Percy Jackson The Complete Collection (111 page)

If you’re heading downtown from Central Park, my advice is to take the subway. Flying pigs are faster, but way more dangerous.

The sow soared past the Plaza Hotel, straight into the canyon of Fifth Avenue. My brilliant plan was to climb the rope and get on the pig’s back. Unfortunately, I was too busy swinging around dodging streetlamps and the sides of buildings.

Another thing I learned: it’s one thing to climb a rope in gym class. It’s a completely different thing to climb a rope attached to a moving pig’s wing while you’re flying at a hundred miles an hour.

We zigzagged along several blocks and continued south on Park Avenue.

Boss! Hey, boss!
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blackjack speeding along next to us, darting back and forth to avoid the pig’s wings.

‘Watch out!’ I told him.

Hop on!
Blackjack whinnied.
I can catch you – probably.

That wasn’t very reassuring. Grand Central Station lay dead ahead. Above the main entrance stood the giant statue of Hermes, which I guess hadn’t been activated because it was so high up. I was flying right towards him at the speed of demigod-smashing.

‘Stay alert!’ I told Blackjack. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

Oh, I hate your ideas.

I swung outwards with all my might. Instead of smashing into the Hermes statue, I whipped around it, circling the rope under its arms. I thought this would tether the pig, but I’d underestimated the momentum of a thirty-ton sow in flight. Just as the pig wrenched the statue loose from its pedestal, I let go. Hermes went for a ride, taking my place as the pig’s passenger, and I freefell towards the street.

In that split second, I thought about the days when
my mom used to work at the Grand Central Station candy shop. I thought how bad it would be if I ended up as a grease spot on the pavement.

Then a shadow swooped under me and
thump –
I was on Blackjack’s back. It wasn’t the most comfortable landing. In fact when I yelled, ‘OW!’ my voice was an octave higher than usual.

Sorry, boss
, Blackjack murmured.

‘No problem,’ I squeaked. ‘Follow that pig!’

The porker had taken a right at East Forty-second and was flying back towards Fifth Avenue. When it flew above the rooftops, I could see fires here and there around the city. It looked like my friends were having a rough time. Kronos was attacking on several fronts. But at the moment, I had my own problems.

The Hermes statue was still on its leash. It kept bonking into buildings and spinning around. The pig swooped over an office building and Hermes ploughed into a water tower on the roof, blasting water and wood everywhere.

Then something occurred to me.

‘Get closer,’ I told Blackjack.

He whinnied in protest.

‘Just within shouting distance,’ I said. ‘I need to talk to the statue.’

Now I’m sure you’ve lost it, boss
, Blackjack said, but he did what I asked. When I was close enough to see the statue’s face clearly, I yelled, ‘Hello, Hermes! Command sequence: Daedalus Twenty-three. Kill flying pigs! Begin Activation!’

Immediately the statue moved its legs. It seemed confused to find it was no longer on top of Grand Central Station. It was, instead, being given a sky-ride on the end
of a rope by a large winged sow. It smashed through the side of a brick building, which I think made it a little mad. It shook its head and began to climb the rope.

I glanced down at the street. We were coming up on the main public library, with the big marble lions flanking the steps. Suddenly I had a weird thought – could
stone
statues be automatons, too? It seemed like a long shot, but …

‘Faster!’ I told Blackjack. ‘Get in front of the pig. Taunt him!’

Um, boss –

‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘I can do this – probably.’

Oh, sure. Mock the horse.

Blackjack burst through the air. He could fly pretty darned fast when we wanted to. He got in front of the pig, which now had a metal Hermes on its back.

Blackjack whinnied,
You smell like ham!
He kicked the pig in the snout with his back hooves and went into a steep dive. The pig screamed in rage and followed.

We barrelled straight for the front steps of the library. Blackjack slowed down just enough for me to hop off, then he kept flying towards the main doors.

I yelled out: ‘Lions! Command sequence: Daedalus Twenty-three. Kill flying pigs! Begin Activation!’

The lions stood up and looked at me. They probably thought I was teasing them. But just then: ‘REEEEEET!’

The massive pink pork monster landed with a thud, cracking the sidewalk. The lions stared at it, not believing their luck, and pounced. At the same time, a very beat-up Hermes statue leaped onto the pig’s head and started banging it mercilessly with a caduceus. Those lions had some nasty claws.

I drew Riptide, but there wasn’t much for me to do. The pig disintegrated before my eyes. I almost felt sorry for it. I hoped it got to meet the boar of its dreams down in Tartarus.

