Chapter 12: I Go Snowboarding With A Pig
"Of course you do." Travis laughed.
"Who doesn't?" Leo asked with a grin.
"Sensible people." Piper told him. Thalia suddenly grimaced. She remembered this bit and she recalled that this was when Percy had realised she was scared of heights. She had to bite back a groan. This was not going to be a good chapter. And shortly after this Bianca had died. Thalia resigned herself to a miserable couple of hours coming up.
We'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign said WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO. The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, though the morning was sunny. Even with my lion-skin coat, I was freezing by the time we got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. As we walked, I told Grover about my conversation with Apollo the night before—how he'd told me to seek out Nereus in San Francisco. Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess.
"It is good. Now you have an idea where to get some answers." Jason said.
"Yeah but they still have to make it to San Francisco." Reyna pointed out. He nodded.
But we've got to get there first." I tried not to get too depressed about our chances. I didn't want to send Grover into a panic, but I knew we had another huge deadline looming, aside from saving Artemis in time for her council of the gods. The General had said Annabeth would only be kept alive until the winter solstice.
"So both deadlines are the same." Dakota said.
"Yeah but if they had taken Annabeth somewhere else, away from where Artemis was, we would have absolutely no time to find her." Thalia told him. He nodded.
That was Friday, only four days away. And he'd said something about a sacrifice. I didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Me neither." Annabeth laughed.
"I'd be worried if you did." Piper told her with a chuckle.
We stopped in the middle of town. You could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some ski cabins, and a grocery store. "Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus stations. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."
"Well that's not good. You've taken them from one dead end to another." Hades snapped as he glared at Apollo.
"Well that dead end is a lot closer to their destination than the previous one." He shrugged. "If I helped any more, father would definitely find out."
"There's a coffee shop!" said Grover. "Yes," Zoe said. "Coffee is good." "And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And wax paper."
"Coffee and pastries yes, wax paper, no." Rachel said.
"Agreed." Will said.
"I hate coffee." Beckendorf admitted, wrinkling his nose.
"How can you hate coffee?" Rachel looked at him, appalled. "How do you survive without coffee?"
"Easily." He told her with a shrug.
Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about you two go get us some food. Percy, Bianca, and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions." We agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes. Bianca looked a little uncomfortable coming with us, but she did. Inside the store, we found out a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow for skiing, the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each,
"Rats?" George's hissing voice came from Hermes' pocket.
"Fake rats. Go back to sleep." Hermes told him.
"Who makes fake ratsss? What isss the point?" George huffed indignantly.
"Mortals are weird. Go back to sleep." Hermes said, a little more forcefully this time. There was some disgruntled hissing but George said no more.
and there was no easy way in or out of town unless you had your own car. "You could call for a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, but it would take at least an hour to get here. Cost several hundred dollars."
"Why is the nearest taxi place an hour away? Why would anybody go to this town?" Silena asked in bemusement.
"They wouldn't if they had a choice I guess." Gwen shrugged.
The clerk looked so lonely, I bought a rubber rat.
"That was nice of you." Apollo smiled.
Then we headed back outside and stood on the porch. "Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has a suggestion." "But the clerk said—" "I know," she told me. "I'm checking anyway."
"Better safe than sorry I guess." Jason said.
"I just needed to do something." Thalia told him. "I hate sitting doing nothing." Most of the demigods nodded in agreement.
I let her go. I knew how it felt to be restless. All half-bloods had attention deficit problems because of our inborn battlefield reflexes. We couldn't stand just waiting around. Also, I had a feeling Thalia was still upset over our conversation last night about Luke.
"There was that too." Thalia sighed.
Bianca and I stood together awkwardly. I mean… I was never very comfortable talking one-on-one with girls anyway, and I'd never been alone with Bianca before. I wasn't sure what to say, especially now that she was a Hunter and everything. "Nice rat," she said at last.
"Always a good ice breaker." Leo nodded knowingly.
"She could have been like Nico, asking fifty million questions." Will snickered.
"I guess Zoe would have explained all the important bits. Plus she was probably feeling as awkward as I was." Percy shrugged.
I set it on the porch railing. Maybe it would attract more business for the store.
