Disclaimer: I don't own PJO. I'm fairly sure that I said that Luke hadn't been in Frisco before this in the previous chapter, which is obviously wrong given his quest. Forget that please. And Stacy and Ryan are the two who went with him to the Garden the first time around, and were killed. I made them up.

Chapter Fifteen

Dungeons and Dragons

"We will never make it on foot," Zoe predicted grimly. "We are moving too slow. But we cannot leave the Ophiotaurus."

"Mooo," Bessie said. He swam beside us as we jogged along the waterfront. We had left the shopping centre pier far behind and we were heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was a lot farther than I'd realized at first. The sun was already dipping in the west. Zoe was right, we needed a car.

"I'll hotwire the next car we see," I told her curtly. I checked the sky again, biting my lip worriedly. The Hesperides were the nymphs of the sunset, I knew from my last trip to the damn Garden. Their garden could only be entered when the day changed to night.

"What happens if we miss it?" Grover asked timidly, though I was fairly certain that all of us knew what would happen already.

"Tomorrow is winter solstice," Zoe replied curtly. "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 Ana will be dead, I thought, but I didn't say that. If Thalia really was the Prophecy Child, then the Titans would have no reason to keep Ana alive. Not unless she agreed to join their army, and I had no doubt that she would never betray the gods. Ana didn't like the gods, but she was loyal to them. And knowing Ana, she had been making her capture as painful for her captors as possible.

"But what about Bessie?" I asked, snapping out of my thoughts. "We can't leave him. If the Titans get their claws on him..." I let my sentence trail off, disliking the dark imagery such thoughts conjured in my mind.

Grover stopped in his tracks. "I've got an idea! The Ophiotaurus can appear in different bodies of water, right?"

"Well, yeah," I said. "I think so, anyway. He was in Long Island Sound. Then 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 suggested, looking excited. "Then Chiron could help us get him to Olympus."

"But he was following me to Ana," I pointed out. And I still didn't understand what Bessie meant by me being linked to Ana. I'd've thought he would follow Grover, given their empathy link. Still, now wasn't really the time to worry about that.

"If neither of us are there, would he even know where he's going?"

"Moo," Bessie said forlornly.

Grover hesitated and swallowed, looking down at the sad sea creature. "I… I can show him," he said. "I'll go with him."

I 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 wasn't particularly fond of it either, but I had grown more comfortable with it since meeting Ana. Grover was hydrophobic. And now he was going into the ocean? Willingly? When it was stormy from Poseidon's ire? That was huge.

"I'm the only one who can talk to him," Grover insisted. "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 told us. "That should help with safe passage. And I'll pray to Poseidon as well. See if he'll grant the two of us safe passage through the seas."

"I'll pray to my father," I added with a shrug that made it seem as if it wasn't hugely difficult for me to ask the parent I hated for help for my friend. "God of travel, and all of that."

I exhaled deeply and conjured up the image of my father and Lord Poseidon. A jogger on his phone with salt-and-pepper hair, and a man with blue-tinted black hair, and eyes that reflected the sea. "Father," I murmured. "Lord Poseidon. Grant Grover and the Ophiotaurus safe passage to Camp Half-Blood. Protect them while they're at sea."

"A prayer that strong will need a sacrifice," Thalia warned, her eyebrows scrunched together in worry.

I bit my lip, trying to think what I could give to the two gods. If I hadn't given the lion coat to Artemis already, I could have sacrificed that but there was no use crying about it. Finally, I got an idea. I went over to a nearby bin, my companions trailing at my heels, and used my pilfered lighter to set a fire. Then I took off Ana's shield bracelet. She would be upset, but she would understand.

A shield is meant for protection, Mental Ana added wisely in my head. Protecting the Ophiotaurus is my responsibility, apparently, and I'll always keep my friends safe if I can.

The others gasped in surprise as I summoned the shield and threw it into the flames, where it burnt up with unnatural swiftness. A smell of snakes and the ocean was left in its' wake.

