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halothenthehorns · 2 years ago

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How Do You Say Gods

Chapter 13: ANNABETH TRIES TO SWIM HOME

Jason had been imagining a plethora of reactions if everyone knew this. Interrogations left and right of what he didn't remember mostly. Unlike Percy, he wasn't thrown in here with any friends for a reminder of why he shouldn't go digging around in his head to understand. Thalia and Nico now had ammunition at the ready to demand if he knew anymore about Circe's island, the son of Poseidon not in the know before must have been the only thing stopping them.

The only one who said anything about it was Percy, giving him a sympathetic grin. "You should have said something, we could have made an amnesia club. Alex could make shirts in case we forget all of this again."

Alex sized the two up like he was mentally taking their measurements while Magnus got up to offer and take the book with one last curious look at him, but not a pester on his lips. Nico was barely acting like he heard as he was listening intently to Will talking about scurvy like he still only had pirates on the brain instead of ousting the rest of his oddities, like knowledge of that other camp.

Thalia sighed in exasperation that of course her friend was making light of this while still watching Jason a bit, but in the same way she had since the beginning. She was frowning from him to Percy and back, but whatever connection she was trying to draw didn't seem to be adding up. At least she didn't cry out to him being an enemy.

Will did have some questions about this, but he'd promised himself to stay out of it. What Nico's 'trip' had to do with Jason, and now most likely Percy's memory loss he couldn't fathom, but he just didn't care right now as Nico was finally just chatting and laughing with him still about pirates as they swapped stories of all the different legends on their favorites. Will had loved Captain Hook in every incarnation and was just getting into the finer details of a myth over Peter Pan being based on Apollo when Magnus started reading and the two reluctantly came to a stop.

Magnus hadn't even noticed the opportunity to have a chat with Alex if he'd wanted, he'd caught sight of the chapter title and felt a sense of foreboding wash over him. Did she and Percy have a fight? Did something try to drown her? He tried to start reading and felt everybody's undivided attention shift to him in concern for what she got up to.

"She doesn't turn into a motivational blue fish does she?" Alex asked, once more leaning over his shoulder and seeming to rest pretty comfortably there. Not quite touching, but for some reason the space felt like no bother.

Will snorted beside him and started humming an odd tune about just keep swimming. Nico didn't get the joke, but he smiled for seeing Will smiling while doing it anyways.

I'd finally found something I was really good at.

"Technically controlling sea ships seems to be inherited from your dad, again, not you specifically," Alex corrected.

"Why are you like this?" Percy sighed as he killed his buzz.

"Keeping things in perspective," he shrugged without remorse. "You've still got skateboarding, annoying Annabeth, a talent for pissing off gods, and housing food like nobody's business all to yourself."

"Fair trade," Percy grinned again at once.

The Queen Anne's Revenge responded to my every command. I knew which ropes to hoist, which sails to raise, which direction to steer. We plowed through the waves at what I figured was about ten knots. I even understood how fast that was. For a sailing ship, pretty darn fast.

It all felt perfect—the wind in my face, the waves breaking over the prow.

Will was still guiltlessly watching Nico instead of the book, mostly, and couldn't stop smiling at the way he was still smiling. It finally happened though as he was so often prone to doing, Nico glanced at Percy and then back to the door with such an obvious shift. Guilt? Something along those lines? Will wanted to ask so badly what that was about, but then Nico did it again and actually bit his lip to stop himself smiling and relaxed instead, one last snicker escaping like he was still imagining a guinea pig doing all this. Will lounged back with a smile of his own at least he wasn't dwelling so much on whatever that had been.

But now that we were out of danger, all I could think about was how much I missed Tyson, and how worried I was about Grover.

Percy was doing that in abundance now, something about this book soothed his inner attention deficiency so that he could both think back and try to remember what street that dog-sized rat he'd once seen was on and worry about both of them plus Annabeth all without any thought being too distracting. Maybe this was why he'd never been able to focus in class, if only Mr. Sourcream had threatened his friend's life rather than just a failing grade he would have paid more attention.

I couldn't get over how badly I'd messed up on Circe's Island. If it hadn't been for Annabeth, I'd still be a rodent, hiding in a hutch with a bunch of cute furry pirates. I thought about what Circe had said: See, Percy? You've unlocked your true self!

"You're not to blame for that!" Thalia said at once. "She was a powerful sorceress Percy, Annabeth nearly fell for it too and only snapped out of it when she realized you were in trouble. If anybody had been threatening to turn her into a guinea pig, you would have come out sword swinging."

"I completely forgot about those stupid vitamins though," he restlessly flipped his pen between each finger, hating to admit to himself how much the change still lingered in him. How his thoughts before seemed to be mocking him now, he was always destined to hide away down here, and his dad seemed to agree. "I can't believe Annabeth hasn't laughed her ass off at me yet and told me to swim home." She had been standing on the deck looking out into the horizon, that calm sharp look gazing down at the waves as her hair tangled up and she kept twisting her cap in her hands. She'd been thinking about something. Probably about how stupid he'd been. She'd noticed what a coward he was.

Thalia nudged him in the side, hard. "She wouldn't know what to do without you, and only giggled a bit when telling me about this. Nobody's perfect Perce, you two take turns saving each other," she concluded softly. She had a pretty good guess what the next encounter was. Her sister had told her Percy had seen her siren vision, and now she wasn't even hear to soothe her boyfriend's needless chastising or get to know her own cousin who was clearly anxious to keep going and find out more about a family he'd long since lost contact with.

Percy stopped arguing the point at least. He glanced to the ceiling again for the first time in ages. He still missed Tyson, he had a lot more mistakes to go, but he tried to take Thalia's words to heart as he couldn't stop this from continuing, and he didn't want to.

I still felt changed. Not just because I had a sudden desire to eat lettuce.

"I admit, if I was ever forced into craving spinach I'd be pretty hacked off too," Nico nodded.

I felt jumpy, like the instinct to be a scared little animal was now a part of me. Or maybe it had always been there.

That's what really worried me.

Jason watched Thalia help Percy laugh that one off, reminding him about lizard brains and everyone had that fight or flight instinct; but he felt somewhere in the back of his mind, in the flesh of his tattoo a soft growl within, and wondered if he really knew what Percy meant.

We sailed through the night.

Annabeth tried to help me keep lookout, but sailing didn't agree with her. After a few hours rocking back and forth, her face turned the color of guacamole and she went below to lie in a hammock.

I watched the horizon. More than once I spotted monsters. A plume of water as tall as a skyscraper spewed into the moonlight. A row of green spines slithered across the waves— something maybe a hundred feet long, reptilian. I didn't really want to know.

'At least they didn't attack,' Hearth signed, he wasn't sure this ship could stand up to such a thing. 'Would sea monsters attack him?'

'I'm pretty sure just because he asked them nicely to stop and was related they wouldn't hesitate,' Thalia sighed.

Once I saw Nereids, the glowing lady spirits of the sea. I tried to wave at them, but they disappeared into the depths, leaving me unsure whether they'd seen me or not.

"Or it could have been a manatee," Magnus grinned, "that's where most of those mermaid myths came from, or a whale." He paused and reconsidered, "do monsters eat normal animals? Could they survive in that place?"

Percy was grinning to himself he really looked like his cousin when he started babbling off like that.

"They have no interest in them, so I'm sure they'd be fine," Will assured.

Sometime after midnight, Annabeth came up on deck. We were just passing a smoking volcano island. The sea bubbled and steamed around the shore.

"One of the forges of Hephaestus," Annabeth said. "Where he makes his metal monsters."

"Like the bronze bulls?"

She nodded. "Go around. Far around."

Nico finally lost whatever enthusiasm had been instilled in him by the whole guinea pig-Percy fiasco, but at least this time Will knew why. Everybody knew what had happened to Bianca when Percy paid his respects to her, Chiron even making her a shroud despite the fact she'd never been a camper after Nico saved their butts after the Battle of the Labyrinth. Will watched Jason who still had a forlorn air about his own past missing, Magnus winced at the idea of that place and Percy whispered how Tyson probably would have loved to see that, but nobody else seemed to notice, and he couldn't stand to do nothing.

He gave him just the gentlest nudge, still felt that swirling darkness in him and tried to infuse just a little bit of light into him when he whispered, "don't worry, I'll write you a doctor's note so you won't have to go there."

Nico spluttered on a laugh as he turned to look at him, equal surprise and amusement on his face finally making that sadness a lingering thing instead of all-consuming.

"Thanks," Nico felt his smile was a little stiff, he still wondered why Will even noticed that had bothered him let alone talked to him like he was normal, but damn if he wasn't starting to enjoy it.

I didn't need to be told twice. We steered clear of the island, and soon it was just a red patch of haze behind us.

I looked at Annabeth. "The reason you hate Cyclopes so much ... the story about how Thalia really died. What happened?"

It was hard to see her expression in the dark.

Percy was glad he couldn't too, because if she'd just been angry with him for asking again he would have kept asking. If she'd been about to cry in memory of her lost friend he might have let it go again. Now he held his breath with a pang as he let himself think of Tyson again, to be grateful the big guy would never have to live in a cardboard box in an alleyway ever again, wouldn't have to hear this.

"I guess you deserve to know," she said finally. "The night Grover was escorting us to camp, he got confused, took some wrong turns. You remember he told you that once?"

I nodded.

"Well, the worst wrong turn was into a Cyclops's lair in Brooklyn."

Thalia gave a hollow laugh. Considering how many wrong turns the trio had made on their last quest, and still fallen into a few traps during this one, she still couldn't understand how Grover had blamed himself for this.

"They've got Cyclopes in Brooklyn?" I asked.

"You wouldn't believe how many, but that's not the point.

Magnus made a huffy noise of disagreement that seemed a very important point to him, but now he was pretty sure he just wouldn't ever go there period.

This Cyclops, he tricked us. He managed to split us up inside this maze of corridors in an old house in Flatbush. And he could sound like anyone, Percy. Just the way Tyson did aboard the Princess Andromeda. He lured us, one at a time. Thalia thought she was running to save Luke. Luke thought he heard me scream for help. And me ... I was alone in the dark. I was seven years old. I couldn't even find the exit."

