Percy was forgiving when Zebediah said he wasn't going to be able to teleport them to the Vatican City. That's acceptable. It makes a lot of sense; Greek demigods can't use their magic in the Catholic Pope's domain. Valid.

What doesn't make sense is Zebediah teleporting them to the Alps. Yes, that's right. This tropical starfish decided that it would be a great idea to take them to the Alps, about seven hundred miles away from the Vatican.

He should have known something was up when Zebediah spewed some bullshit about snow being water too. Yes, snow is water too. No, it is not acceptable to send two people wearing T-shirts and jeans to a snowy mountain. This is a little too close to Zeus's domain for comfort. Then again, Zeus isn't exactly at the top of Percy's list of imminent dangers.

That spot of honor would go to the not-so-friendly centaurs inhabiting the section of the Alps Percy and Annabeth stumbled upon, and then taking spot number two would probably be the revelation that Annabeth had been drinking screwdrivers—not orange juice—with brunch.

Percy steps over Annabeth's vomit in the snow and then dodges a centaur's club, but his backpack slaps against the small of his back and he tumbles face-first into a muddy mixture of snow and dirt.

"Hey, can't we just talk this out?" Annabeth yells. "I mean, we know your friend! We know Chiron!"

Percy turns around. "Annabeth, I'm pretty sure they're not—Woah!" And just like that, he's draped across the behind of a centaur, hanging on for dear life as one of Chiron's angry cousins berates him in Italian for invading the centaur territory. Percy already apologized for that! These guys did not take kindly to lost tourists. They pretty much saw through that honeymooning tourist lie like it was a window and got straight to the trying-to-kill-Annabeth-and-Percy part.

They're efficient, Percy will grant them that, but that means there was no time for that witty banter of Annabeth's that seems to get them out of situations like these.

So the Alps, centaurs, Annabeth's vomit... Oh, and an angry starfish yelling at Percy from a mason jar tucked in the water bottle net on his backpack.

Get us off this horse, you asshole! Zebediah shouts.

"Don't you think that's what I'm trying to do?" Percy says through gritted teeth.

So do it faster!

Percy swallows his pride and then clears his throat. "Annabeth! Help!"

He can't see her, but he imagines she's working very hard to catch up to him and his captor; they are halfway up a pretty steep slope after all. Any minute now, he and Zebediah will be saved, and then he'll pour Kool-Aid powder into Zebediah's water because he put them into this situation in the first place.

Then Percy hears a man's voice shout, "Filgio di puttana!" Then there's a thud—no doubt a centaur hitting the ground. Percy thought he and Annabeth had a silent agreement that they would not kill any of Chiron's Italian cousins, but clearly, she didn't get the memo.

Holy shit, I think she stabbed that guy! Zebediah shouts. Get it, crazy bitch lady!

"Yeah, believe it or not, Zebediah, I'm familiar with what a sword stabbing someone sounds like," Percy says. At this point, things can't get any worse for him right now. The bar is on the floor. Somebody get Percy a shovel because the bar is lower than that.

The bar is below ground level and somehow the Fates managed to trip over it.

"Tony!" Percy's captor cries out.

In what feels like super ultra slow motion, the centaur whose tail Percy is clinging to pulls a one-eighty and stampedes down the hill. He bucks, sending Percy and a for once dumbfounded Zebediah flying into the air.

Percy pulls Riptide from his pocket at the last second and points it at his captor before he can get to Annabeth. "Good back there?" he yells.

"Yeah... Stuck..." Annabeth grunts.

Percy winces when she pulls her sword out of the dying centaur's thick skin. Poor Tony.

It's when he feels her back brush against his that he knows they're one step away from losing hope. Sure, they're in a solid defensive position, and the centaurs will probably take their time killing them, so Percy has plenty of time to sneak a text to his mom, but he can't exactly say this is how he thought it would end.

He glances down at the snow, noting the red spotting. "Are you hurt?" he mumbles.

"Nosebleed," Annabeth replies. "If I die, don't tell Will I did cocaine."

"You're not gonna die."

"Hell, even if I don't die, please don't tell Doctor Will I did cocaine."

You're both facing certain death, Zebediah says, Now, can you shut the fuck up and at least make sure I don't die?

