I do not own Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.
Interlude II: Percy and the Desert
AN: Similar to the previous interlude, this is mostly taken directly from The Titan's Curse, with only a few modifications made due to plot differences. I mostly included it for plot purposes.
I groaned as Thalia grabbed him and ran with me toward the highway. Zoe was already ahead of them. She yelled, "How will Rhanis get out?"
I glanced back over my shoulder.
The giant hit himself in the head again and dropped his sword. A shudder ran through his whole body and he staggered toward the power lines.
"Look out!" I yelled, but it was too late.
The giant's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. I hoped the inside was insulated. I had no idea what was going on in there. The giant careened back into the junkyard, and his right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG!
His left arm came loose, too. He was falling apart at the joints.
Talos began to run.
"Wait!" Zoe yelled. We ran after him, but there was no way we could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in our way.
The giant crumbled down from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed. When we reached the wreckage, we searched frantically, yelling Rhanis' name.
"Wait!" Thalia cried out. "Where's Chrysa?"
Zoe looked grim, the moonlight turning her face pale.
"She can travel magically," she said. "She would have tried to save Rhanis."
We doubled our search. We crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head. We searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck.
Zoe sat down and wept. I was stunned to see her cry, but honestly? I wanted to cry too.
Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.
"We can keep searching," I said. "It's light now. We'll find them."
"No, we won't," Zoe said miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
She looked up at me with watery eyes. "The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain."
Why hadn't I seen it? Here we were in the desert, and Rhanis Oceanis was gone.
"What about Chrysa?" I asked. "She's immortal! She can't die!"
"No, but she can be hurt," Thalia said. "She can be hurt badly enough that it takes her a while to regenerate. She's not gone forever, but she's gone for now. Could Thanatos count as a Titan? Could this be the Titan's curse one has to withstand?" she asked Zoe.
"Possibly," Zoe said, but she sounded doubtful.
We managed to pull ourselves together eventually. At the edge of the dump, we found a tow truck so old it might've been thrown away itself. But the engine started, and it had a tank full of gas, so we decided to borrow it.
Thalia drove. She didn't seem as stunned as Zoe or me. She'd know Rhanis and Chrysa the least amount of time though.
"The skeletons are still out there," she reminded us. "We need to keep moving. Without Chrysa, we can't kill them."
She navigated us through the desert, under clear blue skies, the sand so bright it hurt to look at. Zoe sat up front with Thalia, and I sat in the pickup bed, leaning against the tow wench. The air was cool and dry, but the nice weather just seemed like an insult after losing Rhanis and Chrysa.
I wanted to believe that they were alive somewhere, but I had a horrible feeling that they were gone for good.
I realized I couldn't stay depressed. I had to set aside thinking about Rhanis and Chrysa and keep us going forward, the way Thalia was doing. I wondered what she and Zoe were talking about in the front of the truck.
The tow truck ran out of gas at the edge of a river canyon. That was just as well, because the road dead-ended.
Thalia got out and slammed the door. Immediately, one of the tires blew.
"Great. What now?" she asked.
I scanned the horizon. There wasn't much to see. Desert in all directions, occasional clumps of barren mountains plopped here and there. The canyon was the only thing interesting. The river itself wasn't very big, maybe fifty yards across, green water with a few rapids, but it carved a huge scar out of the desert. The rock cliffs dropped away below us.
"There's a path," Zoe said. "We could get to the river."
It was the first time I'd heard her speak since the junkyard, and I was worried about how bad she sounded, like someone with the flu. I tried to see what she was talking about, and finally noticed a tiny ledge winding down the cliff face.
"That's a goat path," I said.
"So?" she asked.
"So, we're not goats."
"We can make it," Zoe said. "I think."
I thought about that. I'd done cliffs before, but I didn't like them. Then I looked over at Thalia and saw how pale she'd gotten. Her problem with heights…she'd never be able to do it.
"No," I said. "I, uh, think we should go farther upstream."
Zoe said, "But –"
"Come on," I said. "A walk won't hurt us."
I glanced at Thalia. Her eyes said a quick thank you.
We followed the river about half a mile before coming to an easier slope that led down to the water. On the shore was a canoe rental operation that was closed for the season, but I left a stack of golden drachmas on the counter and a note saying IOU a canoe.
