Chapter Nine: We Are Offered a Quest
The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.
I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.
And I was absolutely miserable.
Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid-or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood-I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease. Atlanta also had this issue, but since she wasn't claimed by Poseidon like me, she had no choice but to stay in cabin eleven. Everyone pretty much iced her out though. She was just as lonely and miserable as me.
Grover and our mom were the only ones to talk to us.
I tried to convince Chiron to let me take Atlanta-who had forgiven my idiot behavior- with me, but he said she couldn't. That of course didn't stop us from sneaking around without permission and she just say she woke up early, like we did at Yancy. On the second night of sneaking out Chiron almost caught us, but Mr. D had shown up out of nowhere and distracted him while we ran to my cabin. I don't know if he helped or it just worked in our favor, but I wasn't going to complain.
I just hoped Chiron wouldn't get in trouble for this.
Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.
The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me or Atlanta after what we had done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Like became one-on-two. He pushed me and Atlanta harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise us up in the process.
"You two are going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."
Annabeth technically supposed to teach me Ancient Greek in the mornings, but every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd just poked her between the eyes. After the lesson, she walked away muttering to herself: "Quest…Poseidon?...Dirty rotten…Got to make a plan…" After that, I skipped her lessons and Atlanta started teaching me instead.
Even Clarisse kept her distance, through her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.
I knew somebody at camp resented Atlanta and me, because one night we came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around the page. Atlanta eventually took over reading the paper.
SIBLINGS, AND MOTHER MISSING AFTER
FREAK CAR ACCIDENT
BY EILEEN SMYTHE
Sally Jackson and her children Percy and Atlanta are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the rood ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.
Mother, son, and daughter had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traced of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signa of the missing Jackson. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.
Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, Claims that his step son, Percy Jackson are troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past. His step daughter is the famous, bedsheet child found wondering the streets of New York, later adopted by Sally Jackson when she was five years old. He clams she's part of a scam that's lasted years, to get money from his family.
Police would not say whether son Percy and daughter Atlanta are suspects in their mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of the Jacksons. Police urge anyone with information to call the following too-free crime-stoppers hotline.
The phone number was circled in black marker.
Atlanta wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin. I climbed up to her bed and flopped down.
"Lights out," I said miserably.
That night, I had my worst dream yet.
I was running along the beach in a storm. Atlanta was with me, running by my side. This time, there was a city behind us. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.
About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked, and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed-scaring Atlanta-, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.
I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder Atlanta and I ran, the more the wind blew us back, until we were running in place, our heels digging uselessly in the sand.
Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.
The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying Atlanta, and me with salt.
Atlanta and I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!
The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.
Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down my child.
The sand split beneath us, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. Atlanta slipped farther in and I jumped to grab her as darkness swallowed us.
I woke up, falling from the top bunk and crashed to the floor. Atlanta bolted up as soon as I crashed and she fall onto me. We hugged each other. We were still in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dream that.
I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold. Atlanta quickly rolled under the bed, and I made sure she was out of sight.
"Come in?"
Grover trotted inside, looking worried as I told Atlanta that it was him and it was okay to come out. Atlanta slid out from under the bed, and sat next to me on the floor. "Mr. D wants to see you and Atlanta."
"Why?" Atlanta asked.
"He wants to kill…I mean, I'd better let him tell you guys."
Nervously Atlanta and I got dressed and followed, sure that we were in huge trouble.
For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict. I just hope I can get out Atlanta isn't by biological sister before I died.
Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.
"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."
Atlanta pointed to the storm. "So the angry boom clouds are just figments of our imagination?"
He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."
I realized he was right. In the week we'd been here, it had never been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.
But this storm…this one was huge.
At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.
Grover, Atlanta, and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger stripped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on our first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheelchair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air. Our mother was sitting next to Chiron looking nervous and on the brink of tears.
"Well, well," Mr. D said looking up. "Out little celebrities."
We waited.
"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because you two are old Barnacle-Beard is your father."
Atlanta snorted laughing a bit. I wondered who came up with that nickname. A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.
"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.
Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing his hooves clopping back and forth.
"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause both of your molecules to erupt in flames." Our mother started shaking and covered her mouth. Chiron put a comporting hand on her shoulder. "We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."
"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.
"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy and girl wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you two into dolphin instead, sending you two back to your father."
Our mother really did start crying and Chiron comforted her as he sent a glare towards the camp director. "Mr. D-" Chiron warned.
"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly-our mother got up and leaning on the railing- foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy and girl is still here when I get back, I'll turn them into an Atlantic bottlenoses. Do you understand? And Perseus and Atlantis Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you two must do."
Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.
He snapped his fingers.
The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.
Chiron smiled at me and Atlanta, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Jackson family, please. And Grover."
We did.
Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.
"Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"
Just hearing the name made me shudder.