Percy winced as Magnus's voice shook terribly over this, perfectly imitating a cousin she'd never mentioned. Guilt was radiating off of him, how he'd likely been sitting around watching cartoons, or at the very worst having an asthma attack while she'd fought for her life during this.

She brushed the hair out of her face. "I remember finding the main room. There were bones all over the floor. And there were Thalia and Luke and Grover, tied up and gagged, hanging from the ceiling like smoked hams. The Cyclops was starting a fire in the middle of the floor. I drew my knife, but he heard me. He turned and smiled. He spoke, and somehow he knew my dad's voice. I guess he just plucked it out of my mind. He said, 'Now, Annabeth, don't you worry. I love you. You can stay here with me. You can stay forever.'"

"Wrong voice to pick," Thalia's voice dragged out every angry stab she'd wanted to lob herself, but it was a reminder Magnus needed that this ghost story wouldn't haunt her forever. At least Annabeth hadn't stabbed Tyson on sight.

I shivered. The way she told it—even now, six years later—freaked me out worse than any ghost story I'd ever heard. "What did you do?"

"I stabbed him in the foot."

The collective laugh that circled the room felt very unifying. It was what no seven-year-old should have to do, and the bravest thing they all wished they could.

I stared at her. "Are you kidding? You were seven years old and you stabbed a grown Cyclops in the foot?"

"I think that's the moment I fell in love," Percy declared as if that weren't already obvious.

"I thought it was back in the tunnel of love, so you're late to the party," Will chuckled.

"He had no hope of anything else happening the moment she called him seaweed brain, so it's about time he caught up," Thalia scoffed.

"Oh, he would've killed me. But I surprised him. It gave me just enough time to run to Thalia and cut the ropes on her hands. She took it from there."

"Yeah, but still ... that was pretty brave, Annabeth."

"As long as there's not a spider around, that girl sounds like she could take on anyone," Alex's tone clearly said he approved, and Magnus froze for a few breaths as he imagined introducing his only family to, well, his friend? He and Alex were friends, right?

She shook her head. "We barely got out alive. I still have nightmares, Percy. The way that Cyclops talked in my father's voice. It was his fault we took so long getting to camp. All the monsters who'd been chasing us had time to catch up. That's really why Thalia died. If it hadn't been for that Cyclops, she'd still be alive today."

Luke had hated the gods for her death, Grover had blamed himself, and Annabeth had hated all of Cyclops kind. Thalia stared back down that hill with a sea of monsters rushing towards her, Luke carrying away a screaming and protesting Annabeth while Grover called for help, and wished they'd all felt what she did, at peace with her sacrifice.

We sat on the deck, watching the Hercules constellation rise in the night sky.

"Go below," Annabeth told me at last. "You need some rest."

I nodded. My eyes were heavy. But when I got below and found a hammock, it took me a long time to fall asleep. I kept thinking about Annabeth's story. I wondered, if I were her, would I have had enough courage to go on this quest, to sail straight toward the lair of another Cyclops?

Just days ago Nico wouldn't have questioned such a thing existing, Percy was brave enough to take on the world to save everyone. Now he knew that Percy had been scared plenty in the past, that he'd needed help to even make it this far. He still admired him, but for some reason it wasn't quite as intense as it used to be.

I didn't dream about Grover.

"I'm sure he's so offended," Alex smirked.

Instead I found myself back in Luke's stateroom aboard the Princess Andromeda.

'How is this a worse nightmare than the Cyclops?' Hearth demanded.

'The evil mastermind is always worse than his lackeys', Magnus agreed.

The curtains were open. It was nighttime outside. The air swirled with shadows. Voices whispered all around me—spirits of the dead.

Beware, they whispered. Traps. Trickery.

Nico's eyes glimmered with interest. The same whispers haunted his dreams about Gaia, even worse murmurs of doom and earthly destruction. Percy's dream only confirmed to him he was on the right path searching for answers down in Tartarus.

Kronos's golden sarcophagus glowed faintly—the only source of light in the room.

A cold laugh startled me. It seemed to come from miles below the ship. You don't have the courage, young one. You can't stop me.

I knew what I had to do. I had to open that coffin.

"This is definitely not one of those times where someone should be encouraging you to follow your dreams," Jason shivered.

I uncapped Riptide. Ghosts whirled around me like a tornado. Beware!

My heart pounded. I couldn't make my feet move, but I had to stop Kronos. I had to destroy whatever was in that box.

Then a girl spoke right next to me: "Well, Seaweed Brain?"

"And now you're officially dreaming of Annabeth," Thalia chuckled, at least getting some fun out of this madness. "I'm surprised it took this long."

I looked over, expecting to see Annabeth, but the girl wasn't Annabeth. She wore punk-style clothes with silver chains on her wrists. She had spiky black hair, dark eye-liner around her stormy blue eyes, and a spray of freckles across her nose. She looked familiar, but I wasn't sure why.

"How many times do you dream of me?" The girl demanded now.

"To hell if I know," Percy shrugged, just as weirded out as she was. Once was strange enough.

"Well?" she asked. "Are we going to stop him or not?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't move.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Fine. Leave it to me and Aegis."

She tapped her wrist and her silver chains transformed— flattening and expanding into a huge shield. It was silver and bronze, with the monstrous face of Medusa protruding from the center. It looked like a death mask, as if the gorgon's real head had been pressed into the metal. I didn't know if that was true, or if the shield could really petrify me, but I looked away. Just being near it made me cold with fear. I got a feeling that in a real fight, the bearer of that shield would be almost impossible to beat. Any sane enemy would turn and run.

Thalia grinned as seven mouths opened now staring at the bracelet upon her wrist she'd been casually twirling around this whole time. "I haven't had a reason to draw it on you guys."

"Can I see it?" Alex demanded practically before she was done speaking.

"Look away," was the only warning they got before she gave it a purposeful tap. In less time than it had taken to be described the gruesome sight was before them now. Only Alex was left staring in awe at the piece of metalwork. Hearth sadly couldn't bring himself to go inspect this bit of magic, and Jason was cringing away just as much as Percy had been in that dream.

Even Alex wasn't immune for long though, and his fascination soon crumbled as he too had to look away. Thalia retracted it back with the same satisfied smile. "I'll bet I beat Kronos in that dream before you wake up," she challenged.

"As if," but Percy didn't seem that confident. He'd never really thought much about why she was alive now, when Annabeth knew her to be dead. His mom had died and come back after all, so it wasn't too strange. Now he sat here wondering how a powerful girl like her wasn't the child of the prophecy instead of him, when she clearly could do what he couldn't.

The girl drew her sword and advanced on the sarcophagus. The shadowy ghosts parted for her, scattering before the terrible aura of her shield.

"No," I tried to warn her.

But she didn't listen.

"Something we have in common," Thalia sighed tragically. Darn Annabeth for being right about the two of them.

She marched straight up to the sarcophagus and pushed aside the golden lid.

For a moment she stood there, gazing down at whatever was in the box.

The coffin began to glow.

"No." The girl's voice trembled. "It can't be."

From the depths of the ocean, Kronos laughed so loudly the whole ship trembled.

"No!" The girl screamed as the sarcophagus engulfed her in a blast of a golden light.

Percy jolted in his seat now, fighting back his trembling spine. Thalia's face was pale, her freckles standing out in the gloomy light of this room.

He'd known, somehow the prophetic power of a half-bloods dreams had been warning Percy even back then what Luke's future was. What her recurring nightmares still were. She couldn't save him, and he'd gladly kill her over and over to get what he wanted.

The devastated, accepting look on her face was enough to make anyone but the nosiest curd leave her to her thoughts over what that dream could have meant. All Percy could hope was that, for once, it had just been a bad dream and nothing else.

"Ah!" I sat bolt upright in my hammock.

Annabeth was shaking me. "Percy, you were having a nightmare. You need to get up."

"Wh—what is it?" I rubbed my eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Land," she said grimly. "We're approaching the island of the Sirens."

"I've heard of a siren," Alex waved his hand around as if trying to pull thoughts out of the air. "They sing to you and make you think they're the person you love most."

"It's certainly a part of their trickery," Thalia whispered more somber than ever. She wished her little sister hadn't volunteered to do this to herself, she'd still been fighting back tears years later just telling her she had, let alone what she'd seen even if Thalia had her guesses. Percy never would have tried talking her out of it, he knew her to well. Thalia would have though, learning a fatal flaw about yourself wasn't worth your life.

I could barely make out the island ahead of us—just a dark spot in the mist.

"I want you to do me a favor," Annabeth said. "The Sirens ... we'll be in range of their singing soon."

I remembered stories about the Sirens. They sang so sweetly their voices enchanted sailors and lured them to their death.

"No problem," I assured her. "We can just stop up our ears. There's a big tub of candle wax below deck—"

"I want to hear them."

Will face palmed and Magnus asked the ceiling, "why am I not surprised?"

"Shush and keep going," Alex flapped his hand around like he could pull the words out of Magnus's mouth faster, though not nearly with as much enthusiasm as usual since he had a pretty good guess Percy wouldn't be the one to hear it, taking away most of the fun.

I blinked. "Why?"

"They say the Sirens sing the truth about what you desire. They tell you things about yourself you didn't even realize. That's what's so enchanting. If you survive ... you become wiser. I want to hear them. How often will I get that chance?"

Nico looked like he was going to be sick at the thought, there were plenty of things stored away in his mind he was actively avoiding thank you.

Jason was looking from the door and back like he'd get up and go on a quest right this second to go find these things if could get away with it, and Will wasn't sure who he was more concerned with in that moment.

Coming from most people, this would've made no sense.

"But you know Annabeth," Thalia said without surprise.

But Annabeth being who she was— well, if she could struggle through Ancient Greek architecture books and enjoy documentaries on the History Channel, I guessed the Sirens would appeal to her, too.

She told me her plan. Reluctantly, I helped her get ready.

"She's the smarts and he's the momentum," Alex said out of the corner of his mouth just to Magnus. "Even when somebody should draw this to a stop."

