Chapter 10 – Atlas, Zoe and the Hesperides
Before the guards could register that the pipe-ey kid was a bigger problem than the arrow-ey one, wooden planks at their feet sprouted new branches and tangled their legs. Zoe let loose two quick arrows that exploded at their feet in clouds of sulfurous yellow smoke. The guards started coughing. The manticore shot spines in Percy and his group's direction, but they ricocheted off Harry's lion's coat.
"Grover," Percy said, "tell Bessie to stay underwater!"
"Moooooo!" Grover translated. Percy hoped that the Ophiotaurus got the message.
"The cow..." Harry muttered, still in a daze.
"Come on!" Percy pulled him and Thalia along as they ran up the stairs to the shopping centre on the pier. They dashed around the corner of the nearest store. Percy heard the manticore shouting at his minions, "Get them!"
Tourists screamed as the guards shot blindly into the air. Harry, Percy and Thalia scrambled to the end of the pier. They hid behind a little kiosk filled with souvenir crystals. There was a water fountain next to them. Down below, a bunch of sea lions were sunning themselves on the rocks. The whole of San Francisco Bay spread out before them: the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, and the green hills and fog beyond that to the north. A picture-perfect moment, except for the fact that they were going to die and the world was going to end.
"Go over the side!" Zoe told Percy. "You can escape in the sea, Percy. Call on thy father for help. Maybe you can save the Ophiotaurus."
She was right, but Percy couldn't do it. "I won't leave you guys," I said. "We fight together."
"You have to get word to camp!" Grover said. "At least let them know what's going on!"
Then he noticed the crystals making rainbows in the sunlight. There was a drinking fountain next to him… "Get word to camp," he muttered. "Good idea."
Percy uncapped Riptide and slashed off the top of the water fountain. Water burst out of the busted pipe and sprayed all over them. Thalia and Harry gasped as the water hit them. The fog seemed to clear from their eyes.
"Are you crazy?" Thalia asked. But Grover understood. He was already fishing around in his pockets for a coin. He threw a golden drachma into the rainbows created by the mist and yelled, "O goddess, accept my offering!" The mist rippled.
"Camp Half-Blood!" Percy said. And there, shimmering in the Mist right next to them, was the last person he wanted to see: Mr D, wearing his leopard-skin jogging suit and rummaging through the refrigerator.
He looked up lazily. "Do you mind?"
"Where's Chiron!" Percy shouted.
"How rude." Mr D took a swig from a jug of grape juice. "Is that how you say hello?"
"Hello," he amended. "We're about to die! Where's Chiron?"
Mr D considered that. Percy wanted to scream at him to hurry up, but he knew that wouldn't work. Behind them, footsteps and shouting—the manticore's troops were closing in.
"About to die," Mr D mused. "How exciting. I'm afraid Chiron isn't here. Would you like me to take a message?"
Percy looked at his friends. "We're dead."
Thalia gripped her spear. She looked like her old angry self again. "Then we'll die fighting."
Harry, who hadn't said anything, looked up. "I have a destiny to fulfil, people. I can't die. But, well, to protect you all, any lengths." Percy wanted to laugh, but a choked sound came out. Harry was his sarcastic self again. Harry took out his dagger (Gryffindor had disappeared).
"How noble," Mr D said, stifling a yawn. "So what is the problem, exactly?"
Percy didn't see that it would make any difference, but he told him about the Ophiotaurus.
"Mmm." He studied the contents of the fridge. "So that's it. I see."
"You don't even care!" Harry screamed. "You'd just as soon watch us die!"
"Let's see. I think I'm in the mood for pizza tonight."
Percy wanted to slash through the rainbow and disconnect, but he didn't have time. The manticore screamed, "There!" And they were surrounded. Two of the guards stood behind him. The other two appeared on the roofs of the pier shops above us. The manticore threw off his coat and transformed into his true self, his lion claws extended and his spiky tail bristling with poison barbs.
"Excellent," he said. He glanced at the apparition in the mist and snorted. "Alone, without any real help. Wonderful."
"You could ask for help," Mr D murmured to him as if this were an amusing thought. "You could say please."
