The station wasn't far. They were just in time to buy tickets for the last train south. As the others climbed on board, Percy said, "Be with you in a sec," and ran back into the station.
He didn't return until the train whistle sounded, and the conductor shouted, "All aboard!"
He made it just in time, and slid into his seat.
Hazel frowned. "You okay?"
"Yeah," he croaked. "Just…made a call."
They didn't ask for any more details, although Valen could guess who he would've called.
Soon they were heading south along the coast, watching the landscape go by. Bald eagles soared overhead. The train raced over bridges and along cliffs where glacial waterfalls tumbled thousands of feet down the rocks. They passed forests buried in snowdrifts, big artillery guns to set off small avalanches and prevent uncontrolled ones, Hazel explained, and lakes so clear that they reflected the mountains like mirrors; the world looked upside down.
Brown bears lumbered through the meadows. Hyperborean giants kept appearing in the strangest places. One was lounging in a lake like it was a hot tub. Another was using a pine tree as a toothpick. A third sat in a snowdrift, playing with two live moose like they were action figures. The train was full of tourists oohing and ahhing and snapping pictures.
"What are you thinking?" Percy asked.
"Just…possibilities," Frank said.
Valen closed his eyes, taking in the ambient mana. He would need it in the battle to come. He did so for an hour, before a disturbance in the mana blossomed. He spread out his shadow sense.
His eyes snapped open, "We have company."
Then a shadow passed overhead. Tourists murmured in excitement and started taking pictures.
"Eagle!" one yelled.
"Eagle?" said another.
"Huge eagle!" said a third.
"That's no eagle," Frank said.
"That's a gryphon," Valen said.
Percy looked up just in time to see the creature make a second pass. It was definitely larger than an eagle, with a sleek black body the size of a Labrador retriever. Its wingspan was at least ten feet across.
"There's another one!" Frank pointed. "Strike that. Three, four. Okay, we're in trouble."
"There's an entire flock." Valen said, waving his hand and covering them in a dome of shadows.
Then several things happened at once. The emergency brake screeched, pitching them forward. Tourists screamed and tumbled through the aisles. The monsters swooped down, shattering the glass roof of the car, and the entire train toppled off the rails.
The dome protected them from most of the damage, before shattering and throwing them on the frozen ground.
A gryphon descended upon them, its claws opened towards them. A spike of stygian iron dust skewered it inches from Percy's face, and it turned to golden dust. The iron pulsed black as it ate up the essence of the monster.
Valen pushed himself off the ground, the iron dust returning to his hand, "You alright?"
Percy nodded in thanks, standing up and uncapping Riptide. A few feet away, Frank stabbed his spear into the ground, and broke off the tip. The ground trembled, and a skeleton hand broke through the surface. Hazel made a sound like a cat with a hairball, and Percy held his sword up threateningly.
"A spartus," Valen said, shooting a ball of hellfire at an approaching gryphon. "That's what Mars gave you?"
Frank nodded bitterly, "Yeah. Okay, Gray. Your orders: Defend the mortals from the gryphons."
Gray nodded and charged at the train. Percy tensed, ready to chase it, but Valen stopped him.
"We'll talk later, right now we need to move the fight away from here." he said, shooting another gryphon with a thunderbolt from his sword.
Percy nodded in agreement, and they trudged away from the tracks, smacking and slicing gryphons that re-formed from dust every time they were killed.
About fifty yards from the tracks, the trees gave way to an open marsh. Frank was running out of arrows. Hazel was breathing hard. Percy's sword swings were getting slower by the minute. Valen had already drained all the mana he had accumulated on the train.
Then Percy tripped over something in the tall grass—a circle of scrap metal about the size of a tractor tire. It was a massive bird's nest—a gryphon's nest—the bottom littered with old pieces of jewelry, an Imperial gold dagger, a dented centurion's badge, and two pumpkin-sized eggs that looked like real gold.
Percy jumped into the nest. He pressed his sword tip against one of the eggs. "Back off, or I break it!"
The gryphons squawked angrily. They buzzed around the nest and snapped their beaks, but they didn't attack.
