by Rick Riordan
"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's kid?" Yes!
"Could I get a please, Miss Zeus's Kid?" an angel asked.
"Please!"
The angels looked at each other and shrugged.
"Could use a stretch," one decided.
And the next thing I knew, one of them grabbed Thalia and me, the other grabbed Zoe and Grover, 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.
FIFTEEN
I WRESTLE SANTA'S EVIL TWIN
"Tell me when it's over," Thalia said. Her eyes were shut tight. The statue was holding on to 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 and Grover were hanging from the arms of the other statue. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in 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.
Grover played his pipes to pass the time. Zoe got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as we flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and we passed 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 whole 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. "Nobody 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 friend Tyson was really a Cyclops. Maybe she'd known all along. No wonder she'd been so scared for me as I was growing up. She saw through the Mist even better than I did.
"Well, the girl was annoying," I said. "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'd given it a lot of thought.
"Where you guys want to land?" Hank asked, waking me up from a nap.
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 up 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 friends. 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 the trail," but it never had. Now 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," Grover said.
I looked at him. "What?"
"Isn't that what Apollo told you to do? Find Nereus?"
I nodded. I'd completely forgotten my last 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," she said without enthusiasm. "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," Grover said, trying not to bust 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. After a long time spent searching the docks, Zoe finally stopped in her tracks. She pointed down a pier where a bunch of homeless guys were huddled together in blankets, waiting for the soup kitchen to open for lunch.
"He will be down there somewhere," Zoe said. "He never travels very far from the water. He likes to sun himself during the day."
"How do I know which one is him?"
"Sneak up," she said. "Act homeless. You will know him. He will smell… different."
"Great." I didn't want to ask for particulars. "And once I find him?"
"Grab him," she said. "And hold on. He will try anything to get rid of thee. Whatever he does, do not let go. Force him to tell thee about the monster."
"We've got your back," Thalia said. She picked something off the back of my shirt—a big clump of fuzz that came from who-knows-where. "Eww. On second thought… I don't want your back. But we'll be rooting for you."
Grover gave me a big thumbs-up.
I grumbled how nice it was to have super-powerful friends. Then I headed toward the dock.
I pulled my hat down and stumbled like I was about
to pass out, which wasn't hard considering how tired I was. I passed our homeless friend from the Embarcadero, who was still trying to warn the other guys about the metal angels from Mars.
He didn't smell good, but he didn't smell… different. I kept walking.
A couple of grimy dudes with plastic grocery bags for hats checked me out as I came close.
"Beat it, kid!" one of them muttered.
I moved away. They smelled pretty bad, but just regular old bad. Nothing unusual.
There was a lady with a bunch of plastic flamingos sticking out of a shopping cart. She glared at me like I was going to steal her birds.
At the end of the pier, a guy who looked about a million years old was passed out in a patch of sunlight. He wore pajamas and a fuzzy bathrobe that probably used to be white. He was fat, with a white beard that had turned yellow, kind of like Santa Claus, if Santa had been rolled out of bed and dragged through a landfill.
And his smell?
As I got closer, I froze. He smelled bad, all right—but ocean bad. Like hot seaweed and dead fish and brine. If the ocean had an ugly side… this guy was it.
I tried not to gag as I sat down near him like I was tired. Santa opened one eye suspiciously. I could feel him staring at me, but I didn't look. I muttered something about stupid school and stupid parents, figuring that might sound reasonable.
Santa Claus went back to sleep.
I tensed. I knew this was going to look strange. I didn't know how the other homeless people would react. But I jumped Santa Claus.
"Ahhhhhl" he screamed. I meant to grab him, but he seemed to grab me instead. It was as if he'd never been asleep at all. He certainly didn't act like a weak old man. He had a grip like steel. "Help me!" he screamed as he squeezed me to death.
"That's a crime!" one of the other homeless guys yelled. "Kid rolling an old man like that!"
I rolled, all right—straight down the pier until my head slammed into a post. I was dazed for a second, and Nereus's grip slackened. He was making a break for it. Before he could, I regained my senses and tackled him from behind.
"I don't have any money!" He tried to get up and run, but I locked my arms around his chest. His rotten fish smell was awful, but I held on.
"I don't want money," I said as he fought. "I'm a half-blood! I want information. "
That just made him struggle harder. "Heroes! Why do you always pick on me?"
"Because you know everything!"
He growled and tried to shake me off his back. It was like holding on to a roller coaster. He thrashed around, making it impossible for me to keep on my feet, but I gritted my teeth and squeezed tighter. We staggered toward the edge of the pier and I got an idea.
"Oh, no!" I said. "Not the water!"
The plan worked. Immediately, Nereus yelled in triumph and jumped off the edge. Together, we plunged into San Francisco Bay.
He must've been surprised when I tightened my grip, the ocean filling me with extra strength. But Nereus had a few tricks left, too. He changed shape until I was holding a sleek black seal.
I've heard people make jokes about trying to hold a greased pig, but I'm telling you, holding on to a seal in the water is harder. Nereus plunged straight down, wriggling and thrashing and spiraling through the dark water. If I hadn't been Poseidon's son, there's no way I could've stayed with him.
Nereus spun and expanded, turning into a killer whale, but I grabbed his dorsal fin as he burst out of the water.
A whole bunch of tourists went, "Whoa!"
I managed to wave at the crowd. Yeah, we do this every day here in San Francisco.
Nereus plunged into the water and turned into a slimy eel. I started to tie him into a knot until he realized what was going on and changed back to human form. "Why won't you drown?" he wailed, pummelmg me with his fists.
"I'm Poseidon's son," I said.