"Yes, who wouldn't want to go to a store with a rubber rat outside it?" Clarisse asked sarcastically.
"At least it's something interesting?" Chris offered weakly.
"So… how do you like being a Hunter so far?" I asked. She pursed her lips. "You're not still mad at me for joining, are you?"
"I wasn't mad about her joining really. I was mad about her leaving Nico." Percy muttered. He still couldn't understand her decision to join the Hunters without even mentioning it to her brother until afterwards.
Nico smiled at that, grateful for Percy's protectiveness. However he also reflected that it did not affect him the way it would have done when they first arrived. If he had heard that then he would have exploded from happiness. Now that honor seemed to have fallen to the cute doctor sitting next to him. He still cared for Percy, and always would, but now he felt like more of a big brother. Of course, reading this, Nico realised Percy had always acted in a brotherly fashion towards him. During this reading the mysteriousness of Percy had been stripped away and Nico had seen that he was just another person. A very powerful person, sure, but his crush had been on an idea and not the real Percy. Will on the other hand, Nico felt his stomach tighten and his heart skip a beat whenever the son of Apollo so much as smiled at him. However he had no idea if his feelings would be returned and had absolutely no intention of asking, in case he ruined a pretty awesome friendship.
Will watched as a series of emotions ran across Nico's face and he could just tell he was thinking about Percy Jackson. He sighed in frustration. Nico's crush on the older boy was fairly obvious and Will had no idea how he could compete with Percy for Nico's affections. And Percy wasn't even competing knowingly! Will could tell he didn't reciprocate Nico's feelings in the same way. He just had to keep doing what he was doing and maybe speak to the son of Hades on a break.
"Nah. Long as, you know… you're happy." "I'm not sure 'happy' is the right word, with Lady Artemis gone. But being a Hunter is definitely cool. I feel calmer somehow. Everything seems to have slowed down around me. I guess that's the immortality."
"Yeah. That does take some getting used to." Thalia nodded.
I stared at her, trying to see the difference. She did seem more confident than before, more at peace. She didn't hide her face under a green cap anymore. She kept her hair tied back, and she looked me right in the eyes when she spoke. With a shiver, I realized that five hundred or a thousand years from now, Bianca Di Angelo would look exactly the same as she did today.
Nico, Hades and Percy all grimaced. Hades did not appreciate the reminder of what his daughter had lost.
She might be having a conversation like this with some other half-blood long after I was dead, but Bianca would still look twelve years old. "Nico didn't understand my decision," Bianca murmured.
"I can't imagine why." Will said sarcastically.
"I do get it now. I wish she had dealt with it differently but I do sort of understand her choice." Nico told the son of Apollo. This wasn't entirely true, he would never fully understand why Bianca had been so willing to leave him for the Hunters but he was at least more at peace with her choice than he had been.
Will looked at him skeptically but didn't pull him up on it.
She looked at me like she wanted assurance it was okay. "He'll be all right," I said. "Camp Half-Blood takes in a lot of young kids. They did that for Annabeth."
Annabeth smiled while Hades sent a grateful look at his nephew, making sure the demigod couldn't see him. His daughter did not need to spend her last moments alive feeling extra guilty about something she could no longer change.
Bianca nodded. "I hope we find her. Annabeth, I mean. She's lucky to have a friend like you."
"I am." Annabeth agreed. Percy just shrugged.
"Lot of good it did her."
"Hey, it wasn't your fault. Having Thalia as my friend didn't stop me getting captured either." She pointed out.
"Besides, you were the only one really fighting about finding Annabeth. Everyone else was completely focused on finding Lady Artemis. Obviously that's important but even Grover was temporarily more focused on that." Rachel reminded him. Grover blushed at the reminder. Percy did feel a little better at that.
"Don't blame yourself Percy. You risked your life to save my brother and me. I mean, that was seriously brave. If I hadn't met you, I wouldn't have felt okay about leaving Nico at the camp.
"What?" Nico looked at Percy in surprise.
"Yeah. I forgot she said that." He looked just as surprised as Nico. He really hoped that Nico didn't blame him for Bianca leaving him to join the Hunters.
