| chapter three |

in which demon pigeons attack the camp

THE NEXT STEP WAS MOVING TYSON into Cabin Three. He and Naomi were already best friends because Naomi was just like that: ecstatic to have more family, even if the rest of the camp made fun of them.

But for Percy, Nia could tell, it was a whole lot more complicated. Every time someone commented about him and Tyson, the look on Percy's face was the same way Nia always looked when someone brought up the fact that Artemis was her mother.

It was a face of embarrassment, a face of shame. Just another reminder that they were different.

To make matters worse, now Annabeth and Percy weren't only upset with Nia, but they were also upset with each other. From what Naomi had told her, Nia figured that Annabeth had said something about Tyson that Percy hadn't liked and the rest was history.

Nia, not one to lose her dignity, refused to go and talk to Annabeth and Percy first, but fate didn't seem to be on her side, since she and Percy had border patrol together.

When the time for their patrol came, the two quietly sat on Half-Blood Hill and watched the dryads come and go, singing to the dying pine tree. Satyrs brought their reed pipes and played nature magic songs, and for a while, the pine needles seemed to get fuller; the flowers on the hill smelled a little sweeter; the grass looked greener.

But as soon as the music stopped, the sickness crept back into the air. The whole hill looked infected, dying from the poison that had sunk into Thalia's tree's roots.

Nia clenched her fists, speaking for the first time since they started that evening, "It's horrible."

Percy looked at her. "Yeah. It is. And Luke did it."

"Gods," Nia snarled. "Don't even mention that dickwad's name. I can't believe that he would do this to Thalia."

Percy was silent for a moment. "When you and Annabeth first met him. Was he—"

"Nice? Trustworthy? Yeah," Nia chewed on her lip, still staring at the poisoned view. "Don't tell her I told you this, but Annabeth practically worshipped the ground Luke walked on. I can't really blame her, though. We were only seven and Luke was one of the first people who treated us like we mattered. Not even our own families did that."

Percy nodded; Nia knew that he knew about how she and Annabeth first met, and about Annabeth's family, but she begged the gods that he wouldn't ask about hers.

"What about your family?"

Nia sighed. Damn it. SHe considered not answering him but found herself saying, "Well. . . let's just say that I don't exactly have the same newfound relationship that Annabeth is having with her family. My mom. . . she was just not great with the whole. . . demigod. . . thing."

"How come?"

Nia gave Percy the stank-eye and scowled at him. "Annabeth is already mad at you. Do you really wanna go two for two?"

". . .Fair point."

Nia turned back to the view of the valley. After a moment, her scowl faded and she said, "Hey, Percy? I'm sorry that I didn't tell you guys what was really going on here."

Percy shrugged, but Nia could tell that he was still upset with her. "Really. I am, it's just. . . Every time I tried, I just couldn't get the words out. Writing it down was like admitting that it was all really happening and. . . I'm just sorry."

He finally turned to her, sighing. "It's okay. Must've been hard."

"How about you? I mean, I know Naomi and Tyson are practically platonic soulmates now."

"Yeah," Percy said. "She's even told him about how her dad died."

Nia's eyes widened and she glanced at Percy. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Wow," Nia sat back. "Guess she must really trust him. But Naomi loves everybody, no matter who they are. She's great like that. But for you. . . It must be hard to have a monster for a half-brother."

Percy immediately grew defensive. "He's not my brother! And he's not a monster!"

"Okay, okay, geez!" Nia held her hands up in surrender. "I was just stating the facts. Cyclopses are monsters, and he is your half-brother. The word 'monster' has just been made derogatory. It doesn't always have to be a bad thing. Technically, centaurs are monsters, but Chiron's—" she stopped abruptly.

Silence.

"I forgot for a second there," Nia said after a while. "I really miss him."

Percy swallowed hard. "Me too."

Another long pause. Then Nia said, "Look, I'm sorry I said that Tyson's a monster. He's not. How can he be? He's related to Naomi."

". . .You really couldn't have said me, too?"

Nia laughed. "And you."

"Well, now I had to make you say it. It doesn't count anymore."

Nia rolled her eyes. "There's no winning with you, is there, Jackson?"

"People have said that," Percy grinned at her. Then his smile faded. "Nia?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

"Seriously?"

"Alright, what is it?"

"What's your deal with Tyson? Annabeth, too. I mean, you two just seemed to hate him from the start."

