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chapter forty-eight ☄︎. *. ⋆
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THE DAM VISITOR'S CENTER was something of a dam masterpiece, if I do say so myself. I wasn't the monument fanatic of our group, because that title stays reserved for Annabeth, but even I had to admit: that place was cool.
It would have been cooler if the skeletons didn't interrupt our sightseeing and try to kill us.
We were just sitting down with our food—dam burritos and enchiladas galore—when Percy burst into the cafeteria, breathless and looking like he'd just faced a pair of Cyclopes with his bare hands (so to say: not good.) Now, I have to admit, I'd been too busy listening to our tour guide's speech that I had barely even registered Percy's absence—I only realized he was gone when he burst through the doors and bolted our way.
"We need to leave," he panted. "Now."
"But we just got our food," Grover argued. "Do you know how long it's been since I've had a good—?"
Zoë stood, muttering an Ancient Greek curse. "Percy's right. Look!"
The café windows wrapped all the way around the observation floor, which gave us a beautiful panoramic view of the skeletal army that had come to kill us. I counted two on the east side of the dam road, blocking the way to Arizona. Three more on the west side, guarding Nevada. All of them were armed with batons and pistols.
But we had bigger problems: three members of the skeletal battalion had already made it inside the visitor's center and were marching our way, teeth clattering with every step. Suddenly I wasn't hungry anymore.
"Elevator!" Grover said. We bolted that direction, but the doors opened with a pleasant ding, and three more warriors stepped out. Every warrior was accounted for, minus the one Bianca had blasted to flames in New Mexico. We were completely surrounded.
Then Grover had a brilliant, totally Grover-like idea. "Burrito fight!" he yelled, and flung his Guacamole Grande at the nearest skeleton.
"Dude, nice aim!" I complimented, because really, it was. He'd hit one of the skeletons and knocked its skull clean off its body, leaving the head rattling in a circle on the floor. Guacamole splattered across it, leaving the murder scene looking like Shrek's ogre baby had spit up all over it.
I'm not sure what the other kids in the cafeteria saw, but they went crazy and started throwing their burritos and baskets of chips and sodas across the room at each other, shrieking and screaming. Thalia narrowly dodged a flying cup of root beer.
In the chaos, I slammed one of the skeletons into a knocked-over table, splattering rice and beans across the floor and leaving a broken-up skeleton in my wake. Percy tackled another one on the stairs and sent it flying into the condiment table. Then we all raced downstairs, Guacamole Grandes whizzing past our heads.
"What now?" I asked as we sped down the steps and burst outside.
Nobody seemed to have an answer for me. The warriors on the road were closing in from either direction. We ran across the street to the pavilion with the winged bronze statues, but that just put our backs to the mountain.
The skeletons moved forward, forming a crescent around us. Their brethren from the café were running up to join them. One was still putting its skull back on its shoulders. Another was covered in ketchup and mustard. Two more had burritos lodged in their rib cages. They didn't look happy about it. They drew batons and advanced.
"Five against twelve," Zoë muttered. "And they cannot die."
"It's been nice adventuring with you guys," Grover said, his voice trembling.
"C'mon," I said, gripping my bow, "let's at least go down fighting."
I was ready to run into battle, but it seemed Percy had other plans, because he grabbed my arm before I could even take a step. "Wait," he said, then turned to Thalia. "Pray to your dad."
I thought he was crazy. Just because there were two statues of Zeus's angels nearby, did that mean the god of the skies would break his streak of silence towards his daughter? Thalia seemed just as skeptical as me, because she glared at Percy like he'd hit a sore spot.
"He never answers."
"Just this once," Percy pleaded. "Ask for help. I think.. I think the statues can give us some luck."
I glanced at them. They were weathered brown except for their toes, which were a shining bronze color from all the times people had rubbed them for good luck.
Half the skeletons raised their guns. The other six came forward with their batons. Fifty feet away. Forty.
"Do it," I told Thalia. "It's not like we have anything to lose."
"He won't answer me," she said, gripping her shield.
"Just try it," Grover pleaded.
Thalia closed her eyes. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. I put in my own prayer to all the gods I could think of—even the ones that don't like me. We needed all the help we could get.
And nothing happened.
The skeletons closed in. I hefted my bow, one final arrow nocked. Percy raised Riptide to defend himself. Thalia held up her shield. Zoë pushed Grover behind her and aimed an arrow at a skeleton's head.
A shadow fell over me. I thought maybe it was the shadow of death. Then I realized it was the shadow of an enormous wing. The skeletons looked up too late. A flash of bronze, and all five of the baton-wielders were swept aside.
The other skeletons opened fire. I raised my lion coat for protection, but I didn't need it. The bronze angels stepped in front of us and folded their wings like shields. Bullets pinged off of them like rain off a corrugated roof. Both angels slashed outward, and the skeletons went flying across the road.
"Man, it feels good to stand up!" the first angel said. His voice sounded tinny and rusty, like he hadn't had a drink since he'd been built.
"Will ya look at my toes?" the other said. "Holy Zeus, what were those tourists thinking?"
As stunned as I was by the angels, I was more concerned with the skeletons. A few of them were getting up again, reassembling, bony hands groping for their weapons.
"Hey, guys!" I said. "Lend a hand?"
"Get us out of here!" Thalia yelled.
Both angels looked down at her. "Zeus's kid?"
"Yes!"
"Could I get a please, Miss Zeus's Kid?" an angel asked.
"Please!"
The angels looked at each other and shrugged.
"Could use a stretch," one decided.
And the next thing I knew, one of them grabbed Thalia and Percy, the other grabbed me and Grover, and Zoë pocketed into one of their bronze sandals. We flew straight up, over the dam and the river, the skeleton warriors shrinking to tiny specks below us and the sound of gunfire echoing off the sides of the mountains.