When wild boars fly. There is no damned way that I am going to die begging a slob like Mr D, just so he can laugh as we all get gunned down. Zoe readied her arrows. Grover lifted his pipes. Harry, who was looking pissed off at the loss of his sword, had his dagger ready. Thalia raised her shield, and Percy noticed a tear running down her cheek. Suddenly it occurred to him: this had happened to her before. She had been cornered on Half-Blood Hill. She'd willingly given her life for her friends. But this time, she couldn't save them. How could he let that happen to her?
"Please, Mr D," Percy muttered. "Help."
Obviously, nothing happened. The manticore grinned. "Spare the children of Zeus. They will join us soon enough. Kill the others."
The men raised their guns, and something strange happened. Blood rushed to his head, as he hung upside down and suddenly turned right side up. There was a rush like that all around him, and a sound like a huge sigh. The sunlight tinged with purple. Percy smelled grapes and something sourer—wine. SNAP! It was the sound of many minds breaking at the same time. The sound of madness. One guard put his pistol between his teeth like it was a bone and ran around on all fours. Two others dropped their guns and started waltzing with each other. The fourth began doing what looked like an Irish clogging dance. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so terrifying.
"No!" screamed the manticore. "I will deal with you myself!"
His tail bristled, but the planks under his paws erupted into grape vines, which immediately began wrapping around the monster's body, sprouting new leaves and clusters of green baby grapes that ripened in seconds as the manticore shrieked, until he was engulfed in a huge mass of vines, leaves, and full clusters of purple grapes. Finally, the grapes stopped shivering, and Percy had a feeling that somewhere inside there, the manticore was no more.
"Well," said Dionysus, closing his refrigerator. "That was fun."
Percy stared at him, horrified. "How could you... How did you—"
"Such gratitude," he muttered. "The mortals will come out of it. Too much explaining to do if I made their condition permanent. I hate writing reports to Father."
He stared resentfully at Thalia and Harry. "I hope both of you learned your lesson, kids. It isn't easy to resist power, is it?"
Both Harry and Thalia blushed as if they were ashamed.
"Mr D," Grover said in amazement. "You... you saved us."
"Mmm. Don't make me regret it, satyr. Now get going, Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. I've bought you a few hours at most."
"The Ophiotaurus," Harry said. "Can you get it to camp?"
Mr D sniffed. "I do not transport livestock. That's your problem."
"But where do we go?"
Dionysus looked at Zoë. "Oh, I think the huntress knows. You must enter at sunset today, you know, or all is lost. Now good-bye. My pizza is waiting."
"Mr D," Percy said.
He raised his eyebrow.
"You called me and Harry by our right names," he said. "You called us Harry Potter and Percy Jackson."
"I most certainly did not, Peter Johnson and Harold Peters. Now off with you!" He waved his hand, and his image disappeared in the mist. All around them, the manticore's minions were still acting completely nuts. The guards were harassing the tourists, making animal noises and trying to steal their shoes.
Percy looked at Zoë. "What did he mean... 'You know where to go'?"
Her face was the colour of the fog. She pointed across the bay, past the Golden Gate. In the distance, a single mountain rose up above the cloud layer.
"The garden of my sisters," she said. "I must go home."
...
"We will never make it," Zoë said. "We are moving too slow. But we cannot leave the Ophiotaurus."
"Mooo," Bessie mooed dramatically as if to emphasize the point. He swam next to Percy as they jogged along the waterfront. They were heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was a lot farther than Percy had thought. The sun was already setting.
"I don't get it," Percy said. "Why do we have to get there at sunset?"
"The Hesperides are the nymphs of the sunset," Zoë said. "We can only enter their garden as day changes to night."
"What happens if we miss it?" Harry asked.
"Tomorrow is winter solstice. If we miss sunset tonight, we would have to wait until tomorrow evening. And by then, the Olympian Council will be over. We must free Lady Artemis tonight."
Or Annabeth will be dead, Percy thought, but he didn't say that. He knew that Harry was looking at him, trying to catch a glimpse of his eyes. He turned away so that that wouldn't happen.
"We need a car," Thalia said.
"But what about Bessie?" Percy asked.
Grover stopped in his tracks. "I've got an idea! The Ophiotaurus can appear in different bodies of water, right?"
"Well, yeah," Percy said. "I mean, he just popped into the water at Hoover Dam. And now he's here."
