Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Percy Jackson and the Olympians
My nightmares started like this.
I was standing on a deserted beach in some little coastal town. It was the middle of the night.
A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings line the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of bushes, the ocean churned.
Montauk. I thought. Though I wasn't sure how I knew that. I'd never been to Montauk.
Then I heard hooves thundering against the ground. I turned and saw Grover running for his life.
Yeah, I said hooves.
Grover is a satyr. From the waist up, he looks like a typical gangly teenager with a peach-fuzz goatee and a bad case of acne. He walks with a strange limp, but unless you happen to catch him without his pants on (which I don't recommend), you'd never know there was anything un-human about him. Baggy jeans and fake feet hide the fact that he's got furry hindquarters and hooves.
Grover was my brother's friend from Yancy Academy. Percy didn't know his best friend was a Satyr. He didn't know anything about the mythological half of his life. Sally had made me promise never to tell him. She would when the time was right.
Anyway, in my dream, Grover was hauling goat tail, holding his human shoes in his hands the way he does when he needs to move fast. He clopped past the little cabin on the shore. The wind bent the palm trees almost to the ground.
Grover was terrified of something behind him. Wet sand was caked in his fur. I looked back out at the ocean. Miles offshore two beautiful animals, a white horse, and a golden eagle were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a geyser of oily black water shot up drenching both the animals.
I woke with a start.
Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lighting making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.
With the next thunderclap, the door to my room burst open. Sally Jackson stood in the doorway in her nightgown. "Hurricane," she said with wide eyes.
I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.
Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.
Sally vanished down the hall and I could hear her throw open the lock. I sprang out of bed and followed after her.
Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain.
"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"
Sally looked past me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.
"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"
I looked behind me, Percy was frozen, staring at Grover. He couldn't understand what he was seeing. I knew that was what he was thinking because I had thought the same when I first woke up in this world.
"It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?" Grover yelled.
Sally looked at Percy sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"
Percy stammered something about old ladies at a fruit stand and Mrs. Dodds, and his mom stared at him, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.
She grabbed her purse, tossed me and Percy our rain jackets, and said, "Get to the car. All three of you. Go!"
Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters.
I followed after, dragging Percy who was staring googly-eyed at his friend's cloven hooves. I shoved him in the backseat with Grover and took shotgun.
Sally climbed in, smashing her foot to the gas seconds after the engine roared to life. We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. How Sally saw a thing I didn't know, but she kept her foot on the gas.
I kept my nose wrinkled as the smell in the car worsened. It was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo—lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.
"So, you and my mom...know each other?" Percy asked Grover.
I turned around. Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."
"Watching me?"
"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," Grover added hastily. "I am your friend."
"Urn...what are you, exactly?" Percy asked.
"He's a Satyr," I answered. "From Mr. Brunner's class? Half-man, half-goat?"
"That doesn't matter right now," Grover said.
"It doesn't matter?" Percy asked incredulously. "From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"
Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"
"Goat!" he cried. "I'm a goat from the waist down."
"You just said it didn't matter." Percy pointed out."
"Blaa-ha-ha!" Grover bleated again. "There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"
"Saytr's are just myths," Percy said. "They aren't real."
"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy?" Grover asked. "Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"
"Hah!" Percy shouted victoriously. "So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds."
"Then why—"
"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."
"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"
The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.
"Percy," Sally said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."
"Safety from what?" Percy asked. "Who's after me?"
"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."
"Grover!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"
Sally made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.
"Where are we going?" I asked at the same time as Percy. We glanced at each other in the rearview mirror.
"The summer camp I told you about." Sally's voice was tight. "The place your father wanted to send you."
I stopped listening focused on the road ahead of us. This was what I trained for. I thought glancing down at my forearm. Underneath the sleeve of my jacket, the initials SPQR were permanently etched into my skin, along with ten vertical lines below the letters. The initials were an initialism to a Latin phrase "Senatus Populusque Romanus" which was the motto of the Roman Empire that translated to "The Senate and People of Rome". The lines below that symbolized my years of service to the legion.
The gods had woven the Mist around me thickly tricking me into misremembering my years at Camp Jupiter. Twisting my memories to fit what they wanted. What they didn't hide, because they didn't know they existed were the memories of my past life. So when I saw the marking on my arm and recognized it for what it was I knew I had lived at Camp Jupiter. I couldn't remember my time there, but membership at the local gym had proven I was combat trained.
Sally pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.
"What was that?" Percy asked.
The minotaur. I answered in my head.
"We're almost there," Sally said, ignoring Percy's question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."
Listening to her pleas, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom, and the car exploded.
My stomach felt like it had jumped up into my throat as my head smacked into the dash.
"Percy!" Sally shouted.
