The Mark of Athena hoo-3

by Rick Riordan

  The praetor stood ten feet away, in full battle armor, holding a golden javelin. Her two metal greyhounds growled at her side.

  Annabeth scanned the area. They were more or less alone. Most of the combat had moved toward the docks. Hopefully her friends had all made it on board, but they’d have to set sail immediately or risk being overrun. Annabeth had to hurry.

  “Reyna,” she said, “what happened at Camp Jupiter was Gaea’s fault. Eidolons, possessing spirits—”

  “Save your explanations,” Reyna said. “You’ll need them for the trial.”

  The dogs snarled and inched forward. This time, it didn’t seem to matter to them that Annabeth was telling the truth. She tried to think of an escape plan. She doubted she could take Reyna in one-on-one combat. With those metal dogs, she stood no chance at all.

  “If you let Gaea drive our camps apart,” Annabeth said, “the giants have already won. They’ll destroy the Romans, the Greeks, the gods, the whole mortal world.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Reyna’s voice was as hard as iron. “What choice have you left me? Octavian smells blood. He’s whipped the legion into a frenzy, and I can’t stop it. Surrender to me. I’ll bring you back to New Rome for trial. It won’t be fair. You’ll be painfully executed. But it may be enough to stop further violence. Octavian won’t be satisfied, of course, but I think I can convince the others to stand down.”

  “It wasn’t me!”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Reyna snapped. “Someone must pay for what happened. Let it be you. It’s the better option.”

  Annabeth’s skin crawled. “Better than what?”

  “Use that wisdom of yours,” Reyna said. “If you escape today, we won’t follow. I told you—not even a madman would cross the sea to the ancient lands. If Octavian can’t have vengeance on your ship, he’ll turn his attention to Camp Half-Blood. The legion will march on your territory. We will raze it and salt the earth.”

  Kill the Romans, she heard her mother urging. They can never be your allies.

  Annabeth wanted to sob. Camp Half-Blood was the only real home she’d ever known, and in a bid for friendship, she had told Reyna exactly where to find it. She couldn’t leave it at the mercy of the Romans and travel halfway around the world.

  But their quest, and everything she’d suffered to get Percy back…if she didn’t go to the ancient lands, it would all mean nothing. Besides, the Mark of Athena didn’t have to lead to revenge.

  If I could find the route, her mother had said, the way home…

  How will you use your reward? Aphrodite had asked. For war or peace?

  There was an answer. The Mark of Athena could lead her there—if she survived.

  “I’m going,” she told Reyna. “I’m following the Mark of Athena to Rome.”

  The praetor shook her head. “You have no idea what awaits you.”

  “Yes, I do,” Annabeth said. “This grudge between our camps…I can fix it.”

  “Our grudge is thousands of years old. How can one person fix it?”

  Annabeth wished she could give a convincing answer, show Reyna a 3-D diagram or a brilliant schematic, but she couldn’t. She just knew she had to try. She remembered that lost look on her mother’s face: I must return home.

  “The quest has to succeed,” she said. “You can try to stop me, in which case we’ll have to fight to the death. Or you can let me go, and I’ll try to save both our camps. If you must march on Camp Half-Blood, at least try to delay. Slow Octavian down.”

  Reyna’s eyes narrowed. “One daughter of a war goddess to another, I respect your boldness. But if you leave now, you doom your camp to destruction.”

  “Don’t underestimate Camp Half-Blood,” Annabeth warned.

  “You’ve never seen the legion at war,” Reyna countered.

  Over by the docks, a familiar voice shrieked over the wind: “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  Octavian had survived his swim in the harbor. He crouched behind his guards, screaming encouragement at the other Roman demigods as they struggled toward the ship, holding up their shields as if that would deflect the storm raging all around them.

  On the deck of the Argo II, Percy and Jason stood together, their swords crossed. Annabeth got a tingle down her spine as she realized the boys were working as one, summoning the sky and the sea to do their bidding. Water and wind churned together. Waves heaved against the ramparts and lightning flashed. Giant eagles were knocked out of the sky. Wreckage of the flying chariot burned in the water, and Coach Hedge swung a mounted crossbow, taking potshots at the Roman birds as they flew overhead.

