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 disas- ter 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, Id silently prayed they wouldn't pick me out of the water and find me perfectly dry, which might've raised some eyebrows. So I'd willed myself to get soaked. Sure enough, my usual waterproof magic had abandoned me. I was also barefoot, because I'd given my 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'd just come back from the dead—which I had. My back- pack was heavy with Zeus's master bolt. My heart was even heavier from seeing my mother.
"I don't believe it," Annabeth said. "We went all that way—"
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"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 some-
body—"
"Percy . . ." Annabeth said. "I'm sorry about your
mother. I'm so sorry. . . ."
I pretended not to hear her. If I talked about my
mother, I was going to start crying like a little kid.
"The prophecy was right," I 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 me because I'm Poseidon's kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today,
there will be a three-way war. A n d I'll have caused it." Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be
that sneaky? W h o would want war that bad?"
I stopped in my tracks, looking down the beach. "Gee,
let me think."
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 head- light turning the sand red.
"Hey, kid," Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see me. "You were supposed to die."
"You tricked me," I said. "You stole the helm and the master bolt."
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Ares grinned. "Well, now, I didn't steal them person- ally. 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."
" W h o did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the win- ter solstice."
The idea seemed to amuse him. "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 you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus's master bolt, so Zeus'll be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this . . ."
From his pocket he took out a ski cap—the kind bank robbers wear—and placed it between the handlebars of his bike. Immediately, the cap transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet.
"The helm of darkness," Grover gasped.
"Exactly," Ares said. " N o w where was I? Oh yeah, Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon, because he doesn't know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice lit- tle three-way slugfest going."
"But they're your family!" Annabeth protested.
Ares shrugged. "Best kind of war. Always the blood- iest. N o t h i n g like watching your relatives fight, I always say.
"You gave me the backpack in Denver," I said. " T h e master bolt was in there the whole time."
"Yes and no," Ares said. "It's probably too complicated for your little mortal brain to follow, but the backpack
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is the master bolt's sheath, just morphed a bit. The bolt is connected to it, sort of like that sword you got, kid. It always returns to your pocket, right?"
I wasn't sure how Ares knew about that, but I guess a god of war had to make it his business to know about weapons.
"Anyway," Ares continued, "I tinkered with the magic a bit, so the bolt would only return to the sheath once you reached the Underworld. You get close to Hades. . . . Bingo, you got mail. If you died along the way—no loss. I still had the weapon."
"But why not just keep the master bolt for yourself ?" I said. "Why send it to Hades?"
Ares got a twitch in his jaw. For a moment, it was almost as if he were listening to another voice, deep inside his head. "Why didn't I . . . yeah . . . with that kind offire- power . . ."
He held the trance for one second . . . two seconds. . . . I exchanged nervous looks with Annabeth.
Ares's face cleared. "I didn't want the trouble. Better to
have you caught redhanded, holding the thing."
"You're lying," I said. "Sending the bolt to the
Underworld wasn't your idea, was it?"
"Of course it was!" Smoke drifted up from his sun-
glasses, as if they were about to catch fire.
"You didn't order the theft," I guessed. "Someone else
sent a hero to steal the two items. Then, when Zeus sent you to hunt him down, you caught the thief. But you didn't turn him over to Zeus. Something convinced you to let him go.
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