The Demigod Files(4)

‘Deimos!’ Clarisse yelled.

‘Hello, sister!’ His smile was almost as horrible as the serpent’s. ‘Care to play?’

The monster roared. Tourists screamed and scattered. I don’t know exactly what they saw. The Mist usually prevents mortals from seeing monsters in their true form, but whatever they saw, they were terrified.

‘Leave them alone!’ I yelled.

‘Or what, son of the sea god?’ Deimos sneered. ‘My brother tells me you’re a wimp! Besides, I love terror. I live on terror!’

He spurred the sea serpent into head-butting the ferry, which sloshed backwards. Alarms blared. Passengers fell over each other trying to get away. Deimos laughed with delight.

‘That’s it,’ I grumbled. ‘Clarisse, grab on.’

‘What?’

‘Grab onto my neck. We’re going for a ride.’

She didn’t protest. She grabbed onto me, and I said, ‘One, two, three – JUMP!’

We leaped off the top deck and straight into the bay, but we were only underwater for a moment. I felt the power of the ocean surging through me. I willed the water to swirl around me, building force until we burst out of the bay on top of a ten-metre-high waterspout. I steered us straight towards the monster.

‘You think you can tackle Deimos?’ I yelled to Clarisse.

‘I’m on it!’ she said. ‘Just get me within three metres.’

We barrelled towards the serpent. Just as it bared its fangs, I swerved the waterspout to one side, and Clarisse jumped. She crashed into Deimos, and both of them toppled into the sea.

The sea serpent came after me. I quickly turned the waterspout to face him, then summoned all my power and willed the water to even greater heights.

WHOOOOM!

Fifty thousand litres of salt water crashed into the monster. I leaped over its head, uncapped Riptide, and slashed with all my might at the creature’s neck. The monster roared. Green blood spouted from the wound, and the serpent sank beneath the waves.

I dived underwater and watched as it retreated to the open sea. That’s one good thing about sea serpents: they’re big babies when it comes to getting hurt.

Clarisse surfaced near me, spluttering and coughing. I swam over and grabbed her.

‘Did you get Deimos?’ I asked.

Clarisse shook her head. ‘The coward disappeared as we were wrestling. But I’m sure we’ll see him again. Phobos, too.’

Tourists were still running around the ferry in a panic, but it didn’t look like anybody was hurt. The boat didn’t seem damaged. I decided we shouldn’t stick around. I held onto Clarisse’s arm and willed the waves to carry us towards Staten Island.

In the west, the sun was going down over the Jersey shore. We were running out of time.

I’d never spent much time on Staten Island, and I found it was a lot bigger than I thought and not much fun to walk. The streets curved around confusingly, and everything seemed to be uphill. I was dry (I never got wet in the ocean unless I wanted to) but Clarisse’s clothes were still sopping wet, so she left mucky footprints all over the sidewalk, and the bus driver wouldn’t let us on the bus.

‘We’ll never make it in time,’ she sighed.

‘Stop thinking that way.’ I tried to sound upbeat, but I was starting to have doubts too. I wished we had reinforcements. Two demigods against two minor gods was not an even match, and when we met Phobos and Deimos together, I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. I kept remembering what Phobos had said: How about you, Percy Jackson? What do you fear? I’ll find out, you know.

After dragging ourselves halfway down the island, past a lot of suburban houses, a couple of churches and a McDonald’s, we finally saw a sign that said ZOO. We turned a corner and followed this curvy street with some woods on one side until we came to the entrance.

The lady at the ticket booth looked at us suspiciously, but thank the gods I had enough cash to get us inside.

We walked around the reptile house, and Clarisse stopped in her tracks.

‘There it is.’

It was sitting at a crossroads between the petting zoo and the sea otter pond: a large golden and red chariot tethered to four black horses. The chariot was decorated with amazing detail. It would’ve been beautiful if all the pictures hadn’t shown people dying painful deaths. The horses were breathing fire out of their nostrils.

Families with buggies walked right past the chariot like it didn’t exist. I guess the Mist must’ve been really strong around it, because the chariot’s only camouflage was a handwritten note taped to one of the horses’ chests that said OFFICIAL ZOO VEHICLE.

‘Where are Phobos and Deimos?’ Clarisse muttered, drawing her sword.

I couldn’t see them anywhere, but this had to be a trap.

I concentrated on the horses. Usually I could talk to horses, since my dad had created them. I said, Hey. Nice fire-breathing horses. Come here!

One of horses whinnied disdainfully. I could understand his thoughts, all right. He called me some names I can’t repeat.

‘I’ll try to get the reins,’ Clarisse said. ‘The horses know me. Cover me.’

‘Right.’ I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to cover her with a sword, but I kept my eyes peeled as Clarisse approached the chariot. She walked around the horses, almost tiptoeing.