. Come, experience the Death Mist.’
Annabeth exhaled and grabbed his hand. ‘Well … how bad can it be?’
The question was so ridiculous Percy laughed, even though it hurt his lungs. ‘Yeah. Next date, though – dinner in New Rome.’
They followed the goddess’s dusty footprints through the poison flowers, deeper into the fog.