"I'm sorry, what?" I choked.
Mr. D. glared at me. "Yes boy, we are talking about you."
"Chiron, there must be some mistake… I'm sure whatever happened doesn't need a-"
"Demigod to handle it?" Chiron finished for Luke, who was as confused as I was. "Please sit."
We listened. Luke sat down next to Chiron, Grover sat next to Luke, and I sat next to my goat-friend.
"Now, you two listen very closely." Mr. D's bored tone rattled across my brain. "Because I'm not going to repeat myself. Something was stolen, and if it's not returned, chaos will break out."
I frowned. "How do you steal something off of Olympus? Don't you have top-of-the-line godly gates that no one can get through?"
The god's eyes flared purple. "You little-"
"Dionysus, please. The boy isn't as well adjusted as most of the people here." Chiron's voice cut through the rage in the air. Dionysus relaxed a little.
"I suppose…" He sighed. "Anyway, Chiron believes that you can solve it." He jabbed a pudgy finger in my direction.
"Me? Why me?"
"Yeah, why him?" Luke sounded generally concerned. "I'm sure that-"
"Now now, you two," Chiron chidded. "You haven't heard the whole story yet."
I fidgeted impatiently.
"It was a normal day, really. It was the winter solstice, everyone was there for the meeting, we had the dreaded winter-field trip again… Zeus was argueing with Poseidon about which disasters were better: wind or water, Athena was screeching at Ares about something again, Aphrodite was trying to convince Artemis to get married, so on so forth." Dionysus droned on in a monotone. "Well later that day, after all the demigods were gone, Zeus noticed his bolt was missing. He instantly blames Poseidon for it."
Luke's face scrunched up in concentration. "I thought gods couldn't take items of power like that."
"They can't." Chiron confirmed. "They can, however, convince a demigod to do it."
Chiron looked at me.
"Wait, Zeus think I stole his lightning bolt? I've never even been to Olympus, much less try to steal something from Zeus."
Chiron held his hand up to silence me. "He hahd good reasoning. When we founded you, we assumed you were… powerful."
Grover yelped softly. "S..sir?"
My mind raced. What could he…
Then it all clicked.
"You thought I was Poseidon's kid, didn't you."
The room seemed to grow darker. A chill settled on my spine. "You thought Poseidon broke the oath and had me."
Chiron frowned. Grover turned and gawked at me.
"How did you…"
"Clarisse… During Capture the flag, she said 'Let's see if you really are 'Big Three Material'.'" I recalled. "The big three is Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. I can't be Zeus', he blamed me for the bolt. I can't be Hades, he sent that demon bat thing after me. The only other option you can have assumed was that I was Poseidon's kid." My stomach churned. "You thought I was going to die."
"Now, Percy-" Chiron started.
"No, I get it. You're glad I'm some child of love. I don't have any sort of power to me. Just a weak little…"
"Peter, you have some... unique powers." Mr. D. cut me off.
"It's Percy."
"Yes, whatever." he rolled his eyes. "While you might not be barnicle beard's son, you are still at blame. Zeus is too stubborn to go back on his word. He has gods out and about, looking for hi bolt and who stole it. He wants it back by the Summer Solstice. Poseidon, on the other hand, is firmly stating that he wasn't the one who stole it. He demands an apology by the Summer Solstice too."
"So no one has found this lightning thief?"
"Don't be snarky, child." The god growled.
"What I believe our lord is trying to say is," Chiron gestured to me. "Is that he wants you to return the bolt."
"But I didn't take it!" I protested.
Chiron shook his head "That's not the point, Perseus." I flinched at the use of my full name. "The point is to find who stole it and bring the bolt safely back."
"Chiron, the boy's barely 12."
"I turn 13 in August." I mumbled. Luke ignored me.
"A quest like that… That's a lot of pressure. Maybe if-"
"I wasn't asking, Luke." Chiron frowned. "I was telling. Percy must go on this quest. He's the only one who would have the ability to end this feud."
"But why me?" I point out. "I'm just a son of Aphrodite."
"The most powerful son of Aphrodite since 1804." Chiron corrected. "You were born with an ability I have not seen or heard about in a very very long time."
"Sir… Are you suggesting…" Grover swallowed, shaking a little.
"Suggesting what?" Confusion bubbled in my voice.
"Percy, you're born with a gift some may call a 'Siren's Voice'. It's better known as 'charmspeak'."
Silence settled thickly around us. Everyone was looking at me, expecting some sort of reaction. I wanted to curl up in a hole and never leave. Powerful? Me? This had to be some joke. The look on everyone's faces told me otherwise.
A minute passed.
Then another.
Finally, I sighed.
