Percy II

The night before he and Annabeth were set to go to camp, Percy had a demigod dream. He probably should have expected it. The peace and quiet they'd had since Asher disappeared in March could only have meant that some serious hell was due to break loose.

Percy's dream wasn't one of the useful ones with clear players and stakes. He was sitting in the middle of the arena at Camp Half-Blood playing chess against Michael Yew, the former head of the Apollo cabin who'd died during the Battle of Manhattan. Michael was wearing the armour he'd been wearing when he died and had his quiver strapped to his back. His bow lay on the ground beside him.

"Three times three," Michael said. "One to live, two for joy and three to die."

Percy moved his king out of check, though he didn't play chess in real life and should have had no idea what he was doing. Michael reached across the board and took Percy's queen, which he placed on the square next to his king.

"I think that's against the rules," Percy said. He moved one of his horse-shaped pieces.

Michael picked up one of his own pawns. "Heroes save. You're a hero, aren't you?"

There was a crack of thunder and rain began to fall. Michael melted away, leaving nothing behind but his bow and a dropped pawn that had changed from white to black.

Percy woke with his heart racing. Annabeth was sleeping soundly next to him. He looked over at the glowing red numbers on their alarm clock. 3:10 AM, great. Somehow he didn't think he would be getting back to sleep, which was stupid. It was a demigod dream, not a nightmare.

A few minutes of staring at the ceiling later, Annabeth woke with a start. Percy rolled over so he was facing her.

"Bad dream?" he asked.

"As usual," Annabeth said. "Something's coming."

Percy sighed. "Is it bad that I feel like we should have expected this?"

"No," Annabeth said. "That's only logical. We've constantly proven that our generation has the worst luck."

Percy called dibs on not telling Chiron.

The first day of summer at Camp Half-Blood was always an experience. Since Percy was a senior counselor it was technically part of his job to put out the literal and metaphorical fires that sprung up. That was kind of difficult when the fire was a long time coming and it was probably better to let it burn.

"Who put them up there?" Piper asked.

Percy squinted up at Travis and Katie, who were sitting on top of the temple having an argument that those of them on the ground couldn't hear. "My guess? Lou Ellen or Sapphire."

Harley did say that Travis and Katie appeared without warning. Lou Ellen and Sapphire were the only people capable of dropping them on the temple roof who Percy thought would drop them on the temple roof on purpose.

Katie gestured sharply, dragging Travis's arm along with her's. The pair of handcuffs chaining them together didn't give Travis any choice in the matter.

"Should we get them down?" a younger camper asked.

There was an explosion of green as a plant grew in midair and wrapped its vines around Travis's head, forcing his jaw shut.

"They're fine," Percy said. "They won't cause any permanent damage."

"And maybe they'll finally work out the other half of their issues," Piper said.

That wasn't likely. Katie and Travis had moved into a permanent rivalry around the time Percy and Jason were getting kidnapped by Hera. They didn't have issues so much as they had arguments that played on loop and unholy glee at fighting each other during capture the flag. Still, it would be nice if not everything they did was meant to get under each other's skin.

"Okay, show's over," Percy said to the small crowd that had gathered. "Hermes cabin, you have a sword fighting lesson right now and I know you've got four new campers so you'd better not make me wait."

Half of the campers watching Katie and Travis took off running for the arena. Two of the new campers in the Hermes cabin were unclaimed despite being at camp for months. One of them was almost thirteen. Percy was hoping to give them a chance to do something that would remind their parents that they were their children. They definitely weren't Hermes kids. Nowadays Hermes claimed his children the second they stepped foot into camp.

"Don't be too hard on them," Piper said with a smile.

Percy grinned back. "No promises."

They managed to get through the morning without anyone ending up in the infirmary. Will actually came up to Percy at lunch and thanked him for it.

"You jinxed it, Will," Sapphire said.

Will narrowed his eyes at her. "You had better not get injured this week."

"It's Friday," Nico said.

"This week or next week," Will said.

Sapphire smiled sweetly at him. Percy made a mental note to place his bet on Sapphire ending up in the infirmary next Sunday, probably in the morning.

Will muttered something about irresponsible Underworld kids and grey hair before heading back to the table he was sharing with most of his siblings and a few Hephaestus kids. They had something in the works that would definitely blow up at least once before it was finished but would probably be pretty cool. That was the way Cabin Nine projects tended to go when the Apollo cabin was roped in.

Well, the cool part. The explosions were a weekly Hephaestus cabin thing.

"So, what were you and Annabeth talking with Chiron about this morning?" Nico asked.

Percy grimaced and put down his sandwich. "We both had dreams last night." The emphasis he put on the word made it clear what kind of dreams he was talking about.

Nico's eyes widened. "You too?"

"You too?" Sapphire asked, half a second behind her brother.

The three of them looked at each other. Percy's stomach did an unhappy flip. Sapphire turned paler than usual.

"Schist," Percy said.

"That's a bad sign, isn't it?" Sapphire asked.

Four demigods—three children of the Big Three, two of the Seven—all having dreams on the same night? There was no way that wasn't a bad sign.

Whatever was on its way, it was going to be big and it was probably going to kill people.

No one had been expecting a quiet summer, but gods damn.