"So maybe we could coax him back to Long Island Sound," Grover said. "Then Chiron could help us get him to Olympus."
"But he was following us," Harry said. "If we're not there, would he know where he's going?"
"Moo," Bessie said forlornly.
"I... I can show him," Grover said. "I'll go with him."
Percy stared at him. Grover was no fan of the water. He'd almost drowned last summer in the Sea of Monsters, and he couldn't swim very well with his goat hooves. "I'm the only one who can talk to him," Grover said. "It makes sense."
He bent down and said something in Bessie's ear. Bessie shivered, then made a contented, lowing sound. "The blessing of the Wild," Grover said. "That should help with safe passage. Percy, pray to your dad, too. See if he will grant us safe passage through the seas."
Percy didn't understand how they could possibly swim back to Long Island from California. Then again, monsters didn't travel the same way as humans. He had seen plenty of evidence of that. He tried to concentrate on the waves, the smell of the ocean, the sound of the tide.
"Dad," Percy said. "Help us. Get the Ophiotaurus and Grover safely to camp. Protect them at sea."
"A prayer like that needs a sacrifice," Thalia said. "Something big."
Percy thought, but couldn't think of anything.
"I'll do it," said Harry. He took the lion skin off his shoulders.
"Harry," Grover said. "Are you sure? That lion skin... that's really helpful. Hercules used it!"
As soon as he said that, Percy realized something. He glanced at Zoë, who was watching him – and Harry – carefully. He looked at Harry, who was now trying to look into Zoe's eyes. He realized that he did know who Zoë's hero had been—the one who'd ruined her life, gotten her kicked out of her family, and never even mentioned how she'd helped him: Hercules, a hero he'd admired all my life.
"If I'm going to survive," Harry said, who turned away and looked as if he got what he needed, "it won't be because I've got a lion-skin cloak. I'm not Hercules."
He threw the coat into the bay. It turned back into a golden lion skin, flashing in the light. Then, as it began to sink beneath the waves, it seemed to dissolve into the sunlight on the water. The sea breeze picked up. Grover took a deep breath.
"Well, no time to lose."
He jumped in the water and immediately began to sink. Bessie glided next to him and let Grover take hold of his neck.
"Be careful," Percy told them.
"We will," Grover said. "Okay, um... Bessie? We're going to Long Island. It's east. Over that way."
"Moooo?" Bessie said.
"Yes," Grover answered. "Long Island. It's this island. And... it's long. Oh, let's just start."
"Mooo!" Bessie lurched forward. He started to submerge and Grover said, "I can't breathe underwater! Just thought I'd mention—"
Glub!
Under they went, and Percy hoped his father's protection would extend to little things, like breathing.
"Well, that is one problem addressed," Zoë said. "But how can we get to my sisters' garden?"
"Thalia's right," Harry said. "We need a car. But there's nobody to help us here. Unless we, uh, borrowed one."
Harry didn't look like he wasn't the greatest fan of that option. Neither was Percy. It was a life-or-death situation, but still, it was stealing, and it was bound to get them noticed.
"Wait," Thalia said. She started rifling through her backpack. "There is somebody in San Francisco who can help us. I've got the address here somewhere."
"Who?" Harry asked. Thalia pulled out a crumpled piece of notebook paper and held it up. "Professor Chase. Annabeth's dad."
…
After hearing about Percy's opinions about Professor Chase, Harry expected him to have devil horns and fangs. He certainly was not expecting him to be wearing an old fashioned aviator's cap and goggles. He looked so weird, with his eyes bugging out through the glasses, that they all took a step back on the front porch.
"Hello," he said in a friendly voice. "Are you delivering my aeroplanes?"
Thalia, Zoë, Percy and Harry looked at each other warily.
"Um, no, sir," Percy said.
"Drat," he said. "I need three more Sopwith Camels."
"Right," Harry said reluctantly. "We're… friends of Annabeth."
"Annabeth?"
He straightened as if Harry had just given him an electric shock.
"Is she all right? Has something happened?"
None of them answered, but their faces must've told him that something was very wrong. He took off his cap and goggles. He had sandy-coloured hair and intense brown eyes. He was handsome, for an older guy but it looked like he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and his shirt was buttoned wrong, so one side of his collar stuck up higher than the other side.
