ｔｈｅ　ｔｉｔａｎｓ　ｃｕｒｓｅ

THEY RODE THE BOAR UNTIL SUNSET, She had no idea how many miles they covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until they were galloping across the desert.

"One shall be lost in the land without rain," was all that kept ringing in Lucia's head

When night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."

Nobody needed convincing. They slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then they waddled away as best they could with their saddle sores.

After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.

"It likes the mountains better," Percy guessed.

"I can't blame it," Thalia said. "Look."

Ahead of them was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it was serving tacos since before Zoe Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door.

Beyond that was a range of hills... but then Lucia noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

"Holy shit," Lucia said,

"Language." Zoe scolded her

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Grover. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to them, but Grover looked concerned.

"That's us," he said. "Those six nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" Percy asked.

"The little deformed one," Zoe suggested.

Lucia snorted

"Oh, shut up." Percy elbowed her

"Hey, I didn't even say it!" She defended

"That cluster right there," Grover then said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble."

"A monster?" Lucia felt the playfulness in her disappear just as fast as it came, she knew they were in the desert, the land without rain, and someone was going to be lost sooner or later... She prayed for it to be her.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge..."

He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet. Lucia felt like throwing up just looking at it.

☼

THEY DECIDED TO CAMP FOR THE NIGHT and try the junkyard in the morning. None of them wanted to go Dumpster-diving in the dark.

Zoe and Bianca produced six sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. Lucia still struggled to comprehend how they did it, the packs were tiny, but they must've been enchanted to hold so much stuff. She didn't fully get how stuff like that worked yet.

Lucia had noticed their bows and quivers were also magic. When the Hunters needed them, they just appeared slung over their backs. And when they didn't, they were gone. Lucia stared at her broken bow and frowned, she wondered if she could ask Zoe to share their magazine catalogs.

"Do you have anything else?" Thalia asked in concern glancing at the damaged weapon

"These." Lucia dug out the 5 daggers "No idea how to use them though."

"You could figure it out" Thalia nodded "a broken bow won't keep you down."

Lucia smiled at that

The night got chilly fast, Lucia and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire. Pretty soon they were about as comfy as they could get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.

"The stars are out," Zoe said.

She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.

"They're beautiful" Lucia stared at them in awe, and Percy watched her.

"Yeah, They're absolutely stunning," he whispered, Lucia looked back at him meeting his eyes, the fire of the makeshift campsite reflecting in them. when did he start appreciating the stars so much?.

"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."

"This is nothing," Zoe said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."

"You talk like you're not human," Percy said.

Zoe raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"

"For you," Thalia corrected. "Not thee"

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence."

"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you"

Zoe threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"

Lucia smiled at her sympathetically, "It's also one of the most difficult languages to learn Zoe, and the most annoying. so don't worry too much about it. I say this as someone bilingual...well trilingual now that I know ancient greek"

"Thank you Lucia" Zoe replied "Your heart is truly kind"

"Say something in Spanish" Percy requested excitedly from next to her

Lucia rolled her eyes "Eres un bobo" you're a dumbass

Percy grinned at the group "Doesn't she sound cool!"

Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right."

Zoe nodded sadly.

"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee..."

Lucia was pretty sure coffee had nothing to do with what had happened in Cloudcroft, but she didn't have the heart to tell Grover. She thought about Remi and the tiny birds that had suddenly come alive when the wind blew. That had to mean something, no?

"Grover, do you really think that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be." Percy approached cautiously

"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've gotten in two thousand years. I was so close."

"You can do it, Grover." Lucia smiled brightly but everyone else seemed to not be as convinced.

"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. There are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them."

Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."

"Maybe it's your knife," Lucia suggested.

"It is the same as mine," Zoe said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way."

"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot," Percy said.

Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her.

"Never mind," Zoe told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas."

"No!" she said. "Not there!"

She looked really freaked out like she was free-falling in the air

Lucia frowned. "Why? what's wrong with Vegas?"

Bianca took a shaky breath. "I... I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were traveling. And then, I can't remember..."

"Bianca," Percy looked like he realized something big. "That hotel you stayed at. Was it possibly called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?"