"That was Ana's shield," Thalia reminded me under her breath as we returned to the edge of the pier.

"Shield's are for protection," I shrugged back, suppressing my guilt. "And they're replaceable. Grover and Bessie are not."

She didn't say anything else.

Grover took a deep breath. "Well, no time to lose." He jumped in the water and immediately began to sink down. Bessie glided next to him and let Grover take hold of his neck.

"Be careful," I urged them, echoing Mental Ana's plea.

"We will," Grover nodded before turning to the Ophiotaurus. "Okay, um… Bessie? We're going to Long Island. It's east. Over that way."

"Moooo?" Bessie asked.

"Yes," Grover confirmed, bobbing his head. "Long Island. It's this island. And… it's long. Oh, let's just start."

"Mooo!"

Bessie lurched forward.

"I can't breathe underwater!" Grover cried as they started to submerge beneath the waves. "Just thought I'd mention—" He was cut off as they went beneath the surface of the water.

I hoped Poseidon's protection would extend to little things, like breathing.

"Well, that is one problem addressed," Zoe said. "But how can we get to my sisters' garden?"

I glanced around, spotting a bunch of cars parked on the curb nearby. "There," I pointed. "We'll get a car and drive."

The girls nodded and we all jogged over, where they covered me as I hotwired a white Volkswagon as quickly as I could. There was also a Porsche, but subtlety was key when it came to theft. We'd stand out if I took anything fancy.

Neither Thalia nor I argued when Zoe took control of the wheel. We didn't bother buckling ourselves in, either. Instead, we stayed with one hand on the door handles and the other clutching our weapons, ready to jump out as soon as the car slowed down in front of the Garden. I carefully suppressed the memories of my last trip to the Garden. This was no place for PTSD to rear its' head.

The sun was going down with what seemed like unnatural speed, though I logically knew that it was just me. Still, I figured that we had less than an hour to save Ana and Lady Artemis.

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Thalia demanded. Zoe glared at her. "I cannot control traffic."

She weaved in and out of the surrounding cars 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. Zoe didn't slow down at all.

I kept my eyes peeled as we drove closer to the Mountain of Despair. Noticing something, I felt my eyes widen in alarm.

"What's with the clouds?" I demanded worriedly. "There were no clouds there the last time that I was here."

Zoe didn't answer. I got the feeling that she knew exactly what the clouds meant, and she didn't like it. And if she thought it was a bad thing, then I definitely agreed with her.

"We have to concentrate," Thalia interrupted my thoughts. "The Mist is really strong here. We need to focus Luke."

"I know," I breathed, gripping Halcyon tighter. "I remember." Gods, did I remember. I hated this whole state.

The grey clouds swirled even thicker over the mountain, and we kept driving straight toward them. We were out of the forest now, into wide open spaces of cliffs and grass and rocks and fog.

I happened to glance down at the ocean as we passed a scenic curve, and I saw something that made me jump out of my seat.

"Look!" But we turned a corner and the ocean disappeared behind the hills.

"What?" Thalia asked.

"A big white ship," I explained, my jaw locked. "Docked near the beach. It looked like a cruise ship."

Her eyes widened. "Ethan and Annabeth's ship?"

Despite the fact that I hadn't been able to make out any details, I nodded grimly. It had to be. The Princess Andromeda, Ethan and Chase's demon-filled cruise ship, was docked at that beach. That's why they'd sent their 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," Zoe said grimly. "The Titans' army."

I was about to answer, when suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"Stop the car." Thalia shouted. "NOW!"

Zoe must've sensed something was wrong as well, because she slammed on the brakes without question. The VW spun around twice before coming to a stop at the edge of the cliff.

"Out!" Thalia opened the door and pushed me hard. We both rolled onto the pavement. The next second: BOOOM!

Lightning flashed, and our stolen Volkswagen erupted like a grenade. I probably would've been killed by shrapnel had it not been for Thalia's shield, which appeared over me. I heard a sound like metal ram, and when I opened my eyes, we 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 white-painted metal were strewn across the road.