"I'm not surprised. I thought you were an all-powerful hero too." Nico admitted with a shrug. Honestly the confession made him feel better. Bianca had at least considered his safety at some point.
I figured if there were people like you there, Nico would be fine. You're a good guy." The compliment took me by surprise. "Even though I knocked you down in capture the flag?"
Everyone burst out laughing at this.
"I don't think knocking someone over in a game makes you a bad guy." Reyna said through her laughter.
She laughed. "Okay. Except for that, you're a good guy." A couple hundred yards away, Grover and Zoe came out of the coffee shop loaded down with pastry bags and drinks. I kind of didn't want them to come back yet. It was weird, but I realized I liked talking to Bianca.
Hades raised an eyebrow. As did Artemis.
"Bianca was just a lot easier to talk to than both Zoe and Thalia." Percy defended himself before anyone could comment.
She wasn't so bad. A lot easier to hang out with than Zoe Nightshade, anyway. "So what's the story with you and Nico?" I asked her. "Where did you go to school before Westover?" She frowned. "I think it was a boarding school in D.C. It seems like so long ago." "You never lived with your parents? I mean, your mortal parent?" "We were told our parents were dead.
Hades glowered at Zeus. Maria shouldn't have died.
There was a bank trust for us. A lot of money, I think. A lawyer would come by once in a while to check on us. Then Nico and I had to leave that school." "Why?" She knit her eyebrows. "We had to go somewhere. I remember it was important. We traveled a long way. And we stayed in this hotel for a few weeks.
"I'm glad it wasn't just a few weeks. Or you'd never have met me." Will told Nico quietly.
"And wouldn't that be a shame." Nico said sarcastically.
"Yes." Will nodded solemnly.
"I'm not sure about that."
"Don't lie. You think I'm great."
"Whatever." Nico tried to act casual but he could feel his cheeks heating up. Honestly, he was glad he had been in that hotel for years. He was glad to have met Percy and Will in particular. But also Hazel.
And then… I don't know. One day a different lawyer came to get us out. He said it was time for us to leave. He drove us back east, through D.C. Then up into Maine. And we started going to Westover." It was a strange story. Then again, Bianca and Nico were half-bloods. Nothing would be normal for them. "So you've been raising Nico pretty much all your life?" I asked. "Just the two of you?" She nodded. "That's why I wanted to join the Hunters so bad. I mean, I know it's selfish, but I wanted my own life and friends. I love Nico—don't get me wrong—I just needed to find out what it would be like not to be a big sister twenty-four hours a day."
Nico grimaced.
I thought about last summer, the way I'd felt when I found out I had a Cyclops for a baby brother. I could relate to what Bianca was saying. "Zoe seems to trust you," I said. "What were you guys talking about, anyway— something dangerous about the quest?" "When?" Yesterday morning on the pavilion," I said, before I could stop myself. "Something about the General." Her face darkened. "How did you… The invisibility hat. Were you eavesdropping?"
"That was your brother." Connor laughed.
"And Percy." Chris corrected. "He was just a little late."
"No! I mean, not really. I just—" I was saved from trying to explain when Zoe and Grover arrived with the drinks and pastries. Hot chocolate for Bianca and me. Coffee for them. I got a blueberry muffin, and it was so good I could almost ignore the outraged look Bianca was giving me. "We should do the tracking spell," Zoe said. "Grover, do you have any acorns left?" "Umm," Grover mumbled. He was chewing on a bran muffin, wrapper and all. "I think so. I just need to—" He froze. I was about to ask what was wrong, when a warm breeze rustled past, like a gust of springtime had gotten lost in the middle of winter. Fresh air seasoned with wildflowers and sunshine.
Grover smiled sadly.
"Do not tell me someone else is interfering on this quest." Zeus scowled. Percy had to stop himself laughing. He knew Zeus himself actually interfered later on, although Athena was first.
And something else—almost like a voice, trying to say something. A warning. Zoe gasped. "Grover, thy cup." Grover dropped his coffee cup, which was decorated with pictures of birds. Suddenly the birds peeled off the cup and flew away—a flock of tiny doves. My rubber rat squeaked. It scampered off the railing and into the trees—real fur, real whiskers.