"Is that why Nancy tried to drown herself." My voice was small, almost broken. "I… I didn't mean-"
"Percy, it wasn't your fault." Chiron sighed. "You didn-"
"I could have killed her…" The realisation dawned on me. "I made someone lose their job. You call that a 'gift'?"
I felt angry. Not at Chiron, not at Nancy, not at that poor teacher. I felt angry at myself.
"Percy please-" Grover tried.
"No!" I yanked away from the couch, stumbling blindly to the side. "I force 2 people to do something they didn't even want to do! I didn't have to touch them, they just did it. You call that a gift!" My voice thickened and I felt hot tears roll down my face.
I didn't think. I turned and stormed out of the room. I knocked over a shelf on the way out, toppling as many items to the ground as I could. I just needed to get away.
I took twists and turns, climbing up another set of stairs. I wanted to get as far away from people as I could. I didn't want to leave the Big House, not during morning buzz-hour.
Before I knew it, I found myself at the and of the last hallway, face to face with a door that looked like it just went through a police raid.
It didn't match the other doors in the hall. While everything was a crisp, clean white, this door was a moldy shade of brown with water stains and patches of black. Splinters peeled away from the edges, the door hanging off of only one hinge located at the top. It was slightly ajar, showing me little of the darkness behind it.
I wasn't thinking straight. Everyone knows that you shouldn't go behind the creepy door that looks like termite chow.
Bite me.
I took the rusty handle and gently pulled forwards. The hinge creaked loudly, making me cringe. Mentally scolding myself, I slipped into the room and pulled the door shut.
ȣ
I would love to say that, indeed, there was no killer waiting for me in the room.
Nope, there was something worse…
It wasn't big - maybe a 10 foot by 20 foot room. It was cluttered too: Suitcases with weird stickers littered the floor, jars with unidentified floating objects sprinkled the shelves. There were weird pieces of broken objects lying around the floor: One looked like a claw, another looked like a piece of gold rope. A shirt that hung on the wall read: 'Superstore Sparta: For all your killing needs'. But the strangest thing in the room was the zombie.
Yeah, you read that right.
ZOMBIE.
She was hideous - long, thin black hair framed her black-maggot eaten face. Her skeleton peaked out of her skin every once and awhile, but it was so black that it was hard to tell where the bone started and the rotting ended. She wore a faded tiedye sundress with so many holes that it might as well been mesh. She wore many beads around her neck - easily over a 100 of them. Each one had a different design painted on them, each one in prime condition. She slouched against a wall, perched atop of a bronze three-legged stool that glowed softly, providing the only light source in the room.
It was strange, looking at her… Something pulled at the back of my mind. Some story from greek times that included a three-legged stool.
Suddenly, she shifted. I stumbled backwards. The zombie's sunken hollow eye-sockets flickered with a green light and she straightened into a proper sitting position.
Her jaw unhinged and glowing green smoke billowed out. The room filled with the substance, along with the smell of something earthy.
It was serpent.
I gasped. I remembered the story.
"I am the Spirit of Delphi," A voice echoed in the room. It was cold and raspy, ancient enough to know everything. "Speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python."
A chill settled in the room. I swallowed a lump forming in my throat.
"Approach, seeker, and ask."
I curled my hands into fists.
"Lord Dionysus wants me to go on a quest to retrieve Zeus' bolt." I stated loudly, mustering all the courage I had. "What is my fate?"
The green mist swirled around me in an invisible wind, and I saw figures being formed out of it.
Sandwiched between the Oracle-Zombie and I was a poker table with 4 people sitting at it, playing cards. Their faces turned to face me and I recognized them.
It was Smelly Gabe and his Poker Buddies.
Gabe opened his mouth to speak.
"You shall go west, and face the god who has turned." In place of his obnoxious voice was the raspy snake-like voice of Delphi.
The goon next to Mist-Gabe tilted his head, put down a royal set, and spoke. "You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned."
Steve scowled and pushed his poker chips towards goon number one, then looked up at me. "You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend."
FInally, the last goon looked up at me with pure green eyes. "And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end."
The poker scene dissolved into a swirling vortex of green, funnelling itself into the zombie's mouth.
Then, the room went silent.
The oracle slumped back against the wall, closed her mouth, and stopped glowing.
I stood there in shock.
Then came the emotions.
"Is that it!" I yelled at the zombie. "You give me some bloody prophecy like 'Oh, no biggie, you'll return the bolt and get pain and suffering in the end.' Well I have something to say to you, mate!"
That was not my finest moment, looking back on it… But I was mad.
I screech and cursed at the oracle. I begged for her to tell me more, to not be so vague. I even tried to charmspeak her.
She just slumped against her wall, eyes dark, in her old dress and shiny necklace.
