Chapter 3: Charlie

Station Wagons are not Tough

When Charlie thought about what annoyed her, loincloth-clad berserkers who tried to kill her and then told everyone the world was ending wouldn't have ranked the list, but that was because she hadn't met one until yesterday.

Now, they were top ten. Maybe top five, along with head colds, people who did crossfit, PowerPoint presentations, and Zoe.

The trying to kill her wasn't so bad, but the end of the world clocked a hard six on the list, and Ajax probably did crossfit to boot.

She felt like it was a bad sign to say she was used to people trying to kill her, but she was. About once a week, some muscle-bound fighter would kick down a door and demand to fight her under the Challenge of Ares, and since she was honor-bound by it, she had to fight them. It had gotten tedious fast. Humiliate the god of war once and spend a lifetime kicking around eager combatants with muscles instead of brains.

She really suspected Ares just had it out for children of Bellona, the first god of war to the Romans. Mars had made the transition after the Roman conquest of Greece, but Bellona had always been a Roman goddess of war. That was an insult to Ares, one that Charlie took some personal pride in. Rome had slowly forgotten Bellona, but war was as constant as the sea or sky. A war goddess could never truly be forgotten.

Also, after Rome conquered Greece, often, Bellona was depicted as Mars's twin sister, which had to have made family reunions awkward.

Of course, Reyna hadn't been cursed by Ares. Charlie figured he had probably cursed her because she had punched him out after she caught him flirting with Zoe at the afterparty when the crew of the Argo II returned from defeating Gaia. She hadn't known it was Ares at the time, but she would've done it anyway. The flirting had been even weirder because Ares had maintained a long-term relationship with Zoe's mom.

The Challenge was definitely an honorable mention for the list. People flirting with Zoe also an honorable mention. It used to rank higher, but she'd learned to get used to the fact that Zoe invited comments because she was smart, endearing, and beautiful. At least she got to take comforting that Zoe was her girlfriend.

Really, this end of the world might not have even ranked a six. She'd fought in the second Titanomachy and killed a Titan. She'd fought in the war with Gaia, helping defend stateside from unkillable monsters as the crew of the Argo II sailed to the ancient lands. This, compared to those, seemed like it would hardly stack up. She knew overconfidence was the worst trait in a fighter, but still.

Of course, the news still had the departing demigods nervous that morning, more than usual. Leaving the Convention at the best of times could still be life-threatening, just like either camp.

The Convention had been a brilliant idea by Leo Valdez, but no one would tell him that. He'd come up with it after seeing the Waystation, a magical stronghold in Indianapolis. The Waystation could hide demigods from monsters and acted as a safehouse for travelers. Leo had described building a similar structure, halfway between each camp, where demigods could gather in safety.

So, in heartland Kansas, because the real halfway point was in Nebraska but no one wanted to build there, Annabeth Chase and Leo Valdez had worked together to create a new camp, a convention point between the two others. Nestled in a crook of the Arkansas river, between Dodge City and Wichita, sat the Convention.

The open-roofed dining hall occupied the center of the camp. Radiating out from it, like little satellites, were an armory and a shrine for each and every God in Greek and Roman myth, checked against Jason Grace's notes to ensure they were all accounted for. Personally, Charlie thought it went beyond excessive, but no one asked her.

Sleeping quarters ringed the central buildings. A square field at the south of camp contained the myriad of travel options the demigods used, from pegasi to mundane cars. And circling the entire camp, a trench of Leo's design, bursting with traps, threatened to blast any stray monster to the moon. A wall of Mist so thick it could erase a mortal's memory entirely ringed the trench, further ensuring its isolation.

Charlie stood at the edge of the transportation yard, looking out over the camp as demigods nervously mounted pegasi or strapped on flying shoes behind her.

Leaving the Convention meant leaving behind its defenses and entering a world plagued with monsters, but this time, they also had to fear they might be being hunted by strange, powerful other demigods.

