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halothenthehorns · 2 years ago

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Chapter 3: WE HAIL THE TAXI OF ETERNAL TORMENT

Enjoy my birthday gift to all of you! Next one on Monday, which all updates will continue on!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Nico read casually enough this time, just trying to blend in and pretty sure he was doing it alright and that the others were muttering in confusion about the odd chapter title as usual, not him.

"Does Hades own a taxi?" Jason fidgeted in place if they were being dragged back to the Underworld for some reason.

"Do you never get the gum off the seats?" Alex asked in disgust.

'I've never been in a taxi, what would qualify as torment in them?' Hearth asked.

'The same thing that qualifies out of them,' Magnus uneasily promised, though he'd never been in one either.

Annabeth was waiting for us in an alley down Church Street. She pulled Tyson and me off the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Meriwether Prep.

"I wonder if fire stations took bids on putting a homing beacon on you," Thalia grinned.

"More like begged the police to take it," Percy sighed.

"Where'd you find him?" she demanded, pointing at Tyson.

Now, under different circumstances, I would've been really happy to see her. We'd made our peace last summer, despite the fact that her mom was Athena and didn't get along with my dad. I'd missed Annabeth probably more than I wanted to admit.

Percy smiled sadly now. According to Thalia, he'd only been away from her for three days, but since she was the only memory he'd woken up with before he'd started getting them back, it felt much longer.

But I'd just been attacked by cannibal giants, Tyson had saved my life three or four times, and all Annabeth could do was glare at him like he was the problem.

Percy was grateful for the first time Annabeth wasn't here though, he felt like the center in a tug-o-war all of a sudden as his first impulse was to snap at her for being so rude to his friend, when he wasn't even sure that's what Tyson was to him. He groaned and rubbed his temples in frustration the smartest person he knew always gave him such a headache.

Thalia gave him a commiserating pat on the shoulder and hated not being able to explain this to him even if she could, she wasn't quite sure herself why this cyclops had latched onto Percy and sort of wanted this whole story herself.

"He's my friend," I told her.

"Is he homeless?"

Magnus and Alex frowned for the spurn they could imagine in Annabeth's voice Nico tried hard to hide, but it was a strange question even without that. If Tyson was some kind of monster, where did she expect him to live?

"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don't you ask him?"

Hearth ducked low in his seat as Magnus shifted closer to him with real frustration for his cousin. Tyson was being treated the same way his deaf friend was for what reason again?! After he'd just saved Percy's life!

She looked surprised. "He can talk?"

"What is he that you are not seeing?" Alex demanded even knowing nobody would answer.

"I talk," Tyson admitted. "You are pretty."

"Ah! Gross!" Annabeth stepped away from him.

I couldn't believe she was being so rude.

Even Nico and Will were clearly surprised about Annabeth's dislike of Percy's brother and exchanged a mystified look for it, only Thalia was left truly guilt ridden again while holding her tongue and not speaking of their mess of a journey.

I examined Tyson's hands, which I was sure must've been badly scorched by the flaming dodge balls, but they looked fine—grimy and scarred, with dirty fingernails the size of potato chips—but they always looked like that. "Tyson," I said in disbelief. "Your hands aren't even burned."

"Of course not," Annabeth muttered. "I'm surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around."

Annabeth might not like him much, Jason reasoned out, but she wasn't trying to stab Tyson either, she wasn't concerned he was around. Whatever he was, this must be something personnel to Annabeth, like his odd feelings about faw- satyrs.

Tyson seemed fascinated by Annabeth's blond hair. He tried to touch it, but she smacked his hand away.

"Annabeth," I said, "what are you talking about? Laistry-what?"

"Laistrygonians. The monsters in the gym. They're a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once,

'They're not the only thing you and Odysseus will run across on this trip,' Thalia kept to herself.

but I've never seen them as far south as New York before."

"Laistry—I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Canadians," she decided.

The eight of them burst out laughing hard, and then Alex had to escalate the joke, "did they have to get visas to come here and try to eat you?"

"I thought they were only violent about hockey," Magnus's laugh was a touch more forced than the others, but he wasn't holding a grudge against whatever Annabeth's ignorance was until he could talk to her about it.

