I want to thank everyone who has read, followed, or favorited. I really appreciate it. The word count for this chapter is 6,511 words. I hope you enjoy.

I had my eyes clenched shut, gripping onto the arm of the angel as if my life depended on it. And it did. I could feel my throat closing as I started feeling waves of nausea wash over me.

"Tell me when it's over," I hear Thalia say. I barely choke back a scoff.

"I don't know who the fuck you think you're talking to, considering we're in the same boat," I say back, hoping that the girls and Grover couldn't hear us.

"Are... are we very high?"

I cracked a single eye open, gulping loudly as I saw a range of snowy mountains zip by, barely keeping my composure as my foot was able to kick a little bit of snow off of one of the peaks.

"You want the truth?"

There was a pause. "...No."

"We are in the Sierras!" Zoë yells, trying to get her voice to carry to us over the wind. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"A few hours?" I yell back, my eyes shut again.

Zoë never replied, though, as the angels began talking.

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" our angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! Now they know how to party!"

"You guys have been to San Francisco before?" I question.

"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" our statue responded. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And-"

"Hank!" the other statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, bro."

"Oh, right." If bronze statues were able to blush, I swear Hank was right now as I looked up at his face. "Back to flying."

Obviously excited at the prospect of getting to San Francisco to party with the marble ladies, the angels sped up. Every once in a while, I would open my eyes and notice the shift in environment, first mountains, then hills, farmlands, and then towns and highways.

Grover played his reed pipes to pass the time. Zoë had gotten bored and began shooting arrows at billboards and the Target department store logo whenever she saw them, nailing them right in the center with multiple arrows while going at a hundred miles per hour. On top of target practice, Zoë was teaching Bianca more about archery, her eye had caught onto Bianca's adeptness while being so new to it, as mine had.

Me and Thalia, however, we were a whole different story. I barely ever opened my eyes and remained nauseous the entire time. While I hadn't yet seen Thalia open here eyes once, though that might not mean much coming from me, and could hear her talking to herself, praying, every now and then.

I swallowed, taking a deep, shaky breath before breathing out. "You did good back there, you know," I told her. "Zeus listened." I opened my eyes, looking toward her form. She didn't do the same.

"Maybe," she responded. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room, anyway? You said they cornered you."

I told her about the mortal girl I had nearly killed. Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who had been able to see right through the Mist.

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

"Well, she was a bit annoying," I said. "But I'm I didn't kill her, you know, all things considered."

Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal."

Her voice conveyed the fact that she'd given that idea a lot of thought. I didn't question her anymore after that, leaving her be.

At some point, I had fallen asleep. Which, I mean, no one can really blame me for. All in the course of a single day, I had been blown up, stomped on, met a goddess, and had to run around the Hoover Dam to get away from spartai to then be flown up into the air by angels. That's a lot, people.

"Where you guys want to land?" Hank asked, waking me up and nearly giving me a heart attack as I went from peaceful-ish sleeping to remembering that I was hundreds of feet above ground.

I had never been to San Francisco before, only seeing pictures and stuff like that. It was probably the most beautiful city I'd ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhatten, if Manhatten had been surrounded by green hiils and fog. There was a huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge sticking up out of the fog. I felt like I should've been taking a picture of it. Greetings from Frisco, Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.

"There," Zoë suggested. "By the Embarcadero Building."

"Good thinking," Chuck said. "Me and Hank can blend in with the pigeons there. Right, bro?"

"Hell, yeah, bro!"

We all exchanged looks before Chuck cleared his throat. "Kidding," he said. "Sheesh, can't statues have a sense of humor?"

Luckily enough, there was no need to blend in. It was early morning and there were very little people around. Though, we did freak out a homeless guy on the ferry dock when we landed. He had screamed when he saw Hank and Chuck and ran off yelling something about metal angels from Mars.

We all said our good-byes to the angels, who had promptly flown off to party with their statue friends. And then, all of us standing on a ferry dock together, we all came to a sudden realization. We had no clue what we were going to do next.

Yeah, we'd made it to the West Coast. Artemis was here somewhere, and Annabeth, too. But we had no way of finding them and the winter solstice was tomorrow.

"You have any idea what monster we're looking for?" I ask Perseus. There was a long pause and my eyebrows scrunched up.

"Perseus?"

"Sorry," he responded back quickly, hastily. "Got tired."

"What?"

"Don't question it, man," was the only thing he gave as an answer. "What do you need?"

