CHAPTER TWO!
alternatively titled: the taxi of eternal torment
ANNABETH WAS WAITING FOR US IN AN ALLEY DOWN CHURCH STREET.
She pulled Tyson and Percy off the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Meriwether Prep. It was lucky Percy caught my hand and pulled me along with him.
"Where'd you find him?" she demanded, pointing at Tyson.
Percy looked mad, "He's my friend,"
"Is he homeless?"
"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don't you ask him?"
She looked surprised. "He can talk?"
"I talk," Tyson admitted. "You are pretty."
"Ah! Gross!" Annabeth stepped away from him. She then turned back to Percy and pointed at me, "What about her, she's clearly a half blood."
"Her name is Diana and she's my best friend," Percy said, "I met her earlier this year."
This was the second time someone called me a half bood. I stepped forward, "Whoa, hold on. What the hell is happening? One minute i'm heading to gym class and the next some monster basketballers are trying to kill me with flaming bronze balls! What the—"
Percy turned to me, his eyes were pleading, "I'm so sorry, and i'll explain everything later but for now we have to go."
"Go where?!" I exclaimed.
Percy ignored me and instead examined Tyson's hands, "Tyson," he said in disbelief. "Your hands aren't even burned."
"Of course not," Annabeth muttered. "I'm surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around."
Tyson seemed fascinated by Annabeth's blond hair. He tried to touch it, but she smacked his hand away.
"Annabeth," Percy said, "what are you talking about? Laistry-what?"
"Laistrygonians. The monsters in the gym. They're a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I've never seen them as far south as New York before."
"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."
"The police'll be after us."
"That's the least of our problems," she said. "Have you been having the dreams?"
"The dreams ... about Grover?"
Her face turned pale. "Grover? No, what about Grover?"
"Does Grover happen to be a half goat guy in a wedding dress by any chance?" I asked, my dreams had been very strange recently.
Percy stared at me, "How do you know about that?"
I told them about my dreams, Percy's face grew more and more confused by the second. He then turned to Annabeth, "Why? What were you dreaming about?"
Her eyes looked stormy, like her mind was racing a million miles an hour.
"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. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing me all the way from Virginia, trying to stop me. Have you had a lot of attacks?"
Percy shook his head. "None all year ... until today."
"None? But how ..." Her eyes drifted to Tyson. "Oh."
"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?"
"Yeah," I butt in, "That was weird... And they kept calling me a half blood, which feels slightly racist. And the Laistrygonian said that my name was Divinia, that's not my name."
Percy and Annabeth exchanged looks.
"Di," He said, his tone was so gentle that it freaked me out, "You ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena—"
"Yeah..."
"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."
"Excuse me?" I laughed, "You-you guys are insane..."
Annabeth rolled her eyes at me, which i found strange because she barely knew me, "It's true. Percy and I are both half bloods and apparently you are as well. Those things you encountered in the gym, they were monsters."
Percy looked over at her, before turning back to me, "I know it's hard to grasp, but you're half god. My father is Poseidon, Annabeth's mother is Athena, and we go to a camp called Camp Half Blood. It's the only safe place for kids like us."
The more i thought about it, the more it made sense. Strange stuff always seemed to happen around me. There was that time some random guy tried to kidnap me, the time these angry geese with red eyes chased me all the way from my school to the park by my house (two miles away)
I didn't like it, but clearly we had to go so I just gave up and shrugged, "Fine, whatever."
It wasn't like my parents were going to miss me, I didn't have any. Well, apparently I had a godly parent, but whoever my mortal parent was died right after I was born. I've been in the foster care system my whole life. My last foster home.... lets just say I stay in the community home now.
Annabeth rolled her eyes, "We don't have time for this. We'll talk in the taxi."
"A taxi all the way to camp?" Percy said. "You know how much money—"
"Trust me."
Percy hesitated. "What about Tyson?"
Annabeth hesitated, staring up at him. I tapped my foot against the sidewalk anxiously, i did not feel like getting arrested again.
"We can't just leave him," Percy decided. "He'll be in trouble, too."
"Yeah." Annabeth looked grim. "We definitely need to take him. Now come on."
Together the four of us sneaked through the side streets of downtown while a huge column of smoke billowed up behind us from my school gymnasium.