  “You see?” Reyna said bitterly. “The spear is thrown. Our people are at war.”

  “Not if I succeed,” Annabeth said.

  Reyna’s expression looked the same as it had at Camp Jupiter when she realized Jason had found another girl. The praetor was too alone, too bitter and betrayed to believe anything could go right for her ever again. Annabeth waited for her to attack.

  Instead, Reyna flicked her hand. The metal dogs backed away. “Annabeth Chase,” she said, “when we meet again, we will be enemies on the field of battle.”

  The praetor turned and walked across the ramparts, her greyhounds behind her.

  Annabeth feared it might be some sort of trick, but she had no time to wonder. She ran for the ship.

  The winds that battered the Romans didn’t seem to affect her.

  Annabeth sprinted through their lines. Octavian yelled, “Stop her!”

  A spear flew past her ear. The Argo II was already pulling away from the dock. Piper was at the gangplank, her hand outstretched.

  Annabeth leaped and grabbed Piper’s hand. The gangplank fell into the sea, and the two girls tumbled onto the deck.

  “Go!” Annabeth screamed. “Go, go, go!”

  The engines rumbled beneath her. The oars churned. Jason changed the course of the wind, and Percy called up a massive wave, which lifted the ship higher than the fort’s walls and pushed it out to sea. By the time the Argo II reached top speed, Fort Sumter was only a blot in the distance, and they were racing across the waves toward the ancient lands.

  A FTER RAIDING A MUSEUM FULL OF Confederate ghosts, Leo didn’t think his day could get any worse. He was wrong.

  They hadn’t found anything in the Civil War sub or elsewhere in the museum; just a few elderly tourists, a dozing security guard, and—when they tried to inspect the artifacts—a whole battalion of glowing zombie dudes in gray uniforms.

  The idea that Frank should be able to control the spirits? Yeah…that pretty much failed. By the time Piper sent her Iris-message warning them about the Roman attack, they were already halfway back to the ship, having been chased through downtown Charleston by a pack of angry dead Confederates.

  Then—oh, boy!—Leo got to hitch a ride with Frank the Friendly Eagle so they could fight a bunch of Romans. Rumor must’ve gotten around that Leo was the one who had fired on their little city, because those Romans seemed especially anxious to kill him.

  But wait! There was more! Coach Hedge shot them out of the sky; Frank dropped him (that was no accident); and they crash-landed in Fort Sumter.

  Now, as the Argo II raced across the waves, Leo had to use all his skill just to keep the ship in one piece. Percy and Jason were a little too good at cooking up massive storms.

  At one point, Annabeth stood next to him, yelling against the roar of the wind: “Percy says he talked to a Nereid in Charleston Harbor!”

  “Good for him!” Leo yelled back.

  “The Nereid said we should seek help from Chiron’s brothers.”

  “What does that mean? The Party Ponies?” Leo had never met Chiron’s crazy centaur relatives, but he’d heard rumors of Nerf sword-fights, root beer–chugging contests, and Super Soakers filled with pressurized whipped cream.

  “Not sure,” Annabeth said. “But I’ve got coordinates. Can you input latitude and longitude in this thing?”

  “I can input star chart
s and order you a smoothie, if you want. Of course I can do latitude and longitude!”

  Annabeth rattled off the numbers. Leo somehow managed to punch them in while holding the wheel with one hand. A red dot popped up on the bronze display screen.

  “That location is in the middle of the Atlantic,” he said. “Do the Party Ponies have a yacht?”

  Annabeth shrugged helplessly. “Just hold the ship together until we get farther from Charleston. Jason and Percy will keep up the winds!”

  “Happy fun time!”

  It seemed like forever, but finally the sea calmed and the winds died.

  “Valdez,” said Coach Hedge, with surprising gentleness. “Let me take the wheel. You’ve been steering for two hours.”

  “Two hours?”

  “Yeah. Give me the wheel.”

  “Coach?”

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “I can’t unclench my hands.”

  It was true. Leo’s fingers felt like they had turned to stone. His eyes burned from staring at the horizon. His knees were marshmallows. Coach Hedge managed to pry him from the wheel.

