The Son of Neptune

‘Do you promise to spare my friends?’ Frank asked. ‘Do you swear on the River Styx?’

The ogres laughed. One threw a cannonball that arced over Frank’s head and blew up the chimney. By some miracle, Frank wasn’t hit with shrapnel.

‘I’ll take that as a no,’ he muttered. Then he shouted down: ‘Okay, fine! You win! I’ll be right down. Wait there!’

The ogres cheered, but their leader in the lion-skin cape scowled suspiciously. Frank wouldn’t have much time. He descended the ladder into the attic. Ella was gone. He hoped that was a good sign. Maybe they’d got her to the cadillac. He grabbed an extra quiver of arrows labelled ASSORTED VARIETIES in his mother’s neat printing. Then he ran to the machine gun.

He swivelled the barrel, took aim at the lead ogre, and pressed the trigger. Eight high-powered spuds blasted the giant in the chest, propelling him backwards with such force that he crashed into a stack of bronze cannonballs, which promptly exploded, leaving a smoking crater in the yard.

Apparently starch was bad for ogres.

While the rest of the monsters ran around in confusion, Frank pulled his bow and rained arrows on them. Some of the missiles detonated on impact. Others splintered like buckshot and left the giants with some painful new tattoos. One hit an ogre and instantly turned him into a potted rosebush.

Unfortunately, the ogres recovered quickly. They began throwing cannonballs – dozens at a time. The whole house groaned under the impact. Frank ran for the stairs. The attic disintegrated behind him. Smoke and fire poured down the second-floor hallway.

‘Grandmother!’ he cried, but the heat was so intense, he couldn’t reach her room. He raced to the ground floor, clinging to the banister as the house shook and huge chunks of the ceiling collapsed.

The base of the staircase was a smoking crater. He leaped over it and stumbled through the kitchen. Choking from the ash and soot, he burst into the garage. The Cadillac’s headlights were on. The engine was running and the garage door was opening.

‘Get in!’ Percy yelled.

Frank dived in the back next to Hazel. Ella was curled up in the front, her head tucked under her wings, muttering, ‘Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.’

Percy gunned the engine. They shot out of the garage before it was fully open, leaving a Cadillac-shaped hole of splintered wood.

The ogres ran to intercept, but Percy shouted at the top of his lungs, and the irrigation system exploded. A hundred geysers shot into the air along with clods of earth, pieces of pipe and very heavy sprinkler heads.

The Cadillac was going about forty when they hit the first ogre, who disintegrated on impact. By the time the other monsters overcame their confusion, the Cadillac was half a mile down the road. Flaming cannonballs burst behind them.

Frank glanced back and saw his family mansion on fire, the walls collapsing inward and smoke billowing into the sky. He saw a large black speck – maybe a buzzard – circling up from the fire. It might’ve been Frank’s imagination, but he thought it had flown out of the second-storey window.

‘Grandmother?’ he murmured.

It seemed impossible, but she had promised she would die in her own way, not at the hands of the ogres. Frank hoped she had been right.

They drove through the woods and headed north.

‘About three miles!’ Frank said. ‘You can’t miss it!’

Behind them, more explosions ripped through the forest. Smoke boiled into the sky.

‘How fast can Laistrygonians run?’ Hazel asked.

‘Let’s not find out,’ Percy said.

The gates of the airfield appeared before them – only a few hundred yards away. A private jet idled on the runway. Its stairs were down.

The Cadillac hit a pothole and went airborne. Frank’s head slammed into the ceiling. When the wheels touched the ground, Percy floored the brakes, and they swerved to a stop just inside the gates.

Frank climbed out and drew his bow. ‘Get to the plane! They’re coming!’

The Laistrygonians were closing in with alarming speed. The first line of ogres burst out of the woods and barrelled towards the airfield – five hundred yards away, four hundred yards …

Percy and Hazel managed to get Ella out of the Cadillac, but as soon as the harpy saw the aeroplane, she began to shriek.

‘N-n-no!’ she yelped. ‘Fly with wings! N-n-no aeroplanes.’

‘It’s okay,’ Hazel promised. ‘We’ll protect you!’

Ella made a horrible, painful wail like she was being burned.

Percy held up his hands in exasperation. ‘What do we do? We can’t force her.’

‘No,’ Frank agreed. The ogres were three hundred yards out.

‘She’s too valuable to leave behind,’ Hazel said. Then she winced at her own words. ‘Gods, I’m sorry, Ella. I sound as bad as Phineas. You’re a living thing, not a treasure.’

‘No planes. N-n-no planes.’ Ella was hyperventilating.

The ogres were almost in throwing distance.

Percy’s eyes lit up. ‘I’ve got an idea. Ella, can you hide in the woods? Will you be safe from the ogres?’

‘Hide,’ she agreed. ‘Safe. Hiding is good for harpies. Ella is quick. And small. And fast.’

‘Okay,’ Percy said. ‘Just stay around this area. I can send a friend to meet you and take you to Camp Jupiter.’

Frank unslung his bow and nocked an arrow. ‘A friend?’

Percy waved his hand in a tell you later gesture. ‘Ella, would you like that? Would you like my friend to take you to Camp Jupiter and show you our home?’

‘Camp,’ Ella muttered. Then in Latin: ‘“Wisdom’s daughter walks alone, the Mark of Athena burns through Rome.”’

‘Uh, right,’ Percy said. ‘That sounds important, but we can talk about that later. You’ll be safe at camp. All the books and food you want.’

‘No planes,’ she insisted.

‘No planes,’ Percy agreed.

‘Ella will hide now.’ Just like that, she was gone – a red streak disappearing into the woods.

‘I’ll miss her,’ Hazel said sadly.

‘We’ll see her again,’ Percy promised, but he frowned uneasily, as if he were really troubled by that last bit of prophecy – the thing about Athena.

An explosion sent the airfield’s gate spinning into the air.

Frank tossed his grandmother’s letter to Percy. ‘Show that to the pilot! Show him your letter from Reyna too! We’ve got to take off now.’

Percy nodded. He and Hazel ran for the plane.

Frank took cover behind the Cadillac and started firing at the ogres. He targeted the largest clump of enemies and shot a tulip-shaped arrow. Just as he’d hoped, it was a hydra. Ropes lashed out like squid tentacles, and the entire front row of ogres ploughed face first into the ground.

Frank heard the plane’s engines rev.

He shot three more arrows as fast as he could, blasting enormous craters in the ogres’ ranks. The survivors were only a hundred yards away, and some of the brighter ones stumbled to a stop, realizing that they were now within hurling range.

‘Frank!’ Hazel shrieked. ‘Come on!’

A fiery cannonball hurtled towards him in a slow arc. Frank knew instantly it was going to hit the plane. He nocked an arrow. I can do this, he thought. He let the arrow fly. It intercepted the cannonball midair, detonating a massive fireball.

Another two cannonballs sailed towards him. Frank ran.

Behind him, metal groaned as the Cadillac exploded. He dived into the plane just as the stairs started to rise.

The pilot must’ve understood the situation just fine. There was no safety announcement, no pre-flight drink and