"We don't know what monster Artemis was hunting. You know, the one which is supposed to be showing us a trail." I say, going over to where the rest of the group started getting together, talking about where we might head to.

"Oh..." there was another long pause from Perseus. Honestly, I started getting a bit aggravated.

"Dude, you're just an embodiment of my memories and can't give me the time or day?" I question, making sure my anger doesn't show to the rest of the group.

"Just give me a second, my entire purpose was to give you back your memories. And you almost dying is making my job a bit hard, buddy." I stayed quiet, feeling a bit guilty and just focusing on the discussion at hand.

After a little bit, we came to the agreement that we needed to find out what the mystery monster was, first.

"But how?" Bianca questions. I looked around, eyes searching the dock around us and thinking as I came to a sudden realization.

"Nereus!"

"Nereus,"

"Yo, why are you trying to steal my thunder?" I ask, getting closer to Grover as he'd called out Nereus's name just as I had.

"Who's Nereus?" Bianca questions, interrupting us.

Grover and I share a look, eyes narrowing at each other slightly.

"oLD MAN Of tHe sEa!"

"SEA MAN!"

"Oh, fuck," I say, hands covering my face as I drop to my knees. He had bested me and I had made a fool of myself.

Thalia's, Zoë's, and Bianca's faces conveyed their disgust and disappointment in me.

I could hear Grover's satisfaction as he explained further. "Nereus is the old man of the sea and has the gift of knowledge which is sometimes even kept obscure from Apollo's Oracle. We can find him and force him to tell us what he knows." he pauses. "The only problem we have, though, is how we are going to find him."

Zoë made a face. "Old Nereus, eh?"

"You know him?" Thalia asks.

"My mother was a sea goddess. Yes, I know him," she responds, sighing slightly. "Unfortunately, he is never very hard to find. Just follow the smell."

"What do you mean?" I ask from my position on the ground, staring up at her.

"Come," she says without the slightest enthusiasm, dread clear in her voice. "I will show you."

I knew I was in trouble as soon as we came to a stop at the Goodwill drop box. Five minutes later, Zoë had me outfitted in a ragged flannel shirt and jeans three sizes too big, bright red sneakers, and a floppy rainbow beanie.

"Oh, yeah," Grover said, obviously trying not to bust out laughing, "you look completely inconspicuous now."

Zoë nodded with satisfaction. "A typical male vagrant."

"Oh, HELL. What in Chaos's name are you wearing?" I stare sadly down at myself.

"Finding Nereus," I tell Persues mentally. "I got the short end of the deal." I only heard more laughing in response before he got silent again. I assumed he got back to working on my memories or something.

"Thanks, guys," I grumbled. "Why am I doing this again?"

"I told you. To blend in," Zoë responded. "Plus, it's what you get for earlier," she adds, looking me up and down with a smile on her face.

She led the way back down to the waterfront. After a long time which was spent searching the docks, Zoë finally came to a stop. She pointed down a pier where a bunch of homeless guys were huddled together in blankets, waiting for the soup kitchen to open for lunch.

"He will be down there somewhere," Zoë said. "He never travels very far from the water. He likes to sun himself during the day."

"How do I know which one is him?"

"Sneak up," she said. "Act homeless. You will know him. He will smell... different."

"Great." I didn't want to ask for specifics. "And once I find him?"

"Grab him," she says bluntly. "And hold on. He will try anything to get rid of you. Whatever he does, do not let go. Force him to tell you about the monster."

"We've got your back, sea man boy," my face scrunches up as Thalia says this. She then picks something off the back of my shirt - a big clump of fuzz that came from who-knows-where. "Ew. Um, on second thought... I don't want your back. But we'll be rooting for you."

Grover gave me a big thumbs-up with a huge smile on his face.

Bianca just shrugged at me, as if saying "It is what it is,"

I looked up at the sky, glaring slightly. This was bullshit. I then took a deep breath and began heading toward the dock.

I pulled my hat down and began stumbling as if I was about to pass out, which wasn't hard considering how tired I was. I passed our homeless friend from the Embarcadero, who was still trying to warn the other guys about the metal angels from Mars.

He didn't smell good, but he didn't smell... different, I guess? I kept walking.

A couple of grimy dude with plastic grocery bags for hats checked me out as I came close.

"Beat it, kid!" one of them muttered.

I moved away. They had smelled pretty bad, but just regular old bad. Nothing unusual.

