GODS AND MONSTERS , pjo

03 , bulls...again

If there's anything I hate worse than cheese, bullies, and onions, it's bulls. I feel like I've mentioned that though.

Last summer, Percy fought the Minotaur on top of Half-Blood Hill and it almost killed my mother. This time what I saw up there was even worse: two bulls. And not just regular bulls—bronze ones the size of elephants. And even that wasn't bad enough. Naturally they had to breathe fire, too.

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, Percy, and me still in our burned-up tie-dyed gym clothes.

"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 booties whooped. 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.

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

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

Normally, rushing to Clarisse's aid would not have been high on my "to do list. She was one of the biggest bullies at camp. The first time we'd met she tried to introduce Percy's head to a toilet while her friend stepped on my face. She was also a daughter of Ares, and we'd had a very serious disagreement with her father last summer, so now the god of war and all his children basically hated my guts.

Expect Estella. She is awesome.

Estella is probably the nicest child of Ares you'll ever meet. She very pretty, funny, and not like the mean kinda funny, like where she picks on you for jokes (like her sister), she actually has jokes. She has very long brown hair and she's a little over two years older then me.

But I didn't see Estella anywhere, just clarisse and she was in trouble. Her fellow warriors were scattering, running in panic as the bulls charged.

The grass was burning in huge swathes around the pine tree. One hero screamed and waved his arms as he ran in circles, the horsehair plume on his helmet blazing like a fiery Mohawk.

Clarisse's own armor was charred. She was fighting with a broken spear shaft, the other end embedded uselessly in the metal joint of one bull's shoulder.

I summoned my sword.

"Tyson, stay here. I don't want you taking any more chances." Percy said.

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

He 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"

Hepfeetsist?

"Medea's what?"

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?"