"What?" Leo looked confused. He wasn't the only one.
"What the heck is going on?" Travis wondered.
"It'll explain in a second." Percy told him.
Grover collapsed next to his coffee, which steamed against the snow. We gathered around him and tried to wake him up. He groaned, his eyes fluttering. "Hey!" Thalia said, running up from the street. "I just… What's wrong with Grover?" "I don't know," I said. "He collapsed." "Uuuuuhhhh," Grover groaned. "Well, get him up!" Thalia said. She had her spear in her hand. She looked behind her as if she were being followed. "We have to get out of here." We made it to the edge of the town before the first two skeleton warriors appeared.
"That's not good." Hades groaned.
"How did they catch you guys so fast? Lord Apollo even made that train go extra fast." Rachel wondered.
"No idea. Didn't stick around to ask them." Thalia said.
"Fair enough." Rachel nodded.
They stepped from the trees on either side of the road. Instead of gray camouflage, they were now wearing blue New Mexico State Police uniforms, but they had the same transparent gray skin and yellow eyes. They drew their handguns. I'll admit I used to think it would be kind of cool to learn how to shoot a gun, but I changed my mind as soon as the skeleton warriors pointed theirs at me.
"Move." Poseidon snapped tensely.
Thalia tapped her bracelet. Aegis spiraled to life on her arm, but the warriors didn't flinch. Their glowing yellow eyes bored right into me. I drew Riptide, though I wasn't sure what good it would do against guns. Zoe and Bianca drew their bows, but Bianca was having trouble because Grover kept swooning and leaning against her.
"Better her than Zoe. Zoe's had more practice fighting." Clarisse said.
"Yeah but Bianca is the only one who can kill those things. Even if she doesn't know that yet." Percy reminded her.
"Back up," Thalia said. We started to—but then I heard a rustling of branches. Two more skeletons appeared on the road behind us. We were surrounded. I wondered where the other skeletons were. I'd seen a dozen at the Smithsonian. Then one of the warriors raised a cell phone to his mouth and spoke into it. Except he wasn't speaking. He made a clattering, clicking sound, like dry teeth on bone. Suddenly I understood what was going on. The skeletons had split up to look for us. These skeletons were now calling their brethren. Soon we'd have a full party on our hands.
"Four is quite enough." Triton muttered anxiously.
"It's more than enough." Beckendorf stated.
"It's near," Grover moaned. "It's here," I said. "No," he insisted. "The gift. The gift from the Wild."
"What?" Hermes perked up excitedly. Dionysus was also very interested although he hid it a lot better. "Do you mean a gift from Pan?"
"Err…" Percy glanced at Grover who shrugged. "Yeah."
"So he is alive." Hermes beamed happily. This was the best news he had had in ages. Since before these stupid books began. Percy just nodded, not wanting to give anything else away. Hermes continued grinning away. Maybe they would finally find his son and learn why he had gone into hiding so long ago. If he had sent a gift of the Wild to Grover and made his presence known, it seemed as if he was the Satyr Pan had personally chosen to find him. He looked at the Satyr, trying to determine whether he had found Pan yet or not but Grover had a surprisingly good poker face. Oh well. His son was alive. He could cope with waiting a bit longer to find out anything else.
I didn't know what he was talking about, but I was worried about his condition. He was in no shape to walk, much less fight. "We'll have to go one-on-one," Thalia said. "Four of them. Four of us. Maybe they'll ignore Grover that way." "Agreed," said Zoe. "The Wild!" Grover moaned. A warm wind blew through the canyon, rustling the trees, but I kept my eyes on the skeletons. I remembered the General gloating over Annabeth's fate. I remembered the way Luke had betrayed her. And I charged.
"Percy!" Poseidon groaned loudly. "Why do you do this?"
"We weren't getting out of there without a fight. Plus they had the advantage at a distance as they had guns." Percy shrugged.
The first skeleton fired. Time slowed down. I won't say I could see the bullet, but I could feel its path, the same way I felt water currents in the ocean. I deflected it off the edge of my blade and kept charging.
"What the hell?" Rachel gaped at Percy in shock. Apollo and Poseidon both gasped as everyone turned to look at Percy in astonishment. He shrunk back under all the attention.
