Charmolypi

Chapter 121

Streets and buildings began to blur as the centaurs picked up speed. It felt as if space were compacting-as if each centaur step took us miles and miles. In no time, they'd left the city behind. They raced through marshy fields of high grass and ponds and stunted trees.

Finally, the group found themselves in a trailer park at the edge of a lake. The trailers were all horse trailers, tricked out with televisions and mini-refrigerators and mosquito netting. That's when Percy realized that they had made it to the centaur camp.

"That's amazing!"

"Who knew that centaurs could travel that fast."

"That's probably how they got to them without Luke's army noticing them!"

"Dude!" said a party pony as he unloaded his gear. "Did you see that bear guy? He was all like: 'Whoa, I have an arrow in my mouth!'"

The centaur with the googly-eyeglasses laughed. "That was awesome! Head slam!" The two centaurs charged at each other full-force and knocked heads, then went staggering off in different directions with crazy grins on their faces.

Chiron sighed. He set Annabeth and Grover down on a picnic blanket next to Percy and Thea. "I really wish my cousins wouldn't slam their heads together. They don't have the brain cells to spare."

"Chiron," Percy said, stunned by the fact that he was standing before him. "You saved us."

He gave Percy a dry smile. "Well now, I couldn't very well let you die, especially since you've cleared my name."

"But how did you know where we were?" Annabeth asked.

"Advanced planning and a little birdy, my dear." Chiron shot a discreet wink to the daughter of Zeus. "We figured you would wash up near Miami if you made it out of the Sea of Monsters alive. Almost everything strange washes up near Miami."

"Thea helped plan this?"

"She's so amazing!"

"No one's like you, Thea Potter," Regulus said under his breath, shaking his head with a small fond smile gracing his features.

"Gee, thanks," Grover mumbled.

"No, no," Chiron said. "I didn't mean ... Oh, never mind. I am glad to see you, my young satyr. The point is, I was able to eavesdrop on Percy's Iris-message and trace the signal. Iris and I have been friends for centuries. I asked her to alert me to any important communications in this area. And Thea contributed to that as well. It then took no effort to convince my cousins to ride to your aid. As you see, centaurs can travel quite fast when we wish to. Distance for us is not the same as distance for humans."

Percy turned to Thea, only to find her looking over at the campfire, where the party ponies were teaching him how to operate a paintball gun. They had seen Lux flying away when they arrived at their location.

"She's full of surprises," Lily said, genuinely surprised.

"Not really," Sirius answered with disdain. "Thea would do anything to save her friends, so her finding a way to save them is not out of the ordinary for her at all."

"So what now?" Percy asked Chiron. "We just let Luke sail away? He's got Kronos aboard that ship. Or parts of him, anyway."

Chiron knelt, carefully folding his front legs underneath him. He opened the medicine pouch on his belt and started to treat my wounds. "I'm afraid, Percy, that today has been something of a draw. We didn't have the strength of numbers to take that ship. Luke was not organized enough to pursue us. Nobody won."