TEN, dinner with a war god
❀ ✿ ❀ ✿
WITH GROVER'S ABILITY TO read signs, the four friends were currently sitting at a booth in a gleaming chrome diner. It was almost nostalgic; all around them, families were eating burgers and draining malts and sodas. It was a scene straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
Finally, the waitress came over to them. She raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Well?" she said, and Percy glanced around nervously.
"We, um, want to order dinner," Percy said. Aster nearly scoffed.
"You kids have money to pay for it?" the waitress asked impatiently.
Grover's lower lip quivered. Aster wasn't sure if he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum. She was ready to pass out from hunger, and Annabeth didn't look too good either. Aster was too tired to try and think of a sob story to tell.
Just then, a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.
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. Aster sat up straighter.
The guy on the bike would've made pro wrestlers run for their mommy. 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 cruelest, most brutal face Aster had ever seen, with an oily black crew cut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights. His face reminded her of someone back at camp, and she knew immediately who he was. And it wasn't good to make him angry.
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 them again, "You kids have money to pay for it?"
The biker said, "It's on me." He slid into their booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Aster and Annabeth against the window. The man radiated power like a god, and Aster knew it was better not to speak.
The man 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 manually, then marched back toward the kitchen.
The biker looked at Percy, and his expression turned sour. Aster could feel anger and resentment rising within her, but she managed to keep her face blank.
The biker grinned wickedly. "So you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?"
Percy narrowed his eyes at the biker. "What's it to you?"
Aster's eyes widened as she stared at Percy, trying to send him a silent warning.
Annabeth did the same. "Percy, this is–"
The biker raised his hand and cut her off. "S'okay, I don't mind a little attitude. Long as you remember who's the boss. You know who I am, little cousin?"
"You're Clarisse's dad," Percy 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. Aster knew if he stared at anyone with those eyes, they would back away from the fight. "That's right, punk. I heard you broke Clarisse's spear."
"She was asking for it," Percy said bitterly. Aster's jaw clenched.
"Probably," Ares shrugged. "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, and the waitress looked nervously down 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.
Aster stared over at Ares's knife. She said in a small voice, "I'm pretty sure that's not legal."
"You can't do that," Percy 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 favor."
"What favor 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."
Percy narrowed his eyes at Ares. "Why don't you go back and get it yourself ?"
The fire in the war god's eye sockets glowed a little hotter. "Why don't I turn you into a 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."
Percy's jaw clenched, and Aster swallowed. If Percy kept arguing with an Olympian, they would all be goners.
"We're not interested," Percy said. "We've already got a quest."
Ares glared at Percy, who stared helplessly into his eyes. Aster didn't know what Percy was seeing, but it couldn't have been good, gaging from his expression. "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 the doubt. Your dad and I go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath."
Aster's eyes widened. "You told him Hades stole the bolt?" she blurted, and Ares shrugged—it seemed off.
"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," Percy 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, thanks."
"Yeah, right," Ares scoffed. "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."
Percy looked up, his eyes filled with something crossed with hope and resentment. "My mom?"
Ares 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?" Aster asked.
"Something scare you off?" Percy added, eyes fixed on Ares.
Ares bared his teeth, an expression Aster had seen plenty of times on Clarisse—usually directed towards her. Although 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."
Aster thought that she must have either fainted or fallen into a trance, because she blinked once and Ares was gone. She and Annabeth exchanged looks, and Aster knew they were both thinking the same thing.
"Not good," Grover said. "Ares sought you out, Percy. This is not good."
Percy stared out the window and didn't answer. Aster knew he must have been weighing his options, and thinking about his mom. After all, the offer Ares gave him was enticing, but it seemed too good to be true. Ares loved 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," Percy shook his head. "Forget Ares. Let's just go."
"We can't," Aster said, leaning across the table. "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. He would without question, and have fun while doing it."
Percy looked down at his cheeseburger and looked like he would be sick. "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," Percy pointed out. "What would make a war god run away like that?"
"I'm afraid we'll have to find out," Aster said with a grimace.
– ❀ –
THE SUN WAS SINKING behind the mountains by the time they 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 WATRAD.
The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Inside, huge dry water slides and tubes and pipes curled everywhere, leading to empty pools. Old tickets and advertisements fluttered around the asphalt. With night coming on, the place looked sad and creepy.