Around half of the demigods would stay. A few manned the Convention full-time, ensuring there would always be defense, just in case. Out of all three permanent demigod encampments, she preferred the Convention. It had less people. Another honorable mention for the list: people in general.

Zoe and her split their time between it and Camp Jupiter, where they had an apartment in New Rome, so Zoe could attend the university.

Zoe, dressed in tall boots, black pants, a halter, and wearing aviator sunglasses, came walking across the field toward Charlie. She grinned and clapped Charlie on the arm once she reached her side.

"It's time we got out of Dodge," Zoe said, making her voice lower and gravelly.

Without fail, every time they left the Convention, Zoe would say that. Then, once they crossed the border into Colorado or Missouri on their way to the other camps, she'd inform everyone they weren't in Kansas anymore.

Hard top five on the list.

Zoe was most of a foot shorter than Charlie, but she was short compared to most everyone. It just got exacerbated around her. She had perfect, pale skin, huge blue eyes, fine features, and her hair grew out of her head snow white. Her eyebrows were a silvery-gray.

Opposites weren't supposed to attract, but Charlie didn't know how else she could explain them.

She stares back at Zoe. Zoe nodded once and put her hands on her hips, looking back out over the camp as well. Demigods scurried about, saying goodbyes and packing and hauling their stuff.

They watched as Chiron, Will Solace, and several Camp Half-Blooders made for the Mist barrier on horseback. A moment later, they disappeared through it.

Ajax, clad in jeans and a loose shirt he'd procured somehow, joined them a few moments later. He, too, watched the exodus.

"I wish them all the best of luck," he said.

"We should get a move on, too," Zoe said. "I was thinking, if the SOBGs left before Ajax, they could be well on their way to either destination, unless …" she frowned. "How did you get here, Ajax?"

"Little journey through the World Tree," Ajax replied. "It's dangerous, though, and I wouldn't use it to try and get anywhere with more Olympian influence than this. Those things can get dicey."

"SOBGs?" Charlie questioned.

"Sons of Bad Gods," Zoe replied. "See, it sounds like sons of bitches, but it's a more clever acronym."

Charlie contemplated asking Ajax to try cutting her head of with his axe again.

"I would point out that they weren't all men," Ajax said. "If I had to find a flaw."

"Oh, yeah," Zoe frowned. "I'll keep working on it. Charlie, I can tell by your silence that you love it, but we may have to change it out."

She decided having Ajax try to kill her was futile and settled for more silence instead. Zoe spun on her heel and pointed to a car.

"We're taking that," she said. "I'll drive until we hit Nevada."

Charlie turned to see a weather-beaten, brown station wagon. She sighed, picked up her hammer from where she'd left it resting upright on its head next to her, and stalked to the car.

They made it to the highway without dying, and Charlie settled back in her seat, propped her legs up on the dash, and wondered how much of the 1000-mile drive she could sleep through. The Curse made it so that whenever she could take a nap, she would spring for it. Zoe and Ajax were busy asking each other questions, so now was her moment.

"So, did you fight in Ragnarok without being einherji?" Zoe asked.

"Yes," Ajax replied. "Well, if I'm honest, Ragnarok was mostly averted. But that's a story for another time. Suffice it to say that while the End of Days didn't happen, the war we did fight required each and every fighter we had." He sighed. "Part of why we were so unprepared for this threat may have been the toll that war took on us."

"So now, though, do you just wait for it to all happen again?" Zoe asked. "I mean, even if Ragnarok is averted, doesn't it just repeat?"

"We'll have a lull, for a time," Ajax said. "But yes, the cycle will begin again. Loki will betray the gods. Fenrir will be bound. Hel will rise, and the All-Father will fight for his life again."

He looked to Zoe from his place in the backseat of the station wagon and raised an eyebrow.

"You know quite a bit of mythology," he said. "Where'd you learn it?"

