15. A GOD BUYS US FOOD

The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver.

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"How though? You said no phones." I pointed out.

"I'm not talking about phones."

We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn't sure what Annabeth was looking for.

Finally, we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were three adolescents hanging out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.

"What exactly are we doing?" I asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"

"Don't look at me," she said. "The dining car wiped me out."

"I've got some change from Medusa's " is said, fishing out a quarter and passing it to Grover.

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."

"What are you even talking about?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-Ming."

"Instant messaging?"

"Iris-messaging," Annabeth corrected. "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."

"And you're gonna use…a spray gun?"

Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow."

I LITERALLY HAVE WATER POWERS YOU PEOPLE.

Annabeth held her palm out to me. "Drachma, please."

I handed it over.

She raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering."

She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.

"Half-Blood Hill," Annabeth requested.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy-haired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.

"Luke!" I called.

He turned; eyes wide.

"Percy!" His scarred face broke into a grin. "Is that Annabeth, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"

"We're ... uh ... fine," Annabeth stammered. She was madly straightening her dirty T-shirt, trying to comb the loose hair out of her face. "We thought—Chiron—I mean—"

I had to hide a snicker behind my hand.

"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded. "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"

"I'm right here," Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke's line of vision. "What kind of issues?"

Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.

"Chiron had to—what's that noise?" Luke yelled.

"I'll take care of it.'" Annabeth yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight. "Grover, come on!

"What?" Grover said. "But—"

"Give Percy the nozzle and come on!" she ordered.

Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi, then he handed me the spray gun and followed Annabeth.

I readjusted the hose so I could keep the rainbow going and still see Luke.

"Chiron had to break up a fight," Luke shouted to me over the music. "Things are pretty tense here, Percy. Word leaked out about the Zeus—Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how—probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."

Clarisse's cabin? That's surprising.

In the next stall, I heard Annabeth and some guy arguing with each other, then the music's volume decreased drastically.

"So, what's your status?" Luke asked me. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."

I told him about 30% of everything. Something….seemed off about him, but it's probably because of the fights breaking out over there.

"I wish I could be there," Luke told me. "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen ... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."

"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly."

"That's true," Luke said, looking troubled. "Still ... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."

We were both silent, and I arched an eyebrow questioningly.

"Oh, hey," he protested. "I didn't mean Annabeth. She and I have known each other forever. She would never ... I mean, she's like a little sister to me."

Well guess it's good that Annabeth left, that would've probably sucked to hear for her.

In the stall next to us, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash.

"You'd better go see what that was," Luke said. "Listen, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."

"Oh ... uh, yeah. They've come in handy."

"Really? They fit and everything?"

The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.

"Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver," Luke called, his voice getting fainter. "And tell Grover it'll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just—"

But the mist was gone, and Luke's image faded to nothing.

Annabeth and Grover came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw my face. Annabeth's smile faded. "What happened, Percy? What did Luke say?"

"Not much," I said "Come on, let's find some dinner."

A few minutes later, we were sitting at a booth in a gleaming chrome diner. All around us, families were eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas.

Finally, the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrow sceptically. "Well?"

I said, "We want to order dinner."

"You kids have money to pay for it?"

Grover's lower lip quivered. I was afraid he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum. Annabeth looked ready to pass out from hunger.

However, I brought out two One-dollar notes and said "Yes, yes we do"

Suddenly, we all heard a loud rumble sound and we looked outside to see a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.

All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather—but I'd seen enough burnt humans to know that it was definitely human skin.

The guy on the bike was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. I immediately felt like I'd seen his face somewhere before.

Clarisse, and the rest of Cabin 5.

The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, "You kids have money to pay for it?"

Wha- he can use time powers too?

The biker said, "It's on me." He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Annabeth against the window.

He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, "Are you still here?"

He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she'd been spun around, then marched back toward the kitchen.

Ahh. Seems more similar to controlling the person, maybe some type of genjutsu?

I had a pretty good idea of who this guy was, what with the whole 'Punk' thing he had going and the sudden aggressiveness I was feeling, not to mention the resemblances to the cabin-5 people.

He gave me a wicked grin. "So, you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?"

"Yeah, and you must be Ares right?"

Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should've been, there was only fire. "That's right, punk. I heard you broke Clarisse's spear."

"It was in a fair fight, and she was sorta asking for it" I shrugged

"Probably. That's cool. I don't fight my kids' fights, you know? What I'm here for—I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you."

The waitress came back with heaping trays of food—cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, and chocolate shakes.

Ares handed her a few gold drachmas.

She looked nervously at the coins. "But, these aren't..."

Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. "Problem, sweetheart?"

The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.

"I could've paid" I told Ares. "No need to threaten people with a knife."

Ares laughed. "Are you kidding? I love this country. Best place since Sparta. Don't you carry a weapon, punk? You should. Dangerous world out there. Which brings me to my proposition. I need you to do me a favour."

"A god needs a favour, and from me? What is it?"

"Something a god doesn't have time to do himself. It's nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town. I was going on a little ... date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me."

"I honestly would, but we gotta deal with this lightning bolt quest."

The fire in his eye sockets glowed a little hotter.

"I know all about your quest, punk. When that item was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis, and me, naturally. If I couldn't sniff out a weapon that powerful ..." He licked his lips, as if the very thought of the master bolt made him hungry. "Well ... if I couldn't find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your dad and I go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath."

"You told him Hades stole the bolt?"

"Sure. Framing somebody to start a war. Oldest trick in the book. I recognized it immediately. In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest."

"Thanks," I muttered.

"Hey, I'm a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I'll help you on your way. I'll arrange a ride west for you and your friends."

"We're doing alright for now."

"Yeah, right. Barely any money. No wheels. No clue what you're up against. Help me out, and maybe I'll tell you something you need to know. Something about your mom."

"My mom?"

He grinned. "That got your attention. The water park is a mile west on Delancey. You can't miss it. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride."

"What interrupted your date?" I asked. "Anything we should look out for?"

Ares bared his teeth, but I'd seen his threatening look before on Clarisse.

Seems like he's nervous.

When I opened my eyes again, Ares was gone.

"Not good," Grover said. "Ares sought you out, Percy. This is not good."

I stared out the window. The motorcycle had disappeared.

"It's probably some kind of trick," I said. "We have enough on our plate. Let's just go."

"We can't," Annabeth said. "Look, I hate Ares as much as anybody, but you don't ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune.."

I looked down at my cheeseburger, which suddenly didn't seem so appetizing. "Why does he need us?"

"Maybe it's a problem that requires brains," Annabeth said. "Ares has strength. That's all he has. Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes."

"But this water park ... he acted scared. What would make a war god run away like that?"

Annabeth and Grover glanced nervously at each other.

Annabeth said, "I'm afraid we'll have to find out."

I sighed "I was afraid that you would say that."

The sun was sinking behind the mountains by the time we found the water park. Judging from the sign, it once had been called WATERLAND, but now some of the letters were smashed out, so it read WAT R A D.

The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Old tickets and advertisements fluttered around the asphalt. With night coming on, the place looked sad and creepy.

"Hey guys" I started, staring up at the barbed wire, "Isn't Ares's girlfriend Aphrodite?"

"Yeah" Grover said, a little dreamily. "Goddess of love."

"Wasn't she was married to somebody," I said. "Hephaestus."

"What's your point?" he asked.

"Oh. So how do we get in?"

"Maia!" Grover's shoes sprouted wings.

He flew over the fence, did an unintended somersault in mid-air, then stumbled to a landing on the opposite side. He dusted off his jeans, as if he'd planned the whole thing. "You guys coming?"

I created a platform using water and it froze easier than before, probably because it was night now.

"After you" I said with a joking smile.

She rolled her eyes, but got on all the same.

I got on, and controlled only the water in the centre, causing the platform to rise above the fence and landing on the other side. (I said 'Froze' earlier but it was more of an ice shell with a water centre, mainly because water was much easier to control and it did the job all the same)

The shadows grew long as we walked through the park, checking out the attractions. There was AnkleBiterIsland, Head Over Wedgie, and Dude, Where's My Swimsuit?

No monsters came to get us. Nothing made the slightest noise.

We found a souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise still lined the shelves: snow globes, pencils, postcards, and racks of—

"Clothes," Annabeth said. "Fresh clothes."

