Chapter 14

The Ophiotaurus

The Doctor raced around the strange mushroom-shaped object, which Percy now realized was some sort of control console, covered in levers and buttons. He pulled and pushed so many switches, buttons, and dials so quickly that it was impossible to follow his movements.

He muttered things under his breath like "passage of time" and "distance" and "San Francisco".

Everyone else wandered around in loopy circles, taking in the interior. "What is this place?" Thalia asked, looking at the Doctor.

He didn't answer her right away, as he pulled a large switch and slammed his hand down on the console. "Come on, girl, don't fail me now…" he said to himself. Then he looked over at Thalia. "I suggest you hang on to something, all of you. Because flight can be a bit dodgy."

"Flight?" Thalia's face paled.

"Don't worry, you won't feel it," he replied easily. "The room just tends to—"

He was cut off when the entire room shook violently. Grover screamed and toppled to one side. Percy fell over backwards, landed on his back. Thalia and Zoe managed to grab onto poles, so they stayed upright. The Doctor had a grip on the console, so the tremor hadn't affected him, either.

"Right," he said, flustered. "As I was saying, the room tends to shake. Like what just happened. Speaking of which, you guys okay?"

Percy groaned, sat up. Grover had already jumped to his feet.

"I'm fine," the former got out. "I just hit my back. Ow."

The phone booth kept making that harsh wheezing sound, and the room shook more than once. Finally, though, the box landed with a soft thud, and everything went still. "There!" the Doctor said brightly. "We should be in San Francisco now. But if you want to take a moment, that's fine."

Thalia gave him a firm look. "Are you gonna answer my question now, pretty boy? What the heck is this thing?"

He grinned. "Simply put, this is my home. I live here."

Thalia raised an eyebrow. "Not what I meant. How is this—" she gestured around the room, "even possible? It's bigger on the inside."

"Oh, I love it when they say that," he exclaimed. "Well, Thalia Grace, you're looking at a very advanced form of technology. The inside is actually another dimension. That's how the interior can be much larger than the exterior."

"That sounds like something from a sci-fi movie," Percy said, smirking. "Is this, like, a spaceship or something?"

The Doctor walked out from behind the console, grinning. "Even better. Spaceship and time machine."

"Sorry… say what?" Thalia piped up. "Did you just say this thing was a time machine? You're crazy."

"No, I'm not," he replied, shaking his head. "The TARDIS is quite capable of both space and time travel. It's what she was designed for. Now, I believe we have a…" he trailed off when he saw Zoe staring up at the ceiling, mystified. "You alright there, Zoe?"

"Lady Artemis spoke of this place," she murmured. "She called it a vast machine, but said that thee spoke of it as if it were alive. You treated it like a living being. She also said that… that thee showed her faraway places. The land of the stars. You showed her the distant past and the far future. She called you a… lonely traveler."

Zoe sighed. "I almost did not want to believe her. The idea that the universe is vast, filled with many other beings… it frightens me. The stars are beautiful, but… their land is a land beyond the gods."

The Doctor nodded. "I can understand that. Learning you're not all alone in the universe can come as a bit of a shock." Then he turned back to Thalia. "Well, if you don't believe me, feel free to go outside. Then you'll see what the TARDIS is capable of."

Grover finally found his voice. "The what?"

The Doctor grinned. "The TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Old friend of mine made up the name from the initials. Now…" he pulled a small screen down to his level— it looked like a television monitor. "Oh dear," he murmured. "Might be a minute. We're in the wrong place. Hold on." He resumed piloting his time machine.

As they flew— albeit less turbulently this time— Percy asked Thalia about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who seemed to be able to see right through the Mist. He thought Thalia was going to call him crazy, but she just nodded.

"Some mortals are like that," she said. "Nobody knows why."

Suddenly Percy thought about something he'd never considered.

His mother was like that. She had seen the Minotaur on Half-Blood Hill and known exactly what it was. She hadn't been surprised at all the previous year when he'd told her his friend Tyson was really a Cyclops. Maybe she'd known all along. No wonder she'd been so scared for Percy as he was growing up. She saw through the Mist even better than he did.

Then he turned to the Doctor. "You're like that," he said. "You can see through the Mist."

The Doctor nodded as he typed something into a computer. "Yes. Although I know why."

"Why?"

But the Doctor acted like he hadn't heard him.

