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chapter eighty-seven. ☄︎. *. ⋆
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I THOUGHT PERCY WAS DONE FOR when he walked out from behind the bus and into the clearing.
When the Minotaur saw him, his eyes burned with hate. He bellowed—a sound that was somewhere between a yell, a moo, and a really loud belch.
"Hey, Beef Boy," Percy shouted back. "Didn't I kill you already?"
I hid a cringe as Michael and I gathered the rest of our siblings to follow Percy's orders. Percy had never been the best at talking trash. I guessed this one wasn't too bad, because it did draw the right reaction out of the Minotaur—I hear a large crash and glanced over my shoulder to see he had pounded the hood of a Lexus in with his fist.
For a second, when the monsters charged Percy, I was worried he wouldn't be able to take them all. But then I remembered him taking a swim in the Styx, and I watched in transfixed awe as he managed to deflect/dodge/block every single hit thrown at him. It was like he had some sort of forcefield around his entire body. I'd never seen anything like it. I didn't know how long he would be able to hold them, though.
"Come on!" I yelled to my siblings, and we charged into the battle.
I was shooting arrow after arrow, finding all sorts of holes in monster armor and barely even watching as they disintegrated before moving onto the next one. I wondered if I had some sort of extension of the Achilles' Curse because of how close I was to Percy, because I had never been able to nock and shoot arrows so quickly.
"Yes!" Michael shouted, pumping a fist. "That's what I'm talking about!"
We drove them back toward the Brooklyn side of the bridge. The sky was growing pale in the east. I could see the toll stations ahead. My stomach grew uneasy, and I began to fall back with small steps.
"Percy!" I yelled. "You've already routed them. We're overextended!"
I could tell he heard me because he glanced back at me. His eyes darted between me and the monsters surrounding him, before landing on the crowd at the base of the bridge. I saw it at the same time he did: The retreating monsters were running straight toward their reinforcements. It was small group, maybe thirty or forty demigods in battle armor, mounted on skeletal horses. One of them held a purple banner with the black scythe design.
The lead horseman trotted forward. He took off his helm, and I recognized Kronos himself, his eyes like molten gold.
My siblings and I faltered. The monsters we had been pursuing reached the Titan's line and were absorbed into the new force. Kronos gazed in our direction. He was a quarter mile away, but I swear I could see him smile.
