by Rick Riordan
"This is your house?" Annabeth said with amazement.
"It was my house," Luke muttered. "Believe me, if it wasn't an emergency—"
"Is your mom really horrible?" Annabeth asked. "Can we see her?"
"No!" Luke snapped.
Annabeth shrank away from him as though his anger surprised her.
"I . . . I'm sorry," he said. "Just wait here. I promise everything will be okay. Nothing's going to hurt you. I'll be back—"
A brilliant golden flash illuminated the woods. The demigods winced, and a man's voice boomed: "You should not have come home."
The vision shut off.
My knees buckled, but Annabeth grabbed me. "Percy! What happened?"
"Did . . . did you see that?" I asked.
"See what?"
I glanced at Hestia, but the goddess's face was expressionless. I remembered something she'd told me in the woods: If you are to understand your enemy Luke, you must understand his family. But why had she shown me those scenes?
"How long was I out?" I muttered.
Annabeth knit her eyebrows. "Percy, you weren't out at all. You just looked at Hestia for like one second and collapsed."
I could feel everyone's eyes on me. I couldn't afford to look weak. Whatever those visions meant, I had to stay focused on our mission.
"Um, Lady Hestia," I said, "we've come on urgent business. We need to see—"
"We know what you need," a man's voice said. I shuddered, because it was the same voice I'd heard in the vision.
A god shimmered into existence next to Hestia. He looked about twenty-five, with curly salt-and-pepper hair and elfish features. He wore a military pilot's flight suit, with tiny bird's wings fluttering on his helmet and his black leather boots. In the crook of his arm was a long staff entwined with two living serpents.
"I will leave you now," Hestia said. She bowed to the aviator and disappeared into smoke. I understood why she was so anxious to go. Hermes, the God of Messengers, did not look happy.
"Hello, Percy." His brow furrowed as though he was annoyed with me, and I wondered if he somehow knew about the vision I'd just had. I wanted to ask why he'd been in May Castellan's house that night, and what had happened after he caught Luke. I remembered the first time I'd met Luke at Camp Half-Blood. I'd asked him if he'd ever met his father, and he'd looked at me bitterly and said, Once. But I could tell from Hermes's expression that this was not the time to ask.
I bowed awkwardly. "Lord Hermes."
Oh, sure, one of the snakes said in my mind. Don't say hi to us. We're just reptiles.
George, the other snake scolded. Be polite.
"Hello, George," I said. "Hey, Martha."
Did you bring us a rat? George asked.
George, stop it, Martha said. He's busy!
Too busy for rats? George said. That's just sad.
I decided it was better not to get into it with George. "Um, Hermes," I said. "We need to talk to Zeus. It's important."
Hermes's eyes were steely cold. "I am his messenger. May I take a message?"
Behind me, the other demigods shifted restlessly. This wasn't going as planned. Maybe if I tried to speak with Hermes in private . . .
"You guys," I said. "Why don't you do a sweep of the city? Check the defenses. See who's left in Olympus. Meet Annabeth and me back here in thirty minutes."
Silena frowned. "But—"
"That's a good idea," Annabeth said. "Connor and Travis, you two lead."
The Stolls seemed to like that—getting handed an important responsibility right in front of their dad. They usually never led anything except toilet paper raids. "We're on it!" Travis said. They herded the others out of the throne room, leaving Annabeth and me with Hermes.
"My lord," Annabeth said. "Kronos is going to attack New York. You must suspect that. My mother must have foreseen it."
"Your mother," Hermes grumbled. He scratched his back with his caduceus, and George and Martha muttered Ow, ow, ow. "Don't get me started on your mother, young lady. She's the reason I'm here at all. Zeus didn't want any of us to leave the front line. But your mother kept pestering him nonstop, 'It's a trap, it's a diversion, blah, blah, blah.' She wanted to come back herself, but Zeus was not going to let his number one strategist leave his side while we're battling Typhon. And so naturally he sent me to talk to you."
"But it is a trap!" Annabeth insisted. "Is Zeus blind?"
Thunder rolled through the sky.