  Leo took one last look at the console, listening to Festus chatter and whir a status report. Leo felt like he was forgetting something. He stared at the controls, trying to think, but it was no good. His eyes could hardly focus. “Just watch for monsters,” he told the coach. “And be careful with the damaged stabilizer. And—”

  “I’ve got it covered,” Coach Hedge promised. “Now, go away!”

  Leo nodded wearily. He staggered across the deck toward his friends.

  Percy and Jason sat with their backs against the mast, their heads slumped in exhaustion. Annabeth and Piper were trying to get them to drink some water.

  Hazel and Frank stood just out of earshot, having an argument that involved lots of arm waving and head shaking. Leo should not have felt pleased about that, but part of him did. The other part of him felt bad that he felt pleased.

  The argument stopped abruptly when Hazel saw Leo. Everybody gathered at the mast.

  Frank scowled like he was trying hard to turn into a bulldog. “No sign of pursuit,” he said.

  “Or land,” Hazel added. She looked a little green, though Leo wasn’t sure if that was from the rocking of the boat or from arguing.

  Leo scanned the horizon. Nothing but ocean in every direction. That shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d spent six months building a ship that he knew would cross the Atlantic. But until today, their embarking on a journey to the ancient lands hadn’t seemed real. Leo had never been outside the U.S. before—except for a quick dragon flight up to Quebec. Now they were in the middle of the open sea, completely on their own, sailing to the Mare Nostrum, where all the scary monsters and nasty giants had come from. The Romans might not follow them, but they couldn’t count on any help from Camp Half-Blood, either.

  Leo patted his waist to make sure his tool belt was still there. Unfortunately that just reminded him of Nemesis’s fortune cookie, tucked inside one of the pockets.

  You will always be an outsider. The goddess’s voice still wriggled around in his head. The seventh wheel.

  Forget her, Leo told himself. Concentrate on the stuff you can fix.

  He turned to Annabeth. “Did you find the map you wanted?”

  She nodded, though she looked pale. Leo wondered what she’d seen at Fort Sumter that could have shaken her up so badly.

  “I’ll have to study it,” she said, as if that was the end of the subject. “How far are we from those coordinates?”

  “At top rowing speed, about an hour,” Leo said. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Percy?”

  Percy raised his head. His green eyes were bloodshot and droopy. “The Nereid said Chiron’s brothers were there, and they’d want to hear about that aquarium in Atlanta. I don’t know what she meant, but…” He paused, like he’d used up all his energy saying that much. “She also warned me to be careful. Keto, the goddess at the aquarium: she’s the mother of sea monsters. She might be stuck in Atlanta, but she can still send her children after us. The Nereid said we should expect an attack.”

  “Wonderful,” Frank muttered.

  Jason tried to stand, which wasn’t a good idea. Piper grabbed him to keep him from falling over, and he slid back down the mast.

  “Can we get the ship aloft?” he asked. “If we could fly—”

  “That’d be great,” Leo said. “Except Festus tells me the port aerial stabilizer got pulverized when the ship raked against the dock at Fort Sumter.”

  “We were in a hurry,” Annabeth said. “Trying to save you.”

  “And saving me is a very noble cause,” Leo agreed. “I’m just saying, it’ll take some time to fix. Until then, we’re not flying anywhere.”

  Percy flexed his shoulders and winced. “Fine with me. The sea is good.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Hazel glanced at the evening sun, which was almost to the horizon. “We need to go fast. We’ve burned another day, and Nico only has three more left.”

  “We can do it,” Leo promised. He hoped Hazel had forgiven him for not trusting her brother (hey, it had seemed like a reasonable suspicion to Leo), but he didn’t want to reopen that wound. “We can make it to Rome in three days—assuming, you know, nothing unexpected happens.”

  Frank grunted. He looked like he was still working on that bulldog transformation. “Is there any good news?”

  “Actually, yes,” Leo said. “According to Festus, our flying table, Buford, made it back safely while we were in Charleston, so those eagles didn’t get him. Unfortunately, he lost the laundry bag with your pants.”

