Percy Jackson The Complete Collection (90 page)

‘I –’ Rachel faltered. A tear traced her cheek.

‘I know you don’t believe this now,’ Pan said. ‘But look for opportunities. They will come.’

Finally he turned back towards Grover. ‘My dear satyr,’ Pan said kindly. ‘Will you carry my message?’

‘I – I can’t.’

‘You can,’ Pan said. ‘You are the strongest and bravest. Your heart is true. You have believed in me more than
anyone ever has, which is why you must bring the message, and why you must be the first to release me.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I know,’ the god said. ‘But my name,
Pan
… originally it meant
rustic.
Did you know that? But over the years it has come to mean
all.
The spirit of the wild must pass to all of you now. You must tell each one you meet: if you would find Pan, take up Pan’s spirit. Remake the wild, a little at a time, each in your own corner of the world. You cannot wait for anyone else, even a god, to do that for you.’

Grover wiped his eyes. Then slowly he stood. ‘I’ve spent my whole life looking for you. Now … I release you.’

Pan smiled. ‘Thank you, dear satyr. My final blessing.’

He closed his eyes, and the god dissolved. White mist divided into wisps of energy, but this kind of energy wasn’t scary like the blue power I’d seen from Kronos. It filled the room. A curl of smoke went straight into my mouth, and Grover’s, and the others’. But I think a little more of it went into Grover. The crystals dimmed. The animals gave us a sad look. Dede the dodo sighed. Then they all turned grey and crumbled to dust. The vines withered. And we were alone in a dark cave, with an empty bed.

I switched on my flashlight.

Grover took a deep breath.

‘Are… are you okay?’ I asked him.

He looked older and sadder. He took his cap from Annabeth, brushed off the mud, and stuck it firmly on his curly head.

‘We should go now,’ he said, ‘and tell them. The great god Pan is dead.’

Distance was shorter in the Labyrinth. Still, by the time Rachel got us back to Times Square, I felt like we’d pretty much run all the way from New Mexico. We climbed out of the Marriott basement and stood on the sidewalk in the bright summer daylight, squinting at the traffic and crowds.

I couldn’t decide which seemed less real – New York or the crystal cave where I’d watched a god die.

I led the way into an alley, where I could get a nice echo. Then I whistled as loud as I could, five times.

A minute later, Rachel gasped. ‘They’re beautiful!’

A flock of pegasi descended from the sky, swooping between the skyscrapers. Blackjack was in the lead, followed by four of his white friends.

Yo, boss!
He spoke in my mind.
You lived!

‘Yeah,’ I told him. ‘I’m lucky that way. Listen, we need a ride to camp
quick.’

That’s my speciality! Oh man, you got that Cyclops with you? Yo, Guide! How’s your back holding up?

The pegasus Guido groaned and complained, but eventually he agreed to carry Tyson. Everybody started saddling up – except Rachel.

‘Well,’ she told me, ‘I guess this is it.’

I nodded uncomfortably. We both knew she couldn’t
go to camp. I glanced at Annabeth, who was pretending to be very busy with her pegasus.

‘Thanks, Rachel,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’

‘I wouldn’t have missed it. I mean, except for almost dying, and Pan…’ Her voice faltered.

‘He said something about your father,’ I remembered. ‘What did he mean?’

Rachel twisted the strap on her backpack. ‘My dad… My dad’s job. He’s kind of a famous businessman.’

‘You mean … you’re
rich?
’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘So that’s how you got the chauffeur to help us? You just said your dad’s name and –’

‘Yes,’ Rachel cut me off. ‘Percy… my dad’s a land developer. He flies all over the world, looking for tracts of undeveloped land.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘The wild. He – he buys it up. I hate it, but he ploughs it down and builds ugly subdivisions and shopping centres. And now that I’ve seen Pan… Pan’s death –’

‘Hey, you can’t blame yourself for that.’

‘You don’t know the worst of it. I – I don’t like to talk about my family. I didn’t want you to know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s cool. Look, Rachel, you were awesome. You led us through the maze. You were so brave. That’s the only thing I’m going to judge you on. I don’t care what your dad does.’

Rachel looked at me gratefully. ‘Well… if you ever feel like hanging out with a mortal again… you could call me or something.’

‘Uh, yeah. Sure.’

She knitted her eyebrows. I guess I sounded unenthusiastic or something, but that’s not how I meant it. I just wasn’t sure what to say with all my friends standing around. And I guess my feelings had got pretty mixed up, the last couple of days.

‘I mean… I’d like that,’ I said.

‘My number’s not in the book,’ she said.

‘I’ve got it.’

‘Still on your hand? No way.’

‘No. I kinda… memorized it.’

Her smile came back slowly, but a lot happier. ‘See you later, Percy Jackson. Go save the world for me, okay?’

She walked off down Seventh Avenue and disappeared into the crowds.

When I got back to the horses, Nico was having trouble. His pegasus kept shying away from him, reluctant to let him mount.