"We need to go upstream," Zoe said. "The rapids are too swift."
"Leave that to me," I said.
Thalia pulled me aside as we were getting the oars.
"Thanks for back there."
"Don't mention it."
"Can you really…" she nodded to the rapids. "You know."
"I think so. Usually I'm good with water."
"Will you sit between Zoe and me?" she asked. "I think, ah, maybe you can talk to her."
"She's not going to like that."
"Please? I don't know if I can stand being next to her. She's…she's starting to worry me."
That was the last thing I wanted to do, but I nodded.
Thalia's shoulders relaxed. "I owe you one."
"Two."
"One and a half," Thalia said.
She smiled, and for a second, I remembered that I actually liked her when she wasn't yelling at me. She turned and turned and helped Zoe get the canoe into the water.
As it turned out, I didn't even need to control the currents. As soon as we got in the river, I looked over the edge of the boat and found a couple of naiads staring at me.
They looked like regular teenage girls, the kind you'd see at any mall, except for the fact that they were underwater.
Hey, I said.
They made a bubbling sound that may have been giggling. I wasn't sure. I had a hard time understanding naiads.
We're heading upstream, I told htem. Do you think you could…
Before I could finish, the naiads grabbed the back of the canoe and began pushing us upriver. I nearly fell over.
"I hate naiads," Zoe grumbled.
A stream of water squirted up from the back of the boat and hit Zoe in the face.
"She-devils!" Zoe went for her bow.
"Whoa," I said. "They're just playing."
"Cursed water spirits. They've never forgiven me."
"Forgiven you for what?"
She slung her bow back over her shoulder. "It was a long time ago. Never mind."
We spend up the river, the cliffs looming on either side of us.
"What happened to Rhanis wasn't your fault," I told her.
"No, Percy, I pushed her into going on this quest. She is skilled and knowledgeable, my elder in everything but age and maturity. Rhanis has never grown past nine, you see. It is hard to grow up when you stopped growing so young. I…I thought she would be the next lieutenant."
"But you're the lieutenant."
She gripped the strap of her quiver. She looked more tired than I'd ever seen her.
"Nothing can last forever, Percy. Over two thousand years I have led the Hunt, and my wisdom has not improved. Now Artemis herself is in danger, and I lost one of her oldest remaining companions."
"Look, you can't blame yourself for that."
"If I had insisted on going with her…"
"You think you could've fought something powerful enough to kidnap Artemis? There's nothing you could've done."
Zoe didn't answer.
The cliffs along the river were getting taller. Long shadows fell across the water, making it a lot colder, even though the day was bright.
Without thinking about it, I took Riptide out of my pocket. Zoe looked at the pen, and her expression was pained.
"You made this," I said.
"Who told thee?"
"You," Thalia called from behind me. We both ignored her.
"I had a dream about it."
She studied me. I was sure she was going to call me crazy, but she just sighed.
"It was a gift. And a mistake."
"Who was the hero?" I asked.
Zoe shook her head. "Do not make me say his name. I swore never to speak it again."
"You act like I should know him."
"I am sure you do, hero. Don't all you boys want to be just like him?"
Her voice was so bitter, I decided not to ask what she meant. I looked down at Riptide, and for the first time, I wondered if it was cursed.
"Your mother was a water goddess?" I asked.
"Yes, Pleione, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. Rhanis…Rhanis was her much-younger sister. She had several set of daughters – the Hyades, the Pleiades. Then the five of us, my sisters and I. The Hesperides."
"Those were the girls who lived in a garden at the edge of the West. With the golden apple tree and a dragon guarding it."
"Yes," Zoe said wistfully. "Ladon."
"But weren't there only four sisters?"
"There are now. I was exiled. Forgotten. Blotted out as if I never existed."
"Why?"
Zoe pointed to the pen. "Because I betrayed my family and helped a hero. You won't find that in the legend either. He never spoke of me. After his direct assault on Ladon failed, I gave him the idea of how to steal the apples, how to trick my father, but he took all the credit."
"But –"
Gurgle, gurgle, the naiad spoke in my mind. The canoe was slowing down. I looked ahead, and I saw why.
This was as far as they could take us. The river was blocked. A dam the size of a football stadium stood in our path.