I swallowed the taste of smoke out of my mouth, and looked at Thalia. "Thanks."

"One shall perish by a parent's hand," she muttered. "Curse him. He would destroy me? Me?"

It only took me a second to realize she was talking about her dad.

"It might not have been him," I offered weakly.

But I couldn't fully believe my own words. After all, Thalia was about to turn sixteen, and possibly destroy Olympus in the process. And Zeus wasn't exactly parent of the year, though he had turned her into a tree. so maybe he did care, a little bit anyway.

Thalia obviously picked up on my doubts, because she shot me a look as we scrambled to our feet. "Whose, then?" she demanded.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Zoe said Kronos' name. Maybe he—"

Thalia shook her head, looking angry and stunned. "No. That wasn't it."

"Wait," I said. "Where's Zoe? Zoe!"

We both ran around the blasted VW. Nothing inside. Nothing either direction down the road. I looked down the cliff. No sign of her.

"Zoe!" I shouted, panic and flashbacks of my old friends Stacy and Ryan's deaths stripping me of my senses.

Then she was standing right next to me, pulling me by my arm. "Silence, fool! Do you want to wake Ladon?"

"Where are we?" I asked lowly, breathing heavily and checking her quickly. No signs of any injuries. Thank the gods. Maybe we could all get out of this alive, prophecy or no prophecy.

"Very close," she replied. "Follow me."

Sheets of fog were drifting right across the road from the Gates to the Garden of the Hesperides. Zoe stepped into one of them, and when the fog passed, she was no longer there. Thalia and I looked at each other.

"Concentrate on Zoe," Thalia advised. "We are following her. Go straight into the fog and keep that in mind."

"Wait, Thalia," I called, stopping her as she began to move forward. "About what happened back on the pier… I mean, with the manticore and the sacrifice—"

"I don't want to talk about it."

I didn't blame her for that. And it was hardly the best time. Still.

"Just remember," I begged her softly. "The gods aren't a great option. But they're a heck of a lot better than the Titans. You know that."

Her expression was shadowed and inscrutable, but she nodded. "Gods," she mumbled as we began walking towards the fog. "I wish Ana were older than me."

We plunged into the Mist at the same time, and exited in the entrance to a hell disguised as a beautiful paradise.

We were still on the side of the mountain, but the road was dirt, not brick. 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 us. And it led through a lush meadow of shadows and flowers: The Garden of the Hesperides, just as it was in my dream. Just as it had looked when Stacy and Ryan died in it.

I had to admit it. If it hadn't been for the vicious dragon, the garden would've been the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. The grass shimmered with silvery evening light, and the flowers were such brilliant colours 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. I can't describe why they were so appealing, but as soon as I smelled their fragrance, I knew that one bite would be the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted.

"The apples of immortality," Thalia stated. "Hera's wedding gift from Zeus."

Nice way to try and soften a woman up after tricking her into marrying you. Especially when you're a serial cheater. I wanted to step right up and pluck one, except for the dragon coiled around the tree.

Now, I don't know what you think of when I say dragon. Whatever it is, it's not scary enough. The serpent's body was as thick as a booster rocket, glinting with coppery scales. He had more heads than I 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. I knew from experience that the lightest sound would wake him. And then he would kill us all.

Unconsciously, my eyes dropped to the ground, searching for any signs of the blood spilt by my old friends. I couldn't see anything save for the green grass, though I could point to the exact places where each of them had fallen. And where I had been scarred as Stacy somehow shoved me back out.

"GO!" she screamed in my memory. "It's not worth it! Go, Luke!" I swallowed and raised my eyes again, my heart aching. It had been my quest, and an unimportant one ordered by my father out of some strange sense of guilt that he felt. If any of us had to die, it should have been me. Not them.

That was when the shadows in front of us began to move. There was a beautiful, eerie singing, like voices from the bottom of a well. I reached for Halcyon, but Zoe grabbed my hand to stop me.

