Crimson Rivers [1] - Percy jackson

Chapter 13: We Check In to C.C.'s Spa & Resort

I woke up in a rowboat with a makeshift sail stitched of grey uniform fabric. Annabeth sat next to me, Percy laying next to me almost ontop of me also just waking up. I tried to sit up and immediately felt woozy. ‘Rest,’ she said. ‘You’re going to need it.’

‘Tyson …?’ Percy asked.

She shook her head. ‘Percy, I’m really sorry.’

We were silent while the waves tossed us up and down. ‘He may have survived,’she said half-heartedly. ‘I mean, fire can’t kill him.’

I nodded, but I had no reason to feel hopeful. I’d seen that explosion rip
through solid iron. If Tyson had been down in the boiler room, there was no way he could’ve lived. He’d given his life for us, and all I could think about were the times I’d felt embarrassed by him and how often Percy had denied that the two of them were related.

Waves lapped at the boat. Annabeth showed me some things she’d salvaged
from the wreckage – Hermes’s Flask (now empty), an airtight bag full of
ambrosia, a couple of sailors’ shirts and a bottle of Dr Pepper. She’d fished me and Percy out of the water and found our knapsacks, bitten in half by Scylla’s teeth. Most of our stuff had floated away, but we still had Hermes’s bottle of multivitamins, and of course, Percy had Riptide. The ballpoint pen always appeared back in his pocket no matter where he lost it.

We sailed for hours. Now that we were in the Sea of Monsters, the water glittered a more brilliant green, like Hydra acid. The wind smelled fresh and
salty, but it carried a strange metallic scent, too – as if a thunderstorm were
coming. Or something even more dangerous. I knew what direction we needed to go. I knew we were exactly one hundred and thirteen nautical miles west by northwest of our destination. But that didn’t make me feel any less lost.

No matter which way we turned, the sun seemed to shine straight into my
eyes. We took turns sipping from the Dr Pepper, shading ourselves with the sail
as best we could. And we talked about my latest dream of Grover. By Annabeth’s estimate, we had less than twenty-four hours to find Grover, assuming my dream was accurate, and assuming the Cyclops Polyphemus didn’t change his mind and try to marry Grover earlier. ‘Yeah,’ Percy said bitterly. ‘You can never trust a Cyclops.’

Annabeth stared across the water. ‘I’m sorry, Percy. I was wrong about Tyson,
okay? I wish I could tell him that.’

I tried to stay mad at her, but it wasn’t easy. We’d been through a lot together.
She’d saved my life plenty of times. It was stupid of me to resent her. I looked down at our measly possessions – the empty wind Flask, the bottle of
multivitamins. I thought about Luke’s look of rage when I’d tried to talk to him about his dad. ‘Annabeth, what’s Chiron’s prophecy?’

She pursed her lips. ‘Syrus, I shouldn’t –’

‘I know Chiron promised the gods he wouldn’t tell me. But you didn’t promise, did you?’

‘Knowledge isn’t always good for you.’

‘Your mom is the wisdom goddess!’

‘I know! But every time heroes learn the future, they try to change it, and it
never works.’

‘The gods are worried about something I’ll do when I get older,’ Percy guessed.
‘Something when I turn sixteen.’

Annabeth twisted her Yankees cap in her hands. ‘Percy, I don’t know the full
prophecy, but it warns about a half-blood child of the Big Three – the next one
who lives to the age of sixteen. That’s the real reason Zeus, Poseidon and Hades
swore a pact after World War II not to have any more kids. The next child of the Big Three who reaches sixteen will be a dangerous weapon.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that hero will decide the fate of Olympus. He or she will make a
decision that either saves the Age of the Gods, or destroys it.’

I let that sink in. I don’t get seasick, but suddenly I felt ill. ‘That’s why Kronos
didn’t kill Percy last summer.’

She nodded. ‘You could be very useful to him actually both of you, the prophecy of the bond says its very piwerful with you two finally being connected. If he can get you on his side, the gods will be in serious trouble.’

‘But if it’s me in the prophecy –’

‘We’ll only know that if you survive three more years. That can be a long time for a half-blood. When Chiron first learned about Thalia, he assumed she was the one in the prophecy. That’s why he was so desperate to get her safely to
camp. Then she went down fighting and got turned into a pine tree and none of
us knew what to think. Until you came along.’

On our port side, a spiky green dorsal fin about five metres long curled out of the water and disappeared. ‘This kid in the prophecy … he or she couldn’t be like, a Cyclops?’ I asked.

‘The Big Three have lots of monster children.’ Percy said

Annabeth shook her head. ‘The Oracle said “half-blood”. That always means
half human, half god. There’s really nobody alive who it could be, except you.’

‘Then why do the gods even let me live? It would be safer to kill me.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Percy, I don’t know. I guess some of the gods would like to kill you, but
they’re probably afraid of offending Poseidon. Other gods … maybe they’re still watching you, trying to decide what kind of hero you’re going to be. You could be a weapon for their survival, after all. The real question is … what will you do in three years? What decision will you make?’

‘Did the prophecy give any hints?’

Annabeth hesitated. Maybe she would’ve told us more, but just then a seagull swooped down out of nowhere and landed on our makeshift mast. Annabeth looked startled as the
bird dropped a small cluster of leaves into her lap. ‘Land,’she said. ‘There’s land nearby!’

I sat up. Sure enough, there was a line of blue and brown in the distance.
Another minute and I could make out an island with a small mountain in the
centre, a dazzling white collection of buildings, a beach dotted with palm trees and a harbour filled with a strange assortment of boats. The current was pulling our rowboat towards what looked like a tropical paradise. ‘Welcome!’said the lady with the clipboard.

She looked like a flight attendant – blue business suit, perfect makeup, hair
pulled back in a ponytail. She shook our hands as we stepped onto the dock.
With the dazzling smile she gave us, you would’ve thought we’d just got off the
Princess Andromeda rather than a bashed-up rowboat. Then again, our rowboat wasn’t the weirdest ship in port. Along with a bunch of pleasure yachts, there was a U.S. Navy submarine, several dugout canoes and
an old-fashioned three-masted sailing ship. There was a helipad with a ‘Channel Five Fort Lauderdale’ helicopter on it, and a short runway with a Learjet and a propeller plane that looked like a World War II fighter. Maybe they were replicas for tourists to look at or something. ‘Is this your first time with us?’ the clipboard lady enquired.

Annabeth, Percy and I exchanged looks. Annabeth said, ‘Umm…’