Danny woke up with a smile on his face. He was in a very good mood. Maybe he would even not mess with the Gods that day. He wasn't plotting anything, but that didn't mean that he couldn't annoy them to the nervous tick, if only he knew that he already did. Messing with people, especially the ones he didn't like, was his favorite hobby. And yes, he messed with people he liked as well, namely Ares.
Others were sound asleep, and inside the wagon his eyes were the only source of light. It was either a night or they were going through the tunnel. Well, the first variant was unlikeable. His inner clock are worthy his father's. So it was a tunnel.
Then Danny noticed that Ellie wasn't besides him. His eyes widened as he started to rapidly look around. It didn't take long and he sighed in relief once he found her.
"Maybe you should wait for breakfast?" Danny asked, making Ellie jump in surprise. She had an expression of the kid caught with his hand in cookie jar. Actually, it wasn't far from truth, she was eagerly munching Oreo biscuit.
"But Daddy, I'm hungry!" Ellie complained. Danny got up with a chuckle and came to his daughter, lowering himself to her level.
"I know, sweetie, but this cookies are all the food we have. If you eat them, what will be left for the others?" Ellie scrutinized her eyes in thought, looking at the shaking floor, "Hey, don't be like that, Ellie," Danny ruffled her stark white hair, "I'm sure they will wake up soon."
Suddenly he grabbed her and easily lifted off the ground, earning a surprised yelp from his daughter and then a happy giggle. They dropped on the place where they slept during the night.
"So, you slept well?" Danny asked, and Ellie nodded eagerly, almost jumping.
"Yeah! I even met grandpa!" Older Phantom chuckled, looks like Clockwork decided to visit her as well, "He looked reaaaly happy!"
"Oh, is that so?" He asked with playful curiosity.
They finally rode out of the tunnel, and the sunlight floepwed through the holes between wooden planks. By Danny's counts they should be in Vegas pretty soon. Then they will eat properly. But blast LA prices, they wouldn't be able to get much, but he needs to be optimistic, at least for his little girl.
There weren't any windows, so he made his head intangible and looked through the wall. And, oh miracle, they were on the station. But then he realized - they were about to...
Danny fell on the ground because of the abrupt stop. Groaning, he got up, straightening his back.
"Ellie, stay invisible," he ordered and she did as was told, giving him a nod. Phantom meanwhile needed to wake up the others.
"Guys! Wake up!"
They didn't move.
With a deadpan expression on his face, he sent a small electrical current the size of his little finger. His victims woke up with a startle.
"What was that for?" Annabeth asked, rubbing her eyes, while Percy and Grover groaned.
"Good morning, by the way," Danny said plainly, "We stopped and are about to have guests."
"What time is it?" Percy rubbed his sore back.
"9:34 am," his hearing caught footsteps outside, "Hide!"
Why he said that was a mistery, since he still put hands on the younger boys' shoulders, turning them invisible along with himself. Annabeth just took on her cap and became invisible, too.
The trailer doors creaked open. Sunlight and heat poured in.
"Man!" one of the truckers said, waving his hand in front of his ugly nose. "I wish I hauled appliances." He climbed inside and poured some water from a jug into the animals' dishes.
"You hot, big boy?" he asked the lion, then splashed the rest of the bucket right in the lion's face.
The lion roared in indignation.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the man said.
Danny felt Grover tence under his hand. Looks like he didn't like that, which is understandable, he himself was ready to open the cage and let the lion out.
The trucker threw the antelope a squashed-looking Happy Meal bag. He smirked at the zebra. "How ya doin', Stripes? Least we'll be getting rid of you this stop. You like magic shows? You're gonna love this one. They're gonna saw you..."
There was a loud knock, knock, knock on the side of the trailer.
The trucker inside yelled, "What do you want, Eddie?"
A voice outside, must've been Eddie's, shouted back, "Maurice? What'd ya say?"
"What are you banging for?"
Knock, knock, knock.
Outside, Eddie yelled, "What banging?"
Maurice rolled his eyes and went back outside, cursing at Eddie for being an idiot.
