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“The Roman camp- they’re not so friendly. You prove your worth quickly, or you don’t survive. They may not be so nice to him, and if they learn where he comes from, he’s going to be in serious trouble,” Jason explained.
“Him?” Leo asked. “Who are you talking about?”
“My boyfriend,” Annabeth said grimly. “He disappeared around the same time Jason appeared. If Jason came to Camp Half-Blood-”
“Exactly,” Jason agreed. “Percy Jackson is at the other camp and he probably doesn’t even remember who he is.”
“So this Wolf House thing, he’s gotta survive that?” Leo questioned.
“If he can endure it,” Jason affirmed.
“He can,” Annabeth said, a little too quickly. “I know he can.”
“Oh, please. The guy has skin of iron,” Clarrise rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry so much Princess, he’ll make it.”
“And the trip to camp, he might face monsters, plus it’s heavily guarded,” Jason added.
Annabeth pressed her hands to her forehead worriedly. “He doesn’t know his spot,” she told them all.
That got some looks. Piper looked around, as if anyone would explain further. Jason and Leo looked equally as confused. “Spot?” she inquired.
“His weak spot. He won’t get hurt on his way to your camp Jason. He can’t. He has the mark of Achilles.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Leo said. “Heel dude?”
Annabeth managed to laugh despite the worrisome tension in the room.
“He bathed in the Styx?” Jason exclaimed.
“Can’t he just, not wear sandals?” Leo suggested. “I wouldn’t worry, he couldn’t have lost so much memory he thinks they’re an acceptable fashion statement.”
“Leo, no one held him the by the ankle. He went in alone, willingly. He chose the spot. He won’t remember it. Only one person’s ever gotten close to stabbing him in it, but if the Romans or anyone gets a lucky shot…”
Clarisse gave Annabeth a look that few people had seen since her and Silena’s friendship. “Annabeth, you’ve seen him at war with it. Nothing can kill Percy, not even Kronos. And Nico and Grover can both sense… his status. They probably appointed him leader or something by now.”
Jason thought of the goofy kid in Annabeth’s pictures in a praetor robe, standing with Reyna. As he made the new connection, he wondered what was waiting for them in California.
Percy’s reflexes were on overload as he looked from the hippie bag lady talking to him to the now winged gorgons on his trail.
“If I go to the camp,” he said, “will I get my memory back?”
“Eventually,” June said. “But be warned, you will sacrifice much! You’ll lose the mark of Achilles. You’ll feel pain, misery and loss beyond anything you’ve ever known. But you may have a chance to save your old friends and family, to reclaim your old life.”
The gorgons were circling right overhead. They were probably studying the old woman, trying to figure out who the new player was before they struck.
“What about those guards at the door?” Percy asked.
June smiled. “Oh, they’ll let you in, dear. You can trust those two. So, what do you say? Will you help a defenseless old woman?” Percy doubted June was defenseless. At worst, this was a trap. At best, it was some kind of test.
Percy hated tests.
Then he thought about Annabeth, the only part of his old life he was sure about. He had to find her.
“I’ll carry you.” He scooped up the old woman.
She was lighter than he expected. Percy tried to ignore her sour breath and her calloused hands clinging to his neck. He made it across the first lane of traffic. A driver honked. Another yelled something that was lost in the wind. Most just swerved and looked irritated, as if they had to deal with a lot of ratty teenagers carrying old hippie women across the freeway here in Berkeley.
A shadow fell over him. Stheno called down gleefully, “Clever boy!
Found a goddess to carry, did you?”
A goddess?
June cackled with delight, muttering, “Whoops!” as a car almost killed them.
Somewhere off to his left, Euryale screamed, “Get them! Two prizes are better than one!”
Percy bolted across the remaining lanes. Somehow he made it to the median alive. He saw the gorgons swooping down, cars swerving as the monsters passed overhead. He wondered what the mortals saw through the Mist—giant pelicans? Off-course hang gliders? The wolf Lupa had told him that mortal minds could believe just about anything—except the truth.
Percy ran for the door in the hillside. June got heavier with every step. Percy’s heart pounded. His ribs ached.