"Hoover Dam," Thalia said. "It's huge."
We stood at the river's edge, looking up at a curve of concrete that loomed between the cliffs. People were walking along the top of the dam. They were so tiny, they looked like fleas.
The naiads had left with a lot of grumbling – not in words I could understand, but it was obvious that they hated this dam blocking up their nice river. Our canoe floated back downstream, swirling in the wake from the dam's discharge vents.
"Seven hundred feet tall," I said. "Built in the 1930s."
"Five hundred million cubic acres of water," Thalia said with a sigh. "Largest construction project in the United States."
Zoe stared at us. "How do you know all that?"
"Annabeth," I said. "She liked architecture."
"She was nuts about monuments," Thalia said.
"Spouted facts all the time," I agreed. "So annoying."
"I wish she were here," Thalia said.
I nodded. Zoe was still looking at us strangely, but I didn't care. It seemed like cruel fate that we'd come to Hoover Dam, one of Annabeth's personal favorites, and she wasn't here to see it.
"We should go up there," I said. "For her sake. Just to say we've been."
"You are mad," Zoe decided. "But that's where the road is." She pointed to a huge parking garage next to the top of the dam. "And so, sightseeing it is."
We had to walk for almost an hour before we found a path that led up to the road. It came up on the east side of the river. Then we straggled back toward the dam. It was cold and windy on top. ON one side, a big lake spread out, ringed by barren desert mountains. ON the other side, the dam dropped away like the world's most dangerous skateboard ramp, down to the river seven hundred feet below, and water that churned from the dam's vents.
Thalia walked in the middle of the road, far away from the edges. Zoe looked nervous, and she kept her hand on her bow.
"Do you sense something?" I asked her.
She shook her head.
"Perhaps, perhaps not. The energy around here, with the water flow...it clouds my senses. It is hard to determine. But whatever it is, I don't like it."
I didn't either. It was already Wednesday, only two days until winter solstice, and we still had a long way to go. We didn't need any more monsters.
"There's a snack bar in the visitor center," Thalia said.
"You've been here before?" I asked.
"Once. To see the guardians."
She pointed to the far side of the dam. Carved into the side of the cliff was a little plaza with two big, bronze statues. They looked kind of like Oscar statues with wings.
"They were dedicated to Zeus when the dam was built," Thalia said. "A gift from Athena."
Tourists were clustered all around them. They seemed to be looking at the statues' feet.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
"Rubbing the toes," Thalia said. "They think it's good luck."
"Why?"
She shook her head.
"Mortals get crazy ideas. They don't know the statues are sacred to Zeus, but they know something's special about them."
"When you were here last, did they talk to you or anything?"
Thalia's expressions darkened. I could tell that she'd come here before hoping for exactly that – some kind of sign from her dad.
"No. They don't do anything. They're just big metal statues."
I thought about the last big metal statue we'd run into. That hadn't gone so well. But I decided not to bring it up.
"Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can."
I cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?"
Zoe blinked. "Yes. What is so funny?"
"Nothing," I said, trying to keep a straight face. From the look Zoe was giving me, I was failing. "I could use some dam French fries."
Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom."
Maybe it was the fact that we were so tired and strung out emotionally, but I started cracking up, and Thalia joined in, while Zoe just looked at us.
"I do not understand."
"I want to use the dam water fountain," I said.
"And…" Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam t-shirt."
I busted up, and I probably would have kept laughing all day, but then I heard a noise:
"Moooo."
The smile melted off my face. I wondered if the noise was just in my head, but Thalia had stopped laughing too. She looked around, confused.
"Did I just hear a cow?"
Zoe listened.
"I hear nothing."
Thalia was looking at me.
"Percy, are you okay?"
"Yeah," I said. "You guys go ahead. "I'll be right in."
"What's wrong?" Thalia pressed.
"Nothing," I said. "I…I just need a minute. To think."
They hesitated, but I guess I must've looked upset, because they finally went into the visitor center without me. As soon as they were gone, I jogged to the north edge of the dam and looked over.
"Moo."
She was about thirty feet below in the lake, but I could see her clearly: my friend from the Long Island Sound, Bessie the cow serpent.