"How did you deflect a bullet? How did you even sort of see it? It was in the air. Thalia I could possibly understand...but you?" Annabeth looked so confused.
"I have no idea." Percy said desperately. "It just happened."
"That's as impressive as slashing Hunter arrows out of the air." Thalia told him. "I wish I had seen you do that."
"You are very powerful." Triton stated. He was also confused about how his half-brother was able to achieve these feats but it impressed him regardless.
"That is so cool." Beckendorf stated.
"I've never seen a demigod with natural reflexes as good as Percy's." Chiron admitted. Privately he now wondered if Riptide didn't have something to do with it. Zoe had said in his dream she put some of her immortal power into her gift to Heracles. Maybe Percy was able to tap into that power unconsciously, especially as it was made by Zoe's mother who was an Oceanid. Riptide drew its power from the ocean but maybe it also drew a little from Zoe's immortality. It would certainly explain how Percy seemed to get extra power from seemingly nowhere. Obviously, Percy had an incredible amount of natural talent to go with it, there was no denying that, but it would explain a lot too.
Percy looked desperately at Frank, pleading with him to keep reading. He didn't want to dwell on his weird powers any longer. Especially as Zeus was looking rather upset at this news.
The skeleton drew a baton and I sliced off his arms at the elbows. Then I swung Riptide through his waist and cut him in half. His bones unknit and clattered to the asphalt in a heap. Almost immediately, they began to move, reassembling themselves. The second skeleton clattered his teeth at me and tried to fire, but I knocked his gun into the snow. I thought I was doing pretty well, until the other two skeletons shot me in the back.
"WHAT?" Several people all screamed at once. Chiron watched Percy as if he might drop dead at any moment. This was yet another time the boy could have, and probably should have, died and he had no idea. He knew quests were dangerous but Percy's were something else. Reading about his charges going on quests was going to be the death of him. He certainly had no idea how Poseidon was coping with this.
"You got shot?" Poseidon asked his son, his voice went quite high pitched, while Apollo couldn't resist checking him for injuries this time. Percy went red as the God carefully looked him over, gently feeling for any bruises.
"I'm fine." He told Apollo while wondering if it were possible to die from embarrassment.
"How did you survive?" Will asked him.
"He has the lion skin." Annabeth realised. At this revelation, everybody relaxed slightly.
"Percy your luck is ridiculous." Rachel stated.
"I know." He shrugged.
"Percy!" Thalia screamed. I landed face down in the street. Then I realized something… I wasn't dead.
"Always a good realization." Leo said, trying to lighten the mood. A few people gave him small smiles for the attempt but remained quite tense.
The impact of the bullets had been dull, like a push from behind, but they hadn't hurt me. The Nemean Lion's fur! My coat was bulletproof. Thalia charged the second skeleton. Zoe and Bianca started firing arrows at the third and fourth. Grover stood there and held his hands out to the trees, looking like he wanted to hug them.
"Could do with some bad music right about now." Connor muttered.
There was a crashing sound in the forest to our left, like a bulldozer. Maybe the skeletons' reinforcements were arriving. I got to my feet and ducked a police baton. The skeleton I'd cut in half was already fully re-formed, coming after me. There was no way to stop them. Zoe and Bianca fired at their heads point-blank, but the arrows just whistled straight through their empty skulls. One lunged at Bianca, and I thought she was a goner, but she whipped out her hunting knife and stabbed the warrior in the chest. The whole skeleton erupted into flames, leaving a little pile of ashes and a police badge.
"One down, eleven to go." Hades said grimly.
"Better odds than they had a minute ago." Persephone told him, trying to keep his spirits up. She knew the book wasn't going to get any easier from here. She knew how much her husband had mourned the mortal woman, and the lengths he had gone to to keep the children safe. It made her sad to know that after all of that, his daughter would die so soon after coming out from hiding and gaining immortality. It seemed like Fate was against her husband's family.
"How did you do that?" Zoe asked. "I don't know," Bianca said nervously. "Lucky stab?" "Well, do it again!" Bianca tried, but the remaining three skeletons were wary of her now.
"That's something at least." Jason said.
