NINETEEN, cab ride from hell
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ASTER WAITED IMPATIENTLY in an alley down Church Street. Thoughts bounced around in her brain at a mole a minute. Even though she'd been following him all day, Aster still couldn;t believe that Percy was friends with a cyclops. And he still hadn't noticed.
Footsteps approached, and Aster peeked out of the alley to see Percy and Tyson walking, their tie-dye shirts still steaming. Once they passed her, Aster grabbed both of their arms and yanked them away from the road, where a fire truck screamed past. She let go of Tyson immediately, but her arm lingered on Percy, the touch familiar and strangely comforting.
"Where'd you find him?" Aster demanded, pointing at Tyson.
Percy's eyes flashed through a bunch of different emotions before he landed on confusion. Despite everything that had happened earlier that day, Aster was still happy to see him. She missed him more than she cared to admit, and actually seeing him while he saw her was refreshing.
"He's my friend," Percy told her.
"Is he homeless?"
"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don't you ask him?"
Aster was surprised, looking Tyson up and down. "He can talk?"
"I talk," Tyson admitted. "You are pretty."
"Ah! Gross!" Aster pointedly took a step away from him, and the terror that she had felt at seven years old flashed back in her memory. His kind had been the one to almost cook her friends, his kind had been the one to kill Thalia. She had to keep reminding herself that this monster couldn't be her friend, and he couldn't be Percy's either.
"Tyson," Percy said, looking down at Tyson's hands in disbelief. "Your hands aren't even burned."
"Of course they're not," Aster muttered angrily. Cyclops were made for working in forges and with fire. No matter the temperature, they couldn't be burned. "I'm surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around."
Tyson seemed to be fascinated by Aster's dark curls, and he reached out to touch it. She smacked his hand away before he could and inched closer to Percy.
"Aster," Percy said, "what are you talking about? Laistry-what?"
"Laistrygonians. The monsters in the gym. They're a race of giant cannibals who live way far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I've never seen them as far south as New York before. They like the cold."
"Laistry—I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?"
She thought about it for a moment. "Canadians," she decided. "Now come on, we have to get out of here."
Aster tugged on his arm, but Percy stayed put.
"The police'll be after me."
"Oh really? I wonder why!" Percy gave her a deadpan expression. "That's the least of our problems," she said. "Have you been having the dreams?"
Percy looked confused. "The dreams... about Grover?"
Aster felt the blood rushing from her face. "Grover? No, what about Grover? Is he in trouble?"
Percy told her about his dream, with Grover in a storm in Florida. Grover was running from something, and he was trying to go fast. Whatever was chasing him must have been bad. He had tried to hide in a wedding dress shop, but it was no use. The monster found him. Percy hadn't seen what the monster had looked like, but judging by its shadow, it had to have been big. Aster felt sick thinking about how one of her oldest friends was on the run from something like that.
"Why?" Percy said. "What were you dreaming about?"
Aster cast her eyes downward, but she could feel Percy's stare burning into her. She thought it best not to mention any specifics, especially about Thalia. He already knew about this voice she'd been hearing ever since last summer, one that was different from Kronos. She finally looked up, her eyes meeting Percy's familiar sea green ones.
"Camp," she said at last. "Big trouble at camp."
"My mom was saying the same thing! But what kind of trouble?"
"I don't know exactly. Something's wrong. I think... Point is, we have to get there right away. I had a few monsters find me in Massachusetts over this past week, like they didn't want me coming to camp. I had to leave early because of the dreams. Have you had a lot of attacks?"
Percy shook his head. "None all year... until today."
Aster's eyebrows knit together. How could that be possible for any demigod, especially a child of the Big Three? "None? But how..." Her eyes drifted to Tyson. "Oh."
Percy looked at her, his expression a mix of angry and confused. "What do you mean, 'oh'?"
Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. "Canadians in the gym called Percy something... Son of the Sea God?"
Aster and Percy exchanged looks. She stayed silent, while Percy tried to explain.
"Big guy," he said, "you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter–"
"Yes," Tyson said.
"Well... those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they're in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods."
"Yes," Tyson said, like he was still waiting for Percy to get to the point.
"Uh, well, Aster and I are half-bloods," he said. Aster just stood next to him, arms crossed and a cold expression on her face. "We're like... heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That's what those giants were in the gym. Monsters."
"Yes."
Percy stared at him. He didn't seem surprised or confused by what Percy was telling him, which made sense. Tyson was a monster—of course he would know about the gods. But judging by his expression, Percy was shocked. "So... you believe me?"
Tyson nodded. "But you are... Son of the Sea God?"
"Yeah," Percy admitted. "My dad is Poseidon."
Tyson frowned. Now he looked confused. "But then..."
