❝ Why To Hell Before Death? ❞

          We stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble: DOA RECORDING STUDIOS. Underneath, stenciled on the glass doors: NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING.

It was almost midnight, but the lobby was brightly lit and full of people.

Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses and an earpiece.

I turned to my friends. "Okay. You remember the plan."

"The plan," Grover gulped. "Yeah. I love the plan."

Annabeth said, "What happens if the plan doesn't work?"

"Don't think negative," Percy said.

"Right," she said. "We're entering the Land of the Dead, and I shouldn't think negatively."

Percy took the pearls out of his pocket, the four milky spheres the Nereid had given him in Santa Monica. They didn't seem like much of a backup in case something went wrong. But they were pretty enough though.

Annabeth put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Percy. You're right, we'll make it. It'll be fine."

She gave Grover a nudge.

"Oh, right!" he chimed in. "We got this far. We'll find the master bolt and save your mom. No problem."

"Yeah, Underworld is not that bad, you know?" I added.

He looked at us and slipped the pearls back into his pocket. "Let's whup some Underworld butt."

We walked inside the DOA lobby.

Muzak played softly on hidden speakers. The carpet and walls were steel gray. Pencil cactuses grew in the corners like skeleton hands. The furniture was black leather, and every seat was taken. People were sitting on couches, people standing up, people staring out the windows or waiting for the elevator. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them all just fine, but if I focused on any one of them in particular, they started looking... transparent. I could see right through their bodies.

The security guard's desk was a raised podium, so we had to look up at him.

He was tall and elegant, with chocolate-colored skin and bleached-blond hair shaved military style. He wore tortoiseshell shades and a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag.

Percy read the name tag, then looked at him in bewilderment. "Your name is Chiron?"

I rolled my eyes, This stupid couldn't be more of a problem.

"It's Charon," I said. He smiled at me and leaned across the desk towards Percy. I couldn't see anything in his glasses except our own reflection, but his smile was sweet and cold, like a python's, right before it eats you.

"What a precious young lad." He had a strange accent-British, maybe, but also as if he had learned English as a second language. "Tell me, mate, do I look like a centaur?"

"N-no."

"Sir," he added smoothly.

"Sir," He said.

He pinched the name tag and ran his finger under the letters. "Can you read this, mate? It says C-H-A-R-O-N. Say it with me: CARE-ON."

"Charon."

"Amazing! Now: Mr. Charon."

"Mr. Charon," Percy said.

"Well done." He sat back. "I hate being confused with that old horseman. And now, how may I help you little dead ones?"

His question caught me off-guard,

"We want to go to the Underworld," Annabeth said.

Charon's mouth twitched. "Well, that's refreshing."

"It is?" she asked.

"Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No 'There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon.'" He looked us over. "How did you die, then?"

I nudged Grover.

"Oh," he said. "Um ... drowned ... in the bathtub."

"All four of you?" Charon asked. We nodded.

"Big bathtub." Charon looked mildly impressed. "I don't suppose you have coins for passage. Normally, with adults, you see, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last cable bill. But with children ... alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you'll have to take a seat for a few centuries."

"Oh, but we have coins." I set three golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash I'd found in Crusty's office desk.

"Well, now..." Charon moistened his lips. "Real drachmas. Real golden drachmas. I haven't seen these in ..."

His fingers hovered greedily over the coins. We were so close.

Then Charon looked at Percy. "Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"

"No," he said. "I'm dead."

Charon leaned forward and took a sniff. "You're not dead. I should've known. You're a godling."

"We have to get to the Underworld," I insisted.

Charon made a growling sound deep in his throat. Immediately, all the people in the waiting room got up and started pacing, agitated, lighting cigarettes, running their hands through their hair, or checking their wristwatches.

"Leave while you can," Charon told us. "I'll just take these and forget I saw you." He started to go for the coins, but Percy snatched them back.

"No service, no tip." he tried to sound brave.

