I admit it was my fault for being so hungry, but Grover ate so appetizingly that I couldn't help but feel jealous. And hey, the cheeseburgers smelled good. But I blame Annabeth for looking so much like her mom that Med would want her in stone. Family issues.
After sending Medusa's head on its way (courtesy of Annabeth, slayer of the gorgon—she swung my sword. Grover and I did everything else), we took a train to Los Angeles. Annabeth and I sat as far as we can from each other, with Grover sitting in the middle, noisily eating chips then smoothly proceeded to gobble down the entire packaging.
In other words, as peaceful as we've gotten for the past few days.
After a few hours, Grover finished his food. Uh oh—
"Where can we stop to eat?" Grover asked.
Annabeth and I sighed. The daughter of Athena looked out for a while before pointing at a Mexican restaurant that was packed with people. Her idea was that many mortals would cover our scent, but I was too pissed at her to point out that even so many mortals couldn't mask my scent alone. What made me more pissed is that I forgot why I was pissed off at her in the first place.
There we stopped, and there we ate. Annabeth and I didn't order much, partly because our money was running low, and we weren't hungry. The same couldn't be said for our dearest satyr friend.
When we were just about to finish the food, I sensed a godly aura enter the restaurant. Not good.
I tensed up, causing Annabeth and Grover to be on high alert, too. Then I made my mistake of looking at Annabeth since she was the smart one.
Anger bubbled up my throat, the past few days of arguing flashed through my mind as I remembered the unsettled arguments I had with her. Seeing Annabeth's brows tighten, I thought she felt the same. We started yelling at each other, but the noise wasn't conspicuous as the rest of the restaurant suddenly turned violent too, as if everyone decided to yell at each other on an unspoken agreement.
Grover yelped. He took out his pipes and played a soothing tune, which worked wonders as everyone started to calm down. Someone chuckled in the background.
I know that voice. Ares.
God of War.
Father of Clarisse La Rue.
Smiling at us, he waved a hand and made a peace sign. Annabeth was muttering 'not good' non-stop, Grover was shaking, and my heart was beating very fast.
"Well, punks? I see the sea slug is still alive! A pity you weren't killed," Ares said, spreading his arms.
"Hello to you, too," I muttered. Annabeth's glare was piercing on my forehead.
"I hear you runts are headed to Hades, but you'll never make it like that. I'd love to yeet you across the state, but that might crack a few bones. So how 'bout this: you help me get the shield I accidentally left at Waterland in Denver, I help you find transportation? Sounds good, eh? You're welcome."
Grover opened and closed his mouth, unable to say anything. I nodded quickly, squeaked a timid "Yessir" and looked at Annabeth. She looked skeptical, but huffed and agreed. We all looked back at Ares.
He smirked trimphantly. "Aphrodite says hi." Then he was gone.
'So Ares and Aphrodite,' I said, to keep my mind off the growing dark, 'they have a thing going?'
'That's old gossip, Percy,' Annabeth told me. 'Three-thousand-year-old gossip.'
'What about Aphrodite's husband?'
'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?'
'She likes bikers.'
'Whatever.'
'Hephaestus knows?'
'Oh sure,' Annabeth 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. 'Like that.'
In front of us was an empty pool that would've been awesome for skateboarding. It was at least fifty meters 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 towards 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,' I said. 'So we just walk down there and get it?'
Annabeth ran her fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue.
'There's a Greek letter carved here,' she said. 'Eta. I wonder...'
'Grover,' I said, 'you smell any monsters?'
He sniffed the wind. 'Nothing.'
I took a deep breath. 'I'm going down there.'
'I'll go with you.' Grover didn't sound too enthusiastic, but I got the feeling he was trying to make up for what had happened in St Louis.
'No,' I told him. 'I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. You're the Red Baron, 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. Annabeth, come with me –'
'Are you kidding?' She looked at me as if I'd just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red.
'What's the problem now?' I demanded.
'Me, go with you to the... the "Thrill Ride of Love"? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?'
'Who's going to see you?' But my face was burning now, too. Leave it to a girl to make everything complicated. 'Fine,' I told her. 'I'll do it myself.' But when I started down the side of the pool, she followed me, muttering about how boys always messed things up.
Grover just looked on in amusement.
We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat, and next to it was a lady's silk scarf. I tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. Why? Then I noticed something I hadn't seen from up top: mirrors all the way around the rim of the pool, facing this spot. We could see ourselves no matter which direction we looked. That must be it. While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favorite people: themselves.
I picked up the scarf. It shimmered pink, and the perfume was indescribable – rose, or mountain laurel. Something good. I smiled, a little dreamy, and was about to rub the scarf against my cheek when Annabeth ripped it out of my hand and stuffed it in her pocket. 'Oh, no you don't. Stay away from that love magic.'
'What?'
'Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let's get out of here.'
The moment I touched the shield, I knew we were in trouble. My hand broke through something that had been connecting it to the dashboard. A cobweb, I thought, but then I looked at a strand of it on my palm and saw it was some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost invisible. A tripwire.
'Wait,' Annabeth said.
'Too late.'
'There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap.'
Noise erupted all around us, 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 I could suggest taking cover, they shot, but not at us. 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,' I said.
'Duh!' Annabeth said.
Think, Percy, think. How can we get out of here without capsizing our boat, getting rid of the mechanical spiders so that Annabeth won't freak out, get us out of the tunnel ride, and avoiding the Hephaestus TV that was installed in murderous cupid babies with arrows aiming at us?
Aha. I tightened my grip. Annabeth screamed at the spiders that scuttled out and buried her head into my sleeve, shaking badly.
Water exploded out of the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. I pulled Annabeth into the seat next to me and fastened her seatbelt just as the tidal wave slammed into our boat, over the top, whisking the spiders away and dousing us completely, but not capsizing us. 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 us. The Cupid-cams were rolling, live to Olympus. Okay, the gods were seeing this. Time to be the weak, scared demigod son of Poseidon.
But I could only concentrate on controlling the boat. I willed it to ride the current, to keep away from the wall. Trying to look like I'm using all my effort to control the boat, we spun around one last time, the water level now almost high enough to shred us against the metal net. Then the boat's nose turned towards the tunnel and we rocketed through into the darkness.
Annabeth and I held tight, both of us screaming our heads off 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 we were out of the tunnel, the night air whistling through our hair as the boat barreled straight towards the exit.