Chapter 20 – Enter the Fields of Asphodel
They left the gym in silence.
Clarisse was unusually quiet—no jabs, no grumbling, not even a single sarcastic remark about how I was probably going to die on this "dumb testosterone-fueled kamikaze quest."
I didn't blame her.
There were a lot of things to say.
But none of them mattered when you were walking toward the Underworld.
The sky above Los Angeles was pink-orange, thick with smog and sunset. Cars rushed by, oblivious. The city pulsed with life—noisy, chaotic, uncaring. And we walked right through it, two demigods with too much on our backs and weapons that hummed with power tucked under mortal disguise.
Clarisse had her Ares-cabin armor on beneath a hoodie, the shaft of her spear sticking from her backpack like an oversized antenna.
Me? I wore my chains like always, wrapped around my wrists and forearms like coiled serpents waiting to strike.
We reached the old, decaying building squashed between a karaoke bar and a vape shop: DOA Recording Studios.
The entrance to the dead.
Clarisse scowled at the faded sign. "Can't believe it's still here."
"Why not?" I said, pushing open the glass door. "Music industry's been dead longer than the Underworld anyway."
She smirked. "Still not funny."
"Still kinda is."
We stepped into the lobby. It hadn't changed a bit since the books—or since the last time Clarisse visited.
Dark green carpet, tacky plastic plants, framed photos of musicians that no one remembered. The receptionist at the desk didn't look up—either enchanted, undead, or deeply committed to avoiding social interaction. Respect.
The air was heavy. Cold. Not AC-cold—Underworld-cold. The kind that sank into your bones, past skin, past armor, into something deeper.
We moved toward the back. The men's bathroom was still tucked in the far hallway, right next to a fire extinguisher that probably hadn't been inspected since the First World War.
Clarisse glanced at me. "Are you sure about this?"
I pulled the bronze coin from my pocket.
Ares' mark glowed faintly—red-hot like smoldering coal. It pulsed in sync with something ancient, something buried beneath asphalt and marble and ego.
I nodded. "We will prevail"
And walked into the bathroom.
Two cracked mirrors. Flickering fluorescent light. Three stalls. A mop bucket that looked like it might bite.
I stepped into the far stall, raised the coin—
—and the moment it passed over the wall, reality tore.
A glowing red line etched across the air like someone took a blowtorch to existence. The stall wall rippled, twisted, and peeled open like paper soaked in lava.
Clarisse exhaled sharply. "Showoff."
"Don't blame me. Dad's got flair."
We stepped through.
We landed on dry grass.
If you could call it grass. It was gray. Brittle. It didn't sway or crunch. It just was.
And it stretched for miles.
An endless plain of the forgotten.
The Fields of Asphodel.
They say it's where most souls go. Not evil. Not heroic. Just… unremarkable. The eternally neutral. Souls who lived bland, mortal lives and never questioned the system.
Thousands—millions—of spirits wandered aimlessly. They didn't talk. Didn't look around. They just drifted. Like windless leaves caught in an unseen tide.
The sky above was a color that wasn't really a color. The air tasted like dust and endings. Everything here whispered "you could've been more."
Clarisse looked around, nose wrinkled. "Still smells like despair."
I tightened my grip on my chain blades. "We're in it now."
No going back. No respawns. No checkpoints.
Just us. The Underworld. And one wild plan.
We started walking.
The ground didn't crunch. It sighed. Every step echoed like we were treading on forgotten memories.
I tried not to make jokes.
Tried.
"Hey," I whispered, nudging Clarisse. "Bet you five drachma I'll find a ghost who invented Bluetooth."
"Not the time."
"Fine. Ten drachma?"
She rolled her eyes. "Still not the time."
I sighed. "Why's it never the time?"
She didn't answer.
Just kept walking.
It was weird, though. Clarisse wasn't scared. She wasn't tense. She wasn't even annoyed in the usual way.
She was… thoughtful.
I gave her space.
The further we walked, the more the landscape blurred. The fields stretched endlessly, but nothing ever changed. No landmarks. No roads. Just drifting ghosts and endless gray.
And then we saw him.
Sitting on a bench that hadn't been there a second ago.
Charon.
The ferryman of the Underworld.
No boat this time. Just a folding chair, a newspaper, and a face like someone who'd lived through three apocalypses and hadn't been impressed by any of them.
He looked up as we approached.
"Oh good," he said. "You. The Troublemaker."
I blinked. "You know me?"
"I know your type," he said, folding his newspaper with the weariness of a DMV employee working overtime during a zombie invasion. " Daddy issues. Prophecy-skirting aura. You practically have a 'Disrupts Fate' nametag stapled to your forehead."
I grinned. "I was gonna get that printed on a T-shirt."
Charon sighed and stood. "You want the tunnel, I'm guessing."
"We want Tartarus," Clarisse said.
He raised a skeletal brow. "Lovely. Would you like a latte with that suicide attempt?"
I held up the coin.
Charon flinched.
The coin pulsed—brighter now. It burned with red light, casting long shadows behind us.
"Of course," Charon said flatly. "Just flash the divine war-token. Very subtle."
"You want subtle, ask Hestia for directions," I muttered.
Charon snapped his fingers. The air warped again. This time, a stone path unfolded before us like the spine of a titan—black stone, glowing runes, steps descending into the abyss.
"I'll mark you as 'special case,'" Charon said. "Try not to scream too loudly. The newer souls are jumpy."
We walked past him.
And the path swallowed us whole.
The deeper we went, the more the Underworld changed.
The Asphodel Fields faded behind us, swallowed by the curve of the descent. The stone grew darker. The air colder.
We passed cracked statues of weeping figures. Burned trees. Rivers that bled light and shadows.
Clarisse was quiet again.
"Thinking about him?" I asked.
She glanced at me. "He's our dad. Kind of hard not to."
"Yeah, but you care what he thinks."
"Because I have something to prove."
I twirled a chain around my wrist. "I just want to see how far I can go before something eats me."
"Great life plan."
"I'm very goal-oriented."
She smirked, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"You know he doesn't see us the same way, right?" I said.
"I'm his daughter, his warrior. You're his entertainment."
I shrugged. "Yeah."
She looked at me. "And you're okay with that?"
"No," I said. "But I'll change it."
She nodded slowly. "How?"
I smiled. "By surviving the impossible."
We stopped as the path widened.
Up ahead stood a massive abyss with an endless depth, a wound in the earth.
Tartarus.
The forge of monsters.
The furnace of the gods.
I inhaled.
Rolled my shoulders.
And jumped in.
I was ready to meet what waited in the dark.