Feedback is always welcome.

Annabeth was waiting for the group in an alley down Church Street. She pulled them right off of the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Meriwether Prep. "Where'd you find him?" she demanded, pointing at Tyson.

Despite his happiness at seeing the girl, her attitude towards Tyson pissed him off. He understood it sure, Tyson was a cyclops and all, but that he so obviously had saved them and protected them should have eased her hate.

"He's my friend," Percy told her.

"Is he homeless?"

"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don't you ask him?"

She looked surprised. "He can talk?"

"I talk," Tyson admitted. "You are pretty."

"Ah! Gross!" Annabeth stepped away from him.

Percy actually looked pissed. "I know he's a cyclops, but seriously he's my friend. He's kept me safe all year and he's literally a kid."

"He's got a point Annabeth." She turned to him as Percy went over to reassure a very upset Tyson, checking out his hands with a warm smile. "I know enough about Cyclopes, thanks to Alabaster's training, to know about the Abandoned Cyclopes in the cities. They were covered shortly before he left, a warning I think since my option to leave camp was coming up. Anyway, I think they only turn evil or dark or whatever when they are on their own and have to survive. I mean I'd hate Demigods too if I had to survive on my own on the streets, hated and hunted while they had a cushy camp to live in."

Recoiling, she turned away with shame in her eyes, her pride clearly aching from the scolding. "I'm surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around."

Tyson seemed fascinated by Annabeth's blond hair. He tried to touch it, but she reached over to smack his hand away only stopping at Aaron's and Percy's hateful stare. She sighed, grabbing and softly removing his hand with a very pained smile.

"They were sent here, they could do magic, Annabeth. I couldn't sense any from them so I think they were channeling power from another." Aaron kept his eyes wide, shock as he realized how right he was. "It would take a powerful force for them to channel it for any sort of spell."

She froze, her eyes wide. " Your right their minds are too simple for spellwork… I've never seen them as far south as New York before. Now come on, we have to get out of here."

"The police'll be after us."

"That's the least of our problems," she said. "Have you been having the dreams, Percy?" Aaron ignored his slight jealousy, he didn't get prophetic dreams that they tended to get. He had to figure stuff out on his own, he hadn't even started on Divination.

"The dreams … about Grover?" Percy piped up.

Her face turned pale. "Grover? No, what about Grover?"

Percy told her all about his wild Grover and the wedding dress dream. "Why? What were you dreaming about?"

Her eyes looked stormy, like her mind was racing a million miles an hour. "Camp," she said at last. "Big trouble at camp."

"My mom was saying the same thing! But what kind of trouble? Aaron, did you get the chance to send an IM to camp?"

The Sorcerer shook his head. "No, too many people in the bathroom, I never had a chance."

Annabeth sighed, look frustrated. "I don't know exactly. Something's wrong. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing me all the way from Virginia, trying to stop me. Have you had a lot of attacks?"

Percy shook my head. "None all year … until today."

"I for one am thankful, I still can't cast protective charms."

Annabeth seemed amazed. "I can see how that'd annoy you... but no attacks? None? But how …" Her eyes drifted to Tyson. "Oh."

Percy actually smirked, happy to have figured something out before her. " Yeah, Tyson's awesome like that. "

Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. "Giants in the gym called Percy something … Son of the Sea God?"

They all exchanged looks, not sure how to explain something like this to Tyson of all people.

"Big guy," Percy said, "you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena-"

"Yes," Tyson said.

"Well … those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they're in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods. Sometimes they have kids with Nymphs, making Cyclopes like you."

"Yes," Tyson said, he said it low and slow, like he was waiting for the point.

"Uh, well, Annabeth and I are half-bloods," Percy said. "We're like … heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That's what those giants were in the gym. Monsters."

"Yes."

It made sense for Tyson to be so understanding, Aaron realized that he probably already knew all of this. "You knew this already, right Tyson?

Tyson nodded, a happy but confused smile on his face. "But you are … Son of the Sea God?"

"Yeah," Percy admitted. "My dad is Poseidon."

Tyson frowned. Now he looked confused. "But then …"

"Wait, most Cyclopes are the Son's of Posiden, that means..." He turned to a flushed Percy. " Your probably brothers."

Tyson reached out at blinding speeds, squeezing Percy into a crushing hug. " BROTHER!" He bellowed out, the most adorable sound in the known universe.