"Now come on, we have to get out of here."

"The police'll be after me."

"Again," Will added. "Does that happen before every time you come to camp?"

"Man I hope not, my mom doesn't need the extra stress," Percy sighed, feeling awful already for the knock she'd be getting on her door about this.

"That's the least of our problems," she said. "Have you been having the dreams?"

"The dreams ... about Grover?"

Her face turned pale. "Grover? No, what about Grover?"

I told her my dream. "Why? What were you dreaming about?"

Her eyes looked stormy, like her mind was racing a million miles an hour.

"Camp," she said at last. "Big trouble at camp."

"My mom was saying the same thing! But what kind of trouble?"

"I don't know exactly. Something's wrong.

They wanted to believe her and give benefit of the doubt thanks to her fabulous reappearance and saving Percy's skin, but since there was already something she wasn't saying about Tyson, they were still pretty on edge.

We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing me all the way from Virginia, trying to stop me. Have you had a lot of attacks?"

I shook my head. "None all year ... until today."

"None? But how ..." Her eyes drifted to Tyson. "Oh."

"What do you mean, 'oh'?"

Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class.

'The polite way to interrupt a conversation,' Hearth nodded.

'As opposed to Blitz kicking that guy in the shins,' Magnus agreed.

"Canadians in the gym called Percy something ... Son of the Sea God?"

Annabeth and I exchanged looks.

I didn't know how I could explain, but I figured Tyson deserved the truth after almost getting killed.

"Big guy," I said, "you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena—"

"Yes," Tyson said.

"Well ... those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they're in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods."

"Yes," Tyson said, like he was still waiting for me to get to the point.

"So am I," Alex said impatiently.

"Um, noting his lack of surprise here for Percy," Jason mock raised his hand.

"Duly noted," Percy sighed.

"Uh, well, Annabeth and I are half-bloods," I said. "We're like ... heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That's what those giants were in the gym. Monsters."

"Yes."

I stared at him. He didn't seem surprised or confused by what I was telling him, which surprised and confused me.

"And I now vouch for a third surprised and confused party," Magnus assured.

"So ... you believe me?"

Tyson nodded. "But you are ... Son of the Sea God?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "My dad is Poseidon."

Tyson frowned. Now he looked confused. "But then ..."

A siren wailed. A police car raced past our alley.

"We don't have time for this," Annabeth said. "We'll talk in the taxi."

"We're not about to have to overcome another rivalry or something are we?" Percy asked, how many other gods could hate his dad? He just knew Tyson tied into Poseidon somehow...

"Um, no?" But Thalia didn't sound to certain herself, she wasn't looking forward to Percy feeling in the middle of his little brother and Annabeth until they made nice, but at least she knew they did eventually. Annabeth spoke fondly of Tyson nowadays.

"A taxi all the way to camp?" I said. "You know how much money—"

"Trust me."

I hesitated. "What about Tyson?"

I imagined escorting my giant friend into Camp Half-Blood. If he freaked out on a regular playground with regular bullies, how would he act at a training camp for demigods? On the other hand, the cops would be looking for us.

"I guess your mom wouldn't just hide him in the closet for you," Alex mock agreed, though she recalled Sally could see through the mist and must have known Tyson wasn't mortal this whole time, so he was more assured than ever Tyson meant Percy no harm.

"We can't just leave him," I decided. "He'll be in trouble, too."

"Yeah." Annabeth looked grim. "We definitely need to take him. Now come on."

Annabeth's reluctant acceptance of Tyson was even stranger than Percy's though, Jason was more uneasy than ever. Did the monster have some way to lull people into falsely trusting him? Yet why had he saved Percy then?

I didn't like the way she said that, as if Tyson were a big disease we needed to get to the hospital, but I followed her down the alley. Together the three of us sneaked through the side streets of downtown while a huge column of smoke billowed up behind us from my school gymnasium.

"Here." Annabeth stopped us on the corner of Thomas and Trimble. She fished around in her backpack. "I hope I have one left."