"I'd watch the comments, girl," Hermes warned. "Zeus is not blind or deaf. He has not left Olympus completely undefended."
"But there are these blue lights—"
"Yes, yes. I saw them. Some mischief by that insufferable goddess of magic, Hecate, I'd wager, but you may have noticed they aren't doing any damage. Olympus has strong magical wards. Besides, Aeolus, the King of the Winds, has sent his most powerful minions to guard the citadel. No one save the gods can approach Olympus from the air. They would be knocked out of the sky."
I raised my hand. "Um . . . what about that materializing/teleporting thing you guys do?"
"That's a form of air travel too, Jackson. Very fast, but the wind gods are faster. No, if Kronos wants Olympus, he'll have to march through the entire city with his army and take the elevators! Can you see him doing this?"
Hermes made it sound pretty ridiculous—hordes of monsters going up in the elevator twenty at a time, listening to "Stayin' Alive." Still, I didn't like it.
"Maybe just a few of you could come back," I suggested.
Hermes shook his head impatiently. "Percy Jackson, you don't understand. Typhon is our greatest enemy."
"I thought that was Kronos."
The god's eyes glowed. "No, Percy. In the old days, Olympus was almost overthrown by Typhon. He is husband of Echidna—"
"Met her at the Arch," I muttered. "Not nice."
"—and the father of all monsters. We can never forget how close he came to destroying us all; how he humiliated us! We were more powerful back in the old days. Now we can expect no help from Poseidon because he's fighting his own war. Hades sits in his realm and does nothing, and Demeter and Persephone follow his lead. It will take all our remaining power to oppose the storm giant. We can't divide our forces, nor wait until he gets to New York. We have to battle him now. And we're making progress."
"Progress?" I said. "He nearly destroyed St. Louis."
"Yes," Hermes admitted. "But he destroyed only half of Kentucky. He's slowing down. Losing power."
I didn't want to argue, but it sounded like Hermes was trying to convince himself.
In the corner, the Ophiotaurus mooed sadly.
"Please, Hermes," Annabeth said. "You said my mother wanted to come. Did she give you any messages for us?"
"Messages," he muttered. "'It'll be a great job,' they told me. 'Not much work. Lots of worshippers.' Hmph. Nobody cares what I have to say. It's always about other people's messages.”
Rodents, George mused. I'm in it for the rodents.
Shhh, Martha scolded. We care what Hermes has to say. Don't we, George?
Oh, absolutely. Can we go back to the battle now? I want to do laser mode again. That's fun.
"Quiet, both of you," Hermes grumbled.
The god looked at Annabeth, who was doing her big-pleading-gray-eyes thing.
"Bah," Hermes said. "Your mother said to warn you that you are on your own. You must hold Manhattan without the help of the gods. As if I didn't know that. Why they pay her to be the wisdom goddess, I'm not sure."
"Anything else?" Annabeth asked.
"She said you should try plan twenty-three. She said you would know what that meant."
Annabeth's face paled. Obviously she knew what it meant, and she didn't like it. "Go on."
"Last thing." Hermes looked at me. "She said to tell Percy: 'Remember the rivers.' And, um, something about staying away from her daughter."
I'm not sure whose face was redder: Annabeth's or mine.
"Thank you, Hermes,"
Annabeth said. "And I . . . I wanted to say . . . I'm sorry about Luke."
The god's expression hardened like he'd turned to marble. "You should've left that subject alone."
Annabeth stepped back nervously. "Sorry?"
"SORRY doesn't cut it!"
George and Martha curled around the caduceus, which shimmered and changed into something that looked suspiciously like a high-voltage cattle prod.
"You should've saved him when you had the chance," Hermes growled at Annabeth. "You're the only one who could have."
I tried to step between them. "What are you talking about? Annabeth didn't—"
"Don't defend her, Jackson!" Hermes turned the cattle prod toward me. "She knows exactly what I'm talking about."
"Maybe you should blame yourself!" I should've kept my mouth shut, but all I could think about was turning his attention away from Annabeth. This whole time, he hadn't been angry with me. He'd been angry with her. "Maybe if you hadn't abandoned Luke and his mom!"