"You'd better come in," he said. It didn't look like a house they'd just moved into. There were LEGO robots on the stairs and two cats sleeping on the sofa in the living room. The coffee table was stacked with magazines, and a little kid's winter coat was spread on the floor. The whole house smelled like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. There was jazz music coming from the kitchen. It seemed like a messy, happy kind of home — the kind of place that had been lived in forever.
"Dad!" a little boy screamed. "He's taking apart my robots!"
"Bobby," Dr Chase called absently, "don't take apart your brother's robots."
"I'm Bobby," the little boy protested. "He's Matthew!"
"Matthew," Dr Chase called, "don't take apart your brother's robots!"
"Okay, Dad!"
Dr Chase turned to Harry, Percy, Zoe and Thalia. "We'll go upstairs to my study. This way."
"Honey?" a woman called.
Annabeth's stepmom appeared in the living room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was a pretty Asian woman with red highlighted hair tied in a bun. "Who are our guests?" she asked.
"Oh," Dr Chase said. "This is..." He stared at us blankly.
"Frederick," she chided. "You forgot to ask them their names?"
They introduced themselves a little uneasily, but Mrs Chase seemed really nice. She asked if they were hungry. Percy admitted that they were, and she told them that she'd bring them some cookies and sandwiches and sodas.
"Dear," Dr Chase said. "They came about Annabeth."
Harry half expected Mrs Chase to turn into a raving lunatic at the mention of her stepdaughter, but she just pursed her lips and looked concerned.
"All right. Go on up to the study and I'll bring you some food." She smiled at Percy. "Nice meeting you, Percy. I've heard a lot about you."
Upstairs, Harry, Percy, Zoe and Thalia walked into Dr Chase's study and Harry said, "Whoa!"
The room was wall-to-wall books, but what really caught his attention were the war toys. There was a huge table with miniature tanks and soldiers fighting along a blue painted river, with hills and fake trees and stuff. Old-fashioned biplanes hung on strings from the ceiling, tilted at crazy angles like they were in the middle of a dogfight.
Dr Chase smiled. "Yes. The Third Battle of Ypres. I'm writing a paper, you see, on the use of Sopwith Camels to strafe enemy lines. I believe they played a much greater role than they've been given credit for." He plucked a biplane from its string and swept it across the battlefield, making aeroplane engine noises as he knocked down little German soldiers.
"Oh, right," Percy said. Harry knew that Annabeth's dad was a professor of military history. But he didn't think that she ever mentioned to Percy that she had a dad who played with war toys. Zoë came over and studied the battlefield. "The German lines were farther from the river."
Dr Chase stared at her. "How do you know that?"
"I was there," she said matter-of-factly. "Artemis wanted to show us how horrible war was, the way mortal men fight each other. And how foolish, too. The battle was a complete waste."
Dr Chase opened his mouth in shock. "You—"
"She's a Hunter, sir," Thalia said. "But that's not why we're here. We need —"
"You saw the Sopwith Camels?" Dr Chase said. "How many were there? What formations did they fly?"
"Sir," Thalia broke in again. "Annabeth is in danger." That got his attention. He set the biplane down. "Of course," he said. "Tell me everything."
It wasn't easy, but they tried. Meanwhile, the afternoon light was fading outside. They were running out of time. When they had finished, Dr Chase collapsed in his leather recliner. He laced his hands. "My poor brave Annabeth. We must hurry."
"Sir, we need transportation to Mount Tamalpais," Zoë said. "And we need it immediately."
"I'll drive you. Hmm, it would be faster to fly in my Camel, but it only seats two."
"Whoa, you have an actual biplane?" Harry said.
"Down at Crissy Field," Dr Chase said proudly. "That's the reason I had to move here. My sponsor is a private collector with some of the finest World War I relics in the world. He let me restore the Sopwith Camel—"
"Sir," Thalia said. "Just a car would be great. And it might be better if we went without you. It's too dangerous."
Dr Chase frowned uncomfortably. "Now wait a minute, young lady. Annabeth is my daughter. Dangerous or not, I... I can't just—"
"Snacks," Mrs Chase announced. She pushed through the door with a tray full of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and Cokes and cookies fresh out of the oven, the chocolate chips still gooey. Thalia, Harry and Percy inhaled a few cookies while Zoë said, "I can drive, sir. I'm not as young as I look. I promise not to destroy your car."