The centaur yells something in Italian that Percy doesn't understand, except he's pretty sure he recognizes morirai as something having to do with death.

The rest of the centaurs start to close in, raising clubs and rocks and one bottle of expensive-looking wine.

Percy can't compel the snow on the mountain to cause an avalanche; there's just not enough water. Hell, even if there were, there's no way he and Annabeth could escape an avalanche without using Zebediah, and he's more than a little hesitant to trust Zebediah's water-traveling thing again. That sounds like a sure way to end up in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

He's ready to close his eyes and accept death when he hears barking. If the centaurs have a hellhound on their side, there's no way Percy and Annabeth are going to be able to get out of this one. Maybe he's just making it up in his head. There's no way things can get worse than this, so therefore, there is no hellhound.

"How much is Pothos paying you for this?" Annabeth asks. "Seriously, whatever he gives you, we can double it. We can do more than double it. Right, Percy?"

She's right; if it's money they want, they can ditch the New Rome credit card and then tell Frank to freeze it.

"Mi dispiace, bella," the centaur in front of Percy says. At this point, he's decided this one is probably the leader of the group.

"Percy," Annabeth hisses. "My smooth talking can't save us if they don't speak English."

"Yeah, I figured as much," he says, desperately looking for some way to save himself and Annabeth.

The centaurs close in, clubs raised. One of them has a chain like he's going to strangle them to death, which once again begs the question: Can you strangle a starfish? Percy doesn't think so.

The enemies wear golden chains around their necks with cross-shaped pendants, which is kind of ironic, and begs several more questions, but Percy decides not to point that out.

"Percy, there's a hellhound," she reminds him, the same way you might say Oh my gods, we're going to die!

He follows Annabeth's eyes to the top of a hill, where sure enough, a hellhound clumsily bounds toward them. At first, he isn't convinced that it's not a large mastiff or maybe a great dane mixed with something fluffy, but the beady red eyes are practically glowing from the snow cap.

We're going to die! Zebediah screeches.

"Not helping," says Percy. "Do you have anything positive to contribute?"

We're going to die quickly!

"I know you're not talking to that goddamn starfish," Annabeth says, wiping her nose with her arm. She shakes out her hand, splattering blood onto the hooves of one of the centaurs. The centaur does not seem to appreciate this.

The growing shape of the hellhound stops growing, and Percy realizes that the monster is no larger than a New York City taxi cab. There are two riders on its back, which is a little strange, but Percy Jackson is at a point in his life where he's not surprised to see two guys with awesome hair riding a miniature hellhound wearing a red leather collar. Hell, he was once turned into a guinea pig. Compared to that, two guys with awesome hair riding a hellhound is...

Nothing new, actually.

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers!" a shrill voice yells from atop the hellhound.

For a minute, even the bloodthirsty centaurs are distracted.

Percy gapes. "Is that...?"

"Fuck me in the ass," Annabeth says in awe.

"Raphael!" Nico calls to his hellhound, "Attacca!" He points his midnight black sword at the centaurs.

And good gods of Olympus, it works! As the hellhound—Raphael—charges down the slope, a couple of the centaurs leave Annabeth and Percy to instead pursue Nico and Will.

When the centaur in front of Percy isn't paying attention, he uses the flat of his blade to buckle his knees. This centaur—the one that had Percy along his back only minutes ago—must be pretty important judging by the way some of the others flock to his side.

"All good, Annabeth?"

She grunts and wipes more blood from her face. "We'd better make it to the end of this so I can yell at Will for his poorly placed Die Hard reference."

Percy smirks even though she can't see his face. "I'm kind of jealous. That entrance was awesome."

He uses the fallen centaur for leverage and mounts the biggest one.

"Luigi!" one of the others calls.

"Aiuta!" he begs.

Percy risks his death grip on the centaur's back to take off his backpack. He then proceeds to do what any rational person would in this situation.

Ignoring the pleas for help from Zebediah, Percy bashes Luigi the centaur repeatedly with his backpack. There has to be something heavy enough in there to knock someone out.

"Please pass out already," Percy says through gritted teeth.

I'm dizzy, you asshole!

Again, he chooses to ignore Zebediah.

"Duck!" Annabeth shouts.

"Huh?"

