Catch Fire || P. Jackson

𝟏.𝟎𝟖

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐘 𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐀 Medusa victim—which is to say, like a rock.

He hadn't crashed in a safe, comfortable bed since...well, he couldn't even remember. Despite his insane day and the million thoughts running through his head, his body took over and said: You will sleep now.

He had dreams, of course. He always had dreams, but they passed like blurred images from the window of a train. He saw a curly-haired faun in ragged clothes running to catch up with him.

"I don't have any spare change," Percy called.

"What?" the faun said. "No, Percy. It's me, Grover! Stay put! We're on our way to find you. Tyson is close—at least we think he's the closest. We're trying to get a lock on your position."

"What?" Percy called, but the faun disappeared in the fog.

Then a curly-haired blonde girl was running along beside him, reaching out her hand. "Thank the gods!" she called. "For months and months, we couldn't see you! Are you all right?"

Percy remembered what Juno had said—for months he had been slumbering, but now he is awake. The goddess had intentionally kept him hidden, but why?

"Who are you?" he asked her.

Her mouth opened to answer but her face began to dissolve. She cried, "Stay put! It'll be easier for Tyson to find you! Stay where you are!"Then she was gone.

The images accelerated.

He saw a huge ship in a dry dock, workers scrambling to finish the hull, a guy with a blowtorch welding a bronze dragon figurehead to the prow. He saw the war god stalking toward him in the surf, a sword in his hands.

The scene shifted. Percy stood on the Field of Mars, looking up at the Berkeley Hills. Golden grass rippled, and a face appeared in the landscape—a sleeping woman, her features formed from shadows and folds in the terrain.

Her eyes remained closed, but her voice spoke in Percy's mind: So this is the demigod who destroyed my son Kronos. You don't look like much, Percy Jackson, but you're valuable to me. Come north. Meet Alcyoneus. Juno can play her little games with Greeks and Romans, but in the end, you will be my pawn. You will be the key to the gods' defeat.

Percy's vision turned dark. He stood in a theatre-sized version of the camp's headquarters—a Principia with walls of ice and freezing mist hanging in the air. The floor was littered with skeletons in Roman armour and Imperial gold weapons encrusted with frost.

In the back of the room sat an enormous shadowy figure. His skin glinted of gold and silver as if he were an automaton like Reyna's dogs. Behind him stood a collection of ruined emblems, tattered banners, and a large golden eagle on a staff of iron. The giant's voice boomed in the vast chamber. "This will be fun, son of Neptune. It's been aeons since I broke a demigod of your calibre. I await you atop the ice."

Percy woke, shivering. For a moment he didn't know where he was. Then he remembered: Camp Jupiter, the Fifth Cohort barracks. He lay in his bunk, staring at the ceiling and trying to control his racing heartbeat.

He sat up in his bunk. His roommates were sound asleep, snoring like an out-of-tune middle school band. Frank was tossing and turning in the bunk below him making Percy's bunk shake. Clearly, he was having a very similar night to Percy.

In a momentary lapse of judgment, Percy slipped from his barracks into the cool midnight air.

The sound of knocking woke Lea from her fitful sleep. A soft golden glow filled the medics quarter like a nightlight. The 16-year-old blinked a couple of times before realising the knocking was coming from her door, not the Valetudinarian's door.