The Spirits of the Universe (PJO)

Chapter 32--We Meet a Knockoff Genie

We entered a horse barn. How did I know it was a horse barn? Well, aside from the hay spewed everywhere and the musty scent of horse dung, I'd had experience with being in them. A lot of experience.

This structure was twice as big as Geryon's one back at the Triple G Ranch. It was definitely older and in more need of repair—but since the Triple G Ranch held man eating horses, I think I could let this slide. (Man eating horses were bad enough, but for a son of Poseidon, who could read their every thought, it was worse. Way worse.)

You might've been wondering: how could I recon the entirety of the place without someone spotting me? As it turned out, the people we'd heard from outside were towards the southern edge of the barn—far enough where we could easily creak the door open, slip in, and leap into the closest stall, out of sight. 

"Oh, Chaos," Liam groaned silently, trying to breathe out of his mouth. "Percy, how can your horse stand this smell?"

He was talking about Blackjack—who I'd mentioned almost every time he had asked me about my past. Despite being a horse, he was still one of my closest friends. "He doesn't have to—I clean out his stall every morning. At least—I think Chiron does now." Even I had to admit that the owner of this barn needed a Febreeze air freshener—or whatever the equivalent was on Planet Chaos.

Geez, End grumbled, it smells so bad that I can't ignore it. Whichever horse is making this smell, they better be darn good at racing.

As she said this, I realized that there were no horses around us. This was good for me, since that meant I could skip the whole Hello, milord! thing. But . . . why was Paul's boss here? The city was in ruins. There were no people, nor any horses the Taraxippi would control. There was . . . nothing.

There was a tap on my shoulder. "Hey, Percy," Liam whispered. "I think you got to see this."

He was pointing to the opposite end of the structure from us, where the people were. Truth be told, I'd been biding my time to find out why they were making so much noise—it couldn't be for anything good. However, with Liam and Aridne's expectant gazes, it was clear that my time was up. So I rose into a half squat and peered through the sliver of light between two musty hay bales.

My breath caught in my throat. At the other end of the barn were half a dozen Taraxippi. With their translucent legs, it was pretty hard to mistake them for anything else. The monsters were scattered toward the edges of the barn. They looked scared witless of the man standing in the center of the barn. And if I were them, I would be too.

First of all, this mystery man was humongous. His head scraped against the rafters—which had to be at least eight feet high. He was dressed in white, flowing robes that looked a few centuries out of style. They also probably made his sparring with the mace strapped to his back way awkward. But what hinted to me the most that he wasn't human was his hair—an ethereal, glowing blue that reminded me of the bioluminescence that painted the shore at Montauk in neon colors at night. 

Aridne muttered, "Mormolyce."

"Who?" I shared a confused glance with Liam.

"He's the titan of dreams, wishes and desires."

"I've never heard of him," Liam said.

"You shouldn't have. He's an immortal lost to time. He was instrumental to the demise of the entirety of the Rammatri solar system before Chaos ripped apart his body enough times for him to fade . . . but I guess she wasn't thorough enough."

You know anything about this? I asked the annoying people in my head.

No. Must've been recent. Or, relatively recent, End corrected herself. Besides, it's not like Chaos would share that information with us. She likes to keep to herself.