I wanted say, Heck, it was nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast. But I didn't feel like lying.
"it scared me," I confessed. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."
Atlanta grabbed my hand, and I saw our mother tears fall more and more. Chiron placed a hand on hers, giving her an apologetic look.
"You'll meet worse, Percy, Atlanta. Far worse before you're done."
"Done…with what?" Atlanta asked.
"Your…quest, children. Will you accept it?"
I glance at Atlanta, our mother, then at Grover, who was crossing his fingers with his eyes closed.
"Um, sir," I said. "you haven't told us what it is yet."
Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."
Thunder rumbled across the valley. Storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.
"Poseidon and Zeus," Atlanta said. "They're fighting."
"Fighting over something valuable…something that was stolen, aren't they?" I asked.
Chiron, our mother, and Grover exchanged looks.
Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you two know that?"
My face felt hot, and I bet if I glanced at Atlanta her face would look as hot as my face felt. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas had been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then we talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft. And…I've been having these dreams."
"I knew it," Grover said.
"Hush, Grover," Chiron ordered.
"But it is their quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be."
"Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stocked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, Atlanta, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."
I laughed nervously. "A what?"
"Do not take this lightly," our mother warned us. "He's not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag we'd see in a second-grade play."
"Correct. I am talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives," Chiron said.
"Oh," Atlanta said.
"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolt are patterned. The first weapon by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."
"And it's missing," I said.
"Stolen," Chiron said.
"By who,"
"By whom," Chiron corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. "By you and your sister."
My mouth fell open.
"At least"-Chiron held up a hand-"that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' "Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterword, Zeus realized under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly-that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."
""But Percy and I didn't-" Atlanta said.
"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus had good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon had taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son…though hasn't claimed Atlanta yet."
"He's not going to, Atlanta isn't his daughter," Our mother said.
"Aww, and who is her father, if you mind me asking?"
"Atlanta is adopted, we took her in when she was five. We have no idea, who her parent is."
Grover and Chiron looked shocked, though I don't know why Grover was shocked. Atlanta and I told him this like a week of meeting him.
"I-I see," Chiron said, clearing his throat. "You both were in New York over the winter holidays. And Zeus feels you two could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thieves."
"But we've never been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!" I said.
Chiron, our mother, and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.
"Er, Percy…?" Grover said. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."
"Perhaps paranoid," Chiron suggested. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam…" he looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight. How could anyone accuse me and Atlanta of stealing a god's weapon? We couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Gabe's poker parties without getting busted. Chiron was waiting got an answer, Luckly Atlanta answered first.
"The golden net," Atlanta said. "Athena, Poseidon, Hera, and Apollo trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler. Poseidon and Apollo were turned into mortal for seven years, Hera was hung over Olympus as punishment, but Athena talked her way out of it, playing the 'Daddy's favorite card."
Grover and I snickered. I wonder how often Zeus falls for that trick.
"Correct," Chiron said with a slight chuckle. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon-or Hera and Apollo for that matter- since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, your family had come along-the proverbial last straw."
"But we're just kids," I said.
"Percy, Atlanta," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrown you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you…Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"
"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon-Percy's dad-he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"
"Poseidon wouldn't do that, sweety," our mother said.
Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon returned the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia or even Athena would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival had inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Atlanta, Percy?"
"Bad?" I guessed.
"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."
"Bad," Atlanta repeated.
"And you two, Percy and Atlanta, would be the first two to feel his wrath."
Our mother started crying again, with Chiron comforting her with a guilty expression on his face. It had started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.
Atlanta and I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of us. I was furious.
"So Atlanta and I have to find the stupid bolt," I said. "And return it to Zeus."
"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "then to have the son of Poseidon and his sister to return Zeus's property?"
"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?" Atlanta asked.
"I have a hopeful suspicion on where." Chiron expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago…well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you and Percy must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."
"Why can't you tell us where the bolt is beforehand?" I asked.
"Because I do not want to startle your mother, before she is ready."
Our mother let out a shaky breath. "Thank-you."
I looked at Atlanta. She shakily nodded her head. I looked at Grover who nodded encouragingly.
Easy for him. Atlanta and I were the ones Zeus wanted to kill.
"All right," I said. "Its better than being turned into a dolphin."
"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Atlanta and Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, we will talk more."
Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trapdoor.
I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.
The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else…a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.
I held my breath and we climbed.
The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things-severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.
By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklace, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.
Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. Atlanta and I stumbled over each other trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seekers, and ask.
I wanted to say, No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom. But I forced myself to take a deep breath.
The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me and Atlanta in the green mist. But its presence didn't even feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely not human. But not particularly interested in killing us, either.
I got the courage to ask, "What is our destiny?"
The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of us and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.
My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made of the mist.
Gabe turned toward us and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.
His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.
He guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.
