Miss Quinn

76 ~ Nereus and the Ophiotaurus

"Tell me when it's over," Thalia said. Her eyes were shut tight. The statue was holding on to her, Percy, and Emma so they couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched his arm like it was the most important thing in the world.

"Everything's fine," Emma promised.

"Are... are we very high?"

Emma looked down. Below them, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. Percy stretched out his foot and kicked snow off one of the peaks.

"Nah," he said. "Not that high."

"We are in the Sierras.'" Zoe yelled. She and Grover were hanging from the arms of the other statue. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" the angel holding Emma said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"

"Oh, man," the other angel said. "I am so there!"

"You guys have visited San Francisco?" Percy asked.

"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" our statue said. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And—"

"Hank!" the other statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, man."

"Oh, right." If bronze statues could blush, Emma swore Hank did. "Back to flying."

They sped up, so Emma could tell the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and then the angels were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.

Grover played his pipes to pass the time. Zoe got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as she flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and they passed dozens of them—she would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour.

Thalia kept her eyes closed the whole way. She muttered to herself a lot, like she was praying.

"You did good back there," Emma told her. "Zeus listened."

It was hard to tell what she was thinking with her eyes closed.

"Maybe," she said. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room, anyway? You said they cornered you."

Emma and Percy told her about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who seemed to be able to see right through the Mist. Emma thought Thalia was going to call them crazy, but she just nodded.

"Some mortals are like that," she said. "Nobody knows why."

It was silent for a moment, as Percy and Emma processed the information. Emma couldn't help but wonder if her mum could see through the Mist.

"Well, the girl was annoying," Percy said. "But I'm glad I didn't vaporize her. That would've been bad."

Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal." She said that as if she'd given it a lot of thought.

"Where you guys want to land?" Hank asked, waking Percy up from a nap.

Thalia had been too frightened to rest, and Emma had stayed awake to keep her company. Percy, however, had drifted off to sleep.
Percy looked down and said, "Whoa."

Emma had never seen San Francisco, and she guessed Percy hadn't, either. It was probably the most beautiful American city Emma had ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been surrounded by green hills and fog. There was a huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge sticking up out of the fog. It looked sort of like the hills surrounding Hogwarts had been populated.