Valen held his sword over the other egg. "You know what Stygian Iron does to you, who knows what will happen if it absorbs infant monsters." he snarled. "Leave or they will never hatch."
He glared at them, daring them to come. He winced when his head started hurting, and the image of a goddess commanding an army of monsters flashed by his mind. The wolf house, where Hera was imprisoned.
He shook his head, his memories always seem to return at the most inconvenient of times.
"Gryphons collect gold," Hazel suddenly said. "They're crazy for it. Look—more nests over there."
Frank nocked his last arrow, "That's why they're attacking us? They want our weapons?"
"They could be working for Alcyoneus," Valen suggested.
"Are these things smart enough to take orders?" Percy asked.
"I don't know," Hazel said. "I never fought them when I lived here. I just read about them at camp."
"Weaknesses?" Frank asked. "Please tell me they have weaknesses."
Hazel scowled. "Horses. They hate horses—natural enemies, or something. I wish Arion was here!"
The gryphons shrieked. They swirled around the nest with their red eyes glowing.
"Guys," Frank said nervously, "I see legion relics in this nest."
"I know," Percy said.
"That means other demigods died here, or—"
"Frank, it'll be okay," Percy promised.
One of the gryphons dived in. Percy raised his sword, ready to stab the egg. The monster veered off, but the other gryphons were losing their patience.
"We can't keep doing this," Valen said, "we don't have time to spare."
"I've got an idea," Percy said, staring at a Hyperborean giant. "Valen, Hazel, do you think you can use all the gold in the nests to cause a distraction."
"Of course."
"I—I guess."
"Just give us enough time for a head start. When I say go, run for that giant."
Frank gaped at him. "You want us to run toward a giant?"
"Trust me," Percy said. "Ready? Go!"
They thrust their hands upward. From a dozen nests across the marsh, golden objects shot into the air—jewelry, weapons, coins, gold nuggets, and most importantly, gryphon eggs. The monsters shrieked and flew after their eggs, frantic to save them.
Valen snapped his fingers and the levitating items began spinning and crashing into each other. He was pretty sure he heard an egg break.
Then they ran. Their feet splashed and crunched through the frozen marsh. The gryphons were closing in on them, now really angry.
The giant hadn't noticed the commotion yet. He was inspecting his toes for mud, his face sleepy and peaceful, his white whiskers glistening with ice crystals. Around his neck was a necklace of found objects—garbage cans, car doors, moose antlers, camping equipment, even a toilet. Apparently he'd been cleaning up the wilderness.
"Under!" Percy said. "Crawl under!"
They scrambled between the massive blue legs and flattened themselves in the mud, crawling as close as they could to his loincloth.
"Not the best hiding place." Valen said, covering his nose.
"What's the plan?" Frank hissed. "Get flattened by a blue rump?"
"Lay low," Percy said. "Only move if you have to."
The gryphons arrived in a wave of angry beaks, talons, and wings, swarming around the giant, trying to get under his legs.
The giant rumbled in surprise. He shifted. Percy had to roll to avoid getting crushed by his large hairy rear. The Hyperborean grunted, a little more irritated. He swatted at the gryphons, but they squawked in outrage and began pecking at his legs and hands.
"Ruh?" the giant bellowed. "Ruh!" He took a deep breath and blew out a wave of cold air.
The temperature dropped significantly. The gryphons' shrieking stopped abruptly, replaced by the thunk, thunk, thunk of heavy objects hitting the mud.
"Come on." Percy told his friends. "Carefully."
They squirmed out from under the giant. All around the marsh, trees were glazed with frost. A huge swath of the bog was covered in fresh snow. Frozen gryphons stuck out of the ground like feathery Popsicle sticks, their wings still spread, beaks open, eyes wide with surprise.
They scrambled away, trying to keep out of the giant's vision, but the big guy was too busy to notice them. He was trying to figure out how to string a frozen gryphon onto his necklace.
"Percy…" Hazel wiped the ice and mud from her face. "How did you know the giant could do that?"
"I almost got hit by Hyperborean breath once," he said. "We'd better move. The gryphons won't stay frozen forever."