Four figures shimmered into existence, four young women who looked very much like Zoe. They all wore white Greek chitons. Their skin was like caramel. Silky black hair tumbled loose around their shoulders. They looked just like Zoe—gorgeous, and probably very dangerous. Though, in comparison to Ana... I shook that thought away quickly.

"Sisters," Zoe greeted them, wariness radiating from her.

"We do not see any sister," one of the girls countered coldly. "We see two half-bloods and a Hunter. All of whom shall soon die."

"Nobody is going to die," I growled. "Not again. Not in this damn place."

The girls studied me. They had eyes like volcanic rock, glassy and completely black. I steeled myself, pretending it didn't freak me out.

"Lukas Castellan," one of them said.

"You dare to come here again?" another demanded.

"We spared you last time," the third declared. "We will not be so gracious again."

"We must approach the mountain," Zoe interrupted sharply. "Artemis and Anaea Jackson must be freed, for the good of the West."

"You know that he will kill thee," the girl commented, seeming almost, but not quite, concerned for her sister. "You are no match for him."

"Artemis must be freed," Zoe insisted again. "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," Zoe stated confidently.

"No? And what about thy so-called friends?"

Then Zoe did the last thing I expected. She shouted, "Ladon! Wake!"

The dragon stirred, glittering like a mountain of pennies. The Hesperides yelped and scattered.

"Are you mad?" the lead girl snapped at Zoe, and I hated that I was wondering the same thing. Still, I managed to suppress my flashbacks to concentrate. I had no other choice.

"You never had any courage, sister," Zoe announced defiantly. "That is thy problem."

The dragon Ladon was writhing now, a hundred heads whipping around, tongues flickering and tasting the air. Zoe took a step forward, her arms raised.

"Zoe, don't," Thalia warned. "You're not a Hesperide anymore. He'll kill you."

"Ladon is trained to protect the tree," Zoe said. "Skirt around the edges of the garden. Go up the mountain. As long as I am a bigger threat, he should ignore thee. He will not leave it."

"Should," I scoffed, eyeing the source of half my nightmares. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that's not exactly reassuring, Zoe."

"It is the only way," she said. "Even the three of us together cannot fight him." I couldn't argue with that, given it was completely true.

Ladon opened his mouths. The sound of a hundred heads hissing at once sent a shiver down my back, and that was before his breath hit me. It seemed even worse than I remembered it being. It was like acid.

It made my eyes burn, my skin crawl, and my hair stand on end. I remembered the time that Thalia and I had come across an alley containing a dead rat in the middle of the summer. This stench was like that, except a hundred times stronger, and mixed with the smell of chewed eucalyptus. I promised myself right then that I would never have another cough drop again.

I wanted to attack, to gain revenge against Stacy and Ryan's killer. But I had failed to defeat it already. Even Heracles himself had failed in a head-on assault. I had no hope of doing so. I would just have to trust Zoe's judgment, and hope that Ladon would recognize his old caregiver.

Thalia went left. I went right. Zoe walked straight toward the monster.

"It's me, my little dragon," she cooed to him. "Zoe has come back."

Ladon shifted forward, then back. Some of the mouths closed. Some kept hissing. 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. Ahead, I 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.

We'd almost made it out of the meadow when something went wrong. I felt the dragon's mood shift. Maybe Zoe got too close. Maybe the dragon decided that he was hungry. Whatever the reason, he lunged at her.

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 our direction, gagging from the monster's horrible breath.

Flashes of Ryan and Stacy danced morbidly behind my eyelids as I drew my sword and turned to help her.

"No!" Zoe panted. "Run!"

The dragon snapped at her side, and Zoe cried out. Thalia uncovered Aegis, and the dragon hissed. In his moment of indecision, Zoe sprinted past us up the mountain, and we 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.

We ran up the mountain as the Hesperides resumed their song in the shadows behind us. It sounded even more like a funeral march now.

At the top of 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 horrified awe.

"Yes," Zoe confirmed. "It was not here before. This is bad."