Finally Eddie, our building super, delivered the most confusing line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters to you in the end.
The figures began to dissolve. At first Atlanta and I was too stunned to say anything, but the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent, and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, Atlanta cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What choice is given, but not made?"
The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.
I got the feeling that Atlanta and I could stand here until we had cobwebs, too, and we wouldn't learn anything else.
Our audience with the Oracle was over.
"Well?" Chiron asked us.
Atlanta and slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said we would retrieve what was stolen."
Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"
"What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron pressed, "This is important."
My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice, but luckily Atlanta spoke up first. "She…she said we would go west and face a god who had turned. We would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."
"I knew it," Grover said.
Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"
I didn't want to tell him.
What friend would betray us? We didn't have that many. What kind of Oracle would send me and my sister on a quest and tell us, Oh, by the way you're going to be backstabbed by a friend.
How could we confess that?
"No," I said. "That's about it."
He studied our faces. "Very well children. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."
I got the feeling he knew Atlanta and I were holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.
"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do we go? Who's the god in the west?"
"There is only one god who lives in the west," Chiron said. "Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his siblings since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom suffers through their many, many, many fights with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."
I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. "Hades."
Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the preferred possibility."
Our mother took a sharp breath. A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"
"A Fury came after Percy," Chiron remind him. "She watched both Percy and Atlanta until she was sure of their…his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."
"Yes, but-but Hades all heroes," Grover protested. "Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon…"
"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy. He must suspect Poseidon will try and have Percy aid him on clearing his name. Hades would very much like to…deal with these young half-bloods before they can take on the quest.
"Great," Atlanta muttered. "So that's two major gods who want to kill my brother and I for something we have nothing to do with."
"But a quest to…" Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."
"Hades had to be the one that sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's need to egg his brothers into a fight, or his hatred for them…well his hatred for Zeus, I believe he's angrier at Poseidon, but one thing is certain. Percy and Atlanta must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."
A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me-Atlanta only twice- three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame Atlanta, me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.
I was ready to take him on.
All of this was his fault, and he's nearly killed our mother trying to kill Atlanta and me.
Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god.
Our mother and Grover was trembling. Our mom had started pacing behind Chiron, while Grover had started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.
The poor guy need to complete a quest with me and Atlanta so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could Atlanta and I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said we were destined to fail? This was suicide.
"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron. "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads?"
"Hoping and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades-and I imagine Poseidon does- they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"
"You're saying Percy and I are being used," Atlanta said.
"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed your brother now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs Percy."
My dad needs me.
Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me and our mother for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me and my sister.
I looked at Chiron. "You've know I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?"
"I had my suspicions, and I was very wrong on Atlanta being his daughter. As I said…I've spoken to the Oracle, too."
I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling Atlanta and me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, Atlanta and I were holding back information too.
"So let me get this straight," Atlanta said. "Percy and I are supposed to go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."
"Check," Chiron said.
"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe," I said.
"Check."
"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days," our mother said.
"That's about it."
I looked at our mother, who was pale, but no longer pacing. She was leaning on the railing and looking at us with fear in her eyes. I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.
"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.
"You don't have to go," Atlanta said. "We can't ask that of you."
"Oh…" He shifted his hooves. "No…it's just that satyrs and underground places…well…"
He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy, Atlanta, Ms. Jackson. If…if you're both serious about having me along, I won't let either of you down."
I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, but held it in. Grover was the only friend-that wasn't my sister- I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me and Atlanta.
"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."
"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."
"Where?" Atlanta asked.
Chiron smiled. "The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."
"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane-"
"No!" Our mother shrieked.
Chiron quickly comforted her, as Grover ripped into me. "Percy what are you thinking? Have you or Atlanta ever been on a plane in your life?"
I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. Our mom had never taken us anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.
"Percy, think," Chiron. "You are the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knows better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive. Atlanta would suffer the same fate, seeing as she is believed to be Poseidon's daughter."
Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.
"Really Zeus can't let go of that pride long enough for us to get his little toy back? What a Baby," Atlanta said.
Thunder boomed.
"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, we travel overland."
"That's right," Chiron said. "Since there is two of you already, one companion may accompany you both, one each. Grover is Percy's. The other…the other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."
"I wonder," Atlanta said, sarcastically. "what child of Athena could think I would want the girl who planned for Percy and I to be pulverized."
The air shimmered behind Chiron.
Annabeth became visible, her face red, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.
"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, barnacle brain," she said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you and your brother from messing up."
"I doubt I want your kind of planning near me or my brother and Grover. But luckily for you, you're the only other person we know besides Luke."
"I suppose you have a none injuring plan, wise girl?" I asked.
Her cheeks colored more. "Do you want my help or not?"
The truth is, not really after what she did. But we were going to needed all the help we could get.
"A quartet," Atlanta said. "It'll work."
"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."
Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.
"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."