The Son of Neptune

The god’s image flickered. Lightning crackled across the sky.

‘That’s my cue,’ Mars said. ‘Until next time, Romans. Do not disappoint me!’

The god erupted in flames, and then he was gone.

Reyna turned towards Frank. Her expression was part amazement, part nausea, like she’d finally managed to swallow that mouse. She raised her arm in a Roman salute. ‘Ave, Frank Zhang, son of Mars.’

The whole legion followed her lead, but Frank didn’t want their attention any more. His perfect night had been ruined.

Mars was his father. The god of war was sending him to Alaska. Frank had been handed more than a spear for his birthday. He’d been handed a death sentence.

XIII Percy

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

He hadn’t crashed in a safe, comfortable bed since … well, he couldn’t even remember. Despite his insane day and the million thoughts running through his head, his body took over and said: You will sleep now.

He had dreams, of course. He always had dreams, but they passed like blurred images from the window of a train. 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.’

‘What?’ Percy called, but the faun disappeared in the fog.

Then Annabeth was running along beside him, reaching out her hand. ‘Thank the gods!’ she called. ‘For months and months we couldn’t see you! Are you all right?’

Percy remembered what Juno had said – for months he has been slumbering, but now he is awake. The goddess had intentionally kept him hidden, but why?

‘Are you real?’ he asked Annabeth.

He wanted so much to believe it that he felt like Hannibal the elephant was standing on his chest. But her face began to dissolve. She cried, ‘Stay put! It’ll be easier for Tyson to find you! Stay where you are!’

Then she was gone. The images accelerated. He saw a huge ship in a dry dock, workers scrambling to finish the hull, a guy with a blowtorch welding a bronze dragon figurehead to the prow. He saw the war god stalking towards him in the surf, a sword in his hands.

The scene shifted. Percy stood on the Field of Mars, looking up at the Berkeley Hills. Golden grass rippled, and a face appeared in the landscape – a sleeping woman, her features formed from shadows and folds in the terrain. Her eyes remained closed, but her voice spoke in Percy’s mind:

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.

Percy’s vision turned dark. He stood in a theatre-sized version of the camp’s headquarters – a principia with walls of ice and freezing mist hanging in the air. The floor was littered with skeletons in Roman armour and Imperial gold weapons encrusted with frost. In the back of the room sat an enormous shadowy figure. His skin glinted with gold and silver, as if he were an automaton like Reyna’s dogs. Behind him stood a collection of ruined emblems, tattered banners and a large golden eagle on a staff of iron.

The giant’s voice boomed in the vast chamber. ‘This will be fun, son of Neptune. It’s been aeons since I broke a demigod of your calibre. I await you atop the ice.’

Percy woke, shivering. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. Then he remembered: Camp Jupiter, the Fifth Cohort barracks. He lay in his bunk, staring at the ceiling and trying to control his racing heartbeat.

A golden giant was waiting to break him. Wonderful. But what unnerved him more was that sleeping woman’s face in the hills. 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.

Even the friendlier parts of his dream were disturbing. A faun named Grover was looking for him. Maybe that’s why Don had detected a – what had he called it? – an empathy link. Somebody named Tyson was searching for him, too, and Annabeth had warned Percy to stay where he was.

He sat up in his bunk. His roommates were rushing around, getting dressed and brushing their teeth. Dakota was wrapping himself in a long piece of red-speckled cloth – a toga. One of the Lares was giving him pointers on where to tuck and fold.

‘Breakfast time?’ Percy asked hopefully.

Frank’s head popped up from the bunk below. He had bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept well. ‘A quick breakfast. Then we’ve got the senate meeting.’

Dakota’s head was stuck in his toga. He staggered around like a Kool-Aid-stained ghost.

‘Um,’ Percy said, ‘should I wear my bedsheets?’

Frank snorted. ‘That’s just for the senators. There’re ten of them, elected yearly. You’ve got to be at camp five years to qualify.’

‘So how come we’re invited to the meeting?’

‘Because … you know, the quest.’ Frank sounded worried, like he was afraid Percy would back out. ‘We have to be in on the discussion. You, me, Hazel. I mean, if you’re willing …’

Frank probably didn’t mean to guilt him, but Percy’s heart felt pulled like taffy. He had sympathy for Frank. Getting claimed by the war god in front of the whole camp – what a nightmare. Plus, how could Percy say no to that big pouty baby face? Frank had been given a huge task that would most likely get him killed. He was scared. He needed Percy’s help.

And the three of them had made a good team last night. Hazel and Frank were solid, dependable people. They’d accepted Percy like family. Still, he didn’t like the idea of this quest, especially since it came from Mars, and especially after his dreams.

‘I, um … I’d better get ready …’ He climbed out of bed and got dressed. 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.

At breakfast, Percy was conscious of everyone looking at him. They were whispering about the previous night:

‘Two gods in one day …’

‘Un-Roman fighting …’

‘Water cannon up my nose …’

He was too hungry to care. He filled up on pancakes, eggs, bacon, waffles, apples and several glasses of orange juice. He probably would have eaten more, but Reyna announced that the senate would now convene in the city, and all the folks in togas got up to leave.

‘Here we go.’ Hazel fidgeted with a stone that looked like a two-carat ruby.

The ghost Vitellius appeared next to them in a purple shimmer. ‘Bona fortuna, you three! Ah, senate meetings. I remember the one when Caesar was assassinated. Why, the amount of blood on his toga -’

‘Thanks, Vitellius,’ Frank interrupted. ‘We should get going.’

Reyna and Octavian led the procession of senators out of camp, with Reyna’s metal greyhounds dashing back and forth along the road. Hazel, Frank and Percy trailed behind. Percy noticed Nico di Angelo in the group, wearing a black toga and talking with Gwen, who looked a little pale but surprisingly good considering she’d been dead the night before. Nico waved at Percy, then went back to his conversation, leaving Percy more sure than ever that Hazel’s brother was trying to avoid him.

Dakota stumbled along in his red-speckled robe. A lot of other senators seemed to be having trouble with their