"Luke, why the hell am I second in command?!" I demanded again. Luke sighed. "I am absolutely the least qualified for the job!"
"Adrasteia," he said firmly, turning around and placing his hands on my shoulders. He has only used my full name twice in the whole time that I've known him; once was when I first told him my full name, and the second time was when I was in the infirmary at camp for three months and nearly died. "Adrasteia, you have been fighting gods and monsters longer than any of us, longer even than me."
I rolled my eyes. "Luke, you're older than me, that's ridiculous."
"I started after you, and you know it. I don't know why, but it happened, okay? You have plenty of experience, you're an excellent military planner, you've won more capture the flag battles than I can count- Don't," he said, when I opened my mouth to argue. "I've told you what's going on, and you know all the events, motives, and people. So, what's the real problem here?"
I pursed my lips, opened my mouth, and closed it again. "I haven't been here with you guys long enough. I don't know everyone, or their habits, their strengths and weaknesses-"
"Yes you do. You know almost everybody."
"Almost being the operative word. One miscalculation could jeopardize an entire mission, a whole plan. People could die."
"Ads. That's not the problem you have, and you know it."
I scowled, and we were silent for a few minutes. Then I sighed. "I know, I know," I whispered. "I just..."
"Dras, for once, you need to think about yourself as well, okay? They haven't seen sense, and you're helping them, not hurting them. You're doing this for everyone, Ads." When I didn't reply, he said, "A little rebellion every now and then is a good thing, as our good friend Thomas Jefferson said." Luke gave me a nervous smile.
I was silent again before I sighed in resignation. Luke opened his arms, and I melted into them. "Yeah, I guess you're right."
------------------------
I was back in that barren cave, the ceiling heavy and low above me. Annabeth was kneeling under the weight of a dark mass that looked like a pile of boulders. She was too tired even to cry out. Her legs trembled. Any second, I knew she would run out of strength and the cavern ceiling would collapse on top of her.
"How is our mortal guest?" a male voice boomed.
It wasn't Kronos. Kronos's voice was raspy and metallic, like a knife scraped across stone. I'd heard it taunting me many times before in my dreams. But this voice was deeper and lower, like a bass guitar. Its force made the ground vibrate.
Luke emerged from the shadows. He ran to Annabeth, knelt beside her, then looked back at the unseen man. "She's fading. We must hurry."
The hypocrite. Like he really cared what happened to her.
The deep voice chuckled. It belonged to someone in the shadows, at the edge of my dream. Then a meaty hand thrust someone forward into the light—Artemis—her hands and feet bound in celestial bronze chains.
I gasped. Her silvery dress was torn and tattered. Her face and arms were cut in several places, and she was bleeding ichor, the golden blood of the gods.
"Luke," I heard someone whisper shakily. A girl's voice. There was a flash of long, wavy black hair in the shadows.
Luke turned, stepped back, and put his arm out to comfort and quiet the other girl.
"You heard the boy," said the man in the shadows, ignoring the exchange between Luke and the girl. "Decide!"
Artemis's eyes flashed with anger. I didn't know why she just didn't will the chains to burst, or make herself disappear, but she didn't seem able to. Maybe the chains prevented her, or some magic about this dark, horrible place.
The goddess looked at Annabeth and her expression changed to concern and outrage. "How dare you torture a maiden like this!"
"She will die soon," Luke said. "You can save her."
Annabeth made a weak sound of protest, and the girl in the shadows snorted. My heart felt like it was being twisted into a knot. I wanted to run to her, but I couldn't move.
"Free my hands," Artemis said.
Luke brought out his sword, Backbiter. With one expert strike, he broke the goddess's handcuffs.
Artemis ran to Annabeth and took the burden from her shoulders. Annabeth collapsed on the ground and lay there shivering. Artemis staggered, trying to support the weight of the black rocks.
The man in the shadows chuckled. "You are as predictable as you were easy to beat, Artemis."
"You surprised me," the goddess said, straining under her burden. "It will not happen again."
"Indeed it will not," the man said. "Now you are out of the way for good! I knew you could not resist helping a young maiden. That is, after all, your specialty, my dear."
Artemis groaned "You know nothing of mercy, you swine."
"On that," the man said, "we can agree. Luke, you may kill the girl now."
"No!" Artemis shouted.
Luke hesitated. "She—she may yet be useful, sir... Further bait."
"Bah! You truly believe that?"
"Yes, General. They will come for her. I'm sure."
The man considered. "Then the dracaenae can guard her here. Assuming she does not die from her injuries, you may keep her alive until winter solstice. After that, if our sacrifice goes as planned, her life will be meaningless. The lives of all mortals will be meaningless."
Luke gathered up Annabeth's listless body and carried her away from the goddess. "Addy..." he whispered, and the wave of black hair in the shadows shivered before moving and trudging after Luke.
"You will never find the monster you seek," Artemis said. "Your plan will fail."
"How little you know, my young goddess," the man in the shadows said. "Even now, your darling attendants begin their quest to find you. They shall play directly into my hands. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a long journey to make. We must greet your Hunters and make sure their quest is… challenging."
The man's laughter echoed in the darkness, shaking the ground until it seemed the whole cavern ceiling would collapse.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The dream echoed and replayed in my head as I followed Zoë, Thalia, Bianca, and Grover through the air.
This was ridiculous.
I wanted to go save Annabeth and Addy. I thought they were our priority.
But nooooo, I guess 'Operation Ignore Percy' was in effect.
Like it is every day.
So those arrogant Hunters decided to take over and go find Artemis. To hell with my friends. Everyone seemed to just hand the reins over to those girls.
(But in all honesty, they kinda scared me, no matter how annoying they were.)
Of course, Zoë didn't want me around, even after Phoebe got sick, so I was stuck following them around.
I wanted to throw up at the thought of Annabeth and Ads at the mercy of Luke and whatever other monsters he had next to him. I knew Annabeth was being used as bait, but what about Addy? Extra bait? Maybe Luke figured he'd have a better chance of kicking our asses if we didn't have either of them. Which was true. Those two were our strengths.
And now they were Luke's strong points. Again.
Once the group stopped and Blackjack had set me down near the museum, I looked over at the van. Everybody was getting out. Grover pointed toward one of the big buildings lining the Mall. Thalia nodded, and the four of them trudged off into the cold wind.
I started to follow. But then I froze.
A block away, the door of a black sedan opened. A man with gray hair and a military buzz cut got out. He
was wearing dark shades and a black overcoat. Now, maybe in Washington, you'd expect guys like that to be everywhere. But it dawned on me that I'd seen this same car a couple of times on the highway, going south. It had been following the van.
The guy took out his mobile phone and said something into it. Then he looked around, like he was making sure the coast was clear, and started walking down the Mall in the direction of my friends.
The worst of it was: when he turned toward me, I recognized his face. It was Dr. Thorn, the manticore from Westover Hall.
Invisibility cap on, I followed Thorn from a distance. My heart was pounding. If he had survived that fall from the cliff, then Annabeth must have too. My dreams had been right. She was alive and being held
prisoner, along with Addy.
Thorn kept well back from my friends, careful not to be seen.
Finally, Grover stopped in front of a big building that said NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM. The Smithsonian! I'd been here a million years ago with my mom, but everything had looked so much
bigger then.
Thalia checked the door. It was open, but there weren't many people going in. Too cold, and school was out of session. They slipped inside.
Dr. Thorn hesitated. I wasn't sure why, but he didn't go into the museum. He turned and headed across the Mall. I made a split-second decision and followed him.
Thorn crossed the street and climbed the steps of the Museum of Natural History. There was a big sign on the door. At first I thought it said CLOSED FOR PIRATE EVENT. Then I realized PIRATE must be PRIVATE. I followed Dr. Thorn inside, through a huge chamber full of mastodons and dinosaur skeletons. There were voices up ahead, coming from behind a set of closed doors. Two guards stood outside. They opened the doors for Thorn, and I had to sprint to get inside before they closed them again.
Inside, what I saw was so terrible I almost gasped out loud, which probably would've gotten me killed.
I was in a huge round room with a balcony ringing the second level. At least a dozen mortal guards stood on the balcony, plus two monsters—reptilian women with double-snake trunks instead of legs. I'd
seen them before. Annabeth had called them Scythian dracaenae.
But that wasn't the worse of it. Standing between the snake women—I could swear he was looking straight down at me—was my old enemy Luke. He looked terrible. His skin was pale and his blond hair looked almost gray, as if he'd aged ten years in just a few months. The angry light in his eyes was still there, and so was the scar down the side of his face, where a dragon had once scratched him. But the scar was now ugly red, as though it had recently been reopened.
Next to him, sitting down so that the shadows covered him, was another man. All I could see were his knuckles on the gilded arms of his chair, like a throne.
"Well?" asked the man in the chair. His voice was just like the one I'd heard in my dream—not as creepy as Kronos's, but deeper and stronger, like the earth itself was talking. It filled the whole room even though he wasn't yelling.