"I wonder why her knife worked but her arrows didn't? She's still a daughter of Hades even if she's shooting." Beckendorf frowned.
"She's still new to her powers and being a Hunter of Artemis will have dulled her demigod side as well." Hades said. "Given how hard those skeletons are to kill, I suspect she would have needed to be very close to them to have an effect. As in touching the weapon that killed them. So if she stabbed one with an arrow then it would work but shooting will not."
They pressed us back, keeping us at baton's length. "Plan?" I said as we retreated. Nobody answered. The trees behind the skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking. "A gift," Grover muttered. And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig I'd ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, thirty feet high, with a snotty pink snout and tusks the size of canoes. Its back bristled with brown hair, and its eyes were wild and angry.
"Don't tell me that's supposed to be a gift?" Silena asked in disgust.
"It is a gift from the Wild." Grover reminded her.
"Yeah but still…That's gross."
"It was pretty gross." Percy agreed.
"REEEEEEEEET!" it squealed, and raked the three skeletons aside with its tusks. The force was so great, they went flying over the trees and into the side of the mountain, where they smashed to pieces, thigh bones and arm bones twirling everywhere.
"Nice. Hopefully that'll slow them down a bit while they reform." Frank nodded.
"Yes. Now would be the time to get out of there." Reyna agreed.
"If they can keep up with a train, I don't think they can outrun them." Hazel pointed out.
"No but the boar probably can." Clarisse grinned.
Then the pig turned on us. Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled, "Don't kill it.'" The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge. "That's the Erymanthian Boar," Zoe said, trying to stay calm. "I don't think we can kill it."
"That would not be a good idea." Dionysus stated.
"It's a gift," Grover said. "A blessing from the Wild!" The boar said "REEEEEEET!" and swung its tusk. Zoe and Bianca dived out of the way. I had to push Grover so he wouldn't get launched into the mountain on the Boar Tusk Express. "Yeah, I feel blessed!" I said.
There was a round of sniggering at this. Grover rolled his eyes at his best friend.
"Scatter!" We ran in different directions, and for a moment the boar was confused. "It wants to kill us!" Thalia said. "Of course," Grover said. "It's wild!" "So how is that a blessing?" Bianca asked.
"Good question." Leo muttered.
"It can be a blessing if you approach things correctly." Athena stated.
It seemed a fair question to me, but the pig was offended and charged her.
Hades held his breath. He was not ready to hear this. Persephone gripped his hand tightly. Nico glanced over at Percy who shook his head slightly. He would not forget his promise to warn Nico ahead of time.
She was faster than I'd realized. She rolled out of the way of its hooves and came up behind the beast.
Hades let out a sigh of relief only to realise that still meant the worst was to come. He was starting to hate these stupid books.
It lashed out with its tusks and pulverized the WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT sign. I racked my brain, trying to remember the myth of the boar. I was pretty sure Hercules had fought this thing once, but I couldn't remember how he'd beaten it. I had a vague memory of the boar plowing down several Greek cities before Hercules managed to subdue it. I hoped Cloudcroft was insured against giant wild boar attacks.
Now everybody burst out laughing as most of the tension in the room broke.
"Somehow I doubt they are." Connor managed to say through his laughter.
"Well clearly they should be." Chris smirked.
"I'd love to see people's faces if they saw that option on the insurance form." Rachel giggled.
"Keep moving!" Zoe yelled. She and Bianca ran in opposite directions. Grover danced around the boar, playing his pipes while the boar snorted and tried to gouge him. But Thalia and I won the prize for bad luck.
"Of course you did." Triton groaned.
"Someone had to." Percy grinned.
"But it's always you. Let someone else win for a change." Grover told his friend.
"In that situation that might well have been you." Percy reminded him.
"Oh yeah. You can keep all the bad luck." Grover told him with a laugh.
"Gee thanks."
When the boar turned on us, Thalia made the mistake of raising Aegis in defense. The sight of the Medusa head made the boar squeal in outrage. Maybe it looked too much like one of his relatives.
"What?" Annabeth looked at Percy in bemusement. "How does Medusa look anything like a boar?"
