by Rick Riordan
"Where… where are the skeletons?" I asked the manticore.
He sneered. "I do not need those foolish undead! The General thinks I am worthless? He will change his mind when I defeat you myself!"
I needed time to think. I had to save Bessie. I could dive into the sea, but how could I make a quick getaway with a five-hundred-pound cow serpent? And what about my friends?
"We beat you once before," I said.
"Ha! You could barely fight me with a goddess on your side. And, alas… that goddess is preoccupied at the moment. There will be no help for you now."
Zoe notched an arrow and aimed it straight at the manticore's head. The guards on either side of us raised their guns.
"Wait!" I said. "Zoe, don't!"
The manticore smiled. "The boy is right, Zoe Nightshade. Put away your bow. It would be a shame to kill you before you witnessed Thalia's great victory."
"What are you talking about?" Thalia growled. She had her shield and spear ready.
"Surely it is clear," the manticore said. "This is your moment. This is why Lord Kronos brought you back to life. You will sacrifice the Ophiotaurus. You will bring its entrails to the sacred fire on the mountain. You will gain unlimited power. And for your sixteenth birthday, you will overthrow Olympus."
No one spoke. It made terrible sense. Thalia was only two days away from turning sixteen. She was a child of the Big Three. And here was a choice, a terrible choice that could mean the end of the gods. It was just like the prophecy said. I wasn't sure if I felt relieved, horrified, or disappointed. I wasn't the prophecy kid after all. Doomsday was happening right now.
I waited for Thalia to tell the manticore off, but she hesitated. She looked completely stunned.
"You know it is the right choice," the manticore told her. "Your friend Luke recognized it. You shall be reunited with him. You shall rule this world together under the auspices of the Titans. Your father abandoned you, Thalia. He cares nothing for you. And now you shall gain power over him. Crush the Olympians underfoot, as they deserve. Call the beast! It will come to you. Use your spear."
"Thalia," I said, "snap out of it!"
She looked at me the same way she had the morning she woke up on Half-Blood Hill, dazed and uncertain. It was almost like she didn't know me. "I… I don't—"
"Your father helped you," I said. "He sent the metal angels. He turned you into a tree to preserve you."
Her hand tightened on the shaft of her spear.
I looked at Grover desperately. Thank the gods, he understood what I needed. He raised his pipes to his mouth and played a quick riff.
The manticore yelled, "Stop him!"
The guards had been targeting Zoe, and before they could figure out that the kid with the pipes was the bigger problem, the wooden planks at their feet sprouted new branches and tangled their legs. Zoe let loose two quick arrows that exploded at their feet in clouds of sulfurous yellow smoke. Fart arrows!
The guards started coughing. The manticore shot spines in our direction, but they ricocheted off my lion's coat.
"Grover," I said, "tell Bessie to dive deep and stay down!"
"Moooooo!" Grover translated. I could only hope that Bessie got the message.
"The cow…" Thalia muttered, still in a daze.
"Come on!" I pulled her along as we ran up the stairs to the shopping center on the pier. We dashed around the corner of the nearest store. I heard the manticore shouting at his minions, "Get them!" Tourists screamed as the guards shot blindly into the air.
We scrambled to the end of the pier. We hid behind a little kiosk filled with souvenir crystals—wind chimes and dream catchers and stuff like that, glittering in the sunlight. There was a water fountain next to us. Down below, a bunch of sea lions were sunning themselves on the rocks. The whole of San Francisco Bay spread out before us: the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, and the green hills and fog beyond that to the north. A picture-perfect moment, except for the fact that we were about to die and the world was going to end.
"Go over the side!" Zoe told me. "You can escape in the sea, Percy. Call on thy father for help. Maybe you can save the Ophiotaurus."
She was right, but I couldn't do it.
"I won't leave you guys," I said. "We fight together."
"You have to get word to camp!" Grover said. "At least let them know what's going on!"
Then I noticed the crystals making rainbows in the sunlight. There was a drinking fountain next to me…
"Get word to camp," I muttered. "Good idea."