"Here." Annabeth stopped us on the corner of Thomas and Trimble. She fished around in her backpack. "I hope I have one left."
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
All around us, sirens wailed. I figured it wouldn't be long before more cops cruised by, looking for juvenile delinquent gym-bombers. No doubt Matt Sloan had given them a statement by now. He'd probably twisted the story around so that Tyson, Percy and I were the bloodthirsty cannibals.
"Found one. Thank the gods." Annabeth pulled out a gold coin, it looked strangely like a drachma. Actually it probably was, i should get used to that.
"Annabeth," Percy said, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."
"Stêthi," she shouted in a language i remarkably understood as Ancient Greek, "Ô hárma diabolês!"
She said: Stop, Chariot of Damnation!
That made me extremely nervous, damnation? Chariot? She 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.
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 smoky gray. I mean 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 my dyslexia made it hard for me to decipher what it said.
This was the weirdest thing i'd ever experienced, but i supposed I should get used to seeing weird things.
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. "Passage? Passage?"
"Four to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at me to get in, like this was all completely normal.
"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!"
She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.
"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."
"Done!" the woman screamed.
I looked at Percy, he shrugged and ushered me into the cab. I was smushed between him and Annabeth, which she didn't look very happy about. I didn't really understand why she hated me so much, maybe I reminded her of someone, I don't know.
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 us from the old lady driving ... Wait a minute. There wasn't just one old lady. There were three, 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 my head slammed against the backrest. A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cupbearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!
From what I remembered, Ganymede was also Zeus' boy toy. I decided not to mention that in front of Annabeth and Percy.
I looked down and found a large black chain instead of a seat belt. I decided I 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.
Wait a minute. Give her the eye?
I didn't have time to ask questions because 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."
"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. She left my stomach somewhere back on Broome Street.
"Excuse me," I asked. "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.
Percy looked at Annabeth. "They're blind?"
"Not completely," Annabeth said. "They have an eye."
"One eye?"
"Yeah."
"Each?"
"No. One eye total."
Next to Percy, 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 Annabeth, 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 Virginia?"
"That's outside their service area," she said, like that should be obvious. "They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities."
"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. She punched the gas and we shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour.
☽☾
AFTER A CAB RIDE FROM HELL, I WAS READY TO FALL TO THE FLOOR AND SLEEP.
But noooooo. We had to run straight into the middle of a battle with flaming bronze bulls.
Damn, what was going on with bronze and fire today? Was it "burn the crap out of Diana" day or something?
We climbed out of the car as one of the heroes shouted, "Border patrol, to me!"
"It's Clarisse," Annabeth said, refusing to look at me, "Come on, we have to help her."
I figured this would be normal for a demigod camp. Percy looked like he wanted to refuse and make me stay where i was, but he shrugged helplessly and pulled me up the hill by hand.
The hero, Clarisse's fellow warriors were scattering, running in panic as the bulls charged. The grass was burning in huge swathes around the pine tree. One hero screamed and waved his arms as he ran in circles, the horsehair plume on his helmet blazing like a fiery Mohawk.
Clarisse's own armor was charred. She was fighting with a broken spear shaft, the other end embedded uselessly in the metal joint of one bull's shoulder.
Percy uncapped his pen, it grew into a shimmering, bronze sword with the word "Anaklusmos" engraved on the hilt. This was insane, first we fight crazy basketballer monsters and now Percy has a sword.
"Tyson, Di, stay here. I don't want you taking any more chances."
"No!" Annabeth said. "We need him."
She completely ignored me, which i didn't really know how to feel about but oh well. Percy stared at her, "He's mortal. He got lucky with the dodge balls but he can't—"
"Percy, do you know what those are up there? The Colchis bulls, made by Hephaestus himself. We can't fight them without Medea's Sunscreen SPF 50,000. We'll get burned to a crisp."
"Medea's what?"
Annabeth rummaged through her backpack and cursed. "I had a jar of tropical coconut scent sitting on my night-stand at home. Why didn't I bring it?"
Percy shook his head, "Look, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm not going to let Tyson or Diana get fried."
"Percy—"
"Tyson, stay back." Percy raised my sword. "I'm going in."