"I don't know. It's ugly. Medusa is ugly." He shrugged. Annabeth rolled her eyes.
The boar charged us. We only managed to keep ahead of it because we ran uphill, and we could dodge in and out of trees while the boar had to plow through them. On the other side of the hill, I found an old stretch of train tracks, half buried in the snow. "This way.'" I grabbed Thalia's arm and we ran along the rails while the boar roared behind us, slipping and sliding as it tried to navigate the steep hillside. Its hooves just were not made for this, thank the gods. Ahead of us, I saw a covered tunnel. Past that, an old trestle bridge spanning a gorge. I had a crazy idea.
"Of course you did." Poseidon sighed as Thalia grimaced. She knew what was coming next. This was not going to be pretty.
"Follow me!" Thalia slowed down—I didn't have time to ask why—but I pulled her along and she reluctantly followed. Behind us, a ten-ton pig tank was knocking down pine trees and crushing boulders under its hooves as it chased us. Thalia and I ran into the tunnel and came out on the other side. "No!" Thalia screamed.
"What now?" Zeus asked anxiously.
"Don't tell me the skeletons reformed already?" Nico asked. Nobody answered so Frank kept reading.
She'd turned as white as ice. We were at the edge of the bridge. Below, the mountain dropped away into a snow-filled gorge about seventy feet below.
Jason grimaced as he realised his sister's problem. Glancing at Thalia now he realised she looked like she was going to be sick.
"You ok?" He asked quietly.
"Not really. I don't…" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm terrified of heights."
"I know." He admitted.
"What? How?"
"We met you on the quest I just completed. I found out there."
"And you don't…" Thalia was looking at him intently. "You're ok with that?"
"Why wouldn't I be? You're allowed to be afraid of stuff." Jason shrugged.
"But I'm the daughter of Zeus and I'm afraid of heights!" She hissed. Piper and Annabeth both glanced over at them and Thalia winced.
"You can't help what you're afraid of." Jason told her. Yeah it was weird but it wasn't as if Thalia had asked for such a fear.
"What is dad gonna say?"
"Who cares?" Jason shrugged. "If he doesn't like it that's his problem. It's not your fault."
"Thanks, Jay." She took a deep breath and turned back to the reading.
The boar was right behind us. "Come on!" I said. "It'll hold our weight, probably."
"Comforting." Annabeth said sarcastically.
"Next time, leave the 'probably' out." Piper advised.
"I can't!" Thalia yelled. Her eyes were wild with fear. The boar smashed into the covered tunnel, tearing through at full speed. "Now!" I yelled at Thalia. She looked down and swallowed. I swear she was turning green.
Zeus looked at his daughter in concern. What was wrong with her? She sounded terrified but clearly not of the pig. A thought struck him. She couldn't be afraid of heights. Could she? No. That was ridiculous. A child of his couldn't be afraid of heights. It must be something else.
I didn't have time to process why. The boar was charging through the tunnel, straight toward us. Plan B. I tackled Thalia and sent us both sideways off the edge of the bridge, into the side of the mountain. We slid on Aegis like a snow-board, over rocks and mud and snow, racing downhill. The boar was less fortunate; it couldn't turn that fast, so all ten tons of the monster charged out onto the tiny trestle, which buckled under its weight. The boar free-fell into the gorge with a mighty squeal and landed in a snowdrift with a huge POOOOOF! Thalia and I skidded to a stop. We were both breathing hard. I was cut up and bleeding. Thalia had pine needles in her hair. Next to us, the wild boar was squealing and struggling. All I could see was the bristly tip of its back. It was wedged completely in the snow like Styrofoam packing. It didn't seem to be hurt, but it wasn't going anywhere, either.
"Good job." Apollo smiled.
I looked at Thalia. "You're afraid of heights."
Everyone turned to look at Thalia in amazement. She scowled furiously at everybody.
"But your dad is Zeus." Leo stated, looking confused.
"Yes. And?" Thalia snapped defensively.
"Nothing." He said hurriedly. Percy, Annabeth and Jason also began glaring at anyone who wouldn't stop staring at Thalia.
"You're...afraid of heights?" Zeus asked slowly, like he couldn't believe he was actually saying those words.
