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The Final Moment of Serenity

Theo's POV

I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping along behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.

Of course, the Mist helped. People probably couldn't see Mrs. O'Leary, or maybe they thought she was a large, loud, very friendly truck.

I asked Percy if I could use his mother's phone to call Annabeth. He gave it to me, and I gave her a call.

The first time, it went straight to voicemail. The second time, though, I didn't have to wait long for her to pick up.

Theo: Hey. You got my message?

Annabeth: (on the phone) Theo, where have you been? Your message said almost nothing! We've been worried sick!

Theo: Percy and I'll fill you in later. Where are you?

Annabeth: (on the phone) We're on our way like you asked, almost to the Queens—Midtown Tunnel. But, Theo, what are you and Percy planning? We've left the camp virtually undefended, and there's no way the gods—

Theo: Just trust me, okay? I'll see you there.

I hung up. My hands were trembling. I wasn't sure if it was a leftover reaction from my dip in the Styx, or anticipation of what I was about to do. If this didn't work, being invulnerable wasn't going to save me from getting sliced up.

It was late afternoon when the taxi dropped me and Percy at the Empire State Building. Mrs. O'Leary bounded up and down Fifth Avenue, licking cabs and sniffing hot dog carts. Nobody seemed to notice her, although people did swerve away and look confused when she came close.

Percy whistled for her to heel as three white vans pulled up to the curb. They said Delphi Strawberry Service, which was the cover name for Camp Half-Blood. I'd never seen all three vans in the same place at once, though I knew they shuttled our fresh produce into the city.

The first van was driven by Argus, our many-eyed security chief. The other two were driven by harpies, who are basically demonic human/chicken hybrids with bad attitudes. We used the harpies mostly for cleaning the camp, but they did pretty well in midtown traffic too.

The doors slid open. A bunch of campers climbed out, some of them looking a little green from the long drive. I was glad so many had come: Pollux, Silena Beauregard, the Stoll brothers, Michael Yew, Jake Mason, Katie Gardner, and Annabeth, along with most of their siblings. Chiron came out of the van last. His horse half was compacted into his magic wheelchair, so he used the handicap lift. Even Diego the saber-toothed tiger hopped out of the van wearing full bronze armor and bronze horsehair helmet. The Ares cabin wasn't here, but I tried not to get too angry about that. Clarisse was a stubborn dumbass. End of story.

I did a head count: forty campers in all.

Not many to fight a war, but it was still the largest group of half-bloods I'd ever seen gathered in one place outside camp. Everyone looked nervous, and I understood why. We were probably sending out so much demigod aura that every monster in the northeastern United States knew we were here.

As I looked at their faces—all these campers I'd known for so many summers—a nagging voice whispered in my mind: One of them is a spy.

But I couldn't dwell on that. They were my friends. I needed them.

Then I remembered Kronos's evil smile. You can't count on friends. They will always let you down.

Annabeth and Zoe came up to me. Annabeth was dressed in black camouflage with her Celestial bronze knife strapped to her arm and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder—ready for stabbing or surfing the Internet, whichever came first. Zoe was wearing her own Hunter jacket with her bronze knife strapped to her hip and her bow on her back.