The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus #2)(112)

She tried to sound confident, but it wasn’t easy. She wished Arion were still with her. She’d much rather ride into battle on that beautiful horse. Ever since they’d left Vancouver, she’d been calling to him in her thoughts, hoping he would hear her and come find her, but that was just wishful thinking.

Frank patted his stomach. “If we’re going to battle to the death, I want lunch first. I found the perfect place.”

Frank led them to a shopping plaza near the wharf, where an old railway car had been converted to a diner. Hazel had no memory of the place from the 1940s, but the food smelled amazing. While Frank and Percy ordered, Hazel wandered down to the docks and asked some questions. When she came back, she needed cheering up. Even the cheeseburger and fries didn’t do the trick.

“We’re in trouble,” she said. “I tried to get a boat. But…I miscalculated.”

“No boats?” Frank asked.

“Oh, I can get a boat,” Hazel said. “But the glacier is farther than I thought. Even at top speed, we couldn’t get there until tomorrow morning.”

Percy turned pale. “Maybe I could make the boat go faster?”

“Even if you could,” Hazel said, “from what the captains tell me, it’s treacherous—icebergs, mazes of channels to navigate. You’d have to know where you were going.”

“A plane?” Frank asked.

Hazel shook her head. “I asked the boat captains about that. They said we could try, but it’s a tiny airfield. You have to charter a plane two, three weeks in advance.”

They ate in silence after that. Hazel’s cheeseburger was excellent, but she couldn’t concentrate on it. She’d eaten about three bites when a raven settled on the telephone pole above and began to croak at them.

Hazel shivered. She was afraid it would speak to her like the other raven, so many years ago: The last night. Tonight. She wondered if ravens always appeared to children of Pluto when they were about to die. She hoped Nico was still alive, and Gaea had just been lying to make her unsettled. Hazel had a bad feeling that the goddess was telling the truth.

Nico had told her that he’d search for the Doors of Death from the other side. If he’d been captured by Gaea’s forces,

Hazel might’ve lost the only family she had.

She stared at her cheeseburger.

Suddenly, the raven’s cawing changed to a strangled yelp.

Frank got up so fast that he almost toppled the picnic table. Percy drew his sword.

Hazel followed their eyes. Perched on top of the pole where the raven had been, a fat ugly gryphon glared down at them. It burped, and raven feathers fluttered from its beak.

Hazel stood and unsheathed her spatha.

Frank nocked an arrow. He took aim, but the gryphon shrieked so loudly the sound echoed off the mountains. Frank flinched, and his shot went wide.

“I think that’s a call for help,” Percy warned. “We have to get out of here.”

With no clear plan, they ran for the docks. The gryphon dove after them. Percy slashed at it with his sword, but the gryphon veered out of reach.

They took the steps to the nearest pier and raced to the end. The gryphon swooped after them, its front claws extended for the kill. Hazel raised her sword, but an icy wall of water slammed sideways into the gryphon and washed it into the bay. The gryphon squawked and flapped its wings. It managed to scramble onto the pier, where it shook its black fur like a wet dog.

Frank grunted. “Nice one, Percy.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Didn’t know if I could still do that in Alaska. But bad news—look over there.” About a mile away, over the mountains, a black cloud was swirling—a whole flock of gryphons, dozens at least. There was no way they could fight that many, and no boat could take them away fast enough.

Frank nocked another arrow. “Not going down without a fight.”

Percy raised Riptide. “I’m with you.”

Then Hazel heard a sound in the distance—like the whinnying of a horse. She must’ve been imagining it, but she cried out desperately, “Arion! Over here!”

A tan blur came ripping down the street and onto the pier. The stallion materialized right behind the gryphon, brought down his front hooves, and smashed the monster to dust.

Hazel had never been so happy in her life. “Good horse! Really good horse!”

Frank backed up and almost fell off the pier. “How—?”

“He followed me!” Hazel beamed. “Because he’s the best—horse—EVER! Now, get on!”

“All three of us?” Percy said. “Can he handle it?”

Arion whinnied indignantly.

“All right, no need to be rude,” Percy said. “Let’s go.”

They climbed on, Hazel in front, Frank and Percy balancing precariously behind her. Frank wrapped his arms around her waist, and Hazel thought that if this was going to be her last day on earth—it wasn’t a bad way to go out.

“Run, Arion!” she cried. “To Hubbard Glacier!”

The horse shot across the water, his hooves turning the top of the sea to steam.

XLIII Hazel

RIDING ARION, HAZEL FELT POWERFUL, unstoppable, absolutely in control—a perfect combination of horse and human. She wondered if this was what it was like to be a centaur.

The boat captains in Seward had warned her it was three hundred nautical miles to the Hubbard Glacier, a hard, dangerous journey, but Arion had no trouble. He raced over the water at the speed of sound, heating the air around them so that Hazel didn’t even feel the cold. On foot, she never would have felt so brave. On horseback, she couldn’t wait to charge into battle.