After a while, I gave up. What's the point? I was yelling at a corpse what wasn't going to tell me anything.
I sat on the floor and stayed like that for ages, crying. I thought over my entire life. I thought over every single myth Chiron ever taught me. I thought about my friendships, the very few I had. I thought about the recent events, about my strange new 'abilities' that have been growing since that one day in May.
"Why me?" I whispered, though I knew no one would answer. "Out of all the bloody people in the world, all 6 billion them, why me? Why did I have to have this curse?"
I stood up. My mind raced.
"I… I'll never use charmspeak again. I swear it on the…"
My voice died in my throat.
I wanted to swear it on the Styx, the most important oath you could make. Who needed charm anyways? It was just an easy way to get something without working for it.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it. My mother, out of everyone in this world, had given me the ability to swoon a person into doing my bidding. The first person to have it since 1804. Maybe it was her way of reaching out. Of saying 'I'm here for you, and I love you.'
It sounded like a long shot, but the thought warmed my heart a little.
I wiped a tear off my cheek and reached for the door, entering the bright world outside.
ȣ
Slowly, but surely, I picked my way downstairs and into the world outside. I saw Chiron, Luke, Grover, and Annabeth sitting on the porch having an intense conversation with each other.
Grover sniffed the air and turned around to face me.
"Percy!"
He lung-hugged me, nearly smashing me to the ground.
"Hey." My voice was almost as raspy as the oracle's, but I managed a smile. "Miss me?"
"Dude, you were gone for 3 hours! We searched the whole camp." Grover pulled away from me and punched me in the shoulder. "Where were you!?"
The others pooled around me, waiting for an answer.
"I just went upstairs." I half-lied. What was I supposed to tell them?
Oh, by the way, I'm destined to fail to save what matters most to me. Great, isn't it? Let's go celebrate.
Chiron raised an eyebrow.
"Just upstair?"
I frowned. "Well… I needed some space. I… I thought about it. The whole 'going on a quest to save a lightning bolt' thing."
"And…?" Luke's eyes flickered over my image. I knew I didn't look like a crying wreck, the blessing prevented that from happening. I probably looked like I took a light jog on the beach.
I sighed. No point of hiding it, right?
"I may or may not have found a crazy zombie-lady that spewed green mist from her mouth. May or may not be living on the last door of the last hallway of the last floor. May or may not have spoken to her."
Annabeth gasped. "You went to see the oracle?"
I nodded slowly, regretting my decision immediately. Her eye filled with wonder and curiosity.
"What was it like? What did you tell you? She did she show you? Wh-"
Her words blended together, making a large smoothie of sounds. Chiron held up his head and Annabeth stopped mid-sentence.
"Annabeth, please, let the boy speak."
Annabeth crossed her arms and scowled.
"Fine."
Everyone looked back at me.
"So… What did she say?" Grover nudged.
"That I would go to the west and find the god who had turned, and see the bolt safely returned." I said.
A few moments of silence passed.
"That's it?" Luke pried.
"Yes." I stately slowly.
"Just that. Nothing else." His voice grew more… sharp. Like a professor trying to get more answers from the crowd.
I firmly nodded my head. "That's it."
The charmspeak rolled over him, making him blink. For a split moment, I thought it wouldn't work.
Then he nodded too, his eyes glazing over. "Okay."
Relief spilled over me and I held back I cheer of victory. Grover and Annabeth nodded, seemingly convinced that I was telling the truth.
Chiron smiled warmly. "Well then, I guess now all you have to do is select your quest partners."
My heart stopped. "My… my what?"
Luke smiled a little. "When demigods go on quests, we encourage groups of 3. Safety in numbers and all."
I gulped. I hadn't anticipated that.
I looked up pat Luke. My heart screamed Let him go with you.
But that little voice in the back of my head whispered: Do you really want him to go with you?
I saw the hunger in Annabeth's eyes. The yearning for adventure. I saw the scared Grover. The one who thought he failed me.
I turned to look back at Chiron. "If Grover goes on the quest with me, will that Cloven Council whatever forgive him."
Everyone looked shocked. Grover's eyebrows shot up higher than the sky.
Chiron nodded. "If he can guide you along the quest and aid you in retrieving the bolt, I suppose that would declare his duties fulfilled… Even qualify him for Seeker."
I didn't know what Seeker was, but Grover's face morphed into one of hope and I knew it had to be good news.
I nodded slowly.
Annabeth is a daughter of Athena, the small voice said. She has spent 5 years here learning battle strategy and how to defeat monsters. She's your best bet.
"Well then…" I trailed off.
Slowly, I turned from Luke to face Annabeth. "Annabeth Chase, will you do me the honour of assisting me on my quest for the Bolt of Zeus?"