"You were all for this five seconds ago," he muttered back.

"I don't want her to die, I just want to hear this deathly cool song," he corrected, "unless Annabeth suddenly appears to tell me the lyrics," he paused for dramatic effect for nothing to happen, "this is a bad idea."

"Good to know," Magnus grinned.

As soon as the rocky coastline of the island came into view, I ordered one of the ropes to wrap around Annabeth's waist, tying her to the foremast.

"Don't untie me," she said, "no matter what happens or how much I plead. I'll want to go straight over the edge and drown myself."

"Are you trying to tempt me?"

"True love is the threats you make along the way," Thalia snorted.

"Ha-ha."

I promised I'd keep her secure. Then I took two large wads of candle wax, kneaded them into earplugs, and stuffed my ears.

Annabeth nodded sarcastically, letting me know the earplugs were a real fashion statement. I made a face at her and turned to the pilot's wheel.

"I don't know how she's not ripping your ears off in jealousy to get her own," Magnus smiled hopefully she'd be back to reading in her cabin safely again in no time. His cousin was already on a dangerous quest to save her camp and was still adding to the life or death of it all in pursuit of knowledge. He definitely wasn't a child of any of that kind of god.

The silence was eerie. I couldn't hear anything but the rush of blood in my head.

Hearth started tapping Magnus almost painfully on the shoulder to interrupt what that could mean. Magnus spent a few complicated moments trying to explain that even when there was no noise, one could often hear their own body trying to communicate something was wrong. Hearth's hands fell to his lap.

As we approached the island, jagged rocks loomed out of the fog. I willed the Queen Anne's Revenge to skirt around them. If we sailed any closer, those rocks would shred our hull like blender blades.

I glanced back. At first, Annabeth seemed totally normal. Then she got a puzzled look on her face. Her eyes widened.

She strained against the ropes. She called my name—I could tell just from reading her lips.

Percy was glad now he hadn't been selective about what he could hear during this. He knew he wouldn't have been able to resist her pleas any more than the magical song.

Her expression was clear: She had to get out. This was life or death. I had to let her out of the ropes right now.

She seemed so miserable it was hard not to cut her free.

I forced myself to look away. I urged the Queen Anne's Revenge to go faster.

I still couldn't see much of the island—just mist and rocks—but floating in the water were pieces of wood and fiberglass, the wreckage of old ships, even some flotation cushions from airplanes.

How could music cause so many lives to veer off course? I mean, sure, there were some Top Forty songs that made me want to take a fiery nosedive, but still ... What could the Sirens possibly sing about?

"Something your soul longs to hear apparently," Will sighed. A tune so perfect every musician strived to create, a note that would entrap the world into listening forever. A tune even Apollo could never create, lest he turn into a monster himself.

For one dangerous moment, I understood Annabeth's curiosity. I was tempted to take out the earplugs, just to get a taste of the song. I could feel the Sirens' voices vibrating in the timbers of the ship, pulsing along with the roar of blood in my ears.

Thalia smacked Percy on the shoulder and muttered what an idiot he was even knowing she couldn't help the stray thought herself to get just a hint of that noise.

Percy didn't blame her as he rubbed at the spot, very glad himself this was one time his impulsive side hadn't shown through.

Annabeth was pleading with me. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

Percy was sitting far back in his seat now and biting his tongue against yelling at Magnus to skip this already, he was happier not having this memory back! He was saving her life, she'd asked for this, he knew all that, but still, he couldn't escape the scared animal in him wanting to run and hide from the memory of seeing her like this.

She strained against the ropes, as if they were holding her back from everything she cared about.

How could you be so cruel? She seemed to be asking me. I thought you were my friend.

I glared at the misty island. I wanted to uncap my sword, but there was nothing to fight. How do you fight a song?

I tried hard not to look at Annabeth. I managed it for about five minutes.

That was my big mistake.

Magnus groaned and looked ready to chuck the book into Percy's face. "That's a lot of people's mistake underestimating her."

"I won't let anything happen to her." All traces of the guinea pig were gone, Percy sat straight up in his seat now, not even reaching for his pen as tight as his hands were fisted. Like he was already telling the ocean itself to keep her safe and give her back.

When I couldn't stand it any longer, I looked back and found ... a heap of cut ropes. An empty mast. Annabeth's bronze knife lay on the deck. Somehow, she'd managed to wriggle it into her hand. I'd totally forgotten to disarm her.

Thalia smacked him again, harder, before wrapping her hands around the back of her neck and taking deep breaths. At least Annabeth hadn't taken it with her to stab him when Percy rescued her.

I rushed to the side of the boat and saw her, paddling madly for the island, the waves carrying her straight toward the jagged rocks.

I screamed her name, but if she heard me, it didn't do any good. She was entranced, swimming toward her death.

I looked back at the pilot's wheel and yelled, "Stay!"

"You and Annabeth should officially open an obedience school," Nico muttered as he tried his hardest not to look at Percy, or the book, or anything that would give away how much he wasn't looking forward to hearing Annabeth's perfect life had all worked out for her in the end too.

Then I jumped over the side.

I sliced into the water and willed the currents to bend around me, making a jet stream that shot me forward.

I came to the surface and spotted Annabeth, but a wave caught her, sweeping her between two razor-sharp fangs of rock.

I had no choice. I plunged after her.

I dove under the wrecked hull of a yacht, wove through a collection of floating metal balls on chains that I realized afterward were mines. I had to use all my power over water to avoid getting smashed against the rocks or tangled in the nets of barbed wire strung just below the surface.

I jetted between the two rock fangs and found myself in a half-moon-shaped bay. The water was choked with more rocks and ship wreckage and floating mines. The beach was black volcanic sand.

I looked around desperately for Annabeth.

There she was.

Luckily or unluckily, she was a strong swimmer.

"That girl could compete in the Olympics," Jason sat gawping at the book. "She's managing the same swim you are with none of the bonus!"

"She had to learn to keep up with Percy somehow, I bet she can hold her breath quite a while too," Thalia said saintly, but Percy shoved her all the same and told her to get her mind out of the gutter while the Norse kids seemed to get a laugh out of it too. Will was looking for it this time and noticed Nico clearly didn't find it all that funny.

She'd made it past the mines and the rocks.

She was almost to the black beach.

Then the mist cleared and I saw them—the Sirens.

Imagine a flock of vultures the size of people—

"Damn, and they already stand nearly half as tall as us," Alex said. "Good animal to pick though, being carrion birds."

"They eat dead meat," Nico added at the blank looks, "and a group of them can be called a wake, so, you know, all appropriate."

"You two know the strangest things," Percy informed them.

with dirty black plumage, gray talons, and wrinkled pink necks. Now imagine human heads on top of those necks, but the human heads keep changing.

I couldn't hear them, but I could see they were singing. As their mouths moved, their faces morphed into people I knew—my mom, Poseidon, Grover, Tyson, Chiron.

"I'm sure Clarisse is so offended she's not on that list," Nico muttered, still looking all around the room with a pinched-up look on his face.

All the people I most wanted to see. They smiled reassuringly, inviting me forward. But no matter what shape they took, their mouths were greasy and caked with the remnants of old meals. Like vultures, they'd been eating with their faces, and it didn't look like they'd been feasting on Monster Donuts.

Annabeth swam toward them.

Percy had his eyes closed, concentrating more on this than he ever had on anything in his life of not disturbing the ocean around him, of not stopping the memory from forming so that he could know she hadn't reached that shore. That he'd stopped her in time.

I knew I couldn't let her get out of the water. The sea was my only advantage. It had always protected me one way or another. I propelled myself forward and grabbed her ankle.

The moment I touched her, a shock went through my body, and I saw the Sirens the way Annabeth must've been seeing them.

Three people sat on a picnic blanket in Central Park. A feast was spread out before them. I recognized Annabeth's dad from photos she'd shown me—an athletic-looking, sandy-haired guy in his forties. He was holding hands with a beautiful woman who looked a lot like Annabeth. She was dressed casually—in blue jeans and a denim shirt and hiking boots—but something about the woman radiated power. I knew that I was looking at the goddess Athena.

Next to them sat a young man ... Luke.

Magnus wished that he could shut the book now, that he could skip this and let his cousin tell him this if she'd ever want to. Percy could tell them whenever he wanted, but no, his cousin was left out of this mess. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing was more questionable by the chapter.

The whole scene glowed in a warm, buttery light. The three of them were talking and laughing, and when they saw Annabeth, their faces lit up with delight. Annabeth's mom and dad held out their arms invitingly. Luke grinned and gestured for Annabeth to sit next to him—as if he'd never betrayed her, as if he were still her friend.

Behind the trees of Central Park, a city skyline rose. I caught my breath, because it was Manhattan, but not Manhattan. It had been totally rebuilt from dazzling white marble, bigger and grander than ever—with golden windows and rooftop gardens. It was better than New York. Better than Mount Olympus.

I knew immediately that Annabeth had designed it all. She was the architect for a whole new world. She had reunited her parents. She had saved Luke. She had done everything she'd ever wanted.

Nico sat there aghast that she hadn't gotten any of those people to where she wanted. He knew she was on decent terms with her mom and dad, but no god would ever settle for a mortal. She'd reconstructed camp and Olympus itself, but the architecture had been the background, her secondary wish. He'd always thought he and Annabeth only had one thing in common. He wanted to ask her if it had been worth it seeing something she could never have.

I blinked hard. When I opened my eyes, all I saw were the Sirens—ragged vultures with human faces, ready to feed on another victim.

I pulled Annabeth back into the surf. I couldn't hear her, but I could tell she was screaming.

She kicked me in the face, but I held on.

"Talk about not taking a hint," Alex muttered, glad in this case Percy wasn't all laid back. He'd need a stubborn side to keep up with Annabeth.

I willed the currents to carry us out into the bay. Annabeth pummeled and kicked me, making it hard to concentrate. She thrashed so much we almost collided with a floating mine. I didn't know what to do. I'd never get back to the ship alive if she kept fighting.

Thalia was twitching like a live wire she couldn't think up anything else either, that only Percy could have rescued her from this nightmare she was desperate to stay in.