Percy shrugged and glanced at Thalia. "Well, the girl was annoying," he said. "But I'm glad I didn't vaporize her. That would've been bad."

Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal." She said that as if she'd given it a lot of thought.

Zoe paced in circles, studying the top of the control console. Percy couldn't blame her— it looked pretty cool. The cylinder in the center grew to a large object the Doctor said was called a rotor. When Percy thought about it, the console was almost shaped like an hourglass, when he looked at it from top to bottom.
Zoe was particularly interested in the designs on the rotor— strange but oddly beautiful circular shapes. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to make sense of it. "I recognize these symbols," she murmured. "I can't quite tell what they are, but I know I've seen them somewhere."

Once again, the Doctor said nothing. He just pretended not to hear.

"And… we are landing," the Doctor said, suddenly breaking Percy from his thoughts. "Somewhere by the Embarcadero Building. Hopefully, the Old Girl can blend in with the pigeons."

Everyone looked at him.

He smirked. "I'm kidding," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. "What, I can't have a sense of humor?"

Thalia let out a snort. "I didn't think you had one."

As it turned out, there wasn't much need to blend in. It was early morning and not many people were around. They freaked out a homeless man on the ferry dock upon landing, though. He screamed when he saw people step out of the TARDIS and ran off yelling something about phone booths and aliens from Mars.

When they stepped outside, Percy took one look at the city and said, "Whoa."

He'd seen San Francisco in pictures before, but never in real life. It was probably the most beautiful city he'd ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been surrounded by green hills and fog. There was a huge bay, ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance.

The Doctor turned the TARDIS invisible with a snap of his fingers, which freaked Grover out. That's when Percy realized he had no idea what they were going to do next.

They'd made it to the West Coast. Artemis was there somewhere. Annabeth too, he hoped. But he had no idea how to find them, and tomorrow was the winter solstice. Nor did he have any clue what monster Artemis had been hunting. It was supposed to find them on the quest. It was supposed to "show the trail," but it never had. Now they were stuck on the ferry dock with not much money, no friends, and no luck.

That was when Grover brought up finding Nereus, but the Doctor shook his head. "No. Nereus is a trickster. Getting information out of him would be more trouble than it's worth. Believe me, I know from experience."

Percy tried to argue. "But then how are we—"

The Doctor held up a hand to silence him. "I know exactly what Artemis was hunting. Took me a while to put the pieces together, but I figured it out. Everyone come with me— we're going to the ocean."

He led the way back down to the waterfront. He went out to the nearest pier. Then they all crouched down at the edge and waited.
Twenty minutes later, they were all on edge. Percy grew more and more worried about the monster, his mind filled with questions. How hard would it be to kill? How dangerous was it? Then—

"Wait." Thalia's eyes widened. "What is that?"

"MOOOOOOOO!"

Percy looked down, and there was his friend the cow serpent, swimming next to the dock. She nudged his shoe and gave him sad brown eyes.

"Ah, Bessie," Percy said. "Not now."

"Mooo!"

Grover gasped. "He says his name isn't Bessie."

"You can understand her… er, him?"

Grover nodded. "It's a very old form of animal speech. But he says his name is the Ophiotaurus."

"The Ophi-what?"

"It means serpent bull in Greek," Thalia said. "But what's it doing here?"

"Moooooooo!"

"He says Percy is his protector," Grover announced. "And he's running from the bad people. He says they are close."

While Percy was wondering how Grover got all that out of a single moo, the Doctor nodded. "Yes. When we saw the Ophiotaurus at the Hoover Dam, things started coming back to me. I knew this was the creature Artemis was looking for."

"Wait," Zoe said, looking at the two of them. "You know this cow?"

Percy was feeling impatient, but he told them the story.

Thalia shook her head in disbelief. "And you just forgot to mention this before?"

"Well… yeah." To Percy, it seemed silly now that she said it, but things had been happening so fast. Bessie, the Ophiotaurus, seemed like a minor detail.

"I am a fool," Zoe said suddenly. "I know this story!"

"What story?" Percy asked.

"From the War of the Titans," she said. "My… my father told me this tale, thousands of years ago. The Doctor is right— this is the beast we are looking for."

"Bessie?" Percy looked down at the bull serpent. "But… he's too cute. He couldn't destroy the world."

"That is how we were wrong," Zoe said. "We've been anticipating a huge dangerous monster, but the Ophiotaurus does not bring down the gods that way. He must be sacrificed."