"Nice" I said. "These are starting to smell"

Soon, all three of us were decked out like walking advertisements for the defunct theme park.

In front of us was an empty pool that was at least fifty yards across and shaped like a bowl.

Around the rim, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire. On the opposite side from us, a tunnel opened up, probably where the water flowed into when the pool was full. The sign above it read, THRILL RIDE O' LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' TUNNEL OF LOVE!

Annabeth ran her fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue.

"There's a Greek letter carved here," she said. "Eta. I wonder ..."

"This feels too easy" I muttered.

"Grover" I said . "I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. I'll be counting on you for backup, in case something goes wrong."

Grover puffed up his chest a little. "Sure. But what could go wrong?"

"I don't know. Just a feeling. Annabeth, come with me—"

"Are you kidding?" She looked at me as if I was crazy. Her cheeks were bright red.

"What's the problem now?" I demanded.

"Me, go with you to the ... the 'Thrill Ride of Love'? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?"

"Who's going to see you?" But my face was burning now, too. Damn teenage hormones ( I say that, but I died when I was a teenager as well). "Fine," I told her. "I'll do it myself." But when I started down the side of the pool, she followed me, muttering about how boys always messed things up.

We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat, and next to it was a lady's silk scarf. I tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. Why? Then I noticed something I hadn't seen from up top: mirrors all the way around the rim of the pool, facing this spot. We could see ourselves no matter which direction we looked. That must be it. While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favourite people: themselves.

Wow, self-obsessed much?

I picked up the scarf. It shimmered pink, and the perfume was indescribable—rose, or mountain laurel. Annabeth ripped it out of my hand and stuffed it in her pocket. "Oh, no you don't. Stay away from that love magic."

Aw hell nah, I aint messing around with that stuff.

"Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let's get out of here."

The moment I touched the shield, I could sense that we were in trouble. My hand broke through something that had been connecting it to the dashboard. Some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost invisible. A trip wire.

Meaning: A trap.

"Wait," Annabeth said.

"Too late."

"There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap."

Noise erupted all around us, of a million gears grinding, as if the whole pool were turning into one giant machine.

Grover yelled, "Guys!"

Up on the rim, the Cupid statues were drawing their bows into firing position. Before I raise up a shield, they shot, but not at us. They fired at each other, across the rim of the pool. Silky cables trailed from the arrows, arcing over the pool and anchoring where they landed to form a huge golden asterisk. Then smaller metallic threads started weaving together magically between the main strands, making a net.

"We have to get out," I said.

"Duh!" Annabeth said.

I grabbed the shield and we ran.

"Come on!" Grover shouted.

He was trying to hold open a section of the net for us, but wherever he touched it, the golden threads started to wrap around his hands.

The Cupids' heads popped open. Out came video cameras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding us with illumination, and a loudspeaker voice boomed: "Live to Olympus in one minute ... Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight ..."

"Hephaestus!" Annabeth screamed. "I'm so stupid.' Eta is H.' He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!"

We'd almost made it to the rim when the row of mirrors opened like hatches and thousands of tiny metallic bugs poured out.

Annabeth screamed.

It was an army of wind-up creepy-crawlies: bronze-gear bodies, spindly legs, little pincer mouths, all scuttling toward us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.

"Spiders!" Annabeth said. "Sp—sp—Aaaaah!"

I'd never seen her like this before. She fell backward in terror and almost got overwhelmed by the spider robots before I pulled her up and dragged her back toward the boat.

The things were coming out from all around the rim now, millions of them, flooding toward the center of the pool, completely surrounding us.

Annabeth and I climbed into the boat. I started kicking away the spiders as they swarmed aboard. I yelled at Annabeth to help me, but she was too paralyzed to do much more than scream.

Of course. The whole story with Ariadne. Must be a children of Athena.

"Thirty, twenty-nine," called the loudspeaker.

The spiders started spitting out strands of metal thread, trying to tie us down. The strands were easy enough to break at first, but there were so many of them, and the spiders just kept coming. I kicked one away from Annabeth's leg and its pincers took a chunk out of my shoe.

Grover hovered above the pool in his flying sneakers, trying to pull the net loose, but it wouldn't budge.

