𝔐𝔬𝔦𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔬 - 𝔉𝔢𝔪𝔒ℭ𝔵𝔏𝔢𝔬 𝔙𝔞𝔩𝔡𝔢𝔷

21. I'm A Master At Pissing Gods Off! It's Amazing!

A Coast Guard boat picked us up, but they were too busy to keep us for long, or to wonder how three kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. There was a disaster to mop up. Their radios were jammed with distress calls.

They dropped us off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around our shoulders and water bottles that said I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people.

Our clothes were sopping wet, even mine. When the Coast Guard boat had appeared, I'd silently prayed they wouldn't pick me out of the water and find me perfectly dry, which might've raised some eyebrows. So I —under direct orders from a very serious Percy— willed myself to get soaked. Sure enough, I was. At least, I wasn't barefoot like Percy. He had given his shoes to Grover. Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of us was barefoot than wonder why one of us had hooves.

After reaching dry land, we stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. I felt as if I had just come back from the dead—which we had. My back pack was soaked, but I willed the things inside to stay dry. There was no way in hell, I'd let my iPod get ruined! It's more important than a Coast Guard wondering why it was dry, if anything, just knock em out, they'd have a concussion and you could just say 'what? Maybe that brain damage hit you!' But my heart was even heavier from seeing my mother,,

"I don't believe it," Annabeth said. "We went all that way—"

"It was a trick," I said. "A strategy worthy of Athena."

"Hey," she warned.

"You get it, don't you?"

She dropped her eyes, her anger fading. "Yeah. I get it."

"Well, I don't!" Grover complained. "Would someone please—"

"Percy, Kiera . . ." Annabeth said. "I'm sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry . . ."

I pretended not to hear her. If I had talked about my mother, I was going to start crying like a little kid.

"The prophecy was right," Percy said. "'You shall go west and face the god who has turned.' But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and Hades's helm, and framed Kiera and I because we're Poseidon's kids. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And we'll have caused it."

Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?"

I stopped in my tracks, putting one hand on my hip, using my other hand to tap my chin, and I looked at the sky. "Gee, let me think! I don't know . . . Maybe . . . The god of fucking war? Who would want war? Definitely not him!—"

"Kie," Annabeth said. "Tone down the sass."

"No."

I looked back up, and there he was, waiting for us, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red.

"Hey, kids!" Ares Sid, seeming genuinely please to see me. "You were supposed to die."

"You, tricked us," I said. "You stole the helm and the master bolt."

Ares grinned. "Well, now, I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power—that's a big no-no. But you're not the only hero in the world who can run errands."

"Who did you use?"

"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 your brother and removing your memory. Corpse Breath will have Zeus's master bolt, so Zeus'll Be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this . . ."