I looked around. There were groups of kids running along the dam. A lot of senior citizens. Some families. But nobody seemed to be paying Bessie any attention.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her.
"Moo!"
Her voice was urgent, like she was trying to warn me of something.
"How did you get here?" I asked. WE were thousands of miles from Long Island, hundreds of miles inland. There was no way she could've swum all the way here. And yet, here she was.
Bessie swam in a circle and butted her head against the side of the dam.
"Moo!"
She wanted me to come with her. She was telling me to hurry.
"I can't," I told her. "My friends are inside."
She looked at me with her sad brown eyes. Then she gave one more urgent, "Mooo!" did a flip, and disappeared into the water.
I hesitated. Something was wrong. She was trying to tell me that. I considered jumping over the side and following her, but then I tensed. The hairs on my arms bristled. I looked down the dam road to the east and I saw two men walking slowly toward me. They wore grey camouflage uniforsm that flickered over skeletal bodies.
They passed through a group of kids and pushed them aside. A kid yelled, "Hey!" One of the warriors turned, his face changing momentarily into a skull.
"Ah!" the kid yelled, and his whole group backed away.
I ran for the visitor center.
I was almost to the stairs when I heard tires squeal. On the west side of the dam, a black van swerved to a stop in the middle of the road, nearly plowing into some old people.
The van doors opened and more skeleton warriors piled out. I was surrounded.
I bolted down the stairs and through the museum entrance. The security guard at the metal detector yelled, "Hey, kid!" But I didn't stop.
I ran through the exhibits and ducked behind a tour group. I looked for my friends, but I couldn't see them anywhere. Where was the dam snack bar?
"Stop!" the metal-detector guy yelled.
There was no place to go but in an elevator with a tour group. I ducked inside just as the door closed.
"We'll be going down seven hundred feet," our tour guide said cheerfully. She was a park ranger, with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and tinted glasses. I guess she hadn't noticed that I was being chased. "Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, the elevator hardly ever breaks."
"Does this go to the snack bar?" I asked her.
A few people behind me chuckled. The tour guide looked at me. Something about her gaze made my skin tingle.
"To the turbines, young man," the lady said. "Weren't you listening to my fascinating presentation upstairs?"
"Oh, uh, sure. Is there another way out of the dam?"
"It's a dead end," a tourist behind me said. "For heaven's sake. The only way out is the other elevator."
The doors opened.
"Go right ahead, folks," the tour guide told us. "Another ranger is waiting for you at the end of the corridor."
I didn't have much choice but to go with the group.
"And young man," the tour guide called. I looked back. She'd taken off her glasses. Her eyes were startlingly gray, like storm clouds. "There is always a way out for those clever enough to find it."
The doors closed with the tour guide still inside, leaving me alone. Before I could think too much about the woman in the elevator, a ding came from around the corner. The second elevator was opening, and I heard an unmistakable sound – the clattering of skeleton teeth.
I ran after the tour group, through a tunnel carved out of solid rock. It seemed to run forever. The walls were moist, and the air hummed with electricity and the roar of water. I came out on a U-shaped balcony that overlooked this huge warehouse area. Fifty feet below, enormous turbines were running. It was a big room, but I didn't see any other exit, unless I wanted to jump into the turbines and get churned up to make electricity. I didn't.
Another tour guide was talking over a microphone, telling the tourists about water supplies in Nevada. I prayed that Thalia and Zoe were okay. They might already be captured, or eating at the snack bar, completely unaware that we were being surrounded. I stupid me: I had trapped myself in a hole hundreds of feet below the surface.
I worked my way around the crowd, trying not to be too obvious about it. There was a hallway at the other side of the balcony – maybe some place I could hide. I kept my hand on Riptide, ready to strike.
By the time I got to the opposite side of the balcony, my nerves were shot. I backed into the little hallway and watched the tunnel I'd come from.
Then right behind me I heard a sharp Chhh! like the voice of a skeleton.
Without thinking, I uncapped Riptide and spun, slashing with my sword.
The girl I'd just tried to slice in half yelped and dropped her Kleenex.
"Oh my god!" she shouted. "Do you always kill people when they blow their nose?"
The first thing that went through my head was that the sword hadn't hurt her. It had passed clean through her body, harmlessly.
"You're mortal!"
