The Shadow Summoner | Book Three - PJO Universe

twelve

SHADOW DRAGON ARIANA

Mortal security was not a problem.

There wasn't any.

Across a flat expanse of rocks and weeds, the relay station sat nestled at the base of Sutro Tower.

The blocky brown building had clusters of white satellite dishes dotting its roof like toadstools after a rain shower.

The door stood wide open. The windows were dark. The parking area out front was empty.

"This isn't right," Reyna murmured. "Didn't Tarquin say they were doubling security?"

"Doubling the flock," Meg corrected. "But I don't see any sheep or anything."

"Percy had to become a sheep once." Ariana grinned at the memory. "Not physically, he was just hanging onto the bottom of when."

Reyna looked at Ariana, a twinkle of amusement her eyes. "Percy Jackson. A guinea pig and a sheep? Remind me to tease him about that next time I see him."

"Of course."

"Apollo, any thoughts?" Reyna asked.

Apollo shook his head, looking at Ariana's beauty.

"Maybe we're in the wrong place?" Meg asked.

Reyna bit her lower lip. "Something's definitely off here. Let me check inside the station. Aurum and Argentum can make a quick search. If we encounter any mortals, I'll just say I was hiking and got lost. Ariana you wanna come with? You two wait here. Guard my exit. If you hear barking, that means trouble."

She and Ariana jogged across the field, Aurum and Argentum at their heels, and disappeared inside the building.

Meg peered at Apollo over the top of her cat-eye glasses. "How come you made her laugh?"

"That wasn't my intention. Besides, it isn't illegal to make someone laugh."

"You told her that you want to make Ariana immortal so you can spend all of time with her?"

"I-What? No. Sort of. Yes."

"That was stupid."

Apollo found it humiliating to have his love life criticized by a little girl wearing a unicorn-and-crossbones button. "You wouldn't understand."

Meg snorted.

Apollo seemed to be everyone's source of amusement today. He studied the tower that loomed above them.

"You really don't think she wants to be a god?"

Meg shrugged. "I've heard stories whilst we were at Cano HalfBlood, and at WayStation Leo told me some stuff. You know she's given up immortality multiple times?"

Apollo knew that, of course he did. "I do."

"But, I see the way you two look at each other. I'm not stupid you know. So, maybe she will. Ask her, idiot."

Up the side of the nearest support column, a steel-ribbed chute enclosed a row of rungs, forming a tunnel that one could climb through-if one were crazy enough-to reach the first set of crossbeams, which bristled with more satellite dishes and cellular-antenna fungi.

From there, the rungs continued upward into a low-lying blanket of fog that swallowed the tower's top half.

In the white mist, a hazy black V floated in and out of sight-a bird of some sort.

Apollo shivered, thinking of the strixes that had attacked them in the Burning Maze, but strixes only hunted at nighttime.

That dark shape had to be something else, maybe a hawk looking for mice. The law of averages dictated that once in a while he would have to come across a creature that didn't want to kill m him, right?