by Rick Riordan
Finally the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrow sceptically. ‘Well?’
I said, ‘We, um, want to order dinner.’
‘You kids have money to pay for it?’
Grover’s lower lip quivered. I was afraid he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum. Annabeth looked ready to pass out from hunger.
I was trying to think up a sob story for the waitress when a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the kerb.
All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle’s headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather – but leather that looked like… well, Caucasian human skin.
The guy on the bike would’ve made pro wrestlers run for Mama. He was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, and he had the cruellest, most brutal face I’d ever seen – handsome, I guess, but wicked – with an oily black crew cut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights. The weird thing was, I felt like I’d seen his face somewhere before.
As he walked into the diner, a hot, dry wind blew through the place. All the people rose, as if they were hypnotized, but the biker waved his hand dismissively and they all sat down again. Everybody went back to their conversations. The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, ‘You kids have money to pay for it?’
The biker said, ‘It’s on me.’ He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Annabeth against the window.
He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, ‘Are you still here?’
He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she’d been spun around, then marched back towards the kitchen.
The biker looked at me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the red shades, but bad feelings started boiling in my stomach. Anger, resentment, bitterness. I wanted to hit a wall. I wanted to pick a fight with somebody. Who did this guy think he was?
He gave me a wicked grin. ‘So you’re old Seaweed’s kid, huh?’
I should’ve been surprised, or scared, but instead I felt like I was looking at my stepdad, Gabe. I wanted to rip this guy’s head off. ‘What’s it to you?’
Annabeth’s eyes flashed me a warning. ‘Percy, this is –’
The biker raised his hand.
‘S’okay,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind a little attitude. Long as you remember who’s the boss. You know who I am, little cousin?’
Then it struck me why this guy looked familiar. He had the same vicious sneer as some of the kids at Camp Half-Blood, the ones from cabin five.
‘You’re Clarisse’s dad,’ I said. ‘Ares, god of war.’
Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should’ve been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions. ‘That’s right, punk. I heard you broke Clarisse’s spear.’
‘She was asking for it.’
‘Probably. That’s cool. I don’t fight my kids’ fights, you know? What I’m here for – I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you.’
The waitress came back with heaping trays of food – cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings and chocolate shakes.
Ares handed her a few gold drachmas.
She looked nervously at the coins. ‘But, these aren’t…’
Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. ‘Problem, sweetheart?’
The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.
‘You can’t do that,’ I told Ares. ‘You can’t just threaten people with a knife.’
Ares laughed. Are you kidding? I love this country. Best place since Sparta. Don’t you carry a weapon, punk? You should. Dangerous world out there. Which brings me to my proposition. I need you to do me a favour.’
‘What favour could I do for a god?’
‘Something a god doesn’t have time to do himself. It’s nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town. I was going on a little… date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me.’
‘Why don’t you go back and get it yourself?’
The fire in his eye sockets glowed a little hotter.
‘Why don’t I turn you into prairie dog and run you over with my Harley? Because I don’t feel like it. A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Percy Jackson. Will you prove yourself a coward?’ He leaned forward. ‘Or maybe you only fight when there’s a river to dive into, so your daddy can protect you.’
I wanted to punch this guy, but somehow, I knew he was waiting for that. Ares’s power was causing my anger. He’d love it if I attacked. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
‘We’re not interested,’ I said. ‘We’ve already got a quest.’
Ares’s fiery eyes made me see things I didn’t want to see – blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. ‘I know all about your quest, punk. When that item was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis and me, naturally. If I couldn’t sniff out a weapon that powerful…’ He licked his lips, as if the very thought of the master bolt made him hungry. ‘Well… if I couldn’t find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I’m trying to give you the benefit of a doubt. Your dad and I go way back. After all, I’m the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath.’
‘You told him Hades stole the bolt?’
‘Sure. Framing somebody to start a war. Oldest trick in the book. I recognized it immediately. In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest.’
‘Thanks,’ I grumbled.
‘Hey, I’m a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I’ll help you on your way. I’ll arrange a ride west for you and your friends.’
‘We’re doing fine on our own.’
‘Yeah, right. No money. No wheels. No clue what you’re up against. Help me out, and maybe I’ll tell you something you need to know. Something about your mom.’
‘My mom?’
He grinned. ‘That got your attention. The water park is a mile west on Delancy. You can’t miss it. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride.’
‘What interrupted your date?’ I asked. ‘Something scare you off?’
Ares bared his teeth, but I’d seen his threatening look before on Clarisse. There was something false about it, almost like he was nervous.
‘You’re lucky you met me, punk, and not one of the other Olympians. They’re not as forgiving of rudeness as I am. I’ll meet you back here when you’re done. Don’t disappoint me.’