Hermes raised his cattle prod. He began to grow until he was ten feet tall. I thought, Well, that's it.
But as he prepared to strike, George and Martha leaned in close and whispered something in his ear.
Hermes clenched his teeth. He lowered the cattle prod, and it turned back to a staff.
"Percy Jackson," he said, "because you have taken on the curse of Achilles, I must spare you. You are in the hands of the Fates now. But you will never speak to me like that again. You have no idea how much I have sacrificed, how much—"
His voice broke, and he shrank back to human size. "My son, my greatest pride . . . my poor May . . ."
He sounded so devastated I didn't know what to say. One minute he was ready to vaporize us. Now he looked like he needed a hug.
"Look, Lord Hermes," I said. "I'm sorry, but I need to know. What happened to May? She said something about Luke's fate, and her eyes—"
Hermes glared at me, and my voice faltered. The look on his face wasn't really anger, though. It was pain. Deep, incredible pain.
"I will leave you now," he said tightly. "I have a war to fight."
He began to shine. I turned away and made sure Annabeth did the same, because she was still frozen in shock.
Good luck, Percy, Martha the snake whispered.
Hermes glowed with the light of a supernova. Then he was gone.
Annabeth sat at the foot of her mother's throne and cried. I wanted to comfort her, but I wasn't sure how.
"Annabeth," I said, "it's not your fault. I've never seen Hermes act that way. I guess . . . I don't know . . . he probably feels guilty about Luke. He's looking for somebody to blame. I don't know why he lashed out at you. You didn't do anything to deserve that."
Annabeth wiped her eyes. She stared at the hearth like it was her own funeral pyre.
I shifted uneasily. "Um, you didn't, right?"
She didn't answer. Her Celestial bronze knife was strapped to her arm—the same knife I'd seen in Hestia's vision. All these years, I hadn't realized it was a gift from Luke. I'd asked her many times why she preferred to fight with a knife instead of a sword, and she'd never answered me. Now I knew.
"Percy," she said. "What did you mean about Luke's mother? Did you meet her?"
I nodded reluctantly. "Nico and I visited her. She was a little . . . different." I described May Castellan, and the weird moment when her eyes had started to glow and she talked about her son's fate.
Annabeth frowned. "That doesn't make sense. But why were you visiting—" Her eyes widened. "Hermes said you bear the curse of Achilles. Hestia said the same thing. Did you . . . did you bathe in the River Styx?"
"Don't change the subject."
"Percy! Did you or not?"
"Um . . . maybe a little."
I told her the story about Hades and Nico, and how I'd defeated an army of the dead. I left out the vision of her pulling me out of the river. I still didn't quite understand that part, and just thinking about it made me embarrassed.
She shook her head in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"
"I had no choice," I said. "It's the only way I can stand up to Luke."
"You mean . . . di immortales, of course! That's why Luke didn't die. He went to the Styx and . . . Oh no, Luke. What were you thinking?"
"So now you're worried about Luke again," I grumbled.
She stared at me like I'd just dropped from space. "What?"
"Forget it," I muttered. I wondered what Hermes had meant about Annabeth not saving Luke when she'd had the chance. Clearly, she wasn't telling me something. But at the moment I wasn't in the mood to ask. The last thing I wanted to hear about was more of her history with Luke.
"The point is he didn't die in the Styx," I said. "Neither did I. Now I have to face him. We have to defend Olympus."
Annabeth was still studying my face, like she was trying to see differences since my swim in the Styx. "I guess you're right. My mom mentioned—"
"Plan twenty-three."
She rummaged in her pack and pulled out Daedalus's laptop. The blue Delta symbol glowed on the top when she booted it up. She opened a few files and started to read.
"Here it is," she said. "Gods, we have a lot of work to do."
"One of Daedalus's inventions?"
"A lot of inventions . . . dangerous ones. If my mother wants me to use this plan, she must think things are very bad." She looked at me. "What about her message to you: 'Remember the rivers'? What does that mean?"
