The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2)

by Rick Riordan

THE THING ABOUT PLUMMETING DOWNHILL at fifty miles an hour on a snack platter—if you realize it’s a bad idea when you’re halfway down, it’s too late.

Then he thought about Annabeth, the only part of his old life he was sure about. He had to find her.

“House gods,” Percy said. “Like…smaller than real gods, but larger than apartment gods?” “They’re ancestral spirits,” Frank explained. He’d removed his helmet, revealing a babyish face that didn’t go with his military haircut or his big burly frame. He looked like a toddler who’d taken steroids and joined the Marines.

“That ghost kid called me Greggus. My name isn’t Greg.”

“These Legos—” “Legacies,” Hazel corrected.

“Yeah, I read the sign. Why do you have an elephant in a bulletproof vest?” “War games tonight,” Hazel said. “That’s Hannibal. If we didn’t include him, he’d get upset.” “We can’t have that.”

“Your name is Don the Faun?” Percy asked. “Yeah. So?” “Nothing.” Percy tried to keep a straight face.

“Oh, Hazel is awesome,” Don said. “She’s so nice! All the other campers are like, ‘Go away, Don.’ But she’s like, ‘Please go away, Don.’ I love her!”

In the center stood a marble altar, where a kid in a toga was doing some sort of ritual in front of a massive golden statue of the big dude himself: Jupiter the sky god, dressed in a silk XXXL purple toga, holding a lightning bolt. “It doesn’t look like that,” Percy muttered. “What?” Hazel asked. “The master bolt,” Percy said. “What are you talking about?” “I—” Percy frowned. For a second, he’d thought he remembered something. Now it was gone. “Nothing, I guess.”

The guy in the toga turned. He had a crooked smile and a slightly crazy look in his eyes, like he’d just been playing an intense video game. In one hand he held a knife. In the other hand was something like a dead animal. That didn’t make him look any less crazy.

The boy regained his composure and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I’m Nico di Angelo.”

At first, when she saw him stumbling up the highway with the old lady in his arms, Hazel had thought he might be a god in disguise. Even though he was beat up, dirty, and stooped with exhaustion, he’d had an aura of power. He had the good looks of a Roman god, with sea-green eyes and wind blown black hair.

Percy got a cheeseburger and a strange-looking soda that was bright blue. Hazel didn’t understand that, but Percy tried it and grinned. “This makes me happy,” he said. “I don’t know why…but it does.”

He ran the sword, which was about as deadly as a laser pointer, through Frank’s chest a few times. “Ouch,” Frank said, just to be nice.

“Yes, I remember my sixteenth,” Vitellius said happily. “Wonderful omen! A chicken in my underpants.”

“When you arrive at camp,” she instructed, “you must speak to the praetor in private. Tell her your great-grandfather was Shen Lun. It has been many years since the San Francisco incident. Hopefully they will not kill you for what he did, but you might want to beg forgiveness for his actions.”

Percy’s eyes lit up. “Like capture-the-flag. I think I like capture-the-flag.”

Octavian screamed in a shrill voice—maybe ordering the First Cohort to stand their ground, maybe trying to sing soprano—but Percy put a stop to it.

“You’re Ares,” Percy said. “What do you want?” A collective gasp went up from two hundred campers and an elephant. Frank wanted to say something to excuse Percy and placate the god, but he didn’t know what. He was afraid the war god would blast his new friend with that extra-large M16. Instead, the god bared his brilliant white teeth. “You’ve got spunk, demigod,” he said. “Ares is my Greek form. But to these followers, to the children of Rome, I am Mars—patron of the empire, divine father of Romulus and Remus.” “We’ve met,” Percy said. “We…we had a fight.…”

Frank looked at Percy with wide eyes. He mouthed: Can your sword do grenade form? Percy mouthed back, No. Shut up.

PERCY SLEPT LIKE A MEDUSA VICTIM—which is to say, like a rock.

He saw a curly-haired faun in ragged clothes running to catch up with him. “I don’t have any spare change,” Percy called. “What?” the faun said. “No, Percy. It’s me, Grover! Stay put! We’re on our way to find you. Tyson is close—at least we think he’s the closest. We’re trying to get a lock on your position.”

So this is the demigod who destroyed my son Kronos. You don’t look like much, Percy Jackson, but you’re valuable to me. Come north. Meet Alcyoneus. Juno can play her little games with Greeks and Romans, but in the end, you will be my pawn. You will be the key to the gods’ defeat.

You will be my pawn. Percy didn’t play chess, but he was pretty sure that being a pawn was bad. They died a lot.

The whole time, he thought about Annabeth. Help was on the way. He could have his old life back. All he had to do was stay put.

They were whispering about the previous night: “Two gods in one day…” “Un-Roman fighting…” “Water cannon up my nose…”

“More Kool-Aid!” yelled Dakota.