Tyson tried to protest, but Percy was already running up the hill toward Clarisse, who was yelling at her patrol, trying to get them into phalanx formation. The few who were listening lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, locking their shields to form an ox-hide—and-bronze wall, their spears bristling over the top like porcupine quills.
I looked at Tyson and then scooped a stray sword from the ground and ran to join the fight. Annabeth glared at me as I joined Percy's other side, but she didn't say anything.
Percy looked over at me, "No, Di. You don't even know how to fight! Just stay with Tyson."
I shook my head earnestly, "Nuh uh, no way am i leaving you alone. So what I don't know how to fight! I'm sure I can figure it out."
He didn't like it, but he didn't say anything else.
Clarisse was a big girl with cruel eyes. She looked like she was born to wear Greek battle armor, but I didn't see how even she could stand against that bull's charge. Unfortunately, at that moment, the other bull lost interest in finding Annabeth. It turned, wheeling around behind Clarisse on her unprotected side.
"Behind you!" Percy yelled. "Look out!"
I still hold the firm belief that Percy is an idiot, because instead of helping Clarisse, it just startled her. Bull Number One crashed into her shield, and the phalanx broke. Clarisse went flying backward and landed in a smoldering patch of grass. The bull charged past her, but not before blasting the other heroes with its fiery breath. Their shields melted right off their arms. They dropped their weapons and ran as Bull Number Two closed in on Clarisse for the kill.
Percy lunged and grabbed Clarisse by the straps of her armor ragged her out of the way just as Bull Number Two freight-trained past. He gave it a good swipe with his sword and cut a huge gash in its flank, but the monster just creaked and groaned and kept on going.
"Let me go!" Clarisse pummeled his hand. "Percy, curse you!"
He dropped her by a massive pine tree and turned to face the bulls. I ran up to meet him, below us, a giant camp stood between the hills. There were cabins, a big blue house, strawberry fields, a dining pavilion, an amphitheatre and about a million other things that glittered in the afternoon sun.
Annabeth shouted orders to the other heroes, telling them to spread out and keep the bulls distracted. Bull Number One ran a wide arc, making its way back toward Percy and I. As it passed the middle of the hill, it slowed down a little, as if it were struggling against a strong wind; but then it broke through and kept coming.
Bull Number Two turned to face me, fire sputtering from the gash Percy cut in its side. I couldn't tell if it felt any pain, but its ruby eyes seemed to glare at me like I'd just made things personal.
Bull Number Two blew flames at me. I rolled aside as the air turned to pure heat. All the oxygen was sucked out of my lungs and I felt a swathe of blisters erupt over my left calf. I gripped the handle of the sword I had picked up and slashed upwards through the air. I managed to lop off part of the monster's snout. It galloped away, wild and disoriented
Percy, who had tripped over a tree root, tried to stand when his left leg buckled underneath him. Bull Number One charged straight toward us, I grabbed Percy by the armpits (gross, by the way) and hauled him out of the way just in time, but the Bull turned back towards us with too much agility for something of its size.
Annabeth shouted: "Tyson, help him!"
Somewhere near, toward the crest of the hill, Tyson wailed, "Can't—get—through!"
"I, Annabeth Chase, give you permission to enter camp!"
Thunder shook the hillside. Suddenly Tyson was there, barreling toward us, yelling: "Percy and Diana need help!"
"Tyson!" I yelled.
The blast swirled around him like a red tornado. I could only see the black silhouette of his body. I knew with horrible certainty that my friend had just been turned into a column of ashes.
But when the fire died, Tyson was still standing there, completely unharmed. Not even his grungy clothes were scorched. The bull must've been as surprised as I was, because before it could unleash a second blast, Tyson balled his fists and slammed them into the bull's face. "BAD COW!"
His fists made a crater where the bronze bull's snout used to be. Two small columns of flame shot out of its ears. Tyson hit it again, and the bronze crumpled under his hands like aluminum foil. The bull's face now looked like a sock puppet pulled inside out.
"Down!" Tyson yelled.
The bull staggered and fell on its back. Its legs moved feebly in the air, steam coming out of its ruined head in odd places.
Annabeth ran over to us, well, over to Percy, as she completely ignored me. She gave him something to drink from a flask, and the swelling on his ankle started to go down. He offered it to me.