The only thing that saves Percy from Annabeth's awry throwing knife is Zebediah's glass mason jar, which shatters upon impact. Percy closes his eyes to avoid getting cut; he'd prefer to do the remainder of this quest with two eyes, thank you very much.

Oh, shell yeah! Zebediah hollers as he spirals through the brisk air like a ninja star. He dodges shards of glass with questionable expertise.

Unfortunately, the starfish is a good-for-nothing asshole and there's a more pressing situation, so Percy can't compliment that pun.

"You missed!" Will shouts to Annabeth.

"Yeah, sorry, I was trying not to maim my ex!" she shouts back.

"Aww, you do care," Percy says as he drives Riptide between the centaur's shoulder blades, coating his t-shirt in golden dust.

Why didn't he do that sooner? Even though the centaur residents of the Alps made it very clear they wanted to kill Annabeth and Percy in just about every way possible, he still wasn't very keen on the idea of killing his mentor Chiron's brethren.

Now he has to deal with it.

Raphael the hellhound runs back through the group of centaurs. Seeing that they've lost their leader and their toughest fighter, the centaurs disperse, retreating over the hill, shouting things in Italian that Percy wouldn't like to know.

"Raphael! No! Put down the leg!" Nico shouts. "Lascia!" The Italian seems to work because as soon as he gives the command, the hellhound stops in its tracks and deposits the leg in the snow. He looks back at Nico expectantly, a mixture of blood and drool dribbling from his teeth.

Nico dismounts Raphael and digs around in his pocket for something. "Bravo! Chi è un bravo cane?"

Raphael wags his tail happily and takes the biscuit from Nico's pocket.

Nico wipes his hands on his black jeans and turns to Will. "You okay, babe?"

"Yup. Percy, Anna—Oh my gods!" Will shrieks. He flinches like someone just hit him with one of the Birkenstock shoes he chose to wear on a mountain hike for some reason.

Nico winces too.

"What?" Percy asks. "Is there something on my... Oh."

Annabeth puts her hands on her hips like any skin below her nose isn't covered in blood and like Zebediah the starfish hasn't latched onto her neck. "What're you looking at me for?"

"You have a little something..." Percy says, pointing to his neck.

She presses her palm to her neck and then shrieks. "Get it off. Get it off, dammit!"

"Hold still," Will reaches for the starfish.

"Wait," says Percy. "I should do it." He's not usually so insistent, but he's the marine biology guy. Will might be a future doctor, but his area of expertise is human patients—not starfish.

"I'm pretty sure I can peel a starfish off my best friend," Will says.

"Yeah, but that starfish is giving us guidance on the quest," Percy explains.

Annabeth clears her throat. "Questionable guidance," she says.

Percy rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. And it was a gift from my dad."

"And I still have a starfish on my neck. Still feels better than-"

"Don't finish that sentence," Will says. "Seriously, Percy, don't worry, I'll be gentle."

"Yeah, but-"

"Ragazze, ragazze," says Nico. "You're both beautiful." And with that, the little Italian guy pries Zebediah off Annabeth's neck and hands him off to Percy.

Well, it's about damn time!

"You could have let go any time," Percy says.

And fall into the mud? No, thanks!

"Shouldn't you be gasping for air?" Percy asks, stuffing Zebediah into his water bottle.

Oh, a Yeti water bottle. I sure am traveling first class! he quips. Is this freshwater? That simply will not do!

"Fuck you too, man."

Nico raises an eyebrow. "Are you cussing out a starfish?"

"He started it!"

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," says Annabeth. She drops a bloody wet wipe into Will's man purse. She hasn't even gotten all the blood cleaned off her face. How did it get behind her ear?

Will scratches Raphael's neck. "And you made fun of me for taking extra from Hooters."

"That's called hoarding, my guy. Do you know how embarrassing it is when you introduce your boss to your roommate and your roommate just starts stuffing his pockets with wet ones?"

"I'm resourceful!"

"You're a scavenger!"

Nico clears his throat. "Does anyone want to tell us about the centaurs?" Ah yes, there's the matter of the time-sensitive mission Percy and Annabeth are supposed to be on right now. That probably outweighs Will's questionable dining habits.

Annabeth purses her lips. "Hey, yeah, how did you guys know to find us here?"