One of the guards yelled. The guy with the bow nocked an arrow.
Percy shouted, “Wait!”
But the boy wasn’t aiming at him. The arrow flew over Percy’s head. A gorgon wailed in pain. The second guard readied her spear, gesturing frantically at Percy to hurry.
Fifty feet from the door. Thirty feet.
“Gotcha!” shrieked Euryale. Percy turned as an arrow thudded into her
forehead. Euryale tumbled into the fast lane. A truck slammed into her and carried her backward a hundred yards, but she just climbed over the cab, pulled the arrow out of her head, and launched back into the air.
Percy reached the door. “Thanks,” he told the guards. “Good shot.”
“That should’ve killed her!” the archer protested.
“Welcome to my world,” Percy muttered.
“Frank,” the girl said. “Get them inside, quick! Those are gorgons.”
“Gorgons?” The archer’s voice squeaked. It was hard to tell much about him under the helmet, but he looked stout like a wrestler, maybe fourteen or fifteen. “Will the door hold them?”
In Percy’s arms, June cackled. “No, no it won’t. Onward, Percy Jackson! Through the tunnel, over the river!”
“Percy Jackson?” The female guard was darker-skinned, with curly hair sticking out the sides of her helmet. She looked younger than Frank—maybe thirteen. Her sword scabbard came down almost to her ankle. Still, she sounded like she was the one in charge. “Okay, you’re obviously a demigod. But who’s the—?” She glanced at June. “Never mind. Just get inside. I’ll hold them off.”
“Hazel,” the boy said. “Don’t be crazy.”
“Go!” she demanded.
Frank cursed in another language—was that Latin?—and opened the door. “Come on!”
Percy followed, staggering under the weight of the old lady, who was definitely getting heavier. He didn’t know how that girl Hazel would hold off the gorgons by herself, but he was too tired to argue. The tunnel cut through solid rock, about the width and height of a school hallway. At first, it looked like a typical maintenance tunnel, with electric cables, warning signs, and fuse boxes on the walls, lightbulbs in wire cages along the ceiling. As they ran deeper into the hillside, the cement floor changed to tiled mosaic. The lights changed to reed torches, which burned but didn’t smoke. A few hundred yards ahead, Percy saw a square of daylight.
The old lady was heavier now than a pile of sandbags. Percy’s arms shook from the strain. June mumbled a song in Latin, like a lullaby, which didn’t help Percy concentrate.
Behind them, the gorgons’ voices echoed in the tunnel. Hazel shouted. Percy was tempted to dump June and runback to help, but then the entire tunnel shook with the rumble of falling stone. There was a squawking sound, just like the gorgons had made when Percy had dropped a crate of bowling balls on them in Napa. He glanced back. The west end of the tunnel was now filled with dust.
“Shouldn’t we check on Hazel?” he asked.
“She’ll be okay—I hope,” Frank said. “She’s good underground. Just keep moving! We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?”
June chuckled. “All roads lead there, child. You should know that.”
“Detention?” Percy asked.
“Rome, child,” the old woman said. “Rome.”
Percy wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. True, his memory was gone. His brain hadn’t felt right since he had woken up at the Wolf House. But he was pretty sure Rome wasn’t in California.
They kept running. The glow at the end of the tunnel grew brighter, and finally they burst into sunlight.
Percy froze. Spread out at his feet was a bowl-shaped valley several miles wide. The basin floor was rumpled with smaller hills, golden plains, and stretches of forest. Just as June had said, it looked like a modern ancient Rome. There were a bunch of kids in purple carrying weapons, and barracks and such.
Frank began to explain something about how they’d be safe inside as Hazel came running with the gorgons on her tail.
“I slowed them down,” she said. “But they’ll be here any second.”
Frank cursed. “We have to get across the river.”
June squeezed Percy’s neck tighter. “Oh, yes, please. I can’t get my dress wet.”
Percy bit his tongue. If this lady was a goddess, she must’ve been the goddess of smelly, heavy, useless hippies. But he’d come this far. He’d better keep lugging her along.
It’s a kindness, she’d said. And if you don’t, the gods will die, the world we know will perish, and everyone from your old life will be destroyed.