"I dabbled while in school," she explained. "I figured, hey, ours is real. Why not others? And you were! I knew there were more."

Ajax nodded, and they drove in silence for a minute. Charlie started to nod off, but then Ajax asked her a question. She mentally pushed him closer to the number one spot on the list.

"I understand the Curse of Achilles, to some degree," he said. "It makes you invulnerable?"

"Yup," Charlie said, leaving her eyes closed.

"But not just anyone can claim it," he continued.

"Nope," she said.

She hoped it would end there, but then Zoe took up for her.

"It's really a boon, not a curse," Zoe said, "the boon of the Styx, a river in the Underworld. If you can bathe in it and survive, you become invincible and gain super strength and speed."

"And in the story, his heel is still vulnerable," Ajax said. "Something about retaining his sanity? Or mortality? I don't recall."

"If you submerge yourself completely, you die," Charlie grunted.

"Unless you're a stubborn, bull-headed jerk," Zoe smirked.

Ajax looked between them and raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't leave a vulnerability?" he asked. "How?"

"She cheated," Zoe nodded.

"I swore on the river Styx I wouldn't die in the river Styx," she said, blinking her eyes open with a sigh. She was just going to have to participate. "You can't break oaths on the Styx."

"That's not true and it shouldn't have worked," Zoe proclaimed. "You can break the oaths, but then the Styx enacts vengeance. You just cheated."

Ajax laughed loudly.

"The nerve!" he cried. "How'd you know it would work?"

"She didn't!" Zoe threw up a hand. "She just got lucky! She's the first Roman and first woman ever to get the Curse, too."

Charlie just inclined her head. She'd cheated. Zoe just didn't know the full truth of it: that she had been dying anyway, and that she'd sworn a different oath and the river had brought her back to life.

"I took a chance," Charlie shrugged. "Koios was going to kick our collective ass to the Fields of Punishment."

"Koios was the Titan of foresight," Zoe explained. "We likely couldn't have defeated him on our own. Even Khronos respected Koios. Charlie became invincible, truly invincible, to defeat him."

Charlie made to close her eyes again.

"Who is your godly parent, Zoe?" Ajax inquired.

Charlie leaned back, intending to start her nap, when Zoe tapped on the brakes, thrusting Charlie forward against her seatbelt and then snapping her back into her seat. She glared at Zoe, who said looked forward innocently. Neither said anything. A slow smile crept across Ajax's face.

"Aphrodite," Zoe said to Ajax.

"Ah, yes," Ajax said. "She is the goddess of love?"

"Love, beauty, some say shallowness," Zoe replied. "Do not, under any circumstance, bring up her age. She's the oldest Olympian, but boy, do not remind her. I saw her turn a guy into a pug once for it. She's like Freya, but, believe it or not, she sleeps around less. And she's not, like, goddess of fifty other things either."

"I see," Ajax nodded. "And you, Charlie?"

"Bellona," she replied.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Goddess of war," she said.

Bellona was nowhere near as active in her children's lives as, say, Aphrodite. Zoe's mom met her for coffee and to go shopping on weekends. Charlie had never even met Bellona. Her hammer and Bellona's blessing, to be a master of weapons, of war, of conquest, were her mom's gifts to her.

"Romans had two gods of war," Zoe explained. "Bellona-sometimes called Duellona-and Mars."

"That seems excessive," Ajax frowned.

"It's not so different from the Norse," Zoe said. "Frey is also the god of beauty, isn't he?"

"Ah," Ajax nodded. "But Frey is about beauty in nature where Freya is beauty in people. Do they have differences?"

"Bellona is about conquering," Charlie said. "Mars represented the good aspects of war for the most part. Bellona was more savage, relentless."

Ajax nodded again.

"Ajax," Zoe said. "That woman you described, with three aspects and a raven. That sounds like The Morrigan."

"I'm sure you're right," Ajax said, "but you'll have to help me. I have little knowledge outside of the Norse and the tiny portion of Olympian I know."