A second later, Ellie appeared next to them, grinning widely. She must've done the banging to get Maurice out of the trailer. She said, "Did I do well, Daddy? Did I?" Danny smiled.
"Yep, good job, smarty pants."
"This transport business can't be legal," Annabeth whisper-yelled.
"No kidding," Grover said. He paused, as if listening. "The lion says these guys are animal smugglers!"
"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Danny asked, accusingly narrowing his eyes at the antelope, who looked surprised that it was one to blame.
"We've got to free them!" Grover said. He and Annabeth both looked at Percy.
"Go on, mighty leader," Danny commented, still looking at the antelope.
Outside, Eddie and Maurice were still yelling at each other, Percy grabbed Riptide and slashed the lock off the zebra's cage.
The zebra burst out. Suddenly it turned to Percy and bowed. Danny recalled something about Poseidon creating horses, and zebra is one, isn't it?
Grover held up his hands and said something to the zebra in goat talk, like a blessing. It looked pretty amusing.
Just as Maurice was poking his head back inside to check out the noise, the zebra leaped over him and into the street. There was yelling and screaming and cars honking. They rushed to the doors of the trailer in time to see the zebra galloping down a wide boulevard lined with hotels and casinos and neon signs. They'd just released a zebra in Las Vegas.
Maurice and Eddie ran after it, with a few policemen running after them, shouting, "Hey! You need a permit for that!"
"Now would be a good time to leave," Annabeth said.
"The other animals first," Grover said.
Percy cut the lion's lock with his sword. Danny, still accusingly eyeing the antelope, just tore the lock. Grover raised his hands and spoke the same goat-blessing he'd used for the zebra.
"Good luck," Percy told the animals.
"Just don't eat each other," Danny added. The antelope and the lion burst out of their cages and went off together into the streets.
Some tourists screamed. Most just backed off and took pictures, probably thinking it was some kind of stunt by one of the casinos.
"Will the animals be okay?" Percy asked Grover. "I mean, the desert and all..."
"Don't worry," he said. "I placed a satyr's sanctuary on them."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning they'll reach the wild safely," he said. "They'll find water, food, shade, whatever they need until they find a safe place to live."
"Why can't you place a blessing like that on us?" Percy asked.
"It only works on wild animals."
"So it would only affect Percy," Annabeth reasoned. Phantoms burst laughing.
"Hey!" He protested.
"Kidding," she said. "Come on. Let's get out of this filthy truck."
They stumbled out into the desert afternoon. If the others felt bad because of being on the street of the city during the hottest time of the day, than Danny felt dizzy. He can't stand the heat, Ellie hadn't grown up enough yet to be affected. It started around twelve for him.
They passed the Monte Carlo and the MGM. They passed pyramids, a pirate ship, and the Statue of Liberty, which was a pretty small replica.
Danny dreamed only about a place to get out of the heat for a few minutes, find a sandwich and a glass of lemonade, making a new plan for getting west was the secondary for him.
They must have taken a wrong turn, because they found themselves at a dead end, standing in front of the Lotus Hotel and Casino. The entrance was a huge neon flower, the petals lighting up and blinking. No one was going in or out, but the glittering chrome doors were open, spilling out air-conditioning that smelled like flowers.
The doorman smiled at them, "Hey, kids. You look tired. You want to come in and sit down?"
"Thank you, good sir!" Danny moaned, before almost falling inside, his dizzy head hadn't noticed a very strange feeling he got once he entered the building.
The whole lobby was a giant game room. There was an indoor waterslide snaking around the glass elevator, which went straight up at least forty floors. There was a climbing wall on the side of one building, and an indoor bungee-jumping bridge. There were virtual-reality suits with working laser guns. And hundreds of video games, each one the size of a widescreen TV. Basically, you name it, this place had it. There were a few other kids playing, but not that many. No waiting for any of the games. There were waitresses and snack bars all around, serving every kind of food you can imagine. And of all this things Danny saw only a sofa to fall on. Others looked around in awe, while Ellie ran to check up on her father.
"Daddy, are you alright?" She asked worriedly. He nodded, sighing.