When the monster had completely turned to dust, the lions and the Hermes statue looked around in confusion.

‘You can defend Manhattan now,’ I told them, but they didn’t seem to hear. They went charging down Park Avenue, and I imagined they would keep looking for flying pigs until someone deactivated them.

Hey, boss
, said Blackjack.
Can we take a doughnut break?

I wiped the sweat off my brow. ‘I wish, big guy, but the fight’s still going on.’

In fact I could hear it getting closer. My friends needed help. I jumped on Blackjack and we flew north towards the sound of explosions.

Midtown was a warzone. We flew over little skirmishes everywhere. A giant was ripping up trees in Bryant Park while dryads pelted him with nuts. Outside the Waldorf Astoria, a bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin was whacking a hellhound with a rolled-up newspaper. A trio of Hephaestus campers fought a squad of
dracaenae
in the middle of Rockefeller Center.

I was tempted to stop and help, but I could tell from the smoke and noise that the real action had moved further south. Our defences were collapsing. The enemy was closing on the Empire State Building.

We did a quick sweep of the surrounding area. The Hunters had set up a defensive line on Thirty-seventh, just three blocks north of Olympus. To the east on Park Avenue, Jake Mason and some other Hephaestus campers were leading an army of statues against the enemy. To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grover’s nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a squadron of Kronos’s demigods. The south was clear for now, but the flanks of the enemy army were swinging around. A few more minutes, and we’d be totally surrounded.

‘We have to land where they need us most,’ I muttered.

That’s everywhere, boss.

I spotted a familiar silver owl banner in the southeast corner of the fight – Thirty-third at the Park Avenue tunnel. Annabeth and two of her siblings were holding back a Hyperborean giant.

‘There!’ I told Blackjack. He plunged towards the battle.

I leaped off his back and landed on the giant’s head. When the giant looked up, I slid off his face, shield-bashing his nose on the way down.

‘RAWWWR!’ The giant staggered backwards, blue blood trickling from his nostrils.

I hit the pavement running. The Hyperborean breathed a cloud of white mist and the temperature dropped. The spot where I’d landed was now coated with ice, and I was covered in frost like a sugar doughnut.

‘Hey, Ugly!’ Annabeth yelled. I hoped she was talking to the giant, not me.

Blue Boy bellowed and turned towards her, exposing the unprotected back of his legs. I charged and stabbed him behind the knee.

‘WAAAAH!’ The Hyperborean buckled. I waited for him to turn, but he froze. I mean he
literally
turned to solid ice. From the point where I’d stabbed him, cracks appeared in his body. They got larger and wider until the giant crumbled in a mountain of blue shards.

‘Thanks.’ Annabeth winced, trying to catch her breath. ‘The pig?’

‘Pork chops,’ I said.

‘Good.’ She flexed her shoulder. Obviously, the wound was still bothering her, but she saw my expression and
rolled her eyes. ‘I’m fine, Percy. Come on! We’ve got plenty of enemies left.’

She was right. The next hour was a blur. I fought like I’d never fought before – wading into legions of
dracaenae
, taking out dozens of telkhines with every strike, destroying
empousai
and knocking out enemy demigods. No matter how many I defeated, more took their place.

Annabeth and I raced from block to block, trying to shore up our defences. Too many of our friends lay wounded in the streets. Too many were missing.

As the night wore on and the moon got higher, we backed up metre by metre until we were only a block from the Empire State Building in any direction. At one point Grover was next to me, bonking snake-women over the head with his cudgel. Then he disappeared in the crowd, and it was Thalia at my side, driving the monsters back with the power of her magic shield. Mrs O’Leary bounded out of nowhere, picked up a Laistrygonian giant in her mouth and flung him into the air like a Frisbee. Annabeth used her invisibility cap to sneak behind the enemy lines. Whenever a monster disintegrated for no apparent reason with a surprised look on his face, I knew Annabeth had been there.

But it still wasn’t enough.

‘Hold your lines!’ Katie Gardner shouted, somewhere off to my left.

The problem was there were too few of us to hold anything. The entrance to Olympus was six metres behind me. A ring of brave demigods, Hunters and nature spirits guarded the doors. I slashed and hacked, destroying
everything in my path, but even I was getting tired, and I couldn’t be everywhere at once.

Behind the enemy troops, a few blocks to the east, a bright light began to shine. I thought it was the sunrise. Then I realized Kronos was riding towards us on a golden chariot. A dozen Laistrygonian giants bore torches before him. Two Hyperboreans carried his black-and-purple banners. The Titan lord looked fresh and rested, his powers at full strength. He was taking his time advancing, letting me wear myself down.