We went under and Annabeth stopped struggling. Her expression became confused. Then our heads broke the surface and she started to fight again.

The water! Sound didn't travel well underwater. If I could submerge her long enough, I could break the spell of the music.

It seemed like a cool idea to Alex that Percy should have tried plunging the whole ship under the ocean once Annabeth had started being affected by the music, but Magnus was reading with a fury in every syllable to find out how they'd gotten out of this. Alex found it far more interesting to watch the tight lines of Magnus's face that could be sculpted into endless planes of worry that needed to be smoothed out first.

Of course, Annabeth wouldn't be able to breathe, but at the moment, that seemed like a minor problem.

"You have to breathe when you're an adult too Percy," but Thalia's teasing was a little bubble of levity itself easily passed over. She felt useless she couldn't do anything for that little girl she'd cared for so long ago, but knew whom Annabeth had needed right then, and it was none of those people in that utopia.

I grabbed her around the waist and ordered the waves to push us down.

We shot into the depths—ten feet, twenty feet. I knew I had to be careful because I could withstand a lot more pressure than Annabeth. She fought and struggled for breath as bubbles rose around us.

Bubbles.

I was desperate. I had to keep Annabeth alive. I imagined all the bubbles in the sea—always churning, rising. I imagined them coming together, being pulled toward me.

The sea obeyed. There was a flurry of white, a tickling sensation all around me, and when my vision cleared, Annabeth and I had a huge bubble of air around us. Only our legs stuck into the water.

Percy exhaled in relief before a small smile began to light his face. She'd been shivering and coughing in his arms, the lingering spell had left her face clouded in confusion and at that age he'd only looked at this girl who'd come to mean so much to him as a dearest friend. It was not the kiss he treasured in his memory of course, but he had a good feeling about this moment that had broken her heart. Maybe all of those people had broken it once before, but in that bubble, he'd been the breath she needed.

She gasped and coughed. Her whole body shuddered, but when she looked at me, I knew the spell had been broken.

She started to sob—I mean horrible, heartbroken sobbing. She put her head on my shoulder and I held her.

Percy's arms moved now over nothing, he exhaled again in frustration and started tapping his feet impatiently to get back to her already.

Fish gathered to look at us—a school of barracudas, some curious marlins.

Scram! I told them.

They swam off, but I could tell they went reluctantly. I swear I understood their intentions. They were about to start rumors flying around the sea about the son of Poseidon and some girl at the bottom of Siren Bay.

"Dolphins are terrible gossips, I'm sure the blobfish will hear about this by the end of the week," Percy rolled his eyes. Matt Sloan and every bully and rumor in the world couldn't take this from him.

"I'll get us back to the ship," I told her. "It's okay. Just hang on."

Annabeth nodded to let me know she was better now, then she murmured something I couldn't hear because of the wax in my ears.

Thalia had a pretty good guess what it could have been. 'Don't leave me.' Like everybody else in her life had by that point. Yet Annabeth had already known at that age it might still have happened in a few years' time. It was happening right now back above in the world. Her little sister had camp, Chiron, but now Percy had been ripped away from her too just like everybody else.

I made the current steer our weird little air submarine through the rocks and barbed wire and back toward the hull of the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was maintaining a slow and steady course away from the island.

"Looks like that ship doesn't take orders very well," Jason muttered as if that were any concern at all.

We stayed underwater, following the ship, until I judged we had moved out of earshot of the Sirens. Then I surfaced and our air bubble popped.

I ordered a rope ladder to drop over the side of the ship, and we climbed aboard.

I kept my earplugs in, just to be sure. We sailed until the island was completely out of sight.

Annabeth sat huddled in a blanket on the forward deck. Finally she looked up, dazed and sad, and mouthed, safe.

"Gods, that couldn't be another trick too, could it?" Alex knew it wasn't, or Annabeth still would have been trying to get away. He'd just said it to make Magnus look up at him in exasperation so he could smile at that big doofus look again. Magnus gave him a much more relaxed smile than the usual awkward mess, which was somehow more endearing than that goofy look he'd been getting.

I took out the earplugs. No singing. The afternoon was quiet except for the sound of the waves against the hull. The fog had burned away to a blue sky, as if the island of the Sirens had never existed.

"You okay?" I asked. The moment I said it, I realized how lame that sounded. Of course she wasn't okay.

"You get credit for asking," Will assured. At least it let her lead the conversation of whether she wanted to lie and pretend she was or not. He glanced at Nico and knew that sometimes you needed space to sort out your demons.

"I didn't realize," she murmured.

"What?"

Her eyes were the same color as the mist over the Sirens' island. "How powerful the temptation would be."

I didn't want to admit that I'd seen what the Sirens had promised her. I felt like a trespasser.

But I figured I owed it to Annabeth.

'She's either going to stab him or call him a seaweed brain,' Hearth signed confidently.

'She's exhausted, probably the latter,' Magnus nodded.

"I saw the way you rebuilt Manhattan," I told her. "And Luke and your parents."

She blushed. "You saw that?"

"What Luke told you back on the Princess Andromeda, about starting the world from scratch ... that really got to you, huh?"

She pulled her blanket around her. "My fatal flaw. That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris."

'I didn't think it was humorous?' Hearth frowned.

Thalia finger-spelled the word while Alex watched her intently. Percy asked nobody in particular why she was bringing that nasty stuff up right now. Magnus was smiling again as he kept reading.

I blinked. "That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?"

Percy waved his hand about as if encouraging them to keep laughing at him this time, his eyes still a million miles away on that boat as he'd seen her fight off her own smile.

She rolled her eyes. "No, Seaweed Brain. That's hummus. Hubris is worse."

"What could be worse than hummus?"

"Pate'," Will offered.

"What is that?" Percy demanded.

"I'm not sure, but the look on Lee's face when he tried some made me not want to find out," he shrugged.

"Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else ... even the gods."

"I can think of several things off the top of my head I can do better than those all-knowing idiots," Alex scoffed.

The room gave a collective wince like they all expected him to be struck down in his seat.

"It worries me how well you might get along with Annabeth," Thalia told him. Magnus still wasn't sure he found that a bad thing even as he took one more careful look around before trying to finish.

"You feel that way?"

She looked down. "Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really is messed up? What if we could do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless.

Magnus couldn't imagine how anybody could fix the world into perfection. He was numb to his miserable life most days, grieving his mother while shivering and wondering when his next meal was. How could Annabeth think she could fix that without stopping death itself?

No more summer reading homework."

"I'm listening."

"Well whoever is running this now clearly wasn't," Percy said to the ceiling.

"I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did—that's why the fire is still burning. That's why Olympus is still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: 'If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.' Don't you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?"

Alex raised an interested brow at the book as he knew Thalia was right, he did feel that way more often than not. He didn't think he had as much of a know-it-all attitude as Annabeth, but maybe people with hubris would always think that of each other.

"Um ... no. Me running the world would kind of be a nightmare."

"Then you're lucky. Hubris isn't your fatal flaw."

Jason laughed without humor. You couldn't exactly call one fatal flaw luckier than the other, but then, he'd have killed to know what his was, since it would just be one solid fact about him.

"What is?"

"I don't know, Percy, but every hero has one. If you don't find it and learn to control it ... well, they don't call it 'fatal' for nothing."

Percy began fiddling with his pen again, popping the cap on and off just enough to keep balancing in that mist like space where it glimmered in his hand and then pushed it back down. He had a feeling he did learn what his fatal flaw was. Despite his mothers best effort, he doubted he was saved from that particular Greek tragedy upon him.

Thalia let out a bitter laugh Luke had tried to exploit her's just like Annabeth's, his very own. If not hubris, then confidence, a sense of duty that you could do it yourself and didn't need others' help. A burden in her favor being Artemis's lieutenant, someone the girls in her charge relied upon and a vessel of the huntress goddess words who wasn't exactly on a schedule of checking in, leaving her in charge for months at a time.

Nico hated himself for the hot flash traveling up his throat, burning at his eyes. He'd tried to live up to Bianca's last words about him to his own fatal flaw, but usually he still felt like a stupid lost kid. He woke up every day telling himself not to hold onto his grudge against her for abandoning him, or Percy who would never be who he wanted, but it just left him feeling empty of anything else on his wandering travels until he'd heard the whispers of a new rising, the worst of all.

I thought about that. It didn't exactly cheer me up.

I also noticed Annabeth hadn't said much about the personal things she would change—like getting her parents back together, or saving Luke. I understood. I didn't want to admit how many times I'd dreamed of getting my own parents back together.

I pictured my mom, alone in our little apartment on the Upper East Side. I tried to remember the smell of her blue waffles in the kitchen. It seemed so far away.

Percy's mind flashed back to Tyson too, how lucky he'd been to have a friend like him keeping the monsters away without him even realizing why. What if he'd been attacked again, would his mom have fallen into another awful relationship with someone just as bad as Gabe? Being alone every night wondering if her only child was alive made him feel no less guilty though for what she suffered because of him.

"So was it worth it?" I asked Annabeth. "Do you feel ... wiser?"

She gazed into the distance. "I'm not sure. But we have to save the camp. If we don't stop Luke ..."

She didn't need to finish. If Luke's way of thinking could even tempt Annabeth, there was no telling how many other half-bloods might join him.

Nico came back to the here and now with ease as he glanced between Jason and Percy. The children of the gods had already been at war once, and it had been bloody and terrible. It had seemed no wonder to him that whoever those kids were that Jason so clearly needed to go back to should be a secret, lest they have another army of angry others on their borders.

I thought about my dream of the girl and the golden sarcophagus. I wasn't sure what it meant, but I got the feeling I was missing something. Something terrible that Kronos was planning.

What had the girl seen when she opened that coffin lid?

Annabeth couldn't have known at that time, Thalia wanted to assure herself. Nobody could have known what Luke would agree to do. Her little sister was wrong, some knowledge wouldn't change a thing. Whatever that dream had been, she was glad to be the one to have taken that look inside the coffin from both her friends so neither would have to live with the answer as long as they could.