"MMMM," Bessie lowed.

"I don't think he likes the S-word," Grover said.

Percy stroked Bessie on the head, trying to calm him down. He let Percy scratch his ear, but he was trembling.

"How could anyone hurt him?" Percy said, confused. "He's harmless."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. That he is. But there is power in killing innocence. Terrible power," he murmured gravely. For a moment, Percy saw a shadow fall over the man's eyes. Not from a lack of light, though. It was an entirely different kind of shadow. Zoe nodded in agreement with him, jumping in to finish the story.

"The Fates ordained a prophecy eons ago when this creature was born. They said that whoever killed the Ophiotaurus and sacrificed its entrails to fire would have the power to destroy the gods."

"MMMMMM!"

"Um," Grover said. "Maybe we could avoid talking about entrails, too."

Thalia stared at the cow serpent with wonder. "The power to destroy the gods… how? I mean, what would happen?"

"No one knows," Zoe said. "The first time, during the Titan war, the Ophiotaurus was in fact slain by a giant ally of the Titans, but thy father, Zeus, sent an eagle to snatch the entrails away before they could be tossed into the fire. It was a close call. Now, after three thousand years, the Ophiotaurus is reborn."

Thalia sat down on the dock. She stretched out her hand. Bessie went right to her. Thalia placed her hand on his head. Bessie shivered.

Thalia's expression bothered Percy. She almost looked… hungry.

"We have to protect him," he told them. "If Luke gets hold of him—"

"Luke wouldn't hesitate," Thalia muttered. "The power to overthrow Olympus. That's… that's huge."

"Yes, it is, my dear," said a man's voice in a heavy French accent. "And it is a power you shall unleash."

The Ophiotaurus made a whimpering sound and submerged.

Percy looked up. They'd been so busy talking that they'd allowed themselves to be ambushed.

Standing behind them, his two-color eyes gleaming wickedly, was Dr. Thorn, the manticore himself.

"This is just purrr-fect," the manticore gloated.

He was wearing a ratty black trench coat over his Westover Hall uniform, which was torn and stained. His military haircut had grown out spiky and greasy. He hadn't shaved recently, so his face was covered in silver stubble. He looked much worse than he had before.

"Long ago, the gods banished me to Persia," the manticore said. "I was forced to scrounge for food on the edges of the world, hiding in forests, devouring insignificant human farmers for my meals. I never got to fight any great heroes or children of time. I was not feared and admired in the old stories! But now that will change. The Titans shall honor me, and I shall feast on the flesh of half-bloods!"

On either side of him stood two armed men, some of the mortal mercenaries they had seen in D.C. Two more stood on the next boat dock over, just in case they tried to escape that way. There were tourists all around— walking down the waterfront, shopping at the pier above them— but Percy knew that wouldn't stop the manticore from acting.

"Where… where are the skeletons?" he asked the manticore.

He sneered. "I do not need those foolish undead! The General thinks I am worthless? He will change his mind when I defeat you myself!"

Percy needed time to think. He had to save Bessie. He could dive into the sea, but how could he make a quick getaway with a five-hundred-pound cow serpent? And what about his friends?

"We beat you once before," Percy said.

"Ha! You could barely fight me with a goddess on your side. And, alas… that goddess is preoccupied at the moment. There will be no help for you now."

Zoe notched an arrow and aimed it straight at the manticore's head. The guards on either side of them raised their guns.

"Wait!" the Doctor yelled. "Zoe, don't!"

The manticore smiled. "The young Titan is right, Zoe Nightshade. Put away your bow. It would be a shame to kill you before you witnessed Thalia's great victory."

The Doctor glowered at the manticore. "I am not a Titan."

"What are you talking about?" Thalia growled. She had her shield and spear ready.

"Surely it is clear," the manticore said. "This is your moment. This is why Lord Kronos brought you back to life. You will sacrifice the Ophiotaurus. You will bring its entrails to the sacred fire on the mountain. You will gain unlimited power. And for your sixteenth birthday, you will overthrow Olympus."

No one spoke. It made terrible sense. Thalia was only two days away from turning sixteen. She was a child of the three elder gods. And here was a choice, a terrible choice that could mean the end of Olympus. It was just like the prophecy said. Percy wasn't sure if he felt relieved, horrified, or disappointed. He wasn't the child of the prophecy after all. Doomsday was happening right now.

