𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 15

Fifteen
𖧷

Santa's Ugly Twin

  "Tell me when it's over," Thalia said. Her eyes were shut tight. The statues were holding on to us so we couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched the arm of her statue like it was the most important thing in the world.

  "Everything's fine," I promised.

  "Are… are we very high?"

  I looked down. Below us, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. I stretched out my foot and kicked snow off one of the peaks.

  "Nah," I said. "Not that high."

  "We are in the Sierras.'" Zoe yelled. She and Grover were hanging from the arms of the the same statue as me. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

  "Hey, hey, Frisco!" Thalia's angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"

  "Oh, man," our angel said. "I am so there!"

  "You guys have visited San Francisco?" I asked.

  "We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" Thalia's statue said. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And—"

  "Hank!" the other statue, Chuck, cut in. "They're kids, man."

  "Oh, right." If bronze statues could blush, I swear Hank did. "Back to flying."

  We sped up, so I could tell the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and then we were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.

  Grover played his pipes to pass the time. Zoe got bored and started a bet to see which one of us could hit more things. Every time we saw a Target department store—and we passed dozens of them—we would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour. The score was barely any different, but Zoe won by three shots.

  Thalia kept her eyes closed the whole way. She muttered to herself a lot, like she was praying.

  "You did good back there," I told her. "Zeus listened."

  It was hard to tell what she was thinking with her eyes closed.

  "Maybe," she said. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room, anyway? You said they cornered you."

  I told her about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who seemed to be able to see right through the Mist. I thought Thalia was going to call me crazy, but she just nodded.

  "Some mortals are like that," she said. "Nobody knows why."

  I wondered how many other people were like that, but then I realized, Sally Jackson was. She saw the Minotaur when Percy first saw it, and she could tell what it was. She had told me that when we were driving back to get Percy, when she adopted me.

"Well, the girl was annoying," I said. "But I'm glad I didn't vaporize her. That would've been bad."

  Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal." She said that as if she'd given it a lot of thought.