Mrs Chase knit her eyebrows. "What's this about?"
"Annabeth is in danger," Dr Chase said. "On Mount Tam. I would drive them, but... apparently, it's no place for mortals." It sounded like it was really hard for him to get that last part out. Harry waited for Mrs Chase to say no. What mortal parent would allow four underage teenagers to borrow their car? To his surprise, Mrs Chase nodded. "Then they'd better get going."
"Right!" Dr. Chase jumped up and started patting his pockets. "My keys..."
His wife sighed. "Frederick, honestly. You'd lose your head if it weren't wrapped inside your aviator hat. The keys are hanging on the peg by the front door."
"Right!" Dr. Chase said.
Zoë grabbed a sandwich. "Thank you both. We should go. Now."
They hustled out the door and down the stairs, the Chases right behind us.
"Percy, Harry," Mrs. Chase called as Harry was leaving, "tell Annabeth... Tell her she still has a home here, will you? Remind her of that."
Percy walked back inside, to get his fill of the house. It was homely. The messy living room, Annabeth's half-brothers arguing, the cookies… Not a bad place. It was definitely better than the Dursleys' spotless hall, and cold atmosphere.
"We'll tell her," Percy promised.
They ran out to the yellow VW convertible parked in the driveway. The sun was going down. Harry figured they had less than an hour to save Annabeth and Artemis and find the mystery doomsday monster.
"Can't this thing go any faster?" Thalia demanded.
Zoë glared at her. "I cannot control traffic."
"You both sound like my mother," Percy said.
"Shut up!" they said in unison.
Zoë weaved in and out of traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was sinking on the horizon when we finally got into Marin County and exited the highway. The roads were insanely narrow, winding through forests and up the sides of hills and around the edges of steep ravines. Zoë didn't slow down at all.
"Why does everything smell like cough drops?" Harry asked.
"Eucalyptus." Zoë pointed to the huge trees all around us.
"The stuff koala bears eat?"
"And monsters," she said. "They love chewing the leaves. Especially dragons."
"Dragons chew eucalyptus leaves?" As far as Harry knew (and he knew a lot), dragons simply didn't have the need to eat eucalyptus.
"Believe me," Zoë said, "if you had dragon breath, you would chew eucalyptus too." Harry didn't question her, but he did keep his eyes peeled more closely as we drove. Ahead of them loomed what Percy had said was Mount Tamalpais.
"So that's called… the Mountain of Despair?" Harry asked.
"Yes," Zoë said tightly.
"Why do they call it that?"
She was silent for almost a mile before answering. "After the war between the Titans and the gods, many of the Titans were punished and imprisoned. Kronos was sliced to pieces and thrown into Tartarus. Kronos's right-hand man, the general of his forces, was imprisoned up there, on the summit, just beyond the Garden of the Hesperides."
"The General," Percy nodded. Clouds seemed to be swirling around its peak, as though the mountain was drawing them in, spinning them like a top. "What's going on up there? A storm?"
Zoë didn't answer. I got the feeling she knew exactly what the clouds meant, and she didn't like it.
"We have to concentrate," Thalia said. "The Mist is really strong here."
"The magical kind or the natural kind?" Percy asked.
"Both."
The gray clouds swirled even thicker over the mountain, and they drove straight toward them. They were out of the forest now, into wide open spaces of cliffs and grass and rocks and fog. Harry happened to glance down at the ocean as they passed a scenic curve, and he saw something that made me jump out of my seat. "Look!" But they turned a corner and the ocean disappeared behind the hills.
"What?" Percy asked.
"A big white ship," Harry said. "Docked near the beach. It looked like a cruise ship. It looked like that picture you showed me of… that ship. The Princess Andromeda." Percy's, and Thalia's who was listening in, eyes widened.
"Luke's ship?"
Harry wanted to say he wasn't sure. It might be a coincidence. Secondly, he had never seen the ship in real life. Only a picture. But a nagging voice told him what he didn't want to know. He knew what he had seen, and he was 101 percent sure. The Princess Andromeda, Luke's demon cruise ship, was docked at that beach. That's why he'd sent his ship all the way down to the Panama Canal. It was the only way to sail it from the East Coast to California.