There was a lady with a bunch of plastic flamingos sticking out of a shopping cart. She glared at me like I was going to steal her birds.

I turned back briefly, casting a look to where the rest of the group stood by, watching me from afar. I could sea Grover give me thumbs-up before his arms were promptly shoved back down by Zoë and Thalia, the two girls scrambling to shove Bianca's arms down as she moved to raise them when the two girls were distracted by Grover.

I shook my head, turning back to the end of the pier where a guy who looked about a million years old was passed out in a patch of sunlight. He wore pajamas and a fuzzy bathrobe that probably used to be white. He was fat, with a white beard that turned yellow kind of like Santa Clause, if Santa had been shoved out of bed then dragged through a landfill.

And his smell?

I froze as I got closer. He smelled bad, all right - but ocean bad. Like hot seaweed and dead fish and brine. If the ocean had an ugly side... this guy was the epitome of it.

I tried not to gag as I sat down near him like I was tired, nearly heaving as I took a breath in with my nose on accident. Santa opened one eye suspiciously. I could feel him staring at me, but I didn't look. I muttered something about stupid school and stupid parents, figuring that might sound reasonable.

Santa Clause went back to sleep.

I tensed. This was going to look bad. I didn't know how the other homeless people would react. Would the rest of the group help me if I was suddenly assaulted by a herd of hobos? Nonetheless, I jumped Santa Clause.

"Ahhhhh!" he screamed. I meant to grab him, but he had seemed to grab me instead. It was as if he'd never been asleep at all. He certainly didn't act like a weak old man. He had a grip like steel and I struggled against him. "Help me!" he screamed as he squeezed me to death.

"That's a crime!" one of the homeless guys yelled. "Kid rolling an old man like that!"

I rolled, all right - straight down the pier until my head slammed into a post. I was dazed for a second, and Nereus's grip slackened the tiniest bit. He was making a break for it. Before he could, I regained my senses and tackled him from behind.

"I don't have any money!" He tried to get up and run, but I locked my arms around his chest. His rotten fish smell was awful and assaulted my senses, but I held on.

"I don't want any money," I said as he fought. "I- hey- I'm a half-blood! I just want information!"

"Even worse!" he said, struggling harder. "Heroes! Why do you always pick on me?"

"Because you know everything!"

He growled and tried to shake me off his back. It was like holding on to a roller coaster. He thrashed around, making it impossible for me to keep on my feet, but I grit my teeth and squeezed tighter. We staggered toward the edge of the pier and I got an idea, slightly dreading it.

"Oh, no!" I called out in a barely believable voice. "Not the wATer!"

Nereus immediately yelled in triumph and jumped off the edge. Together, we plunged into the San Francisco Bay.

He must've been surprised when I tightened my grip on him, the ocean filling me with extra strength. But Nereus had a few tricks, too. He changed shape until I was holding a sleek black seal.

I've heard people make jokes about trying to hold a greased pig, but I'm telling you, trying to hold onto a fucking seal in the water is harder. Nereus plunged straight down, wiggling and thrashing and spiraling through the dark water. If I hadn't been Poseidon's son, there would have been no way I could've stayed with him.

Nereus spun and expanded, turning into a killer whale, but I quickly grabbed his dorsal fin as he burst out of the water.

A whole bunch of tourists had been going by at that exact moment. "Woah!"

I removed one of my arms from the dorsal fin, doing a wave and winking at the crowd as I barely hung on. Not that they could tell as they ooh'd and ahh'd at my theatrics.

Nereus plunged into the water and turned into a slimy eel. I quickly gripped him in one hand and began tieing him into a knot until he realized what was going on and changed back to human form. "Why won't you drown?" he wailed, pummeling me with his fists.

I caught them, taking hold of both of his wrist and keeping hold of him as he struggled. "I'm Poseidon's son," I said.

"Curse that upstart! I was here first!"

Finally, he collapsed on the edge of the boat dock. Above us was one of those tourist piers lined with shops like a mall on water. Nereus was heaving and gasping. I was feeling great, as much as I hated to admit it. I could've gone on all day, but I didn't want to tell him that. My group ran down the steps from the pier and I quickly began acting as if I was extremely winded and tired from the ordeal.

"You got him!" Zoë said.

"You... fuck me... you don't have to sound so amazed," I said, breathing heavily.

Nereus moaned. "Oh, wonderful. An audience for my humiliation! The normal deal, I suppose? You'll let me go if I answer your question?"