"I'm okay..." Percy answered in a pained groan.
I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. The drivers-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road.
Zeus is a dick. I clenched my jaw as I unbuckled my seatbelt. I shoved open my door and fell out into the mud.
"Percy," Sally said, "we have to..." Her voice faltered.
I looked back. In a flash of lightning, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, twice as large as the biggest football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.
"Who is—" Percy started.
"Percy," Sally said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."
I heard a thud. Followed by another. Sally and Percy had thrown themselves against their doors. Then Percy looked to the smoking hole in the roof as if he was thinking about climbing out that way.
"C'mon," I said, opening the back passenger door. "Climb out, I'll get Grover."
"Percy—you have to run," Sally said, as she climbed over the seats. "Do you see that big tree?"
Another flash of lightning and we could see the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
So that's what it looks like. I thought. It looked nothing like the tree in the movies. That tree looked like a normal tree, but this tree...seemed different. Like it wasn't just a regular tree.
"That's the property line," Sally said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."
"Mom, you're coming too," Percy said.
Sally's face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.
"No!" Percy shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."
"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.
The Minotaur kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. I grabbed Percy by the collar of his shirt and hauled him out of the car, dumping him in the muddy ditch.
I reached into the backseat and snagged Grover by one of his hairy legs. As I pulled him across the seat, I could hear Sally pleading with Percy.
"He doesn't want us," she said. "He wants you. Besides, we can't cross the property line."
"But..."
"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."
I finally had Grover out of the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't carry him and fight the Minotaur.
"Percy, here." I handed Grover off.
"We're going together," Percy said. "Come on, Mom."
"I told you—"
"Mom! I am not leaving you. Peter, help me with Grover."
Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.
Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.
His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.
I grabbed Percy by the shoulder stopping him and his mom.
Percy blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"
"Pasiphae's son," Sally said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."
"But he's the Min—" Percy tried to say the name.
"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."
The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.
I glanced behind me again.
The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling.
"Percy, give me your pen," I said.
"What?" he asked.
"The pen Mr. Brunner gave you, give it!" I ordered, louder than I meant to.
Percy stared at me like I was crazy. "Why do you want—"
I huffed and shoved my hand into his pocket.
"Hey!"
I grabbed the pen and pulled it out. As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.
Not a scratch, I remembered my dad saying.
Oops.
"Percy," Sally said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way—directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"
"How do you know all this?" Percy asked.
"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."
"Keeping me near you? But—"
Another bellow of rage and the bull-man started tromping uphill.
He'd smelled us.
The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.
The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.
I handed my side of Grover to Sally. She must've been exhausted, but she shouldered him and started uphill with Percy.
I got this. I uncapped Riptide. The medium-length xiphos made from Celestial Bronze was lighter than I thought it would be.
The Minotaur grunted, pawing the ground. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.
He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.
I gripped Riptide tight and did the same.
The Minotaur spread his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.
Time slowed down.
My legs tensed. I leapt straight up, flipping over the creature's head. As it passed under me, with my legs above my head, I swung Riptide, slicing through its neck.
"Whoa!" I heard Percy shout.
I landed on my feet between the Minotaur's legs. The monster was flat on his stomach, then he was gone in a flash of gold dust. Like sand in a power fan, all but his head vanished from sight.
A spoil of war. I thought. Just like Medusa's head would be. I walked to the head and bent down lifting the massive body part by a horn.
"Mom!" Percy wailed.
I dropped the head and whirled around, Riptide at the ready. Was this not the book universe? Had Hades sent more than the Minotaur after Percy?
Riptide fell from my grasp. There was no monster to fight. Grover was lying helpless in the grass, and Percy was trying to reach for his mother. His hands went right through her.
Sally was dissolving before our eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form as if she were a holographic projection. There was a blinding flash, and she was simply...gone.
Hades had still taken her. Of course, he did. Without her, Percy might not go to the Underworld. Gods, messing with the lives of mortals. I frowned at the thought as I picked up Riptide. Hades didn't care that losing his mom would crush Percy. All he cared about was how Sally's "death" would serve him.
"Percy," I said. "We've got to go."
He kept staring at the spot where his mother had vanished. "Perce, you're going into shock," I said, shaking his shoulder.
"My mom..." Percy gasped, his eyes rolling back.
Crap. I capped Riptide and put it's pen form back in my pocket. I managed to haul both Percy and Grover up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse.
The door opened when my foot hit the first step. Two stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's looked down at me.
Mr. Brunner and Annabeth.
"He's the one. He must be." Annabeth said.
"Silence, Annabeth," Mr. Brunner said. "Peter, bring them inside."
I dragged Percy and Grover inside, dropping them as gently as I could next to the couch before I passed out face first in the cushions.
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