The Titan's Curse(21)

There was a broken sword hilt labeled: This broke and Leroy got killed. 1999.

Then I noticed a pink silk scarf with a label attached to it. I picked up the tag and tried to read it:

SCARF OF THE GODDESS APHRODITE

RECOVERED AT WATERLAND, DENVER, CO.,

BY ANNABETH CHASE AND PERCY JACKSON

I stared at the scarf. I'd totally forgotten about it. Two years ago, Annabeth had ripped this scarf out of my hands and said something like, Oh, no. No love magic for you!

I'd just assumed she'd thrown it away. And yet here it was. She'd kept it all this time? And why had she stashed it in the attic?

I turned to the mummy. She hadn't moved, but the shadows across her face made it look like she was smiling gruesomely.

I dropped the scarf and tried not to run toward the exit.

That night after dinner, I was seriously ready to beat the Hunters at capture the flag. It was going to be a small game: only thirteen Hunters, including Bianca di Angelo, and about the same number of campers.

Zoe Nightshade looked pretty upset. She kept glancing resentfully at Chiron, like she couldn't believe he was making her do this. The other Hunters didn't look too happy, either. Unlike last night, they weren't laughing or joking around. They just huddled together in the dining pavilion, whispering nervously to each other as they strapped on their armor. Some of them even looked like they'd been crying. I guess Zoe had told them about her nightmare.

On our team, we had Beckendorf and two other Hephaestus guys, a few from the Ares cabin (though it still seemed strange that Clarisse wasn't around), the Stoll brothers and Nico from Hermes cabin, and a few Aphrodite kids. It was weird that the Aphrodite cabin wanted to play. Usually they sat on the sidelines, chatted, and checked their reflections in the river and stuff, but when they heard we were fighting the Hunters, they were raring to go.

"I'll show them 'love is worthless,'" Silena Beauregard grumbled as she strapped on her armor. "I'll pulverize them!"

That left Thalia and me.

"I'll take the offense," Thalia volunteered. "You take defense."

"Oh." I hesitated, because I'd been about to say the exact same thing, only reversed. "Don't you think with your shield and all, you'd be better defense?"

Thalia already had Aegis on her arm, and even our own teammates were giving her a wide berth, trying not to cower before the bronze head of Medusa.

"Well, I was thinking it would make better offense," Thalia said. "Besides, you've had more practice at defense."

I wasn't sure if she was teasing me. I'd had some pretty bad experiences with defense on capture the flag. My first year, Annabeth had put me out as a kind of bait, and I'd almost been gored to death with spears and killed by a hellhound.

"Yeah, no problem," I lied.

"Cool." Thalia turned to help some of the Aphrodite kids, who were having trouble suiting up their armor without breaking their nails. Nico di Angelo ran up to me with a big grin on his face.

"Percy, this is awesome!" His blue-feathered bronze helmet was falling in his eyes, and his breastplate was about six sizes too big. I wondered if there was any way I'd looked that ridiculous when I'd first arrived. Unfortunately, I probably had.

Nico lifted his sword with effort. "Do we get to kill the other team?"

"Well… no."

"But the Hunters are immortal, right?"

"That's only if they don't fall in battle. Besides—"

"It would be awesome if we just, like, resurrected as soon as we were killed, so we could keep fighting, and—"

"Nico, this is serious. Real swords. These can hurt."

He stared at me, a little disappointed, and I realized that I'd just sounded like my mother. Whoa. Not a good sign.

I patted Nico on the shoulder. "Hey, it's cool. Just follow the team. Stay out of Zoe's way. We'll have a blast."

Chiron's hoof thundered on the pavilion floor.

"Heroes!" he called. "You know the rules! The creek is the boundary line. Blue team—Camp Half-Blood—shall take the west woods. Hunters of Artemis—red team—shall take the east woods. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. No intentional maiming, please! All magic items are allowed. To your positions!"

"Sweet," Nico whispered next to me. "What kind of magic items? Do I get one?"

I was about to break it to him that he didn't, when Thalia said, "Blue team! Follow me!"

They cheered and followed. I had to run to catch up, and tripped over somebody's shield, so I didn't look much like a co-captain. More like an idiot.

We set our flag at the top of Zeus's Fist. It's this cluster of boulders in the middle of the west woods that, if you look at it just the right way, looks like a huge fist sticking out of the ground. If you look at it from any other side, it looks like a pile of enormous deer droppings, but Chiron wouldn't let us call the place the Poop Pile, especially after it had been named for Zeus, who doesn't have much of a sense of humor.

Anyway, it was a good place to set the flag. The top boulder was twenty feet tall and really hard to climb, so the flag was clearly visible, like the rules said it had to be, and it didn't matter that the guards weren't allowed to stand within ten yards of it.

I set Nico on guard duty with Beckendorf and the Stoll brothers, figuring he'd be safely out of the way.