The Titan's Curse(45)

"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."

Nobody needed convincing. We slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then we waddled away as best we could with our saddle sores.

After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.

"It likes the mountains better," I guessed.

"I can't blame it," Thalia said. "Look."

Ahead of us was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoe Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills… but then I noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

"Whoa," I said.

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Graver. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned.

"That's us," he said. "Those five nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" I asked.

"The little deformed one," Zoe suggested.

"Oh, shut up."

"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble."

"A monster?" Thalia asked.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge…"

He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.

We decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. None of us wanted to go Dumpster-diving in the dark.

Zoe and Bianca produced five sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. I don't know how they did it, because the packs were tiny, but must've been enchanted to hold so much stuff. I'd noticed their bows and quivers were also magic. I never really thought about it, but when the Hunters needed them, they just appeared slung over their backs. And when they didn't, they were gone.

The night got chilly fast, so Grover and I collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire. Pretty soon we were about as comfy as you can get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.

"The stars are out," Zoe said.

She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.

"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."

"This is nothing," Zoe said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."

"You talk like you're not human," I said.

Zoe raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"

"For you," Thalia corrected. "Not thee"

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence."

"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you"

Zoe threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"

Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right."

Zoe nodded sadly.

"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee…"

I was pretty sure coffee had nothing to do with what had happened in Cloudcroft, but I didn't have the heart to tell Grover. I thought about the rubber rat and the tiny birds that had suddenly come alive when the wind blew. "Grover, do you really think that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be."

"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've gotten in two thousand years. I was so close."

I didn't answer. I didn't want to squash Grover's hopes.

"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. There are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them."

Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."

"Maybe there's something special about your knife," I said.

"It is the same as mine," Zoe said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way."

"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot," I said.

Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her.

"Never mind," Zoe told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas."