Luminesence (Slow Updates)

013

A Coast Guard boat picked them up, but they were too busy to keep them for long, or to wonder how three kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. 

There was a disaster to mop up. Their radios were jammed with distress calls.

They dropped the kids off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around their shoulders and water bottles that said I’M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people.

Their clothes were sopping wet, even Percy's despite the fact that he probably can become dry. 

Percy was also barefoot, because he’d given his shoes to Grover.

Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of those two was barefoot than wonder why one of them had hooves.

After reaching dry land, the group stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. Phaedra  felt as if she’d just come back from the dead—which she had. 

Percy still had the backpack from Ares.

“I don’t believe it,” Annabeth said. “We went all that way—”

“It was a trick,” Percy said. “A strategy worthy of Athena.”

“Hey,” she warned.

"Don't you dare start fighting. I will permanently blind you both. Don't test me." Phaedra warned them.

“You get it, don’t you?” Percy asked.

She dropped her eyes, her anger fading. “Yeah. I get it.”

“Well, I don’t!” Grover complained. “Would somebody—”

“Percy...” Phaedra said. “I’m sorry about your mother. I’m so sorry....”

Percy ignored her. He looked like he would start crying if she kept talking so she just stayed quiet.

Despite what happened with my mom I would be the same way.

“The prophecy was right,” he said. “‘You shall go west and face the god who has turned.’ But it wasn’t Hades. Hades didn’t want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus’s master bolt, and Hades’s helm, and framed me because I’m Poseidon’s kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And I’ll have caused it.”

Grover shook his head, mystified. “But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?”

"Was I the only one paying attention to this quest? Look at the beach, Grover." Phaedra said, pointing to the figure standing to the man on the beach, watching them.

Percy stopped in his tracks, looking down the beach. “Gee, let me think.”

There he was, waiting for them, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red.

“Hey, kid,” Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see him. “You were supposed to die.”

Well damn, lay it on thick why don't you?

“You tricked me,” Percy said. “You stole the helm and the master bolt.”

Ares grinned. “Well, now, I didn’t steal them personally. Gods taking each other’s symbols of power—that’s a big no-no. But you’re not the only hero in the world who can run errands.”

“Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice.”

The idea seemed to amuse him.