Chapter 7

"Can you walk?"

Percy coughed, wiped the phlegm off his lips with the back of his hand. "Yeah, I got it."

The antique store clerk looked at him, thin eyebrow raised so that her buzzed head wrinkled. She looked outside where snow was falling in thick sheets of February snow, then back at Percy, then back outside.

"It's really coming down now. How'd you even get here so fast?" Percy was about to answer that he ran, but she shook her head. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

The gut punch she'd given him at the end of their little fight was still causing havoc for him, the kind of pain that makes you curl up and want to light yourself on fire. His nose was bleeding freely alongside half-frozen snot from his winter sprint to get here before she unleashed an ancient power...

And the Greek artifact she had messed with still sat between them on the ground, nearly forgotten.

They were locked in a sword fight, Riptide gleamed in the yellow lamp light all around them. He watched as she disengaged, spun around, and forced him to take a step back with a high swing of her sword. Then she reached under her collar of her shirt, pulled out a heavy-looking amulet, and ran her thumb along its edge until it caught.

Percy's eyes went wide. "Don't open it!"

He jabbed three quick strokes, catching her off guard so she would drop the amulet back against her neck and use both hands on her sword again. Then when she went to block him a second time, he ducked underneath her stance, sliced upward, and caught the leather necklace with the tip of his sword. It cut easily, and skittered away on the rug covered floor.

"What are you, crazy? You have no idea what could happen if you opened that," he shouted. The clerk sneered.

"And who the hell do you think you are, barging in here like some sort of guardian angel? You're a little too late for that."
Then she stepped forward, Percy jumped back—and her sword ripped across his right side.

So the antique store clerk was a demigod who was in possession of power he didn't want to think about. Percy got that part. That was why he was here, after all, was to stop her from summoning whatever horrors that little amulet would trigger into New York's streets.

But the part where she stopped the fight when she could have finished him off…

That luck just didn't happen with him.

His target had swore, dropped her weapon, and checked his injury—his hip had taken the worst it, he was fairly certain—then sat beside him as he puked, bled, and tried to gather his scattered braincells to think why hasn't she killed me yet.

Now, his target was sitting beside him with a box of tissues, shaking them a little when he didn't immediately reach out to take one. "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up."

Percy inched a hand out of his fetal position and grabbed one. But he quickly found he couldn't maneuver himself to a sitting position, lying there with his cheek pressed into the ancient rug. He snorted, miserable and more than a bit confused.

"Look," she said. "We're not friends or anything, but you're bleeding on my merchandise. So you get up or I pick you up—can you walk, or not?"

Percy glared at her, gripped his hip and tried to ignore the warm squish of blood-soaked sweatpants material, and got himself into a halfway kneeling position.

Then the world tipped, and he blacked out.

"You are, without a doubt, the most annoying person I've ever crossed paths with."

Percy was conscious again, but the world was still upside down. Or the antique shop had desks attached to the ceiling.

Then he realized he was being carried.

By the Antique Clerk.

Over her shoulder.

He struggled automatically, despite the ripping he felt in his side. She growled, and he stopped, feeling a knifepoint against his inner thigh.

"Stop, already. I'm putting you down."

The world spun again and he was reclining against a few soft pillows on a beat-up couch. The clerk sat on the opposite side of the couch, folding her arms.

"So? This is where you say something to prove I didn't cause irreversible brain damage?"

"I feel like shit," Percy croaked.

"You look like it, too."

They stared at each other until Percy couldn't resist a smirk. She rolled her eyes.

From under the couch, she pulled a first-aid kit and a magazine. She opened the kit, put on a pair of gloves, and then took the magazine and shoved it spine-first between his hip and the couch like a drip pan.

"It's not like it'll sell for much anyway," she mumbled. "But blood doesn't look good to customers. Too many questions get asked."

"Like 'did this happen when you were fighting a fellow demigod over an amulet that may or may not contain access to Tartarus-knows-what evil?'" Percy said.

"Usually not that specific."

She handed him a stack of gauze. He took it slowly, pulled up his shirt, and winced.

So he was in worse shape than he thought. By the look on the clerk's face, she was thinking the same thing.

He pressed the gauze over the wound and tried to take a steady, even breath.

Then he tried to stand again—only to collapse back onto the couch.

"I might… need a minute… if we're cool here," Percy said.

"We're cool." She sat back. "Are we going to resume the fight once you've stopped bleeding, or…?"

"I mean, should we?" Percy couldn't believe he was saying that. What kind of villain was this?

"Are you going to let me decode that amulet?"

"No."

"Then I guess we don't have a choice."

The room went silent for a few moments, save for the three old grandfather clocks ticking from the back of the store.

"Does it look deep?" she asked, nodding at his hip wound.

"I'll be fine, thanks. Does that amulet belong to you?"

"My grandfather had it sold to him about six years ago. It's been on display in the storefront ever since, but no one's ever tried to buy it from him. I was helping pair down our products when I found it again. I'm assuming you can read the inscription."

Percy could.

He fought the urge to look across the room to where the amulet lay.

