We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind- shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.
Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I won- dered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remem- bered from kindergarten field trips to the petting z o o — lanolin, like from wool. T h e smell of a wet barnyard animal.
All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom . . . know each other?"
Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. " N o t exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you.
"Watching me?"
"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."
"Um . . . what are you, exactly?"
"That doesn't matter right now."
"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"
Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa~ha~ha!"
I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.
"Goat!" he cried.
"What?"
"I'm a goat from the waist down."
"You just said it didn't matter."
"Blaa~ha~ha! There are satyrs who would trample you
underhoof for such an insult!"
"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like . . . Mr. Brunner's
myths?"
"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy?
Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"
"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"
" O f course."
"Then why—"
"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract,"
Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."
"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"
T h e weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.
"Percy," my m o m said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."
"Safety from what? Who's after me?"
"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."
"Grover!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"
I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening,
but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.
My m o m made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. " T h e place your father wanted to send you."
"The place you didn't want me to go."
"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."
"Because some old ladies cut yarn."
"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to . . . when someone's about to die."
"Whoa. You said 'you.'"
"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"
"You meant 'you.' As in me!'
"I meant you, like 'someone.' N o t you, you."
"Boys!" my m o m said.
She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a
glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark flutter- ing shape now lost behind us in the storm.
"What was that?" I asked.
"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."
I didn't know where there was, but I found myself lean- ing forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.
Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leath- ery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.
Then I thought about Mr. Brunner . . . and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.
I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.
I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."
"Percy!" my m o m shouted.
"I'm okay. . . ."
I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car
hadn't really exploded. Wed swerved into a ditch. Our
driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. T h e roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
Lightning. That was the only explanation. Wed been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"
He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!
Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.
"Percy," my mother said, "we have to . . ." Her voice faltered.
I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud- spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.
I swallowed hard. "Who is—"
"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."
My mother threw herself against the drivers-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.
"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"
"What?"
Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree—sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
"That's the property line," my m o m said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."
"Mom, you're coming too."
Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.
"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."
"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.
The man with the blanket on his head kept coming
toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swing- ing at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head . . . was his head. And the points that looked like horns . . .
"He doesn't want us" my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."
"But. . ."
"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."
I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the
goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.
I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."
"I told you—"
"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."
I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, drag-
ging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.
Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.
Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under- wear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.
His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.
I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.
I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"
"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."
"But he's the Min—"