Percy waited for Thalia to tell the manticore off, but she hesitated. She looked completely stunned.

"You know it is the right choice," the manticore told her. "Your friend Luke recognized it. You shall be reunited with him. You shall rule this world together under the auspices of the Titans. Your father abandoned you, Thalia. He cares nothing for you. And now you shall gain power over him. Crush the Olympians underfoot, as they deserve. Call the beast! It will come to you. Use your spear."

"Thalia," Percy said, "snap out of it!"

She looked at him the same way she had the morning she woke up on Half-Blood Hill, dazed and uncertain. It was almost like she didn't know Percy. "I… I don't—"

The Doctor tried to reason with her. "Your father helped you," he said. "He helped by bringing the TARDIS to us, so we could escape. He turned you into a tree to preserve you."

Her hand tightened on the shaft of her spear.

Percy looked at Grover desperately. Thankfully, he understood what his friend needed. He raised his pipes to his mouth and played a quick riff.

The manticore yelled, "Stop him!"

The guards had been targeting Zoe, and before they could figure out that the satyr with the pipes was the bigger problem, the 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 thick gray smoke.

The guards started coughing. The manticore shot spines in their direction, but they ricocheted off Percy's lion's coat.

"Grover," Percy said, "tell Bessie to dive deep and stay down!"

"Moooooo!" Grover translated. Percy could only hope that Bessie got the message.

"The cow…" Thalia muttered, still in a daze.

"Come on!" the Doctor pulled her along as they ran up the stairs to the shopping center 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.

They scrambled to the end of the pier, hiding behind a little kiosk filled with souvenir crystals—wind chimes and dream catchers, glittering in the sunlight. 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, the green hills and fog beyond that to the north. A picture-perfect moment, except for the fact that they were about to die and the world was going to end.

"We need to make a break for it," the Doctor said. "Maybe we can make it back to the TARDIS."

Zoe shook her head gravely. "We would never make it. And how would that help the Ophiotaurus?"

"Go over the side!" she told Percy. "You can escape in the sea. Call on thy father for help. Maybe you can save the Ophiotaurus."

She was right, but he couldn't do it.

"I won't leave you guys," he said. "We fight together."

"You have to get word to camp!" Grover said. "At least let them know what's going on!"

Then Percy 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 gasped as the water hit her. The fog seemed to clear from her eyes. "Are you crazy?" she 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 yelled.

And there, shimmering in the Mist right next to them, was the last person any of them 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."

"How noble," Mr. D said, stifling a yawn. "So, what is the problem, exactly?"

He didn't see that it would make any difference, but Percy told him about the Ophiotaurus.

"Mmm." He studied the contents of the fridge. "So that's it. I see."

"You don't even care!" Percy 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. 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 gloated. 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 Percy, as if that was an amusing thought. "You could say please."

When wild boars fly, Percy thought. There was no way he was going to die begging a slob like Mr. D, just so he could laugh as everyone got gunned down.

The Doctor kept trying to push buttons in a sequence with his sonic screwdriver. Zoe readied her arrows. Grover lifted his pipes. Thalia raised her shield. That was when 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."

Of course, nothing happened.

The manticore grinned. "Spare the daughter of Zeus. She will join us soon enough. Kill the others."

The men raised their guns, and something strange happened.

A feeling not unlike blood rushing to the head occurred all around Percy, then a sound like a huge sigh. The sunlight tinged with purple. He smelled grapes, then 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 could 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."

Both Percy and the Doctor stared at him, horrified. The former stammered, "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. "I hope you learned your lesson, girl. It isn't easy to resist power, is it?"

Thalia blushed as if she were ashamed.

"Mr. D," Grover said in amazement. "You… you saved us."

He groaned. "Don't make me regret it, satyr. Now get going, Percy Jackson. I've bought you a few hours at most."

"The Ophiotaurus," he 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 Zoe. "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 by my right name," he said. "You called me Percy Jackson."

"I most certainly did not, Peter Johnson. 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. One of them had found the freaked out homeless man, and they were having a serious conversation about aliens from Mars. Several other guards were harassing the tourists, making animal noises and trying to steal their shoes.

Percy looked at Zoe. "What did he mean… 'You know where to go'?"

Her face was the color 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."

(A/N: Dun dun dunnn... the plot thickens. Also, I know some of you are definitely confused about why Thorn called the Doctor a Titan, and I promise you it will make sense. In due time, friends. In due time.)