"We don't have time for this, we'll talk in Taxi."

Done with molesting Percy, Tyson released the coughing, wheezing demigod "A taxi all the way to camp?" he said. "You know how much money-"

"Trust me."

Percy hesitated. "What about Tyson? We can't just leave him, He'll be in trouble, too If the Mist I put up breaks"

"Yeah." Annabeth looked grim. "We definitely need to take him. Now come on." As one they followed her down the alley. "Here." Annabeth stopped us on the corner of Thomas and Trimble. She fished around in her backpack. "I hope I have one left."

In this light, more direct in the bright sun, She looked even worse than they had realized. Her chin was cut. Twigs and grass were tangled in her ponytail, as if she'd slept several nights in the open. The slashes on the hems of her jeans looked suspiciously like claw marks.

"What are you looking for?" Percy asked.

Cops cars and Fire trucks passed by them, swarming the field looking for the Cannibals who they believed to have fled away.

"Found one. Thank the gods." Annabeth pulled out a gold coin that I recognized as a drachma, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus's likeness stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other.

"Annabeth," I said, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."

"Stêthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ô hárma diabolês!" It was hard for Aaron to understand, his Latin was better then his Greek but he knew that She'd said: Stop, Chariot of Damnation!

She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right through and disappeared. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space-bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze. It was a taxi, all right, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn't yellow. It was smoky gray. It looked like it was woven out of smoke, like you could walk right through it.

"Grey Sisters, as in the Grey Sisters! The hags sharing an eye and a tooth?" The memories of that story, singular and specific, clawed at his memories. Medusa's sisters, Children of Phorcyus and Keto, their only human looking kids beyond the Gorgons. Powerful, wise and all knowing... "They drive a taxi?"

The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyehole, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she'd just had a shot of Novocain. "We have to make a living too, Mortal! Passage?

"Three to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at me to get in, like this was all completely normal. "Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!" She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.

"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."

"Done!" the woman screamed.

Reluctantly Percy got in the cab. Tyson squeezed in the middle. Aaron next, then Annabeth crawled in last. The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough and was larger on the inside then the out so even with Tyson's massive size it didn't feel that crowded, just mostly. The seat was cracked and lumpy-no different than most taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating them from the old ladies driving … all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering her eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress.

The one driving said, "Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!" She floored the accelerator, and Aaron's head slammed against the backrest.

A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up! That there was a chain instead of an actual seatbelt wasn't very comforting.

The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the gray lady sitting in the middle screeched, "Look out! Go left!" "Well, if you'd give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!" the driver complained. Wait a minute. Give her the eye?

"You mean to say your one eye isn't in the hands of the one driving, give it to her now!" He bellowed, knowing they were not fighters and would hopefully listen.

"You heard the boy, wise he is."

"SHUT UP WASP! THE EYE IS MINE RIGHT NOW!"

Wasp, the driver, swerved to avoid an oncoming delivery truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling thump, and flew into the next block.

"Wasp!" the third lady said to the driver. "Give me the girl's coin! I want to bite it."

"You bit it last time, Anger!" said Wasp.

"It's my turn!"

"Is not!" yelled the one called Anger.

The middle one, Tempest, screamed, "Red light!"

"Brake!" yelled Anger.

Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box.

"Excuse me," Percy said, his knowledge of the Myths was getting better but apparently he was still a bit misty on a few of them like these ladies. "But … can you see?"

"No!" screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.

"No!" screamed Tempest from the middle.

"Of course!" screamed Anger by the shotgun window.

Percy turned over to them, looking horrified and shocked. "They're blind?"

"Not completely," Annabeth said. "They have an eye."

"One eye?"

"Yeah."

"Each?"

"No. One eye total."

Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. "Not feeling so good."

"Oh, man," Percy . "Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something? Aaron, can you cast a spell to help with Carsickness?"

He shook his head, feeling his face pale at the notion of Tyson's motion sickness and the vomiting that came with it. "I wish I could but I used too much magic. I'm tapped out for the rest of the day at least."

Percy sent a hateful look to Annabeth, who was holding on for dear life. "Hey," she said, "Gray Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp."

"Then why didn't you take it from Virginia?"

"That's outside their service area," she said, like that should be obvious. "They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities."