Think, I told myself. Think.

The Tunnel of Love entrance was under the net. We could use it as an exit, except that it was blocked by robot spiders.

"Fifteen, fourteen," the loudspeaker called.

Water, I thought. But I don't have enough for an actual wave.

Then I saw them: huge water pipes behind the mirrors, where the spiders had come from. And up above the net, next to one of the Cupids, a glass-windowed booth that must be the controller's station.

"Grover!" I yelled. "Get into that booth! Find the 'on' switch!"

"But—"

"Do it!" The spiders were all over the prow of the boat now. Annabeth was screaming her head off. I had to get us out of there.

Grover was in the controller's booth now, slamming away at the buttons.

"Five, four—"

Grover looked up at me hopelessly, raising his hands. He was letting me know that he'd pushed every button, but still nothing was happening.

I closed my eyes, and time slowed down, for me.

"I opened my eyes, Sharingan activating with barely a thought.

I could feel the water, but I couldn't be sure where it was.

And then I pulled.

And pulled.

I felt the tug in my gut.

"Two, one, zero!"

Water exploded out of the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. I pulled Annabeth into the seat next to me and fastened her seat belt just as the tidal wave slammed into our boat, over the top, whisking the spiders away and dousing us completely, but not capsizing us. The boat turned, lifted in the flood, and spun in circles around the whirlpool.

Spotlights glared down at us. The cameras were rolling, live to Olympus.

We spun around one last time, the water level now almost high enough to shred us against the metal net. Then the boat's nose turned toward the tunnel and we rocketed through into the darkness.

Annabeth and I held tight, both of us screaming as the boat shot curls and hugged corners and took forty-five-degree plunges past pictures of Romeo and Juliet and a bunch of other Valentine's Day stuff.

Then we were out of the tunnel, the night air whistling through our hair as the boat barrelled straight toward the exit.

If the ride had been in working order, we would've sailed off a ramp between the golden Gates of Love and splashed down safely in the exit pool. But the Gates of Love were chained. Two boats that had been washed out of the tunnel before us were now piled against the barricade—one submerged, the other cracked in half.

"Unfasten your seat belt," I yelled to Annabeth.

"Are you crazy?"

"I'll create a landing pad" I strapped Ares's shield to my arm. "We're going to have to jump for it." My idea was simple. As the boat struck, we would use its force like a springboard to jump the gate.

Annabeth seemed to understand. She gripped my hand as the gates got closer.

"On my mark," I said.

"No! On my mark!"

"I'm the one putting up the pad, and I'm gonna need to be very precise."

"Simple physics!" she yelled. "Force times the trajectory angle—"

"I went to school too" I shouted. "Fine. We jump at your mark."

She hesitated ... hesitated ... then yelled, "Now!"

Crack!

'Huh, not bad. She got us at a better angle, we got maximum lift.'

Unfortunately, that was a little more than we needed. Our boat smashed into the pileup and we were thrown into the air, straight over the gates, over the pool, and down toward solid asphalt.

Water swirled around me before I directed to the ground, creating a slide.

Something grabbed me from behind.

Annabeth yelled, "Ouch!"

Grover!

In mid-air, he had grabbed me by the shirt, and Annabeth by the arm, and was trying to pull us out of a crash landing, but Annabeth and I had all the momentum.

"You're too heavy!" Grover said. "We're going down!"

"WHAT DO YOU THINK I MADE THAT FOR?" I yelled at him.

He nodded and directed us there, before we all fell on top of the slides and ended up in a pile of tangled limbs.

I looked back at the Thrill Ride of Love. The water was subsiding. Our boat had been smashed to pieces against the gates.

A hundred yards away, at the entrance pool, the Cupids were still filming. The statues had swivelled so that their cameras were trained straight on us, the spotlights in our faces.

"Show's over!" I yelled. "Thank you! Good night!"

The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. The park went quiet and dark again, except for the gentle trickle of water into the Thrill Ride of Love's exit pool. I wondered if Olympus had gone to a commercial break, or if our ratings had been any good.

I better get a commission for this guest appearance.

I hefted the shield on my arm and turned to my friends. "We need to have a little talk with Ares."