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𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐁𝐎𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐊𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈.

she'd nearly killed percy in the labyrinth two years ago. and she kidnapped nico, my child. she also happened to bite me and force ethan to join the titans if he wanted to save my life. all in all, i didn't like her.

"and your friend riley is with you!" kelli hissed with laughter. "oh, yeah, i totally remember her."

kelli touched her own sternum, where the tip of the knife had exited when i stabbed her in the back.

"and the daughter of athena," she grinned wickedly at annabeth. "don't have your weapon? bummer. i'd use it to kill you."

i tried my best to think of some way out. i wondered if i could call on the J.A.R.V.I.S. chip in my bracelet, or if it even worked. i could use it to call my dad's suit, but there was still one problem.

we were in tartarus.

there was no help coming for us down here.

"so..." percy started, "i guess you're wondering what we're doing in tartarus."

kelli snickered. "not really. i just want to kill you."

we would've died after that if it weren't for annabeth.

"well that sucks," she said quickly.

playing along, i backed her up.

"yeah, you guys have no idea what's going on in the mortal world," i added. "like, none. at all. zero. zilch. na — ow!"

i rubbed my shin where annabeth kicked me,

"we know enough," kelli said. "gaea has spoken."

"you're heading toward a major defeat." i sounded so confident, i even impressed myself.

annabeth looked at the empousai, pointing an accusatory finger at kelli. "this one claims she's leading you to a victory. she's lying. the last time she was in the mortal world, kelli was in charge of keeping my friend luke castellan faithful to kronos. in the end, luke rejected him. he gave his life to expel kronos. the titans lost because kelli failed. now kelli wants to lead you to another disaster."

the other empousai muttered and shifted uneasily.

"enough!" kelli's fingernails grew into long black talons. "the girl lies. so the titans lost. fine! that was part of the plan to wake gaea! now the earth mother and her giants will destroy the mortal world, and we will totally feast on demigods!"

the other vampires gnashed their teeth in a frenzy of excitement.

"mortals have united with demigods," annabeth blurted.

i stared at her, before nodding my head eagerly. "oh yeah, of course none of you have heard. you haven't been up in the mortal world for a while. but there's a group of mortals, demigods, and gods, all protecting our world. they're called the avengers. and they've never lost a single battle so far. i'd think twice if i were you."

"like we should fear some mortals," kelli snickered.

"if not mortals, fear demigods!" i yelled. "we've united. you'd better think twice before you attack us. romans and greeks will fight you together. you don't stand a chance!"

the empousai backed up nervously, hissing, "romani."

i guessed they'd had experience with the twelfth legion before, and it hadn't worked out well for them.

"yeah, you bet romani." percy bared his forearm and showed them the brand he'd gotten at camp jupiter — the spqr mark, with the trident of neptune. "you mix greek and roman, and you know what you get? you get bam!"

he stomped his foot, and the empousai scrambled back. one fell off the boulder where she'd been perched.

i almost smiled, but they recovered quickly and closed in again.

"bold talk," kelli said, "for a group of demigods lost in tartarus. lower your sword, percy jackson, and i'll kill you quickly. believe me, there are worse ways to die down here."

"wait!" annabeth tried again. "aren't empousai the servants of hecate?"

kelli curled her lip. "so?"

"so..." i shrugged, "hecate is on our side now. she has a cabin at camp half-blood. some of her demigod children are our friends. if you fight us, she'll be angry."

one of the other empousai growled. "is this true, kelli? has our mistress made peace with olympus?"

"shut up, serephone!" kelli screeched. "gods, you're annoying!"

"i will not cross the dark lady."

annabeth took the opening. "you'd all be better following serephone. she's older and wiser."

"yes!" serephone shrieked. "follow me!"

kelli struck so fast, i almost didn't have time to brandish my knife. fortunately, she didn't attack us. kelli lashed out at serephone. for half a second, the two demons were a blur of slashing claws and fangs.

then it was over. kelli stood triumphant over a pile of dust. from her claws hung the tattered remains of serephone's dress.