They walked overland for about an hour, keeping the train tracks in sight but staying in the cover of the trees as much as possible. Once they heard a helicopter flying in the direction of the train wreck. Twice they heard the screech of gryphons, but they sounded a long way off.
It was about midnight when the sun finally set. It got cold in the woods. Then, the northern lights cranked up. Valen stared up at the sky in silence.
"That's amazing," Frank said.
"Bears," Hazel pointed. Sure enough, a couple of brown bears were lumbering in the meadow a few hundred feet away, their coats gleaming in the starlight.
"They won't bother us," Hazel promised. "Just give them a wide berth."
After another couple of hours, they stumbled across a tiny village between the railroad tracks and a two-lane road. The city limit sign said: MOOSE PASS. Standing next to the sign was an actual moose.
They passed a couple of houses, a post office, and some trailers. Everything was dark and closed up. On the other end of town was a store with a picnic table and an old rusted petrol pump in front. The store had a hand-painted sign that read: MOOSE PASS GAS.
"That's just wrong," Frank said. By silent agreement they collapsed around the picnic table. Frank took out his last sodas and some granola bars from the train ride and shared them with the group.
They ate in silence, watching the stars, until Frank said, "What…what do you guys think of, uh, Gray? Do you hate him?"
And do you hate me for it? Was the silent question.
"The spartoi?" Valen said, "A useful tool, it will fulfill it's order no matter what. I'd say to save the last charge for when you truly need it."
"I was surprised," Hazel said, "And maybe scared, but I don't hate it. Or you. How could I? The way you commanded it, so confident and everything—like, Oh, by the way, guys, I have this all-powerful spartus we can use. I couldn't believe it. I was impressed."
Frank wasn't sure he'd heard her right. "You were…impressed...by me?
Percy laughed, "Dude, it was pretty amazing, unsettling too, but amazing nonetheless."
"Honest?" Frank asked.
"Honest." Hazel promised.
Silence fell once again, and after a while Hazel put her head in her hands and passed out, snoring.
Frank said, "Did you mean what you said earlier?"
Percy looked across the table. "About what?"
In the starlight, Frank's face might have been alabaster, like an old Roman statue. "About…being proud that we're related."
Percy tapped his granola bar on the table. "Well, let's see. You single-handedly took out three basilisks while I was sipping green tea and wheat germ. You saved my life by shooting down that gryphon. And you gave up a charge on your magic spear to help some defenseless mortals. You are, hands down, the nicest child of the war god I've ever met…maybe the only nice one. So what do you think?"
Considering how…rowdy the Ares cabin is, that's not really a high bar to cross. Valen thought.
Frank stared up at the northern lights, still looking across the stars on low heat. "It's just…I was supposed to be in charge of this quest, the centurion, and all. I feel like you guys have had to carry me."
"Not true," Percy said.
"I'm supposed to have these powers I haven't figured out how to use," Frank said bitterly. "Now I'm almost out of arrows and charges. And…I'm scared."
"I'd be worried if you weren't scared," Percy said. "We're all scared."
"But the Feast of Fortuna is…" Frank thought about it. "It's after midnight, isn't it? That means it's June twenty-fourth now. The feast starts tonight at sundown. We have to find our way to Hubbard Glacier, defeat a giant who is undefeatable in his home territory, and get back to Camp Jupiter before they're overrun—all in less than eighteen hours."
Valen chuckled, "Sounds about on par for a demigod quest."
"And when we free Thanatos," Percy said, "he might claim your life. And Hazel's. Believe me, I've been thinking about it."
Frank gazed at Hazel, still snoring lightly. Her face was buried under a mass of curly brown hair.
"She's my best friend," Frank said. "I lost my mom…I can't lose her, too."
"If it's any consolation," Valen said, "I don't think Thanatos would claim either of your lives."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, for starters, you aren't supposed to be dead, unless that stick of yours burns up," He said, causing Frank to wince at the mention of the stick. "And secondly, I know Hades. And if he's anything like Pluto, he would do everything in his power to keep Hazel from dying. Within the ancient laws of course."