"We will have company, then," Zoë said grimly. "Kronos' army."
Harry was about to answer, when suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Thalia shouted, "Stop the car. NOW!"
Zoë must've sensed something was wrong, because she slammed on the brakes without question. The yellow VW spun twice before coming to a stop at the edge of the cliff.
"Out!" Thalia opened the door and pushed Percy and Harry hard. The three of them rolled onto the pavement. The next second: BOOOM! Lightning flashed, and Dr. Chase's Volkswagen erupted like a canary-yellow grenade. Harry and Percy probably would've been killed by shrapnel except for Thalia's shield, which appeared over them. Harry heard a sound like metal rain, and when he opened his eyes, they were surrounded by wreckage. Part of the VW's fender had impaled itself in the street. The smoking hood was spinning in circles. Pieces of yellow metal were strewn across the road. He swallowed the taste of smoke out of his mouth, and looked at Thalia. "You saved our lives."
"One shall perish by a parent's hand," she muttered. "Curse him. He would destroy me? Or Harry? Us?"
"I can't believe he still wants to kill me," Harry mumbled. He was used to hearing about a great dad who gave his life for him and his mother, and look – his second father was much more better.
"Oh, hey, that couldn't have been Zeus's lightning bolt. No way." Percy said.
"Whose, then?" Harry demanded.
"I don't know. Zoë said Kronos' name. Maybe he—" Thalia shook her head, looking angry and stunned. Harry was pissed. "No. That wasn't it."
"Wait," Percy said. "Where's Zoë? Zoë!"
The three of them got up and ran around the blasted VW. Nothing inside. Nothing either direction down the road. Harry looked down the cliff. No sign of her. "Zoë!" Harry shouted. Then she was standing right next to him, pulling him by his arm. "Silence, fool! Do you want to wake Ladon?"
"You mean we're here?"
"Very close," she said. "Follow me."
Sheets of fog were drifting right across the road. Zoë stepped into one of them, and when the fog passed, she was no longer there. Thalia, Percy and Harry looked at each other.
"Concentrate on Zoë," Thalia advised. "We are following her. Go straight into the fog and keep that in mind."
"Wait, Thalia, Harry. About what happened back on the pier... I mean, with the manticore and the sacrifice—"
…
"Wait, Thalia, Harry. About what happened back on the pier... I mean, with the manticore and the sacrifice—" Percy said.
"I don't want to talk about it." Harry said matter-of-factly.
"You wouldn't actually have... you know?" Percy asked again.
Harry hesitated. "I was just shocked. That's all."
"Zeus didn't send that lighting bolt at the car. It was Kronos. He's trying to manipulate you, make you angry at your dad."
Thalia took a deep breath. "Percy, I know you're trying to make us feel better. Thanks. But come on. We need to go." She and Harry stepped into the fog, into the Mist, and Percy followed. When the fog cleared, he was still on the side of the mountain, but the road was dirt. The grass was thicker. The sunset made a bloodred slash across the sea. The summit of the mountain seemed closer now, swirling with storm clouds and raw power. There was only one path to the top, directly in front of them. If it hadn't been for the enormous dragon, the garden would've been the most beautiful place Percy had ever seen. The grass shimmered with silvery evening light, and the flowers were such brilliant colors they almost glowed in the dark. Stepping stones of polished black marble led around either side of a five-story-tall apple tree, every bough glittering with golden apples. Percy would have taken one, except for the dragon coiled around it. The serpent's body was as thick as a booster rocket, glinting with coppery scales. He had more heads than any of them could count, as if a hundred deadly pythons had been fused together. He appeared to be asleep. The heads lay curled in a big spaghetti-like mound on the grass, all the eyes closed. Then the shadows in front of us began to move. There was a beautiful, eerie singing, like voices from the bottom of a well. Percy reached for Riptide, but Zoë stopped his hand. Four figures shimmered into existence, four young women who looked very much like Zoë. They all wore white Greek chitons. Their skin was like caramel. Silky black hair tumbled loose around their shoulders.
"The Hesperides," Harry whispered, his hand on his dagger. They looked just like Zoë—gorgeous, and probably very dangerous.
"Sisters," Zoë said.
"We do not see any sister," one of the girls said coldly. "We see three half-bloods and a Hunter. All of whom shall soon die."