  “Dang it!” Frank barked, which Leo figured was probably severe profanity for him.

  No doubt Frank would’ve cursed some more—busting out the golly gees and the gosh darns—but Percy interrupted by doubling over and groaning.

  “Did the world just turn upside down?” he asked.

  Jason pressed his hands to his head. “Yeah, and it’s spinning. Everything is yellow. Is it supposed to be yellow?”

  Annabeth and Piper exchanged concerned looks.

  “Summoning that storm really sapped your strength,” Piper told the boys. “You’ve got to rest.”

  Annabeth nodded agreement. “Frank, can you help us get the guys belowdecks?”

  Frank glanced at Leo, no doubt reluctant to leave him alone with Hazel.

  “It’s fine, man,” Leo said. “Just try not to drop them on the way down the stairs.”

  Once the others were below, Hazel and Leo faced each other awkwardly. They were alone except for Coach Hedge, who was back on the quarterdeck singing the Pokémon theme song. The coach had changed the words to: Gotta Kill ’Em All, and Leo really didn’t want to know why.

  The song didn’t seem to help Hazel’s nausea.

  “Ugh…” She leaned over and hugged her sides. She had nice hair—frizzy and golden brown like curls of cinnamon. Her hair reminded Leo of a place in Houston that made excellent churros. The thought made him hungry.

  “Don’t lean over,” he advised. “Don’t close your eyes. It makes the queasiness worse.”

  “It does? Do you get seasick too?”

  “Not seasick. But cars make me nauseous, and…”

  He stopped himself. He wanted to say talking to girls, but he decided to keep that to himself.

  “Cars?” Hazel straightened with difficulty. “You can sail a ship or fly a dragon, but cars make you sick?”

  “I know, right?” Leo shrugged. “I’m special that way. Look, keep your eyes on the horizon. That’s a fixed point. It’ll help.”

  Hazel took a deep breath and stared into the distance. Her eyes were lustrous gold, like the copper and bronze disks inside Festus’s mechanical head.

  “Any better?” he asked.

  “Maybe a little.” She sounded like she was just being polite. She kept her eyes on the horizon, but Leo got the feeling she was gauging his mood, consi
dering what to say.

  “Frank didn’t drop you on purpose,” she said. “He’s not like that. He’s just a little clumsy sometimes.”

  “Oops,” Leo said, in his best Frank Zhang voice. “Dropped Leo into a squad of enemy soldiers. Dang it!”

  Hazel tried to suppress a smile. Leo figured smiling was better than throwing up.

  “Go easy on him,” Hazel said. “You and your fireballs make Frank nervous.”

  “The guy can turn into an elephant, and I make him nervous?”

  Hazel kept her eyes on the horizon. She didn’t look quite so queasy, despite the fact that Coach Hedge was still singing his Pokémon song at the helm.

  “Leo,” she said, “about what happened at the Great Salt Lake…”

  Here it comes, Leo thought.

  He remembered their meeting with the revenge goddess Nemesis. The fortune cookie in his tool belt started to feel heavier. Last night, as they flew from Atlanta, Leo had lain in his cabin and thought about how angry he’d made Hazel. He had thought about ways he could make it right.

  Soon you will face a problem you cannot solve, Nemesis had said, though I could help you…for a price.

  Leo had taken the fortune cookie out of his tool belt and turned it in his fingers, wondering what price he would have to pay if he broke it open.

  Maybe now was the moment.

  “I’d be willing,” he told Hazel. “I could use the fortune cookie to find your brother.”

  Hazel looked stunned. “What? No! I mean…I’d never ask you to do that. Not after what Nemesis said about the horrible cost. We barely know each other!”

  The barely know each other comment kind of hurt, though Leo knew it was true.

  “So…that’s not what you wanted to talk about?” he asked. “Uh, did you want to talk about the holding-hands-on-the-boulder moment? Because—”

  “No!” she said quickly, fanning her face in that cute way she did when she was flustered. “No, I was just thinking about the way you tricked Narcissus and those nymphs…”

  “Oh, right.” Leo glanced self-consciously at his arm. The HOT STUFF tattoo hadn’t completely faded. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”