Percy Jackson The Complete Collection (55 page)

The thing about flying on a pegasus during the daytime is that, if you’re not careful, you can cause a serious traffic accident on the Long Island Expressway. I had to keep Blackjack up in the clouds, which were fortunately pretty low in the winter. We darted around, trying to keep the white Camp Half-Blood van in sight. And if it was cold on the ground, it was seriously cold in the air, with icy rain stinging my skin.

I was wishing I’d brought some of that Camp Half-Blood orange thermal underwear they sold in the camp store but, after the story about Phoebe and the centaur-blood T-shirt, I wasn’t sure I trusted their products any more.

We lost the van twice, but I had a pretty good sense that they would go into Manhattan first, so it wasn’t too difficult to pick up their trail again.

Traffic was bad with the holidays and all. It was mid morning before they got into the city. I landed Blackjack near the top of the Chrysler Building and watched the white camp van, thinking it would pull into the Greyhound station, but it just kept driving.

‘Where’s Argus taking them?’ I muttered.

Oh, Argus ain’t driving, boss,
Blackjack told me.
That girl is.

‘Which girl?’

The Hunter girl. With the silver crown thing in her hair.

‘Zoë?’

That’s the one. Hey, look! There’s a doughnut shop. Can we hit the drive-thru?

I tried explaining to Blackjack that taking a flying horse through the drive-thru would give every cop in the doughnut shop a heart attack, but he didn’t seem to get it. Meanwhile, the van kept snaking its way towards the Lincoln Tunnel. It had never even occurred to me that Zoë could drive. I mean, she didn’t look sixteen. Then again, she was immortal. I wondered if she had a New York licence and, if so, what her birth date said.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Let’s get after them.’

We were about to leap off the Chrysler Building when Blackjack whinnied in alarm and almost threw me. Something was curling around my leg like a snake. I reached for my sword, but when I looked down, there was no snake. Vines – grapevines – had sprouted from the cracks between the stones of the building. They were wrapping round Blackjack’s legs, lashing down my ankles so we couldn’t move.

‘Going somewhere?’ Mr D asked.

He was leaning against the building with his feet levitating in the air, his leopard-skin warm-up suit and black hair whipping around in the wind.

God alert!
Blackjack yelled.
It’s the wine dude!

Mr D sighed in exasperation. ‘The next person,
or horse,
who calls me “the wine dude” will end up in a bottle of Merlot!’

‘Mr D.’ I tried to keep my voice calm as the grapevines continued to wrap round my legs. ‘What do you want?’

‘Oh, what do I want? You thought, perhaps, that the immortal, all-powerful director of camp would not notice you leaving without permission?’

‘Well… maybe.’

‘I should throw you off this building, minus the flying horse, and see how heroic you sound on the way down.’

I balled my fists. I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but Mr D was about to kill me or haul me back to camp in shame, and I couldn’t stand either idea. ‘Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you?’

Purple flames flickered in his eyes. ‘You’re a hero, boy. I need no other reason.’

‘I
have
to go on this quest! I’ve got to help my friends. That’s something you wouldn’t understand!’

Um, boss,
Blackjack said nervously.
Seeing as how we’re wrapped in vines three hundred metres in the air, you might want to talk nice.

The grapevines coiled tighter round me. Below us, the white van was getting further and further away. Soon it would be out of sight.

‘Did I ever tell you about Ariadne?’ Mr D asked. ‘Beautiful young princess of Crete? She liked helping her friends, too. In fact, she helped a young hero named Theseus, also a son of Poseidon. She gave him a ball of magical thread that let him find his way out of the Labyrinth. And do you know how Theseus rewarded her?’

The answer I wanted to give was
I don’t care!
But I didn’t figure that would make Mr D finish his story any faster.

‘They got married,’ I said. ‘Happily ever after. The end.’

Mr D sneered. ‘Not quite. Theseus
said
he would marry her. He took her aboard his ship and sailed for Athens.
Halfway back, on a little island called Naxos, he – what’s the word you mortals use today? – he
dumped
her. I found her there, you know. Alone. Heartbroken. Crying her eyes out. She had given up everything, left everything she knew behind, to help a dashing young hero who tossed her away like a broken sandal.’