"You've got it wrong." Percy stepped forward. "Nobody is going to die."
The girls studied him. They had eyes like volcanic rock, glassy and completely black. "Perseus Jackson," one of them said.
"Yes," mused another. "I do not see why he is a threat."
"Who said I was a threat?"
The first Hesperid glanced behind her, toward the top of the mountain. "They fear thee. They are unhappy that these two have not yet killed thee." She pointed at Harry and Thalia.
"Tempting sometimes," Harry admitted. "But no, thanks. He's my friend."
"There are no friends here, son of Zeus," the girl said. "Only enemies. Go back."
"Not without Annabeth," Thalia said.
"And Artemis," Zoë said. "We must approach the mountain."
"You know he will kill thee," the girl said. "You are no match for him."
"Artemis must be freed," Zoë insisted. "Let us pass."
The girl shook her head. "You have no rights here anymore. We have only to raise our voices and Ladon will wake."
"He will not hurt me," Zoë said.
"No? And what about thy so-called friends?"
Then Zoë did the last thing Percy expected. She shouted, "Ladon! Wake!" The dragon stirred, glittering like a mountain of pennies. The Hesperides yelped and scattered.
The lead girl said to Zoë, "Are you mad?"
"You never had any courage, sister," Zoë said. "That is thy problem."
The dragon Ladon was writhing now, a hundred heads whipping around, tongues flickering and tasting the air. Zoë took a step forward, her arms raised.
"Zoë, don't," Thalia said. "You're not a Hesperid anymore. He'll kill you."
"Ladon is trained to protect the tree," Zoë said. "Skirt around the edges of the garden. Go up the mountain. As long as I am a bigger threat, he should ignore thee."
"Should," Harry said. "Not exactly reassuring."
"It is the only way," she said. "Even the four of us together cannot fight him."
Ladon opened his mouths. The sound of a hundred heads hissing at once sent a shiver down Percy's back, and that was before his breath hit him. The smell was like acid. It made his eyes burn, his skin crawl, and his hair stand on end. He wanted to draw my sword. But then he remembered his dream of Zoe and Hercules, and how Hercules had failed in a head-on assault. He decided to trust Zoe's judgment. Thalia went left. Harry flew over. Percy went right. Zoe walked straight toward the monster.
"It's me, my little dragon," Zoe said. "Zoe has come back."
Ladon shifted forward, then back. Some of the mouths closed. Some kept hissing. Dragon confusion. Meanwhile, the Hesperides shimmered and turned into shadows. The voice of the eldest whispered, "Fool."
"I used to feed thee by hand," Zoe continued, speaking in a soothing voice as she stepped toward the golden tree. "Do you still like lamb's meat?"
The dragon's eyes glinted. Thalia and I were about halfway around the garden. Harry was already on the other side. Ahead, Percy could see a single rocky trail leading up to the black peak of the mountain. The storm swirled above it, spinning on the summit like it was the axis for the whole world. They'd almost made it out of the meadow when something went wrong. He felt the dragon's mood shift. Maybe Zoë got too close. Maybe the dragon realized he was hungry. Whatever the reason, he lunged at Zoë. Two thousand years of training kept her alive. She dodged one set of slashing fangs and tumbled under another, weaving through the dragon's heads as she ran in otheir direction, gagging from the monster's horrible breath. Percy drew Riptide to help.
"No!" Zoë panted. "Run!"
The dragon snapped at her side, and Zoë cried out. Thalia uncovered Aegis, and the dragon hissed. In his moment of indecision, Zoë sprinted past us up the mountain, and they followed. The dragon didn't try to pursue. He hissed and stomped the ground, but he was well trained to guard that tree. He wasn't going to be lured off, even by the tasty prospect of eating some heroes. They ran up the mountain as the Hesperides resumed their song in the shadows behind us. The music didn't sound so beautiful — more like the sound track for a funeral. At the top of the mountain were ruins, blocks of black granite and marble as big as houses. Broken columns. Statues of bronze that looked as though they'd been half melted.
"The ruins of Mount Othrys," Thalia whispered in awe.
"Yes," Zoë said. "It was not here before. This is bad."
"What's Mount Othrys?" Percy asked, feeling like a fool.
