'Don't kick me,' she said, half-sobbing.

His eyes twinkled. This was exactly what he expected. She was broken and helpless. Sciron, the son of Poseidon, had won again.

Hazel could hardly believe this guy had the same father as Percy Jackson. Then she remembered that Poseidon had a changeable personality, like the sea. Maybe his children reflected that. Percy was a child of Poseidon's better nature powerful, but gentle and helpful, the kind of sea that sped ships safely to distant lands. Sciron was a child of Poseidon's other side the kind of sea that battered relentlessly at the coastline until it crumbled away, or carried the innocents from sh.o.r.e and let them drown, or smashed ships and killed entire crews without mercy.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the spray bottle Jason had dropped.

'Sciron,' she growled, 'your feet are the least disgusting thing about you.'

His green eyes hardened. 'Just clean.'

She knelt, trying to ignore the smell. She shuffled to one side, forcing Sciron to adjust his stance, but she imagined that the sea was still at her back. She held that vision in her mind as she shuffled sideways again.

'Just get on with it!' Sciron said.

Hazel suppressed a smile. She'd managed to turn Sciron one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, but he still saw the water in front of him, the rolling countryside at his back.

She started to clean.

Hazel had done plenty of ugly work before. She'd cleaned the unicorn stables at Camp Jupiter. She'd filled and dug latrines for the legion.

This is nothing, she told herself. But it was hard not to retch when she looked at Sciron's toes.

When the kick came, she flew backwards, but she didn't go far. She landed on her b.u.t.t in the gra.s.s a few yards away.

Sciron stared at her. 'But ...'

Suddenly the world shifted. The illusion melted, leaving Sciron totally confused. The sea was at his back. He'd only succeeded in kicking Hazel away from the ledge.

He lowered his flintlock. 'How '

'Stand and deliver,' Hazel told him.

Jason swooped out of the sky, right over her head, and body-slammed the bandit over the cliff.

Sciron screamed as he fell, firing his flintlock wildly, but for once hitting nothing. Hazel got to her feet. She reached the cliff's edge in time to see the turtle lunge and snap Sciron out of the air.

Jason grinned. 'Hazel, that was amazing. Seriously ... Hazel? Hey, Hazel?'

Hazel collapsed to her knees, suddenly dizzy.

Distantly, she could hear her friends cheering from the ship below. Jason stood over her, but he was moving in slow motion, his outline blurry, his voice nothing but static.

Frost crept across the rocks and gra.s.s around her. The mound of riches she'd summoned sank back into the earth. The Mist swirled.

What have I done? she thought in a panic. Something went wrong.

'No, Hazel,' said a deep voice behind her. 'You have done well.'

She hardly dared to breathe. She'd only heard that voice once before, but she had replayed it in her mind thousands of times.

She turned and found herself looking up at her father.

He was dressed in Roman style his dark hair close-cropped, his pale angular face clean-shaven. His tunic and toga were of black wool, embroidered with threads of gold. The faces of tormented souls shifted in the fabric. The edge of his toga was lined with the crimson of a senator or a praetor, but the stripe rippled like a river of blood. On Pluto's ring finger was a ma.s.sive opal, like a chunk of polished frozen Mist.

His wedding ring, Hazel thought. But Pluto had never married Hazel's mother. G.o.ds did not marry mortals. That ring would signify his marriage to Persephone.

The thought made Hazel so angry, she shook off her dizziness and stood.

'What do you want?' she demanded.

She hoped her tone would hurt him jab him for all the pain he'd caused her. But a faint smile played across his mouth.

'My daughter,' he said. 'I am impressed. You have grown strong.'

No thanks to you, she wanted to say. She didn't want to take any pleasure in his compliment, but her eyes still p.r.i.c.kled.

'I thought you major G.o.ds were incapacitated,' she managed. 'Your Greek and Roman personalities fighting against one another.'

'We are,' Pluto agreed. 'But you invoked me so strongly that you allowed me to appear ... if only for a moment.'

'I didn't invoke you.'

But, even as she said it, she knew it wasn't true. For the first time, willingly, she'd embraced her lineage as a child of Pluto. She'd tried to understand her father's powers and use them to the fullest.

'When you come to my house in Epirus,' Pluto said, 'you must be prepared. The dead will not welcome you. And the sorceress Pasiphae '

'Pacify?' Hazel asked. Then she realized that must be the woman's name.

'She will not be fooled as easily as Sciron.' Pluto's eyes glittered like volcanic stone. 'You succeeded in your first test, but Pasiphae intends to rebuild her domain, which will endanger all demiG.o.ds. Unless you stop her at the House of Hades ...'

His form flickered. For a moment he was bearded, in Greek robes with a golden laurel wreath in his hair. Around his feet, skeletal hands broke through the earth.

The G.o.d gritted his teeth and scowled.

His Roman form stabilized. The skeletal hands dissolved back into the earth.

'We do not have much time.' He looked like a man who'd just been violently ill. 'Know that the Doors of Death are at the lowest level of the Necromanteion. You must make Pasiphae see what she wants to see. You are right. That is the secret to all magic. But it will not be easy when you are in her maze.'

