𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 4

Four
𖧷

Battle With Metal Animals

  Last summer, I had fought a dinosaur the size of an elephant, with a horse head, at the top of the hill. This time what I saw up there was even worse: two things the size of elephants. And not simply elephants—bronze bulls the size of elephants. And even that wasn’t bad enough. Naturally they had to breathe fire, too. Because, why not?

  As soon as we exited the taxi, the Gray 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 us on the side of the road, Annabeth with nothing but her backpack and knife, Tyson and Percy still in their burned-up tie-dyed gym-clothes. I was still relatively clean, only a bunch of dirt and all that.

  "Oh, man," said Annabeth, looking at the battle raging on the hill.

  What worried me most weren’t the bulls themselves. Or the ten heroes in full battle armor who were getting their bronze-plated asses being handed to them. What worried me 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. Red and spiky, with the same tint of anger as I recognized.

  Border patrol? I thought. The camp didn’t have a border patrol.

  "It’s Clarisse," Annabeth said. "Come on, we have to help her."

  "Help Clarisse? Are you sure you're Annabeth?" I asked. "I will not help Clarisse, and you know that."

  "Yes, you will."

  "I–" Annabeth glared at me. "Fine."

  I waved my right arm around and small glitter sparks appeared from my hand until they formed into a one handed black sword with a red line in the middle of the blade.

  "Tyson, stay here. I don’t want you taking any more chances," Percy ordered the Cyclop.

"No!" Annabeth said. "We need him."

Percy stared at her. “He’s mortal. He got lucky with the dodge balls but he can’t–"

  "Percy, do you know what those are up there? The Colchis bulls, made by Hephaestus himself. We can’t fight them without Medea’s Sunscreen SPF 50,000. We’ll get burned to a crisp."

  "Medea’s what?" I asked.

  Annabeth rummaged through her backpack and cursed. "I had a jar of tropical coconut scent sitting on my night-stand at home. Why didn’t I bring it?"

  I’d learned a long time ago not to question Annabeth too much. It just occasionally made me more confused.

  "Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not going to let Tyson get fried," Percy argued.

  "Percy–"

  "Tyson, stay back." Percy raised his sword and cut me from talking. "I’m going in."