The Trials of Apollo Camp Jupiter Classified: A Probatio's Journal Read online

  I signed some paperwork, accepted the flight crew’s condolences, then shook hands with a nice undertaker who handed me the keys to the hearse and walked away.

  I stared at the keys, then at Meg McCaffrey, who was chewing the head off a Swedish Fish. The plane had been stocked with half a dozen tins of the squishy red candy. Not anymore. Meg had single-handedly brought the Swedish Fish ecosystem to the brink of collapse.

  “I’m supposed to drive?” I wondered. “Is this a rental hearse? I’m pretty sure my New York junior driver’s license doesn’t cover this.”

  Meg shrugged. During our flight, she’d insisted on sprawling on the Cessna’s sofa, so her dark pageboy haircut was flattened against the side of her head. One rhinestone-studded point of her cat-eye glasses poked through her hair like a disco shark fin.

  The rest of her outfit was equally disreputable: floppy red high-tops, threadbare yellow leggings, and the well-loved knee-length green frock she’d gotten from Percy Jackson’s mother. By well-loved, I mean the frock had been through so many battles, been washed and mended so many times, it looked less like a piece of clothing and more like a deflated hot-air balloon. Around Meg’s waist was the pièce de résistance: her multi-pocketed gardening belt, because children of Demeter never leave home without one.

  “I don’t have a driver’s license,” she said, as if I needed a reminder that my life was presently being controlled by a twelve-year-old. “I call shotgun.”

  “Calling shotgun” didn’t seem appropriate for a hearse. Nevertheless, Meg skipped to the passenger’s side and climbed in. I got behind the wheel. Soon we were out of the airport and cruising north on I-880 in our rented black grief-mobile.

  Ah, the Bay Area…I’d spent some happy times here. The vast misshapen geographic bowl was jam-packed with interesting people and places. I loved the green-and-golden hills, the fog-swept coastline, the glowing lacework of bridges, and the crazy zigzag of neighborhoods shouldered up against one another like subway passengers at rush hour.

  Back in the 1950s, I played with Dizzy Gillespie at Bop City in the Fillmore. During the Summer of Love, I hosted an impromptu jam session in Golden Gate Park with the Grateful Dead. (Lovely bunch of guys, but did they really need those fifteen-minute-long solos?) In the 1980s, I hung out in Oakland with Stan Burrell—otherwise known as MC Hammer—as he pioneered pop rap. I can’t claim credit for Stan’s music, but I did advise him on his fashion choices. Those gold lamé parachute pants? My idea. You’re welcome, fashionistas.

  Most of the Bay Area brought back good memories. But as I drove, I couldn’t help glancing to the northwest—toward Marin County and the dark peak of Mount Tamalpais. We gods knew the place as Mount Othrys, seat of the Titans. Even though our ancient enemies had been cast down, their palace destroyed, I could still feel the evil pull of the place—like a magnet trying to extract the iron from my now-mortal blood.

  I did my best to shake the feeling. We had other problems to deal with. Besides, we were going to Camp Jupiter—friendly territory on this side of the bay. I had Meg for backup. I was driving a hearse. What could possibly go wrong?

  The Nimitz Freeway snaked through the East Bay flatlands, past warehouses and docklands, strip malls and rows of dilapidated bungalows. To our right rose downtown Oakland, its small cluster of high-rises facing off against its cooler neighbor San Francisco across the bay as if to proclaim, We are Oakland! We exist, too!

  Meg reclined in her seat, propped her red high-tops up on the dashboard, and cracked open her window.

  “I like this place,” she decided.

  “We just got here,” I said. “What is it you like? The abandoned warehouses? That sign for Bo’s Chicken ’N’ Waffles?”

  “Nature.”

  “Concrete counts as nature?”

  “There’s trees, too. Plants flowering. Moisture in the air. The eucalyptus smells good. It’s not like…”

  She didn’t need to finish her sentence. Our time in Southern California had been marked by scorching temperatures, extreme drought, and raging wildfires—all thanks to the magical Burning Maze controlled by Caligula and his hate-crazed sorceress bestie, Medea. The Bay Area wasn’t experiencing any of those problems. Not at the moment, anyway.