She looked even worse than I'd realized at first. Her chin was cut. Twigs and grass were tangled in her ponytail, as if she'd slept several nights in the open. The slashes on the hems of her jeans looked suspiciously like claw marks.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

All around us, sirens wailed. I figured it wouldn't be long before more cops cruised by, looking for juvenile delinquent gym-bombers. No doubt Matt Sloan had given them a statement by now. He'd probably twisted the story around so that Tyson and I were the bloodthirsty cannibals.

"Found one. Thank the gods." Annabeth pulled out a gold coin that I recognized as a drachma, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus's likeness stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other.

"Annabeth," I said, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."

"Percy, I think she knows that," Alex promised.

"Doesn't make me feel better about what she is doing," Percy promised.

"Stêthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ô hárma diabolês!"

As usual, the moment she spoke in the language of Olympus, I somehow understood it. She'd said: Stop, Chariot of Damnation!

Magnus was looking around pleadingly for someone to tell him he hadn't heard what he just heard. No such luck. His cousin was actively summoning damnation now.

'Why couldn't it be a Dalmatian,' Hearth pouted. 'I would love a chariot of dogs.'

'Same buddy,' Magnus nodded.

That didn't exactly make me feel real excited about whatever her plan was.

'After your plan was to blow up a boys locker room, I can't imagine this'll be worse,' Hearth reminded.

"Do I want to know what he said?" Percy asked, as Hearth had been looking at him when he signed that.

"He says your plans are equally as bad as Annabeth's so you have no room to complain," Magnus translated.

Alex was practicing the sign for boy in fascination and Hearth leaned behind Magnus to correct his fingers while Percy didn't even deny it.

She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right through and disappeared.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space—bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Jason protested. "You could have taken a Taxi to LA last time!"

"Oh no," Thalia corrected, "they work out of that tri-state area only," she drew an invisible circle in the water like that would clear it all up.

"Plus tipping them is the worst," Nico sighed. He'd only been in it once and had gotten nothing but fake compliments from them about his dad, he'd figured out how to shadow travel the very next day out in the middle of nowhere when they'd dumped him out. He'd rather sleep in China for another week than try summoning them again anyways.

It was a taxi, all right, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn't yellow. It was smoky gray. I mean it looked like it was woven out of smoke, like you could walk right through it.

There were words printed on the door—something like GYAR SSIRES—but my dyslexia made it hard for me to decipher what it said.

"Why wouldn't it be in Greek considering their cliental?" Alex asked.

"Why do you keep expecting anything in this to make sense?" Magnus asked back.

Alex reached over and gave him a mock pat on the hand to sympathize, and Magnus would swear all the blood rushed to his face and that tingling bit of nerves for several moments.

The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she'd just had a shot of Novocain. "Passage? Passage?"

"Three to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at me to get in, like this was all completely normal.

"Oh, so it's not just me," Magnus said in relief.

"No, it is," Alex mocked, "I'm a little jealous actually, do you know how hard it is to get a taxi? Let alone in an even busier city!"

Percy wanted to come to the guy's defense and assure he was still catching up too, but Magnus always looked so riveted anytime Alex spoke to him it felt rude to interrupt.

"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!"

She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.

What was it? Pick-on-Big-and-Ugly-Kids Day?

"You do hear what you just thought right?" Alex confirmed.

"They're my thoughts," Percy protested, "I don't have to be nice and censored in my head! Just because the guy wouldn't win a beauty pageant doesn't mean he should be treated like that!"

Alex raised his hands in surrender to let that one go.

"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."

"Done!" the woman screamed.

Reluctantly I got in the cab. Tyson squeezed in the middle. Annabeth crawled in last.

The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough. The seat was cracked and lumpy— no different than most taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating us from the old lady driving ... Wait a minute. There wasn't just one old lady. There were three,

"They're not knitting blue socks again are they?" Jason asked.

"Wrong old ladies," Will corrected.

"How many are there?" Jason sounded way to excited about more crazy triplets out there.

"To many to count," Nico promised, and he'd once tried to collect them all. Stupid exclusive packs...

all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering her eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress.

The one driving said, "Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!"

She floored the accelerator, and my head slammed against the backrest. A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!