"Yeah, I'm fine, sweetie. Just give me a minute, I'm still a bit dizzy."
"Do you need water?" Danny smiled softly.
"That would be great. Though, you don't..."
"Guys!" Percy called, coming closer. Phantoms turned to him, "You coming?"
"Coming to where?" Danny asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, I don't know why..." he said slowly, "That bellhop gave us this cards, that's yours, by the way," Percy handed him a green lotus card, "Maybe he thought we are some millionaire's kids. He even gave us a room."
Danny took the card, and wriggled it in his hand, "Dressed and smelling like that?" He asked sarcastically, "Well, I'm not going to complain. Can at least have a shower and empty mini-bar before being kicked out."
He slowly got up from the sofa, shaking away the rest of dizziness, before they followed Percy to the elevator, where Grover and Annabeth were already waiting for them. They took the elevator upstairs and checked out the room.
It was a suite with FIVE separate bedrooms and a bar stocked with sweets, sodas and chips. A hotline to room service. Fluffy towels and water beds with feather pillows. A big-screen television with satellite and high-speed Internet. The balcony had its own hot tub, and sure enough, there was a skeet-shooting machine and a shotgun, so you could launch clay pigeons right out over the Las Vegas skyline and plug them with your gun. There was no way it was legal, but Danny had stars in his eyes. The view over the Strip and the desert was amazing, maybe he will take a flight. Well, if his cousin will be in a good mood, what he doubted he was.
"Oh, goodness," Annabeth said. "This place is ..."
"Sweet," Grover said. "Absolutely sweet."
"Daddy, I don't want to!" Ellie suddenly whined. The others turned around and saw that Danny was carrying her on his shoulder.
"No complaints, young lady, you are NOT going out smelling like Begemoth!" Her father said half-seriously half-jokingly.
"Eew!" Ellie grimaced.
"See what I'm talking about?" Danny grinned, "There are plenty of bathrooms, you can take a bath with bubbles if you want," she gasped.
"Really?" He nodded.
"Yep," before he could blink she jumped off his hands and ran into the bathroom. Danny chuckled with a soft smile on his face, "Always works," then he smelled his armpit and grimaced.
Danny took the shower, and that felt awesome after so much time spent in filthy wagon. He took on the new clothes, which felt odd for him, how did they know his size? He then checked up on Ellie, and washed the places she always missed, before she made him a beard from shampoo bubbles as they both laughed. "You look like grandpa," she said through giggles.
Once she was dried and dressed, they both exited the bathroom.
"Uhm, why do you have a bubble beard?" Grover asked with his hand in the package with chips. His only answer was a shrug.
Ellie sat on the bed, munching chips as well and watching National Geographic along with Annabeth. Danny wasn't hungry much, he just sat on the armchair with a can of Coke and handful of nuts, reading the book he found on a shelf. After some time Percy walked out of the bedroom.
"All those stations," he told Annabeth, "and you turn on National Geographic. Are you insane?"
"It's interesting."
"I feel good," Grover said. "I love this place."
Without him even realizing it, the wings sprouted out of his shoes and lifted him a foot off the ground, then back down again.
"So what now?" Annabeth asked. "Sleep?"
Grover and Percy looked at each other and grinned. They both held up our green plastic LotusCash cards.
"Play time," the last one said.
"You go, we'll catch up later," Danny said, not looking up from his book.
"Why?" Phantom glanced up briefly.
"Honestly, in my opinion we should just sleep, take the food and continue our way. Plus I need to burn down this toxic waste," he pointed at his dirty clothes.
"Danny, we have the whole week ahead."
"So? After all my adventures I learned that if something can go wrong, it WILL go wrong. So we better leave as soon as possible."
No one listened, though. Of course, why listening to the guy whose body scars would make a nice metropolitan map? Well, you know what people say, if you can't stop the parade, lead it. And Danny was a very good leader. His duplicate was watching over Ellie, who was having fun on a waterslide. Saying that the others were confused after seeing him in two different places will be pointless. He himself seemed to try every single game there. He hadn't this much fun for a long time. It's not like there was a lot of places like that in Tartarus, it just wasn't the priority in rebuilding the anarchic world.