"any more issues?" kelli snapped at her sisters. "hecate is the goddess of the mist! her ways are mysterious. who knows which side she truly favors? she is also the goddess of the crossroads, and she expects us to make our own choices. i choose the path that will bring us the most demigod blood! i choose gaea!"

her friends hissed in approval.

annabeth and i shared a glance, out of ideas. we'd gotten kelli to kill one of her own, so that brought down the odds. but there was nothing else to do.

"for two years i churned in the void," kelli said, hatred in her tone as she spoke to me. "do you know how completely annoying it is to be vaporized, riley stark? slowly re-forming, fully conscious, in searing pain for months and years as your body regrows, then finally breaking the crust of this hellish place and clawing your way back to daylight? all because some little girl stabbed you in the back?"

her baleful eyes held mine. "i wonder what happens if a demigod is killed in tartarus. i doubt it's ever happened before. let's find out."

percy sprang, slashing riptide in a huge arc. he cut one of the demons in half, but kelli dodged and charged me. the other two empousai launched themselves at percy, while another went after annabeth.

"annabeth," i threw my blade at her, giving her a weapon to fight with.

channeling my magic, i let two energy whips flow from my hands. i slashed twice, trying my best to stay out of her scope of attack. i picked up a rock i found, slamming it into her nose.

"you bitch," she squealed, reeling back.

i kept the attacks up, trying my best to keep my attention on kelli.

annabeth was doing pretty okay, tumbling out of the way and flinging dirt into her demon's eyes. she used my knife when the demon got close, but she didn't give her much chance.

and percy—

i faltered for half a second, which was more than enough time for kelli to rake her talons across my arm.

i fell backwards, unable to make a sound as my eyes met percy's.

he was on his feet — barely — fighting off two empousai who were clinging to him. blood dripped from his sword arm where one of them bit him. i watched as the other one sunk her fangs into his neck, riptide clattering to the ground.

percy stumbled in my direction, but we both knew what was coming.

annabeth lay on the ground nearby, holding my blade up as she kept her empousai away. i concentrated my magic into a ball one last time, shooting it towards her empousai, killing her.

"how dare you?" kelli loomed over me. "i will make sure your death is long. and painful."

then a shadow fell across me. a deep war cry bellowed from somewhere above, echoing across the plains of tartarus, and a titan dropped onto the battlefield.

for a second, i wondered if i fell harder than i realized.

it just wasn't possible that a huge, silvery figure could drop out of the sky and stomp kelli flat, trampling her into a mound of monster dust.

but that's exactly what happened. the titan was ten feet tall, with wild silver einstein hair, pure silver eyes, and muscular arms protruding from a ripped-up blue janitor's uniform. in his hand was a massive push broom. his name tag, incredibly, read bob.

i nearly cried with relief on seeing that.

annabeth yelped and tried to crawl away, but the giant janitor wasn't interested in her. he turned to the two remaining empousai, who stood over percy.

annabeth took the chance to run over to me.

"you okay?" she asked, checking to see if i had any injuries.

"besides the arm, i'm good," i told her. "bob saved us."

one of the empousai was foolish enough to attack. she lunged with the speed of a tiger, but she never stood a chance. a spearhead jutted from the end of bob's broom. with a single deadly swipe, he cut her to dust. the last vampire tried to run. bob threw his broom like a massive boomerang (was there such a thing as a broomerang?). it sliced through the vampire and returned to bob's hand.

"sweep!" the titan grinned with delight and did a victory dance. "sweep, sweep, sweep!"

i was literally frozen as my brain registered the chain of events.

"h — how...?" i stammered.

"percy called me!" the janitor said happily. "yes, he did."

annabeth shrinked a little farther away. "called you? he — wait. you're bob? the bob?"

my arm continued to bleed, a little more with each passing second. i wondered how there was enough blood in me.

the janitor frowned when he noticed my wounds. "owie."

i tried not to flinch as he knelt next to me. i wasn't scared of him, but he was pretty comically large compared to my five foot one frame.

