A Son Love & Doves

Chapter 12 (41) Junkyard of The Gods

Y/n POV

I was woken by Thalia at sunset. Luckily with my comfy spot I didn't have to ride on the backside of the boar, which didn't look comfortable in the slightest. Not like I wanted to touch the disgusting beast in the first place.

Maybe if I were a son of Hermes I could have some idea of how many miles we covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until we were galloping across the desert.

As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

"This is as far as he’ll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he’s eating."

Nobody needed convincing. We slipped off the boar’s back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then we waddled away as best we could with our saddle sores. Well they waddled away while I sat snug in Thalia's jacket.

After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled round and galloped back towards the east.

"It likes the mountains better," Percy guessed.

"I can’t blame it," Thalia said. "Look."

Ahead of us was a two-lane road half blown over with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn’t been open since before Zoë Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills… but then I noticed they weren’t regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

"Whoa," Percy said.

"Something tells me we’re not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Grover. "I don’t suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned.

"That’s us," he said. "Those five nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" Percy asked.

"The little deformed one," Zoë suggested.

"Oh, shut up."

"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that’s trouble."

"A monster?" Thalia asked.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don’t smell anything, which doesn’t make sense. But the acorns don’t lie. Our next challenge…"

He pointed straight towards the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.

Thalia looked down at me, "Are you good enough to walk Bunny?"

I nodded and she took me out of her jacket, sadly, and set me down on the ground where I transformed back and stretched.

We decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. None of us wanted to go dump-diving in the dark.

Zoë and Bianca produced five sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. I don’t know how they did it, because the packs were tiny, but they must’ve been enchanted to hold more stuff. I’d noticed their bows and quivers were also magic. I never really thought about it, but when the Hunters needed them, they just appeared slung over their backs. And when they didn’t, they were gone.