"We've had famous people in this cab!" Anger exclaimed. "Jason! You remember him?"

"Don't remind me!" Wasp wailed. "And we didn't have a cab back then, you old bat. That was three thousand years ago!"

"Give me the tooth!" Anger tried to grab at Wasp's mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.

"Only if Tempest gives me the eye!"

"No!" Tempest screeched. "You had it yesterday!"

"But I'm driving, you old hag!"

"Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!" Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street, squishing poor Percy between Tyson and the door. She punched the gas and we shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour. The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp's face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest's. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other, I realized that none of the sisters had any teeth except for Wasp, who had one mossy yellow incisor. Instead of eyes, they just had closed, sunken eyelids, except for Anger, who had one bloodshot green eye that stared at everything hungrily, as if it couldn't get enough of anything it saw. Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp's Mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, "'Ivit back! 'Ivit back!"

Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.

"Uh, if anybody's interested," Percy said, "we're going to die!"

"Don't worry," Annabeth told me, sounding pretty worried. "The Gray Sisters know what they're doing. They're really very wise."

We were skimming along the edge of a bridge a hundred and thirty feet above the East River. "Yes, wise!" Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. "We know things!"

"Every street in Manhattan!" Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. "The capital of Nepal!"

"The location you seek!" Tempest added. Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either side, screaming, "Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn't even ask yet!"

"If your so wise then give Wasp the eye damn it!" He bellowed again, getting them to stop fighting and look at him in shock. " If she doesn't have the eye in ten seconds I am going to tear it myself and toss it out the damn window!"

"What?" Percy suddenly said, not noticing their calm that Aaron finally forced onto them. "What location? I'm not seeking any-"

"Nothing!" Tempest said. "You're right, boy. It's nothing!"

"Tell me."

"No!" they all screamed.

"The last time we told, it was horrible!" Tempest said.

"Eye tossed in a lake!" Anger agreed.

"Years to find it again!" Wasp moaned.

"And speaking of that-give it back!"

"No!" yelled Anger.

"Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!" She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and something flew out of Anger's face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight onto Percy's lap. He jumped so hard, his head hit the ceiling and the eyeball rolled away.

"I can't see!" all three sisters yelled.

"Give me the eye!" Wasp wailed.

"Give her the eye!" Annabeth screamed.

"I don't have it!" Percy said as they all scrouched around to look for it.

"There, by your foot," Annabeth said. "Don't step on it! Get it!"

"I'm not picking that up!" The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.

"Going to be sick!" Tyson warned.

"Annabeth," I yelled, "let Tyson use your backpack!"

"Are you crazy? Get the eye!"

Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. We hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any human taxi. The Gray Sisters screeched and pummeled each other and cried out for their eye.

Somehow, after tearing off a piece of his tattered shirt, Percy grabbed the eye

. "Nice boy!" Anger cried, as if she somehow knew Percy had her missing peeper.

"Give it back!" "Not until you explain," He told her. "What were you talking about, the location I seek?"

"No time!" Tempest cried. "Accelerating!"

Aaron looked out the window. Sure enough, trees and cars and whole neighborhoods were now zipping by in a gray blur. We were already out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.

"Percy," Annabeth warned, "they can't find our destination without the eye. We'll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces."

"First they have to tell me," Percy said. "Or I'll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic."

"No!" the Gray Sisters wailed. "Too dangerous!"

"I'm rolling down the window."

"Wait!" the Gray Sisters screamed. "30, 31, 75, 12!" They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play.

"What do you mean?" Percy screamed. "That makes no sense!"

"30, 31, 75, 12!" Anger wailed. "That's all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!" We were off the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island.

Aaron could see Half-Blood Hill ahead of them, with its giant pine tree at the crest-Thalia's tree, which contained the life force of a fallen hero.

"Percy!" Annabeth said more urgently. "Give them the eye now!"

Percy finally threw the eye into Wasp's lap. The old lady snatched it up, pushed it into her eye socket like somebody putting in a contact lens, and blinked. "Whoa!" She slammed on the brakes. The taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill.

Tyson let loose a huge belch. "Better now."

"All right," Percy told the Gray Sisters. "Now tell me what those numbers mean."

"No time!" Annabeth opened her door. "We have to get out now."

And she was right as for at the crest of the hill was a group of campers. And they were under attack.