Indigo Eyes

Chapter 54

Cressida's ass was killing her and she wasn't the only one - riding on a boar, while it was fast, it was not comfortable.

As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."

No one needed any convincing, in fact, they were all rather eager to get off as the boar was busy ripping up cacti. And none of them could walk properly as they tried to get away from the creature as quietly as possible before the bull turned and went galloping east towards the mountains.

It was only then that they realised where they were - Arizona. In a place called Gila Claw where the hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances and other scrap metal that seemed to stretch on forever. It was a junkyard.

And Grover's tracking spell, i.e. his little acorn nuts, told them they had to go straight through it.

They decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning seeing as it would probably be safer to be able to see when they went dumpster diving.

Zoë and Bianca produced six sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. The night got cold fast before Percy and Grover found some old wooden boards that Thalia zapped with an electric shock to start a fire. It was actually pretty comfy considering that they were in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.

"The stars are out," Zoë said. She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.

"It's beautiful," Cressida remarked.

"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."

"This is nothing," Zoë said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."

"You talk like you're not human," Percy said.

Zoë raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"

"For you", Thalia corrected. "Not thee."

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence."

"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you."

Zoë threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"

"Just speak in Ancient Greek then. That language hasn't changed in like three thousand years," Cressida suggested as she stared at the sky, her hair fanned out on her sleeping bag.

Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right."

Zoë nodded sadly.

"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee..."

They were all fairly certain that coffee had nothing to do with what happened at Cloudcroft but no one had the heart to tell Grover.

"Grover, do you really think that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be," Percy said.

"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've got in two thousand years. I was so close."

"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. There are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them. We can't count on Cressida slowing them down all the time."