The House of Hades Chapter 1


 * Percy's Point of View

We tumbled down into Tartarus. I still had Annabeth's hand when we hit the ground. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was more like a yard in the fall. I heard Annabeth wince in pain. The fall probably hadn't been too great for her ankle. I unsheathed my sword for a source of light, as it was dark as death. I helped Annabeth up, and got on her side with the broken ankle so she could use me like a crutch. "Thanks, Percy. she sighed. I spotted her dagger and Deadalus's laptop (somehow unharmed) laying only feet away from where we stood.

"Okay, let's go get the laptop and your knife. I said to her. She nodded weakly and we walked over to it.

"It must be the magic," she said. As usual, she read my clueless expression and explained what she meant. "Its in perfect condition, even though it must have dropped a good mile down, at least. The magic that lets it shrink and grow must also protect it." I nodded. She put it in her backpack, which was laying near the laptop, put that on her back, and sheathed her dagger.

That was when it went bad. I heard a hissing noise. I have seen snakes before, heard them hiss, but I've only heard this hissing once, at Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium in New Jersey.

"Medusa," Annabeth whispered. I gulped and worried about how much hate she may have for me. Last time I met her, I had chopped her head off with sheer luck, and sent her here. Now, the only way we could get away was to run. That wasn't happening for Annabeth. I whispered to her, "Any ideas?" and not to my surprise, she did. "Try cutting her head off again. Maybe, this way, Gaea will make her go to Earth instead of staying here. I hate to do that to mortals, but we have to close the Doors of Death. We can't do that as statues." she said, her voice quivering. Medusa had a special hatred for Annabeth, because her mother (whom she looked exactly alike, just different hair) was the one who made her into a gorgon. It didn't surprise me that facing Medusa again worried her.

So, I did what any totally screwed demigod would do. I shut my eyes, nudged Annabeth out of the way, turned around and swung. ''Thunk! ''"Wow, that was easy. The others won't be like that, but at least thats out of the way," I said, not looking into the gorgon's eyes as I closed the eyelids. "What should we do with the head, this time?" I asked Annabeth.

"Hmmmm... Lets wrap it up and put it in my backpack. We can use it if we need to, that way," she said. "Like you said, the rest of them won't be so easy to kill. They've been sitting down here, some for eons, just gaining power, waiting to come back. They won't go down so easily," she said. I knew she was right.
 * Annabeth's Point of View

The fall hurt. A lot. I was glad I got my laptop, backpack, and dagger back, though. It really hurt when Percy nudged me away, until I realized he was acting on what I said immediately. Then it was okay. After he put Medusa's head in my backpack, wrapped securely in some spider silk on the ground, he stood in front of me. "Sit down, I need to look at that ankle." he ordered. I obliged quickly. I guessed that he learned how to bind broken bones at Camp Jupiter. "Have you eaten any ambrosia? Or drank any nectar?" he asked me in the kind of tone Chiron used when I attended to Seaweed Brain himself after he first battled the Minotaur. Chiron had asked me every half hour, the same three questions: Has he woken up? How much ambrosia did you give him? Did you check to see if his bones are setting correctly? Now, it was my turn to be the patient

He took apart my bubble wrap and wood cast I had made and tenderly touched my ankle. I winced when he touched the bone. "Well, good news bad news. The good news is your ankle is healing right. The bad news is, even with ambrosia and nectar, its gonna take at least a day or two to fully heal, he announced after several minutes of putting my bubble wrap cast back on. I groaned, then suddenly stopped. At least its not a month or two. Percy nodded, as though he had read my thoughts. Then he said "Well, we outta take inventory," so we did. All together, we had two jackets (not counting the one Medusa's head was in), Daedalus's laptop, a magic plate from the ship, as well as a magic cup, Riptide, my bronze knife, a gallon sized ziploc bag of ambrosia, and a few canteens of nectar. Percy checked his watch, which he had changed to Italy's time, and told me it was 6:15 pm. We only had one plate and cup, so he let me eat first. While I was eating, he was trying to figure out a way for us to sleep. Finally, I just said "We can lay my jacket on the ground to lay on, then cover with your jacket. Or, if it makes you feel better, we can cover up with both. Either way is fine," I said. He was okay with this, but I think (I'm not sure, because the lighting was dim) he was blushing. I ate the last of my spaghetti, then handed the plate to him when it was clean. When he got that and the cup, I knew he was thinking of home because he ate nachos with blue chips, a specialty of his mom's, and a cobalt blue soda, I assumed was Coke. He ate, and we decided to see what we could find out through the laptop.

I opened it up, and made it the size of a normal computer. I was amazed I got some signal from down here. I tried a video conference with the others. The light on the computer was blinding, but helped us see our surroundings. It rang 3 times before anybody picked up. It was Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, only person ever to survive Tartarus.

"Hey, Nico, can you get the others? We need to talk to you all." Percy said to him. "Yeah, sure. Leo hooked up the Archimedes sphere so there are cameras on every screen that is on the ship. That dude is seriously ADHD," Nico replied walking toward the cabins. When all the demigods were present, Percy and I told them what happened. They were shocked, but only that the laptop had made the fall. We told them they needed to get the the House of Hades as soon as possible, and to keep in contact via IM with us. "Well, of course. We'll let you know when we get to Greece, and you let us know right before you get to the Doors. That way, we can time it perfe-" Jason stopped dead. He had a look of pure terror in his eyes. I looked behind us and saw two gorgons, obviously Medusa's sisters Stheno and Euryale. I knew that Percy had met them before, judging by the fact he groaned and tried to reason with the gorgons. "Hey, Euryale, Stheno, long time no see. Um, we're okay about the whole killing you thing, right?" he said. Apparently not.