‘That’s wrong,’ I said. ‘But that was thousands of years ago. What’s that got to do with me?’

Mr D regarded me coldly. ‘I fell in love with Ariadne, boy. I healed her broken heart. And, when she died, I made her my immortal wife in Olympus. She waits for me even now. I shall go back to her when I am done with this infernal century of punishment at your ridiculous camp.’

I stared at him. ‘You’re… you’re married? But I thought you got in trouble for chasing a wood nymph –’

‘My point
is you heroes
never
change. You accuse us gods of being vain. You should look at yourselves. You take what you want, use whoever you have to, and then you betray everyone around you. So you’ll excuse me if I have no love for heroes. They are a selfish, ungrateful lot. Ask Ariadne. Or Medea. For that matter, ask Zoë Nightshade.’

‘What do you mean, ask Zoë?’

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Go. Follow your silly friends.’

The vines uncurled from round my legs.

I blinked in disbelief. ‘You’re… you’re letting me go? Just like that?’

‘The prophecy says at least two of you will die. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and you’ll be one of them. But mark my words, Son of Poseidon, live or die, you will prove no better than the other heroes.’

With that, Dionysus snapped his fingers. His image folded up like a paper display. There was a
pop
and he was gone, leaving a faint scent of grapes that was quickly blown away by the wind.

Too close,
Blackjack said.

I nodded, though I almost would have been less worried if Mr D had hauled me back to camp. The fact that he’d let me go meant he really believed we stood a fair chance of crashing and burning on this quest.

‘Come on, Blackjack,’ I said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘I’ll buy you some doughnuts in New Jersey.’

As it turned out, I didn’t buy Blackjack doughnuts in New Jersey. Zoë drove south like a crazy person, and we were into Maryland before she finally pulled over at a service station. Blackjack nearly tumbled out of the sky, he was so tired.

I’ll be okay, boss,
he panted.
Just… just catching my breath.

‘Stay here,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to scout.’

‘Stay here’ I can handle. I can do that.

I put on my cap of invisibility and walked over to the convenience store. It was difficult not to sneak. I had to keep reminding myself that nobody could see me. It was hard, too, because I had to remember to get out of people’s way so they wouldn’t slam into me.

I thought I’d go inside and warm up, maybe get a cup of hot chocolate or something. I had a little change in my pocket. I could leave it on the counter. I was wondering if the cup would turn invisible when I picked it up, or if I’d have to deal with a floating hot chocolate problem, when my whole plan was ruined by Zoë, Thalia,
Bianca and Grover all coming out of the store.

‘Grover, are you sure?’ Thalia was saying.

‘Well… pretty sure. Ninety-nine per cent. Okay, eighty-five per cent.’

‘And you did this with acorns?’ Bianca asked, like she couldn’t believe it.

Grover looked offended. ‘It’s a time-honoured tracking spell. I mean, I’m pretty sure I did it right.’

‘D.C. is about sixty miles from here,’ Bianca said. ‘Nico and I…’ She frowned. ‘We used to lived there. That’s… that’s strange. I’d forgotten.’

‘I dislike this,’ Zoë said. ‘We should go straight west. The prophecy said west.’

‘Oh, like your tracking skills are better?’ Thalia growled.

Zoë stepped towards her. ‘You challenge my skills, you scullion? You know
nothing
of being a Hunter!’

‘Oh,
scullion? You’re
calling
me
a scullion? What the heck is a scullion?’

‘Whoa, you two,’ Grover said nervously. ‘Come on. Not again!’

‘Grover’s right,’ Bianca said. ‘D.C. is our best bet.’

Zoë didn’t look convinced, but she nodded reluctantly. ‘Very well. Let us keep moving.’

‘You’re going to get us arrested, driving,’ Thalia grumbled. ‘I look closer to sixteen than you do.’

‘Perhaps,’ Zoë snapped. ‘But I have been driving since automobiles were invented. Let us go.’

