The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1)(32)

At the Hermes table, Connor Stoll raised his hand. “Does that mean the Ares cabin should stick Apollo’s head in a toilet?”

At the Ares table, Sherman Yang snorted. “We don’t do that to everyone, Connor. Just the newbies who deserve it.”

Sherman glanced at Meg, who was obliviously finishing her last hot dog. The wispy black whiskers at the sides of her mouth were now frosted with mustard.

Connor Stoll grinned back at Sherman—a conspiratorial look if ever I saw one. That’s when I noticed the open backpack at Connor’s feet. Peeking from the top was something that looked like a net.

The implication sank in: two boys whom Meg had humiliated, preparing for payback. I didn’t have to be Nemesis to understand the allure of revenge. Still…I felt an odd desire to warn Meg.

I tried to catch her eye, but she remained focused on her dinner.

“Thank you, Sherman,” Chiron continued. “It’s good to know you won’t be giving the god of archery a swirly. As for the rest of you, we will keep you posted on our guest’s situation. I’m sending two of our finest satyrs, Millard and Herbert”—he gestured to the satyrs on his left—“to hand-deliver a message to Rachel Dare in New York. With any luck, she will be able to join us soon and help determine how we can best assist Apollo.”

There was some grumbling about this. I caught the words Oracle and prophecies. At a nearby table, a girl muttered to herself in Italian: The blind leading the blind.

I glared at her, but the young lady was quite beautiful. She was perhaps two years older than I (mortally speaking), with dark pixie hair and devastatingly fierce almond eyes. I may have blushed.

I turned back to my tablemates. “Um…yes, satyrs. Why not send that other satyr, the friend of Percy’s?”

“Grover?” Nico asked. “He’s in California. The whole Council of Cloven Elders is out there, meeting about the drought.”

“Oh.” My spirits fell. I remembered Grover as being quite resourceful, but if he was dealing with California’s natural disasters, he was unlikely to be back anytime in the next decade.

“Finally,” Chiron said, “we welcome a new demigod to camp—Meg McCaffrey!”

She wiped her mouth and stood.

Next to her, Alice Miyazawa said, “Stand up, Meg.”

Julia Feingold laughed.

At the Ares table, Sherman Yang rose. “Now this one—this one deserves a special welcome. What do you think, Connor?”

Connor reached into his backpack. “I think maybe the canoe lake.”

I started to say, “Meg—”

Then all Hades broke loose.

Sherman Yang strode toward Meg. Connor Stoll pulled out a golden net and threw it over her head. Meg yelped and tried to squirm free, while some of the campers chanted, “Dunk—her! Dunk—her!” Chiron did his best to shout them down: “Now, demigods, wait a moment!”

A guttural howl interrupted the proceedings. From the top of the colonnade, a blur of chubby flesh, leafy wings, and linen diaper hurtled downward and landed on Sherman Yang’s back, knocking him face-first into the stone floor. Peaches the karpos stood and wailed, beating his chest. His eyes glowed green with anger. He launched himself at Connor Stoll, locked his plump legs around the demigod’s neck, and began pulling out Connor’s hair with his claws.

“Get it off!” Connor wailed, thrashing blindly around the pavilion. “Get it off!”

Slowly the other demigods overcame their shock. Several drew swords.

“C’è un karpos!” yelled the Italian girl.

“Kill it!” said Alice Miyazawa.

“No!” I cried.

Normally such a command from me would’ve initiated a prison lockdown situation, with all the mortals dropping to their bellies to await my further orders. Alas, now I was a mere mortal with a squeaky adolescent voice.

I watched in horror as my own daughter Kayla nocked an arrow in her bow.

“Peaches, get off him!” Meg screamed. She untangled herself from the net, threw it down, then ran toward Connor.

The karpos hopped off Connor’s neck. He landed at Meg’s feet, baring his fangs and hissing at the other campers who had formed a loose semicircle with weapons drawn.

“Meg, get out of the way,” said Nico di Angelo. “That thing is dangerous.”

“No!” Meg’s voice was shrill. “Don’t kill him!”

Sherman Yang rolled over, groaning. His face looked worse than it probably was—a gash on the forehead can produce a shocking amount of blood—but the sight steeled the resolve of the other campers. Kayla drew her bow. Julia Feingold unsheathed a dagger.

“Wait!” I pleaded.

What happened next, a lesser mind could never have processed.

Julia charged. Kayla shot her arrow.

Meg thrust out her hands and faint gold light flashed between her fingers. Suddenly young McCaffrey was holding two swords—each a curved blade in the old Thracian style, siccae made from Imperial gold. I had not seen such weapons since the fall of the Rome. They seemed to have appeared from nowhere, but my long experience with magic items told me they must have been summoned from the crescent rings Meg always wore.

Both her blades whirled. Meg simultaneously sliced Kayla’s arrow out of the air and disarmed Julia, sending her dagger skittering across the floor.