Nia inhaled sharply, thinking of the awful Cyclops who had almost stopped her, Annabeth, Luke, Thalia, and Grover from reaching camp. The reason Thalia was now dead. She thought of Thalia's tree, weak and dying. Telling Percy right then, next to her tree. . . It felt like a disgrace to Thalia's memory, to her sacrifice. "Percy. . . not right now, okay? I'll tell you later, but not now."

He started to protest. "But—"

"Percy. Not now," said Nia, gritting her teeth.

He shut up. Nia figured that it was because he could see that she really didn't want to talk about it. Nevertheless, she was grateful.

"I've been having strange dreams of Grover," Percy suddenly blurted out.

Nia turned to him, surprised. "What?"

 "Grover. . . He's in trouble, Nia." Percy proceeded to tell Nia all about his dream with Grover the satyr, who had brought Nia, Annabeth, and Luke to camp. Grover had apparently gone searching for Pan last summer and had been trapped by the Cyclops Polyphemus. The only reason that he was still alive was that Polyphemus thought that Grover was a lady Cyclops and he was working on a bridal train so they could get married.

After Percy was done, Nia blinked in surprise. "An empathy link? Percy, are you sure?"

"Yeah. It was Grover, alright, but. . . I don't know. I just know that I have to rescue him."

"Well, of course," Nia said, "but how?"

The two were silent for a while because neither had an answer to the question.

"Well, we're not going to solve it tonight," Nia said, standing up. "Let's sleep on it and figure out a plan to save Grover after the chariot races. We won't be able to do anything 'till then. Besides, our shift's over. We should go; we don't want Tantalus to catch us."

As the two made their way back to the cabins, Nia stopped walking and asked Percy, "Hey, Jackson? We good?"

After a moment, he nodded, smiling faintly. "We're good."

"Good, because it was really boring not talking to you. Turns it gets pretty lonely when you're not being annoying."

Percy smirked his incredibly annoying smirk. "Nia, are you saying that you missed me?" 

". . .Good night, Jackson."

THE MORNING OF THE CHARIOT RACE was hot and humid. Fog lay low on the ground like sauna steam. ( Nia's mom always used to say that those kinds of days were bad omens. ) Millions of birds were roosting in the trees — fat gray-and-white pigeons that made this incredibly annoying metallic screeching sound.

The racetrack had been built in a grassy field between the archery range and the woods. Hephaestus's cabin had used the bronze bulls to clear an oval track in a matter of minutes.

There were rows of stone steps for the spectators: Tantalus, the satyrs, a few dryads, and all the campers that weren't participating, including Nia. Mr. D didn't show, though — he never got up before ten o'clock.

Naomi was doing the chariot race with her friend Sage Wilson, from Athena Cabin, so Nia sat on the stone steps next to her godly younger cousin from Apollo Cabin, Will Solace.

"Right!" Tantalus announced as the teams began to assemble. A naiad had brought him a big platter of pastries, and as Tantalus spoke, his right hand chased a chocolate eclair across the judge's table. "You all know the rules. A quarter-mile track. Twice around to win. Two horses per chariot. Each team will consist of a driver and a fighter. Weapons are allowed. Dirty tricks are expected. But try not to kill anybody!" Tantalus smiled at them. "Any killing will result in harsh punishment. No s'mores at the campfire for a week! Now ready your chariots!"

Nia scoffed and turned to Will. "Oh, harsh punishment, indeed."

Will laughed. "Next we'll be losing our dessert privileges. Whatever shall we do?"

"Will the tyranny ever end?" Nia snorted.

Then, the conch horn sounded and Tantalus called, "Charioteers! To your mark!"

Before the game started, Nia noticed how many more of those pigeons were in the trees now, all of them screeching like crazy. Their beaks glinted strangely. Their eyes seemed shinier than regular birds. Nia squinted her eyes at them and tried to remember what they were. She felt like it was right on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't grab onto the name. The birds gave Nia a bad feeling, and after so many years of being a half-blood, she'd learned to listen to her gut.

"What's wrong?" Will asked her, glancing at her apprehensive face. "Is it those birds?"

Sighing, Nia turned back to the racetrack and shook her head. "Nothing, Will. I'm just being paranoid."

The birds' screeching had gotten so loud that more people had started to take notice, glancing nervously at the trees, which shivered under the weight of the birds. Tantalus didn't look concerned, but he did have to speak up to be heard over the noise.