He sighed, "Besides, he did allow Orpheus to take back Eurydice, under his conditions. With Hazel, I think he'll make another exception."
Frank's shoulders relaxed, "You really think he will?"
Valen nodded, "My father cares deeply about his children. And he interferes more than he should sometimes. But he will not let one of us be harmed under his name."
Frank nodded gratefully, "Thank you."
"You're always welcome, Frank."
Frank lowered his head. He seemed lost in thought. Finally he leaned forward until his head bumped the picnic table. He started to snore in harmony with Hazel.
Percy sighed, "Another inspiring speech from us,"
"They needed hope." Valen looked up at the stars, "Barely sixteen and they already have the weight of the world on their shoulders."
Percy chuckled, "You sound old when you say that. Besides, we had that burden at their age too."
Valen laughed, "Yeah, it's exhausting sometimes."
"You can say that again."
He sighed, "How much do you remember now?"
Percy stared at the sky, "Almost everything by now, you?"
"Everything until the night I was taken. After that, it's…blurry."
Percy patted him on his shoulder, "You will remember. We both will."
He nodded, "We will, we have to."
.
.
.
At dawn, the store opened up. The owner was a little surprised to find four teenagers crashed out on his picnic table, but when Percy explained that they had stumbled away from last night's train wreck, the guy felt sorry for them and treated them to breakfast. He called a friend of his, an Inuit native who had a cabin close to Seward. Soon they were rumbling along the road in a beat-up Ford pickup that had been new about the time Hazel was born.
Percy rode up front with the leathery old man. Hazel, Frank, and Valen sat in back. The truck broke down a few miles outside Seward. The driver didn't seem surprised, as though this happened to him several times a day. He said they could wait for him to fix the engine, but since Seward was only a few miles away, they decided to walk it.
By midmorning, they climbed over a rise in the road and saw a small bay ringed with mountains. The town was a thin crescent on the right-hand shore, with wharves extending into the water and a cruise ship in the harbor.
Percy shuddered, the cruise ship didn't exactly bring forth good memories.
"Seward," Hazel said. She didn't sound happy to see her old home.
They'd already lost a lot of time. The road curved around the hillside, but it looked like they could get to town faster going straight across the meadows.
Percy stepped off the road. "Come on."
The ground was squishy, but he didn't think much about it until Hazel shouted, "Percy, no!"
His next step went straight through the ground. He sank like a stone until the earth closed over his head—and the earth swallowed him.
Valen instantly ran towards him, but the ground had already swallowed him. He raised his arms and exerted what little control he had over the earth. But it wouldn't budge, as if something was blocking him.
Ah, there you are,said the voice of Gaea,my brother has gone through great lengths to hide you.
Gaea, he spat, let Percy go.
Now why would I do that?
He heard Hazel yell something to Frank and kneel beside him, but his mind was focused on Gaea.
Why do you stay loyal to the darkness? He does not help you when you most need it. You saw that in your last quest.
Gee, I dunno, maybe it's because he's not hellbent on destroying Olympus and genociding the gods? Wonder why anyone would pick him over you.
Gaea laughed, an unnatural laughter that seemed to make the earth rumble, Do you still think that is all we want?
We?
Join me, abandon my brother. I will help you where he cannot. Have a look.
He was sitting at a table in what seemed like a large stadium. In the center of the room, instead of a basketball court, a tree rose taller than the Statue of Liberty. Its lowest branches were maybe a hundred feet up. Its canopy spread over the entire hall, scraping against the domed ceiling and sprouting through a massive opening at the top. Above, stars glittered in the night sky.
But none of that caught his eye more than who was sitting in front of him. A woman in her late thirties, with deep red hair and electric blue eyes. And a face scarily resembling his own. Emily Steensen sat with him, his mother in the flesh.
His eyes stung as he reached out towards her, "Mom?"
Yet when she spoke, it was not with her voice, "You could stay with her for all eternity, if only you join me."
Anger replaced the sense of longing and hope, and he lashed out at her.
"Gaea!" he bellowed, standing up so fast, his chair toppled over. His mark glowed as he raised his hands, and a third presence made itself known.