Her eyes widened. "How could you know that?"

"Oh, great," Percy said.

"Wait," Thalia said. "What is the Lotus Casino?"

"A couple of years ago," Percy said, "Grover, Annabeth, and I got trapped there. It's designed so you never want to leave. We stayed for about an hour. When we came out, five days had passed. It makes time speed up."

"No," Bianca said. "No, that's not possible."

"You said somebody came and got you out," Lucia remembered.

"Yes."

"What did he look like? What did he say?"

"I... I don't remember. Please, I really don't want to talk about this."

Zoe sat forward, her eyebrows knit with concern. "You said that Washington, D.C., had changed when you went back last summer. You didn't remember the subway being there."

"Yes, but—"

"Bianca," Zoe said, "can you tell me the name of the president of the United States right now?"

"Don't be silly," Bianca said. She told us the correct name of the president. "And who was the president before that?" Zoe asked.

Bianca thought for a while. "Roosevelt."

Zoe swallowed. "Theodore or Franklin'?"

"Franklin," Bianca said. "F.D.R."

"Like FDR Drive?" Percy asked.

Lucia looked at him in disbelief "I shouldn't have let you copy my U.S history homework"

"Bianca," Zoe said. "F.D.R. was not the last president. That was about seventy years ago."

"That's impossible," Bianca said. "I... I'm not that old."

She stared at her hands as if to make sure they weren't wrinkled.

Thalia's eyes turned sad. Lucia guessed she knew what it was like to get pulled out of time for a while. "It's okay, Bianca, The important thing is you and Nico are safe. You made it out."

"But how?" Percy said. "We were only in there for an hour and we barely escaped. How could you have escaped after being there for so long?"

"I told you." Bianca looked about ready to cry and Lucia's heart broke for her. "A man came and said it was time to leave. And—"

"But who? Why did he do it?"

Before she could answer, they were hit with a blazing light from down the road. The headlights of a car appeared out of nowhere. Lucia was half hoping for it to be Apollo, coming to give them a ride again, but the engine was way way too silent for the sun chariot, and it was nighttime.

They grabbed their sleeping bags and got out of the way as a deathly white limousine slid to a stop in front of them.

The back door of the limo opened right next to Percy. Before he could step away, the point of a sword touched his throat.

Lucia grabbed one of her daggers and held it out menacingly, she realized how pathetic her blade looked compared to the sword but she wasn't about to do nothing. Not when Percy was on the other end of it.

She almost swore she heard a squeal come from inside the vehicle

Zoe and Bianca drew their bows only seconds after. The owner of the sword got out of the car, Percy moved back very slowly. he had to, because he was pushing the point under his chin.

He smiled cruelly. "Not so fast now, are you, punk?"

He was a big man with a crew cut, a black leather biker's jacket, black jeans, a white muscle shirt, and combat boots. Wraparound shades hid his eyes but Lucia could see through the lenses—hollow sockets with flames.

"Ares," Percy growled.

The war god glanced at the group. "At ease, people."

He snapped his fingers, and their weapons fell to the ground.

"This is a friendly meeting." He dug the point of his blade a little farther under my chin. "Of course, I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady."

"What lady?" Thalia asked.

Ares looked over at her. "Well, well. I heard you were back."

He lowered his sword and pushed Percy away, Lucia caught him before he could hit the ground.

"Thalia, daughter of Zeus," Ares mused. "You're not hanging out with very good company."

"What's your business, Ares?" she said. "Who's in the car?"

Ares smiled, enjoying the attention. "Oh, I doubt she wants to meet the rest of you. Particularly not them." He jutted his chin toward Zoe and Bianca. "Why don't you all go get some tacos while you wait? It will only take Percy and the girl a few minutes."

"Me?" Lucia furrowed her eyebrows "Why me?"

"Don't ask me the questions sunny."

"We will not leave them alone with thee, Lord Ares," Zoe said.

"Besides," Grover managed, "the taco place is closed."

Ares snapped his fingers again. The lights inside the taqueria suddenly blazed to life. The boards flew off the door and the CLOSED sign flipped to OPEN. "You were saying, goat boy?"