"Well, just like the Greeks and Norse had a trio of fates, Celtic myth did, sort of," Zoe said. "The Morrigan. They're different than the Norns or the Fates because they're kind of one being that has three different aspects. They're seductive and deadly. Cu Chulainn was the only mortal ever to resist their charm, I think, and he got killed for it."

"Awesome," Charlie muttered.

"She did have a way of twisting one's mind with words," Ajax nodded. "Although I know not if she could see the future. She would change mannerisms and behavior when she changed aspects, though."

"I'd bet Charlie's ass she's a child of The Morrigan," Zoe nodded. "Which means she's probably super tricksy and dangerous."

Charlie deadpanned Zoe, who ignored her.

"I could have told you that," Ajax joked.

"What about the others?" Zoe asked.

Down the road, Charlie noticed a strange, enormous man standing in the middle of the highway. He was bigger than Ajax and covered in what looked like blue scales. Cats simply parted around him, somehow not colliding with each other. She could see glimmer of the massive amount of Mist surrounding him.

"I ain't sure," she growled, "but he's probably one of 'em."

Zoe noticed him at the same time and frowned. She checked the GPS tracker and sighed.

"Well," she said. "We made it fifty miles before something went wrong. On the bright side, that means, if we keep this average, we'll only have to deal with 19 more problems."

Ajax leaned forward and poked his head between the two front seats to look at the man for himself.

"Huh," he said. "He's new."

That was all they had time to say before they reached him.

Up close, Charlie saw his face wasn't covered in scales. Instead, it was a sickly green color and vaguely fish-like, thin, with wide, black eyes. He looked right at their car and grinned. They drew within five feet of him, and he waved with one ham-sized hand and slammed the other as a fist into the passenger door.

Metal crumpled, glass shattered, and the car spun out of control. Charlie grunted as glass bounced off of her. A second impact rocked the car from the other side, and Charlie realized they must have hit another car. Zoe shouted something lost in the screech of tires and car horns blaring.

Charlie hit her head on the seat, bounced off, hit the dashboard, and left a dent in it. The driver's side airbag exploded in Zoe's face and she disappeared. They careened off the shoulder of the road and came to a halt in the grassy strip of land there.

Several seconds passed before Charlie kicked her brain into gear and pulled her face out of the dashboard. She undid her seatbelt and yanked herself out of it. Then, she unlocked her door, kicked it open, and surged out of the car.

She took the scene in quickly. It looked like they'd grazed a truck, which had stopped in the shoulder several feet down the road. A few other cars had swerved and collided, causing a jam. And stepping onto the grass was Rock Guy.

He was even uglier than she'd first thought. The scales covering him looked rock-like and brittle. They crackled as he moved. He had a gash of a mouth and a squash nose. His beady eyes stared out from under a heavy brow, and they locked onto her.

He raised his fists and punched the ground. The earth cracked under the blow, and a tremor ran through the ground, unbalancing her. She stumbled and he crossed the space between them in a blink of an eye, delivering a cross to her chin that would have instantly pulverized her jaw and snapped her neck had she not had the Curse. Instead, it merely threw her to the ground and dazed her.

He followed up with a blow to her back that drove her at least four inches into the ground. She couldn't be sure the exact measurement since she was suddenly staring at and chewing on dirt.

Suddenly, above her, Ajax burst from the car, yelling a battle cry. She heard the thunk of his axe hitting something solid, and she took the instant of not being punched further to Earth's core to stand up, just in time to intercept a blow meant to kill Ajax. With her face.

It knocked her into the car, denting the metal further. She sighed. First, her airbag didn't go off, not that she needed it, but given the chance, she'd have not put a her-face-shaped dent in the dashboard. Now, she'd added one to the ground and to the side of the car.

She spat out the dirt in her mouth, roared, and punched Rock Guy back as Ajax nimbly danced out of the way of the next blow. Her hit spun his head to the side. He responded by uppercutting her over the car.

