The Children of the big three

Chapter 10

Jason POV

The next afternoon, June 14, we rolled into Denver. Seven days left before the solstice. Whoopee. Please note the sarcasm.

"Let's try to talk to Chiron." Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about Percy's talk with his dad. I still find it weird that your dads talked to you in your heads. I didn't know Zeus/Jupiter allowed that."

"So, Iris Messiging?" Hazel asked. I mentally groaned. Hazel! They'll become suspicious about how you know that! I shouted in her head. Thalia mentally groaned.

Annabeth eyed us. "Yeah......" Uh oh, she was on to us.

We walked through down town for about half an hour, though walking around and pretending to be carefree was hard with Annabeth shooting you suspicious looks. The air was dry and hot, which was hard to get use too after St Louis's humidity. No matter which way we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at us, like a tidal wave about to crash into the city.

Wow. I sound like Percy.

Finally, we found an empty DIY car wash. We went to the stall furthest from the streets, Hazel bending the Mist to make us look eighteen and have a van to wash.

Grover took out the spray gun. "Anyone have any spare change? It's seventy-five cents and I only have two quarters left."

I fished in my pockets and pulled out the coin pouch I had stolen from Travis and Conner. Hey, I was planning on returning it, but we needed the cash more than they did.

Piper's eyes popped out of their sockets. Frank and Annabeth didn't seem any better. I pulled out a quarter and handed it to Grover. My cousins and Sister were smirking at me. "I thought you promised not to steal anything?" I raised my hands. "Hey, we need it more than they do."

Grover fed in the quarters and set it to fine mist. He pointed the nozzle in the air and water squirted out in a fine mist. The late afternoon light filtered through the mist and made a rainbow.

Percy pulled out a drachma and threw it in. "Oh Iris, Goddess of the rainbow, please accept our offering." I glared at him. Now Annabeth would be even more suspicious of us. I glanced at Annabeth. Sure enough, she was staring at Percy with a small frown on her face.

The rainbow shimmered. Then we were looking through the mist at the strawberry fields, with the sea in the distance. Luke was standing on the porch of the Big House, where we were.

"Luke!" Thalia called.

He turned around and his eyes widened. "Guys! Are you okay? Thank the gods!"

"We're... uh....fine," Annabeth stammered. She was frantically trying to straighten her T-shirt. "Where... uh..."

"Where's Chiron?" Leo cut in.

"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile disappeared. "We're having some trouble with the campers. Where's  Grover?"

"I'm here," Grover called. He moved so he was in Luke's line of sight.

"What trouble?" Frank asked.

Just then, a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum volume. Leo winced. The car was practically shaking the pavement with the music.

"Chiron had to - what's the noise?" Luke yelled.

"I'll take care of it! Annabeth yelled. She dragged Grover, Piper and Frank with her. Grover handed me the nozzle as he was dragged away, muttering about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi. I just grinned at him. Hanging around with Aphrodite, we all knew that Annabeth had a crush on Luke.