'What do you mean? What maze?'

'You will understand,' he promised. 'And, Hazel Levesque ... you will not believe me, but I am proud of your strength. Sometimes ... sometimes the only way I can care for my children is to keep my distance.'

Hazel bit back an insult. Pluto was just another deadbeat G.o.dly dad making weak excuses. But her heart pounded as she replayed his words: I am proud of your strength.

'Go to your friends,' Pluto said. 'They will be worried. The journey to Epirus still holds many perils.'

'Wait,' Hazel said.

Pluto raised an eyebrow.

'When I met Thanatos,' she said, 'you know ... Death ... he told me I wasn't on your list of rogue spirits to capture. He said maybe that's why you were keeping your distance. If you acknowledged me, you'd have to take me back to the Underworld.'

Pluto waited. 'What is your question?'

'You're here. Why don't you take me to the Underworld? Return me to the dead?'

Pluto's form started to fade. He smiled, but Hazel couldn't tell if he was sad or pleased. 'Perhaps that is not what I want to see, Hazel. Perhaps I was never here.'

XXIX.

PERCY.

PERCY WAS RELIEVED when the demon grandmothers closed in for the kill.

Sure, he was terrified. He didn't like the odds of three against several dozen. But at least he understood fighting. Wandering through the darkness, waiting to be attacked that had been driving him crazy.

Besides, he and Annabeth had fought together many times. And now they had a t.i.tan on their side.

'Back off.' Percy jabbed Riptide at the nearest shrivelled hag, but she only sneered.

We are the arai, said that weird voice-over, like the entire forest was speaking. You cannot destroy us.

Annabeth pressed against his shoulder. 'Don't touch them,' she warned. 'They're the spirits of curses.'

'Bob doesn't like curses,' Bob decided. The skeleton kitten Small Bob disappeared inside his coveralls. Smart cat.

The t.i.tan swept his broom in a wide arc, forcing the spirits back, but they came in again like the tide.

We serve the bitter and the defeated, said the arai. We serve the slain who prayed for vengeance with their final breath. We have many curses to share with you.

The firewater in Percy's stomach started crawling up his throat. He wished Tartarus had better beverage options, or maybe a tree that dispensed antacid fruit.

'I appreciate the offer,' he said. 'But my mom told me not to accept curses from strangers.'

The nearest demon lunged. Her claws extended like bony switchblades. Percy cut her in two, but as soon as she vaporized the sides of his chest flared with pain. He stumbled back, clamping his hand to his rib cage. His fingers came away wet and red.

'Percy, you're bleeding!' Annabeth cried, which was kind of obvious to him at that point. 'Oh, G.o.ds, on both sides.'

It was true. The left and right hems of his tattered shirt were sticky with blood, as if a javelin had run him through.

Or an arrow ...

Queasiness almost knocked him over. Vengeance. A curse from the slain.

He flashed back to an encounter in Texas two years ago a fight with a monstrous rancher who could only be killed if each of his three bodies was cut through simultaneously.

'Geryon,' Percy said. 'This is how I killed him ...'

The spirits bared their fangs. More arai leaped from the black trees, flapping their leathery wings.

Yes, they agreed. Feel the pain you inflicted upon Geryon. So many curses have been levelled at you, Percy Jackson. Which will you die from? Choose, or we will rip you apart!

Somehow he stayed on his feet. The blood stopped spreading, but he still felt like he had a hot metal curtain rod sticking through his ribs. His sword arm was heavy and weak.

'I don't understand,' he muttered.

Bob's voice seemed to echo from the end of a long tunnel: 'If you kill one, it gives you a curse.'

'But if we don't kill them ...' Annabeth said.

'They'll kill us anyway,' Percy guessed.

Choose! the arai cried. Will you be crushed like Kampe? Or disintegrated like the young telkhines you slaughtered under Mount St Helens? You have spread so much death and suffering, Percy Jackson. Let us repay you!

The winged hags pressed in, their breath sour, their eyes burning with hatred. They looked like Furies, but Percy decided these things were even worse. At least the three Furies were under the control of Hades. These things were wild, and they just kept multiplying.

If they really embodied the dying curses of every enemy Percy had ever destroyed ... then Percy was in serious trouble. He'd faced a lot of enemies.

One of the demons lunged at Annabeth. Instinctively, she dodged. She brought her rock down on the old lady's head and broke her into dust.

It wasn't like Annabeth had a choice. Percy would've done the same thing. But instantly Annabeth dropped her rock and cried in alarm.

'I can't see!' She touched her face, looking around wildly. Her eyes were pure white.

Percy ran to her side as the arai cackled.

Polyphemus cursed you when you tricked him with your invisibility in the Sea of Monsters. You called yourself n.o.body. He could not see you. Now you will not see your attackers.

'I've got you,' Percy promised. He put his arm around Annabeth, but as the arai advanced he didn't know how he could protect either of them.

A dozen demons leaped from every direction, but Bob yelled, 'SWEEP!'

His broom whooshed over Percy's head. The entire arai offensive line toppled backwards like bowling pins.

More surged forward. Bob whacked one over the head and speared another, blasting them to dust. The others backed away.