I uncapped Riptide and slashed off the top of the water fountain. Water burst out of the busted pipe and sprayed all over us.
Thalia gasped as the water hit her. The fog seemed to clear from her eyes. "Are you crazy?" she asked.
But Grover understood. He was already fishing around in his pockets for a coin. He threw a golden drachma into the rainbows created by the mist and yelled, "O goddess, accept my offering!"
The mist rippled.
"Camp Half-Blood!" I said.
And there, shimmering in the Mist right next to us, was the last person I wanted to see: Mr. D, wearing his leopard-skin jogging suit and rummaging through the refrigerator.
He looked up lazily. "Do you mind?"
"Where's Chiron!" I shouted.
"How rude." Mr. D took a swig from a jug of grape juice. "Is that how you say hello?"
"Hello," I amended. "We're about to die! Where's Chiron?"
Mr. D considered that. I wanted to scream at him to hurry up, but I knew that wouldn't work. Behind us, footsteps and shouting—the manticore's troops were closing in.
"About to die," Mr. D mused. "How exciting. I'm afraid Chiron isn't here. Would you like me to take a message?"
I looked at my friends. "We're dead."
Thalia gripped her spear. She looked like her old angry self again. "Then we'll die fighting."
"How noble," Mr. D said, stifling a yawn. "So what is the problem, exactly?"
I didn't see that it would make any difference, but I told him about the Ophiotaurus.
"Mmm." He studied the contents of the fridge. "So that's it. I see."
"You don't even care!" I screamed. "You'd just as soon watch us die!"
"Let's see. I think I'm in the mood for pizza tonight."
I wanted to slash through the rainbow and disconnect, but I didn't have time. The manticore screamed, "There!" And we were surrounded. Two of the guards stood behind him. The other two appeared on the roofs of the pier shops above us. The manticore threw off his coat and transformed into his true self, his lion claws extended and his spiky tail bristling with poison barbs.
"Excellent," he said. He glanced at the apparition in the mist and snorted. "Alone, without any real help. Wonderful."
"You could ask for help," Mr. D murmured to me, as if this were an amusing thought. "You could say please."
When wild boars fly, I thought. There was no way I was going to die begging a slob like Mr. D, just so he could laugh as we all got gunned down.
Zoe readied her arrows. Grover lifted his pipes. Thalia raised her shield, and I noticed a tear running down her cheek. Suddenly it occurred to me: this had happened to her before. She had been cornered on Half-Blood Hill. She'd willingly given her life for her friends. But this time, she couldn't save us.
How could I let that happen to her?
"Please, Mr. D," I muttered. "Help."
Of course, nothing happened.
The manticore grinned. "Spare the daughter of Zeus. She will join us soon enough. Kill the others."
The men raised their guns, and something strange happened. You know how you feel when all the blood rushes to your head, like if you hang upside down and turn right-side up too quickly? There was a rush like that all around me, and a sound like a huge sigh. The sunlight tinged with purple. I smelled grapes and something more sour—wine.
SNAP!
It was the sound of many minds breaking at the same time. The sound of madness. One gua
rd put his pistol between his teeth like it was a bone and ran around on all fours. Two others dropped their guns and started waltzing with each other. The fourth began doing what looked like an Irish clogging dance. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so terrifying.
"No!" screamed the manticore. "I will deal with you myself!"
His tail bristled, but the planks under his paws erupted into grape vines, which immediately began wrapping around the monster's body, sprouting new leaves and clusters of green baby grapes that ripened in seconds as the manticore shrieked, until he was engulfed in a huge mass of vines, leaves, and full clusters of purple grapes. Finally the grapes stopped shivering, and I had a feeling that somewhere inside there, the manticore was no more.
"Well," said Dionysus, closing his refrigerator. "That was fun."
I stared at him, horrified. "How could you… How did you—"
"Such gratitude," he muttered. "The mortals will come out of it. Too much explaining to do if I made their condition permanent. I hate writing reports to Father."
He stared resentfully at Thalia. "I hope you learned your lesson, girl. It isn't easy to resist power, is it?"
Thalia blushed as if she were ashamed.
"Mr. D," Grover said in amazement. "You… you saved us.
"Mmm. Don't make me regret it, satyr. Now get going, Percy Jackson. I've bought you a few hours at most."
"The Ophiotaurus," I said. "Can you get it to camp?"
Mr. D sniffed. "I do not transport livestock. That's your problem."
"But where do we go?"
Dionysus looked at Zoe. "Oh, I think the huntress knows. You must enter at sunset today, you know, or all is lost. Now good-bye. My pizza is waiting."
"Mr. D," I said.
He raised his eyebrow.
"You called me by my right name," I said. "You called me Percy Jackson."
"I most certainly did not, Peter Johnson. Now off with you!"
He waved his hand, and his image disappeared in the mist.
All around us, the manticore's minions were still acting completely nuts. One of them had found our friend the homeless guy, and they were having a serious conversation about metal angels from Mars. Several other guards were harassing the tourists, making animal noises and trying to steal their shoes.
I looked at Zoe. "What did he mean… 'You know where to go'?"
Her face was the color of the fog. She pointed across the bay, past the Golden Gate. In the distance, a single mountain rose up above the cloud layer.
"The garden of my sisters," she said. "I must go home."
SIXTEEN
WE MEET THE DRAGON OF ETERNAL BAD BREATH
"We will never make it," Zoe said. "We are moving too slow. But we cannot leave the Ophiotaurus."
"Mooo," Bessie said. He swam next to me as we jogged along the waterfront. We'd left the shopping center pier far behind. We were heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was a lot farther than I'd realized. The sun was already dipping in the west.
"I don't get it," I said. "Why do we have to get there at sunset?"
"The Hesperides are the nymphs of the sunset," Zoe said. "We can only enter their garden as day changes to night."
"What happens if we miss it?"
"Tomorrow is winter solstice. If we miss sunset tonight, we would have to wait until tomorrow evening. And by then, the Olympian Council will be over. We must free Lady Artemis tonight."
Or Annabeth will be dead, I thought, but I didn't say that.
"We need a car," Thalia said.
"But what about Bessie?" I asked.
Grover stopped in his tracks. "I've got an idea! The Ophiotaurus can appear in different bodies of water, right?"
"Well, yeah," I said. "I mean, he was in Long Island Sound. Then he just popped into the water at Hoover Dam. And now he's here."
"So maybe we could coax him back to Long Island Sound," Grover said. "Then Chiron could help us get him to Olympus."
"But he was following me" I said. "If I'm not there, would he know where he's going?"
"Moo," Bessie said forlornly.
"I… I can show him," Grover said. "I'll go with him."
I stared at him. Grover was no fan of the water. He'd almost drowned last summer in the Sea of Monsters, and he couldn't swim very well with his goat hooves.
"I'm the only one who can talk to him," Grover said. "It makes sense."
He bent down and said something in Bessie's ear. Bessie shivered, then made a contented, lowing sound.
"The blessing of the Wild," Grover said. "That should help with safe passage. Percy, pray to your dad, too. See if he will grant us safe passage through the seas."
I didn't understand how they could possibly swim back to Long Island from California. Then again, monsters didn't travel the same way as humans. I'd seen plenty evidence of that.
I tried to concentrate on the waves, the smell of the ocean, the sound of the tide.
"Dad," I said. "Help us. Get the Ophiotaurus and Grover safely to camp. Protect them at sea."
"A prayer like that needs a sacrifice," Thalia said. "Something big."
I thought for a second. Then I took off my coat.
"Percy," Grover said. "Are you sure? That lion skin… that's really helpful. Hercules used it!"
As soon as he said that, I realized something.
I glanced at Zoe, who was watching me carefully. I realized I did know who Zoe's hero had been—the one who'd ruined her life, gotten her kicked out of her family, and never even mentioned how she'd helped him: Hercules, a hero I'd admired all my life.
"If I'm going to survive," I said, "it won't be because I've got a lion-skin cloak. I'm not Hercules."