As Blackjack and I continued south, following the van, I wondered whether Zoë had been kidding. I didn’t know exactly when cars were invented, but I figured that was like
prehistoric times – back when people watched black-and-white TV and hunted dinosaurs.

How old
was
Zoë? And what had Mr D been talking about? What bad experience had she had with heroes?

As we got closer to Washington, Blackjack started slowing down and dropping altitude. He was breathing heavily.

‘You okay?’ I asked him.

Fine, boss. I could… I could take on an army.

‘You don’t sound so good.’ And suddenly I felt guilty, because I’d been running the pegasus for half a day, nonstop, trying to keep up with highway traffic. Even for a flying horse, that had to be rough.

Don’t worry about me, boss! I’m a tough one.

I figured he was right, but I also figured Blackjack would run himself into the ground before he complained, and I didn’t want that.

Fortunately, the van started to slow down. It crossed the Potomac River into central Washington. I started thinking about air patrols and missiles and stuff like that. I didn’t know exactly how all those defences worked, and wasn’t sure if pegasi even showed up on your typical military radar, but I didn’t want to find out by getting shot out of the sky.

‘Set me down there,’ I told Blackjack. ‘That’s close enough.’

Blackjack was so tired he didn’t complain. He dropped towards the Washington Monument and set me on the grass.

The van was only a few blocks away. Zoë had parked at the kerb.

I looked at Blackjack. ‘I want you to go back to camp. Get some rest.
Graze.
I’ll be fine.’

Blackjack cocked his head sceptically.
You sure, boss?

‘You’ve done enough
already,’
I said. ‘I’ll be fine. And thanks a ton.’

A ton of hay, maybe,
Blackjack mused.
That sounds good. All right, but be careful, boss. I got a feeling they didn’t come here to meet anything friendly and handsome like me.

I promised to be careful. Then Blackjack took off, circling twice round the monument before disappearing into the clouds.

I looked over at the white van. Everybody was getting out. Grover pointed towards one of the big buildings lining the mall. Thalia nodded, and the four of them trudged off into the cold wind.

I started to follow. But then I froze.

A block away, the door of a black sedan opened. A man with a grey military haircut got out. He was wearing dark shades and a black overcoat. Now, maybe in Washington, you’d expected guys like that to be everywhere. But it dawned on me that I’d seen this same car a couple of times on the highway, going south. It had been following the van.

The guy took out his cell phone and said something into it. Then he looked around, like he was making sure the coast was clear, and started walking down the mall in the direction of my friends.

The worst of it was: when he turned towards me, I recognized his face. It was Dr Thorn, the manticore from Westover Hall.

Invisibility cap on, I followed Thorn from a distance. My heart was pounding. If
he
had survived that fall from the cliff, then Annabeth must have too. My dreams had been right. She was alive and being held prisoner.

Thorn kept well back from my friends, careful not to be seen.

Finally, Grover stopped in front of a big building that said
AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM
. The Smithsonian! I’d been here a million years ago with my mom, but everything had looked so much bigger then.

Thalia checked the door. It was open, but there weren’t many people going in. Too cold, and it was school holidays. They slipped inside.

Dr Thorn hesitated. I wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t go into the museum. He turned and headed across the mall. I made a split-second decision and followed him.

Thorn crossed the street and climbed the steps of the Museum of Natural History. There was a big sign on the door. At first I thought it said
CLOSED FOR PIRATE EVENT
. Then I realized
PIRATE
must be
PRIVATE
.

I followed Dr Thorn inside, through a huge chamber full of mastodons and dinosaur skeletons. There were voices up ahead, coming from behind a set of closed doors. Two guards stood outside. They opened the doors for Thorn, and I had to sprint to get inside before they closed them again.

Inside, what I saw was so terrible I almost gasped out loud, which probably would’ve got me killed.

I was in a huge round room with a balcony ringing the second level. At least a dozen mortal guards stood on the balcony, plus two monsters – reptilian women with
double-snake trunks instead of legs. I’d seen them before. Annabeth had called them
Scythian dracaenae.