"It's nectar," He said, "Godly drink, it'll heal your calf. But don't drink too much."
I looked down at it, the entire thing was covered in angry red blisters. I smiled weakly and took the flask from him (which Annabeth did not look happy about) and trickled some into my mouth. The blisters immediately began to fade to a pinkish colour.
Percy stood and offered me his hand, "Nice sword work, Di. You managed fine on your own."
I blushed and took his hand, standing up.
"The other bull?" Percy asked.
Annabeth pointed down the hill. Clarisse had taken care of Bad Cow Number Two. She'd impaled it through the back leg with a celestial bronze spear. Now, with its snout half gone and a huge gash in its side, it was trying to run in slow motion, going in circles like some kind of merry-go-round animal.
Clarisse pulled off her helmet and marched toward us. A strand of her stringy brown hair was smoldering, but she didn't seem to notice. "You—ruin—everything!" she yelled at Percy. "I had it under control!"
Annabeth grumbled, "Good to see you too, Clarisse."
"Argh!" Clarisse screamed. "Don't ever, EVER try saving me again!"
"Clarisse," Annabeth said, "you've got wounded campers."
"I'll be back," she growled, then trudged off to assess the damage.
I stared at Tyson. "You didn't die."
Tyson looked down like he was embarrassed. "I am sorry. Came to help. Disobeyed you."
"My fault," Annabeth said. "I had no choice. I had to let Tyson cross the boundary line to save you. Otherwise, you would've died."
"Let him cross the boundary line?'" Percy asked. "But—"
"Percy," she said, "have you ever looked at Tyson closely? I mean ... in the face. Ignore the Mist, and really look at him."
I had no idea what this mist was she was talking about, but i looked up too, really focusing on his face. It wasn't easy. I'd always had trouble looking directly at him, though I'd never quite understood why. I'd thought it was just because he always had peanut butter in his crooked teeth. I forced myself to focus at his big lumpy nose, then a little higher at his eyes.
No, not eyes.
One eye. One large, calf-brown eye, right smack bang in the middle of his forehead, with thick lashes and big tears trickling down his cheeks on either side.
"Tyson," Percy stammered. "You're a ..."
"Cyclops," Annabeth offered. "A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn't get past the boundary line as easily as the bulls. Tyson's one of the homeless orphans."
"One of the what?"
"They're in almost all the big cities," Annabeth said distastefully. "They're ... mistakes, Percy. Children of nature spirits and gods ... Well, one god in particular, usually ... and they don't always come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don't know how this one found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to Chiron, let him decide what to do."
"But the fire. How—"
"He's a Cyclops." Annabeth paused, as if she were remembering something unpleasant. "They work the forges of the gods. They have to be immune to fire. That's what I was trying to tell you."
Now, under normal circumstances, i would have been floored. However, I had just found out I was a demigod, been attacked by crazy monsters with fiery balls, been attacked by flaming bronze bulls and had my leg almost burnt off. Safe to say i wasn't too shocked.
Wounded heroes needed attention. And there were still two banged-up bronze bulls to dispose of, which I didn't figure would fit in normal recycling bins.
Clarisse came back over and wiped the soot off her forehead. "Jackson, if you can stand, get up. We need to carry the wounded back to the Big House, let Tantalus know what's happened."
"Tantalus?" Percy asked.
"The activities director," Clarisse said impatiently.
"Chiron is the activities director. And where's Argus? He's head of security. He should be here."
Clarisse made a sour face. "Argus got fired. You two have been gone too long. Things are changing."
"But Chiron ... He's trained kids to fight monsters for over three thousand years. He can't just be gone. What happened?"
"That happened," Clarisse snapped.
She pointed to the big pine tree. Its needles were yellow. A huge pile of dead ones littered the base of the tree. In the center of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap.
By the looks of it, the tree was dying, and someone had poisoned it.
☽☾
charlie's message!
gods, this chapter was like twice as long as they usually are, but i couldn't find a place to cut the part off.
As you can tell, Diana is confused, but resigned to the fact that she's a demigod. Mostly its from shock but still.
Also - Annabeth doesn't like her at all. A little enemies to lovers arc for those two *eyeball emojis*
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed!