Demigods and Magicians Page 14

  ‘It made sense at the time,’ Carter protested.

  We cleaned up our picnic stuff and got ready to go our separate ways.

  Carter carefully wrapped the crown of Ptolemy in linen cloth. Sadie gave the Governors Island snow globe a good shake, then stuffed it in her pack.

  The girls hugged. I shook Carter’s hand.

  With a twinge of pain, I realized how much I was going to miss these kids. I was getting tired of making new friends only to tell them goodbye, especially since some of them never came back.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Carter,’ I said. ‘No more getting roasted in explosions.’

  He smirked. ‘I can’t promise. But call us if you need us, okay? And, uh, thanks.’

  ‘Hey, it was a team effort.’

  ‘I guess. But, Percy … it came down to you being a good person. Setne couldn’t get a handle on you. Honestly, if I’d been tempted with godhood the way you were tempted –’

  ‘You would’ve done the same thing,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe.’ He smiled, but he didn’t look convinced. ‘Okay, Sadie. Time to fly. The initiates at Brooklyn House are going to be worried.’

  ‘And Khufu is making jelly fruit salad for dinner,’ she said. ‘Should be delicious. Toodle-oo, demigods!’

  The Kanes turned into birds of prey and launched themselves into the sunset.

  ‘This has been a weird day,’ I told Annabeth.

  She slipped her hand into mine. ‘I’m thinking cheeseburgers for dinner at P. J. Clarke’s.’

  ‘With bacon,’ I said. ‘We’ve earned it.’

  ‘I love the way you think,’ she said. ‘And I’m glad you’re not a god.’

  She kissed me, and I decided that I was glad too. A kiss in the sunset and the promise of a good bacon cheeseburger – with that kind of payoff, who needs immortality?

  HOW DO YOU PUNISH

  AN IMMORTAL?

  BY MAKING HIM HUMAN.

  Rick Riordan returns to Camp Half-Blood in his incredible new series!

  Read on for a sneak peek at the first book …

  Rick Riordan

  THE HIDDEN ORACLE

  Hoodlums punch my face

  I would smite them if I could

  Mortality blows

  My name is Apollo. I used to be a god.

  In my four thousand, six hundred and twelve years, I have done many things. I inflicted a plague on the Greeks who besieged Troy. I blessed Babe Ruth with three home runs in game four of the 1926 World Series. I visited my wrath upon Britney Spears at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.

  But in all my immortal life I never before crash-landed in a dumpster.

  I’m not even sure how it happened.

  I simply woke up falling. Skyscrapers spiralled in and out of view. Flames streamed off my body. I tried to fly. I tried to change into a cloud or teleport across the world or do a hundred other things that should have been easy for me, but I just kept falling. I plunged into a narrow canyon between two buildings and BAM!

  Is anything sadder than the sound of a god hitting a pile of garbage bags?

  I lay groaning and aching in the open dumpster. My nostrils burned with the stench of rancid salami and used diapers. My ribs felt broken, though that shouldn’t have been possible.

  My mind stewed in confusion, but one memory floated to the surface – the voice of my father Zeus: YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.

  I realized what had happened to me. And I sobbed in despair.

  Even for a god of poetry such as myself, it is difficult to describe how I felt. How could you – a mere mortal – possibly understand? Imagine being stripped of your clothes, then blasted with a fire hose in front of a laughing crowd. Imagine the ice-cold water filling your mouth and lungs, the pressure bruising your skin, turning your joints to putty. Imagine feeling helpless, ashamed, completely vulnerable – publically and brutally stripped of everything that makes you you. My humiliation was worse than that.

  YOUR FAULT, Zeus’s voice rang in my head.

  ‘No!’ I cried miserably. ‘No, it wasn’t! Please!’

  Nobody answered. On either side of me, rusty fire escapes zigzagged up brick walls. Above, the winter sky was grey and unforgiving.

  I tried to remember the details of my sentencing. Had my father told me how long this punishment would last? What was I supposed to do to regain his favour?

  My memory was too fuzzy. I could barely recall what Zeus looked like, much less why he’d decided to toss me to earth. There’d been a war with the giants, I thought. The gods had been caught off guard, embarrassed, almost defeated.

  The only thing I knew for certain: my punishment was unfair. Zeus needed someone to blame, so of course he’d picked the handsomest, most talented, most popular god in the pantheon: me.

  I lay in the garbage, staring at the label inside the dumpster lid: FOR PICK-UP, CALL 1-555-STENCHY.

  Zeus will reconsider, I told myself. He’s just trying to scare me. Any moment, he will yank me back to Olympus and let me off with a warning.

  ‘Yes …’ My voice sounded hollow and desperate. ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  I tried to move. I wanted to be on my feet when Zeus came to apologize. My ribs throbbed. My stomach clenched. I clawed the rim of the dumpster and managed to drag myself over the side. I toppled out and landed on my shoulder, which made a cracking sound against the asphalt.

  ‘Araggeeddeee,’ I whimpered through the pain. ‘Stand up. Stand up.’

  Getting to my feet was not easy. My head spun. I almost passed out from the effort. I stood in a dead-end alley. About fifty feet away, the only exit opened onto a street with grimy storefronts for a bail bondsman’s office and a pawnshop. I was somewhere on the west side of Manhattan, I guessed, or perhaps Crown Heights, in Brooklyn. Zeus must have been really angry with me.

  I inspected my new body. I appeared to be a teenaged Caucasian male, clad in sneakers, blue jeans and a green polo shirt. How utterly drab. I felt sick, weak and so, so human.

  I will never understand how you mortals tolerate it. You live your entire life trapped in a sack of meat, unable to enjoy simple pleasures like changing into a hummingbird or dissolving into pure light.

  And now, heavens help me, I was one of you – just another meat sack.

  I fumbled through my pockets, hoping I still had the keys to my sun chariot. No such luck. I found a cheap nylon wallet containing a hundred dollars in American currency – lunch money for my first day as a mortal, perhaps – along with a New York State junior driver’s licence featuring a photo of a dorky, curly-haired teen who could not possibly be me, with the name Lester Papadopoulos. The cruelty of Zeus knew no bounds!

  I peered into the dumpster, hoping my bow, quiver and lyre might have fallen to earth with me. I would have settled for my harmonica. There was nothing.

  I took a deep breath. Cheer up, I told myself. I must have retained some of my godly abilities. Matters could be worse.

  A raspy voice called, ‘Hey, Cade, take a look at this loser.’

  Blocking the alley’s exit were two young men: one squat and platinum blond, the other tall and redheaded. Both wore oversized hoodies and baggy jeans. Serpentine tattoo designs covered their necks. All they were missing were the words I’M A THUG printed in large letters across their foreheads.

  The redhead zeroed in on the wallet in my hand. ‘Now be nice, Mikey. This guy looks friendly enough.’ He grinned and pulled a hunting knife from his belt. ‘In fact, I bet he wants to give us all his money.’

  I blame my disorientation for what happened next.

  I knew my immortality had been stripped away, but I still considered myself the mighty Apollo! One cannot change one’s way of thinking as easily as one might, say, turn into a snow leopard.

  Also, on previous occasions when Zeus had punished me by making me mortal (yes, it had happened twice before), I retained massive strength and at least some of my godly powers. I assumed the same would be true now.

  I was no
t going to allow two young mortal ruffians to take Lester Papadopoulos’s wallet.

  I stood up straight, hoping Cade and Mikey would be intimidated by my regal bearing and divine beauty. (Surely those qualities could not be taken from me, no matter what my driver’s licence photo looked like.) I ignored the warm dumpster juice trickling down my neck.

  ‘I am Apollo,’ I announced. ‘You mortals have three choices: offer me tribute, flee, or be destroyed.’

  I wanted my words to echo through the alley, shake the towers of New York and cause the skies to rain smoking ruin. None of that happened. On the word destroyed, my voice squeaked.

  The redhead Cade grinned even wider. I thought how amusing it would be if I could make the snake tattoos around his neck come alive and strangle him to death.

  ‘What do you think, Mikey?’ he asked his friend. ‘Should we give this guy tribute?’

  Mikey scowled. With his bristly blond hair, his cruel small eyes and his thick frame, he reminded me of the monstrous sow that terrorized the village of Crommyon back in the good old days.

  ‘Not feeling the tribute, Cade.’ His voice sounded like he’d been eating lit cigarettes. ‘What were the other options?’

  ‘Fleeing?’ said Cade.

  ‘Nah,’ said Mikey.

  ‘Being destroyed?’

  Mikey snorted. ‘How about we destroy him instead?’

  Cade flipped his knife and caught it by the handle. ‘I can live with that. After you.’

  I slipped the wallet into my back pocket. I raised my fists. I did not like the idea of flattening mortals into flesh waffles, but I was sure I could do it. Even in my weakened state, I would be far stronger than any human.

  ‘I warned you,’ I said. ‘My powers are far beyond your comprehension.’

  Mikey cracked his knuckles. ‘Uh-huh.’

  He lumbered towards me.

  As soon as he was in range, I struck. I put all my wrath into that punch. It should have been enough to vaporize Mikey and leave a thug-shaped impression on the asphalt.

  Instead he ducked, which I found quite annoying.

  I stumbled forward. I have to say that when Prometheus fashioned you humans out of clay he did a shoddy job. Mortal legs are clumsy. I tried to compensate, drawing upon my boundless reserves of agility, but Mikey kicked me in the back. I fell on my divine face.

  My nostrils inflated like airbags. My ears popped. The taste of copper filled my mouth. I rolled over, groaning, and found the two blurry thugs staring down at me.

  ‘Mikey,’ said Cade, ‘are you comprehending this guy’s power?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Mikey. ‘I’m not comprehending it.’

  ‘Fools!’ I croaked. ‘I will destroy you!’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Cade tossed away his knife. ‘But first I think we’ll stomp you.’

  Cade raised his boot over my face, and the world went black.

  THE

  GODS OF ASGARD

  ARISE!

  Magnus Chase, cousin of Annabeth, has always run away from trouble, but trouble has a way of finding him …

  Read on for a sneak peek at the first adventure in a thrilling new series!

  Rick Riordan

  MAGNUS CHASE AND THE SWORD OF SUMMER

  Good Morning! You’re Going to Die

  Yeah, I know. You guys are going to read about how I died in agony, and you’re going be like, ‘Wow! That sounds cool, Magnus! Can I die in agony, too?’

  No. Just no.

  Don’t go jumping off any rooftops. Don’t run into the highway or set yourself on fire. It doesn’t work that way. You will not end up where I ended up.

  Besides, you wouldn’t want to deal with my situation. Unless you’ve got some crazy desire to see undead warriors hacking one another to pieces, swords flying up giants’ noses and dark elves in snappy outfits, you shouldn’t even think about finding the wolf-headed doors.

  My name is Magnus Chase. I’m sixteen years old. This is the story of how my life went downhill after I got myself killed.

  My day started out normal enough. I was sleeping on the sidewalk under a bridge in the Public Garden when a guy kicked me awake and said, ‘They’re after you.’

  By the way, I’ve been homeless for the past two years.

  Some of you may think, Aw, how sad. Others may think, Ha ha, loser! But, if you saw me on the street, ninety-nine per cent of you would walk right past like I’m invisible. You’d pray, Don’t let him ask me for money. You’d wonder if I’m older than I look, because surely a teenager wouldn’t be wrapped in a stinky old sleeping bag, stuck outside in the middle of a Boston winter. Somebody should help that poor boy!

  Then you’d keep walking.

  Whatever. I don’t need your sympathy. I’m used to being laughed at. I’m definitely used to being ignored. Let’s move on.

  The bum who woke me was a guy called Blitz. As usual, he looked like he’d been running through a dirty hurricane. His wiry black hair was full of paper scraps and twigs. His face was the colour of saddle leather and was flecked with ice. His beard curled in all directions. Snow caked the bottom of his trench coat where it dragged around his feet – Blitz being about five feet five – and his eyes were so dilated the irises were all pupil. His permanently alarmed expression made him look like he might start screaming any second.

  I blinked the gunk out of my eyes. My mouth tasted like day-old hamburger. My sleeping bag was warm, and I really didn’t want to get out of it.

  ‘Who’s after me?’

  ‘Not sure.’ Blitz rubbed his nose, which had been broken so many times it zigzagged like a lightning bolt. ‘They’re handing out flyers with your name and picture.’

  I cursed. Random police and park rangers I could deal with. Truant officers, community-service volunteers, drunken college kids, addicts looking to roll somebody small and weak – all those would’ve been as easy to wake up to as pancakes and orange juice.

  But when somebody knew my name and my face – that was bad. That meant they were targeting me specifically. Maybe the folks at the shelter were mad at me for breaking their stereo. (Those Christmas carols had been driving me crazy.) Maybe a security camera had caught that last bit of pickpocketing I did in the Theater District. (Hey, I needed money for pizza.) Or maybe, unlikely as it seemed, the police were still looking for me, wanting to ask questions about my mom’s murder …

  I packed my stuff, which took about three seconds. The sleeping bag rolled up tight and fitted in my backpack with my toothbrush and a change of socks and underwear. Except for the clothes on my back, that’s all I owned. With the backpack over my shoulder and the hood of my jacket pulled low, I could blend in with pedestrian traffic pretty well. Boston was full of college kids. Some of them were even more scraggly and younger-looking than me.

  I turned to Blitz. ‘Where’d you see these people with the flyers?’

  ‘Beacon Street. They’re coming this way. Middle-aged white guy and a teenage girl, probably his daughter.’

  I frowned. ‘That makes no sense. Who –’

  ‘I don’t know, kid, but I gotta go.’ Blitz squinted at the sunrise, which was turning the skyscraper windows orange. For reasons I’d never quite understood, Blitz hated the daylight. Maybe he was the world’s shortest, stoutest homeless vampire. ‘You should go see Hearth. He’s hanging out in Copley Square.’

  I tried not to feel irritated. The local street people jokingly called Hearth and Blitz my mom and dad because one or the other always seemed to be hovering around me.

  ‘I appreciate it,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Blitz chewed his thumbnail. ‘I dunno, kid. Not today. You gotta be extra careful.’

  ‘Why?’

  He glanced over my shoulder. ‘They’re coming.’

  I didn’t see anybody. When I turned back, Blitz was gone.

  I hated it when he did that. Just – Poof. The guy was like a ninja. A homeless vampire ninja.

  Now I had a choice: go to Copley Square and hang
out with Hearth, or head towards Beacon Street and try to spot the people who were looking for me.

  Blitz’s description of them made me curious. A middle-aged white guy and a teenage girl searching for me at sunrise on a bitter-cold morning. Why? Who were they?

  I crept along the edge of the pond. Almost nobody took the lower trail under the bridge. I could hug the side of the hill and spot anyone approaching on the higher path without them seeing me.

  Snow coated the ground. The sky was eye-achingly blue. The bare tree branches looked like they’d been dipped in glass. The wind cut through my layers of clothes, but I didn’t mind the cold. My mom used to joke that I was half polar bear.

  Dammit, Magnus, I chided myself.

  After two years, my memories of her were still a minefield. I’d stumble over one, and instantly my composure would be blown to bits.

  I tried to focus.

  The man and the girl were coming this way. The man’s sandy hair grew over his collar – not like an intentional style, but like he couldn’t be bothered to cut it. His baffled expression reminded me of a substitute teacher’s: I know I was hit by a spit wad, but I have no idea where it came from. His smart shoes were totally wrong for a Boston winter. His socks were different shades of brown. His tie looked like it had been tied while he spun around in total darkness.

  The girl was definitely his daughter. Her hair was just as thick and wavy, though lighter blonde. She was dressed more sensibly in snow boots, jeans and a parka, with an orange T-shirt peeking out at the neckline. Her expression was more determined, angry. She gripped a sheaf of flyers like they were essays she’d been graded on unfairly.

  If she was looking for me, I did not want to be found. She was scary.

  I didn’t recognize her or her dad, but something tugged at the back of my skull … like a magnet trying to pull out a very old memory.

  Father and daughter stopped where the path forked. They looked around as if just now realizing they were standing in the middle of a deserted park at no-thank-you o’clock in the dead of winter.