A/N: Sorry about the long hiatus but my mother got pneumonia (she's fine now) and I had to help my father take care of her and college was pretty hectic so I took a break from everything once my course finished. But now I should have more time to post so expect regular updates. On with the story.
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing not even the plot. All rights go to Rick Riordan and LukeCastellan1986
Chapter 7: My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting
Percy cringed
The demigods who knew what had happened sent sympathetic looks towards him.
Though they knew that Percy had defeated the Minotaur, they never knew what exactly happened so they were quite eager to find out.
We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.
"Now that's how you drive!" grinned Ares
"No, that's how you end up in the infirmary" said Will and Apollo
The pair grinned at each other.
"That's also how you end up in my forge asking me to fix your bike" added Hephaestus
Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.
"Shag carpets?" asked Thalia incredulously
"I was new to this and I thought I had gone insane."
But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.
All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"
There were a few chuckles
Grover'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."
"Stalker alert" said Leo and the Stolls
Grover turned beet red
"I am not a stalker" he said indignantly
"Oh yeah, you are just watching him." Snorted Leo
Athena continued reading.
"Watching me?"
"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."
"Definitely" nodded Percy.
Grover gave him a grin
"Um . . . what are you, exactly?"
"That doesn't matter right now."
"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"
Clarisse cringed
"I would not recommend saying that to any satyr but definitely not to coach hedge."
"Yeah, Coach would probably make you do 50 push ups while calling you cupcake." Jason agreed.
"Sorry Grover" Percy said guiltily
"No issue, you were new to all this." Grover waved the apology
Percy grinned
Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"
I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.
"Goat!" he cried.
"What?"
"I'm a goat from the waist down."
"You just said it didn't matter" pointed out Beckendorf
"You just said it didn't matter."
Percy and Beckendorf smiled at each other.
"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"
"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like . . . Mr. Brunner's myths?"
"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"
"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"
"Of course."
"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."
"Not exactly. He was just seeing weird stuff that he put under hallucination." Said Lee
"Yeah, but his scent was getting stronger." Grover told him
Lee nodded
"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," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."
"Safety from what? 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."
Poseidon grumbled under his breath but did not say anything out loud remembering what his son had said before but that didn't stop him from being angry.
"Isn't Thanatos the god of dead?" frowned Annabeth
"Not exactly" said Hades and Nico at the same time.
The two looked at each other and gave small smiles.
Nico continued.
"Dad is the Lord of dead but Thanatos is the godof death. In the sense that Thanatos takes the souls of the people whose strings have been cut by the fates but then dad controls the dead, so like they respond to my dad but Thanatos snatches the souls."
"Did you get what I'm trying to say?" He asked
"Yeah, that makes sense" replied Annabeth
Hades gave his son a proud smile which slightly surprised Nico but he smiled in return.
"Good job" He smiled
"Thanks dad."
Percy smiled at the exchange.
"Grover!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"
I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.
My mom 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.
The Greeks smiled.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."
"The place you didn't want me to go."
"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."
"Because some old ladies cut yarn."
"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to . . . when someone's about to die."
"Grover." groaned the Greeks
Grover smiled sheepishly.
"Whoa. You said 'you.'"
"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"
"You meant 'you.' As in me."
"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."
"Boys!" my mom said.
"Thank goodness for Sally" sighed Annabeth
She 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?" I asked.
"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."
I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.
Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.
"Yep." Nico said popping the p
Then I thought about Mr. Brunner . . . and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.
"WHAT!" yelled Poseidon, Hermes, Apollo and Luke
I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.
Poseidon gave out a small whimper at both worry for his son and the pain he just felt because of the curse.
Percy closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath and opened them again.
I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."
"Percy!" my mom shouted.
"I'm okay. . . ."
I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
Lightning.
"ZEUS" roared Poseidon, standing up.
Zeus gulped at the amount of anger of Poseidon
Before Poseidon could say anything more, fortunately for Zeus, Percy intervened
"Dad, on the plus side it was Gabe's car that got destroyed."
Poseidon felt a little better at that but not completely.
He went and sat down on the couch and squeezed Percy's shoulder reassuring himself that his son was okay. He had a feeling that he would be doing that a lot during the readings.
That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump.
"Grover!"
He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!
Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.
"Percy," my mother said, "we have to . . ." Her voice faltered
Grover and Dionysus passed out. They almost fell off the seat but were caught by Hermes.
Will and Apollo looked at them in worry and went to check.
"They are only passed out." They sighed in relief.
"They should wake up when this chapter gets over I think." Said Percy
I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, 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, like a 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.