"It's no ordinary piece of ancient jewelry. I think it belonged to the gods."

Percy shrugged. "They're not that great."

She rolled her eyes. "You're pretty arrogant for a guy bleeding out on my couch."

"You're right. Give me the fancy necklace and I'll get out of here."

"Not happening."

"Fine."

Percy went to stand, but the clerk pushed him back down. "Don't test my hospitality."

Noted.

Percy took a moment to look around then, past the clerk and into the surrounding shop shelves and floor. He had rushed in so quickly that he had missed the strange beauty of the place. Small wooden carvings hung along the walls alongside chandeliers and old paintings. The floor was covered in long patterned rugs, with upholstered chairs his mom would love. He could imagine Paul appraising the place too, scratching his chin at price tags and gaging his mom's reaction to each item to see whether it needed to come home with them.

It smelled old—and that usually made him think of Gabe.

But this was different. It smelled like… kind of like Cabin Three, actually.

Before he had come to Camp Half-Blood.

The clerk was watching him, glancing between her nails and his wounded hip—which still hurt like hell, but had stopped spurting blood like a geyser.

Why didn't she just finish him off?

He'd lost more blood than he cared to admit—most of it on one of the antique rugs—and it was making his head spin. The wound wasn't closing as fast as he wanted it to. His feet felt like lead. He needed a way to disarm the amulet without any more major sparring sessions.

Percy realized he was staring at it too late. The clerk stood walked over to the amulet, and picked it up.

"Don't do it," he said, and his voice sounded tired.

"Why shouldn't I? The gods didn't care to stick around to take care of their kids, so why would they care if one of them picked up a shiny heirloom of theirs? My grandfather's dream was to find something that history would remember—something worth writing about, something like this. He tried to open it for years and couldn't get it to budge. I can open it, so why shouldn't I? These so-called gifts of mine have to be good for something."

Then Percy saw her eyes. Despite her dark complexion, her eyes were silver-gray.

It had been almost a month since Annabeth's last visit ended, her Christmas break over. That goodbye had been harder than the first one.

"You're a daughter of Athena, aren't you?"

She looked away, then nodded.

He rubbed his face, trying to think what would Annabeth say to a half-sister?

She wouldn't let her be destructive. At least, not on her own.

"I've pissed off a lot of gods," he started, "and quite honestly, most of them deserved it. If you want to see what's inside it? Let me open it for you then. Then whatever happens, I can just add the grudge the gods will inevitably take up against us and add it to my very… very long list of grudge worthy acts."

She squinted at him. "Why would you do that?"

Percy shrugged. "Why would you let me sit and bleed all over your couch when you could have stabbed me twenty times over by now?" He watched her think about that, then he answered his own question. "Because demigods have it hard enough as it is without being each other's enemies. I'm sorry I broke into your shop."

"Yeah, well I'm sorry I cut that deep."

"My name's Percy."

"Janelle."

"You're offensive with that sword is good. How come I never saw you at Camp Half-blood?"

"I never could go. I was always too busy helping my grandpa here, or at home."

He took his hand off the gauze and tested the wound to see if it would play nice without him adding pressure to it. Then he braced himself, and stood up.

Janelle had her hands out, ready to catch him. But this time, he stayed upright.

"So, should we open this thing?"

Janelle squared her shoulders. "Now or never." She handed it to him. "Don't mess this up."

He held the amulet in his blood-covered hands, turning it so he could read the inscription again. Something about death and eternal curses… he'd heard it all before, been threatened with it all before. Helluva way to die, though, from a piece of old jewelry. Would have rather been knocked off by an antique store clerk.

It cracked underneath his fingertips. Then split open.

He hadn't realized he had closed his eyes. He looked down, and saw—

"Nothing?"

No monsters or evil spirits leaked out. No awful feeling rushed over him. There was no accompanying thunder or the crackle of a god appearing in the mortal realm. It was still just the ticking of the clocks, his heavy breathing, and Janelle's…

Crying.

"It's empty," she said, wiping at tears furiously.

"Yeah," Percy said, trying to hide the relief in his voice as he tried to read her thoughts. Did she want this thing to be explosive?

"My grandpa would be so disappointed."

"Hey, hey," Percy said putting the amulet in her hands. "You can tell him you opened it! That's got to be something, right?"

She looked at him. "My grandpa's got dementia. He doesn't even know who I am, let alone anything about an amulet."

Percy's face fell. "Janelle, man, I'm sorry…"

"Don't be. Now get out of here, okay? I'm sorry this was all for nothing. Your hip, I mean."

"I've taken worse hits from worse people. If you ever need help, you'll call me, okay? Here." He took out Riptide and wrote his number on an old bubble gum wrapper. "We gotta look out for each other. Especially since New York is such a hotspot for trouble demigods can get into."

"You'll get home okay?"

"I'll be fine." Percy paused in the door before going back into the snow. "Can I ask you a question, though?"

"Sure."

"Can I buy that couch someday?"

"Percy, with how much blood is on that now, you can have it."