Charon growled again deep, blood-chilling sound. The spirits of the dead started pounding on the elevator doors.

"It's a shame, too," I sighed. "We had more to offer."

I held up the entire bag from Crusty's stash. I took out a fistful of drachmas and let the coins spill through my fingers. Charon's growl changed into something more like a lion's purr.

"Do you think I can be bought, godling? Eh ... just out of curiosity, how much have you got there?"

"A lot," he said. "I bet Hades doesn't pay you well enough for such hard work."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it. How would you like to babysit these spirits all day? Always 'Please don't let me be dead' or 'Please let me across for free.' I haven't had a pay raise in three thousand years. Do you imagine suits like this come cheap?"

"You deserve better," Percy agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."

With each word, He stacked another gold coin on the counter. Charon glanced down at his silk Italian jacket as if imagining himself in something even better. "I must say, lad, you're making some sense now. Just a little."

He stacked another few coins. "I could mention a pay raise while I'm talking to Hades."

He sighed. "The boat's almost full, anyway. I might as well add you four and be off."

He stood, scooped up our money, and said, "Come along."

We pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at our clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things I couldn't make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling, "Freeloaders."

He escorted us into the elevator, which was already crowded with souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass. Charon grabbed two spirits who were trying to get on with us and pushed them back into the lobby.

"Right. Now, no one gets any ideas while I'm gone," he announced to the waiting room. "And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for another thousand years. Understand?"

He shut the doors. He put a key card into a slot in the elevator panel and we started to descend.

"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Annabeth asked.

"Nothing," Charon said.

"For how long?"

"Forever, or until I'm feeling generous."

"Oh," she said. "That's ... fair."

Charon raised an eyebrow. "Whoever said death was fair, young miss? Wait until it's your turn. You'll die soon enough, where you're going."

"We'll get out alive," Percy said.

"Ha."

I got a sudden dizzy feeling. We weren't going down anymore, but forward. The air turned misty. Spirits around me started changing shape. Their modern clothes flickered, turning into gray hooded robes. The floor of the elevator began swaying.

I blinked hard. When I opened my eyes, Charon's creamy Italian suit had been replaced by a long black robe. His tortoiseshell glasses were gone. Where his eyes should've been were empty sockets-like Ares's eyes, except Charon's, were totally dark, full of night and death and despair. He saw me looking, and said, "Well?"

"Nothing," I managed.

I thought he was grinning, but that wasn't it. The flesh of his face was becoming transparent, letting me see straight through to his skull. The floor kept swaying.

Grover said, "I think I'm getting seasick."

When I blinked again, the elevator wasn't an elevator anymore. We were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was poling us across a dark, oily river, swirling with bones, dead fish, and other, stranger things-plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.

"The River Styx," I murmured. "It's so ..."

"Polluted," Charon said. "For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything you come across, hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me."

Mist curled off the filthy water. Above us, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the color of poison. I found Percy muttering a prayer, though I wasn't quite sure who he was praying to. Down here, only one god mattered, and he was the one we had come to confront.

The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see.

A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stones-the howl of a large animal.

"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."

The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. A woman holding a little girl's hand. An old man and an old woman hobbling along arm in arm. A boy, no older than I was, shuffling silently along in his gray robe.

Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don't forget to mention my pay raise."

He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He warbled something that sounded like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.

"I shouldn't have underestimated you, Percy," I said, I thought having Percy as the lead in this quest was a stupid idea, but he was actually somewhat good at managing things.

Percy grinned. "Finally, Aqua agrees I'm better than her!"

"I did not say that!" I sneered at him. "Call me Aqua again, you're dead."

"Alright, whatever happens next, you should solve it by yourself, deal?"

"Deal."

We followed the spirits up a well-worn path. I'm not sure what I was expecting-Pearly Gates, or a big black portcullis, or something. But the entrance to the Underworld looked like a cross between airport security and the Jersey Turnpike.

