A VISIT FROM A GODDESS AND PROPHECIES FULFILLING
They rode the boar until sunset, which was about as much as Ariana back end could take. Imagine riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day. That's about how comfortable boar-riding was.
Ariana had no idea how many miles they covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land.
The grass and scrub brush got sparser until they were galloping (do boars gallop?) across the desert.
As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.
"This is as far as he'll go." Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."
Nobody needed convincing. They slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then they waddled away as best they could with their saddle sores.
After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.
"It likes the mountains better." Percy guessed.
"I can't blame it." Thalia said. "Look."
Ahead of them was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoe Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door.
Beyond that was a range of hills... but then Ariana noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that.
The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.
"Whoa." Ariana said.
"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here." Thalia said. She looked at Grover . "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"
Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes.
They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to Ariana, but Grover looked concerned.
"That's us." he said. "Those six nuts right there."
"Which one is me?" Percy asked.
"The little deformed one." Ariana suggested making Zoe laugh.
"Oh, shut up." Percy nudged her hard in the ribs.
"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble."
"A monster?" Thalia asked.
Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge.."
He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.
They decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. None of them wanted to go Dumpster-diving in the dark.
Zoe and Bianca produced five sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. Ariana didn't know how they did it, because the packs were tiny, but must've been enchanted to hold so much stuff.
She had noticed their bows and quivers were also magic. Ariana never really thought about it, but when the Hunters needed them, they just appeared slung over their backs. And when they didn't, they were gone.
The night got chilly fast, so Grover and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire.
Pretty soon they were about as comfy as you can get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.
"The stars are out." Zoe said.
She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.
"Amazing." Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."
"This is nothing."Zoe said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."
"You talk like you're not human." Percy said.
Zoe raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"
"For you," Thalia corrected, "not thee."
"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence."
"And for the end." Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you."
Zoe threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"
"Same girl same." Ariana nodded.
Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right."
Zoe nodded sadly.
"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said, "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee..."
Ariana was pretty sure coffee had nothing to do with what had happened in Clouderoft, but she didn't have the heart to tell Grover.
She thought about the rubber rat and the tiny birds that had suddenly come alive when the wind blew.
"Grover, do you really think that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be." Percy asked him.
"He sent us help," Grover insisted, "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've gotten in two thousand years. I was so close."
"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca and Ariana, "is how you two destroyed one of the zombies each. There are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them."
Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."
"I just copied her." Ariana shrugged.
"Maybe there's something special about your knives." Percy said.
"It is the same as mine," Zoe said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way."
"Plus. Mine is made from Stygian Iron." Ariana told him.
"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot." Percy said.
Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her.
"Never mind." Zoe told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas."
Ariana was about to protest that Grover, Percy and her had had bad experiences in that town, but Bianca beat us to it.
"No!" she said. "Not there!"
She looked really freaked out, like she'd just been dropped off the steep end of a roller coaster.
Zoe frowned. "Why?"
Bianca took a shaky breath. "I... I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were traveling. And then I can't remember..."
Suddenly Ariana had a really bad thought. She remembered what Bianca had told her about Nico and her staying in a hotel for a while.
She met Percy's eyes, and she got the feeling he was thinking the same thing.
"Bianca." Ariana said. "That hotel you stayed at. Was it possibly called the Lotus Hotel and
Casino?"
Her eyes widened. "How could you know that?"
"Oh, great." Percy said.
"Wait." Thalia said. "What is the Lotus Casino?"
"A couple of years ago," Ariana said, "Grover, Annabeth, Percy and I got trapped there. It's designed so you never want to leave. We stayed for about an hour. When we came out, five days had passed. It makes time speed up."
"No." Bianca said instantly. "No, that's not possible."
"You said somebody came and got you out." Percy remembered.
"Yes."
"What did he look like? What did he say?"
"I... I don't remember. Please, I really don't want to talk about this."
Zoe sat forward, her eyebrows knit with concern. "You said that Washington, D.C., had changed when you went back last summer. You didn't remember the subway being there."
"Yes, but-"
"Bianca," Zoe said, "can you tell me the name of the president of the United States right now."
"Don't be silly." Bianca said. She told them the correct name of the president.
"And who was the president before that?" Zoe asked.
Bianca thought for a while. "Roosevelt."
Zoe swallowed. "Theodore or Franklin'?"
"Franklin." Bianca said. "F.D.R."
"Like FDR Drive?" Percy asked.
Because seriously, that's about all he knew about F.D.R.
"Bianca," Zoe said, "F.D.R. was not the last president. That was about seventy years
ago."
"That's impossible," Bianca said, "I... I'm not that old."
She stared at her hands as if to make sure they weren't wrinkled.
Thalia's eyes turned sad. She knew what it was like to get pulled out of time for a while. "It's okay, Bianca, The important thing is you and Nico are safe. You made it out."
"But how?" Percy said. "We were only in there for an hour and we barely escaped. How could you have escaped after being there for so long?"
"I told you." Bianca looked about ready to cry. "A man came and said it was time to leave. And-"
"But who? Why did he do it?"
Before she could answer, they were hit with a blazing light from down the road. The headlights of a car appeared out of nowhere.
Ariana was half hoping it was Apollo, come to give them a ride again, but the engine was way too silent for the sun chariot, and besides, it was nighttime.
They grabbed their sleeping bags and got out of the way as a deathly white limousine slid to a stop in front of them.
The back door of the limo opened right next to her. Before she could step away, the point of a sword touched her throat then it moved to Percy's.
Ariana heard the sound of Zoe and Bianca drawing their bows. As the owner of the sword got out of the car, Ariana moved back very slowly.
He smiled cruelly. "Not so fast now, are you, punk?"
He was a big man with a crew cut, a black leather biker's jacket, black jeans, a white muscle shirt, and combat boots.
Wraparound shades hid his eyes, but Ariana knew what was behind those glasses hollow sockets filled with flames.
"Ares." Percy growled.
The war god glanced at her friends. "At ease, people."
He snapped his fingers, and their weapons fell to the ground.
"This is a friendly meeting." He dug the point of his blade a little farther under Percys chin. "Of course I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady."
"What lady?" Thalia asked.
Ares looked over at her. "Well, well. I heard you were back."
He lowered his sword and pushed Percy away.
"Thalia, daughter of Zeus." Ares mused. "You're not hanging out with very good company."
"What's your business, Ares?" she said. "Who's in the car?"
Ares smiled, enjoying the attention. "Oh, I doubt she wants to meet the rest of you. Particularly not them."
He jutted his chin toward Zoe and Bianca.
"Why don't you all go get some tacos while you wait? Only take Percy and Ariana a few minutes."
"We will not leave him alone with thee, Lord Ares." Zoe said.
"Besides," Grover managed, "the taco place is closed."
Ares snapped his fingers again. The lights inside the taqueria suddenly blazed to life.
The boards flew off the door and the CLOSED sign flipped to OPEN. "You were saying, goat boy?"
"Go on." Ariana told their friends.
"I'll handle this." Percy tried to sound more confident than he felt.
Ariana didn't think Ares was fooled.
"You heard the boy." Ares said. "He's big and strong. He's got things under control."
Ariana laughed slightly before covering it with a cough, she didn't want to upset Percy by laughing at the god who wants him dead.
Their friends reluctantly headed over to the taco restaurant. Ares regarded Percy with loathing, then opened the limousine door like a chauffeur.
"Get inside, punks." he said. "And mind your manners. She's not as forgiving of rudeness
as I am."
When Ariana saw her, her jaw dropped.
She forgot her name. She forgot where she was. she forgot how to speak in complete sentences.
She was wearing a red satin dress and her hair was curled in a cascade of ringlets. Her face was the most beautiful she had ever seen: perfect makeup, dazzling eyes, a smile that would've lit up the dark side of the moon.
Thinking back on it, she couldn't tell you who she looked like.
Or even what color her hair or her eyes were. Pick the most beautiful actress or actor you can think of.
The goddess was ten times more beautiful than that. Pick your favorite hair color, eye color, whatever. The goddess had that.
When she smiled at them, just for a moment she looked a little like Silena. Then like Drew.
"Ah, there you are, Percy, Ari. Can I call you Ari?"the goddess said. "I am Aphrodite."
They slipped into the seats across from her and Percy said something like. "Um uh gah."
Ariana laughed.
Aphrodite miled. "Aren't you sweet. Hold this, please."
She handed Percy a polished mirror the size of a dinner plate and had him hold it up for her. She leaned forward and dabbed at her lipstick, though Ariana couldn't see anything wrong with it.
"Do you know why you're here?" she asked.
Ariana pinched Percys arm, hard.
"I... I don't know." He managed.
"Oh, dear." Aphrodite said. "Still in denial?"
Outside the car, Ariana could hear Ares chuckling, she had a feeling he could hear every word they said.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Percy said.
"Well then, why are you on this quest?"
"Artemis has been captured!"
Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "Oh, Artemis. Please. Talk about a hopeless case. I mean, if they were going to kidnap a goddess, she should be breathtakingly beautiful, don't you think? I pity the poor dears who have to imprison Artemis. Bo-ring!"
"But she was chasing a monster," Percy protested. "A really, really bad monster. We have to find it.
Aphrodite made him hold the mirror a little higher. She seemed to have found a microscopic problem at the corner of her eye and dabbed at her mascara. "Always some monster. But my dear Percy, that is why the others are on this quest. I'm more interested in you."
"Annabeth is in trouble." Percy blurted out.
Aphrodite beamed. "Exactly!"
"I have to help her," he said, "I've been having these dreams."
"Ah, you even dream about her! That's so cute!"
"Percy!" Ariana gasped. "You've been dreaming about Annabeth and haven't told me! Gosh, I feel betrayed."
"No! I mean... that's not what I meant."
She made a tsk-tsk sound. "Percy, I'm on your side. I'm the reason you're here, after all."
Ariana stared at her. "What?"
"The poisoned t-shirt the Stoll brothers gave Phoebe." she said. "Did you think that was an accident? Sending Blackjack to find you? Helping you sneak out of the camp?"
"You did that?" Asked Ariana.
"Of course! Because really, how boring these Hunters are! A quest for some monster, blah blah blah. Saving Artemis. Let her stay lost, I say. But a quest for true love"
"Wait a second, I never said-" Percy said.
"Oh, my dear. You don't need to say it. You do know Annabeth was close to joining the Hunters, don't you?"
Percy blushed. "I wasn't sure."
"She was about to throw her life away! And you, my dear, you can save her from that. It's so romantic!"
"Uh."
"Oh, put the mirror down." Aphrodite ordered. "I look fine."
He put it down.
"Now listen, Percy." Aphrodite said. "The Hunters are your enemies. Forget them and Artemis and the monster. That's not important. You just concentrate on finding and saving Annabeth."
"Do you know where she is?"
Aphrodite waved her hand irritably. "No, no. I leave the details to you. But it's been ages since we've had a good tragic love story."
"Whoa, first of all, I never said anything about love. And second, what's up with tragic!"
"Love conquers all." Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?"
"Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?"Ariana said.
"Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart, Percy."
"But... I don't know where it's going. My heart, I mean."
She smiled sympathetically. She really was beautiful. And not just because she had a pretty face or anything.
She believed in love so much, it was impossible not to feel giddy when she talked about it.
"Not knowing is half the fun." Aphrodite said. "Exquisitely painful, isn't it? Not being sure who you love and who loves you? Oh, you kids! It's so cute I'm going to cry."
"No, no." Percy said. "Don't do that."
"And don't worry," she said, "I'm not going to let this be easy and boring for you. No, I have some wonderful surprises in store. Anguish. Indecision. Oh, you just wait."
"That's really okay." Percy told her. "Don't go to any trouble."
"You're so cute. I wish all my daughters could break the heart of a boy as nice as you." Aphrodite's eyes were tearing up. "Now, you'd better go. And do be careful in my husband's territory, Percy. Don't take anything. He is awfully fussy about his trinkets and trash."
"What?" Percy asked. "You mean Hephaestus?"
But the car door opened and Ares grabbed his shoulder, pulling him out of the car and back into the desert night.
Ariana was about to follow but the car door slammed shut.
"Ariana Parker." Aphrodite smiled.
Ariana swore her heart stopped as she sat back down. "You look like Silena but at the same time Drew."
The goddess beamed more. "I see you know my daughters."
Ariana nodded and the goddess studied her.
A She eventually sighed. "It's true. You don't look anything like your mother, not really anyway."
"Huh?"
Did every god and goddess just happen to know who her mother was?
She nodded. "It's a shame really. I was just getting to the good part in her love story. Suppose I'll just have to make yours even better."
Ariana remembered who her father was and her eyes widened. "Oh please don't-"
Aphrodite winked. "I'll see you shortly, Ariana."
The car door opened once more and before Ariana got out she said. "I think Silena might like Beckendorf by the way."
Aphrodite smirked and her eyes glistened. "Goodbye Ariana Parker."
Ariana didn't need Ares to grab her by her shoulders to get out the car, she did so by herself.
As she got out, Ares looked at her. "Keep an eye on that Jackson boy, daughter of Hades."
He snapped his fingers and the world did a three-sixty, spinning in a cloud of red dust. She fell to the ground.
When she stood up again, the limousine was gone. The road, the taco restaurant, the whole town of Gila Claw was gone.
Her friends and her were standing in the middle of the junkyard, mountains of scrap metal stretched out in every direction.
"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked, once her and Percy told them about Aphrodite.
"Oh, uh, not sure." Percy lied. "She said to be careful in her husband's junkyard. She said not to pick anything up."
Zoe narrowed her eyes. "The goddess of love would not make a special trip to tell thee that. Be careful, Percy and Ariana. Aphrodite has led many heroes astray. Ariana, that goddess is the reason your mother broke her oath."
"For once I agree with Zoe." Thalia said. "You can't trust Aphrodite."
Grover was looking at them funny.
"So," Percy said, anxious to change the subject, "how do we get out of here?"
"That way." Zoe said. "That is west."
"How can you tell?"
In the light of the full moon, Ariana was surprised how well she could see her roll her eyes at Percy.
"Ursa Major is in the north," she said, "which means that must be west."
She pointed west, then at the northern constellation, which was hard to make out because there were so many other stars.
"Oh, yeah." Percy said. "The bear thing."
Zoe looked offended. "Show some respect. It was a fine bear. A worthy opponent."
"You act like it was real."
"Guys." Grover broke in. "Look!"
They had reached the crest of a junk mountain. Piles of metal objects glinted in the moonlight: broken heads of bronze horses, metal legs from human statues, smashed chariots, tons of shields and swords and other weapons, along with more modern stuff, like cars that gleamed gold and silver, refrigerators, washing machines, and computer monitors.
"Whoa." Bianca said. "That stuff... some of it looks like real gold."
"It is." Thalia said grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."
"Junk?" Grover picked up a beautiful crown made of gold, silver, and jewels. It was broken on one side, as if it had been split by an axe. "You call this junk?"
He bit off a point and began to chew. "It's delicious!"
Thalia swatted the crown out of his hands. "I'm serious!"
"Look!" Bianca said. She raced down the hill, tripping over bronze coils and golden plates. She picked up a bow that glowed silver in moonlight. "A Hunter's bow!"
She yelped in surprise as the bow began to shrink, and became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. "It's just like Percys sword!"
Zoe's face was grim. "Leave it, Bianca."
"But-"
"It is here for a reason. Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed." Ariana informed them.
Bianca reluctantly set the hair clip down.
"I don't like this place. Thalia said.
She gripped the shaft of her spear.
"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy asked.
She gave him a hard look. "Ariana and Zoe are right, Percy. Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard."
"That's the second time you've agreed with Zoë." he muttered, but Thalia ignored him.
They started picking their way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Ursa Major, they would've gotten lost. All the hills pretty much looked the same.
Ariana likes to say they left the stuff alone, but there was too much cool junk not to check out some of it.
Percy found an electric guitar shaped like Apollo's lyre that was so sweet he apparently had to pick it up.