Annabeth appeared next to me. ‘We have to fall back to the doorway. Hold it at all costs!’

She was right. I was about to order a retreat when I heard the hunting horn.

It cut through the noise of the battle like a fire alarm. A chorus of horns answered from all around us, echoing off the buildings of Manhattan.

I glanced at Thalia, but she just frowned.

‘Not the Hunters,’ she assured me. ‘We’re all here.’

‘Then who?’

The horns got louder. I couldn’t tell where they were coming from because of the echo, but it sounded like an entire army was approaching.

I was afraid it might be more enemies, but Kronos’s forces looked as confused as we were. Giants lowered their clubs.
Dracaenae
hissed. Even Kronos’s honour guard looked uneasy.

Then, to our left, a hundred monsters cried out at once. Kronos’s entire northern flank surged forward. I thought we were doomed, but they didn’t attack. They ran straight past us and crashed into their southern allies.

A new blast of horns shattered the night. The air shimmered. In a blur of movement, an entire cavalry appeared as if dropping out of light speed.

‘Yeah, baby!’ a voice wailed. ‘PARTY!’

A shower of arrows arced over our heads and slammed into the enemy, vaporizing hundreds of demons. But these weren’t regular arrows. They made whizzy sounds as they flew, like WHEEEEEE! Some had pinwheels attached to them. Others had boxing gloves rather than points.

‘Centaurs!’ Annabeth yelled.

The Party Pony army exploded into our midst in a riot of colours – tie-dyed shirts, rainbow Afro wigs, oversized sunglasses and war-painted faces. Some had slogans scrawled across their flanks like:
HORSEZ PWN
or
KRONOS SUX
.

Hundreds of them filled the entire block. My brain couldn’t process everything I saw, but I knew if I were the enemy, I’d be running.

‘Percy!’ Chiron shouted across the sea of wild centaurs. He was dressed in armour from the waist up, his bow in his hand, and he was grinning in satisfaction. ‘Sorry we’re late!’

‘DUDE!’ Another centaur yelled. ‘Talk later. WASTE MONSTERS NOW!’

He locked and loaded a double-barrel paint gun and blasted an enemy hellhound bright pink. The paint must’ve been mixed with Celestial bronze dust or something, because as soon as it splattered the hellhound, the monster yelped and dissolved into a pink-and-black puddle.

‘PARTY PONIES!’ a centaur yelled. ‘SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER!’

Somewhere across the battlefield, a twangy voice yelled back, ‘HEART OF TEXAS CHAPTER!’

‘HAWAII OWNS YOUR FACES!’ a third one shouted.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The entire Titan army turned and fled, pushed back by a flood of paint balls, arrows, swords and NERF baseball bats. The centaurs trampled everything in their path.

‘Stop running, you fools!’ Kronos yelled. ‘Stand and ACKK!’

That last part was because a panicked Hyperborean giant stumbled backwards and sat on top of him. The Lord of Time disappeared under a giant blue butt.

We pushed them for several blocks until Chiron yelled, ‘HOLD! On your promise, HOLD!’

It wasn’t easy, but eventually the order got relayed up and down the ranks of centaurs, and they started to pull back, letting the enemy flee.

‘Chiron’s smart,’ Annabeth said, wiping the sweat off her face. ‘If we pursue, we’ll get too spread out. We need to regroup.’

‘But the enemy –’

‘They’re not defeated,’ she agreed. ‘But the dawn is coming. At least we’ve bought some time.’

I didn’t like pulling back, but I knew she was right. I watched as the last of the telkhines scuttled towards the East River. Then reluctantly I turned and headed back towards the Empire State Building.

We set up a two-block perimeter, with a command tent at the Empire State Building. Chiron informed us that the Party Ponies had sent chapters from almost every state in the Union – forty from California, two from Rhode Island, thirty from Illinois. Roughly five hundred total had
answered his call, but even with that many, we couldn’t defend more than a few blocks.

‘Dude,’ said a centaur named Larry. His T-shirt identified him as
BIG CHIEF ÜBER GUY, NEW MEXICO CHAPTER
. ‘That was more fun than our last convention in Vegas!’

‘Yeah,’ said Owen from South Dakota. He wore a black leather jacket and an old World War II army helmet. ‘We totally wasted them!’

Chiron patted Owen on the back. ‘You did well, my friends, but don’t get careless. Kronos should never be underestimated. Now why don’t you visit the diner on West Thirty-third and get some breakfast? I hear the Delaware chapter found a stash of root beer.’