Suddenly Phantom remembered clay pigeons and the shotgun waiting for him up in the apartment. After hiding in the bathroom he teleported back there. To his surprise it was afternoon, time goes so fast when you have fun. He will need to check the clock so Ellie will go to sleep in time. Her regime was twisted enough already. Well, after he will plug a few innocent birdies with a shotgun.
Though, it wasn't as fun as he predicted. Well, sure, it was for the first twenty times or less, but he lost the interest quickly. After some contemplating he decided to take a short flight.
It was short indeed. He flew only about five minutes, before Zeus decided to, apparently, kill him. Danny wasn't surprised by that. He was surprised by the number of lightings his cousin threw at him. Overwhelming number was impossible to avoid forever. When one especially strong lighting hit him in the back, Danny was forced to land. Hard. From ten meters height on his butt. He managed not to break any bones, thankfully, but he was now outside of the casino. Danny took his way to the entrance, coming out of the alleyway. He tried to recall the way back, walking around slowly without any concrete direction.
"... And now for the weather," he heard the voice from the TV standing behind the glass of the electronics store.
"Thank you, Charles. The climate lately is going haywire, west coast hadn't seen so much storms in a long while," wow, Zeus must be really mad, "And it shall continue at least until the end of the month."
"So we have to wait another week and a half?"
A week and a half?
That phrase stopped Phantom dead on his tracks. What did he mean? They were in there for a few hours! He immediately ran to the nearest newsagent and took a look at one. Then he noticed the date: June twentieth.
Crap.
-Meanwhile-
Danny's duplicates share one consciousness, so the second the original understood in what situation they were, he knew what to do.
"Ellie, it's time to go," he said to his daughter, who was shooting at him from laser gun with a helmet on her head.
"What?" She asked through the noise. Danny came to her, before carefully and quickly taking off the device.
"We need to get out of here."
Before Ellie could ask why, he yanked her after him hurriedly.
Together they were searching for the others. The first one they found was Percy. Well, they found each other.
"We've got to get out of here!" They said at the same time.
"You noticed that too?" Percy asked surprised.
"No duh, we spent here five damned days!"
"WHAT?!"
"We need to find the others. Let's split. You check on the left side of the floor, me and Ellie on the right."
Phantoms went searching, and found certain satyr still playing Virtual Deer Hunter.
"Grover!" Danny shouted.
He said, "Die, human! Die, silly polluting nasty person!"
"Grover!"
He turned the plastic gun on him and started clicking, as if he was just another image from the screen.
Danny looked at Ellie, before they both grinned and together took Grover by the arms and dragged him away. His flying shoes sprang to life and started tugging his legs in the other direction as he shouted, "No! I just got to a new level! No!"
"C'mon goatman, we found soda cans for ya," Ellie said. 'Ah, my sassy child,' Danny thought with a proud smile.
They met with Percy and Annabeth near the entrance hall. The Lotus bellhop hurried up to them. "Well, now, are you ready for your platinum cards?"
"We're leaving," Percy told him.
"Such a shame," he said, and Danny got the feeling that he really meant it, that they'd be breaking his heart if they went, he shook his head, nice acting, Stanislavsky method much? "We just added an entire new floor full of games for platinum-card members."
He held out the cards, shining with silver light, so contemplating...
Grover reached for the card, but Danny slapped his arm, earning a muffled scream from the satyr and said, "No, thanks."
They walked toward the door, and as they did, the smell of the food and the sounds of the games seemed to get more and more inviting. Ellie wanted to come back, and it tore Danny's heart to do that, but he continued to carry his baby girl to the exit.
Then they burst through the doors of the Lotus Casino and ran down the sidewalk. Before anyone could notice, duplicate disappeared and the real one came to his place, with a bag, full of supplies. All he needed is to outstretch his hand and take a handful of money from a small handmade portal. It was a maximum he could do, make a small portal to his treasury.
They had been in the Lotus Casino for five days, they had only one day left until the summer solstice, one day to complete their quest. Damn you, Murphy's law!