"We've got more than one question," I say.

"Only one question per capture! That's the rule."

I looked at the rest of the group with a resting bitch face.

This wasn't good. I needed to find out where the mountain where Artemis is was, and I needed to figure out what the doomsday creature was. I bit the inside of my cheek, there was no way I could word both of those questions into once.

Then a small voice, which I swear wasn't mine, said Ask about Annabeth. I barely kept the disgust from showing on my face and pushed it aside.

Zoë would want me to ask about Artemis, Thalia and Grover would want me to ask about Annabeth, but I remember Chiron telling us the monster was the most important and I think Bianca would agree with that.

I sighed. "All right, Santa-fuck-Nereus. Tell me where to find this terrible monster that could bring an end to the gods. The one Artemis was hunting."

The Old Man of the Sea smiled, showing off his mossy green teeth.

"Oh, that's too easy," he said evilly. "He's right there." Nereus pointed to the water at my feet.

"Where?" I ask.

"The deal is complete!" Nereus said gleefully. With a pop, he turned into a goldfish and did a backflip into the sea.

"Motherfucker!" I yelled.

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

"MOOOOOOOO!"

I looked down, and there it was, the Ophiotaurus which I had seen at the dam, swimming next to the dock. It, or well, Nereus had called it he, nudged my shoe.

I looked down at it confused before I felt a fit of sudden anger well up inside me. My face turned into a sneer and I tapped my watch, taking out my sword, about to swing at it before Zoë quickly came and stopped me. She stepped in front of me, hand moving to her hunting knives.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Killing it."

"I don't think so," Zoë said, taking a step closer to me, getting in my face. "Put away your sword right now before I take it from you myself." I felt a pull in my gut and the anger disappeared just as quickly as it had come. I silently put Revenge away, stepping back from the Ophiotaurus, Zoë's eyes never leaving me.

There was a tense air after my sudden outburst of anger. I stepped back, getting further away from the Ophiotaurus, but it followed me from under the docks. I bit the inside of my cheek, not understanding why I had acted like that.

"W-what is that?" Bianca spoke up, staring down at the Ophiotaurus that was below my feet.

"The Ophiotaurus," I say.

"The what?"

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

"Moooooooo!"

"He says Percy is his protector," Grover announces.

"You can understand him?" I ask.

Grover nodded. "It's a very old form of animal speech. He also says he's running from the bad people. He says they are close."

My head tilted, wondering how he got all of that out of a single moooooo.

"Wait," Zoë said, looking at me. "You know this cow?"

My eyes widened. "No, I mean, I saw it at the dam when you all had first gone off to the snack bar, it had seemed like it was trying to get me to jump down to it. But I hadn't met it before that."

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

"Sorry, the spartai coming after me seemed to be the bigger issue at that moment," I said back.

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

"What story?"

"From the War of the Titans," she said. "My... my father told me this tale, thousands of years ago. This is the beast we're looking for."

"I wouldn't call it a beast, maybe fugly..."

"Percy, he has feelings!"

"My bad!" I say, looking down as the Ophiotaurus seemed to be sad, looking at me. "But he couldn't be the thing which could destroy the world."

"That is how we were wrong," Zoë 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," the Ophiotaurus lowed, staring up at me through the planks of the dock with its big watery eyes.

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

I walked over to the edge of the dock, petting the Ophiotaurus on the head. He let me scratch his ear, but he was trembling.

I leaned closer. "I will protect you with my life, Taurus," I say with determination brimming in my voice as the newly nicknamed Taurus stared back at me, his big eyes getting even more watery. "How could anyone hurt you? You're harmless."

"You just tried to kill him a second ago, Percy," Thalia said, staring at me oddly as I quickly slapped my hands over what I think was Taurus's ears.

"We don't talk about that, Thalia!" I whisper-yelled.

Zoë ignored me and Thalia, nodding to what I had said before it. "But there is power in killing innocence. Terrible power. The Fates ordained a prophecy eons ago, when the 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!" I had apparently not put my hands over Taurus's ears. I looked around his head hastily before placing my hands over what also could've been his ears.

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

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

"No one knows," Zoë said. "The first time, during the Titan war, the Ophiotaurus was in fact slain by a giant ally of the Titans, but your 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, Taurus went right to her. Thalia placed her hand on his head, Taurus shivered.

Thalia's expression bothered me. She had an almost hungry expression. I steeled my gaze and resisted the urge to pat the boards of the dock near me and have Taurus come back to me.