After that I must have fainted, or fallen into a trance, because when I opened my eyes again Ares was gone. I might’ve thought the conversation had been a dream, but Annabeth and Grover’s expressions told me otherwise.
‘Not good,’ Grover said. ‘Ares sought you out, Percy. This is not good.’
I stared out the window. The motorcycle had disappeared.
Did Ares really know something about my mom, or was he just playing with me? Now that he was gone, all the anger had drained out of me. I realized Ares must love to mess with people’s emotions. That was his power – cranking up the passions so badly, they clouded your ability to think.
‘It’s probably some kind of trick,’ I said. ‘Forget Ares. Let’s just go.’
‘We can’t,’ Annabeth said. ‘Look, I hate Ares as much as anybody, but you don’t ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune. He wasn’t kidding about turning you into a rodent.’
I looked down at my cheeseburger, which suddenly didn’t seem so appetizing. ‘Why does he need us?’
‘Maybe it’s a problem that requires brains,’ Annabeth said. ‘Ares has strength. That’s all he has. Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes.’
‘But this water park…
he acted almost scared. What would make a war god run away like that?’
Annabeth and Grover glanced nervously at each other.
Annabeth said, ‘I’m afraid well have to find out.’
The sun was sinking behind the mountains by the time we found the water park. Judging from the sign, it once had been called WATERLAND, but now some of the letters were smashed out, so it read WAT R A D.
The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Inside, huge dry waterslides and tubes and pipes curled everywhere, leading to empty pools. Old tickets and advertisements fluttered around the tarmac. With night coming on, the place looked sad and creepy.
‘If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date,’ I said, staring up at the barbed wire, ‘I’d hate to see what she looks like.’
‘Percy,’ Annabeth warned. ‘Be more respectful.’
‘Why? I thought you hated Ares.’
‘He’s still a god. And his girlfriend is very temperamental’
‘You don’t want to insult her looks,’ Grover added.
‘Who is she? Echidna?’
‘No, Aphrodite,’ Grover said, a little dreamily. ‘Goddess of love.’
‘I thought she was married to somebody,’ I said. ‘Hephaestus.’
‘What’s your point?’ he asked.
‘Oh.’ I suddenly felt the need to change the subject. ‘So how do we get in?’
‘Maia!’ Grover’s shoes sprouted wings.
He flew over the fence, did an unintended somersault in midair, then stumbled to a landing on the opposite side. He dusted off his jeans, as if he’d planned the whole thing. ‘You guys coming?’
Annabeth and I had to climb the old-fashioned way, holding down the barbed wire for each other as we crawled over the top.
The shadows grew long as we walked through the park, checking out the attractions. There was Ankle Biter Island, Head Over Wedgie and Dude, Where’s My Swimsuit?
No monsters came to get us. Nothing made the slightest noise.
We found a souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise still lined the shelves: snow globes, pencils, postcards and racks of –
‘Clothes,’ Annabeth said. ‘Fresh clothes.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But you can’t just –’
‘Watch me.’
She snatched an entire row of stuff of the racks and disappeared into the changing room. A few minutes later she came out in Waterland flower-print shorts, a big red Waterland T-shirt and commemorative Waterland surf shoes. A Waterland backpack was slung over her shoulder, obviously stuffed with more goodies.
‘What the heck.’ Grover shrugged. Soon, all three of us were decked out like walking advertisements for the defunct theme park.
We continued searching for the Tunnel of Love. I got the feeling that the whole park was holding its breath. ‘So Ares and Aphrodite,’ I said, to keep my mind off the growing dark, ‘they have a thing going?’
‘That’s old gossip, Percy,’ Annabeth told me. ‘Three-thousand-year-old gossip.’
‘What about Aphrodite’s husband?’
‘Well, you know,’ she said. ‘Hephaestus. The blacksmith. He was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus. So he isn’t exactly handsome. Clever with his hands and all, but Aphrodite isn’t into brains and talent, you know?’
‘She likes bikers.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Hephaestus knows?’
‘Oh sure,’ Annabeth said. ‘He caught them together once. I mean, literally caught them, in a golden net, and invited all the gods to come and laugh at them. Hephaestus is always trying to embarrass them. That’s why they meet in out-of-the-way places, like…’
She stopped, looking straight ahead. ‘Like that.’
In front of us was an empty pool that would’ve been awesome for skateboarding. It was at least fifty metres across and shaped like a bowl.
Around the rim, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire. On the opposite side from us, a tunnel opened up, probably where the water flowed into when the pool was full. The sign above it read: THRILL RIDE O’ LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS’ TUNNEL OF LOVE!