If this was a test, he couldn’t afford to get an F.
He stumbled a few times as they ran for the river. Frank and Hazel kept him on his feet. They reached the riverbank, and Percy stopped to catch his breath.
The current was fast, but the river didn’t look deep. Only a stone’s throw across stood the gates of the fort.
“Go, Hazel.” Frank nocked two arrows at once. “Escort Percy so the sentries don’t shoot him. It’s my turn to hold off the baddies.”
Hazel nodded and waded into the stream.
Percy started to follow, but something made him hesitate. Usually he loved the water, but this river seemed...powerful, and not necessarily friendly.
“The Little Tiber,” said June sympathetically. “It flows with the power of the original Tiber, river of the empire. This is your last chance to back out, child. The mark of Achilles is a Greek blessing. You can’t retain it if you cross into Roman territory. The Tiber will wash it away.”
Percy was too exhausted to understand all that, but he got the main point. “If I cross, I won’t have iron skin anymore?”
June smiled. “So what will it be? Safety, or a future of pain and possibility?”
Behind him, the gorgons screeched as they flew from the tunnel. Frank let his arrows fly.
From the middle of the river, Hazel yelled, “Percy, come on!”
Up on the watchtowers, horns blew. The sentries shouted and swiveled their crossbows toward the gorgons.
He thought of Annabeth. She was smart, that much he remembered. What would she suggest? Whatever this place was, it gave him an off vibe, like coming home to your mom rearranging your things, but worse. This wasn’t home.
His iron skin had gotten him this far. Hazel was trudging ahead, not minding him any business as she almost tripped herself.
An idea formed in his head. He felt the currents hum in his veins. With June still in his arms, he freed a hand a bit and spread his fingers in front of him, towards the river. As he trudged, the water parted just enough to let him through, making no contact with him, although he had to concentrate.
June’s eyes widened as he did, which amused him for once. It was like this was the ace up his sleeve, something she creepily couldn’t predict.
Finally, he made it. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to hide this trick from Hazel and the sentries watching, but what June had said was foggy in his mind. Achilles? Greek? Didn’t the Romans and Greeks have beef? And if he was a Roman, what did Greeks have to do with anything? Percy felt if he couldn’t explain it to himself, he shouldn’t even try to explain it to the others. All that mattered was now he could put June down, he kept his iron skin, and they’d made it.
Just as he prepared to mentally celebrate. Frank yelled out as a gorgon clawed him.
The sentries yelled, but Percy knew they couldn’t get a clear shot.
They’d end up killing Frank. The other kids drew swords and got ready to charge into the water, but they’d be too late.
There was only one way.
Percy thrust out his hands. An intense tugging sensation filled his gut, and the Tiber obeyed his will once again. The river surged. Whirlpools formed on either side of Frank. Giant watery hands erupted from the stream, copying Percy’s movements. The giant hands grabbed the gorgons, who dropped Frank in surprise. Then the hands lifted the squawking monsters in a liquid vise grip.
Percy heard the other kids yelping and backing away, but he stayed focused on his task. He made a smashing gesture with his fists, and the giant hands plunged the gorgons into the Tiber. The monsters hit bottom and broke into dust. Glittering clouds of gorgon essence struggled to re-form, but the river pulled them apart like a blender. Soon every trace of the gorgons was swept downstream. The whirlpools vanished, and the current returned to normal.
Percy stood on the riverbank. In the middle of the Tiber, Frank stumbled around, looking stunned but perfectly fine. Hazel waded out and helped him ashore. Only then did Percy realize how quiet the other kids had become.
Everyone was staring at him. Only the old lady June looked unfazed.
“Well, that was a lovely trip,” she said. “Thank you, Percy Jackson, for bringing me to Camp Jupiter.”
One of the girls made a choking sound. “Percy...Jackson?”
She sounded as if she recognized his name. Percy focused on her, hoping to see a familiar face.
She was obviously a leader. She wore a regal purple cloak over her armor. Her chest was decorated with medals. She must have been about Percy’s age, with dark, piercing eyes and long black hair. Percy didn’t recognize her, but the girl stared at him as if she’d seen him in her nightmares.
