BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

89.

EDEN HAD THOUGHT that all of the training she'd had in her life was preparing her for the Titan War.

She was wrong. It all prepared her for this moment.

"I'll kill you all if I have to!" Eden heard her girlfriend yell, and she couldn't have been more proud of her.

"The thing is," Eden called, smirking down. "Is that you don't have to, darling."

She hopped down from the cliff that she, Perfect Jason, Frank, and Hazel were standing on, and dropped down on the nearest giant's head, stabbing a javelin into the head.

  So much happened at once that only an ADHD demigod could have kept track.

  Perfect Jason had jumped along with her, and he fell on King Porphyrion with such force that the giant crumpled to his knees – blasted with lightning and stabbed in the neck with a golden gladius.

  Frank unleashed a hail of arrows, driving back the giants nearest to Percy, who was on the ground somewhere.

  The Argo II rose above the ruins and all the ballistae and catapults fired simultaneously. Leo must have programmed the weapons with surgical precision. A wall of Greek fire roared upward all around the Parthenon. It didn't touch the interior, but in a flash most of the smaller monsters around it were incinerated.

  Leo's voice boomed over the loudspeaker: "SURRENDER! YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY ONE SPANKING HOT WAR MACHINE!"

  The giant Enceladus howled in outrage. "Valdez!"

  "WHAT'S UP, ENCHILADAS?" Leo's voice roared back. "NICE DAGGER IN YOUR FOREHEAD."

  "GAH!" The giant pulled Katoptris out of his head. "Monsters: destroy that ship!"

  The remaining forces tried their best. A flock of gryphons rose to attack. Festus the figurehead blew flames and chargrilled them out of the sky. A few Earthborn launched a volley of rocks, but from the sides of the hull a dozen spheres sprayed out, intercepting the boulders and blasting them to dust.

  "PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!" Buford ordered.

  Hazel spurred Arion off the colonnade and they leaped into battle. The forty-foot fall would have broken any other horse's legs, but Arion hit the ground running. Hazel zipped from giant to giant, stinging them with the blade of her spatha.

  With extremely bad timing, Kekrops and his snake people chose that moment to join the fight. In four or five places around the ruins, the ground turned to green goo and armed gemini burst forth, Kekrops himself in the lead.

  "Kill the demigods!" he hissed. "Kill the tricksters!"

  Before many of his warriors could follow, Hazel pointed her blade at the nearest tunnel. The ground rumbled. All the gooey membranes popped and the tunnels collapsed, billowing plumes of dust. Kekrops looked around at his army, now reduced to six guys.

  "SLITHER AWAY!" he ordered.

  Eden's gunshots cut them down as they tried to retreat.

  The giantess Periboia had thawed with alarming speed. She tried to grab Annabeth, but, despite her bad leg as Eden could tell, Annabeth was holding her own. She stabbed at the giantess with her own hunting knife and led her in a deadly game of tag around the throne.

  Percy's nose was bleeding. But he seemed to be standing his ground against an old giant.

Eden stood back to back with Piper, fighting every giant who dared to come close. For a moment she felt elated. They were actually winning! For once.