"We have to protect him," I told her. "If Luke gets hold of him-"

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

The hair on the back of my neck bristled and I quickly stood, bringing out Revenge and turning around.

"Yes, it is, my dear," said heavy French-accented voice of Dr. Thorn. "And it is a power you shall unleash."

Taurus made a whimpering sound and submerged.

I felt angry at myself for not paying attention to our surroundings and allowing us to be ambushed. The Primordials would be disappointed.

I gripped Revenge tighter, staring at Dr. Thorn as he smiled at us. I beckoned Bianca to get behind me with my other hand, taking a step forward as she did, watching as she tried to inconspicuously move for the bow and arrows which Zoë had given to her.

"This is just pairr-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. To put it in short, he didn't look that much better than the guys down at the soup kitchen.

"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. 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 security guys, some of the mortal mercenaries I'd seen in D.C. Two more stood on the next boat dock over, just in case we tried to escape that way. There were tourists all around - walking down the waterfront, shopping at the pier above us - but I knew that wouldn't stop the manticore from acting.

"Okay?" I say out loud, looking around weirdly. "Are the Spartai here?"

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!"

I needed time to think. I had to save Taurus. I could dive into the sea, but even trying a getaway that way would no doubt give my actual father away. And what about the rest of the group?

"Okay, man, stop unloading your emotional baggage and insecurities onto me," I say, my eyes wide while I shook my head slightly in a disbelieving manner.

"Excuse me?!" Thorn yelled, appalled. "I'll have you know that I am doing you a favor, you'll be glad to know the story behind the great manticore which killed you!"

My eyebrows raised and I looked around with a look that said, "Is this guy serious?"

Behind me, Zoë took an arrow from Bianca's quiver and notched it, aiming straight at the manticore's head. The guards on either side of us raised their guns.

"Wait!" I called out. "Zoë, don't!"

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

"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. And I was confused. What were they talking about?

"What do you mean?" I question.

"Ah, I forgot you were new to all of this," the manticore said. "There was a prophecy announced before you came about.

A half-blood of the eldest gods

Shall reach sixteen against all odds

And see the world in endless sleep

The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap

A single choice shall end his days

Olympus to preserve or raze."

My mind started working overtime. Thalia was only two days away from turning sixteen by what I had learned when I had talked to her in the black Mercedes. She was a child of Zeus, one of the eldest gods. And here was a choice, a terrible choice which could mean the end of the gods. I briefly acknowledged that I could also be the prophecy child, as I was a son of Poseidon, but pushed it down. No matter what, I couldn't let it happen. It would ruin everything which I had trained and waited for.

I watched Thalia, waiting for her to tell the manticore off. She was hesitating, looking completely stunned.

"You know this is the right choice," the manticore told her. "Your friend Luke recognized it. You shall be reunited with him. You shall rule the 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, and they deserve. Call the beast! It will come to you. Use your spear."

"Thalia," I call out, a bit of anger slipping into my voice. "Snap out of it!"

She looked at me, dazed and uncertain, almost scared. She looked at me almost as if she didn't know me. "I... I don't-"

"Your father helped you," I said. "He sent the metal angels. He turned you into a tree to preserve you."

Her hand tightened on the shaft of her spear.

My eyes snapped to Grover desperately. Thank the gods, he understood what I needed. He raised his pipes to his mouth and played a quick riff.

The manticore yelled, "Stop him!"

The guards had been too focused on Zoë, and before they could figure out that the kid with the pipes was the bigger problem, the wooden planks at their feet sprouted new branches and tangled their legs. Zoë let loose two quick arrows that exploded at their feet in clouds of sulfurous yellow smoke. I took one quick whiff and realized what they were. Fart arrows.

The guards started coughing and heaving. The manticore shot spines in our direction, but they ricocheted off the Nemean lion pelt as I stepped in front of all of them.

"Grover," I said, "tell Taurus to dive deep and stay down!"

"Moooooo!" Grover translated.

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

"Come on!" I pulled her along as we all ran up the stairs to the shopping center on the pier. We dashed around the corner of the nearest store. I heard the manticore shouting at his minions, "Get them!" Tourists screamed as the guards shot blindly into the air, coughing and gagging as they did so.

