The Titan's Curse(43)

We started to—but then I heard a rustling of branches. Two more skeletons appeared on the road behind us. We were surrounded.

I wondered where the other skeletons were. I'd seen a dozen at the Smithsonian. Then one of the warriors raised a cell phone to his mouth and spoke into it.

Except he wasn't speaking. He made a clattering, clicking sound, like dry teeth on bone. Suddenly I understood what was going on. The skeletons had split up to look for us. These skeletons were now calling their brethren. Soon we'd have a full party on our hands.

"It's near," Grover moaned.

"It's here," I said.

"No," he insisted. "The gift. The gift from the Wild."

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I was worried about his condition. He was in no shape to walk, much less fight.

"We'll have to go one-on-one," Thalia said. "Four of them. Four of us. Maybe they'll ignore Grover that way."

"Agreed," said Zoe.

"The Wild!" Grover moaned.

A warm wind blew through the canyon, rustling the trees, but I kept my eyes on the skeletons. I remembered the General gloating over Annabeth's fate. I remembered the way Luke had betrayed her.

And I charged.

The first skeleton fired. Time slowed down. I won't say I could see the bullet, but I could feel its path, the same way I felt water currents in the ocean. I deflected it off the edge of my blade and kept charging.

The skeleton drew a baton and I sliced off his arms at the elbows. Then I swung Riptide through his waist and cut him in half.

His bones unknit and clattered to the asphalt in a heap. Almost immediately, they began to move, reassembling themselves. The second skeleton clattered his teeth at me and tried to fire, but I knocked his gun into the snow.

I thought I was doing pretty well, until the other two skeletons shot me in the back.

"Percy!" Thalia screamed.

I landed facedown in the street. Then I realized something… I wasn't dead. The impact of the bullets had been dull, like a push from behind, but they hadn't hurt me.

The Nemean Lion's fur! My coat was bulletproof.

Thalia charged the second skeleton. Zoe and Bianca started firing arrows at the third and fourth. Grover stood there and held his hands out to the trees, looking like he wanted to hug them.

There was a crashing sound in the forest to our left, like a bulldozer. Maybe the skeletons' reinforcements were arriving. I got to my feet and ducked a police baton. The skeleton I'd cut in half was already fully re-formed, coming after me.

There was no way to stop them. Zoe and Bianca fired at their heads point-blank, but the arrows just whistled straight through their empty skulls. One lunged at Bianca, and I thought she was a goner, but she whipped out her hunting knife and stabbed the warrior in the chest. The whole skeleton erupted into flames, leaving a little pile of ashes and a police badge.

"How did you do that?" Zoe asked.

"I don't know," Bianca said nervously. "Lucky stab?"

"Well, do it again!"

Bianca tried, but the remaining three skeletons were wary of her now. They pressed us back, keeping us at baton's length.

"Plan?" I said as we retreated.

Nobody answered. The trees behind the skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking.

"A gift," Grover muttered.

And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig I'd ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, thirty feet high, with a snotty pink snout and tusks the size of canoes. Its back bristled with brown hair, and its eyes were wild and angry.

"REEEEEEEEET!" it squealed, and raked the three skeletons aside with its tusks. The force was so great, they went flying over the trees and into the side of the mountain, where they smashed to pieces, thigh bones and arm bones twirling everywhere.

Then the pig turned on us.

Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled, "Don't kill it.'"

The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge.

"That's the Erymanthian Boar," Zoe said, trying to stay calm. "I don't think we can kill it."

"It's a gift," Grover said. "A blessing from the Wild!"

The boar said "REEEEEEET!" and swung its tusk. Zoe and Bianca dived out of the way. I had to push Grover so he wouldn't get launched into the mountain on the Boar Tusk Express.

"Yeah, I feel blessed!" I said. "Scatter!"

We ran in different directions, and for a moment the boar was confused.

"It wants to kill us!" Thalia said.

"Of course," Grover said. "It's wild!"

"So how is that a blessing?" Bianca asked.

It seemed a fair question to me, but the pig was offended and charged her. She was faster than I'd realized. She rolled out of the way of its hooves and came up behind the beast. It lashed out with its tusks and pulverized the WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT sign.

I racked my brain, trying to remember the myth of the boar. I was pretty sure Hercules had fought this thing once, but I couldn't remember how he'd beaten it. I had a vague memory of the boar plowing down several Greek cities before Hercules managed to subdue it. I hoped Cloudcroft was insured against giant wild boar attacks.

"Keep moving!" Zoe yelled. She and Bianca ran in opposite directions. Grover danced around the boar, playing his pipes while the boar snorted and tried to gouge him. But Thalia and I won the prize for bad luck. When the boar turned on us, Thalia made the mistake of raising Aegis in defense. The sight of the Medusa head made the boar squeal in outrage. Maybe it looked too much like one of his relatives. The boar charged us.