I shook my head. As usual, I had no clue what the gods were telling me. Which rivers was I supposed to remember? The Styx? The Mississippi?
Just then the Stoll brothers ran in to the throne room.
"You need to see this," Connor said. "Now."
The blue lights in the sky had stopped, so at first I didn't understand what the problem was.
The other campers had gathered in a small park at the edge of the mountain. They were clustered at the guardrail, looking down at Manhattan. The railing was lined with those tourist binoculars, where you could deposit one golden drachma and see the city. Campers were using every single one.
I looked down at the city. I could see almost everything from here—the East River and the Hudson River carving the shape of Manhattan, the grid of streets, the lights of skyscrapers, the dark stretch of Central Park in the north. Everything looked normal, but something was wrong. I felt it in my bones before I realized what it was.
"I don't . . . hear anything," Annabeth said.
That was the problem.
Even from this height, I should've heard the noise of the city—millions of people bustling around, thousands of cars and machines—the hum of a huge metropolis. You don't think about it when you live in New York, but it's always there. Even in the dead of night, New York is never silent.
But it was now.
I felt like my best friend had suddenly dropped dead.
"What did they do?" My voice sounded tight and angry. "What did they do to my city?"
I pushed Michael Yew away from the binoculars and took a look.
In the streets below, traffic had stopped. Pedestrians were lying on the sidewalks, or curled up in doorways. There was no sign of violence, no wrecks, nothing like that. It was as if all the people in New York had simply decided to stop whatever they were doing and pass out.
"Are they dead?" Silena asked in astonishment.
Ice coated my stomach. A line from the prophecy rang in my ears: And see the world in endless sleep. I remembered Grover's story about meeting the god Morpheus in Central Park. You're lucky I'm saving my energy for the main event.
"Not dead," I said. "Morpheus has put the entire island of Manhattan to sleep. The invasion has started."
TEN
I BUY SOME NEW FRIENDS
Mrs. O'Leary was the only one happy about the sleeping city.
We found her pigging out at an overturned hot dog stand while the owner was curled up on the sidewalk, sucking his thumb.
&nb
sp; Argus was waiting for us with his hundred eyes wide open. He didn't say anything. He never does. I guess that's because he supposedly has an eyeball on his tongue. But his face made it clear he was freaking out.
I told him what we'd learned in Olympus, and how the gods would not be riding to the rescue. Argus rolled his eyes in disgust, which looked pretty psychedelic since it made his whole body swirl.
"You'd better get back to camp," I told him. "Guard it as best you can."
He pointed at me and raised his eyebrow quizzically.
"I'm staying," I said.
Argus nodded, like this answer satisfied him. He looked at Annabeth and drew a circle in the air with his finger.
"Yes," Annabeth agreed. "I think it's time."
"For what?" I asked.
Argus rummaged around in the back of his van. He brought out a bronze shield and passed it to Annabeth. It looked pretty much standard issue—the same kind of round shield we always used in capture the flag. But when Annabeth set it on the ground, the reflection on the polished metal changed from sky and buildings to the Statue of Liberty—which wasn't anywhere close to us.
"Whoa," I said. "A video shield."
"One of Daedalus's ideas," Annabeth said. "I had Beckendorf make this before—" She glanced at Silena. "Um, anyway, the shield bends sunlight or moonlight from anywhere in the world to create a reflection. You can literally see any target under the sun or moon, as long as natural light is touching it. Look."
We crowded around as Annabeth concentrated. The image zoomed and spun at first, so I got motion sickness just watching it. We were in the Central Park Zoo, then zooming down East 60th, past Bloomingdale's, then turning on Third Avenue.
"Whoa," Connor Stoll said. "Back up. Zoom in right there."
"What?" Annabeth said nervously. "You see invaders?"
"No, right there—Dylan's Candy Bar." Connor grinned at his brother. "Dude, it's open. And everyone is asleep. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Connor!" Katie Gardner scolded. She sounded like her mother, Demeter. "This is serious. You are not going to loot a candy store in the middle of a war!"
"Sorry," Connor muttered, but he didn't sound very ashamed.