Percy made a silent vow: After the Feast of Fortuna, he would find Annabeth. But for now, he had to act. He couldn’t let Gaea win.

“I hate senate meetings. When Octavian gets talking…” Percy nodded. “You’re a warrior. Octavian is a talker. Put him in front of the senate, and suddenly he becomes the powerful one.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re smarter than you look.” “Gee, thanks.

I was just a little girl—one attendant among so many at the spa. But you spoke with my sister, just before you and that other one, Annabeth, destroyed our home.” Percy tried to remember. He really did. For some reason, Annabeth and he had visited a spa and decided to destroy it. He couldn’t imagine why. Maybe they hadn’t liked the deep-tissue massage? Maybe they’d gotten bad manicures?

“Were you two a couple?” Reyna’s eyes bored into him—like the eyes of a hungry wolf. Percy had seen enough hungry wolves to know.

LUNCH FELT LIKE A FUNERAL PARTY. Everybody ate. People talked in hushed tones. Nobody seemed particularly happy. The other campers kept glancing over at Percy like he was the corpse of honor.

Octavian ripped open a Beanie Baby and pronounced grave omens and hard times ahead, but predicted the camp would be saved by an unexpected hero (whose initials were probably OCTAVIAN).

He folded his tattered orange T-shirt and left it on his bunk. “I’ll be back,” he said. He felt pretty stupid talking to a T-shirt, but he was really thinking of Annabeth, and his old life. “I’m not leaving for good. But I have to help these guys. They took me in. They deserve to survive.” The T-shirt didn’t answer, thankfully.

Now, come over here so I can pat you down.” “But you don’t have—” Percy stopped himself. “Uh, sure.” He stood next to the armless statue. Terminus conducted a rigorous mental pat down. “You seem to be clean,” Terminus decided. “Do you have anything to declare?” “Yes,” Percy said. “I declare this is stupid.”

Juno was right, you know. The sleepy voice of Gaea whispered in Percy’s mind, startling him so badly the boat rocked. You could have chosen a new life in the sea. You would have been safe from me there. Now it’s too late. You chose pain and misery. You’re part of my plan, now—my important little pawn. “Get off my ship,” Percy growled. “Uh, what?” Frank asked. Percy waited, but the voice of Gaea was silent.

“That was back in August, before I—um, before I got to camp. Jason told me about it. The legion destroyed the enemy’s palace and about a million monsters. Jason had to battle Krios—hand-to-hand combat with a Titan, if you can imagine.” “I can imagine,” Percy muttered.

Don’t be foolish, Gaea said, but Hazel detected concern in her tone, maybe even fear. You will destroy yourself for nothing! Your mother will still die!

“I’ve been lucky so far, but it’s getting worse. It’s not medical…not really. Nico says it’s a side effect from my past, from where he found me.” Percy’s intense green eyes were hard to read. She couldn’t tell whether he was concerned or wary. “Where exactly did Nico find you?” he asked.

“Schist! Big pile of schist!” A nun at St. Agnes Academy had once washed Hazel’s mouth with lye soap for saying something very similar, so she wasn’t sure how to respond.

Suddenly there was a whistling sound. Wheat’s snarl froze. He looked down at the golden arrow that had just pierced his chest. Then he dissolved into pieces of Chex Mix.

Within minutes, the karpoi had been reduced to piles of seeds and various breakfast cereals.

“Centaurs,” Percy said. “But…that’s not right. Centaurs are good guys.” Frank made a choking sound. “That’s not what we were taught at camp. Centaurs are crazy, always getting drunk and killing heroes.”

“Cyclopes. Centaurs. This is wrong. All wrong.” The monster army was enough to make anyone despair, but Hazel realized that something else was going on with Percy. He looked pale and sickly in the moonlight, as if his memories were trying to come back, scrambling his mind in the process.

am Polybotes! Kneel before me so I may destroy you quickly.” Apparently, no one in the store was impressed. A tiny dark object came sailing out the window and landed at the giant’s feet. Polybotes yelled, “Grenade!” He covered his face. His troops hit the ground. When the thing did not explode, Polybotes bent down cautiously and picked it up. He roared in outrage. “A Ding Dong? You dare insult me with a Ding Dong?” He threw the cake back at the shop, and it vaporized in the light.

The lady Cyclops growled. “The camp, yes. Vengeance! The orange and purple ones destroyed my home. Now Ma Gasket will destroy theirs! Do you hear me, Leo? Jason? Piper? I come to annihilate you!”

“Do we march or sniff the air?” Ma Gasket scolded. “I don’t get Ding Dongs, you don’t get sea god!”

“Well…any goddess who throws a Ding Dong at a giant can’t be all bad. Let’s go.”

FRANK HATED DING DONGS. He hated snakes. And he hated his life. Not necessarily in that order.

Frank shook the thought out of his head. He was no prince or hero. He was a lactose-intolerant klutz, who couldn’t even protect his friend from getting kidnapped by wheat.