"Go on," Percy told them. "We'll handle this."

Lucia nodded towards them when they looked at her for confirmation

"You heard the boy," Ares said. "He's big and strong. He's got things under control."

Their friends reluctantly headed over to the taco restaurant. Ares regarded Percy with loathing, then opened the limousine door like a chauffeur.

"Get inside, punk," he said. "And mind your manners. She's not as forgiving of rudeness as I am."

Lucia realized when Percy climbed inside the limo that she was now stuck outside alone with the war god. She crossed her arms across her chest and awkwardly bounced her leg. what kind of small talk could you have with the god of war?

Then she pulled out her gum shoving a stick in her mouth. She waited patiently before grabbing more, and then again, and again. In the past 2 minutes, she had pulled out 4 sticks of gum and was now chewing them obnoxiously to distract herself.

"Couldn't I have gotten a taco then came back?" Lucia muffled, her stomach grumbled thinking about some carnitas.

Ares glared at her

"Guess not."

Percy was only inside for thirty seconds more, which Lucia was grateful for, any longer and she would've probably stuffed the entire pack of gum in her mouth.

When he came out of the limo, he looked everywhere but at her.

"You okay?" She asked, "Who is it?"

"mhm" Was all he said before looking straight up at the sky, his cheeks were tinted red. A bead os sweat dripped down his forehead despite the chill in the air.

"Your turn sunny." Ares pointed toward the limo annoyed

Lucia glanced at Percy questioning his weird behavior one more time, then she decided to get rid of her giant accumulated wad of gum into a wrapper before slipping inside the limo

She forgot her name. She forgot where she was. She forgot how to speak in complete sentences.

And she was very glad to have good breath right now

The woman was wearing a blue silk dress and her wavy hair cascaded down her shoulder, framing her face gorgeously. Her eyes were the most irresistible eyes she'd ever seen: Slate outer rings with teal all the way to the black, those eyes fixed her. She thought of when a wave reaches out to touch the sky, the tides that cause the sea to fall along the shore, collecting those that fall victim to a riptide and sweeping them away into its depths with no survivable way out.

"Ms, I say this with the utmost respect" Lucia began "You're incredibly hot."

When she smiled at Lucia, she felt a sense of familiarity. Then she watched as she looked a little like an old celebrity crush. Until she flickered back into how she first looked when Lucia stepped in.

"Aren't you sweet. " the goddess said. "I am Aphrodite. Hold this, please."

Lucia started blabbering incoherently "B-Beauty?"

Aphrodite handed her a polished mirror the size of a dinner plate and made her hold it up for her. She leaned forward and dabbed at her lipstick, though Lucia couldn't see anything wrong with it.

"Correct, do you know why you're here Lucia?" she asked.

"I... I don't know," She managed. "You're too pretty I can't think."

"Oh, dear," Aphrodite said. "Still in denial?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lucia said but suddenly she wasn't clueless. in the back of her mind, she had a vague idea of why the goddess of love was here.

"Well then, why are you on this quest?"

"They convinced me?"

"The real reason"

"Artemis has been captured!"

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "Oh, Artemis. Please. Talk about a hopeless case. I mean, if they were going to kidnap a goddess, she should be breathtakingly beautiful, don't you think? I pity the poor dears who have to imprison Artemis. Bo-ring!"

"But she was chasing a monster," Lucia protested. "A really, really bad monster. We have to find it!"

Aphrodite made Lucia hold the mirror a little higher. She seemed to have found a microscopic problem at the corner of her eye and dabbed at her mascara. "Always some monster. But my dear Lucia, that is why the others are on this quest. I'm more interested in you."

Her heart pounded. She didn't want to answer, but her pacific eyes drew an answer right out of her mouth. "I don't want anything to happen to Percy. I think deep down I knew he would come one way or another and I... I can't afford to lose him again. Not like that. I don't want him to be away from me. I don't care if it's not in the way I want."

Aphrodite beamed. "Exactly!"

"But I also have to save Annabeth," Lucia said. "She's in trouble and—"

"Ah, how romantic! your love for him is so strong you're willing to save your competition! so cute!"

