Daughter of Neptune, Book one

XXXVI

Jason's pov

Time seemed to slow down, which was really frustrating, since I couldn't move. I felt myself sinking into the earth like the ground was a waterbed—comfortable, urging me to relax and give up. I wondered if the stories of the Underworld were true. Would I end up in the Fields of Punishment or Elysium? If I couldn't remember any of my deeds, would they still count? I wondered if the judge would take that under consideration, or if my dad, Zeus, would write me a note: "Please excuse Jason from eternal damnation. He has amnesia."

I couldn't feel my arms. I could see the top of the spear coming toward my chest in slow motion. I knew I should move, but I couldn't seem to do it. Funny, I thought. All this effort to stay alive, and then, boom. You just lie there helplessly while a fire-breathing giant impairs you.

Leo's voice yelled, "Heads up!"

A large black metal wedge slammed into Enceladus with a massive thunk! The giant toppled over and slid into the pit.

"Jason, get up!" Piper called. Her voice energized me, took me out of my stupor. I sat you, my head groggy, while Piper grabbed me under my under my arms and hauled me to my feet.

"Don't die on me," she ordered. "You are not dying on me."

"Yes, ma'am." I felt light-headed, but she was about the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Her hair was smoldering. Her face was smudged with soot. She had a cut in her arm, her dress was torn, and she was missing a boot. Beautiful.

About a hundred feet behind her, Leo was hugging Tori, her body was limp, was she dead? No, it couldn't be. This was Victoria Jackson, she never gives up this easily. She could have a sword through her stomach, and she would fight. She can't die. Leo was muttering something in her ear. Then Tori picked her head up and looked at Leo. Their faces were close to each other and red. Then they pulled away from each other and looked down.

"Is it me or is there something going on between Tori and Leo?" I asked Piper.

"I thought I was going crazy, there's definitely something going on." Piper answered. "They've been weird around each other since Omaha."

Tori came over to us, she looked wiped out and I could tell she had something on her mind. Leo went over to a piece of construction equipment—a long cannonlike thing with a single massive piston, the edge broken clean off.

Then I looked down in the crater and saw where the other end of the hydraulic ax had gone. Enceladus was struggling to rise, and ax blade the size of a washing machine stuck in his breastplate.

Amazingly, the giant managed to pull the ax blade free. He yelled in pain and the mountain trembled. Golden ichor got soaked the front of his armor, but Enceladus stood.

Shakily, he bent down and retrieved his spear.

"Good try." The giant winced. "But I cannot be beaten."

As we watched, the giant's armor mended itself, and the ichor stopped flowing. Even the cuts in his dragon-scale legs, which Tori and I had worked so hard to make, were now just pale scars.

Leo ran up to us, saw the giant, and cursed. "What is it with this guy? Die, already!"

"My fate is preordained," Enceladus said. "Giants cannot be killed by gods or heroes."

"Only by both," Tori said. The giant's smile faltered, and I saw in his eyes something like fear. "It's true, isn't it? Gods and demigods have to work together to kill you."

"You will not live long enough to try!" The giant started stumbling up the crater's slope, slipping in the glassy sides.

"Anyone have a god handy?" Leo asked.