Death's Touch | Jason Grace

Thirteen

Cary and Leon untangled themselves as the pilot informed them that he couldn't wait for them later. Cary thanked him and practically ran out into the cold.

She was a descendant of Vulcan. Why did she like the cold so much?

As they took a taxi into downtown Anchorage, Percy told Frank, Hazel, Leon, and Cary about his dreams. They looked anxious but not surprised when he told them about the giant's army closing in on camp. Leon said that scouts had seen some of it.

Frank choked when he heard about Tyson. "You have a half-brother who's a Cyclops?"

"Sure," Percy said. "Which makes him your great-great-great—"

"Please." Frank covered his ears. "Enough."

"As long as he can get Ella to camp," Hazel said. "I'm worried about her."

The taxi turned on Highway One, which looked more like a small street to Cary, and took them north toward downtown. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high in the sky.

"I can't believe how much this place has grown," Hazel muttered.

The taxi driver grinned in the rearview mirror. "Been a long time since you visited, miss?"

"About seventy years," Hazel said.

The driver slid the glass partition closed and drove on in silence.

According to Hazel, almost none of the buildings were the same, but she pointed out features of the landscape: the vast forests ringing the city, the cold, gray waters of Cook Inlet tracing the north edge of town, and the Chugach Mountains rising grayish-blue in the distance, capped with snow even in June. Cary had never even smelled air this clean before. The town itself had a weather-beaten look to it, with closed stores, rusted-out cars, and worn apartment complexes lining the road, but it was still beautiful. Lakes and huge stretches of woods cut through the middle. The arctic sky was an amazing combination of turquoise and gold.

Then there were the giants. Dozens of bright-blue men, each thirty feet tall with gray frosty hair, were wading through the forests, fishing in the bay, and striding across the mountains. The mortals didn't seem to notice them. The taxi passed within a few yards of one who was sitting at the edge of a lake washing his feet, but the driver didn't panic.

"Um..." Frank pointed at the blue guy.

"Hyperboreans," Percy said. "Northern giants. I fought some when Kronos invaded Manhattan."

"Wait," Leon said.

"When who did what?" Cary demanded.

"Long story. But these guys look...I don't know, peaceful."

"They usually are," Hazel agreed. "I remember them. They're everywhere in Alaska, like bears."

"Bears?" Frank said nervously.

"The giants are invisible to mortals," Hazel said. "They never bothered me, though one almost stepped on me by accident once."

That sounded fairly bothersome to Cary, but the taxi kept driving. None of the giants paid them any attention. One stood right at the intersection of Northern Lights Road, straddling the highway, and they drove between his legs. The Hyperborean was cradling a Native American totem pole wrapped in furs, humming to it like a baby. If the guy hadn't been the size of a building, he would've been almost cute.

The taxi drove through downtown, past a bunch of tourists' shops advertising furs, Native American art, and gold. Cary jokingly thought that she hoped Hazel wouldn't get agitated and make the jewelry shops explode.