"Competition?" Lucia furrowed her eyebrows, she didn't like that Aphrodite was implying her motivations to save Annabeth were solely based on her feelings for Percy "No It has nothing to do with— this isn't the Olympics! I'm not compet—"

"Back to love." Aphrodite interrupted "I don't have all the time in the world sweetheart I want to focus on the juicy stuff, not your annoying moral motivations."

Lucia huffed

"Do you know why he is on this quest?" Aphrodite got back on track immediately

"Annabeth," She spoke, was this a cruel joke?

"Partly yes." Aphrodite admitted "Why else?"

"Artemis?"

Aphrodite fade dropped "Honestly Dear, I'm trying to help you here."

"Well, I don't know why!" She frowned

"For you." Aphrodite explained almost exasperated "He came for the same reason you came for him, you beautiful clueless girl ."

"That...no." Lucia shook her head

She made a tsk-tsk sound. "Lucia, I'm on your side. I'm the reason he's here, after all."

She stared at her. "What?"

"The poisoned T-shirt the Stoll brothers gave Phoebe," she said. "Did you think that was an accident? Sending a ride to find him? Helping him sneak out of the camp?"

"You did that?" Lucia asked

"Of course! Because really, how boring these Hunters are! A quest for some monster, blah blah blah. Saving Artemis. Let her stay lost, I say. But a quest for true love—"

"Wait a second, I never said—"

"Oh, my dear. You don't need to say it. You do know you refused the hunters for a reason, don't you?"

I blushed. "I wasn't sure—"

"You were about to throw your life away! And he, my dear, he saved you from that. It's so romantic!"

"Uh..."

"Oh, put the mirror down," Aphrodite ordered. "I look fine."

She hadn't realized she was still holding it, but as soon as she put it down, she noticed her arms were sore.

"Now listen, Lucia," Aphrodite said. "The Hunters are your enemies. Forget them and Artemis and the monster. That's not important. You just concentrate on getting Percy to fall more in love with you."

"I'm not doing that!" her voice got higher in pitch making her sound a little like a whistle

Aphrodite waved her hand irritably. "Whether you actually try or not is not of importance. But it's been ages since we've had a good tragic love story."

"Whoa, first of all, I never said anything about love. And second, what's up with tragic?!"

"Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?"

"Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?" Lucia asked, "Then didn't she marry his brother like right after he died?"

"Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart."

"But... I don't know where it's going. My heart, I mean."

"You do." Aphrodite responded "You've always known"

Lucia was overwhelmed by the feelings swirling inside her. "But he—he's only my best friend."

Aphrodite smiled sympathetically. She really was beautiful. And not just because she was immensely attractive. She believed in love so much, it was impossible not to feel strongly when she talked about it.

"Not knowing is half the fun," Aphrodite said. "Exquisitely painful, isn't it? Not being sure who you love and who loves you? Oh, you kids! It's so cute I'm going to cry."

"No, no," Lucia said. "Don't do that."

"And don't worry," she continued. "I'm not going to let this be easy and boring for you. No, I have some wonderful surprises in store. Anguish. Indecision. Oh, you just wait."

"That's really okay," Lucia told her. "Don't go to any trouble.  I've had enough already."

"You're so cute. I wish all my daughters could feel love as strongly as you." Aphrodite's eyes were tearing up. "Now, you'd better go. And do be careful in my husband's territory, Lucia. Don't take anything. He is awfully fussy about his trinkets and trash."

"What?" Lucia asked. "You mean Hephaestus?"

But the car door opened and Ares grabbed her shoulder, pulling her out of the car and back into the desert night.

Her audience with the goddess of love was over.

"You're lucky, punk." Ares pushed her away from the limo as he addressed Percy. "Be grateful."

"For what?" Percy asked

"That we're being so nice. If it was up to me—"

"So why haven't you killed me?" He shot back.

"Shut up!?" Lucia looked at him in bewilderment

Ares nodded, like Percy had finally said something intelligent.

"I'd love to kill you, seriously," he said. "But see, I got a situation. Word on Olympus is that you might start the biggest war in history. I can't risk messing that up. Besides, Aphrodite thinks you're some kinda soap-opera star or something. I kill you, that makes me look bad with her. But don't worry. I haven't forgotten my promise. Some day soon, kid—real soon— you're going to raise your sword to fight, and you're going to remember the wrath of Ares."