"Get out of my head!"
Tendrils of shadow and bolts of thunder erupted from him, decimating everything around him and collapsing Gaea's fabricated mindscape. She tsk'd in annoyance before retreating from his mind.
Then he was back in Alaska, kneeling down and panting in exhaustion.
Erebus? He called out, he had felt the deity interfere back there.
You have almost...ember the shade…will talk then.
He sighed, closing his eyes.
"..len, Valen! I need your help man!" Frank yelled frantically, torn between pulling out Percy and Hazel with either arm.
He shook his head, pushing himself off the ground and took over Percy as Frank finally pulled out Hazel. Percy fell to his knees almost instantly, coughing and spitting out mud.
Frank stared at Hazel's prone body, muttering, "Oh, gods! Oh, gods! Oh, gods!"
"Frank," Valen interrupted, "Stay calm, they're alive."
He was breathing heavily, and ignored him as he yanked some extra clothes from his bag and started toweling off Hazel's face, but it didn't do much good.
Hazel finally opened her eyes, and Frank wrapped her in a bear hug almost instantly. "You were down there so long!" Frank cried. "I didn't think—oh, gods, don't ever do something like that again!"
"Can't—breathe," she choked out.
"Sorry!" Frank went back to toweling and fussing over them.
Valen said, grabbing Percy and pulling him back to the road, just as Frank did to Hazel, where they sat and shivered and spit up mud clods.
He offered them water bottles from his pack, which they used to wash out their mouths. Once they had all calmed down, Hazel explained about the muskeg, and the vision she'd seen while she was under. She told them about Gaea's offer of a fake life, and the goddess' claim that she'd captured her brother Nico.
Percy rubbed his shoulders. His lips were blue. "You—you saved me, Hazel. We'll figure out what happened to Nico, I promise."
Valen cursed at the deity angrily, "First she tries to trick me with my mother's image, and now Nico. I swear if I get my hands on her I'll give her the Khione treatment."
"You too?" Percy asked.
He clenched his fists, "She knows what I wanted the most and used it against me. It pisses me off."
Hazel squinted at the sun, which was now high in the sky. The warmth felt good, but it didn't stop her trembling. "Does it seem like Gaea let us go too easily?"
Percy plucked a mud clod from his hair. "Maybe she still wants us as pawns. Maybe she was just saying things to mess with your mind."
"She knew what to say," Hazel agreed. "She knew how to get to me."
Frank put his jacket around her shoulders. "This is real life. You know that, right? We're not going to let you die again."
Hazel didn't argue. She glanced at the rising sun.…Time was running out. She pushed herself up, "We should get going. We're losing time."
Percy gazed down the road. His lips were returning to their normal color. "Any hotels or something where we could clean off? I mean...hotels that accept mud people?"
"I'm not sure," Hazel admitted.
She stared down at the town for a moment before speaking again, "I might know a place we can freshen up."
She led them through the city, toward the shoreline. Hazel couldn't believe it, but her old home was still there, leaning over the water on barnacle-encrusted piers. The roof sagged. The walls were perforated with holes like buckshot. The door was boarded-up, and a hand-painted sign read: ROOMS STORAGE AVAILABLE.
"Come on," she said.
"Uh, you sure it's safe?" Frank asked.
She climbed through an open window without a word, and the others followed. The room hadn't been used in a long time. Their feet kicked up dust that swirled in the buckshot beams of sunlight. Mouldering cardboard boxes were stacked along the walls. Their faded labels read: Greeting Cards, Assorted Seasonal.
"It's warmer in here, at least," Frank said. "Guess no running water? Maybe I can go shopping. I'm not as muddy as you guys. I could find us some clothes."
"Clothes are not an issue, trust me." Valen said, holding up his arm with the storage ring.
Hazel climbed over a stack of boxes in the corner. An old sign was propped against the wall: GOLD PROSPECTING SUPPLIES. She thought she'd find a bare wall behind it, but when she moved the sign, most of her photos and drawings were still pinned there.
Her mother stared out at her from one photograph, smiling in front of her business sign: QUEEN MARIE'S GRIS-GRIS—CHARMS SOLD, FORTUNES TOLD.