I looked down and found a large black chain instead of a seat belt. I decided I wasn't that desperate ... yet.

"I'm curious what the limit on that desperation is," Thalia asked.

"I'd be wearing it now," Percy settled farther back into his beanbag now for this coming ride.

The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the gray lady sitting in the middle screeched, "Look out! Go left!"

"Well, if you'd give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!" the driver complained.

Wait a minute. Give her the eye?

"I have so many questions," Magnus rubbed his own eyes in exhaustion what bizarre thing was going on on top of a taxi coming out of the ground.

"Give it a chance to explain," Alex leaned forward eagerly in his seat and wondered who he could most easily steal a drachma from to try this next.

I didn't have time to ask questions because the driver swerved to avoid an oncoming delivery truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling thump, and flew into the next block.

"Wasp!" the third lady said to the driver. "Give me the girl's coin! I want to bite it."

"You bit it last time, Anger!" said the driver, whose name must've been Wasp. "It's my turn!"

"Is not!" yelled the one called Anger.

The middle one, Tempest, screamed, "Red light!"

"Brake!" yelled Anger.

Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box. She left my stomach somewhere back on Broome Street.

"These chicks put GTA to shame," Will was wondering if the mortals were somehow inspired through the Mist and an accidental ride in this thing.

"What's that?" Nico asked, trying not to make the same mistake as last time and wanting to stay on at least Will's good side today in case there was anything else he might be warned about before hand rather than bumbling along even slower than Percy putting this together.

"A game, the Stoll's sneak them into camp sometimes and we all take turns playing and keeping Chiron from confiscating it as long as possible. Anyways, very violent, lots of car crashes," Will had felt morally guilty just for playing the stupid thing and had never been allowed more than one turn as he wouldn't run over the pedestrians, let alone what Clarisse got up to.

"Excuse me," I said. "But ... can you see?"

"No!" screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.

"The blind person is driving!" Magnus repeated like they'd missed that.

"And probably still better at staying in their lane than half of New York," Will grinned.

"Speak for yourself," Percy said as he rubbed his stomach again.

"No!" screamed Tempest from the middle.

"Of course!" screamed Anger by the shotgun window.

I looked at Annabeth. "They're blind?"

"Not completely," Annabeth said. "They have an eye."

"One eye?"

"Yeah."

"Each?"

"No. One eye total."

"Because that clarified things," Magnus frowned, but he'd swear he remembered seeing some cartoon movie when he was little about Hercules and three ladies arguing over an eye declaring they knew everything...it wasn't one of his favorites and his mom had shut it off when she caught him watching.

Next to me, Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. "Not feeling so good."

"Oh, man," I said, because I'd seen Tyson get carsick on school field trips and it was not something you wanted to be within fifty feet of. "Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?"

The three gray ladies were too busy squabbling to pay me any attention. I looked over at Annabeth, who was hanging on for dear life, and I gave her a why-did-you-do-this-to-me look.

"Payback for something I'm sure," Thalia shrugged.

"I'd still like to see that look," Alex chuckled as he imagined the puppy eyes Percy could give, but all he got for his troubles was Percy scowling at him too along with Thalia.

"Hey," she said, "Gray Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp."

"Then why didn't you take it from Virginia?"

"That's outside their service area," she said, like that should be obvious. "They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities."

"We've had famous people in this cab!" Anger exclaimed. "Jason! You remember him?"

"Wait, what!" Jason sat up so hopefully in his seat, it sort of broke Thalia's heart to remind, "um, she might not mean you."

"That Jason of myth might have sought them out, and well, immortals aren't very good at keeping track of time," Will sadly pointed out. Nobody needed clarification after Oceanus himself had gotten Magnus confused with Annabeth and countless other unnamed kids just this morning.

"We can ask them when we get out of here though if we don't find out," Thalia promised.

"Oh, right, yeah," Jason sat back in his seat and tried not to look as dispirited as he felt. It was of the most mild comforts he might have another option in Thalia for getting some sort of answer as he glanced at Nico, who kept reading without missing a beat like his words from last night had still never happened.

"Don't remind me!" Wasp wailed. "And we didn't have a cab back then, you old bat. That was three thousand years ago!"