  We’d killed Medea. We’d extinguished the Burning Maze. We’d freed the Erythraean Sibyl and brought relief to the mortals and withering nature spirits of Southern California.

  But Caligula was still very much alive. He and his co-emperors in the Triumvirate were still intent on controlling all means of prophecy, taking over the world, and writing the future in their own sadistic image. Right now, Caligula’s fleet of evil luxury yachts was making its way toward San Francisco to attack Camp Jupiter. I could only imagine what sort of hellish destruction the emperor would rain down on Oakland and Bo’s Chicken ’N’ Waffles.

  Even if we somehow managed to defeat the Triumvirate, there was still that greatest Oracle, Delphi, under the control of my old nemesis Python. How I could defeat him in my present form as a sixteen-year-old weakling, I had no idea.

  But, hey. Except for that, everything was fine. The eucalyptus smelled nice.

  Traffic slowed at the I-580 interchange. Apparently, California drivers didn’t follow that custom of yielding to hearses out of respect. Perhaps they figured at least one of our passengers was already dead, so we weren’t in a hurry.

  Meg toyed with her window control, raising and lowering the glass. Reeee. Reeee. Reeee.

  “You know how to get to Camp Jupiter?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “’Cause you said that about Camp Half-Blood.”

  “We got there! Eventually.”

  “Frozen and half-dead.”

  “Look, the entrance to camp is right over there.” I waved vaguely at the Oakland Hills. “There’s a secret passage in the Caldecott Tunnel or something.”

  “Or something?”

  “Well, I haven’t actually ever driven to Camp Jupiter,” I admitted. “Usually I descend from the heavens in my glorious sun chariot. But I know the Caldecott Tunnel is the main entrance. There’s probably a sign. Perhaps a demigods only lane.”

  Meg peered at me over the top of her glasses. “You’re the dumbest god ever.” She raised her window with a final reeee SHLOOMP!—a sound that reminded me uncomfortably of a guillotine blade.

  We turned northeast onto Highway 24. The congestion eased as the hills loomed closer. The elevated lanes soared past neighborhoods of winding streets and tall conifers, white stucco houses clinging to the sides of grassy ravines.

  A road sign promised CALDECOTT TUNNEL ENTRANCE, 2 MI. That should have comforted me. Soon, we’d pass through the borders of Camp Jupiter into a heavily guarded, magically camouflaged valley where an entire Roman legion could shield me from my worries, at least for a while.

  Why, then, were the hairs on the back of my neck quivering like sea worms?

  Something was wrong. It dawned on me that the uneasiness I’d felt since we landed might not be the distant threat of Caligula, or the old Titan base on Mount Tamalpais, but something more immediate…something malevolent, and getting closer.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. Through the back window’s gauzy curtains, I saw nothing but traffic. But then, in the polished surface of Jason’s coffin lid, I caught the reflection of movement from a dark shape outside—as if a human-size object had just flown past the hearse.

  “Oh, Meg?” I tried to keep my voice even. “Do you see anything unusual behind us?”

  “Unusual like what?”

  THUMP.

  The hearse lurched as if we’d been hitched to a trailer full of scrap metal. Above my head, two foot-shaped impressions appeared in the upholstered ceiling.

  “Something just landed on the roof,” Meg deduced.

  “Thank you, Sherlock McCaffrey! Can you get it off?”

  “Me? How?”

  That was an annoyingly fair question. Meg could turn the rings on her middle fingers into
wicked gold swords, but if she summoned them in close quarters, like the interior of the hearse, she a) wouldn’t have room to wield them, and b) might end up impaling me and/or herself.

  CREAK. CREAK. The footprint impressions deepened as the thing adjusted its weight like a surfer on a board. It must have been immensely heavy to sink into the metal roof.

  A whimper bubbled in my throat. My hands trembled on the steering wheel. I yearned for my bow and quiver in the backseat, but I couldn’t have used them. DWSPW, driving while shooting projectile weapons, is a big no-no, kids.

  “Maybe you can open the window,” I said to Meg. “Lean out and tell it to go away.”