"The mountain fortress of the Titans, isn't it?" Harry asked.
Percy felt ashamed. Here he was, a person with two summers of Greek training – and Harry, a guy with only one, knew more about him.
Zoe nodded. "In the first war, Olympus and Othrys were the two rival capitals of the world. Othrys was—" She winced and held her side.
"You're hurt," Harry said. "Let me see."
"No! It is nothing. I was saying . . . in the first war, Othrys was blasted to pieces."
"But . . . how is it here?" Thalia looked around cautiously as we picked our way through the rubble, past blocks of marble and broken archways. "It moves in the same way that Olympus moves. It always exists on the edges of civilization. But the fact that it is here, on this mountain, is not good."
"Why?"
"This is Atlas's mountain," Zoë said. "Where he holds—" She froze. Her voice was ragged with despair. "Where he used to hold up the sky."
They had reached the summit. A few yards ahead of us, gray clouds swirled in a heavy vortex, making a funnel cloud that almost touched the mountaintop, but instead rested on the shoulders of a twelve-year-old girl with auburn hair and a tattered silvery dress: Artemis, her legs bound to the rock with celestial bronze chains. "My lady!" Zoë rushed forward, but Artemis said, "Stop! It is a trap. You must leave now." Her voice was strained. She was drenched in sweat. Percy had never seen a goddess in pain before, but the weight of the sky was clearly too much for Artemis. Zoë was crying. She ran forward despite Artemis's protests, and tugged at the chains. A booming voice spoke behind them: "Ah, how touching."
They turned. The General was standing there in his brown silk suit. At his side were Luke and half a dozen dracaenae bearing the golden sarcophagus of Kronos. Annabeth stood at Luke's side. She had her hands cuffed behind her back, a gag in her mouth, and Luke was holding the point of his sword to her throat. Harry met her eyes, trying to read it. Percy didn't have the power, but one thing he could understand – RUN.
"Luke," Thalia snarled. "Let her go."
Luke's smile was weak and pale. He looked even worse than he had three days ago in D.C.
"That is the General's decision, Thalia. But it's good to see you again." He looked at Harry. "Harry Potter, son of Zeus. Dude, you need to understand. Has Zeus ever done anything for you? He didn't even tell you, send you a sign, that you were his son. The Olympians, such brats. Come to our side, Lord Kronos' side, He will give you all the recognition you will ever want."
Harry's hand tightened over his dagger. His eyes were flashing. He was doing a great job at being intimidating. But what worried Percy was that he didn't say anything. Harry was the sort of person who would give a snappy comeback, and not stay quiet. Percy put his hand on Harry's shoulder. His eyes came back to Earth. He looked at Luke, but still didn't say anything.
Thalia spat at Luke. The General chuckled. "So much for old friends. And you, Zoë. It's been a long time. How is my little traitor? I will enjoy killing you." He looked at Harry. "My dear boy. Come to our side. You will be recognized. Come." The last word was an intimidating hiss.
"Do not respond," Artemis groaned. "Do not challenge him."
"Wait for a second," Percy said. "You're Atlas?"
The General glanced at him. "So, even the stupidest of heroes can finally figure something out. Yes, I am Atlas, the general of the Titans and terror of the gods. Congratulations. I will kill you presently, as soon as I deal with this wretched girl."
"You're not going to hurt Zoë," Percy said. "I won't let you."
The General sneered. "You have no right to interfere, little hero. This is a family matter."
Harry frowned. "A family matter?"
"Yes," Zoë said bleakly. "Atlas is my father."
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Yo. Applause to you all who finished this chapter. You all deserve a chocolate each. Anyway, REVIEW!
PS - I'm sorry if some of you are getting annoyed that nothing different is happening from the books. I personally like a good AU, and even I am getting pissed off at myself for being unable to change stuff. Sorry again!
Review answering-
{All private messaged}
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A. Tom Riddle's diary, Marvolo Gaunt's ring, Salazar Slytherin's locket, Helga Hufflepuff's cup, Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, Voldemort's snake Nagini, Voldemort's nemesis Harry Potter.
Q. What do you think will be Harry's fatal flaw? It will be revealed when Percy's is.
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Poll counts - 3 for Katie Bell, 1 for Parvati Patil, 1 for Hermione Granger
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PassionBeautyFreedom