"it's okay," percy said, though he sounded partially delirious. "he's friendly."

the janitor tapped my forearm and it mended instantly. the titans hand's were surprisingly warm and gentle. bob chuckled, pleased with himself, then bounded over to percy and healed his bleeding neck and arm.

"all better!" bob declared, his eerie silver eyes crinkling with pleasure. "i am bob, percy's friend!"

"uh... yeah," percy managed. "thanks for the help, bob. it's really good to see you again."

"yes!" the janitor agreed. "bob. that's me. bob, bob, bob." he shuffled around, obviously pleased with his name. "i am helping. i heard my name. upstairs in hades's palace, nobody calls for bob unless there is a mess. bob, sweep up these bones. bob, mop up these tortured souls. bob, a zombie exploded in the dining room."

annabeth and i shared a look with percy, but he seemed to be as lost as we were.

"then i heard my friend call!" the titan beamed. "percy said, bob!"

he grabbed percy's arm and hoisted him to his feet.

"that's awesome," percy said. "seriously. but how did you—"

"oh, time to talk later." bob's expression turned serious. "we must go before they find you. they are coming. yes, indeed."

"they?" annabeth asked.

i scanned the horizon. i saw no approaching monsters — nothing but the stark gray wasteland. but of course, bob heard us talk about him from hades' palace. maybe his eyesight was better than ours.

"yes," bob agreed with annabeth. "but bob knows a way. come on, friends! we will have fun!"

we followed bob through the wasteland, tracing the route of the phlegethon as we approached the storm front of darkness. every so often we stopped to drink firewater, which kept us alive, but i wasn't very happy about it. it felt like i was constantly gargling with battery acid.

my only comfort was percy and annabeth.

every so often percy would glance over and smile, or squeeze my hand. i could sense that he was just as tired and miserable as i was, and i loved him for trying to make me feel better. annabeth had laced her arm through mine, her presence giving me so much comfort.

"bob knows what he's doing," percy promised.

"you have interesting friends," i murmured.

"bob is interesting!" the titan turned and grinned. "yes, thank you!"

"so, bob..." annabeth said as she tried to sound casual and friendly, which wasn't easy with a throat scorched by firewater. "how did you get to tartarus?"

"i jumped," he said, like it was obvious.

"you jumped into tartarus," i repeated, "because percy said your name?"

"he needed me." those silver eyes gleamed in the darkness. "it is okay. i was tired of sweeping the palace. come along! we are almost at a rest stop."

a rest stop.

i couldn't imagine what those words meant in tartarus. i was used to lavish hotel rooms in the fanciest places in the world. i had a feeling wherever bob was taking us wouldn't be anywhere as nice.

i hobbled along, trying to ignore the rumble in my stomach. once again, i wished for the chocolate chip muffin. i stared at bob's back as he led us toward the wall of darkness, now only a few hundred yards away. his blue janitor's coveralls were ripped between the shoulder blades, as if someone had tried to stab him. cleaning rags stuck out of his pocket. a squirt bottle swung from his belt, the blue liquid inside sloshing hypnotically.

i remembered percy's story about meeting the titan. thalia, nico, and percy had worked together to defeat bob on the banks of the lethe (they were also fighting ethan). after wiping his memory, they didn't have the heart to kill him. he became so gentle and sweet and cooperative that they left him at the palace of hades, where persephone promised he would be looked after.

apparently, the underworld king and queen thought "looking after" someone meant giving him a broom and having him sweep up their messes.

i wondered how even hades could be so callous. i'd never felt sorry for a titan before, but it didn't seem right taking a brainwashed immortal and turning him into an unpaid janitor.

i knew he wasn't our friend, not completely. he was still iapetus deep down somewhere. but i could read emotions and i felt enough to know that bob wouldn't attack us anytime soon.

following bob through tartarus was a crazy risk. unfortunately, no one could think of a better plan.