"Bad?" I repeated, giving a hysterical laugh. "That's the biggest understatement in history, Zoe. This is a disaster of global proportions. We need to grab Artemis and Ana and get the Hades out of here."

"Thy art correct," Zoe agreed. She began to say something else, but instead she winced and held her side.

"You're hurt," I said, stepping towards her in concern. "Let me see."

"No! It is nothing. We must hurry."

Thalia looked around cautiously as we picked our way through the rubble, past blocks of marble and broken archways.

"This is Atlas' mountain," Zoe continued as we climbed. "Where he holds—" She froze. Her voice was ragged with despair. "Where he used to hold up the sky."

We had reached the summit. A few yards ahead of us, grey 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. This is what I had seen in my dream. It hadn't been a cavern roof that Artemis and Ana were forced to hold. It was the roof of the world.

"My lady!" Zoe rushed forward, but Artemis stopped her approach.

"Stop!" she called urgently. "It is a trap. You must leave now." Her voice was strained. She was drenched in sweat. I had never seen a goddess in pain before, hadn't even known it was possible, but the weight of the sky was clearly too much for Artemis. If she couldn't hold it, how had Ana managed?

Zoe was crying. She ran forward despite Artemis' protests, and tugged at the chains. We hurried up beside her, and I realized that the chains were magic. No amount of pick-pocketing or pulling would get them off the goddess' wrists.

A booming voice spoke behind us: "Ah, how touching."

We turned. The General was standing there in his brown silk suit. At his side were Ethan, Annabeth and half a dozen dracaenae bearing the golden sarcophagus of Kronos. Ana stood in between the two traitors. A strange grey streak was mixed in with her gorgeous brunette hair, which had been cut off roughly. Silena would have pitched a fit at the sight of it. She was slumped with weariness, and covered in various wounds. Despite that, she held her head up high with defiance.

Looking at her, I had to smirk a bit. It was clear that, despite the obvious injuries she bore, Ana hadn't made things easy for them. Not if they'd been forced to truss her up so much. She had her arms (one of which seemed badly broken) cuffed behind her back at her wrists and elbows, her ankles tied together enough that she could stumble but not run or even walk without help. A gag was in her mouth and tied around the back of her head, a pair of draeaenae were holding their spears to her back. Finally, Ethan was holding the edge of his sword against her slim throat.

I met her eyes, trying to ask her a thousand questions. There was just one message she was sending me, though: RUN. And I knew, if Ana was advocating fleeing, things were beyond disastrous.

"Let her go," Thalia snarled, also looking worriedly at Ana.

Chase's smile was weak and pale. She looked even worse than she had three days ago in D.C. Ethan too, was showing signs of strain, his expression pinched. I guess they were finally realizing the reality of what they had chosen to do.

My heart bleeds for them, it really does. Treacherous bastards.

"That is the General's decision, Thalia," Annabeth declared, giving a strained smile. "But it's so good to see you again. I've missed you."

"I can't say the same," Thalia spat. Her electric blue eyes were full of fury as she took in the sight of Annabeth for the first time since she was turned into a tree.

For a second, Annabeth's expression fell, before it swiftly went back to neutral.

The General chuckled. "So much for old friends. And you, Zoe. It's been a long time. How is my little traitor? I will enjoy killing you."

"Do not respond," Artemis groaned. "Do not challenge him."

"So you're Atlas then?" I raised an eyebrow disdainfully, trying not show how terrified I felt on my expression. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ana's jaw working as she struggled out of her gag.

The General glanced at me. "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 Zoe," I said stoically. "Or any of my girls. I won't let you."

The General sneered. "You have no right to interfere, little hero. This is a family matter."

"A family matter?" Ana croaked, the gag falling out of her mouth to rest around her throat. Her exhaustion was clear, but her fury was even worse. Oh, Atlas and his groupies had woken the dragon, and they didn't even realize it. I looked forward to seeing what she did when I cut those chains off of her.

"Yes," Zoe answered her question bleakly. "Atlas is my father."