I threw the coat into the bay. It turned back into a golden lion skin, flashing in the light. Then, as it began to sink beneath the waves, it seemed to dissolve into sunlight on the water.
The sea breeze picked up.
Grover took a deep breath. "Well, no time to lose."
He jumped in the water and immediately began to sink. Bessie glided next to him and let Grover take hold of his neck.
"Be careful," I told them.
"We will," Grover said. "Okay, um… Bessie? We're going to Long Island. It's east. Over that way."
"Moooo?" Bessie said.
"Yes," Grover answered. "Long Island. It's this island. And… it's long. Oh, let's just start."
"Mooo!"
Bessie lurched forward. He started to submerge and Grover said, "I can't breathe underwater! Just thought I'd mention—" Glub!
Under they went, and I hoped my father's protection would extend to little things, like breathing.
"Well, that is one problem addressed," Zoe said. "But how can we get to my sisters' garden?"
"Thalia's right," I said. "We need a car. But there's nobody to help us here. Unless we, uh, borrowed one."
I didn't like that option. I mean, sure this was a life-or-death situation, but still, it was stealing, and it was bound to get us noticed.
"Wait," Thalia said. She started rifling through her backpack. "There is somebody in San Francisco who can help us. I've got the address here somewhere."
"Who?" I asked.
Thalia pulled out a crumpled piece of notebook paper and held it up. "Professor Chase. Annabeth's dad."
After hearing Annabeth gripe about her dad for two years, I was expecting him to have devil horns and fangs. I was not expecting him to be wearing an old-fashioned aviator's cap and goggles. He looked so weird, with his eyes bugging out through the glasses, that we all took a step back on the front porch.
"Hello," he said in a friendly voice, "Are you delivering my airplanes?"
Thalia, Zoe, and I looked at each other warily.
"Um, no, sir," I said.
"Drat," he said. "I need three more Sopwith Camels."
"Right," I said, though I had no clue what he was talking about. "We're friends of Annabeth."
"Annabeth?" He straightened as if I'd just given him an electri
c shock. "Is she all right? Has something happened?"
None of us answered, but our faces must've told him that something was very wrong. He took off his cap and goggles. He had sandy-colored hair like Annabeth and intense brown eyes. He was handsome, I guess, for an older guy, but it looked like he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and his shirt was buttoned wrong, so one side of his collar stuck up higher than the other side.
"You'd better come in," he said.
It didn't look like a house they'd just moved into. There were LEGO robots on the stairs and two cats sleeping on the sofa in the living room. The coffee table was stacked with magazines, and a little kid's winter coat was spread on the floor. The whole house smelled like fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. There was jazz music coming from the kitchen. It seemed like a messy, happy kind of home—the kind of place that had been lived in forever.
"Dad!" a little boy screamed. "He's taking apart my robots!"
"Bobby," Dr. Chase called absently, "don't take apart your brother's robots."
"I'm Bobby," the little boy protested. "He's Matthew!"
"Matthew," Dr. Chase called, "don't take apart your brother's robots!"
"Okay, Dad!"
Dr. Chase turned to us. "We'll go upstairs to my study. This way."
"Honey?" a woman called. Annabeth's stepmom appeared in the living room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was a pretty Asian woman with red highlighted hair tied in a bun.
"Who are our guests?" she asked.
"Oh," Dr. Chase said. "This is…"
He stared at us blankly.
"Frederick," she chided. "You forgot to ask them their names?"
We introduced ourselves a little uneasily, but Mrs. Chase seemed really nice. She asked if we were hungry. We admitted we were, and she told us she'd bring us some cookies and sandwiches and sodas.
"Dear," Dr. Chase said. "They came about Annabeth."
I half expected Mrs. Chase to turn into a raving lunatic at the mention of her stepdaughter, but she just pursed her lips and looked concerned. "All right. Go on up to the study and I'll bring you some food." She smiled at me. "Nice meeting you, Percy. I've heard a lot about you."
Upstairs, we walked into Dr. Chase's study and I said, "Whoa!"