"Curse that upstart! I was here first!"
Finally he collapsed on the edge of the boat dock. Above us was one of those tourist piers lined with shops, like a mall on water. Nereus was heaving and gasping. I was feeling great. I could've gone on all day, but I didn't tell him that. I wanted him to feel like he'd put up a good fight.
My friends ran down the steps from the pier.
"You got him!" Zoe said.
"You don't have to sound so amazed," I said.
Nereus moaned. "Oh, wonderful. An audience for my humiliation! The normal deal, I suppose? You'll let me go if I answer your question?"
"I've got more than one question," I said.
"Only one question per capture! That's the rule."
I looked at my friends.
This wasn't good. I needed to find Artemis, and I needed to figure out what the doomsday creature was. I also needed to know if Annabeth was still alive, and how to rescue her. How could I ask that all in one question?
A voice inside me was screaming Ask about Annabeth! That's what I cared about most.
But then I imagined what Annabeth might say. She would never forgive me if I saved her and didn't save Olympus. Zoe would want me to ask about Artemis, but Chiron had told us the monster was even more important.
I sighed. "All right, Nereus. Tell me where to find this terrible monster that could bring an end to the gods. The one Artemis was hunting."
The Old Man of the Sea smiled, showing off his mossy green teeth.
"Oh, that's too easy," he said evilly. "He's right there."
Nereus pointed to the water at my feet.
"Where?" I said.
"The deal is complete!" Nereus gloated. With a pop, he turned into a goldfish and did a backflip into the sea.
"You tricked me!" I yelled.
"Wait." Thalia's eyes widened. "What is that?"
"MOOOOOOOO!"
I looked down, and there was my friend the cow serpent, swimming next to the dock. She nudged my shoe and gave me the sad brown eyes.
"Ah, Bessie," I said. "Not now."
"Mooo!"
Grover gasped. "He says his name isn't Bessie."
"You can understand her… er, him?"
Grover nodded. "It's a very old form of animal speech. But he says his name is the Ophiotaurus."
"The Ophi-what?"
"It means serpent bull in Greek," Thalia said. "But what's it doing here?"
"Moooooooo!"
"He says Percy is his protector," Grover announced.
"And he's running from the bad people. He says they are close."
I was wondering how you got all that out of a single moooooo.
"Wait," Zoe said, looking at me. "You know this cow?"
I was feeling impatient, but I told them the story.
Thalia shook her head in disbelief. "And you just forgot to mention this before?"
"Well… yeah." It seemed silly, now that she said it, but things had been happening so fast. Bessie, the Ophiotaurus, seemed like a minor detail.
"I am a fool," Zoe said suddenly. "I know this story!"
"What story?"
"From the War of the Titans," she said. "My… my father told me this tale, thousands of years ago. This is the beast we are looking for."
"Bessie?" I looked down at the bull serpent. "But… he's too cute. He couldn't destroy the world."
"That is how we were wrong," Zoe said. "We've been anticipating a huge dangerous monster, but the Ophiotaurus does not bring down the gods that way. He must be sacrificed."
"MMMM," Bessie lowed.
"I don't think he likes the S-word," Grover said.
I patted Bessie on the head, trying to calm him down. He let me scratch his ear, but he was trembling.
"How could anyone hurt him?" I said. "He's harmless."
Zoe nodded. "But there is power in killing innocence.
Terrible power. The Fates ordained a prophecy eons ago, when this creature was born. They said that whoever killed the Ophiotaurus and sacrificed its entrails to fire would have the power to destroy the gods."
"MMMMMM!"
"Um," Grover said. "Maybe we could avoid talking about entrails, too."
Thalia stared at the cow serpent with wonder. "The power to destroy the gods… how? I mean, what would happen?"
"No one knows," Zoe said. "The first time, during the Titan war, the Ophiotaurus was in fact slain by a giant ally of the Titans, but thy father, Zeus, sent an eagle to snatch the entrails away before they could be tossed into the fire. It was a close call. Now, after three thousand years, the Ophiotaurus is reborn."
Thalia sat down on the dock. She stretched out her hand. Bessie went right to her. Thalia placed her hand on his head. Bessie shivered.
Thalia's expression bothered me. She almost looked… hungry.
"We have to protect him," I told her. "If Luke gets hold of him—"
"Luke wouldn't hesitate," Thalia muttered. "The power to overthrow Olympus. That's… that's huge."
"Yes, it is, my dear," said a man's voice in a heavy French accent. "And it is a power you shall unleash."
The Ophiotaurus made a whimpering sound and submerged.
I looked up. We'd been so busy talking, we'd allowed ourselves to be ambushed.
Standing behind us, his two-color eyes gleaming wickedly, was Dr. Thorn, the manticore himself.
"This is just pairrr-fect," the manticore gloated.
He was wearing a ratty black trench coat over his Westover Hall uniform, which was torn and stained. His military haircut had grown out spiky and greasy. He hadn't shaved recently, so his face was covered in silver stubble. Basically he didn't look much better than the guys down at the soup kitchen.
"Long ago, the gods banished me to Persia," the manticore said. "I was forced to scrounge for food on the edges of the world, hiding in forests, devouring insignificant human farmers for my meals. I never got to fight any great heroes. I was not feared and admired in the old stories! But now that will change. The Titans shall honor me, and I shall feast on the flesh of half-bloods!"
On either side of him stood two armed security guys, some of the mortal mercenaries I'd seen in D.C. Two more stood on the next boat dock over, just in case we tried to escape that way. There were tourists all around—walking down the waterfront, shopping at the pier above us—but I knew that wouldn't stop the manticore from acting.
