Elemental

The Quest

I can barely sleep. I lie awake, staring at the ceiling. Something seems off about the whole thing. No prophecy? I wonder if something happened to Rachel, our new Oracle, if Apollo is gone. And something about Chiron seemed off. It's probably too late to do anything, though.

We leave at dawn, each with a backpack full of nectar, ambrosia, water, and anything else we thought would be useful, and, after walking a few miles to the nearest road, get a taxi and tell the driver to take us to the nearest bus station. No one even tries to make conversation. Max must be about thirteen. Percy is seventeen. Both look uncomfortable with me. I don't even want to know what's on their minds.

"What's wrong?" asks the driver. "You haven't said a word this whole time."

As he turns around, I catch a flicker of something supernatural across his face. I figure it's just my nerves, but just in case, I read his mind.

I hope this works. If I don't get these kids there, the boss will kill me! Mm...too bad he won't let me eat them himself...

I try not to panic. As the driver stops at a red light, I slam my door open. "We need to get out of here." I don't say it--only think it, trying to send it directly to them.

"What?" Percy and Max ask at the same time.

"No time to explain. Come on!"I run out, and, reluctantly, they follow me. The driver hasn't noticed--or if he did, he doesn't care, thank the gods.

Oh, scratch that--a suspicious-looking taxi is hot on our tail, waiting to get us alone. There's nowhere to go. Then I see what appears to be shopping center not too far away. We can lose ourselves in the crowd, although he won't hesitate to kill us if he finds us, because of the Mist. Still, it's safer.

Finally we get there. I lead them into a peppy party-type store, which is filled with people shopping for 4th of July decorations.

"What's going on?" Max asks.

"That guy was a monster," I reply, somewhat out of breath.

"And you knew this how?" Percy presses.

"I can read minds, basically. Only conscious thoughts." I glance around for the driver. "I think we've lost him. That was careless, taking a taxi."

"We're not far from a bus stop," says Percy, trying to move on. "We're supposed to go to DC."

"Let's go then," says Max. No one says it, but I know without reading anyone's mind that something's up. Still, I ignore it.

We walk to the bus stop. Yet, despite almost dying together, things are as awkward as they were in the taxi. We are lucky--we only have to wait a few minutes until a bus arrives heading to DC.

After an agonizing hour of unspeakable awkward boredom, the loudspeaker crackles to life: "Attention all passengers, we will arrive at Washington DC in about ten minutes."

Thank gods. We all grab our bags as get off as soon as the doors open. "Have a nice day," the driver says. If we don't die.

"Where are we going?" asks Max.

"Well, technically Nyx lives in Tartarus, but she came up here too kidnap Apollo," Percy explains. "She's in the Washington Monument. There's this hidden room that one of you supposedly has the key to. Supposedly. There's something fishy about the whole thing, don't you think?" He sounds a little bit unsure.

"Yeah. But what can we do? I mean, I think it's just nerves. Is this it?" Max asks, pulling a button that looked like one of those fancy suns people use as tattoos.

"I don't know," Percy replies. "Loo"

"There's something weird about this whole quest," I interject.

"We just said that," he remind me. "The whole thing about the prophecy is kind of weird."

"I wonder if something happened to Rachel." Max suggests.

"No, I saw her," Percy counters. "Look, can we just try the key?"

Max turns to me. "What do you think?"

"I definitely want to check it out," I say.

Famous last words.