Suddenly Annabeth's eyes widened. "Percy."

I turned.

Up ahead was another blotch of land—a saddle-shaped island with forested hills and white beaches and green meadows—just like I'd seen in my dreams.

My nautical senses confirmed it. 30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west.

We had reached the home of the Cyclops.

"Finally!" Percy burst out of his seat at last he was going to get Grover back.

"It's Alex's turn," Magnus scowled, holding the book closer. Thalia assisted by grabbing the back of his shirt and yanking him back into his seat, again.

"Well get on with it man!" Percy was beyond exhausted, he wanted his life back, and he wanted to hear Grover wasn't married!

Alex didn't even scowl at Percy as he reached for the book, so he seemed to agree.

#pjo #Percy Jackson #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #Nico di Angelo #Will Solace #Magnus Chase #Hearthstone #Alex Fierro #reading the books #fanfiction #fierrochase #solanglo #percabeth

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halothenthehorns · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter 16: A GOD BUYS US CHEESEBURGERS

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Alex asked seriously.

"Depends on the god," Thalia shrugged.

Percy responded just as seriously, "and the cheeseburger."

"He has a thing against those plant ones," Thalia stage whispered.

"Those black-bean ones aren't bad," he protested, "they're just a lie!"

"Moving on," Will chuckled.

The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and I was sure that was obvious.

"Poor Grover, I wonder if you smelt as bad as monsters by then," Will laughed.

"Let's hope he doesn't start throwing tin cans at us if so," Percy nodded.

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"We can't use phones, right?"

"I'm not talking about phones."

"Um, demigods still need to text with a phone, right?" Magnus asked, he'd believe almost anything at this point.

"Yes, you're about to see what those drachmas were for," was all Thalia would answer.

We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn't sure what Annabeth was looking for. The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humidity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at me, like a tidal wave about to crash into the city.

"I imagine people from out of town feel just as claustrophobic being in New York surrounded by buildings," Magnus said sympathetically.

'This realm is so strange, having a billion different types of cities that are barely held together and have little in common,' Hearth signed.

Magnus froze as he looked at him, for the first time wondering just how different his 'realm' was.

Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were three adolescents hanging out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.

Will was fascinated at this idea, kids had a tendency to loiter and play and laugh wherever they fancied in the most randomest of places, but he was the only one naïve enough to think some cop wouldn't instantly accuse them of being drug dealers or something. Jason had no specific memories, of course, but he had a feeling he'd had a few unpleasant interactions with mortals and their idea of authority. Each of them had experience being chased off by the cops for some reason.

"What exactly are we doing?" I asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"

"Don't look at me," she said. "The dining car wiped me out."

I fished out my last bit of change and passed Grover a quarter, which left me two nickels and one drachma from Medusa's place.

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."

'How does this continue to get stranger every chapter?' Magnus asked. 'I keep expecting sentences like that to stop being weird.'

'You're not alone this time' Hearth assured, but he was more than excited to find out, he'd never want to leave if they kept talking about how they use magic.

"What are you talking about?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."

"Instant messaging?"

"Iris-messaging," Annabeth corrected. "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."

The look of wonderment on many of their faces made Thalia feel like a proud parent showing off her world, her eyes lingered on Jason more than Percy as he grinned and looked from the book to the empty room as if hoping a rainbow would appear now so he could give it a try.

"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?"

"Well when you put it like that it sounds ridiculous," Nico rolled his eyes.

"Says the guy who communicates all of his messages through silent stares," Will sighed, he was so hard to read. He'd known Nico for years and was still trying to pick apart any details he could to try and get to really know him. It helped nothing he'd never spent longer than a month at camp before he vanished, randomly reappearing and then repeat.

Nico answered him, with a stare. His lips were stiff, he seemed unpleased, but there was a bend in the quirk of an eyebrow as he also seemed to be wondering something too, before turning back away.

Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow."

Sure enough, late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors.

Annabeth held her palm out to me. "Drachma, please."

I handed it over.

She raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering."

She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.

"Half-Blood Hill," Annabeth requested.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy haired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.

"Luke!" I called.

"How, nice," Thalia caught herself from saying convenient at the last second. She scolded herself for being paranoid, Annabeth hadn't been specific enough and Luke didn't have his fingers in everything!

What gods had been on who's side at this time though? Here she was, lying to Percy even if it was for a good reason, had the same thing been on Luke's mind, had he convinced himself they'd understand when it came out?

"Thalia," Percy asked quietly, "did you need that break?"

She gave him a weak smile. Percy wasn't dumb, he knew he didn't have the whole story and he already seemed to know Luke was connected somehow. She was nothing like Luke, she wasn't manipulating anybody. "No," she assured, "just hoping he's not up there to put out a fire or something, that could get awkward." She lightly fibbed and tried to laugh off.

Will smiled and played along, "oh, like the time Connor and Travis tried to build a bridge out in the forest for extra obstacles, ugh that was a disaster."

The others laughed and demanded details while Thalia smiled and said, "thanks though."

He turned, eyes wide. I could swear he was standing three feet in front of me through a screen of mist, except I could only see the part of him that appeared in the rainbow.

"Percy!" His scarred face broke into a grin. "Is that Annabeth, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"

"We're ... uh ... fine," Annabeth stammered. She was madly straightening her dirty T-shirt, trying to comb the loose hair out of her face.

Percy glowered and decided he might not like Luke as much as his first impression had led him to believe. Stupid, sandy-haired, swordsman...

"We thought-Chiron-I mean-"

"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded. "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"

"I'm right here," Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke's line of vision. "What kind of issues?"

Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop.

As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.

"Chiron had to-what's that noise?" Luke yelled.

"I'll take care of it.'" Annabeth yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight. "Grover, come on!"

"What?" Grover said. "But-"

"Give Percy the nozzle and come on!" she ordered.

Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle of Delphi, then he handed me the spray gun and followed Annabeth.

I readjusted the hose so I could keep the rainbow going and still see Luke.

"Chiron had to break up a fight," Luke shouted to me over the music. "Things are pretty tense here, Percy. Word leaked out about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how, probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound.

"It's nice we can all agree on some things," Will said cheerfully, so nobody but Thalia was quite sure why Nico tried so hard to suppress a laugh.

Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."

Nobody was laughing much now, the uncomfortable notion of the gods going to war with each other, the idea still a little to radical for some to wrap their heads around at all, and caused to many bad memories in those that recently had been in battle.

I shuddered to think that Clarisse's cabin would ever be on my dad's side for anything. In the next stall, I heard Annabeth and some guy arguing with each other, then the music's volume decreased drastically.

"I would pay all the Drachmas to sit in on that conversation instead," Percy said enthusiastically as he imagined her little stature telling someone like that off.

"If we could pick and chose what this book showed already we'd be at war with each other," Jason sighed.

"So what's your status?" Luke asked me. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."

I told him pretty much everything, including my dreams. It felt so good to see him, to feel like I was back at camp even for a few minutes, that I didn't realize how long I had talked until the beeper went off on the spray machine, and I realized I only had one more minute before the water shut off.

"I wish I could be there," Luke told me.

Nico scowled as he thought for himself, 'Poor thing having to stay and sow dissent in the background.'

"We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen ... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice.

"So was everybody apparently!" Jason scoffed this still seemed the only real evidence.

I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."

"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly."

"That's true," Luke said, looking troubled.

"Did he just hope nobody would notice that little plot hole?" Will grumbled.

"Still ... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."

"Is he accusing Annabeth of something?" Magnus demanded in the closest thing to outrage any of them had yet seen.

"If he is then he's a bigger scumbag than whoever started all of this," Alex agreed with a scowl. She hadn't been very taken with the know-it-all girl, but Annabeth had been instrumentally helpful to a boy she clearly didn't like and obviously worshiped Luke more than her own mother. What a horrible thing to imply about someone he should know better of!

We were both silent, until Luke seemed to realize what he'd said.

"Oh, hey," he protested. "I didn't mean Annabeth. She and I have known each other forever. She would never ... I mean, she's like a little sister to me."

The Norse kids looked soothed at least, while Jason was still compiling it all in his head, of everyone who had been mentioned and even unnamed people who hadn't. He didn't really think it was Annabeth either, she'd done nothing to sabotage the quest though she'd had ample opportunity. To much was still unknown to him, the timing of it all bothered him more than anything. Where was the motive to steal that bolt now?

I wondered if Annabeth would like that description.

"Let's just say it's a good thing she didn't hear it," Thalia muttered.

In the stall next to us, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash.

"Random question, of no consequence I'm sure," Alex began pleasantly, "has she ever drawn that knife on a mortal?"

"I reserve the right not to answer that," Thalia grinned.

'And here I was thinking Grover's shoe had 'accidentally' come off,' Hearth grinned.

"You'd better go see what that was," Luke said. "Listen, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."

"Oh ... uh, yeah!" I tried not to sound like a guilty liar. "Yeah, they've come in handy."

"Better than tripping you up," Nico said sardonically.

"Really?" He grinned. "They fit and everything?"

The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.

"Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver," Luke called, his voice getting fainter, "and tell Grover it'll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just-"

But the mist was gone, and Luke's image faded to nothing.

"I think I'm relieved," Magnus admitted, "I didn't feel like that was going to be helpful advice." Even if he hadn't done it on purpose, Luke had just annoyed him by even accidentally implying anything about Annabeth. Those shoes would have to save somebodies life to make up for it now.

I was alone in a wet, empty car wash stall.

Annabeth and Grover came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw my face.

Annabeth's smile faded. "What happened, Percy? What did Luke say?"

"Not much," I lied, my stomach feeling as empty as a Big Three cabin.

"How is it every time I talk to him I feel worse," Percy said sourly, he felt like a jerk for even saying it, Luke had been nothing but helpful, but some part of him felt just the smallest relief he'd said it aloud even if Thalia called him one.

'Good intuition,' Thalia kept to herself. "I think I'll blame Grover, nobody's blamed anything on him yet," she instead laughed off.

"Right, yeah, that must be it," Percy smiled back. "Maybe he got in my head he's the only one allowed to give me advice."

