𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

50

Hadrian had a new entry in his top-ten list of Times Hadrian Felt Useless.

Fighting Shrimpzilla with no weapon and a pretty voice? Not so effective. Then the monster had sunk into the deep and disappeared along with three of his friends, and he'd been powerless to help them.

Afterward, Annabeth, Coach Hedge, and Buford the table rushed around repairing things so that the ship wouldn't sink. Percy, despite being exhausted, searched the ocean for their missing friends. Jason, also exhausted, flew around the rigging like a blond Peter Pan, putting out fires from the second green explosion that had lit up the sky just above the mainmast.

As for Hadrian, all he could do was try to concentrate... some dream or vision would usually show up at a time like this. The only images that came to him were ones he didn't want to see: three black SUVs driving north from Charleston, packed with Roman demigods, Reyna sitting at the wheel of the lead car. Giant eagles escorted them from above. Every so often, glowing purple spirits in ghostly chariots appeared out of the countryside and fell in behind them, thundering up I-95 toward New York and Camp Half-Blood.

Hadrian concentrated harder. He saw the nightmarish images he had seen before: the human-headed bull rising from the water, then the dark well-shaped room filling with black water as Jason, Percy, and he struggled to stay afloat.

Now that he knew about Percy's fear of drowning, that nightmare seemed even more terrifying to him. He had promised he wouldn't let Percy drown, that he'd try to help in any case. But that vision just made him feel useless.

By the time the sun rose, none of them had slept. Percy had scoured the seafloor and found nothing. The Argo II was no longer in danger of sinking, though without Leo, they couldn't do full repairs. The ship was capable of sailing, but no one suggested leaving the area—not without their missing friends.

Hadrian and Annabeth sent a message to Camp Half-Blood, warning Chiron of what had happened with the Romans at Fort Sumter. Annabeth explained her exchange of words with Reyna. Hadrian relayed his vision about the SUVs racing north. The kindly centaur's face seemed to age thirty years during the course of their conversation, but he assured them he would see to the defenses of the camp. Tyson- Percy's half cyclops brother who had hugged Hadrian in new Rome, Mrs. O'Leary- the hellhound, and Ella the harpy had arrived safely. If necessary, Tyson could summon an army of Cyclopes to the camp's defense, and Ella and Rachel Dare were already comparing prophecies, trying to learn more about what the future held. The job of the seven demigods aboard the Argo II, Chiron reminded them, was to finish the quest and come back safely.

After the Iris-message, the demigods paced the deck in silence, staring at the water and hoping for a miracle.

When it finally came—three giant pink bubbles bursting at the surface off the starboard bow and ejecting Frank, Hazel, and Leo—Hadrian sighed with relief, his shoulders dipped and he felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

Despite his grand plan to save his best friend, he had somehow dug himself a deeper hole by caring about the demigods on the Argo II. That would probably come to bite him later, but right now he grinned as he leaned over the rail.

"Where were you? How are you guys alive?"

"Long story," Leo said. A picnic basket bobbed to the surface next to him. "Want a brownie?"

Once they got on board and changed into dry clothes (poor Frank had to borrow a pair of too-small pants from Jason) the crew all gathered on the quarterdeck for a celebratory breakfast—except for Coach Hedge, who grumbled that the atmosphere was getting too cuddly for his tastes and went below to hammer out some dents in the hull. While Leo fussed over his helm controls, Hazel and Frank related the story of the fish-centaurs and their training camp.

"Incredible," Jason said. "These are really good brownies."

"That's your only comment?" Annabeth demanded.

He looked surprised. "What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies—"

"Yeah Jason, come on, be serious for once" Hadrian said with his mouth full, "Try them with Esther's peach preserves"

"That," Hazel said, "is incredibly disgusting."

"Pass me the jar, man," Jason said.

Hazel and Annabeth exchanged a look of total exasperation. Boys.

Percy, for his part, wanted to hear every detail about the aquatic camp. He kept coming back to one point: "They didn't want to meet me?"

"It wasn't that," Hazel said. "Just... undersea politics, I guess. The merpeople are territorial. The good news is they're taking care of that aquarium in Atlanta. And they'll help protect the Argo II as we cross the Atlantic."

Percy nodded absently. "But they didn't want to meet me?"

Annabeth swatted his arm. "Come on, Seaweed Brain! We've got other things to worry about."

"She's right," Hazel said. "After today, Nico has five days. The fish-centaurs said we have to rescue him. He's essential to the quest somehow."

She looked around defensively, as if waiting for someone to argue. No one did. Hadrian tried to imagine what Nico di Angelo was feeling, stuck in a jar with only a few pomegranate seeds left to sustain him, and no idea whether he would be rescued. It made Hadrian anxious to reach Rome, even though he had a horrible feeling he was sailing toward his own sort of prison—a dark room filled with water. And then of course there was the whole betraying his friends thing.

"Nico must have information about the Doors of Death," Hadrian said, wiping his mouth. "We'll save him, Hazel. We can make it in time. Right, Leo?"

"What?" Leo tore his eyes away from the controls. "Oh, yeah. We should reach the Mediterranean in a couple of days. Then another day sailing to Rome, or flying, if I can get the stabilizer fixed by then...."

Jason suddenly looked as though his brownie with peach preserves didn't taste so good. "Which will put us in Rome way too close to the deadline. Less than two days to find him—at most."

Percy crossed his legs. "And that's only part of the problem. There's the Mark of Athena, too."