  “Um, no.” (Gods, she was stubborn.) “What if you try to shake it off?”

  Before I could explain that this was a terrible idea while traveling fifty miles an hour on a highway, I heard a sound like a pop-top aluminum can opening—the crisp, pneumatic hiss of air through metal. A claw punctured the ceiling—a grimy white talon the size of a drill bit. Then another. And another. And another, until the upholstery was studded with ten pointy white spikes—just the right number for two very large hands.

  “Meg?” I yelped. “Could you—?”

  I don’t know how I might have finished that sentence. Protect me? Kill that thing? Check in the back to see if I have any spare undies?

  I was rudely interrupted by the creature ripping open our roof like we were a birthday present.

  Staring down at me through the ragged hole was a withered, ghoulish humanoid, its blue-black hide glistening like the skin of a housefly, its eyes filmy white orbs, its bared teeth dripping saliva. Around its torso fluttered a loincloth of greasy black feathers. The smell coming off it was more putrid than any dumpster—and believe me, I’d fallen into a few.

  “FOOD!” it howled.

  “Kill it!” I yelled at Meg.

  “Swerve!” she countered.

  One of the many annoying things about being incarcerated in my puny mortal body: I was Meg McCaffrey’s servant. I was bound to obey her direct commands. So when she yelled “Swerve,” I yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. The hearse handled beautifully. It careened across three lanes of traffic, barreled straight through the guardrail, and plummeted into the canyon below.

  Turn the page to see who’s who in your favorite Riordan series

  PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS

  Book One: The Lightning Thief

  Book Two: The Sea of Monsters

  Book Three: The Titan’s Curse

  Book Four: The Battle of the Labyrinth

  Book Five: The Last Olympian

  The Demigod Files

  The Lightning Thief: The Graphic Novel

  The Sea of Monsters: The Graphic Novel

  The Titan’s Curse: The Graphic Novel

  The Battle of the Labyrinth: The Graphic Novel

  The Last Olympian: The Graphic Novel

  Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods

  Percy Jackson’s Greek Heroes

  From Percy Jackson: Camp Half-Blood Confidential

  THE KANE CHRONICLES

  Book One: The Red Pyramid

  Book Two: The Throne of Fire

  Book Three: The Serpent’s Shadow

  The Red Pyramid: The Graphic Novel

  The Throne of Fire: The Graphic Novel

  The Serpent’s Shadow: The Graphic Novel

  From the Kane Chronicles: Brooklyn House Magician’s Manual

  THE HEROES OF OLYMPUS

  Book One: The Last Hero

  Book Two: The Son of Neptune

  Book Three: The Mark of Athena

  Book Four: The House of Hades

  Book Five: The Blood of Olympus

  The Demigod Diaries

  The Lost Hero: The Graphic Novel

  The Son of Neptune: The Graphic Novel

  Demigods & Magicians

  MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF ASGARD

  Book One: The Sword of Summer

  Book Two: The Hammer of Thor

  Book Three: The Ship of the Dead

  For Magnus Chase: Hotel Valhalla Guide to the Norse Worlds

  9 from the Nine Worlds

  THE TRIALS OF APOLLO

  Book One: The Hidden Oracle

  Book Two: The Dark Prophecy

  Book Three: The Burning Maze

  Book Four: The Tyrant’s Tomb

  RICK RIORDAN, dubbed “storyteller of the gods” by Publishers Weekly, is the author of five New York Times #1 best-selling middle grade series with millions of copies sold throughout the world: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Heroes of Olympus, and the Trials of Apollo, based on Greek and Roman mythology; the Kane Chronicles, based on Egyptian mythology; and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, based on Norse mythology. Rick collaborated with illustrator John Rocco on two best-selling collections of Greek myths for the whole family: Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods and Percy Jackson’s Greek Heroes. Rick is also the publisher of an imprint at Disney Hyperion, Rick Riordan Presents, dedicated to finding other authors of highly entertaining fiction based on world cultures and mythologies. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter @camphalfblood. To learn more about him and his books, visit www.RickRiordan.com.