There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were toll booths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon. The howling of the hungry animal was really loud now, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. The three-headed dog, Cerberus, who was supposed to guard Hades's door, was nowhere to be seen

The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

"What do you figure?" Percy asked Annabeth.

"The last line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."

"There's a court for dead people?"

"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare-people like that. Sometimes they look at life and decide that person needs a special reward-the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields."

"And do what?"

Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."

"Harsh," he said.

"Not as harsh as that," I muttered. "Look."

A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.

"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.

"Oh, yeah," Percy said. "What're they doing to him?"

"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur-the Kindly Ones will set up eternal torture for him."

"But if he's a preacher," He said, "and he believes in a different hell...."

Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn-er, persistent, that way."

We got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground at my feet, but I still couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then, about fifty feet in front of us, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.

I hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at me.

Percy's jaw dropped.

The dead walked right up to him-no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

"I'm starting to see him better," I muttered. "Why is that?"

"I think..." Annabeth moistened her lips. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."

The dog's middle head craned toward us. It sniffed the air and growled.

"It can smell the living," I said.

"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to me. "Because we have a plan."

"Right," Annabeth said. I'd never heard her voice sound quite so small.

"A plan."

"Well, let's first see what Aqua does," Percy said.

I glared at him, "I have a plan, let's feed Percy to Cerberus and get past it." I said.

"Okay, okay, Aquila. What are you going to do?"

"Very Simple," I said. "Just stand behind me."

"Nah, you first go, then I'll come with Annabeth and Grover," Percy said. I cocked an eyebrow.

"Fine then, Good luck dying," I said.

"We'll make it past him," Percy said.

"Of course you will, but not alive."

I heard Annabeth complaining something to Percy, they both were quarreling and Grover was trying to remind them that we were here for a different reason, but I paid no attention to them and walked towards Cerberus.

I stood approximately five feet away from the three-headed monster and stared right in the eyes. Cerberus growled and glared at me...For a scary second, I thought I made a mistake and I was going to be dog food but a minute passed just like that, and finally, Cerberus stopped growling and looked past me.

I casually strode past it and Cerberus didn't stop me. I could only imagine a dumbstruck Percy. I stiffed a laugh.

I slowed my pace, looking around the darkness, wandering, the most bizarre thoughts crossed my mind. Seeing dead people all around didn't help.

After a few minutes three, familiar faces came running towards me muttering something furiously.

Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"

"That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"

"No," Grover told him. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!"

I stiffed a laugh, "Dare I ask, what happened?"

"Annabeth befriended Cerberus with a rubber ball," He said. "How did you do that?" He asked.

"Most monsters mistake me for another monster,"

His eyes widened. "What?"

"Titan smell,"

Grover shushed us.

The Fields of Asphodel looked like...some lifeless stadium. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees-

Grover told us they were poplars-grew in clumps here and there. The cavern ceiling was so high above us it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. I tried not to imagine they'd fall on us at any moment, but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass.

I guess the dead didn't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of booster rockets. Annabeth, Grover, Percy, and I tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls.

I couldn't help looking for familiar faces among the spirits of Asphodel, but the dead are hard to look at. Their faces shimmer. They all look slightly angry or confused. They will come up to you and speak, but their voices sound like chatter like bats twittering. Once they realize you can't understand them, they frown and move away. The dead aren't scary. They're just sad.

We crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tinted pavilion with a banner that read:

JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION
Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines. To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas.

Even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music. I could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top. And I saw worse tortures, too— Maybe I should try to be more noble, I didn't want to suffer any of these.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security, gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles, and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. I could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking.

Elysium.

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium.

"That's what it's all about," Annabeth said. "That's the place for heroes."

"That's because we are tortured while we live, we definitely deserve better when we die," I said glaring at nowhere.

"I agree with Aquila," Percy said.

But I thought of how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good deeds in their lives. It was depressing.

We left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields. It got darker. The colors faded from our clothes. The crowds of chattering spirits began to thin. After a few miles of walking, we began to hear a