There was his answer anyways, but somehow he wasn't surprised. The idea of going to New York just didn't sit right in his mind, where as he still felt homesick if he even considered looking for a place in California Nico had only mentioned if he thought about it for to long.

"Give me the tooth!" Anger tried to grab at Wasp's mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.

"Only if Tempest gives me the eye!"

"No!" Tempest screeched. "You had it yesterday!"

"But I'm driving, you old hag!"

"Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!"

Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street, squishing me between Tyson and the door. She punched the gas and we shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour.

The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp's face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest's. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other,

"That chapter title was no lie," Magnus looked past carsick, "this is eternal torment for them, and us for having to know they exist."

"I'll be sure to scratch this one off your datebook," Alex grinned, but there was no mocking, doubled edged, teasing tint to it like usual. He sincerely meant he wouldn't drag Magnus into this thing with him when he tried it himself.

Magnus was very glad he wasn't reading as his brain shut down for just a moment.

I realized that none of the sisters had any teeth except for Wasp, who had one mossy yellow incisor. Instead of eyes, they just had closed, sunken eyelids, except for Anger, who had one bloodshot green eye that stared at everything hungrily, as if it couldn't get enough of anything it saw.

Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp's mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, "'Ivit back! 'Ivit back!"

Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.

"Uh, if anybody's interested," I said, "we're going to die!"

"That does interest more people than you'd think," Nico said.

"There's a reason we don't use this thing unless we're in a hurry," Will agreed, but he was just a tad grateful for their arrival that day considering the camp might have burnt down if they'd gotten there any later.

"Don't worry," Annabeth told me, sounding pretty worried. "The Gray Sisters know what they're doing. They're really very wise."

This coming from the daughter of Athena, but I wasn't exactly reassured. We were skimming along the edge of a bridge a hundred and thirty feet above the East River.

"So only Percy would survive, ironic as this was Annabeth's idea," Will looked a little queasy like he was in the ride too.

"Consider velocity rates and the angle they crash," Jason seemed weirdly calm in the face of this danger as he did some mental imaging's and math, "he might get launched onto dry land and still die."

"Thanks man, real comforting," Percy snorted.

"Yes, wise!" Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. "We know things!"

"Every street in Manhattan!" Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. "The capital of Nepal!"

"The location you seek!" Tempest added.

Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either side, screaming, "Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn't even ask yet!"

"Great, now people are throwing quests in your lap before the disaster's even happened," Magnus frowned.

"The disaster did happen," Percy reminded, tapping his temple impatiently. "Something's wrong with Grover, I hope he's the location they mean but-" he stopped with an ugly wince for trying to sort any of this mess out and Nico kept reading quickly.

"What?" I said. "What location? I'm not seeking any—"

"Nothing!" Tempest said. "You're right, boy. It's nothing!"

"Tell me."

"No!" they all screamed.

"Never say it's only the Aphrodite girls that can be a tease," Will looked just as offended as everyone else they'd brought it up and denied what they meant.

"The last time we told, it was horrible!" Tempest said.

"Eye tossed in a lake!" Anger agreed.

"Years to find it again!" Wasp moaned. "And speaking of that—give it back!"

"No!" yelled Anger.

"Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!"

She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and something flew out of Anger's face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into my lap.

Percy made a squealing noise of disgust and surprise, jumping out of his seat so hard the water launched him into the domed ceiling and right back into his beanbag chair. He didn't even seem to notice as he kept rubbing his lap with a look nobody needed to imagine anymore had been there at the time.

I jumped so hard, my head hit the ceiling and the eyeball rolled away.

"I can't see!" all three sisters yelled.

"Give me the eye!" Wasp wailed.

"Give her the eye!" Annabeth screamed.

"Nobody ever mention eyeballs again!" Percy snapped at the book, this was definitely a memory with Annabeth he might have been happier leaving where ever he'd lost it.

"I don't have it!" I said.

"There, by your foot," Annabeth said. "Don't step on it! Get it!"

"I'm not picking that up!"

"What would happen if you like," Alex mimed stabbing it, and Percy was still holding his pen even with no monster around, he felt to threatened to put it away.

