OH, CHÉRIE!¹ percy jackson

003

❛003❜

MYTHOLOGICALLY SPEAKING, IVY hated a lot of things. a trio of old ladies made itself into the list, now she was adding bulls, too. if fighting one wasn't enough, make it two bulls. and not just regular bulls – bronze ones the size of elephants. even if that wasn't bad enough, they had to breathe fire, too.

as soon as they exited the taxi, the grey sisters peeled out, heading back to new york, where life was safer. they didn't even wait for their extra three-drachma payment. they just left them on the side of the road, ivy with nothing but her two weapons and backpack, percy and tyson still in their burned-up tie-dyed gym clothes.

"holy fuck," said ivy, looking at the battle raging on the hill.

what worried her most weren't the bulls themselves. or the ten heroes in full battle armour who were getting their bronze-plated booties whooped. what worried her was that the bulls were ranging all over the hill, even around the back side of the pine tree. that shouldn't have been possible. the camp's magic boundaries didn't allow monsters to cross past thalia's tree. but the metal bulls were doing it anyway.

one of the heroes shouted, "border patrol, to me!" a girl's voice – gruff and familiar.

border patrol? ivy thought. the camp didn't have a border patrol.

"it's clarisse," the brunette said. "come on, we have to help her."

normally, rushing to clarisse's aid would not have been high on her to do list. still, she was in trouble. her warriors were scattered, 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 armour 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 ballpoint pen. it shimmered, growing longer until he held the bronze sword anaklusmos in his hands. "tyson, stay here. i don't want you taking any more chances."

"no!" ivy said. "he can be useful."

he stared at her. "he's mortal. he got lucky with the dodgeballs but he can't –"

"percy, those things up there are colchis bulls, made by hephaestus himself. they're impossible to fight without medea's sunscreen spf 50,000 unless you want to burn to crisp."

"medea's what?"

ivy rummaged through her backpack. "shit, i had a bottle of the fucking sunscreen on my nightstand at home. why didn't i bring it?"

"look, i don't know what you're talking about, but i'm not going to let tyson get fried."

"percy –"

"tyson, stay back." he raised his sword. "i'm going in."

tyson tried to protest, but percy was already running up the hill towards clarisse, who was yelling at her patrol, trying to get them into phalanx formation. it was a good idea. 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. ivy wondered where annabeth and gabriel were.

unfortunately, the daughter of ares could only muster six campers. the other four were still running around with their helmets on fire. ivy ran towards them, trying to help. she taunted one of the bulls into chasing her, yelling at it with charmspeak and getting him confused. the other bull charged clarisse's line.