Riptide by Annabeth Chase

Chapter Sixteen: Ares

(The Lightning Thief pg 320 - 333)

"You tricked me," Percy growled at the god of war. "Who did you use to steal the bolt? Clarisse? She was there at the Winter Solstice."

Ares chuckled, "doesn't matter. The point is, kid, you're impeding the war effort. See, you've got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus' master bolt, so he'll be mad at Hades. And Hades is still looking for this ..."

He pulled out a ski cap that morphed into the helm of darkness. But I was more focused on the idea that Ares had wanted Hades to end up with the master bolt. If that was true, then Ares didn't intend to give the bolt to Kronos. He definitely hadn't tampered with the winged shoes. They must have been tampered with before Luke gave them to Percy.

"Now where was I?" Ares asked, "Oh yeah, Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon, because he doesn't know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice little three-way slugfest going on."

"But they're your family!" Percy yelled.

"Best kind of war," Ares said dismissively. "Always the bloodiest. Nothing like watching your relatives fight, I always say."

"You gave me the backpack in Denver," Percy said. "The master bolt was in there the whole time."

"Yes and no," Ares said. "It's probably too complicated for your little mortal brain to follow, but the backpack is the master bolt's sheath, just morphed a bit. The bolt is connected to it, sort of like that sword you got, kid. It always returns to your pocket, right?"

"Anyway," he continued, "I tinkered with the magic a bit, so the bolt would only return to the sheath once you reached the Underworld. You get close to Hades ... Bingo, you got mail. If you died along the way — no loss. I still had the weapon."

"But why not just keep the master bolt for yourself?" Percy asked, steering the conversation towards Kronos. "Why send it to Hades?"

"Why didn't I ... yeah ... with that kind of fire power ..." Ares said almost in a trance and Percy glanced at me trying to work out what was happening. I couldn't convey much information in a look, but I definitely tried. I didn't want to say anything out loud while Ares was listening. I didn't know how much Percy had figured out and guessing at what he knew usually backfired on me.

"I didn't want the trouble," Ares finally said. "Better to have you caught red handed, holding the thing."

"You're lying," Percy said. "Sending the bolt to the Underworld wasn't your idea, was it?"

"Of course it was!" Ares shouted a little too forcefully to be convincing.

"You didn't order the theft," Percy was getting to the main point while managing to keep Ares talking. I was trying to figure out an escape plan but if Ares was intent on killing us, I wasn't sure what we could do to stop that. "Someone else sent a hero to steal the two items. Then when Zeus sent you to hunt him down, you caught the thief. But you didn't turn him over to Zeus. Something convinced you to let him go. You kept the items until another hero could come along and complete the delivery. That thing in the pit is ordering you around."

Maybe he didn't get all the way there but close enough. Not knowing what was in the pit was a problem we could deal with later.

"I'm the god of war! I take orders from no one! I don't have dreams!" Ares was mad and not just angry, he was starting to sound a little crazy too.

"Who said anything about dreams?" Percy asked which almost made me giggle. It was such a funny thing to point out as though the remainder of what Ares was saying seemed normal.