"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date," Percy said, staring up at the barbed wire, "I'd hate to see what she looks like."
"Percy," Aster warned, glancing around nervously. "Be more respectful."
"Why? I thought you hated Ares," Percy said, but Aster shook her head.
"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?" Percy asked.
"No, Aphrodite," Grover said dreamily. Aster slapped his arm to snap him out of it. He cleared his throat and continued. "Goddess of love."
"I thought she was married to somebody," Percy said, furrowing his eyebrows. "Hephaestus."
"What's your point?" Grover asked.
"Oh," Percy breathed, and Aster nodded.
"So how do we get in?" Percy asked, changing the subject.
"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?"
Aster sighed and looked at Percy and Annabeth, who looked as annoyed as she felt. They had to climb the old-fashioned way, holding down the barbed wire for each other as they crawled over the top.
Their shadows grew long as they 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 them. Nothing made the slightest noise, which made the park that much more eerie. The abandoned park seemed perfect for a monster to call home. Aster glanced around, keeping aware of her surroundings. She didn't want another Echidna or Medusa incident.
The four friends found a souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise still lined the shelves: snow globes, pencils, postcards, and racks of–
"Clothes," Aster said, wistfully. "Fresh clothes."
"Yeah," Percy said. "But you can't just–"
"Watch me," Aster said cheekily, then she made her way into the shop. She snatched an entire row of stuff from the racks and disappeared into the changing room. A few minutes later she came out in Waterland flower-print shorts, a big blue Waterland T-shirt, and commemorative Waterland surf shoes. A Waterland backpack was slung over her shoulder, which she had stuffed with more goodies, just in case. Annabeth followed her in, emerging in a similar outfit.
"What the heck." Grover shrugged. Soon, all of them were decked out like walking advertisements for the defunct theme park.
The four of them continued searching for the Tunnel of Love. The air felt weird, almost like the whole park was holding its breath.
"So Ares and Aphrodite," Percy said, his eyes almost glowing in the coming darkness, "they have a thing going?"
"That's old gossip, Percy," Annabeth told him. "Three-thousand-year-old gossip."
"What about Aphrodite's husband?" Percy asked, and Annabeth shrugged.
"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? Ares is big and strong, fits the bill nicely."
"Basically, she likes bikers," Aster told him. Annabeth rolled her eyes.
Percy didn't seem to notice. "Hephaestus knows?"
"Oh sure," Aster 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 at a huge sign, which looked like Valentine's Day had thrown up on it. "Like that."
In front of them was an empty pool that looked sort of like a skatepark. It was at least fifty yards 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 toward 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," Percy said. "So we just walk down there and get it?"
Aster shrugged and looked at Annabeth. Her friend ran her fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue, where something was carved: η. Eta.
"There's a Greek letter carved here," Annabeth mused. "Eta. I wonder..."
"Grover," Percy said, "you smell any monsters?"
He sniffed the wind. "Nothing."
Percy stared at him. "Nothing—like, in-the-Arch-and-you-didn't-smell-Echidna nothing, or really nothing?"
Grover looked hurt. "I told you, that was underground. Aster glared at Percy.
"Okay, I'm sorry." Percy took a deep breath. "I'm going down there."
"I'll go with you." Grover didn't sound too enthusiastic, but Aster knew he was guilty about what had happened in St. Louis.
"No," Percy told him. "I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. You're the Red Baron, a flying ace, 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. Aster, come with me–"
"Are you kidding?" Aster reeled, feeling her cheeks grow warm. She saw how romantic looking the ride was, and she didn't want anyone to get the wrong assumption. It was called the Thrill Ride of Love for Demeter's sake! Her stomach dropped.
"What's the problem now?" Percy demanded.
Aster stared at him, arms crossed over her chest. "Me, go with you to the 'Thrill Ride of Love? ' Are you crazy? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?"
"Who's going to see you?" Percy asked, and his face had flushed a bright red. Aster didn't move an inch. "Fine," he told her. "I'll do it myself."
Percy started down the edge of the pool. Aster scowled as she followed, just so he wouldn't screw up like he had at the Arch—jumping out of a hole five hundred feet above ground, Aster in tow.
"Stupid circumstances," she muttered under her breath.