He balled his fists. "Why wait? I beat you once. How's that ankle healing up?"

"Sir, he is very sorry." Lucia tried to play the mediator "He did not mean that at all."

"Yes I did, Sunlight."

"Bobo!" dumbass!

Ares grinned crookedly. "Not bad, punk. But you got nothing on the master of taunts. I'll start the fight when I'm good and ready. Until then... Get lost."

He snapped his fingers and the world did a three-sixty, spinning in a cloud of red dust. Percy and Lucia fell to the ground in a heap.

When they stood up again, the limousine was gone. The road, the taco restaurant, the whole town of Gila Claw was gone. Their friends and them were standing in the middle of the junkyard, mountains of scrap metal stretched out in every direction.

"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked once they'd told them about Aphrodite.

Lucia felt her hands get clammy just remembering her conversation with the goddess. She looked at Percy, wondering what they spoke about. could it have been about her? no. of course not.

"Oh, uh, not sure," Percy said, Lucia felt the familiar itch in her skull. "She said to be careful in her husband's junkyard. She said not to pick anything up."

Zoe narrowed her eyes. "The goddess of love would not make a special trip to tell thee that. Be careful, Percy and Lucia. Aphrodite has led many heroes astray."

"For once I agree with Zoe," Thalia said. "You can't trust Aphrodite."

Bianca was looking at Lucia funny. Lucia looked her in the eye sending a silent message. yes it was about the thing now could you look away before I die of absolute embarrassment

"So," Lucia said, anxious to change the subject, "how do we get out of here?"

"That way," Zoe said and pointed

"West." Lucia nodded

"How can you tell?" Percy asked

"The sun sets in the west."

"Ah right, The sun thing," Percy said, " not used to you being a half-blood yet."

"Guys," Grover broke in. "Look!"

They'd reached the crest of a junk mountain. Piles of metal objects glinted in the moonlight: broken heads of bronze horses, metal legs from human statues, smashed chariots, tons of shields and swords and other weapons, along with more modern stuff, like cars that gleamed gold and silver, refrigerators, washing machines, and computer monitors.

"Whoa," Bianca said. "That stuff... some of it looks like real gold."

"It is," Thalia said grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."

"Junk?" Grover picked up a beautiful crown made of gold, silver, and jewels. It was broken on one side, as if it had been split by an axe. "You call this junk?"

He bit off a point and began to chew. "It's delicious!"

Thalia swatted the crown out of his hands. "I'm serious!"

"Look!" Bianca said. She raced down the hill, tripping over bronze coils and golden plates. She picked up a bow that glowed silver in moonlight. "A Hunter's bow!"

She yelped in surprise as the bow began to shrink, and became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. "It's just like Percy's sword!"

Lucia's face was grim. "Leave it, Bianca."

"But—"

"Lucia is right, it is here for a reason." Zoe intervened "Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed."

Bianca reluctantly set the hair clip down.

"I don't like this place," Lucia said. She gripped the handle of one of her daggers

"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy teased.

She gave him a hard look. "Zoe said it, Percy. Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard."

They started picking their way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Lucia, they would've gotten lost. All the hills pretty much looked the same.

Lucia didn't touch a single thing, only tempted by an electric guitar shaped like Apollo's lyre, she had to physically make herself walk faster to prevent herself from touching it.

Grover on the other hand, besides Lucia's protests, found a broken tree made out of metal. It had been chopped to pieces, but some of the branches still had golden birds in them, and they whirred around when Grover picked them up, trying to flap their wings.

Finally, they saw the edge of the junkyard about half a mile ahead of them, the lights of a highway stretching through the desert. But between them and the road...

"What is that?" Bianca gasped.

Ahead of them was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together.

Bianca frowned. "They look like—"

"Toes," Grover said.

Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes."

"Let's go around," Lucia said. "Far around."

"But the road is right over there," Percy protested. "Quicker to climb over."

Ping.