She looked at me in disbelief.
"What's that supposed to mean? Of course I'm mortal! How did you get that sword past security?"
"I didn't – wait, you can see it's a sword?"
The girl rolled her eyes, which were green like mine. She had frizzy, reddish-brown hair. Her nose was also red, like she had a cold. She wore a big, maroon Harvard sweatshirt and jeans that were covered with marker stains and little holes, like she spent her free time poking them with a fork.
"Well, it's either a sword or the biggest toothpick in the world," she said. "And why didn't it hurt me? Not that I'm complaining. Who are you? And whoa, what is that you're wearing? Is that made of lion fur?"
She asked so many questions so fast, it was like she was throwing rocks at me. I couldn't think of what to say. I looked at my sleeves to see if the Nemean Lion pelt had somehow changed back to fur, but it still looked like a brown winter coat to me.
I knew the skeleton warriors were still chasing me. I had no time to waste. But I just stared at the redheaded girl. Then I remembered what Thalia had done at Westover Hall to fool the teachers. Maybe I could manipulate the Mist.
I concentrated hard and snapped my fingers.
"You don't see I sword," I told the girl. "It's just a ballpoint pen."
She blinked. "Um…no. It's a sword, weirdo."
"Who are you?" I demanded.
She huffed indignantly.
"Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Now are you going to answer my questions or should I scream for security?"
"No!" I said. "I mean, I'm kind of in a hurry. I'm in trouble."
"In a hurry or in trouble?"
"Um, sort of both."
She looked over my shoulder and her eyes widened.
"Bathroom!"
"What?"
"Bathroom! Behind me! Now!"
I don't know why, but I listened to her. I slipped inside the bathroom – which I only later realized was the girls' bathroom – and left Rachel Elizabeth Dare standing outside. Later, that seemed pretty cowardly to me. I'm also pretty sure it saved my life.
I heard the clattering, hissing sounds of skeletons as they came closer.
My grip tightened on Riptide. What was I thinking? I'd left a mortal girl out there to die. I was preparing to burst out and fight when Rachel Elizabeth Dare started talking in that rapid-fire machine gun way of hers.
"Oh my god! Did you see that kid? It's about time you got here. He tried to kill me! He had a sword, for god's sake. You security guys let a sword-swinging lunatic inside national landmark? I mean, jeez! He ran that way toward those turbine thingies. I think he went over the side or something. Maybe he fell."
The skeletons clattered excitedly. I heard them moving off.
Rachel opened the door. "All clear. But you'd better hurry."
She looked shaken. Her face was gray and sweaty.
I peeked around the corner. Three skeleton warriors were running toward the other end of the balcony. The way to the elevator was clear for a few seconds.
"I owe you one, Rachel Elizabeth Dare."
"What are those things?" she asked. "They looked like…"
"Skeletons?"
She nodded uneasily.
"Do yourself a favor," I said. "Forget it. Forget you ever saw me."
"Forget you tried to kill me?"
"Yeah. That too."
"But who are you?"
"Percy –" I started to say. Then the skeletons turned around. "Gotta go!"
"What kind of name is Percy Gotta-go?"
I made it up to the café in just a few minutes. It was packed with kids enjoying the best part of the tour – the dam lunch. Thalia and Zoe were just sitting down with their food.
"We need to leave," I gasped. "Now!"
"But we just got our burritos!" Thalia said.
Zoe stood up, muttering an Ancient Greek curse. "He's right. Look!"
The café windows wrapped all around the observation floor, which gave us a beautiful panoramic view of the skeletal army that had come to kill us.
I counted two on the east side of the dam ride, blocking the way to Arizona. Three more on the west side, guarding Nevada. All of them were armed with batons and pistols.
But our immediate problem was a lot closer. The three skeletal warriors who'd been chasing me in the turbine room now appeared on the stairs. They saw me from across the cafeteria and clattered their teeth.
"Elevator!" Thalia said. We bolted in that direction, but the doors opened with a pleasant ding, and two more warriors stepped out. Every warrior was accounted for, minus the two Chrysa had blasted to flames in New Mexico. We were completely surrounded.
Then Thalia had a completely insane idea.
"Burrito fight!" she yelled, and flung her Guacamole Grande at the nearest skeleton.
