The Son of Neptune

He held out his hand. ‘You’re my sister too. You deserve another chance. Come with me.’

XXX Hazel

‘HAZEL.’ PERCY WAS SHAKING HER SHOULDER. ‘Wake up. We’ve reached Seattle.’

She sat up groggily, squinting in the morning sunlight. ‘Frank?’

Frank groaned, rubbing his eyes. ‘Did we just … was I just -?’

‘You both passed out,’ Percy said. ‘I don’t know why, but Ella told me not to worry about it. She said you were … sharing?’

‘Sharing,’ Ella agreed. She crouched in the stern, preening her wing feathers with her teeth, which didn’t look like a very effective form of personal hygiene. She spat out some red fluff. ‘Sharing is good. No more blackouts. Biggest American blackout, 14 August 2003. Hazel shared. No more blackouts.’

Percy scratched his head. ‘Yeah … we’ve been having conversations like that all night. I still don’t know what she’s talking about.’

Hazel pressed her hand against her coat pocket. She could feel the piece of firewood, wrapped in cloth.

She looked at Frank. ‘You were there.’

He nodded. He didn’t say anything, but his expression was clear: he’d meant what he said. He wanted her to keep the piece of tinder safe. She wasn’t sure whether she felt honoured or scared. No one had ever trusted her with something so important.

‘Wait,’ Percy said. ‘You mean you guys shared a blackout? Are you guys both going to pass out from now on?’

‘Nope,’ Ella said. ‘Nope, nope, nope. No more blackouts. More books for Ella. Books in Seattle.’

Hazel gazed over the water. They were sailing through a large bay, making their way towards a cluster of downtown buildings. Neighbourhoods rolled across a series of hills. From the tallest one rose an odd white tower with a saucer on the top, like a spaceship from the old Flash Gordon movies Sammy used to love.

No more blackouts? Hazel thought. After enduring them for so long, the idea seemed too good to be true.

How could Ella be sure they were gone? Yet Hazel did feel different … more grounded, as if she wasn’t trying to live in two time periods any more. Every muscle in her body began to relax. She felt as if she’d finally slipped out of a lead jacket she’d been wearing for months. Somehow, having Frank with her during the blackout had helped. She’d relived her entire past, right through to the present. Now all she had to worry about was the future – assuming she had one.

Percy steered the boat towards the downtown docks. As they got closer, Ella scratched nervously at her nest of books.

Hazel started to feel edgy, too. She wasn’t sure why. It was a bright, sunny day, and Seattle looked like a beautiful place, with inlets and bridges, wooded islands dotting the bay, and snowcapped mountains rising in the distance. Still, she felt as if she were being watched.

‘Um … why are we stopping here?’ she asked.

Percy showed them the silver ring on his necklace. ‘Reyna has a sister here. She asked me to find her and show her this.’

‘Reyna has a sister?’ Frank asked, like the idea terrified him.

Percy nodded. ‘Apparently Reyna thinks her sister could send help for the camp.’

‘Amazons,’ Ella muttered. ‘Amazon country. Hmm. Ella will find libraries instead. Doesn’t like Amazons. Fierce. Shields. Swords. Pointy. Ouch.’

Frank reached for his spear. ‘Amazons? Like … female warriors?’

‘That would make sense,’ Hazel said. ‘If Reyna’s sister is also a daughter of Bellona, I can see why she’d join the Amazons. But … is it safe for us to be here?’

‘Nope, nope, nope,’ Ella said. ‘Get books instead. No Amazons.’

‘We have to try,’ Percy said. ‘I promised Reyna. Besides, the Pax isn’t doing too great. I’ve been pushing it pretty hard.’

Hazel looked down at her feet. Water was leaking between the floorboards. ‘Oh.’

‘Yeah,’ Percy agreed. ‘We’ll either need to fix it or find a new boat. I’m pretty much holding it together with my willpower at this point. Ella, do you have any idea where we can find the Amazons?’

‘And, um,’ Frank said nervously, ‘they don’t, like, kill men on sight, do they?’

Ella glanced at the downtown docks, only a few hundred yards away. ‘Ella will find friends later. Ella will fly away now.’

And she did.

‘Well …’ Frank picked a single red feather out of the air. ‘That’s encouraging.’

They docked at the wharf. They barely had time to unload their supplies before the Pax shuddered and broke into pieces. Most of it sank, leaving only a board with a painted eye and another with the letter P bobbing in the waves.

‘Guess we’re not fixing it,’ Hazel said. ‘What now?’

Percy stared at the steep hills of downtown Seattle. ‘We hope the Amazons will help.’

They explored for hours. They found some great salty caramel chocolate at a candy store. They bought some coffee so strong Hazel’s head felt like a vibrating gong. They stopped at a sidewalk cafe and had some excellent grilled salmon sandwiches. Once they saw Ella zooming between high-rise towers, a large book clutched in each foot. But they found no Amazons. All the while, Hazel was aware of the time ticking by. 22 June now, and Alaska was still a long way away.

Finally they wandered south of downtown, into a plaza surrounded by smaller glass and brick buildings. Hazel’s nerves started tingling. She looked around, sure she was being watched.

‘There,’ she said.

The office building on their left had a single word etched on the glass doors: AMAZON.

‘Oh,’ Frank said. ‘Uh, no, Hazel. That’s a modern thing. They’re a company, right? They sell stuff on the Internet. They’re not actually Amazons.’

‘Unless …’ Percy walked through the doors. Hazel had a bad feeling about this place, but she and Frank followed.

The lobby was like an empty fish tank – glass walls, a glossy black floor, a few token plants and pretty much nothing else. Against the back wall, a black stone staircase led up and down. In the middle of the room stood a young woman in a black pantsuit, with long auburn hair and a security guard’s earpiece. Her name tag said KINZIE. Her smile was friendly enough, but her eyes reminded Hazel of the policemen in New Orleans who used to patrol the French Quarter at night. They always seemed to look through you, as if they were thinking about who might attack them next.

Kinzie nodded at Hazel, ignoring the boys. ‘May I help you?’

‘Um … I hope so,’ Hazel said. ‘We’re looking for Amazons.’

Kinzie glanced at Hazel’s sword, then Frank’s spear, though neither should have been visible through the Mist.

‘This is the main campus for Amazon,’ she said cautiously. ‘Did you have an appointment with someone, or -’

‘Hylla,’ Percy interrupted. ‘We’re looking for a girl named -’

Kinzie moved so fast Hazel’s eyes almost couldn’t follow. She kicked Frank in the chest and sent him flying backwards across the lobby. She pulled a sword out of thin air, swept Percy off his feet with the flat of the blade and pressed the point under his chin.

Too late, Hazel reached for her sword. A dozen more girls in black flooded up the staircase, swords in hand, and surrounded her.

Kinzie glared down at Percy. ‘First rule: males don’t speak without permission. Second rule: trespassing on our territory is punishable by death. You’ll meet Queen Hylla, all right. She’ll be the one deciding your fate.’