He smells like dead people!
the pegasus complained.

Hey now,
Blackjack said.
Come on, Porkpie. Lotsa demigods smell weird. It ain’t their fault. Oh – uh, I didn’t mean you, boss.

‘Go without me!’ Nico said. ‘I don’t want to go back to that camp anyway.’

‘Nico,’ I said, ‘we need your help.’

He folded his arms and scowled. Then Annabeth put her hand on his shoulder.

‘Nico,’ she said. ‘Please.’

Slowly, his expression softened. ‘All right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘For
you.
But I’m not staying.’

I raised an eyebrow at Annabeth, like,
How come all of a
sudden Nico listens to you?
She stuck her tongue out at me.

At last we got everybody on a pegasus. We shot into the air, and soon we were over the East River, with Long Island spread out before us.

We landed in the middle of the cabin area and were immediately met by Chiron, the potbellied satyr Silenus and a couple of Apollo cabin archers. Chiron raised an eyebrow when he saw Nico, but if I expected him to be surprised by our latest news about Quintus being Daedalus, or Kronos rising, I was mistaken.

‘I feared as much,’ Chiron said. ‘We must hurry. Hopefully you have slowed down the Titan lord, but his vanguard will still be coming through. They will be anxious for blood. Most of our defenders are already in place. Come!’

‘Wait a moment,’ Silenus demanded. ‘What of the search for Pan? You are almost three weeks overdue, Grover Underwood! Your searcher’s licence is revoked!’

Grover took a deep breath. He stood up straight and looked Silenus in the eye. ‘Searchers’ licences don’t matter any more. The great god Pan is dead. He has passed on and left us his spirit.’

‘What?’
Silenus’s face turned bright red. ‘Sacrilege and lies! Grover Underwood, I will have you exiled for speaking thus!’

‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘We were there when he died. All of us.’

‘Impossible! You are all liars! Nature-destroyers!’

Chiron studied Grover’s face. ‘We will speak of this later.’

‘We will speak of it now!’ Silenus said. ‘We must deal with this –’

‘Silenus,’ Chiron cut in. ‘My camp is under attack. The matter of Pan has waited two thousand years. I fear it will have to wait a bit longer. Assuming we are still here this evening.’

And on that happy note, he readied his bow and galloped towards the woods, leaving us to follow as best we could.

It was the biggest military operation I’d ever seen at camp. Everyone was at the clearing, dressed in full battle armour, but this time it wasn’t for capture the flag. The Hephaestus cabin had set up traps around the entrance to the Labyrinth – razor wire, pits filled with pots of Greek fire, rows of sharpened sticks to deflect a charge. Beckendorf was manning two catapults the size of pickup trucks, already primed and aimed at Zeus’s Fist. The Ares cabin was on the front line, drilling in phalanx formation with Clarisse calling orders. Apollo’s and Hermes’s cabins were scattered in the woods with bows ready. Many had taken up positions in the trees. Even the dryads were armed with bows, and the satyrs trotted around with wooden cudgels and shields made of rough tree bark.

Annabeth went to join her brethren from the Athena cabin, who had set up a command tent and were directing operations. A grey banner with an owl fluttered outside the tent. Our security chief, Argus, stood guard at the door. Aphrodite’s children were running around, straightening everybody’s armour and offering to comb the tangles out of our horsehair plumes. Even Dionysus’s kids had found something to do. The god himself was still nowhere to be
seen, but his two blond twin sons were running around, providing all the sweaty warriors with water bottles and juice boxes.

It looked like a pretty good set-up, but Chiron muttered next to me, ‘It isn’t enough.’

I thought about what I’d seen in the Labyrinth, all the monsters in Antaeus’s stadium and the power of Kronos I’d felt on Mount Tam. My heart sank. Chiron was right, but it was all we could muster. For once I wished Dionysus were here, but even if he had been, I didn’t know if he could have done anything. When it came to war, gods were forbidden to interfere directly. Apparently, the Titans didn’t believe in restrictions like that.

Over at the edge of the clearing, Grover was talking to Juniper. She held his hands while he told her our story. Green tears formed in her eyes as he delivered the news about Pan.

Tyson helped the Hephaestus kids prepare the defences. He picked up boulders and piled them next to the catapults for firing.

‘Stay with me, Percy,’ Chiron said. ‘When the fighting begins, I want you to wait until we know what we’re dealing with. You must go where we most need reinforcements.’

‘I saw Kronos,’ I said, still stunned by the fact. ‘I looked straight into his eyes. It was Luke… but it wasn’t.’

Chiron ran his fingers along his bowstring. ‘He had golden eyes, I would guess. And in his presence, time seemed to turn to liquid.’

I nodded. ‘How could he take over a mortal body?’

‘I do not know, Percy. Gods have assumed the shapes of mortals for ages, but to actually become one… to
merge the divine form with the mortal. I don’t know how this could be done without Luke’s form turning to ashes.’

