Crimson Rivers [1] - Percy jackson

Chapter 11: I hate these Dreams

I woke with a start.

Grover was shaking my shoulder. “The truck’s stopped,” he said. “We think they’re coming to check on the animals.”

“Hide!” Annabeth hissed.

She had it easy. She just put on her magic cap and disappeared. Grover, Percy  and I had to dive behind feed sacks and hope we looked like turnips.
The trailer doors creaked open. Sunlight and heat poured in. “Man!” one of the truckers said, waving his hand in front of his ugly nose. “I wish I hauled appliances.” He climbed inside and poured some water from a jug into the animals’ dishes. “You hot, big boy?” he asked the lion, then splashed the rest of the bucket right in the lion’s face. The lion roared in indignation.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the man said.
Next to me, under the turnip sacks, Grover tensed. For a peace-loving
herbivore, he looked downright murderous. The trucker threw the antelope a squashed-looking Happy Meal bag. He smirked at the zebra. “How ya doin’, Stripes? Least we’ll be getting rid of you this stop. You like magic shows? You’re gonna love this one. They’re gonna saw you in half!”
The zebra, wild-eyed with fear, looked straight at Percy.

There was a loud knock, knock, knock on the side of the trailer. The trucker inside with us yelled, “What do you want, Eddie?”

A voice outside—it must’ve been Eddie’s—shouted back, “Maurice? What’d ya say?”

“What are you banging for?”
Knock, knock, knock.

Outside, Eddie yelled, “What banging?”

Our guy Maurice rolled his eyes and went back outside, cursing at Eddie
for being an idiot. A second later, Annabeth appeared next to me. She must’ve done the banging to get Maurice out of the trailer. She said, “This transport business can’t be legal.”
“No kidding,” Grover said. He paused, as if listening. “The lion says
these guys are animal smugglers!”

“We’ve got to free them!” Grover said. Me, Grover and Annabeth both looked at Percy, waiting for his lead.He  grabbed
Riptide and slashed the lock off the zebra’s cage. The zebra burst out. It turned to him and bowed.

Grover held up his hands and said something to the zebra in goat talk, like
a blessing. Just as Maurice was poking his head back inside to check out the noise, the zebra leaped over him and into the street. There was yelling and
screaming and cars honking. We rushed to the doors of the trailer in time to
see the zebra galloping down a wide boulevard lined with hotels and casinos
and neon signs. We’d just released a zebra in Las Vegas.

Maurice and Eddie ran after it, with a few policemen running after them,
shouting, “Hey! You need a permit for that!”

“Now would be a good time to leave,” Annabeth said.

“The other animals first,” Grover said.

I cut the locks with my sword. Grover raised his hands and spoke the
same goat-blessing he’d used for the zebra.

“Good luck,” I told the animals. The antelope and the lion burst out of
their cages and went off together into the streets.

Some tourists screamed. Most just backed off and took pictures, probably
thinking it was some kind of stunt by one of the casinos. “Will the animals be okay?” Percy asked Grover. “I mean, the desert and all—”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I placed a satyr’s sanctuary on them.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they’ll reach the wild safely,” he said. “They’ll find water,
food, shade, whatever they need until they find a safe place to live.”

“Why can’t you place a blessing like that on us?” I asked.

“It only works on wild animals.”

“So it would only affect Percy,” Annabeth reasoned. Making me laugh

“Hey!” hd protested.

“Kidding,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get out of this filthy truck.”

We stumbled out into the desert afternoon. It was a hundred and ten
degrees, easy, and we must’ve looked like deep-fried vagrants, but everybody
was too interested in the wild animals to pay us much attention. We passed the Monte Carlo and the MGM. We passed pyramids, a pirate ship, and the Statue of Liberty, which was a pretty small. I wasn’t sure what we were looking for. Maybe just a place to get out of the heat for a few minutes, find a sandwich and a glass of lemonade, make a new plan for getting west. We must have taken a wrong turn, because we found ourselves at a dead end, standing in front of the Lotus Hotel and Casino. The entrance was a huge neon flower, the petals lighting up and blinking. No one was going in or out, but the glittering chrome doors were open, spilling out air-conditioning that smelled like flowers—lotus blossom, maybe. I’d never smelled one, so I wasn’t sure.

The doorman smiled at us. “Hey, kids. You look tired. You want to come
in and sit down?”

I’d learned to be suspicious, the last week or so. I figured anybody might
be a monster or a god. You just couldn’t tell. But this guy was normal. One
look at him, and I could see. Besides, I was so relieved to hear somebody
who sounded sympathetic that I nodded and said we’d love to come in.

Inside, we took one look around, and Grover said, “Whoa.” The whole lobby was a giant game room. And I’m not talking about cheesy old Pac-Man games or slot machines. There was an indoor waterslide snaking around the glass elevator, which went straight up at least forty floors.