‘Root beer!’ They almost trampled each other as they galloped off.

Chiron smiled. Annabeth gave him a big hug and Mrs O’Leary licked his face.

‘Ack,’ he grumbled. ‘Enough of that, dog. Yes, I’m glad to see you, too.’

‘Chiron, thanks,’ I said. ‘Talk about saving the day.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry it took so long. Centaurs travel fast, as you know. We can bend distance as we ride. Even so, getting all the centaurs together was no easy task. The Party Ponies are not exactly organized.’

‘How’d you get through the magic defences around the city?’ Annabeth asked.

‘They slowed us down a bit,’ Chiron admitted, ‘but I think they’re intended mostly to keep mortals out. Kronos doesn’t want puny humans getting in the way of his great victory.’

‘So maybe other reinforcements can get through,’ I said hopefully.

Chiron stroked his beard. ‘Perhaps, though time is short. As soon as Kronos regroups, he will attack again. Without the element of surprise on our side …’

I understood what he meant. Kronos wasn’t beaten. Not by a long shot. I half hoped Kronos had been squashed under that Hyperborean giant’s butt, but I knew better. He’d be back, tonight at the latest.

‘And Typhon?’ I asked.

Chiron’s face darkened. ‘The gods are tiring. Dionysus was incapacitated yesterday. Typhon smashed his chariot and the wine god went down somewhere in the Appalachians. No one has seen him since. Hephaestus is out of action as well. He was thrown from the battle so hard he created a new lake in West Virginia. He will heal, but not soon enough to help. The others still fight. They’ve managed to slow Typhon’s approach. But the monster cannot be stopped. He will arrive in New York by this time tomorrow. Once he and Kronos combine forces –’

‘Then what chance do we have?’ I said. ‘We can’t hold out another day.’

‘We’ll have to,’ Thalia said. ‘I’ll see about setting some new traps around the perimeter.’

She looked exhausted. Her jacket was smeared in grime and monster dust, but she managed to get to her feet and stagger off.

‘I will help her,’ Chiron decided. ‘I should make sure my brethren don’t go too overboard with the root beer.’

I thought ‘too overboard’ pretty much summed up the Party Ponies, but Chiron cantered off, leaving Annabeth and me alone.

She cleaned the monster slime off
her knife. I’d seen her do that hundreds of times, but I’d never thought about why she cared so much about the blade.

‘At least your mom is okay,’ I offered.

‘If you call fighting Typhon
okay.
’ She locked eyes with me. ‘Percy, even with the centaurs’ help, I’m starting to think –’

‘I know.’ I had a bad feeling this might be our last chance to talk, and I felt like there were a million things I hadn’t told her. ‘Listen, there were some … some visions Hestia showed me.’

‘You mean about Luke?’

Maybe it was just a safe guess, but I got the feeling Annabeth knew what I’d been holding back. Maybe she’d been having dreams of her own.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You and Thalia and Luke. The first time you met. And the time you met Hermes.’

Annabeth slipped her knife back into its sheath. ‘Luke promised he’d never let me get hurt. He said … he said we’d be a new family, and it would turn out better than his.’

Her eyes reminded me of that seven-year-old girl in the alley – angry, scared, desperate for a friend.

‘Thalia talked to me earlier,’ I said. ‘She’s afraid –’

‘That I can’t face Luke,’ she said miserably.

I nodded. ‘But there’s something else you should know. Ethan Nakamura seemed to think Luke was still alive inside his body, maybe even fighting Kronos for control.’

Annabeth tried to hide it, but I could almost see her mind working on the possibilities, maybe starting to hope.

‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ I admitted.

She looked up at the Empire State Building. ‘Percy, for
so much of my life, I felt like everything was changing, all the time. I didn’t have anyone I could rely on.’

I nodded. That was something most demigods could understand.

‘I ran away when I was seven,’ she said. ‘Then with Luke and Thalia I thought I’d found a family, but it fell apart almost immediately. What I’m saying … I
hate
it when people let me down, when things are temporary. I think that’s why I want to be an architect.’

‘To build something permanent,’ I said. ‘A monument to last a thousand years.’

She held my eyes. ‘I guess that sounds like my fatal flaw again.’

Years ago in the Sea of Monsters, Annabeth had told me her biggest flaw was pride – thinking she could fix anything. I’d even seen a glimpse of her deepest desire, shown to her by the Sirens’ magic. Annabeth had imagined her mother and father together, standing in front of a newly rebuilt Manhattan, designed by Annabeth. And Luke had been there, too – good again, welcoming her home.