we picked our way across the ashen wasteland as red lightning flashed overhead in the poisonous clouds. just another lovely day in the dungeon of creation. i couldn't see far in the hazy air, but the longer we walked, the more certain i became that the entire landscape was a downward curve.

the problem with no one having been in this place, there were conflicting descriptions of tartarus. it was a bottomless pit. it was a fortress surrounded by brass walls. it was nothing but an endless void. one story described it as the inverse of the sky — a huge, hollow, upside down dome of rock.

that seemed the most accurate, though if tartarus was a dome, i guessed it was like the sky — with no real bottom but made of multiple layers, each one darker and less hospitable than the last.

and even that wasn't the full, horrible truth.... we passed a blister in the ground — a writhing, translucent bubble the size of a minivan. curled inside was the half-formed body of a drakon. bob speared the blister without a second thought. it burst in a geyser of steaming yellow slime, and the drakon dissolved into nothing.

bob kept walking.

monsters are zits on the skin of tartarus, i thought. i shuddered.

sometimes i wished i didn't have such a good imagination, because now i was certain we were walking across a living thing. this whole twisted landscape — the dome, pit, or whatever you called it — was the body of the god tartarus — the most ancient incarnation of evil. just as gaea inhabited the surface of the earth, tartarus inhabited the pit.

if that god noticed us walking across his skin, like fleas on a dog... enough, i forced myself to stop. no more thinking.

"here," bob said.

we stopped at the top of a ridge. below us, in a sheltered depression like a moon crater, stood a ring of broken black marble columns surrounding a dark stone altar.

"hermes's shrine," bob explained.

i frowned. "a hermes shrine in tartarus?"

bob laughed in delight. "yes. it fell from somewhere long ago. maybe mortal world. maybe olympus. anyway, monsters steer clear. mostly."

"how did you know it was here?" annabeth asked.

bob's smile faded. he got a vacant look in his eyes. "can't remember."

"that's okay," percy said quickly.

before bob became bob, he had been iapetus the titan. like all his brethren, he'd been imprisoned in tartarus for eons. of course he knew his way around. if he remembered this shrine, he might start recalling other details of his old prison and his old life. that would not be good.

we climbed into the crater and entered the circle of columns. i collapsed on a broken slab of marble, too exhausted to take another step, taking annabeth down with me. percy stood over us protectively, scanning our surroundings. the inky storm front was less than a hundred feet away now, obscuring everything ahead of us.

the crater's rim blocked our view of the wasteland behind. we'd be well hidden here, but if monsters did stumble across us, we would have no warning.

"you said someone was chasing us," annabeth said. "who?"

bob swept his broom around the base of the altar, occasionally crouching to study the ground as if looking for something. "they are following, yes. they know you are here. giants and titans. the defeated ones. they know."

the defeated ones... i tried to supress my fear as i shivered. how many titans and giants and other monsters had the three of us fought over the years? each one had seemed like an impossible challenge.

if all of them were down here in tartarus, and if they were actively hunting percy, annabeth and i...

"why are we stopping, then?" i said. "we should keep moving."

"soon," bob said. "but mortals need rest. good place here. best place for... oh, long, long way. i will guard you."

the three of us exchanged glances, all of us coming to the conclusion that sleeping with a titan on watch was not the best idea. no matter how sweet he seemed.

"you two sleep," percy told me and annabeth. "i'll keep the first watch with bob."

bob rumbled in agreement. "yes, good. when you wake, food should be here!"

my stomach did a rollover at the mention of food. i didn't see how bob could summon food in the midst of tartarus. maybe he was a caterer as well as a janitor.

annabeth wasted no time, rolling to her side and snoring softly.

i didn't want to sleep, but my body betrayed me. my eyelids turned to lead. "percy, wake me for second watch. don't be a hero."

he gave me that smirk i'd come to love. "who, me?"

he kissed me, his lips parched and feverishly warm. "sleep."

i felt like i was back in the hypnos cabin at camp half-blood, overcome with drowsiness. i curled up in percy's lap and closed my eyes.

REY WRITES!

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