June laughed with delight. “Oh, yes. You’ll have such fun together!”
The lares called him Graecus as he walked with Hazel and Frank, like it was an insult. Greek, they told him it meant. Frank reassured him it was probably because he was ethnically, with his Meditteranean complexion, straight nose and dark hair. He had no idea what he was, not that it was important at the moment, but from the few times he’d seen a reflective surface in the past weeks, he was probably Greek, he figured. But Frank also explained it meant an outsider. The word Greek echoed in his mind, just as it had when Juno talked about his Greek blessing.
While explaining his story to Reyna, he decided to leave out the iron skin part. It still felt important he didn’t tell anyone, like it would make him illegal in this new place. Something was wrong. She definitely knew him from somewhere, she probably would’ve questioned the curse if she knew about it.
Hazel and this kid Percy was so sure he knew, Nico, were children of the Underworld. He was tempted to ask about the River Styx, which he must have gotten into somehow, but he decided against it.
The war games shocked Hazel, sure, but the way Percy Jackson fought was barely human. He didn’t have a scratch on him. He moved insanely fast, the way no training could make possible. She almost still considered him being a god in disguise, an elaborate test. But that was crazy.
On the boat after they left Phineas, she decided to ask. “You can’t get hurt,” she told him confidently, Frank arching an eyebrow.
Percy looked sheepish. “I wanted to explain, I just barely know how myself. Some memories are coming back about it, but I don’t know how they fit.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Frank interrupted. “Define can’t get hurt.”
“Haven’t you noticed?” Hazel asked. “He hasn’t got a scratch on him, fighting the gorgons for days, the war games, fighting the karpoi?”
Frank seemed to contemplate this. “You’re right,” he realized, eyebrows shooting up. “How?”
“Juno told me I have a Greek curse. The blessing of Achilles,” Percy explained.
“You’re literally invincible,” Hazel gasped. “Except one spot.”
“Yeah, problem is, I don’t know the spot,” he admitted. “But I remember moments of when I got it, standing on the banks of the Styx.”
“The Underworld river? You’ve been there?” Frank asked, surprised.
“I guess so,” Percy shrugged casually, the same way someone might say they had cereal for breakfast. “I remember the current, walking in, as Nico watched.”
Hazel thought about this. “You guys really knew each other, didn’t you? He must’ve helped you, father wouldn’t have let someone do that otherwise. But why did you need it? You probably could’ve died.”
Percy nodded. “I remember the pain, it almost dissolved me. It must have been a dire situation. After that, I must’ve chosen a spot. I remember another moment too, and that’s it. I had my knee on some pale guy’s chest.”
Hazel’s face went slack. “What pale guy?”
Percy shrugged again. “I dunno, dark hair, dark eyes, helmet-”
Hazel could barely believe it, this guy really was ballsy around gods. “Percy, that was my father, Pluto.”
Frank looked ready to faint.
Percy hated to let Annabeth go on her solo quest into the catacombs. He wanted to march in, face whatever they needed, and shield her with his iron skinned body, just as she had done for him a year ago.
In Tartarus, he did just that. Monsters narrowly missed the small of his back, and every time Annabeth would try to launch herself to protect it, just as she had taken Ethan Nakamura’s almost lucky stab.
He hated it. Percy felt so flustered with emotions he couldn’t contain, he almost wanted to yell at Annabeth, to plead with her to stop trying to protect him. 99% of his skin was impenetrable. 100% of her could be skewered. After Ahkyls, he felt his demeanor change. He would march up to monsters, taking a hit to the chest with ease and even smiling at their confusion as he slashed Riptide through them in their own home. He hid those smiles from Annabeth, and tried to pretend they wouldn’t slip out. It felt wrong.
He came out of Tartarus covered in sweat, dirt, and miscellaneous Underworld substances, yet unscathed. Annabeth had some scars, but he’d taken most lethal hits.
Percy’s eyes widened as the needle bent upon making contact with his skin. It was his yearly physical at the doctor, and he had just realized getting his blood drawn with this curse that had mostly proven to be a blessing would not be easy. He cursed in Greek as he snapped his fingers, praying a trick of the Mist could fix this.