A siren wailed. A police car raced past the alley. Aster felt anxious to get to camp, a bad feeling settling in her gut. "We don't have time for this," she said. "We'll talk in the taxi."
"A taxi all the way to camp?" Percy said. "You know how much money–"
"What did I tell you about questioning me? Just trust me."
Percy hesitated. "What about Tyson?" He paused. "We can't just leave him. He'll be in trouble, too."
Aster thought for a moment, then thought that Tyson could serve as monster protection. "Yeah." Her tone was grim. "We definitely need to take him. Now come on."
Aster started down the alley, with Percy and Tyson following close behind. They sneaked through the side streets of downtown—with the direction of Percy—while a huge column of smoke billowed up behind them from the school gymnasium.
The three of them walked for a while before Aster stopped, seeing that the intersection was nice and deserted. She glanced up at the street signs, showing that they were on the corner of Thomas and Trimble. "Here." Aster fished around in her backpack, fumbling around for a drachma. "I hope I have one left."
"What are you looking for?" Percy asked.
All around them, sirens wailed. It wouldn't be long before more cops cruised by, looking for juvenile delinquent gym-bombers. No doubt the bully Matt Sloan had given them a statement by now. He'd probably twisted the story around so that Tyson and Percy were the bloodthirsty cannibals, sort of how the media had tried to turn Percy and Aster into members of a brainwashing cult last summer.
Aster's fingers gripped onto a cold metal coin, and she sighed in relief. "Found one. Thank the gods." She pulled out the gold drachma, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus's likeness stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other.
"Aster," Percy said, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."
Aster ignored him.
"Stêthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ô hárma diabolês! "
Stop, Chariot of Damnation!
Percy looked at her warily. Aster threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right through and disappeared.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Aster thought she had followed the directions incorrectly or had misspoken a word, but then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space—bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze.
It was a taxi, all right, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn't yellow. It was gray. It looked like it was woven out of smoke, like you could walk right through it. There were words printed on the door—something like GYAR SSIRES—but Aster couldn't decipher it at the moment with her dyslexia, and she figured Percy couldn't either.
The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she'd just had a shot of Novocain. These ladies were even creepier than she had been told about. "Passage? Passage?"
"Three to Camp Half-Blood," Aster said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at Percy to get in, who hesitated.
"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!"
She pointed a bony finger at Tyson. Percy's eyebrows knit together, and looked like he was about to say something in Tysons's defense.
"I'll pay extra," Aster promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."
"Done!" the woman screamed without a second thought.
Reluctantly, Percy got in the cab at Aster's instruction. Tyson squeezed in the middle. Aster crawled in last, and tried to leave space between her and Tyson, though there wasn't much room to begin with.
The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough. The seat was cracked and lumpy—no different than most taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating them from the three old ladies, all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering her eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress.
The one driving said, "Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!"
She floored the accelerator, and Percy's head slammed against the backrest. A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!
Percy looked distastefully down the large black chain that replaced the seatbelts and looked at Aster. She swallowed, and decided that she wasn't that desperate. Yet.
The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the gray lady sitting in the middle screeched, "Look out! Go left!"
"Well, if you'd give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!" the driver complained.
The driver swerved to avoid an oncoming delivery truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling thump, and flew into the next block.
"Wasp!" the third lady said to the driver. "Give me the girl's coin! I want to bite it."
Aster cringed, but they should know what they're doing. After all, the Gray Sisters had helped many heroes on their journeys, and they hadn't died. Well, from their taxi service at least.
"You bit it last time, Anger!" said the driver, whose name must've been Wasp. "It's my turn!"
"Is not!" yelled the one called Anger.
The middle one, Tempest, screamed, "Red light!"
"Brake!" yelled Anger.
Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box. Aster's stomach dropped, and she thought she was going to be sick.
"Excuse me," Percy said. "But... can you see?"
"No!" screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.
"No!" screamed Tempest from the middle.
"Of course!" screamed Anger by the shotgun window. Anger must have their eye.
Percy looked over at Aster. "They're blind?"
"Not completely," Aster said uneasily. "They have an eye."
"One eye?"
"Yeah."
"Each?"
"Of course not. One eye total."
In between them, Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. "Not feeling so good."
"Oh, man," Percy said. "Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?"
The three gray ladies were too busy squabbling to pay him any attention. He looked over at Aster, who was hanging on for dear life, and he gave her a why-did-you-do-this-to-me look.
"Hey," she said, "Gray Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp."
"Then why didn't you take it from Massachusetts?"
"That's outside their service area," she said, like that should be obvious. "They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities. Besides, I found a... different way to get here quickly."
Percy looked confused, but he was interrupted before he could ask her to elaborate.
"We've had famous people in this cab!" Anger exclaimed. "Jason! You remember him?"