"I don't want to find out," Thalia shivered at what could happen to such a powerful magical object.

The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.

'That would not surprise me,' Hearth nodded.

"I don't think anybody's ever taken a taxi to the Underworld, please don't try to be the first," Nico muttered.

"Going to be sick!" Tyson warned.

"Annabeth," I yelled, "let Tyson use your backpack!"

"Are you crazy? Get the eye!"

Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. We hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any human taxi. The Gray Sisters screeched and pummeled each other and cried out for their eye.

At last I steeled my nerves. I ripped off a chunk of my tie-dyed T-shirt, which was already falling apart from all the burn marks, and used it to pick the eyeball off the floor.

"Oh thank the gods," Percy scrunched his hands up into his shirt one last time to get the idea of the residue off.

"Nice boy!" Anger cried, as if she somehow knew I had her missing peeper.

"I'm half surprised they didn't leap over the back of the seat and strangle you for it," Jason wasn't so surprised they had a sixth sense for the thing, they had to have found it somehow in that lake.

"Give it back!"

"Not until you explain," I told her. "What were you talking about, the location I seek?"

"No time!" Tempest cried. "Accelerating!"

I looked out the window. Sure enough, trees and cars and whole neighborhoods were now zipping by in a gray blur. We were already out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.

"Percy," Annabeth warned, "they can't find our destination without the eye. We'll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces."

"First they have to tell me," I said. "Or I'll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic."

"I am going to take the sharpest arrow I can find and embed a sense of danger into your skull," Thalia promised.

"I've always wanted a tattoo," Percy said without concern, his face still hilariously scrunched up like the biggest regret he had of all this was that eyeball still in his hand while he threatened his own death.

"No!" the Gray Sisters wailed. "Too dangerous!"

"I'm rolling down the window."

"Wait!" the Gray Sisters screamed. "30, 31, 75, 12!"

"4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, see, I can scream random numbers too," Alex threw his hands up in exasperation.

"Maybe he wins the lottery on it," Magnus hadn't taken his eyes off him again for half the chapter.

"Maybe I have to do a math problem with it to find the square root of a castle and we're all doomed, I can promise we won't figure it out until we get there," Percy sighed.

They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play.

"What do you mean?" I said. "That makes no sense!"

"30, 31, 75, 12!" Anger wailed. "That's all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!"

We were off the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island. I could see Half-Blood Hill ahead of us, with its giant pine tree at the crest—Thalia's tree, which contained the life force or a fallen hero.

"Percy!" Annabeth said more urgently. "Give them the eye now!"

I decided not to argue. I threw the eye into Wasp's lap.

Percy looked far to relieved when the vehicle hadn't even been stopped yet, but he even repeated the motion now like he was still trying to get that thing away.

Alex mock caught it and pretended to study it for several moments before Magnus started snickering and Nico tried to finish.

The old lady snatched it up, pushed it into her eye socket like somebody putting in a contact lens, and blinked. "Whoa!"

She slammed on the brakes. The taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill.

Tyson let loose a huge belch. "Better now."

"At least somebody around here is," Will nodded.

"Whew, that is one worry off my check list," Alex mock wiped his forehead and really rolled his eyes.

"All right," I told the Gray Sisters. "Now tell me what those numbers mean."

"No time!" Annabeth opened her door. "We have to get out now."

"Is Annabeth in on what that means too!" Magnus groaned, his cousin sure had the best and worst of all the timing.

I was about to ask why, when I looked up at Half-Blood Hill and understood.

At the crest of the hill was a group of campers. And they were under attack.

"There's never a welcoming party when I arrive at camp, only world saving quests and monster attacks!" Percy grumbled as Will took the book. "Just once I'd like to arrive to some handshakes and slaps on the back for showing up."

"We'll throw you a whole dang celebration when we get back," Will promised, "if Annabeth doesn't kill you first."

#PJO #Percy Jackson #reading the books #fanfiction #HDYSG #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #Hearthstone #Magnus Chase #Alex Fierro #Will solace #Nico di Angelo #solanglo #fierrochase #Sea of Monsters

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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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