"Come on, let's find some dinner."

A few minutes later, we were sitting at a booth in a gleaming chrome diner. All around us, families were eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas.

Finally the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Well?"

I said, "We, um, want to order dinner."

"You kids have money to pay for it?"

Grover's lower lip quivered. I was afraid he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum.

"Charge people to watch, hell, you could make a mint if you let people start daring him to eat anything and payout big," Alex nodded.

"Maybe save that for plan B," Jason cautioned.

"Speaking of bets though," Magnus reminded, "they're in a burger joint! Final calls now for which god's going to show up and buy them a cheeseburger!"

"I think the only good option at this point is Pan there to scold us all," Percy sighed, "otherwise, this probably won't go well."

Annabeth looked ready to pass out from hunger.

I was trying to think up a sob story for the waitress when a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.

All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather-but leather that looked like ... well, Caucasian human skin.

'Why do I get the feeling this guy isn't there to talk about healthy plant-based alternatives?' Hearth frowned.

'You never know, he could have a garden at home,' Magnus replied without hope.

'That he buries bodies in!' Hearth protested.

The guy on the bike would've made pro wrestlers run for Mama. He was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, and he had the cruelest, most brutal face I'd ever seen- handsome, I guess, but wicked-with an oily black crew cut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights. The weird thing was, I felt like I'd seen his face somewhere before.

As he walked into the diner, a hot, dry wind blew through the place. All the people rose, as if they were hypnotized, but the biker waved his hand dismissively and they all sat down again. Everybody went back to their conversations.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Will sighed as he awkwardly gestured to the book, "a god you will not question is a god." They'd only gotten a glimmer with Dionysius, Ares was going to be a real glimpse into the Olympians.

The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, "You kids have money to pay for it?"

The biker said, "It's on me." He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Annabeth against the window.

He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, "Are you still here?"

"They didn't order anything," Alex scowled. She wasn't even there and she was already annoyed with this guy!

He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she'd been spun around, then marched back toward the kitchen.

The biker looked at me. I couldn't see his eyes behind the red shades, but bad feelings started boiling in my stomach. Anger, resentment, bitterness. I wanted to hit a wall. I wanted to pick a fight with somebody. Who did this guy think he was?

"I'm guessing, not the god of cheeseburgers," Jason frowned. An idea was chafing at the edge of his mind, Percy's impertinence to a god of such importance, yet this seemed like nobody he'd ever want to worship.

He gave me a wicked grin. "So you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?"

I should've been surprised, or scared, but instead I felt like I was looking at my stepdad, Gabe. I wanted to rip this guy's head off. "What's it to you?"

Even Percy's own friends were watching him in concern why he still had his own head for mouthing off to a god like this! How had he survived this meeting, let alone to his own age?

Annabeth's eyes flashed me a warning. "Percy, this is-"

The biker raised his hand.

"S'okay," he said. "I don't mind a little attitude. Long as you remember who's the boss. You know who I am, little cousin?"

Then it struck me why this guy looked familiar. He had the same vicious sneer as some of the kids at Camp Half-Blood, the ones from cabin five.

"You're Clarisse's dad," I said. "Ares, god of war."

They were all expecting it this time and still saw Jason spasm with frustration. Not right...they stole and distorted...destroyed-

Jason calmed himself with several deep breaths. Whatever Mars- err- Ares was to him was rooted to deep in his mind to get any clear idea on. He wanted, needed to get this horrible confusion out of his system, but the intense burning feeling for how this god was being shown to him was so backwards it only made his frustration at these constant lies grow and he retreated into his seat, scowling at nothing and refusing to look at anyone until the book continued.

Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should've been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions. "That's right, punk. I heard you broke Clarisse's spear."

"She was asking for it."

This, in Nico's mind, finally trumped his very first time seeing Percy be the bravest person on the planet. He really never flinched from a single fight! Medusa, he suddenly remembered, the Chimera... and now he felt disoriented at how, unsteady he suddenly felt, sitting down even. Ugh, no wonder everyone thought he was a nutjob.

"Probably. That's cool. I don't fight my kids' fights, you know? What I'm here for, I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you."

"Oh this will not go well," Alex said instantly, she'd never take a god asking her for anything, and this one was already as despicable in pleasure as Loki for how entitled he clearly was, waltzing in and interrupting their quest for his own problems!

The waitress came back with heaping trays of food; cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, and chocolate shakes.

Ares handed her a few gold drachmas.

She looked nervously at the coins. "But, these aren't..."

Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. "Problem, sweetheart?"

The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.

"You can't do that," I told Ares. "You can't just threaten people with a knife."

Ares laughed. "Are you kidding? I love this country. Best place since Sparta. Don't you carry a weapon, punk? You should. Dangerous world out there. Which brings me to my proposition. I need you to do me a favor."

"What favor could I do for a god?"

'Steal something,' Hearth nervously reminded.

"Something a god doesn't have time to do himself. It's nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town. I was going on a little ... date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me."

"Why don't you go back and get it yourself?"

The fire in his eye sockets glowed a little hotter.

"Why don't I turn you into a prairie dog and run you over with my Harley? Because I don't feel like it. A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Percy Jackson. Will you prove yourself a coward?" He leaned forward. "Or maybe you only fight when there's a river to dive into, so your daddy can protect you."

"A classic case of instigating, what a bully," even mercifully not being in the presence of him now, Percy could well remember the feeling he'd spent half his life under the influence of, between Gabe and the rich private-school pricks.

I wanted to punch this guy, but somehow, I knew he was waiting for that. Ares's power was causing my anger. He'd love it if I attacked. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

"A perfect way to overcome anger issues," Alex approved. "You must have had some good counselors."

"Some were better than others," Percy agreed.

"We're not interested," I said. "We've already got a quest."

Ares's fiery eyes made me see things I didn't want to see-blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. "I know all about your quest, punk. When that item was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis, and me, naturally. If I couldn't sniff out a weapon that powerful..." He licked his lips, as if the very thought of the master bolt made him hungry. "Well ... if I couldn't find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your dad and I go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath."

Nico glowered at the book and for the first time wondered how a god would react to stygian iron being shoved up their-

"And Poseidon believed him!" Will rolled his eyes. "This guy? Man Perce, I'm sorry if this is the best advice your dad had on the situation."

"Honestly, me too," Percy nodded.

Nico was tapping the pommel of his sword and smiling at the two instead now, even if he would still like to test the theory eventually.

"You told him Hades stole the bolt?"

"Sure. Framing somebody to start a war. Oldest trick in the book.

"So he's admitting it could be a frame-up," Magnus said, "please tell me he wasn't the only one offering up solutions."

"Wasn't there," Thalia reminded, "but I can't imagine it went very well regardless."

I recognized it immediately. In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest."

"Thanks," I grumbled.

"Hey, I'm a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I'll help you on your way. I'll arrange a ride west for you and your friends."

"We're doing fine on our own."

"Lies and deceit," Alex shook her head, "but I can't blame you."

"Yeah, right. No money. No wheels. No clue what you're up against. Help me out, and maybe I'll tell you something you need to know. Something about your mom."

"My mom?"

He grinned. "That got your attention. The water park is a mile west on Delancy. You can't miss it. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride."

"What interrupted your date?" I asked. "Something scare you off?"

Ares bared his teeth, but I'd seen his threatening look before on Clarisse. There was something false about it, almost like he was nervous.

'What could he have been sent off to do that makes a god of war nervous?' Hearth demanded.

'I should be asking you that so you can lie and say it's no big deal,' Magnus reminded.

"You're lucky you met me, punk, and not one of the other Olympians. They're not as forgiving of rudeness as I am. I'll meet you back here when you're done. Don't disappoint me."

After that I must have fainted, or fallen into a trance, because when I opened my eyes again, Ares was gone. I might've thought the conversation had been a dream, but Annabeth and Grover's expressions told me otherwise.

"Not good," Grover said. "Ares sought you out, Percy. This is not good."

I stared out the window. The motorcycle had disappeared.

Did Ares really know something about my mom, or was he just playing with me?

"He wouldn't lie about something so important," Jason muttered and was still scowling at nothing as if the god were still lodged in his temple, creating an angry new pulse point sprouting right out of his head.

"You and me must have very different interactions with this guy then," Percy shrugged, he hadn't believed a word out of Ares's mouth.

Now that he was gone, all the anger had drained out of me. I realized Ares must love to mess with people's emotions. That was his power, cranking up the passions so badly, they clouded your ability to think.

"It's probably some kind of trick," I said. "Forget Ares. Let's just go."

"We can't," Annabeth said. "Look, I hate Ares as much as anybody, but you don't ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune.

"As opposed to all the good fortune they've been getting?" Alex protested.

"This is all pretty standard quest activity, believe it or not," Will sadly informed. "Ares could still make it worse."

"And this is the optimist speaking," Thalia sighed.

He wasn't kidding about turning you into a rodent."

I looked down at my cheeseburger, which suddenly didn't seem so appetizing. "Why does he need us?"

"Maybe it's a problem that requires brains," Annabeth said. "Ares has strength. That's all he has. Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes."

"No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it," Alex assented to that.

"Quoting Disney movies to help your case is a cheap shot," Percy sighed even if he didn't disagree with either of them.

Magnus was smiling tentatively at her and finally had an actual, coherent question he wanted to ask, maybe something resembling a conversation he could start about some of her other favorites, but she was already reading again and this really wasn't the time.

"But this water park ... he acted almost scared. What would make a war god run away like that?"

Annabeth and Grover glanced nervously at each other.

Annabeth said, "I'm afraid we'll have to find out."

"I officially hate it when they look at each other!" Percy groaned.

Nico gave a soft laugh that no matter how much Percy said otherwise, he'd be leading the charge there and was probably about to perform some other history-making stunt. It was a water park, how could he do any wrong in there?

The sun was sinking behind the mountains by the time we found the water park. Judging from the sign, it once had been called WATERLAND, but now some of the letters were smashed out, so it read WAT R A D.

The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Inside, huge dry waterslides and tubes and pipes curled everywhere, leading to empty pools. Old tickets and advertisements fluttered around the asphalt. With night coming on, the place looked sad and creepy.