"Usually I tell Raphael to go to a specific location since he hasn't had a lot of training sniffing people out, but since I didn't know where you were, I told him to take us to you guys," Nico explains. He beams at his puppy. "And he did! Bravo cane! Chi è un bravo cane?"

Raphael yips and thumps his tail at the implication of another dog biscuit, splatting mud onto Percy's jeans.

"How'd you know we needed help?" Percy asks.

"I think you drunk-dialed me," Nico says. "Are you alright, man?"

Annabeth snorts.

"I mean, as good as I can be," Percy says. "What... What did I say to you?"

"Just that you were having an awesome time and that you wanted us to link up," Nico explains nonchalantly. "I figured something went horribly wrong since you were drunk."

That's a valid point, considering Percy doesn't drink, except, apparently, in emergency circumstances.

But "link up?" Did he really tell Nico that they should link up? Percy should never drink ever again.

"So," Will says. He puts his hands on his hips and surveys the group's surroundings as if noticing for the first time that they are on a mountain. "Why don't y'all catch us up?"

Annabeth and Percy take turns filling Nico and Will in on the details of their quest so far, including the Erymanthian boar in the tulip fields and the Laelaps dog on the train. He tells them about his talk with Poseidon and how he came into possession of Zebediah the starfish, but he chooses to skip over the part where Annabeth had a panic attack in the bathroom over a-

"Is that a cut?" Will gasps, fussing over Annabeth's face. "Bestie, your face! Your beautiful face!"

Annabeth looks at the ground. "It's not a big deal. Percy stitched it up."

"Percy stitched it up? With what? Dental floss?"

Percy rolls his eyes. "For your information, I used the kit you put in Annabeth's bag. Thanks so much for that."

Will cradles Annabeth's face and pets her hair, which Percy finds kind of weird, but Annabeth doesn't seem to mind. She just presses her face into his chest and embraces the physical touch.

Percy turns to Nico and finishes the story. "The starfish my dad gave me led us to this brewery tour, which then turned into a club tour. That was kind of a bust because we didn't get that much info except for what Zebediah overheard, which was that Pothos has a team of monsters and allies at the Vatican City."

Nico raises an eyebrow. "And we're not there now because..."

"Because we can't use Greek magic to get into the Catholic domain," Percy explains. "Zebediah can't use his powers to transport us, and I'm guessing the same will work with shadow travel."

"The starfish has powers now?" Will asks.

Annabeth pulls back from Will's embrace. "I don't know about you guys, but I'd like to prioritize getting away from the psycho mafia centaurs before they regroup."

Nico agrees. "Mafiosi. Certo. They were dressed nicely—way too nice for this economy." 

"Can Raphael get us to Rome?" Annabeth asks.

"He doesn't have the strength to do another big jump right now. He's just a puppy," Nico explains. To prove that point, the puppy in question rolls onto his back and begs Percy for tummy rubs.

Percy's no monster, so he obliges.

"Can't you guys use the starfish again?" Will asks.

Oh, hell no! Not from your emotional support water bottle! the starfish yells.

"Zebediah says no," Percy translates.

"I'm sorry," Will says. "His name is Zebediah?"

"Yes," he deadpans.

"I suppose Raphael could do a small jump," Nico says. He whistles and Raphael stands up at attention. "Just grab onto his collar and he'll jump you to safety. I'll use Will's location to find you guys myself."

"Babe," Will scolds.

"Relax, Doc. I have ambrosia."

Annabeth cracks her neck, and then her knuckles, and then she sheaths her sword and grabs onto Raphael's collar, earning a lick from a tongue the size of a pretzel platter.

"So you and Percy are getting along," Will says with a knowing smile.

"I guess so?" Annabeth says.

"Oh my gods," Nico says. "Percy, that's... that's indecent."

Percy starts, "I don't know what- Oh."

There's a dark spot on Annabeth's neck, but Percy doesn't remember her hooking up with anyone. Besides, he would have noticed the hickey at breakfast if she'd gotten it during last night's clubbing adventure.

"What?" she asks, whipping out her phone and looking into the front-facing camera. "Shit. Percy, your starfish gave me a fucking hickey."

Percy chuckles. "I will personally drop him in the Hudson when we get back."