Next to that was a photo of a boy that looked rather familiar to Valen, he furrowed his brows and stared at it for a moment. He felt as if he had seen the boy before.
Frank's fingers hovered over the photo. "Who…?" He saw that she was crying and clamped back his question. "Sorry, Hazel. This must be really hard. Do you want some time—"
"No," she croaked. "No, it's fine."
"Is that your mother?" Percy pointed to the photo of Queen Mary. "She looks like you. She's beautiful."
Valen suddenly snapped his fingers, making the others jump, "I remember him now,"
Percy frowned, and traced his gaze to the picture of the boy, "I feel like I've seen him before too."
"You couldn't have," Hazel said. "That was in 1941. He's…he's probably dead now."
"No," Valen said. "I saw him, I know him. His name, I can't seem to…Leo! It was Leo, a son of Hephaestus."
Hazel shook her head, "That's…that's Sammy. He was my—uh—friend from New Orleans."
Valen frowned, "But-"
Frank cleared his throat. "Look, we passed a store on the last block. We've got a little money left. Maybe I should go get you guys some food and clothes and—I don't know—a hundred boxes of wet wipes or something?"
"I told you, clothes aren't an issue." Valen said, "And I'll come with you, what cash we have might not be enough."
Frank nodded, "We're the only ones not covered in mud anyway."
"We'll be back soon." He said, "Until then, make yourselves comfortable I guess?"
Once they were gone, Percy and Hazel made a temporary camp. They took off their jackets and tried to scrape off the mud.
They found some old blankets in a crate and used them to clean up. They discovered that boxes of greeting cards made pretty good places to rest if you arranged them like mattresses.
Percy set his sword on the floor where it glowed with a faint bronze light. Then he stretched out on a bed of Merry Christmas 1982.
"Thank you for saving me," he said. "I should've told you that earlier."
Hazel shrugged. "You would have done the same for me."
"Yes," he agreed. "But when I was down in the mud, I remembered that line from Ella's prophecy—about the son of Neptune drowning. I thought. 'This is what it means. I'm drowning in the earth.' I was sure I was dead."
His voice quavered like it had his first day at Camp Jupiter, when Hazel had shown him the shrine of Neptune.
"Percy," Hazel said, "that prophecy might not have been complete. Frank thought Ella was remembering a burned page. Maybe you'll drown someone else."
He looked at her cautiously. "You think so?"
Hazel felt strange reassuring him. He was so much older, and more in command. But she nodded confidently. "You're going to make it back home. You're going to see your girlfriend Annabeth."
"You'll make it back, too, Hazel," he insisted. "We're not going to let anything happen to you. You're too valuable to me, to Valen, to the camp, and especially to Frank."
Hazel picked up an old valentine. The lacy white paper fell apart in her hands. "I don't belong in this century. Nico only brought me back so I could correct my mistakes, maybe get into Elysium."
"There's more to your destiny than that," he said. "We're supposed to fight Gaea together. I'm going to need you at my side way longer than just today. Besides, you haven't seen how mad Valen gets when someone hurts his family." He shuddered remembering the time Kampe had incurred Valen's wrath.
He changed the topic, "And Frank—you can see the guy is crazy about you. This life is worth fighting for, Hazel."
She closed her eyes. "Please, don't get my hopes up. I can't—"
The window creaked open. Frank climbed in, triumphantly holding some shopping bags. "Success!"
Valen came in after him, holding his own share of bags, "This should be enough for the rest of the quest."
From a hunting store, they'd gotten a new quiver of arrows for Frank, some rations, and a coil of rope.
"For the next time we run across muskeg," Frank said.
From a local tourist shop, they had bought some towels, some soap, some bottled water, and, yes, a huge box of wet wipes. It wasn't exactly a hot shower, but Hazel ducked behind a wall of greeting card boxes to clean up and change.
"So," Hazel said once she was done. "Now we find a boat to Hubbard Glacier."
Frank patted his stomach. "If we're going to battle to the death, I want lunch first. Come on, we found the perfect place."