After reaching dry land, we stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. I felt as if I’d just come back from the dead—which I had. My backpack was heavy with Zeus’s master bolt. My heart was even heavier from seeing my mother.
“I don’t believe it,” Annabeth said. “We went all that way—”
“It was a trick,” I said. “A strategy worthy of Athena.”
“Hey,” she warned.
“You get it, don’t you?”
She dropped her eyes, her anger fading. “Yeah. I get it.”
“Well, I don’t!” Grover complained. “Would somebody—”
“Percy…” Annabeth said. “I’m sorry about your mother. I’m so sorry.…”
I pretended not to hear her. If I talked about my mother, I was going to start crying like a little kid.
“The prophecy was right,” I said. “‘You shall go west and face the god who has turned.’ But it wasn’t Hades. Hades didn’t want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus’s master bolt, and Hades’s helm, and framed me because I’m Poseidon’s kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And I’ll have caused it.”
Grover shook his head, mystified. “But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?”
I stopped in my tracks, looking down the beach. “Gee, let me think.”
There he was, waiting for us, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red.
“Hey, kid,” Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see me. “You were supposed to die.”
“You tricked me,” I said. “You stole the helm and the master bolt.”
Ares grinned. “Well, now, I didn’t steal them personally. Gods taking each other’s symbols of power—that’s a big no-no. But you’re not the only hero in the world who can run errands.”
“Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice.”
The idea seemed to amuse him. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, kid, you’re impeding the war effort. See, you’ve got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus’s master bolt, so Zeus’ll be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this…”
From his pocket he took out a ski cap—the kind bank robbers wear—and placed it between the handlebars of his bike. Immediately, the cap transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet.
“The helm of darkness,” Grover gasped.
“Exactly,” Ares said. “Now where was I? Oh yeah, Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon, because he doesn’t know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice little three-way slugfest going.”
“But they’re your family!” Annabeth protested.
Ares shrugged. “Best kind of war. Always the bloodiest. Nothing like watching your relatives fight, I always say.”
“You gave me the backpack in Denver,” I said. “The master bolt was in there the whole time.”
“Yes and no,” Ares said. “It’s probably too complicated for your little mortal brain to follow, but the backpack is the master bolt’s sheath, just morphed a bit. The bolt is connected to it, sort of like that sword you got, kid. It always returns to your pocket, right?”
I wasn’t sure how Ares knew about that, but I guess a god of war had to make it his business to know about weapons.
“Anyway,” Ares continued, “I tinkered with the magic a bit, so the bolt would only return to the sheath once you reached the Underworld. You get close to Hades.…Bingo, you got mail. If you died along the way—no loss. I still had the weapon.”
“But why not just keep the master bolt for yourself ?” I said. “Why send it to Hades?”
Ares got a twitch in his jaw. For a moment, it was almost as if he were listening to another voice, deep inside his head. “Why didn’t I…yeah…with that kind of firepower…”
He held the trance for one second…two seconds.…
I exchanged nervous looks with Annabeth.
Ares’s face cleared. “I didn’t want the trouble. Better to have you caught redhanded, holding the thing.”
“You’re lying,” I said. “Sending the bolt to the Underworld wasn’t your idea, was it?”
“Of course it was!” Smoke drifted up from his sunglasses, as if they were about to catch fire.
“You didn’t order the theft,” I guessed. “Someone else sent a hero to steal the two items. Then, when Zeus sent you to hunt him down, you caught the thief. But you didn’t turn him over to Zeus. Something convinced you to let him go.
You kept the items until another hero could come along and complete the delivery. That thing in the pit is ordering you around.”
“I am the god of war! I take orders from no one! I don’t have dreams!”
I hesitated. “Who said anything about dreams?”
Ares looked agitated, but he tried to cover it with a smirk.
“Let’s get back to the problem at hand, kid. You’re alive. I can’t have you taking that bolt to Olympus. You just might get those hardheaded idiots to listen to you. So I’ve got to kill you. Nothing personal.”
He snapped his fingers. The sand exploded at his feet and out charged a wild boar, even larger and uglier than the one whose head hung above the door of cabin seven at Camp Half-Blood. The beast pawed the sand, glaring at me with beady eyes as it lowered its razor-sharp tusks and waited for the command to kill.
I stepped into the surf. “Fight me yourself, Ares.”
He laughed, but I heard a little edge to his laughter…an uneasiness. “You’ve only got one talent, kid, running away. You ran from the Chimera. You ran from the Underworld. You don’t have what it takes.”
“Scared?”
“In your adolescent dreams.” But his sunglasses were starting to melt from the heat of his eyes. “No direct involvement. Sorry, kid. You’re not at my level.”
Annabeth said, “Percy, run!”
The giant boar charged.
But I was done running from monsters. Or Hades, or Ares, or anybody.
As the boar rushed me, I uncapped my pen and sidestepped. Riptide appeared in my hands. I slashed upward. The boar’s severed right tusk fell at my feet, while the disoriented animal charged into the sea.
I shouted, “Wave!”
Immediately, a wave surged up from nowhere and engulfed the boar, wrapping around it like a blanket. The beast squealed once in terror. Then it was gone, swallowed by the sea.
I turned back to Ares. “Are you going to fight me now?” I asked. “Or are you going to hide behind another pet pig?”
Ares’s face was purple with rage. “Watch it, kid. I could turn you into—”
“A cockroach,” I said. “Or a tapeworm. Yeah, I’m sure. That’d save you from getting your godly hide whipped, wouldn’t it?”
Flames danced along the top of his glasses. “Oh, man, you are really asking to be smashed into a grease spot.”