We scrambled to the end of the pier. We hid behind a little kiosk filled with souvenir crystals - wind chimes and dream catchers and stuff like that, glittering in the sunlight. There was a water fountain next to us. Down below, a bunch of sea lions were sunning themselves on the rocks. The whole of San Francisco Bay spread out before us: the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, and the green hills and fog beyond that to the north. A picture-perfect moment, except for the fact that we were being surrounded by monsters and the fate of the world hung in the balance.

"What do we do?" Bianca asks as our backs were to the end of the pier and we knew that the guards and the manticore were coming. I didn't know how to answer, fully. I could do a whole lot, but doing any of it would end up with me being found out.

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

My gaze snapped to the crystals making rainbows in the sunlight.

"Good idea," I said, slashing off the top of the water fountain with Revenge. Water burst out of the now busted pipe, spraying all over us.

Thalia gasped as the water hit her. The fog seemed to clear from her eyes. "Are you crazy?" she asked, looking toward me.

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!" I said.

"Finally, some specifics!"

"Oh, shut up!"

And there, shimmering in the Mist right next to us, was Dionysus, or Mr. D, wearing a leopard-skin jogging suit and rummaging through the refrigerator.

He looked up lazily. "Do you mind?"

"Where's Chiron?" I ask, hoping that Zoë was watching my back as I dealt with this.

"How rude." Dionysus took a swig from a jug of grape juice. "Is that how you say hello? I expected more from a child of a primordial."

"Oh, my bad, hello," I amended. "Sorry, us being about to die and the fate of the world resting in our hands made me forget my manners for a moment."

Dionysus considered that. I barely kept myself from lashing out and telling him to hurry up. Behind us, footsteps and shouting - the manticore's troops were closing in.

"About to die," Dionysus mused. "How exciting. I'm afraid Chiron isn't here. Would you like me to take a message?"

I looked back to the rest of the group and Grover gave me one look, having heard Dionysus. "We're dead."

Thalia gripped her spear, she looked like her old angry self again. "Then we'll die fighting."

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

I told him about the Ophiotaurus.

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

I held back the urge to slash through the mist, not wanting to waste the energy to do so. The manticore screamed, "There!" And we were surrounded. Two of the guards stood behind him. The other two appeared on the roofs of the pier shops above us. 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 said. He glanced at the apparition in the mist and snorted. "Alone, without any real help. Wonderful."

"You could ask for help," Dionysus murmured to me, as if this were an amusing thought. "You could say please."

There wasn't a chance in hell I'd do that.

Zoë readied her arrows. Grover lifted his pipes. Bianca crouched down at my side, her knives gripped tightly. Thalia raised her shield, and I noticed the tear which ran down her cheek. It occurred to me suddenly: 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 wouldn't be saving the rest of us.

I held back a sneer, turning my head to look at the apparition of Dionysus. "Please, Dionysus," I muttered. "Help."

Nothing happened for a second.

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

The men raised their guns, and that's when things began to happen. You know that feeling when all of your blood rushes to your head, like if you hang upside down and turn right side up too quickly? There was a rush like that all around us, and a sound like a huge sigh. The sunlight tinged with purple. I smelled grapes and something more sour - wine.

I heard a loud snap, like the minds of many breaking at the exact 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.

"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 I had a feeling that somewhere inside there, the manticore was no more.

"Well," said Dionysus, closing his refrigerator. "That was fun."

"How could you... how did you-" Bianca stared at Dionysus, horrified. I sighed, turning back to the end of the pier and searching for Taurus.

"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 then 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."

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

"The Ophiotaurus," I said. "Can you get it back to camp?"

Mr. D sniffed. "I do not transport livestock. That's your problem."

"But where do we go?" Bianca asked, stepping in front of me.

Dionysus looked toward Zoë and I. "Oh, I believe that Perseus and the huntress knows. You must enter at sunset today, you know, or all is lost. Now good-bye. My pizza is waiting." And with that, he waved his hand, and his image disappeared.

All around us, the manticore's minions were still acting completely insane. One of them had found the homeless guy from earlier and was having a serious conversation about metal angels from Mars. Several other guards were harassing the tourists, making animal noises and trying to steal their shoes.

The rest of the group looked toward Zoë and I as we exchanged looks.

"What did he mean when he said 'You two know where to go'?" Thalia asked.

Zoë's face was the color of the fog. She pointed across the bay, past the Golden Gate Bridge. In the distance, a single mountain rose up above the cloud layer.

"The garden of my sisters," she said. "I must go home."

Now to go play Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Assassins Creed Odyssey and completely ignore my Spanish and English homework.