Now, if you have never been hit by a flying burrito, count yourself lucky. In terms of deadly projectiles, it's right up there with grenades and cannonballs. Grover's lunch hit the skeleton and knocked his skull clean off his shoulders. I'm not sure what the other kids in the café saw, but they went crazy and started throwing their burritos and baskets of chips and sodas at each other, shrieking and screaming.
The skeletons tried to aim their guns, but it was hopeless. Bodies and food and drinks were flying everywhere.
In the chaos, I tackled the other skeleton on the stairs and sent him flying into the condiment table. Then we all raced downstairs, Guacamole Grandes whizzing past our heads.
"What now?" Zoe asked as we burst outside.
I didn't have an answer. The warriors on the road were closing in from either direction. We ran across the street to the pavilion with the winged bronze statues, but that just put our backs to the mountain.
The skeletons moved forward, forming a crescent around us. Their brethren from the café were running to join up. One was still putting its skull on its shoulders. Another was covered in ketchup and mustard. Two more had burritos lodged in their rib cages. They didn't look happy about it. They drew batons and advanced.
"Three against eleven," Zoe muttered. "And they cannot die."
Something shiny caught my eye. I glanced behind me at the statues' feet.
"Whoa," I said. "Their toes really are bright."
"Percy!" Thalia said. "This isn't the time!"
But I couldn't help staring at the two giant bronze guys with tall bladed wings like letter openers. They were weathered brown except for their toes, which shone like new pennies from all the times people had rubbed them for good luck.
Good luck. The blessing of Zeus.
I thought about the tour guide in the elevator. Her gray eyes and her smile. What had she said? There is always a way for those clever enough to find it.
"Thalia," I said. "Pray to your dad."
She glared at me. "He never answers."
"Just this once," I pleaded. "Ask for help. I think…I think the statues can give us some luck."
Five skeletons raised their guns. The other five came forward with batons. Fifty feet away. Forty feet.
"Do it!" I yelled.
"No!" Thalia said. "He won't answer me."
"This time is different!"
"Who says?"
I hesitated. "Athena, I think."
Thalia scowled like she was sure I'd gone crazy.
"Try it," I pleaded.
Thalia closed her eyes. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. I put in my own prayer to Annabeth's mom, hoping I was right that it had been her in the elevator – that she was trying to help us save her daughter.
And nothing happened.
The skeletons closed in. I raised Riptide to defend myself. Thalia held up her shield. Zoe aimed an arrow at a skeleton's head.
A shadow fell over me. I thought maybe it was the shadow of death. Then I realized it was the shadow of an enormous wing. The skeletons looked up too late. A flash of bronze, and all five of the baton-wielders were swept away.
The other skeletons opened fire. I raised my lion coat for protection, but I didn't need it. The bronze angels stepped in front of us and folded their wings like shields. Bullets pinged off them like rain off a corrugated roof. Both angels slashed outward, and the skeletons went flying across the road.
"Man, it feels good to stand up!" the first angel said. His voice sounded tinny and rusty, like he hadn't had a drink since he'd been built.
"Will ya look at my toes?" the other said. "Holy Zeus, what were those tourists thinking?"
As stunned as I was by the angels, I was more concerned with the skeletons. A few of them were getting up again, reassembling, bony hands groping for their weapons.
"Trouble!" I said.
"Get us out of here!" Thalia yelled.
Both angels looked down at her. "Zeus' kid?"
"Yes!"
"Can I get a please, Miss Zeus' Kid?" an angel asked.
"Please!"
The angels looked at each other and shrugged.
"Could use a stretch," one decided.
The next thing I knew, one of them had grabbed Thalia and me, the other grabbed Zoe, and we flew straight up, over the dam and the river, the skeleton warriors shrinking to tiny specks below us and the sound of gunfire echoing off the sides of the mountains.
"Tell me when it's over," Thalia said.
Her eyes were shut tight. The statue was holding us so we couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched his arm like it was the most important thing in the world.
"Everything's fine," I promised.
"Are…are we very high?"
I looked down. Below us, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. I stretched out my foot and kicked snow off one of the peaks.
"Nah," I said. "Not that high."
"We are in the Sierras!" Zoe yelled. She was hanging from the arms of the other statue. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should reach San Francisco in a few hours."