Thalia hefted her spear, Zoe drew her bow and Lucia gathered her daggers, then they realized it was only Grover. He had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the column were hollow.

"Why did you do that?" Zoe demanded.

Grover cringed. "I don't know. I, uh, don't like fake feet?"

"I get it." Lucia agreed

"Come on," Thalia said. "Around."

After several minutes of walking, they finally stepped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black asphalt.

"We made it out," Zoe said. "Thank the gods."

But apparently, the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, They heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal.

Lucia whirled around. Behind them, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and she realized why they looked like toes. They were toes. The thing that rose up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armor. He was impossibly tall—a skyscraper with legs and arms. He gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. He looked down at us, and his face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off. His joints creaked with rust, and across his armored chest, written in thick dust by some giant finger, were the words WASH ME.

"Talos!" Zoe gasped.

"Who—who's Talos?" Lucia stuttered.

"One of Hephaestus's creations," Thalia said. "But that can't be the original. It's too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model.

The metal giant didn't like the word defective.

He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but Lucia didn't figure that mattered. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.

"Someone took something," Zoe said. "Who took something?" She stared accusingly at Percy.

Percy shook his head. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."

the giant defective Talos took one step toward them, closing half the distance and making the ground shake.

"Run!" Grover yelped.

Great advice, except that it was hopeless. At a leisurely stroll, this thing could outdistance them easily.

They split up, the way they'd done with the Nemean Lion. Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway. The giant swung his sword and took out a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across Thalia's path.

Zoe's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal. Grover brayed like a baby goat and went climbing up a mountain of metal.

Lucia, Percy, and Bianca ended up next to each other, hiding behind a broken chariot.

"You took something," Lucia said. "That bow."

"No!" she said, but her voice was quivering.

"Give it back!" Lucia yelled. "Throw it down!"

"I... I didn't take the bow! Besides, it's too late."

"What did. you take?"

Before she could answer, They heard a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the sky.

"Move!" Percy tore down the hill, the girls right behind him, as the giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground where they'd been hiding.

"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, looking down at the trio.

Grover played a quick melody on his pipes. Over at the highway, the downed power lines began to dance. Lucia understood what Grover was going to do a split second before it happened. One of the poles with power lines still attached flew toward Talos's back leg and wrapped around his calf. The lines sparked and sent a jolt of electricity up the giant's backside.

Talos whirled around, creaking and sparking. Grover had bought us a few seconds.

"Come on!" Lucia told Bianca. But she stayed frozen. From her pocket, she brought out a small metal figurine, a statue of a god.

"It... it was for Nico. It was the only statue he didn't have."

"How can you think of Mythomagic at a time like this?!" Percy said.

Lucia on the other hand could feel tears welling up in her eyes as she saw Bianca cry "B, please you need to throw it down"

"Yes throw it down," Percy repeated. "Maybe, the giant will leave us alone."

She dropped it reluctantly, but nothing happened.

The giant kept coming after Grover. It stabbed its sword into a junk hill, missing Grover by a few feet, but scrap metal made an avalanche over him, and then they couldn't see him anymore.

"No!" Thalia yelled. She pointed her spear, and a blue arc of lightning shot out, hitting the monster in his rusty knee, which buckled. The giant collapsed, but immediately started to rise again. It was hard to tell if it could feel anything. There weren't any emotions in its half-melted face, but Lucia got the sense that it was about as ticked off as a twenty-story-tall metal warrior could be.

He raised his foot to stomp and Lucia saw that his sole was treaded like the bottom of a sneaker. There was a hole in his heel, like a large manhole, and there were red words painted around it, which Lucia deciphered only after the foot came down: FOR MAINTENANCE ONLY.

"Fuck," Lucia said. "This is an insane idea."

Bianca looked at her nervously. "Anything."

"Tell us, Sunlight"

She told them about the maintenance hatch. "There may be a way to control the thing. Switches or something. I'm going to get inside."

"No!" Percy refused "You'll have to stand under its foot! You'll be crushed"

"Distract it," Lucia said. "I'll just have to time it right. I can do it."

Bianca's jaw tightened. "No. I'll go."

"You can't!" Lucia cried "You'll die B!."