The two of them reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat, and next to it was a lady's silk scarf. Aster tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. But why here, specifically? Aster looked around, seeing mirrors that were all the way around the rim of the pool, facing the spot where they were standing. She must not have been able to see them from the top. Aster could see her and Percy no matter which direction she looked. She didn't know who was in charge of designing this ride, but she would need to have a chat with them. Seeing yourself at all times was sort of creepy. Though she could see the conceded Ares and Aphrodite making out, looking at their favorite people: themselves.
Percy picked up the scarf that was laid next to the shield. He smelled it, and smiled very dreamily. Percy raised to rub the scarf to his cheek when Aster ripped the scarf out of his hand and stuffed it in her pocket. "Oh, no you don't. Stay away from that love magic.
"What?" Percy looked confused, and Aster just sighed.
"Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let's get out of here. I have a bad feeling..."
The moment Percy touched the shield, his hand seemed to have broken through something that had been connected to the dashboard, which had been invisible before. Aster could see that it was made of some sort of metal filament. A trip wire.
"Wait," Aster said in vain. She had felt another carving of the same Greek letter: η.
"Too late."
"Annabeth! There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta," Aster said, straightening. "This is a trap."
Noise erupted all around them, 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 Aster could suggest taking cover, they shot, but not at the two demigods. 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 strands, making a net.
"We have to get out," Percy said.
"Really?" Aster said. "What gave you that impression?"
Percy gave her a murderous look and grabbed the shield. "Do you really want your last words to be sarcastic?"
"No!" Aster replied. Besides, she wasn't planning on dying there.
Though going down the slope was simple, trying to come back up wasn't too easy. They slipped down the polished side, and Grover and Annabeth urged them along.
"Come on!" Grover shouted. He was trying to hold open a section of the net for them, but wherever he touched it, the golden threads started to wrap around his hands. Annabeth's eyes searched for another way out, but there wasn't one.
The Cupids' heads popped open. Out came video cameras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding them 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! Aster, Eta is 'H'!"
"Crap," Aster said under her breath, turning to Percy. "He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares—he must have realized that. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!"
They'd almost made it to the rim when the row of mirrors opened like hatches and thousands of tiny metallic... things poured out.
Aster recoiled, her breath coming faster. An army of wind-up creepy-crawlies—bronze-gear bodies, spindly legs, little pincer mouths—were coming towards Aster and Percy in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.
Aster tried to scramble away from them. "What the fu–"
"Spiders!" Annabeth said, screaming and falling back from the net she was trying to hold back. "Sp—sp—aaaah!"
Annabeth had a legitimate reason to be scared of spiders. Since Arachnid got turned into a spider by Athena, her children had been going after Athena's for centuries.
Aster didn't have an actual fear of spiders, but those things coming towards her and Percy were freaky. Her body froze for just a second too late. She was almost overwhelmed by the spider robots before Percy pulled her up and dragged her back toward the boat.
The things were coming out from all around the rim now, millions of them, flooding toward the center of the pool, completely surrounding them. Percy told Aster they probably weren't programmed to kill, just corral them and bite them and make them look stupid. But that didn't really help anything. This was a trap meant for gods, which was something they certainly were not.
Aster and Percy climbed into the boat. Percy tried to kick away the spiders as they swarmed aboard. He yelled at Aster to help him, but she could barely hear him over the buzzing noise in her ears and Annabeth's screams. She blindly reached for a throwing knife, but then realized it would do little against the tiny machines. If those spiders were meant to subdue a god, they were certainly going to kill her and Percy.
"Thirty, twenty-nine," called the loudspeaker.
The spiders started spitting out strands of metal thread, trying to tie them down. The strands were easy enough to break at first, but there were so many of them, and the spiders just kept coming. Even her blade eventually had trouble when they layered on top of her and Percy.
Grover hovered above the pool in his flying sneakers, trying to pull the net loose, but it wouldn't budge. Annabeth was paralyzed, shaking a few feet from the edge of the pool. Some rogue spiders went towards her, which she swatted away with her hat.
Another wave of spiders came towards them, from the other side this time, and Aster took a position up at Percy's back. She held two knives in her hands, but her throws only subdued a dozen of them for a few seconds.
"Fifteen, fourteen," the loudspeaker called.
Aster risked a glance back at Percy, who's eyebrows were furrowed and sea green eyes were full of determination.
"Grover!" he yelled. "Get into that booth! Find the 'on' switch!"