"Charioteers!" he shouted. "Attend your mark!" He waved his hand and the starting signal dropped. The chariots roared to life. Hooves thundered against the dirt. The crowd cheered.

Almost immediately there was a loud nasty crack! Nia looked over to see the Apollo chariot flip over. The Hermes chariot had rammed into it — maybe by mistake, maybe not. The riders were thrown free, but their panicked horses dragged the golden chariot diagonally across the track. The Hermes team, Travis and Connor Stoll, were laughing at their good luck, but not for long. The Apollo horses crashed into theirs, and the Hermes chariot flipped too, leaving a pile of broken wood and four rearing horses in the dust. Two chariots down in the first twenty feet.

Damn, this is fun, Nia grinned.

Then the pigeons in the trees started swarming the camp — thousands of them dive-bombing the spectators in the stands, attacking the other chariots. Nia quickly tried to shield herself with her arms and jacket, but the birds just kept coming. Stymphalian birds! she finally remembered. "Shit!" she yelped as one pecked her on her back.

Nia glanced over at the track. At the same moment, Annabeth looked her in the eye and motioned to the Big House. Instantly, Nia knew what they were going to do.

Will yelled to her, "What do we do?"

Nia kept silent, simultaneously thinking and trying to avoid getting pecked to death by demon birds. "Gather the rest of Apollo Cabin with their bows and arrows! The only way that we'll be able to take these birds down is in the air!"

"But how'll we get them in the air?" Will asked. "We might hit campers if we shoot right now!"

"I'll explain later, Will; there's no time! Just do it!" Nia said, grabbing Moonbeam.

After a moment of confusion, Will nodded and raced off. Nia quickly ran down to the tracks. The chariots were in flames. Wounded campers ran in every direction, with birds shredding their clothes and pulling out their hair, while Tantalus chased breakfast pastries around the stands, every once in a while yelling, "Everything's under control! Not to worry!"

Nia rolled her eyes and notched an arrow in her bowstring, raising it to aim at the birds with the rest of her Apollo cousins. "Archers, on my mark!"

Finally, Annabeth and Percy pulled up to the finish line, holding up Chiron's boom box and playing what Nia thought was. . . Dean Martin? She shrugged — it was a good way as any to get rid of the pigeons. Suddenly the air was filled with violins and a bunch of guys moaning in Italian.

The Stymphalian birds went nuts. They started flying in circles, running in circles, running into each other like they wanted to bash their own brains out. Then they abandoned the track altogether and flew skyward in a huge dark wave.

Nia grinned, nodding at Annabeth.

The blonde girl grinned, nodded back, and shouted towards her and the Apollo kids. "Now! Archers!"

"Fire!" Nia yelled, pulling back her arrows again and again. As always, they had flawless aim, especially Nia. Within literal minutes, the ground was littered with dead bronze-beaked demon pigeons, and the survivor birds were a distant trail of smoke on the horizon.

The camp was saved, but the wreckage looked like a set from a horror movie. Most of the chariots had been destroyed. Almost everyone was wounded, bleeding from multiple bird pecks. Nia sighed, knowing that her hair and clothes were probably a mess.

"How did you know that would work?" Nia's ten-year-old Apollo cousin Kayla Knowles asked her. The rest of Apollo Cabin glanced at Nia, eager for her response.

"I didn't," Nia breathed heavily. "Listen, guys, I'll be right back." She jogged over to Annabeth and Percy and gave Annabeth a tight hug. "You are a genius!"

"What am I, chopped liver?" Percy asked, indignant.

Both girls rolled their eyes at him and turned back to each other.

"Thanks," Annabeth said, grinning and hugging Nia back. "I'm lucky that you knew what I meant."

Suddenly, Tantalus said, "Bravo!" But he wasn't looking at Percy or Annabeth or Nia. "We have our first winner!" He walked to the finish line and awarded the golden laurels for the race to a stunned-looking Clarisse.

Nia blinked, too amazed to even be mad.

Then Tantalus turned in her direction and smiled. "And now to punish the troublemakers who disrupted this race."

hey everybody! so my very good friend lattesandreading ( make sure that u go and check him out ) just made me this AMAZING new cover—

isn't it just the greatest thing you've ever seen? so, to thank him, i'm putting out another chapter! yay! hope you enjoyed it and talk soon!

—icedcoffeemug

EDIT: it's a really nice cover, isn't it?