"Don't remind me!" Wasp wailed. "And we didn't have a cab back then, you old bat. That was three thousand years ago!"
"Give me the tooth!" Anger tried to grab at Wasp's mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.
"Only if Tempest gives me the eye!"
"No!" Tempest screeched. "You had it yesterday!"
"But I'm driving, you old hag!"
"Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!"
Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street, squishing Percy between Tyson and the door. She punched the gas and they shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour.
The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp's face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest's. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other, Aster could see that none of the sisters had any teeth except for Wasp, who had one mossy yellow incisor. Instead of eyes, they just had closed, sunken eyelids, except for Anger, who had one bloodshot green eye that stared at everything hungrily, as if it couldn't get enough of anything it saw. It made Aster nauseous. She knew all of this already, but knowing and seeing were two different things.
Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp's mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, "'Ivit back! 'Ivit back!"
Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.
"Uh, if anybody's interested," Percy said loudly, "we're going to die!"
"Don't worry," Aster said, though she was very worried. "The Gray Sisters know what they're doing. They're really very wise." Percy looked at her skeptically. "At least that's what Annabeth told me. Coming from a daughter of Athena, that should be reassuring."
And yet, it wasn't in the moment. They were skimming along the edge of a bridge a hundred and thirty feet above the East River.
"Yes, wise!" Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. "We know things!"
"Every street in Manhattan!" Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. "The capital of Nepal!"
"The location you seek!" Tempest added.
Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either side, screaming, "Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn't even ask yet!"
"What?" Percy said. "What location? I'm not seeking any–"
"Nothing!" Tempest said. "You're right, boy. It's nothing!"
"Tell me."
"No!" they all screamed.
"The last time we told, it was horrible!" Tempest said.
"Eye tossed in a lake!" Anger agreed.
"Years to find it again!" Wasp moaned. "And speaking of that—give it back!"
"No!" yelled Anger.
"Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!"
She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and something flew out of Anger's face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into Percy's lap.
He jumped so hard, his head hit the ceiling and the eyeball rolled away.
"I can't see!" all three sisters yelled.
"Give me the eye!" Wasp wailed.
"Give her the eye!" Aster screamed. She held tighter onto the seat.
"I don't have it!" Percy said.
"There, by your foot," Aster said. "Don't step on it, you idiot! Get it!"
"I'm not picking that up!"
"Do you really want us to die then!"
The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.
"Going to be sick!" Tyson warned.
"Aster," Percy yelled, "let Tyson use your backpack!"
It was her turn to be sick. Have that thing use her backpack, with all of her things in it, for a barf bag? No way. "Are you crazy? Get the eye!"
Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. They hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any human taxi. The Gray Sisters screeched and pummeled each other and cried out for their eye.
Percy finally gained some courage then, it seemed. He ripped off a chunk of his tie-dyed T-shirt, which was already falling apart from all the burn marks, and used it to pick the eyeball off the floor.
"Nice boy!" Anger cried, as if she somehow knew he had her missing peeper. "Give it back!"
"Not until you explain," Percy told her. Aster thought he was crazy. "What were you talking about, the location I seek?"
"No time!" Tempest cried. "Accelerating!"
Aster looked out the window. Sure enough, trees and cars and whole neighborhoods were now zipping by in a gray blur. They were already out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.
"Percy," Aster warned, "they can't find our destination without the eye. We'll just keep accelerating until we dissolve into smoke."
"First they have to tell me," Percy told her, and Aster would have rolled her eyes if she wasn't so terrified. "Or I'll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic."
"No!" the Gray Sisters wailed. "Too dangerous!"
"I'm rolling down the window."
"Wait! " the Gray Sisters screamed. "30, 31, 75, 12!"
They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play. Aster was confused about how four numbers were a location.
"What do you mean?" Percy said. "That makes no sense!"
"30, 31, 75, 12!" Anger wailed. "That's all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!"
They were off the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island. Aster could see Half-Blood Hill ahead of them, with its giant pine tree at the crest—Thalia's tree, which contained the life force of a fallen hero. That night replayed in Aster's mind again, just setting eyes on it.
"Percy!" Aster said more urgently. "Give them the eye now!"
Percy decided not to argue this time; he threw the eye into Wasp's lap.
The old lady snatched it up, pushed it into her eye socket like somebody putting in a contact lens, and blinked. "Whoa!"
She slammed on the brakes. The taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill.
Tyson let loose a huge belch. "Better now."
"All right," Percy told the Gray Sisters. "Now tell me what those numbers mean."
But Aster didn't care about the numbers. Her eyes were on Half-Blood Hill, where a group was gathered in full battle armor.
"No time!" She opened her door. "We have to go now."
At the crest of the hill was a group of campers. And they were under attack.