Her head launched back and her feet left the ground. She soared into the air and landed in an ungraceful heap on the other side of the crippled station wagon. She could just hear her mom.

Fight smarter, maggot! You swing like a girl! Only a fool fights without a weapon! No pain, no gain!

For some reason, she always imagined Bellona sounding like a high school gym teacher. Or an army drill sergeant. She doubted either was accurate, but you never knew.

She picked herself back up just as Zoe popped open her door and plopped to the ground with an "ow." Her nose looked bruised and her sunglasses had broken, but otherwise, she looked fine. She reached back by the seat and unlocked the trunk, then nodded blearily at Charlie.

"Go get 'em, babe," she grinned, slurring her words.

Charlie reassessed Zoe's condition to "possible concussion."

"Stay awake!" she commanded, rushing to the trunk.

On the other side of the car, Ajax had led Rock Guy away by staying just out of his reach. Ajax now dodged Rock Guy's blows a safe distance away from the car and the highway.

Charlie pulled her hammer from the trunk. Five feet long, forged from Stygian iron, with a double-sided head the size of a medium dog, it was heavy, unwieldy, and unlike some demigod's weapons, she had to carry it around as a hammer all the time, all of which would have made it a poor choice of weapon for anyone but her. Easily strong enough to wield it without the Curse, with it, the hammer weighed no more than a broom.

She charged Rock Guy's back, roaring again. He began to turn as she reached him, whipping her hammer around in an across-body blow. It caught him in the chest and crushed the rock there. Splinters of stone flew in every direction, and he staggered, grunting. Unfortunately, he did not go down. Ajax laughed in sheer amazement.

"Oh, that's horrible!" he exclaimed.

"You know," she growled. "It really is."

She spun her hammer up to deflect Rock Guy's counterattack, and she managed to land another blow to his chest, causing more stone to fly. He took several steps back, reevaluating the situation, his black eyes glittering.

"Zoe's dazed," she told Ajax." Maybe has a concussion. There's ambrosia in a pack in the trunk. You should take it and go."

Ajax spun his axe in his hand and bent his knees, ready to move in any direction.

"And leave you?" he replied. "From what I understand, she won't like that."

Rock Guy took that moment to lunge—at Ajax instead of her. He fell back into a roll, avoiding a blow that cracked the earth again. He scrambled away as Rock Guy stomped toward him.

She hit Rock Guy in the side of the head, the force of the blow sending vibrations up her arms. Rock Guy grunted and stumbled to the side, falling to a knee.

"Go!" she snarled.

Nodding, Ajax regained his feet and sprinted for the car. Rock Guy stood and turned to face her. He slammed his fists together and grinned.

"You have no idea who we are, do you?" he asked, speaking for the first time. His voice sounded like gravel being churned.

"Does it matter?" she grunted.

"Fair point," Rock Guy shrugged. "We'll kill you all regardless."

She brought her hammer down in an overhead swing. Displaying the absurd speed he'd shown in the first few seconds of the fight, Rock Guy batted the blow aside and, again, punched the ground. Half a second later, an enormous column of earth burst up from underneath her, flinging her into the air for the second time. This time, though, she tumbled in an arc away from Rock Guy back toward the road.

Even with the Curse, she could still feel some pain, and this was going to hurt.

She reached the top of a twenty-foot tall arc and plummeted toward the pavement. She clung to her hammer in an iron grip and gritted her teeth. Then, she hit the road, bounced, cracked her head on the pavement, and skid another ten feet, tearing up her jacket.

Then a truck ran her over. It rolled her and sent her skidding a little more. She stopped near the meridian and laid there for a second.

Rage overtook her, and her vision narrowed and went red. She couldn't be defeated. She couldn't be killed. She snarled and hit the ground, reclaiming her feet, just in time to see Rock Guy hurtling through the air toward her, arms raised for a slam like a wrestler.

Today really wasn't her day.