Dr. Thorn took off his shades. His two-colored eyes, brown and blue, glittered with excitement. He made a stiff bow, then spoke in his weird French accent: "They are here, General."
"I know that, you fool!" boomed the man. "But where?"
"In the rocket museum."
"The Air and Space Museum," Luke corrected irritably.
Dr. Thorn glared at Luke. "As you say, sir." I got the feeling Thorn would just as soon impale Luke with one of his spikes as call him sir.
"How many?" Luke asked. Thorn pretended not to hear.
"How many?" the General demanded.
"Four, General," Thorn said. "The satyr, Grover Underwood. And the girl with the spiky black hair and the—how do you say—punk clothes and the horrible shield."
"Thalia," Luke said.
"And two other girls—Hunters. One wears a silver circlet."
"That one I know," the General growled. Everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably.
"Let me take them," Luke said to the General. "We have more than enough—"
"Patience," the General said. "They'll have their hands full already. I've sent a little playmate to keep them occupied."
"But—"
"We cannot risk you, my boy."
"Yes, boy," Dr. Thorn said with a cruel smile. "You are much too fragile to risk. Let me finish them off."
"No." The General rose from his chair, and I got my first look at him.
He was tall and muscular, with light brown skin and slicked-back dark hair. He wore an expensive brown silk suit like the guys on Wall Street wear, but you'd never mistake this dude for a broker. He had a
brutal face, huge shoulders, and hands that could snap a flagpole in half. His eyes were like stone. I felt as if I were looking at a living statue. It was amazing he could even move.
"You have already failed me, Thorn," he said.
"But, General—"
"No excuses!"
Thorn flinched. I'd thought Thorn was scary when I first saw him in his black uniform at the military academy. But now, standing before the General, Thorn looked like a silly wannabe soldier. The General
was the real deal. He didn't need a uniform. He was a born commander.
"I should throw you into the pits of Tartarus for your incompetence," the General said. "I send you to capture a child of the three elder gods, and you bring me a scrawny daughter of Athena."
"But you promised me revenge.'" Thorn protested. "A command of my own!"
"I am Lord Kronos's senior commander," the General said. "And I will choose lieutenants who get me results! It was only thanks to Luke that we salvaged our plan at all. Now get out of my sight, Thorn, until I find some other menial task for you."
Thorn's face turned purple with rage. I thought he was going to start frothing at the mouth or shooting spines, but he just bowed awkwardly and left the room.
"Now, my boy." The General turned to Luke. "The first thing we must do is isolate the half-blood Thalia. The monster we seek will then come to her."
"The Hunters will be difficult to dispose of," Luke said. "Zoë Nightshade—"
"Do not speak her name!"
Luke swallowed. "S—sorry, General. I just—"
The General silenced him with a wave of his hand. "Let me show you, my boy, how we will bring the Hunters down."
He pointed to a guard on the ground level. "Do you have the teeth?"
The guy stumbled forward with a ceramic pot. "Yes, General!"
"Plant them," he said.
In the center of the room was a big circle of dirt, where I guess a dinosaur exhibit was supposed to go. I watched nervously as the guard took sharp white teeth out of the pot and pushed them into the soil. He smoothed them over while the General smiled coldly.
The guard stepped back from the dirt and wiped his hands. "Ready, General!"
"Excellent! Water them, and we will let them scent their prey."
The guard picked up a little tin watering can with daisies painted on it, which was kind of bizarre, because what he poured out wasn't water. It was dark red liquid, and I got the feeling it wasn't Hawaiian
Punch.
The soil began to bubble.
"Soon," the General said, "I will show you, Luke, soldiers that will make your army from that little boat look insignificant."
Luke clenched his fists. "I've spent a year training my forces! When the Princess Andromeda arrives at the mountain, they'll be the best—"
"Ha!" the General said. "I don't deny your troops will make a fine honor guard for Lord Kronos. And you, of course, will have a role to play—" I thought Luke turned paler when the General said that, but it was nothing compared to the shade he turned when the General spoke again. "And your dear friend will come in handy indeed," he said with a cruel smile as he turned and looked at the person standing next to Luke whom I hadn't noticed before. It was a girl. Her black hair was in a French braid that had golden strands intertwined in it. I didn't recognize her until she turned her head to look at Luke with some fear.
It was Addy.
===================
DISCLAIMER
I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT ADRASTEIA
EVERYTHING BELONGS TO RICK RIORDAN
PEACE OUT HOMIES