Poseidon tightened his grip on Percy's shoulder.
The Romans gasped in shock and horror realizing what the monster was and that Percy had made it alive.
I swallowed hard. "Who is—"
"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."
My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.
"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"
"Oh look, I'm mentioned." Thalia laughed
The ones who knew what happened chuckled but then ones who didn't looked at her weirdly.
She caught their glances.
"It'll come up." She said
"What?"
Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree–sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
"That's the property line," my mom 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."
"She can't." Chiron said sadly
"Maybe we should have something like that. Like if some other demigod is coming with a clear sighted mortal then we should be able to protect them from the monsters till it's gone." Will said
"Maybe we should." Agreed Chiron
"We can put some cabin which can protect the mortals and once the monster is gone, they can go home." Suggested Lee
"That's a good idea. We'll implement it when we go back." Said Chiron.
Apollo and Chiron were proud of his students/ children for thinking about this.
Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.
Poseidon had a similar sad look in his eyes.
"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."
"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.
The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands— were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head . . . was his head. And the points that looked like horns . . .
"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."
"But . . ."
"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."
I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.
"It is half bull." Said Nico teasingly
I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."
"I told you—"
"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."
"You really are loyal Perce." Smiled Beckendorf
Percy looked down.
"It wasn't your fault Percy. It was my choice" Said Beckendorf
Percy nodded.
I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.
Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.
"We really should trim it." Chiron frowned
"Yeah." Came from Thalia
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—
Everybody chuckled at that.
Bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other ceps,
Some more chuckles.
All stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—
This time the tension broke and everybody burst out laughing. Hades looked amused.
"Why is it wearing such a underwear." Choked out Connor
"I have no idea." Choked his brother
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.
Aphrodite, Silena and Piper gagged.
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.
"Electric Sharpener?" Hades asked his nephew with a raised eyebrow.
Percy just grinned.
I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.
I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"
"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."
"Smart woman." Said Athena
"How did you get so lucky, not that I was unlucky but I thought I was the luckiest but it's a tie?" asked Hades with a grin
Poseidon stuck his tongue out.
Nico was glad to hear his dad talk about his mother that way.
"But he's the Min—"
"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."
"Something Percy has not understood till now." Sighed Annabeth fondly
Poseidon looked at his son worriedly.
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. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.
"Food?" Grover moaned.
"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"
"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."
"She's done her research. Nice." Said Demeter
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.
Despite the tension, everybody cheered the destruction of Gabe's car.
Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.
"Oops" said Leo
Oops.
Percy and Leo grinned at each other.
"Percy," my mom 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?"
"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.
My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go,
Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."
I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. 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.
A few people scrunched up their noses.
He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.
The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.
The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.
"No" muttered Poseidon
Poseidon and Percy felt the immediate fear spark up in their stomachs.
We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.
The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.
"Brave woman brother." Said Hestia
Poseidon gave her a smile.
"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"
But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.
"Mom!"
She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"
Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply . . . gone.
Even though Poseidon and Percy knew that she'd been stolen, the both of them still felt a sinking feeling in their stomachs.
"No!"
Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.
Poseidon and Percy felt a rush of adrenaline in their body.
The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.
I couldn't allow that.
I stripped off my red rain jacket.
"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"
"Your insults need work." Face palmed Clarisse
"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.
I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my backto the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.
But it didn't happen like that.
"Of course not." Sighed Luke
The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.
Time slowed down.
"Is that a metaphor or..?" asked Annabeth
"It was a metaphor." Assured Percy
My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.
"How did you do that?" asked Athena
"I think the rain helped." Said Percy
"Rain is not your father's domain."
"I get a power boost from any water." Shrugged Percy
'He's very powerful' thought Athena
How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.
Poseidon and Percy clamped a hand to their mouth.
Thalia flinched
"Did you feel that?" asked Percy guiltily
"No I don't think I did."
The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.
The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.
Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.
"Food!" Grover moaned.
The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high octanefuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.
"Not even one of my kids could do that." Said Ares
Clarisse face palmed
The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap!
"How?" asked Ares
The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.
The monster charged.
Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.
The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.
The monster was gone.
Everybody looked at Percy in shock.
The demigods shook their head fondly and gave him grins.
Poseidon looked proud while the other gods looked shocked.
The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.
Poseidon tried his best to control the tears that were threatening to fall while he held his head and so was Percy.
The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."
"Oh, is he the one?" teased Thalia
"Oh, he is the one" continued Nico
"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."
"Chapter's over"
"I'll read next" offered Travis