"There's a horror movie waiting to happen," Nico sounded curious about checking it out, he'd never been to one and loathed the idea of a crowded area, this seemed like a good middle ground.

"I'll go with you if you promise not to push me down one," Will sighed.

Nico gave him a bizarre look and Will flushed, wondering if he was being pushy and should just leave him alone. If he didn't want company and preferred to be alone then who was he to judge.

"Um, okay," Nico nodded but was still watching him like he was waiting for a trick of his own. Will was that nice to everybody, he reminded himself, he's not just taking pity on you.

"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date," I said, staring up at the barbed wire, "I'd hate to see what she looks like."

"Percy," Annabeth warned. "Be more respectful."

"Why? I thought you hated Ares."

"He's still a god. And his girlfriend is very temperamental."

"You don't want to insult her looks," Grover added.

"Who is she? Echidna?"

"Gah!" Thalia looked revolted at the idea, "can you imagine the monster baby they'd have! Artemis would have to hunt that with her special bow!"

"No, Aphrodite," Grover said, a little dreamily. "Goddess of love."

Jason finally exhaled like he'd been unnecessarily trying to hold his breath. Venus, his mind easily supplied, and Mars were off canoodling around Vulcan. Yes, that made sense, not everything had been lost to time by those-

The vicious thought ended there as he frowned at Thalia and all of the Greek kids, commanding his mind to pay attention and stop wandering off.

"I thought she was married to somebody," I said. "Hephaestus."

"What's your point?" he asked.

"Oh." I suddenly felt the need to change the subject.

"Isn't there a goddess of marriage? Magnus asked in fascination. "That one with a flamingo-" Hearth finger spelled something, "sorry, peacock. Yet the gods still skip around on each other?"

"They have multiple mortal lovers, they aren't any more faithful to their immortal lovers," Will shrugged.

"So how do we get in?"

"Maia!" Grover's shoes sprouted wings.

He flew over the fence, did an unintended somersault in midair, then stumbled to a landing on the opposite side. He dusted off his jeans, as if he'd planned the whole thing. "You guys coming?"

"Well now he's just showing off," Percy chuckled at his friend doing it with such confidence. This was the same kid who'd teared up in class if Nancy Bobofit looked at him for to long. Who knew all it took to gain a little confidence was some flying shoes and hitting Medusa with a stick. He really owed Luke a thanks when he got back, he reminded himself, and must just be feeling jealous about Annabeth's obvious crush.

Annabeth and I had to climb the old-fashioned way, holding down the barbed wire for each other as we crawled over the top.

"And she said you two couldn't get along," Alex approved, "I've never heard of a better team-building exercise."

Magnus bit his tongue to stop the ludicrous statement he'd help her through barbed wire before she threatened to strangle him with her garrote.

The shadows grew long as we walked through the park, checking out the attractions. There was Ankle Biter Island, Head Over Wedgie, and Dude, Where's My Swimsuit?

"I don't even know where to start," Jason was right back to being inquisitively curious and clearly mapping the whole place out in his head once more.

"I do," Thalia grinned at once as she imagined all the fun of that place. The hunters deserved a vacation when she got back too, and she was sure she could throw a few literal snapping turtles and alligators in to appease Artemis it wouldn't all be relaxing in the lazy river.

No monsters came to get us. Nothing made the slightest noise.

We found a souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise still lined the shelves: snow globes, pencils, postcards,

'Isn't a snow globe of a water park just the least bit weird?' Hearth frowned.

"That's what you found weird about all of this!" Magnus didn't even sign that he was so exasperated while his friend just shrugged.

and racks of-

"Clothes," Annabeth said. "Fresh clothes."

"Yeah," I said. "But you can't just-"

"Watch me."

She snatched an entire row of stuff of the racks and disappeared into the changing room. A few minutes later she came out in Waterland flower-print shorts, a big red Waterland T-shirt, and commemorative Waterland surf shoes. A Waterland backpack was slung over her shoulder, obviously stuffed with more goodies.

"What the heck." Grover shrugged. Soon, all three of us were decked out like walking advertisements for the defunct theme park.

"I'm sure that'll throw the police off if they catch up," Will tried his level best to say with a straight face.

"I know I'd hesitate if someone threw one of those flipflops at me," Nico wasn't even bothering to try the same and was snickering mirthlessly picturing Percy in an outfit like that, yet somehow he still looked so regal and perfect in the outlandish getup- he stopped so abruptly it should have been concerning as he straightened back up and only Will was still frowning at him for how spastic the poor guy kept acting over the lightest of topics.

We continued searching for the Tunnel of Love. I got the feeling that the whole park was holding its breath. "So Ares and Aphrodite," I said, to keep my mind off the growing dark, "they have a thing going?"

"That's old gossip, Percy," Annabeth told me. "Three-thousand-year-old gossip."

"What about Aphrodite's husband?"

"Well, you know," she said. "Hephaestus. The black-smith. He was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus.

Magnus spluttered in protest at such a horrible mental image, more concerned than anything this seemed casual news to everyone except his own friend who was now fidgeting with the ends of his scarf once more and seemed as distressed as him.

So he isn't exactly handsome. Clever with his hands, and all, but Aphrodite isn't into brains and talent, you know?"

"She likes bikers."

"Whatever."

"Hephaestus knows?"

"Oh sure," Annabeth said. "He caught them together once. I mean, literally caught them, in a golden net, and invited all the gods to come and laugh at them. Hephaestus is always trying to embarrass them. That's why they meet in out-of-the-way places, like ..."

She stopped, looking straight ahead. "Like that."

In front of us was an empty pool that would've been awesome for skateboarding. It was at least fifty yards across and shaped like a bowl.

Around the rim, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire.

On the opposite side from us, a tunnel opened up, probably where the water flowed into when the pool was full. The sign above it read, THRILL RIDE O' LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' TUNNEL OF LOVE!

Grover crept toward the edge. "Guys, look."

Marooned at the bottom of the pool was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top and little hearts painted all over it. In the left seat, glinting in the fading light, was Ares's shield, a polished circle of bronze.

"This is too easy," I said.

"Why do I have an even worse feeling than one page ago now?" Thalia sighed.

"Good instincts," Percy groaned, he didn't need his gut to tell him he should smack his own head for saying such a thing!

"So we just walk down there and get it?"

Annabeth ran her fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue.

"There's a Greek letter carved here," she said. "Eta. I wonder ..."

"Grover," I said, "you smell any monsters?"

He sniffed the wind. "Nothing."

"Nothing like, in-the-Arch-and-you-didn't-smell-Echidna nothing, or really nothing?"

Grover looked hurt. "I told you, that was underground."

"Okay, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath. "I'm going down there."

"I'll go with you." Grover didn't sound too enthusiastic, but I got the feeling he was trying to make up for what had happened in St. Louis.

"No," I told him. "I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. You're the Red Baron, a flying ace, remember? I'll be counting on you for backup, in case something goes wrong."

Grover puffed up his chest a little. "Sure. But what could go wrong?"

"I'm going to knock both of your heads together," Alex joined in on how not helpful that advice was.

"Hey, he has horns!" Percy protested.

"And you keep telling us to stop tempting the fates," Magnus backed her up.

Percy just crossed his arms but sighed in defeat.

"I don't know. Just a feeling. Annabeth, come with me-"

"Are you kidding?" She looked at me as if I'd just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red.

"What's the problem now?" I demanded.

"Me, go with you to the ... the 'Thrill Ride of Love'? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?"

"Somebody, like?" Jason asked dubiously.

"All of Olympus apparently," Thalia chuckled.

"Who's going to see you?" But my face was burning now, too. Leave it to a girl to make everything complicated. "Fine," I told her. "I'll do it myself." But when I started down the side of the pool, she followed me, muttering about how boys always messed things up.

"I take it back," Will was shaking with laughter now, "I want a copy of this book framed, let the god's wrath reign on me!"

"Me and her will sign it and everything," Percy said with no regrets as he gave his empty hand a squeeze where he wished her fingers were. He thought for the first time how lucky he was, getting to fall in love twice.

We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat, and next to it was a lady's silk scarf. I tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. Why?

Then I noticed something I hadn't seen from up top: mirrors all the way around the rim of the pool, facing this spot. We could see ourselves no matter which direction we looked. That must be it. While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favorite people: themselves.

Que eight collective snorts of amusement around the room, finally something they could all agree on.

I picked up the scarf. It shimmered pink, and the perfume was indescribable, rose, or mountain laurel. Something good. I smiled, a little dreamy, and was about to rub the scarf against my cheek when Annabeth ripped it out of my hand and stuffed it in her pocket. "Oh, no you don't. Stay away from that love magic."

'How much do you think she knows about love magic?' Hearth asked with extreme interest.

'Enough I'd be worried about the next thing she gave Percy,' he chuckled back.

"What?"

"Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let's get out of here."

The moment I touched the shield, I knew we were in trouble. My hand broke through something that had been connecting it to the dashboard. A cobweb, I thought, but then I looked at a strand of it on my palm and saw it was some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost invisible. A trip wire.

"Wait," Annabeth said.

"Too late."

"There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap."

"You guys are getting slightly better with every catastrophe," Thalia sighed, "now you know it's a trap right before it's sprung rather than figuring it out during it happening!"

"I've always taken whatever improvement I can," Percy shrugged.

Noise erupted all around us, of a million gears grinding, as if the whole pool were turning into one giant machine.

Grover yelled, "Guys!"

Up on the rim, the Cupid statues were drawing their bows into firing position. Before I could suggest taking cover, they shot, but not at us. They fired at each other, across the rim of the pool. Silky cables trailed from the arrows, arcing over the pool and anchoring where they landed to form a huge golden asterisk. Then smaller metallic threads started weaving together magically between the main strands, making a net.

"We have to get out," I said.

"And I thought Annabeth was the smart one," Will smirked.

"Duh!" Annabeth said.

"So that's why she's the smart one," Alex cackled.

I grabbed the shield and we ran, but going up the slope of the pool was not as easy as going down.