Grover looked skeptical. "But–"
"Do it!"
All of their attempts to stop the spiders were futile, but Grover quickly made it to the controller's booth, slamming away at the buttons.
"Five, four–"
Percy had just then closed his eyes and slightly raised his hands.
"Two, one, zero!"
Water exploded out of the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. Percy pulled Aster into the seat next to him and fastened her seat belt just as the tidal wave slammed into the boat, over the top, whisking the spiders away and dousing them completely, but not capsizing them. The boat turned, lifted in the flood, and spun in circles around the whirlpool.
The water was full of short-circuiting spiders, some of them smashing against the pool's concrete wall with such force they burst.
Spotlights glared down at them. The Cupid-cams were rolling, live to Olympus.
The boat seemed to ride the current and stay away from the wall, and Aster realized that Percy must have been controlling it. Or, more like the water. She realized it was probably similar to Aster's own powers, and she calmed. The water level was now almost high enough to shred them against the metal net. Then the boat's nose turned toward the tunnel and the pair rocketed through into the darkness.
Aster and Percy held tight, both screaming as the boat shot curls and hugged corners and took forty-five degree plunges past pictures of Romeo and Juliet and a bunch of other Valentine's Day stuff.
Then they were out of the tunnel, the night air whistling through their hair as the boat barreled straight toward the exit.
If the ride had been in working order, Percy and Aster would've sailed off a ramp between the golden Gates of Love and splashed down safely in the exit pool. But there was a problem. The Gates of Love were chained. Two boats that had been washed out of the tunnel before them were now piled against the barricade—one submerged, the other cracked in half. Aster's heart dropped.
"Unfasten your seat belt," Percy yelled.
Aster's eyes widened as she held tighter onto the boat. "Are you crazy?"
"Unless you want to get smashed to death," Percy said calmly, strapping Ares's shield to his arm. "We're going to have to jump for it."
This boy and jumping whenever in danger, Aster thought. But it was the only way. She grabbed Percy's hand for logistics and comfort as they approached the gates.
"On my mark," Percy said.
Aster shook her head. "No! On my mark!"
"What?" Percy yelled over the wind.
Aster remembered back to a few months ago, when Annabeth had given her a series of grueling lessons on physics because she'd had hyperfixation on the subject. Although Aster had been bored out of her mind, apparently it would be helpful.
"Simple physics!" she yelled. "Force times the trajectory angle–"
"Fine!" Percy shouted. "On your mark!"
Aster hesitated . . . hesitated . . . then yelled, "Now!"
Crack!
A surprised laugh left Aster when she was right, the crash giving them the maximum lift, though it was a bit more than they needed. The boat smashed into the pileup and they were thrown into the air, straight over the gates, over the pool, and down toward solid asphalt.
Right as Aster was bracing for a very bad crash landing, something grabbed her arm. "Ouch!" she yelled as it tugged on her. Then she realized: Grover! He had saved them, midair. Unfortunately, it wasn't going as well as she'd hoped, as Aster and Percy had the momentum and they were going straight down.
"You're too heavy!" Grover said. "We're going down!"
The three of them spiraled toward the ground, Grover doing his best to slow the fall.
They smashed into a photo-board, Grover's head going straight into the hole where tourists would put their faces, pretending to be Noo-Noo the Friendly Whale. Aster and Percy tumbled to the ground, banged up but alive. When she glanced over at Percy, Ares's shield was still strapped to his arm, and Aster let out a breath of relief. Annabeth was soon with them, out of breath from running.
Once they caught their breath, Aster and Percy helped Annabeth retrieve Grover from the photo-board and thanked him for saving their lives. Aster glanced back at the Thrill Ride of Love. The water was subsiding, and the boat Percy and Aster had ridden to safety had been smashed to pieces against the gates.
A hundred yards away, at the entrance pool, the Cupids were still filming. The statues had swiveled so that their cameras were trained straight on the trio, the spotlights in their faces.
"Show's over!" Aster yelled at them, throwing her hands up angrily. "Thank you! Good night!"
The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. The park went quiet and dark again, except for the gentle trickle of water into the Thrill Ride of Love's exit pool. Aster wondered if her mother had seen them make fools out of themselves. She hoped Demeter wasn't too embarrassed of her.
Percy hefted the shield on his arm and turned to Aster, Annabeth, and Grover. "We need to have a little talk with Ares."