"Hey, hey, Frisco!" our angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"
"Oh, man," the other angel said. "I am so there."
"You guys have visited San Francisco?" I asked.
"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" our statue said. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And…"
"Hank!" the other statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, man."
"Oh, right." If bronze statues could blush, I swear Hank did. "Back to flying."
We sped up, so I could tell the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and then we were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.
Zoe got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as we flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store – and there were dozens of them – she would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour.
Thalia kept her eyes closed the hole way. She muttered to herself a lot, like she was praying.
"You did good back there," I told her. "Zeus listened."
It was hard to tell what she was thinking with her eyes closed.
"Maybe," she said. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room, anyway? You said they cornered you."
I told her about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who seemed to be able to see right through the Mist. I thought Thalia was going to call me crazy, but she just nodded.
"Some mortals are like that," she said. "No one knows why."
Suddenly, I flashed on something I'd never considered.
My mom was like that. She had seen the Minotaur on Half-Blood Hill and known exactly what it was. She hadn't been surprised at all last year when I'd told her my new friend Tyson was a Cyclops. Maybe she'd know all along. No wonder she was scared for me as I was growing up. She saw through the Mist even better than I did.
"Well, the girl was annoying. But I'm glad I didn't vaporize her. That would've been bad."
Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal."
She said that as if she given it a lot of thought.
I fell asleep shortly afterwards. I woke up from my nap when Hank asked, "Where you guys want to land?"
I looked down and said, "Whoa."
I'd seen San Francisco in pictures before, but never in real life. It was probably the most beautiful city I'd ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been surrounded by green hills and fog. There was a huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge sticking out of the fog. I felt like I should take a picture or something. Greetings from Frisco. Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.
"There," Zoe suggested. "By the Embarcadero Building."
"Good thinking," Chuck said. "Me and Hank can blend in with the pigeons."
We all looked at him.
"Kidding," he said. "Sheesh, can't statues have a sense of humor?"
As it turned out, there wasn't much need to blend in. It was early morning and not many people were around. We freaked out a homeless guy on the ferry dock when we landed. He screamed when he saw Hank and Chuck and ran off yelling something about metal angels from Mars.
We said our good-byes to the angels, who flew off to party with their statue friend. That's when I realized I had no idea what we were going to do next.
We'd made it to the West Coast. Artemis was here somewhere. Annabeth too, I hoped. But I had no idea how to find them, and tomorrow was the winter solstice. Nor did I have any clue what monster Artemis had been hunting. It was supposed to find us on the quest. It was supposed to "show us the trail," but it never had. No we were stuck on the ferry dock with not much money, no friends, and no luck.
After a brief discussion, we agreed that we needed to figure out just what this mystery monster was.
"But how?" I asked.
"Nereus," Thalia said.
I looked at her. "What?"
"Isn't that what Apollo told you to do? Find Nereus?"
I nodded. I'd completely forgotten my conversation with the sun god.
"The old man of the sea," I remembered. "I'm supposed to find him and force him to tell us what he knows. But how do I find him?"
Zoe made a face. "Old Nereus, eh?"
"You know him?" Thalia asked.
"My mother was a sea goddess. Yes, I know him. Unfortunately, he is never very hard to find. Just follow the smell."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Come. I will show thee."
I knew I was in trouble when we stopped at the Goodwill drop box. Five minutes later, Zoe had me outfitted in a ragged flannel shirt and jeans three sizes too big, bright red sneakers, and a floppy rainbow hat.
"Oh yeah," Thalia said, trying not to burst out laughing. "You look completely inconspicuous now."
Zoe nodded with satisfaction. "A typical male vagrant."
"Thanks a lot," I grumbled. "Why am I doing this again?"
"I told thee. To blend in."
She led the way back down to the waterfront. We came out next to a nearly deserted beach. There was a dark-haired woman in a lawn chair, sunglasses over her eyes and a book in her hands. My eyes were drawn to her for some reason.
She glanced back at us when we approached, and stood up, stashing her book in a black messenger bag. She turned around and pushed her sunglasses on top of her head, revealing her familiar green eyes.
I took off running for her, followed closely by Thalia. We threw ourselves into her arms.