Grover crept towards the edge. ‘Guys, look.’
Marooned at the bottom of the pool was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top and little hearts painted all over it. In the left seat, glinting in the fading light, was Ares’s shield, a polished circle of bronze.
‘This is too easy,’ I said. ‘So we just walk down there and get it?’
Annabeth ran her fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue.
‘There’s a Greek letter carved here,’ she said. ‘Eta. I wonder…’
‘Grover,’ I said, ‘you smell any monsters?’
He sniffed the wind. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing – like, in-the-Arch-and-you-didn’t-smell-Echidna nothing, or really nothing?’
Grover looked hurt. ‘I told you, that was underground.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’m going down there.’
‘I’ll go with you.’ Grover didn’t sound too enthusiastic, but I got the feeling he was trying to make up for what had happened in St Louis.
‘No,’ I told him. ‘I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. You’re the Red Baron, remember? I’ll be counting on you for backup, in case something goes wrong.’
Grover puffed up his chest a little. ‘Sure. But what could go wrong?’
‘I don’t know. Just a feeling. Annabeth, come with me –’
‘Are you kidding?’ She looked at me as if I’d just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red.
‘What’s the problem now?’ I demanded.
‘Me, go with you to the… the “Thrill Ride of Love”? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?’
‘Who’s going to see you?’ But my face was burning now, too. Leave it to a girl to make everything complicated. ‘Fine,’ I told her. ‘I’ll do it myself.’ But when I started down the side of the pool, she followed me, muttering about how boys always messed things up.
We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat, and next to it was a lady’s silk scarf. I tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. Why? Then I noticed something I hadn’t seen from up top: mirrors all the way around the rim of the pool, facing this spot. We could see ourselves no matter which direction we looked. That must be it. While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favourite people: themselves.
I picked up the scarf. It shimmered pink, and the perfume was indescribable – rose, or mountain laurel. Something good. I smiled, a little dreamy, and was about to rub the scarf against my cheek when Annabeth ripped it out of my hand and stuffed it in her pocket. ‘Oh, no you don’t. Stay away from that love magic.’
‘What?’
‘Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let’s get out of here.’
The moment I touched the shield, I knew we were in trouble. My hand broke through something that had been connecting it to the dashboard. A cobweb, I thought, but then I looked at a strand of it on my palm and saw it was some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost invisible. A tripwire.
‘Wait,’ Annabeth said.
‘Too late.’
‘There’s another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap.’
Noise erupted all around us, of a million gears grinding, as if the whole pool were turning into one giant machine.
Grover yelled, ‘Guys!’
Up on the rim, the Cupid statues were drawing their bows into firing position. Before I could suggest taking cover, they shot, but not at us. They fired at each other, across the rim of the pool. Silky cables trailed from the arrows, arcing over the pool and anchoring where they landed to form a huge golden asterisk. Then smaller metallic threads started weaving together magically between the main st
rands, making a net.
‘We have to get out,’ I said.
‘Duh!’ Annabeth said.
I grabbed the shield and we ran, but going up the slope of the pool was not as easy as going down.
‘Come on!’ Grover shouted.
He was trying to hold open a section of the net for us, but wherever he touched it, the golden threads started to wrap around his hands.
The Cupids’ heads popped open. Out came video cameras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding us with illumination, and a loudspeaker voice boomed: ‘Live to Olympus in one minute… Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight…’
‘Hephaestus!’ Annabeth screamed. ‘I’m so stupid! Eta is “H”. He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we’re going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!’
We’d almost made it to the rim when the row of mirrors opened like hatches and thousands of tiny metallic… things poured out.
Annabeth screamed.
It was an army of wind-up creepy-crawlies: bronze-gear bodies, spindly legs, little pincer mouths, all scuttling towards us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.
‘Spiders!’ Annabeth said. ‘Sp – sp – aaaah!’
I’d never seen her like this before. She fell backwards in terror and almost got overwhelmed by the spider robots before I pulled her up and dragged her back towards the boat.
The things were coming out from all around the rim now, millions of them, flooding towards the centre of the pool, completely surrounding us. I told myself they probably weren’t programmed to kill, just corral us and bite us and make us look stupid. Then again, this was a trap meant for gods. And we weren’t gods.
Annabeth and I climbed into the boat. I started kicking away the spiders as they swarmed aboard. I yelled at Annabeth to help me, but she was too paralysed to do much more than scream.
‘Thirty, twenty-nine,’ called the loudspeaker.
The spiders started spitting out strands of metal thread, trying to tie us down. The strands were easy enough to break at first, but there were so many of them, and the spiders just kept coming. I kicked one away from Annabeth’s leg and its pincers took a chunk out of my new surf shoe.
