The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3)(35)

The thing in Percy’s form laughed without humor. “Too late you realize. You can trust no one.”

Jason still wasn’t moving. Piper had no help, no way to protect him.

Behind Percy, something rustled in the wheat. Piper saw the tip of a black wing, and Percy began to turn toward the sound.

“Ignore it!” she yelped. “Look at me.”

Percy obeyed. “You cannot stop me. I will kill Jason Grace.”

Behind him, Blackjack emerged from the wheat field, moving with surprising stealth for such a large animal.

“You won’t kill him,” Piper ordered. But she wasn’t looking at Percy. She locked eyes with the pegasus, pouring all her power into her words and hoping Blackjack would understand. “You will knock him out.”

The charmspeak washed over Percy. He shifted his weight indecisively. “I…will knock him out?”

“Oh, sorry.” Piper smiled. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Blackjack reared and brought his hoof down on Percy’s head.

Percy crumpled to the pavement next to Jason.

“Oh, gods!” Piper ran to the boys. “Blackjack, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

The pegasus snorted. Piper couldn’t speak Horse, but she thought he might have said: Please. I know my own strength.

Tempest was nowhere to be seen. The lightning steed had apparently returned to wherever storm spirits live on clear days.

Piper checked on Jason. He was breathing steadily, but two knocks on the skull in two days couldn’t have been good for him. Then she examined Percy’s head. She didn’t see any blood, but a large knot was forming where the horse had kicked him. “We have to get them both back to the ship,” she told Blackjack.

The pegasus bobbed his head in agreement. He knelt to the ground, so that Piper could drape Percy and Jason over his back. After a lot of hard work (unconscious boys were heavy), she got them reasonably secured, climbed onto Blackjack’s back herself, and they took off for the ship.

The others were a little surprised when Piper came back on a pegasus with two unconscious demigods. While Frank and Hazel tended to Blackjack, Annabeth and Leo helped get Piper and the boys to the sickbay.

“At this rate, we’re going to run out of ambrosia,” Coach Hedge grumbled as he tended their wounds. “How come I never get invited on these violent trips?”

Piper sat at Jason’s side. She herself felt fine after a swig of nectar and some water, but she was still worried about the boys.

“Leo,” Piper said, “are we ready to sail?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Set course for Atlanta. I’ll explain later.”

“But…okay.” He hurried off.

Annabeth didn’t argue with Piper either. She was too busy examining the horseshoe-shaped dent on the back of Percy’s head.

“What hit him?” she demanded.

“Blackjack,” Piper said.

“What?”

Piper tried to explain while Coach Hedge applied some healing paste to the boys’ heads. She’d never been impressed with Hedge’s nursing abilities before, but he must have done something right. Either that, or the spirits that possessed the boys had also made them extra resilient. They both groaned and opened their eyes.

Within a few minutes, Jason and Percy were sitting up in their berths and able to talk in complete sentences. Both had fuzzy memories of what had happened. When Piper described their duel on the highway, Jason winced.

“Knocked out twice in two days,” he muttered. “Some demigod.” He glanced sheepishly at Percy. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to blast you.”

Percy’s shirt was peppered with burn holes. His hair was even more disheveled than normal. Despite that, he managed a weak laugh. “Not the first time. Your big sister got me good once at camp.”

“Yeah, but…I could have killed you.”

“Or I could have killed you,” Percy said.

Jason shrugged. “If there’d been an ocean in Kansas, maybe.”

“I don’t need an ocean—”

“Boys,” Annabeth interrupted, “I’m sure you both would’ve been wonderful at killing each other. But right now, you need some rest.”

“Food first,” Percy said. “Please? And we really need to talk. Bacchus said some things that don’t—”

“Bacchus?” Annabeth raised her hand. “Okay, fine. We need to talk. Mess hall. Ten minutes. I’ll tell the others. And please, Percy…change your clothes. You smell like you’ve been run over by an electric horse.”

Leo gave the helm to Coach Hedge again, after making the satyr promise he would not steer them to the nearest military base “for fun.”

They gathered around the dining table, and Piper explained what had happened at TOPEKA 32—their conversation with Bacchus, the trap sprung by Gaea, the eidolons that had possessed the boys.

“Of course!” Hazel slapped the table, which startled Frank so much, he dropped his burrito. “That’s what happened to Leo too.”

“So it wasn’t my fault.” Leo exhaled. “I didn’t start World War Three. I just got possessed by an evil spirit. That’s a relief!”

“But the Romans don’t know that,” Annabeth said. “And why would they take our word for it?”