"Come on!" Grover shouted.

He was trying to hold open a section of the net for us, but wherever he touched it, the golden threads started to wrap around his hands.

The Cupids' heads popped open. Out came video cameras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding us with illumination, and a loudspeaker voice boomed: "Live to Olympus in one minute ... Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight ..."

"Hephaestus!" Annabeth screamed. "I'm so stupid.' Eta is H.' He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!"

"If that is the worst thing that happens I'd call it a good day," Will shrugged, it at least explained Ares's part in all this.

Jason wasn't so sure he agreed, he shifted uneasily at the idea of being the laughing stock of onlookers. Mars shouldn't be put into that kind of position either.

We'd almost made it to the rim when the row of mirrors opened like hatches and thousands of tiny metallic ... things poured out.

Annabeth screamed.

Thalia cussed in ancient greek and Magnus jumped free of his seat in pure concern to run to her now and help even before he heard the problem. Percy's empty hand was now clenched into a fist as he watched Alex's every twitch of the lips like he was trying to read for her.

It was an army of wind-up creepy-crawlies: bronze-gear bodies, spindly legs, little pincer mouths, all scuttling toward us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.

"Spiders!" Annabeth said.

Everybody else was wincing now as they understood. The poor girl clearly had a thing against arachnids and should not be subjected to them spontaneously popping up.

"Sp-sp-aaaah!"

I'd never seen her like this before. She fell backward in terror and almost got overwhelmed by the spider robots before I pulled her up and dragged her back toward the boat.

The things were coming out from all around the rim now, millions of them, flooding toward the center of the pool, completely surrounding us. I told myself they probably weren't programmed to kill, just corral us and bite us and make us look stupid. Then again, this was a trap meant for gods. And we weren't gods.

"Percy for the win of astute observations this chapter," Thalia groaned, no wonder her sister had never mentioned this particular adventure, she had no clue how they'd gotten out of this one and was resisting the urge to start smacking Percy to get on it if he wasn't wringing his hands with so much worry, she was getting concerned he'd start flinging the ocean about- wait. They were in a water park!

Annabeth and I climbed into the boat. I started kicking away the spiders as they swarmed aboard. I yelled at Annabeth to help me, but she was too paralyzed to do much more than scream.

Alex hadn't hesitated to see the scrutinizing look Thalia was giving her friend or much of anything, she was reading with complete concentration even over Magnus's burning gaze. At least now she knew a Halloween prank she would never pull on Annabeth.

"Thirty, twenty-nine," called the loudspeaker.

The spiders started spitting out strands of metal thread, trying to tie us down. The strands were easy enough to break at first, but there were so many of them, and the spiders just kept coming. I kicked one away from Annabeth's leg and its pincers took a chunk out of my new surf shoe.

Grover hovered above the pool in his flying sneakers, trying to pull the net loose, but it wouldn't budge.

Think, I told myself. Think.

The Tunnel of Love entrance was under the net. We could use it as an exit, except that it was blocked by a million robot spiders.

"Fifteen, fourteen," the loudspeaker called.

Water, I thought. Where does the ride's water come from?

Then I saw them: huge water pipes behind the mirrors, where the spiders had come from. And up above the net, next to one of the Cupids, a glass-windowed booth that must be the controller's station.

"Grover!" I yelled. "Get into that booth! Find the 'on' switch!"

"But-"

"Do it!" It was a crazy hope, but it was our only chance. The spiders were all over the prow of the boat now. Annabeth was screaming her head off. I had to get us out of there.

Grover was in the controller's booth now, slamming away at the buttons.

"Five, four-"

Grover looked up at me hopelessly, raising his hands. He was letting me know that he'd pushed every button, but still nothing was happening.

I closed my eyes and thought about waves, rushing water, the Mississippi River. I felt a familiar tug in my gut. I tried to imagine that I was dragging the ocean all the way to Denver.

"Two, one, zero!"

Water exploded out of the pipes.

"I've never had a book give an actual countdown for me before, usually I'm just doing that in my head," Jason sighed in relief.

"It's not over yet," Magnus cautiously lowered himself back into his seat even as he kept scrutinizing the book, he wanted to hear of his cousin back to chastising Percy or something to know she was okay after that sort of panic attack, very early childhood memories of her screaming like that over a spider in the park had convinced his mom early on not to take them outside to play much when she was over.

It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. I pulled Annabeth into the seat next to me and fastened her seat belt just as the tidal wave slammed into our boat, over the top, whisking the spiders away and dousing us completely, but not capsizing us. The boat turned, lifted in the flood, and spun in circles around the whirlpool.

The water was full of short-circuiting spiders, some of them smashing against the pool's concrete wall with such force they burst.

Spotlights glared down at us. The Cupid-cams were rolling, live to Olympus.

But I could only concentrate on controlling the boat. I willed it to ride the current, to keep away from the wall. Maybe it was my imagination, but the boat seemed to respond. At least, it didn't break into a million pieces. We spun around one last time, the water level now almost high enough to shred us against the metal net. Then the boat's nose turned toward the tunnel and we rocketed through into the darkness.

Thalia managed a genuine laugh again at least as she imagined Annabeth blushing scarlet to chase away her pale face, this scene playing out for all of them to watch. She and Percy got that Thrill Ride of Love after all.

Annabeth and I held tight, both of us screaming as the boat shot curls and hugged corners and took forty-five-degree plunges past pictures of Romeo and Juliet and a bunch of other Valentine's Day stuff.

"That honestly sounds like the best tunnel of love ride ever," Will chuckled.

"I'd be happy to send anybody else crazy enough down there," Percy promised, "but please don't be getting ideas of putting this in camp."

"Where's your fun side gone Perce!" Will couldn't stop grinning at him.

"Safe in Denver," Percy reminded.

Then we were out of the tunnel, the night air whistling through our hair as the boat barreled straight toward the exit.

If the ride had been in working order, we would've sailed off a ramp between the golden Gates of Love and splashed down safely in the exit pool. But there was a problem. The Gates of Love were chained.

Two boats that had been washed out of the tunnel before us were now piled against the barricade, one submerged, the other cracked in half.

"Unfasten your seat belt," I yelled to Annabeth.

"Are you crazy?"

"Unless you want to get smashed to death." I strapped Ares's shield to my arm. "We're going to have to jump for it." My idea was simple and insane.

"I really wish that wasn't such a common thing with you," Jason muttered. They were only on the first book and this guy seemed to be made up of nothing but crazy ideas and killer monsters on his tail.

As the boat struck, we would use its force like a springboard to jump the gate. I'd heard of people surviving car crashes that way, getting thrown thirty or forty feet away from an accident. With luck, we would land in the pool.

Annabeth seemed to understand. She gripped my hand as the gates got closer.

"On my mark," I said.

"No! On my mark!"

"What?"

"Simple physics!" she yelled. "Force times the trajectory angle-"

"Fine.'" I shouted. "On your mark!"

"Look at you two cooperating, this is obviously destiny," Magnus sighed and relaxed back in his seat in pure relief again she was definitely okay.

She hesitated ... hesitated ... then yelled, "Now!"

Crack!

Annabeth was right.

"I take it back, I get to blackout some passages before Annabeth signs this," Percy theatrically sighed.

"Not a chance," Will's smirk increased.

If we'd jumped when I thought we should've, we would've crashed into the gates.

She got us maximum lift.

Unfortunately, that was a little more than we needed. Our boat smashed into the pileup and we were thrown into the air, straight over the gates, over the pool, and down toward solid asphalt.

Nico was enthralled by hearing of all this. Even in Annabeth's wisdom, her mistakes meant just as many mess-ups. Percy hadn't the perfect solution and saved the day single-handed, he had no doubts who was about to swoop in and save them. He swallowed as he watched his idol lounge back comfortably in his seat now, adjusting finally to the disorienting feeling of his pedestal getting some cracks in it. That Percy was just, normal.

Something grabbed me from behind.

Annabeth yelled, "Ouch!"

Grover!

In midair, he had grabbed me by the shirt, and Annabeth by the arm, and was trying to pull us out of a crash landing, but Annabeth and I had all the momentum.

"You're too heavy!" Grover said. "We're going down!"

We spiraled toward the ground, Grover doing his best to slow the fall.

We smashed into a photo-board, Grover's head going straight into the hole where tourists would put their faces, pretending to be Noo-Noo the Friendly Whale. Annabeth and I tumbled to the ground, banged up but alive. Ares's shield was still on my arm.

Once we caught our breath, Annabeth and I got Grover out of the photo-board and thanked him for saving our lives. I looked back at the Thrill Ride of Love. The water was subsiding. Our boat had been smashed to pieces against the gates.

A hundred yards away, at the entrance pool, the Cupids were still filming. The statues had swiveled so that their cameras were trained straight on us, the spotlights in our faces.

"Show's over!" I yelled. "Thank you! Good night!"

The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. The park went quiet and dark again, except for the gentle trickle of water into the Thrill Ride of Love's exit pool. I wondered if Olympus had gone to a commercial break, or if our ratings had been any good.

"Number one I'm positive, you'll have a dozen seasons in no time," Alex nodded seriously.

"Action, adventure, comedy, even a stupid love triangle, you'll be raking in the views," Will mocked along.

"Who's in the triangle?" Nico looked at him oddly, the back of his neck feeling unreasonably hot, oh gods, was he that obvious? Just because Percy was normal didn't mean he had a chance against a ship that had long since sailed.

"You don't think Grover's got a shot with either of them?" Will gave him an exaggerated mock pout, "I was rooting for it!"

"Moving on," Thalia cut in with an exasperated laugh.

I hated being teased. I hated being tricked. And I had plenty of experience handling bullies who liked to do that stuff to me. I hefted the shield on my arm and turned to my friends. "We need to have a little talk with Ares."

"It won't stay little for long," Alex said with confidence, imagining the yelling Percy could hopefully get out of his system as she passed the book along to him.

#PJO #Percy Jackson #reading the books #fanfiction #Will solace #Nico di Angelo #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #Hearthstone #Magnus Chase #alex fierro #fierrochase #Solanglo

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