Grover found a broken tree made out of metal. It had been chopped to pieces, but some of the branches still had golden birds in them, and they whirred around when Grover picked them up, trying to flap their wings.
Finally, they saw the edge of the junkyard about half a mile ahead of them, the lights of a highway stretching through the desert. But between them and the road...
"What is that?" Bianca gasped
. Ahead of them was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together.
Bianca frowned. "They look like.."
"Toes." Grover said.
Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes."
Zoe and Thalia exchanged nervous looks.
"Let's go around." Thalia said. "Far around."
"But the road is right over there." Percy protested. "Quicker to climb over."
Ping.
Thalia hefted her spear and Zoe drew her bow,
but then realized it was only Grover.
He had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the
column were hollow.
"Why did you do that?" Zoe demanded.
Grover cringed. "I don't know. I, uh, don't like fake feet?"
"Come on." Thalia looked at Percy. "Around."
Ariana didn't argue. The toes were starting to freak her out, to, who sculpts ten-foot-tall metal toes and sticks them in a junkyard?
After several minutes of walking, they finally stepped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black asphalt.
"We made it out." Zoe said. "Thank the gods."
But apparently the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, Ariana heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal.
She whirled around.
Behind them, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and she realized why they looked like toes. They were toes.
The thing that rose up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armor. He was impossibly tall a skyscraper with legs and arms.
He gleamed wickedly in the moonlight.
He looked down at them, and his face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off.
His joints creaked with rust, and across his armored chest, written in thick dust by some giant finger, were the words
WASH ME.
"Talos!" Zoe gasped.
"Who -who's Talos?" Percy stuttered.
"One of Hephaestus's creations." Ariana said. "But that can't be the original. It's too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model."
The metal giant didn't like the word defective.
He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon.
The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy.
It looked rusty and dull, but Ariana didn't figure that mattered. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.
"Someone took something." Zoe said. "Who took something?"
She stared accusingly at Percy
He shook his head. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."
Bianca didn't say anything. Ariana could swear she looked guilty, but she didn't have much time to think about it, because the giant defective Talos took one step toward them, closing half the distance and making the ground shake.
"Run!" Grover yelped.
Great advice, except that it was hopeless. At a leisurely stroll, this thing could outdistance us easily.
They split up, the way they had done with the Nemean Lion. Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway.
The giant swung his sword and took out a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across Thalia's path.
Zoe's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal.
Grover brayed like a baby goat and went climbing up a mountain of metal.
Bianca and Ariana ended up next to each other, hiding behind a broken chariot.
"You took something." she said. "That bow."
"No!" she said, but her voice was quivering.
"Give it back!" Ariana said. "Throw it down!"
"I... I didn't take the bow! Besides, it's too late."
"What did. you take?" Ariana demanded.
Before she could answer, she heard a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the
sky.
"Move!" Ariana tore down the hill, Bianca right behind her, as the giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground where they had been hiding.
"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, looking down at Bianca and Ariana.
Grover played a quick melody on his pipes. Over at the highway, the downed power lines began to dance.
Ariana understood what Grover was going to do a split second before it happened.
One of the poles with power lines still attached flew toward Talos's back leg and wrapped around his calf. The lines sparked and sent a jolt of electricity up the giant's backside.
Talos whirled around, creaking and sparking. Grover had bought us a few seconds.
"Come on!" She told Bianca.
But she stayed frozen.
From her pocket, she brought out a small metal figurine, a statue of a god. "It... it was for Nico. It was the only statue he didn't have."
"How can you think of Mythomagic at a time like this?" Percy said.
There were tears in her eyes.
"Throw it down." Ariana said, trying to remain calm. "Maybe the giant will leave us alone."
She dropped it reluctantly, but nothing happened.
The giant kept coming after Grover. It stabbed its sword into a junk hill, missing Grover by a few feet, but scrap metal made an avalanche over him, and then Ariana couldn't see him anymore.
"No!" Thalia yelled.
She pointed her spear, and a blue are of lightning shot out, hitting the monster in his rusty knee, which buckled.
The giant collapsed, but immediately started to rise again. It was hard to tell if it could feel anything.
There weren't any emotions in its half-melted face, but she got the sense that it was about as ticked off as a twenty-story-tall metal warrior could be.
He raised his foot to stomp and Ariana saw that his sole was treaded like the bottom of a sneaker.
There was a hole in his heel, like a large manhole, and there were red words painted around it, which she deciphered only after the foot came down: FOR MAINTENANCE ONLY.
"Crazy-idea time." Ariana said.
Bianca looked at me nervously. "Anything."
She told her about the maintenance hatch. "There may be a way to control the thing.
Switches or something. I'm going to get inside."
"How? You'll have to stand under its foot! You'll be crushed."
"Distract it." she said. "I'll just have to time it right."
Bianca's jaw tightened. "No. I'll go."
"You can't. You're new at this! You'll die."
"It's my fault the monster came after us," she said, "It's my responsibility. Here."
She picked up the little god statue and pressed it into Ariana's hand.
"If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him... tell him I'm sorry."
"Bianca, no!" Ariana protested, she had promised Nico she would try her best to keep his sister safe.
But she wasn't waiting for her. She charged at the monster's left foot.
Thalia had its attention for the moment. She'd learned that the giant was big but slow.
If you could stay close to it and not get smashed, you could run around it and stay alive. At least, it was working so far.
Bianca got right next to the giant's foot, trying to balance herself on the metal scraps that swayed and shifted with his weight.
Zoe yelled. "What are you doing?"
"Get it to raise its foot!" Ariana said.
Zoe shot an arrow toward the monster's face and it flew straight into one nostril. The giant straightened and shook its head.
"Hey, Junk Boy!" Percy yelled. "Down here."
Ariana ran up to its big toe and stabbed it with her sword. The magic blade cut a gash in the bronze.
Unfortunately, her plan worked. Talos looked down at her and raised his foot to squash Ariana like a bug.
She didn't see what Bianca was doing. She had to turn and run. The foot came down about two inches behind her and she was knocked into the air.
Ariana hit something hard and sat up, dazed. She has been thrown into an Olympus-Air refrigerator.
The monster was about to finish her off, but Grover somehow dug himself out of the junk pile. He played his pipes frantically, and his music sent another power line pole whacking against Talos's thigh.
The monster turned. Grover should've run, but he must've been too exhausted from the effort of so much magic. He took two steps, fell, and didn't get back up.
"Grover!" Thalia and Percy both ran toward him, but Ariana knew they'd be too late.
The monster raised his sword to smash Grover. Then he froze.
Talos cocked his head to one side, like he was hearing strange new music. He started moving his arms and legs in weird ways, doing the Funky Chicken.
Then he made a fist and punched himself in the face.
"Go, Bianca!" Percy yelled.
Zoë looked horrified. "She is inside?"
The monster staggered around, and Ariana realized they were still in danger. Thalia and Percy grabbed Grover and ran with him toward the highway.
Zoë was already ahead of them.
She yelled. "How will Bianca get out?"
The giant hit itself in the head again and dropped his sword. A shudder ran through his whole body and he staggered toward the power lines.
"Look out!" Ariana yelled, but it was too late.
The giant's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. She hoped the inside was insulated. She had no idea what was going on in there.
The giant careened back into the junkyard, and his right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG!
His left arm came loose, too. He was falling apart at the joints.
Talos began to run.
Then Ariana felt it. Like a presence in the world was gone and deep down she knew it was Bianca's soul disappearing.
Her ears rang, violently.
Bianca Di Angelo was dead; it was Ariana's fault.
"Wait!" Zoë yelled.
They ran after him, but there was no way they could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in their way.
The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed. When they reached the wreckage they searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name.
They crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head. They searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck.
Zoë sat down and wept. Ariana was stunned to see her cry.
Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.
"We can keep searching," Percy said. "It's light now. We'll find her."
"No we won't." Grover said miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."
"What are you talking about?" He demanded.
He looked up at him with big watery eyes. "The prophecy. One shall he lost in the land without rain."
Why hadn't she seen it? Why had she let her go instead of herself?
Ariana sobbed hard. "She's dead. I felt it."
Here they were in the desert. And Bianca Di Angelo was gone.