She knit her eyebrows. “We had to go somewhere. I remember it was important. We traveled a long way. And we stayed in this hotel for a few weeks. And then . . . I don’t know. One day a different lawyer came to get us out. He said it was time for us to leave. He drove us back east, through D.C. Then up into Maine. And we started going to Westover.”
It was a strange story. Then again, Bianca and Nico were half-bloods. Nothing would be normal for them.
“So you’ve been raising Nico pretty much all your life?” I asked. “Just the two of you?”
She nodded. “That’s why I wanted to join the Hunters so bad. I mean, I know it’s selfish, but I wanted my own life and friends. I love Nico—don’t get me wrong—I just needed to find out what it would be like not to be a big sister twenty-four hours a day.”
I thought about last summer, the way I’d felt when I found out I had a Cyclops for a baby brother. I could relate to what Bianca was saying.
“Zoë seems to trust you,” I said. “What were you guys talking about, anyway—something dangerous about the quest?”
“When?”
“Yesterday morning on the pavilion,” I said, before I could stop myself. “Something about the General.”
Her face darkened. “How did you . . . The invisibility hat. Were you eavesdropping?”
“No! I mean, not really. I just—”
I was saved from trying to explain when Zoë and Grover arrived with the drinks and pastries. Hot chocolate for Bianca and me. Coffee for them. I got a blueberry muffin, and it was so good I could almost ignore the outraged look Bianca was giving me.
“We should do the tracking spell,” Zoë said. “Grover, do you have any acorns left?”
“Umm,” Grover mumbled. He was chewing on a bran muffin, wrapper and all. “I think so. I just need to—”
He froze.
I was about to ask what was wrong, when a warm breeze rustled past, like a gust of springtime had gotten lost in the middle of winter. Fresh air seasoned with wildflowers and sunshine. And something else—almost like a voice, trying to say something. A warning.
Zoë gasped. “Grover, thy cup.”
Grover dropped his coffee cup, which was decorated with pictures of birds. Suddenly the birds peeled off the cup and flew away—a flock of tiny doves. My rubber rat squeaked. It scampered off the railing and into the trees— real fur, real whiskers.
Grover collapsed next to his coffee, which steamed against the snow. We gathered around him and tried to wake him up. He groaned, his eyes fluttering.
“Hey!” Thalia said, running up from the street. “I just . . . What’s wrong with Grover?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He collapsed.”
“Uuuuuhhhh,” Grover groaned.
“Well, get him up!” Thalia said. She had her spear in her hand. She looked behind her as if she were being followed. “We have to get out of here.”
We made it to the edge of the town before the first two skeleton warriors appeared. They stepped from the trees on either side of the road. Instead of gray camouflage, they were now wearing blue New Mexico State Police uniforms, but they had the same transparent gray skin and yellow eyes.
They drew their handguns. I’ll admit I used to think it would be kind of cool to learn how to shoot a gun, but I changed my mind as soon as the skeleton warriors pointed theirs at me.
Thalia tapped her bracelet. Aegis spiraled to life on her arm, but the warriors didn’t flinch. Their glowing yellow eyes bored right into me.
I drew Riptide, though I wasn’t sure what good it would do against guns.
Zoë and Bianca drew their bows, but Bianca was having trouble because Grover kept swooning and leaning against her.
“Back up,” Thalia said.
We started to—but then I heard a rustling of branches. Two more skeletons appeared on the road behind us. We were surrounded.
I wondered where the other skeletons were. I’d seen a dozen at the Smithsonian. Then one of the warriors raised a cell phone to his mouth and spoke into it.
Except he wasn’t speaking. He made a clattering, clicking sound, like dry teeth on bone. Suddenly I understood what was going on. The skeletons had split up to look for us. These skeletons were now calling their brethren. Soon we’d have a full party on our hands.
“It’s near,” Grover moaned.
“It’s here,” I said.
“No,” he insisted. “The gift. The gift from the Wild.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I was worried about his condition. He was in no shape to walk, much less fight.
“We’ll have to go one-on-one,” Thalia said. “Four of them. Four of us. Maybe they’ll ignore Grover that way.”
“Agreed,” said Zoë.
“The Wild!” Grover moaned.
A warm wind blew through the canyon, rustling the trees, but I kept my eyes on the skeletons. I remembered the General gloating over Annabeth’s fate. I remembered the way Luke had betrayed her.
And I charged.
The first skeleton fired. Time slowed down. I won’t say I could see the bullet, but I could feel its path, the same way I felt water currents in the ocean. I deflected it off the edge of my blade and kept charging.
The skeleton drew a baton and I sliced off his arms at the elbows. Then I swung Riptide through his waist and cut him in half.
His bones unknit and clattered to the asphalt in a heap. Almost immediately, they began to move, reassembling themselves. The second skeleton clattered his teeth at me and tried to fire, but I knocked his gun into the snow.
I thought I was doing pretty well, until the other two skeletons shot me in the back.
“Percy!” Thalia screamed.
I landed facedown in the street. Then I realized something . . . I wasn’t dead. The impact of the bullets had been dull, like a push from behind, but they hadn’t hurt me.
The Nemean Lion’s fur! My coat was bulletproof.
Thalia charged the second skeleton. Zoë and Bianca started firing arrows at the third and fourth. Grover stood there and held his hands out to the trees, looking like he wanted to hug them.
There was a crashing sound in the forest to our left, like a bulldozer. Maybe the skeletons’ reinforcements were arriving. I got to my feet and ducked a police baton. The skeleton I’d cut in half was already fully re-formed, coming after me.
There was no way to stop them. Zoë and Bianca fired at their heads point-blank, but the arrows just whistled straight through their empty skulls. One lunged at Bianca, and I thought she was a goner, but she whipped out her hunting knife and stabbed the warrior in the chest. The whole skeleton erupted into flames, leaving a little pile of ashes and a police badge.
“How did you do that?” Zoë asked.
“I don’t know,” Bianca said nervously. “Lucky stab?”
“Well, do it again!”
Bianca tried, but the remaining three skeletons were wary of her now. They pressed us back, keeping us at baton’s length.
“Plan?” I said as we retreated.
Nobody answered. The trees behind the skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking.
“A gift,” Grover muttered.
And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig I’d ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, thirty feet high, with a snotty pink snout and tusks the size of canoes. Its back bristled with brown hair, and its eyes were wild and angry.
“REEEEEEEEET!” it squealed, and raked the three skeletons aside with its tusks. The force was so great, they went flying over the trees and into the side of the mountain, where they smashed to pieces, thigh bones and arm bones twirling everywhere.
Then the pig turned on us.
Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled, “Don’t kill it!”