"It's my fault the monster came after us," she said. "It's my responsibility. Here." She picked up the little god statue and pressed it into Lucia's hand. "If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him... tell him I'm sorry."

"Bianca, no!"

But she wasn't waiting for Lucia. She charged at the monster's left foot. Lucia wasn't going to give up, she ran behind her.

Bianca was getting close to Talos when Lucia let out a scream, her friends gripped at their ears in pain, Lucia didn't think about what she was doing as she raised her hands above her head, making a pushing motion with the air. She used the air as a medium for the sound waves to travel through building a force that slammed against Bianca, she slid across the ground, away from Talos.

Lucia was surprised at what she did but her brain could only form one thought, Bianca will live.

Thalia had its attention for the moment. She'd learned that the giant was big but slow. If you could stay close to it and not get smashed, you could run around it and stay alive. At least, it was working so far.

Lucias got right next to the giant's foot, trying to balance herself on the metal scraps that swayed and shifted with its weight.

Zoe yelled, "What are you doing?"

"Get it to raise its foot!" Lucia said.

Zoe shot an arrow toward the monster's face and it flew straight into one nostril. The giant straightened and shook its head.

"Hey, You worthless piece of trash!" Lucia yelled, she threw a dagger and it sliced off the very tip of its metal nose. "Down here!."

Percy ran up to its big toe and stabbed it with Riptide. The magic blade cut a gash in the bronze.

"No!" Lucia yelled "Stop!"

Unfortunately, his plan worked. Talos stopped paying attention to Lucia and looked down at Percy, raising his foot to squash him like a bug. Lucia didn't see what Bianca was doing when she yelled at Percy to run. The foot came down about two inches behind him and he was knocked into the air. He hit something hard and sat up, dazed.

The monster was about to finish him off, but Grover somehow dug himself out of the junk pile. He played his pipes frantically, and his music sent another power line pole whacking against Talos's thigh. The monster turned. Grover should've run, but he must've been too exhausted from the effort of so much magic. He took two steps, fell, and didn't get back up.

"Grover!" Thalia and Percy both ran toward him, but they'd be too late.

Lucia felt her hands get abnormally warm, to the point of burning.

The monster raised his sword to smash Grover. Then he froze.

Talos cocked his head to one side, like he was hearing strange new music. He started moving his arms and legs in weird ways, doing the Funky Chicken. Then he made a fist and punched himself in the face.

"Go, Bianca!"Percy yelled.

Zoe looked horrified. "She is inside?"

"No" Lucia shook her head in denial "no..."

The monster staggered around, and Lucia realized Thalia, Grover and Percy were still in danger.

She shot her hands up but instead of screaming so the sound could be used as a force, pure light came out of her palms causing it to stumble far away from them.

Thalia and Percy grabbed Grover and ran with him toward the highway. Zoe was already ahead of them. She yelled, "How will Bianca get out?"

The giant dropped his sword. A shudder ran through his whole body as the other half of his face now melted off too, boiling bronze dripping down its cheeks like wax. He staggered toward the power lines.

"Look out!" Percy yelled

Lucia wanted to use her voice again. To force Talos away from the lines, but it was too late.

She stared in horror.

The giant's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. Lucia prayed the inside was insulated.

The giant careened back into the junkyard, and his right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG!

His left arm came loose, too. He was falling apart at the joints.

Talos began to run.

"Wait!" Zoe yelled. They all ran after him, but there was no way they could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in their way.

The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed. When they reached the wreckage they searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name. They crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head. They searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck.

Zoe sat down and wept.

Grover looked dazed

Lucia didn't stop yelling out Bianca's name

And Thalia yelled in rage, impaling her sword in the giant's melted blob of a face.

"We can keep searching," Percy said. "It's light now. We'll find her."

"No we won't," Lucia said miserably. She stopped screaming and fell into Thalia's arms, her vision got spotty, she was so drained. Her voice broke. "I-It happened just as it was supposed to."

"What are you talking about?" Percy demanded.

Lucia looked up at him with big watery eyes. "The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain."

Here they were in the desert. And Bianca di Angelo was gone.

Lucia let out a final sob before she lost consciousness.