"Yes." Thalia grimaced, not looking in his direction.
"But you can fly. You wouldn't fall." He frowned in confusion.
"Fears aren't rational." Hestia told her brother in a scolding tone. The poor girl looked upset enough as it was. She didn't need her father giving her a hard time.
"But...but…" Zeus simply could not wrap his head around the idea. How could his daughter be afraid of his domain? Well, of being in his domain. The idea was simply absurd. However he spotted the distressed look on his daughter's face and decided to leave it for now. They could speak later. In private. His choice was made easier by the look Hestia was giving him. He may be in charge but nobody disobeyed Hestia. "Continue reading." He told the Roman boy. He knew he had made the correct decision when Thalia's expression crumpled into relief.
Beside him, his wife was scoffing and rolling her eyes. He squeezed her hand and gave her a warning look. He would not tolerate her saying something nasty to his daughter. She glared but nodded her assent. She knew this was a battle she would not win. Why could they not hurry up and get to the future so she could find out if the girl died or whether she would need to make some plans.
Now that we were safely down the mountain, her eyes had their usual angry look. "Don't be stupid." "That explains why you freaked out on Apollo's bus. Why you didn't want to talk about it."
"Oh yeah." Apollo breathed. That made a lot more sense. He definitely would not be letting Thalia drive his chariot then.
She took a deep breath. Then she brushed the pine needles out of her hair. "If you tell anyone, I swear—"
"Percy wouldn't do that." Annabeth said.
"I know that now but I wasn't sure then. Most people at camp would never have let me live it down." Thalia replied, scowling towards the Stolls who gave her identical innocent smiles.
"No, no," I said. "That's cool. It's just… the daughter of Zeus, the Lord of the Sky, afraid of heights?"
"That is pretty weird." Chris muttered to Travis, making sure Thalia couldn't hear him.
"Yep." Travis agreed.
She was about to knock me into the snow when, above us, Grover's voice called, "Helloooooo?" "Down here!" I shouted. A few minutes later, Zoe, Bianca, and Grover joined us. We stood watching the wild boar struggle in the snow. "A blessing of the Wild," Grover said, though he now looked agitated. "I agree," Zoe said. "We must use it." "Hold up," Thalia said irritably. She still looked like she'd just lost a fight with a Christmas tree.
The room burst out laughing once more but it died pretty quickly given that Thalia still looked rather dangerous and nobody wanted to risk drawing her wrath.
"Explain to me why you're so sure this pig is a blessing." Grover looked over, distracted. "It's our ride west. Do you have any idea how fast this boar can travel?"
"Really fast." Ares grinned wildly.
"Fun," I said. "Like… pig cowboys." Grover nodded. "We need to get aboard. I wish… I wish I had more time to look around. But it's gone now." "What's gone?" Grover didn't seem to hear me. He walked over to the boar and jumped onto its back. Already the boar was starting to make some headway through the drift. Once it broke free, there'd be no stopping it. Grover took out his pipes. He started playing a snappy tune and tossed an apple in front of the boar. The apple floated and spun right above the boar's nose, and the boar went nuts, straining to get it.
"Nice." Clarisse laughed. "At least you have a way to steer now."
"Yeah, otherwise that could be awkward." Chris snickered. "Just wandering around wherever the pig wants to go."
"Automatic steering," Thalia murmured. "Great." She trudged over and jumped on behind Grover, which still left plenty of room for the rest of us. Zoe and Bianca walked toward the boar. "Wait a second," I said. "Do you two know what Grover is talking about—this wild blessing?" "Of course," Zoe said. "Did you not feel it in the wind? It was so strong… I never thought I would sense that presence again." "What presence?" She stared at me like I was an idiot. "The Lord of the Wild, of course. Just for a moment, in the arrival of the boar, I felt the presence of Pan."
Hermes was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement at this revelation.
"Chapter's done." Frank told the room.
"I'll read." Jason stated.
"I think we should take a break after the next one. I'm hungry." Percy announced. He knew Bianca's death was coming up very shortly but he figured they would need a break after that. The only other thing he remembered happening on the trip was...Percy groaned. His meeting with Aphrodite. This was not going to be fun.