‘Kronos said his body had been prepared.’

‘I shudder to think what that means. But perhaps it will limit Kronos’s power. For a time, at least, he is confined to a human form. It binds him together. Hopefully it also restricts him.’

‘Chiron, if he leads this attack –’

‘I do not think so, my boy. I would sense if he were drawing near. No doubt he planned to, but I believe you inconvenienced him when you pulled his throne room down on top of him.’ He looked at me reproachfully. ‘You and your friend Nico, son of Hades.’

A lump formed in my throat. ‘I’m sorry, Chiron. I know I should’ve told you. It’s just –’

Chiron raised his hand. ‘I understand why you did it, Percy. You felt responsible. You sought to protect him. But, my boy, if we are to survive this, we must trust each other. We must…’

His voice wavered. The ground underneath us was trembling.

Everyone in the clearing stopped what they were doing. Clarisse barked a single order: ‘Lock shields!’

Then the Titan lord’s army exploded from the Labyrinth.

I’d been in fights before, but this was a full-scale battle. The first thing I saw were a dozen Laistrygonian giants erupting from the ground, yelling so loudly my ears felt like bursting. They carried shields made from flattened cars, and clubs that were tree trunks with rusty spikes bristling at the end.
One of the giants bellowed at the Ares phalanx, smashed it sideways with his club, and the entire cabin was thrown aside, a dozen warriors tossed to the wind like rag dolls.

‘Fire!’ Beckendorf yelled. The catapults swung into action. Two boulders hurtled towards the giants. One deflected off a car shield with hardly a dent, but the other caught a Laistrygonian in the chest, and the giant went down. Apollo’s archers fired a volley, dozens of arrows sticking in the thick armour of the giants like porcupine quills. Several found chinks in armour, and some of the giants vaporized at the touch of celestial bronze.

But just when it looked like the Laistrygonians were about to get overwhelmed, the next wave surged out of the maze: thirty, maybe forty
dracaenae
in full battle armour, wielding spears and nets. They dispersed in all directions. Some hit the traps the Hephaestus cabin had laid. One got stuck on the spikes and became an easy target for archers. Another triggered a trip wire, and pots of Greek fire exploded into green flames, engulfing several of the snake women. But many more kept coming. Argus and Athena’s warriors rushed forward to meet them. I saw Annabeth draw a sword and engage one of them. Nearby, Tyson was riding a giant. Somehow he’d managed to climb onto the giant’s back and was hitting him on the head with a bronze shield – BONG! BONG! BONG!

Chiron calmly aimed arrow after arrow, taking down a monster with every shot. But more enemies just kept climbing out of the maze. Finally a hellhound – not Mrs O’Leary – leaped out of the tunnel and barrelled straight towards the satyrs.

‘GO!’ Chiron yelled to me.

I drew Riptide and charged.

As I raced across the battlefield, I saw horrible things. An enemy half-blood was fighting with a son of Dionysus, but it wasn’t much of a contest. The enemy stabbed him in the arm then clubbed him over the head with the butt of his sword, and Dionysus’s son went down. Another enemy warrior shot flaming arrows into the trees, sending our archers and dryads into a panic.

A dozen
dracaenae
suddenly broke away from the main fight and slithered down the path that led towards camp, like they knew where they were going. If they got out, they could burn down the entire place, completely unopposed.

The only person anywhere near was Nico di Angelo. He stabbed a telkhine, and his black Stygian blade absorbed the monster’s essence, drinking its energy until there was nothing left but dust.

‘Nico!’ I yelled.

He looked where I was pointing, saw the serpent women, and immediately understood.

He took a deep breath and held out his black sword. ‘Serve me,’ he called.

The earth trembled. A fissure opened in front of the
dracaenae
and a dozen undead warriors crawled from the earth – horrible corpses in military uniforms from all different time periods – US Revolutionaries, Roman centurions, Napoleonic cavalry on skeletal horses. As one, they drew their swords and engaged the
dracaenae.
Nico crumpled to his knees, but I didn’t have time to make sure he was okay.

I closed on the hellhound, which was now pushing the satyrs back towards the woods. The beast snapped at one
satyr, who danced out of its way, but then it pounced on another who was too slow. The satyr’s tree-bark shield cracked as he fell.

‘Hey!’ I yelled.

The hellhound turned. It snarled at me and leaped. It would’ve clawed me to pieces, but as I fell backwards my fingers closed around a clay jar – one of Beckendorf’s containers of Greek fire. I tossed it into the hellhound’s maw, and the creature went up in flames. I scrambled away, breathing heavily.

The satyr who’d been trampled wasn’t moving. I rushed over to check on him, but then I heard Grover’s voice: ‘Percy!’

A forest fire had started. Flames roared within three metres of Juniper’s tree, and Juniper and Grover were going nuts trying to save it. Grover played a rain song on his pipes. Juniper desperately tried to beat out the flames with her green shawl, but it was only making things worse.