4. I learn BULLFIGHTING
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.
I asked the question which had been bugging me for a bit now
"So, you and my mom... know each other?"
Grover's eyes flitted to the rear-view 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."
"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."
"Okay man, but what is going on? And who is after me?"
"Oh, nobody much," Grover said" Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."
"Grover!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"
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.
"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 summer camp."
"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."
"I can see that, but how? Just because three old ladies cut some 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."
"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.
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.
I hoped I was imagining things, because that thing was huge if that was anything to go by.
"We're almost there," my mother said quietly. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."
I didn't know where 'there' was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, waiting for 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.
Suddenly, I snapped up and yelled "INCOMING"
I kicked open the door, and while My mom and Grover yelled I grabbed Grover from the scruff of his shirt and grabbed the entire seat my mom was seated on, and jumped.
Not a moment too soon too, the moment the car was hardly 5 meters away from us when a bolt of lightning struck the car, causing it to swerve into a ditch.
"Percy!" my mom shouted.
"You guys okay?" I asked in worry as I turned around to look at both of them.
Grover was just looking at me "H-How did you- RUN!" he suddenly yelled as he jumped and pointed at the way we had come from.
In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw it, the 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.
I swallowed hard. "What the-
"Percy," my mother said, deadly seriously "You have to run. Do you see that big tree?"
"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."
"No way I go without you both with me"
Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.
"G-guys, lets just go quickly" Grover whimpered.
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 ...
Were 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."
Glancing back, I got a clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—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.
Wow. Rock Lee would drool after seeing this guy.
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.
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."
"But he's the Min—"
"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."
The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.
I glanced behind me again.
I could make it easily, but I refused to leave behind my mother and my furry friend.
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.
"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."
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.
Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.
Oops.
"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?"
I nodded, but asked a question I almost didn't want the answer to.
"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."
Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.
He'd smelled us.
The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.
My mother must've been exhausted, but she strongly said. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."
I didn't want to split up, but I knew that she was right. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate.
He lowered his head and charged; those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.
I wouldn't be able to outrun this thing, not at my current level. So, I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.
'Shinobi Tactic 101: When dealing with a big opponent, use their weight and momentum against them'
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 panting while Grover ran to the huge farmhouse at the valley.
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 me.
"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"
I shook my head firmly and ran at the Minotaur, skidding under his legs and punching with all my might, aiming for its left ankle.
It mooed in anger as it stumbled and fell, rolling down the hill.
I felt anger, the most amount of anger I'd felt in this life, but I didn't care about that.
I'd already lost my mom as Naruto.
I refused to lose her as Percy.
Rather than regroup with her, I jumped with inhumane strength, landing on the Minotaur's head and started stomping it's forehead.
Naturally, it didn't appreciate that.
As I almost took out it's left eye, it bashed it's head against the ground, leaving me in a dazed state.
Before it could do anything to me however, a pebble bounced off of its right horn.
We both turned to see my mom holding a few more pebbles.
Her eyes widened, but hardened and she yelled "COME AT ME, NOT HIM" and ran the opposite way
The Minotaur caught her easily, and grabbed her by the neck.
"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.
"No!"
I felt all that anger fade into despair, despair of failing the one person who stood by me this life.
The despair turned into anger again, but this time, I felt strangely detached to myself, like I was the passenger rather than the driver of my body.
I felt a stinging sensation in my eyes, but I didn't care about that either.
All I knew was, This Overgrown Cow would pay.
The bull man turned towards me, snorting mockingly.
I dashed forwards.
In an instant, I was in front of it, crossing the distance of 10 meters in an instant.
I punched at it's heart, and felt a couple of it's ribs crack as it went flying.
My eyes widened slightly though, when I saw it get back up like it hadn't even been touched.
The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.
Time slowed down for me.
Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barrelled past, I grabbed on of it's horns and kicked the base of the horn.
It came off with an agonising scratching sound.
It roared in anger and rushed at me again.
I simply kneeled on the ground, holding the horn with both hands and thrust at the same spot I had punched before.
The bull-man roared in agony and 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.
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 wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, with about twenty kids around my age wearing armour, led by a blonde girl and...Mr Brunner?
The last thing I remember is collapsing on the ground, looking up at the stars above, and saw one start to fall.
I just wished for my mother to still be alive, and closed my eyes.