Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
21
21
huge monster that had almost defeated them once before. Poseidon was under siege and losing a
war against the sea Titan Oceanus. Kronos was still out there somewhere. Olympus was virtually
undefended. The demigods of Camp Half-Blood were on our own with a spy in our midst.
Oh, and according to the ancient prophecy, I was going to die when I turned sixteen—which
happened to be in five days, the exact same time Typhon was supposed to hit New York. Almost
forgot that.
"Well," Chiron said, "I think that's enough for one night."
He waved his hand and the steam dissipated. The stormy battle of Typhon and the gods
disappeared.
"That's an understatement," I muttered.
And the war council adjourned.
Chapter Four
We Burn A Metal Shroud
I dreamed Rachel Elizabeth Dare was throwing darts at my picture.
She was standing in her room . . . Okay, back up. I have to explain that Rachel doesn't have
a room. She has the top floor of her family's mansion, which is a renovated brownstone in Brooklyn.
Her "room" is a huge loft with industrial lighting and floor-to-ceiling windows. It's about twice as big
as my mom's apartment.
Some alt rock was blaring from her paint-covered Bose docking system. As far as I could tell,
Rachel's only rule about music was that no two songs on her iPod could sound the same, and they
all had to be strange.
She wore a kimono, and her hair was frizzy, like she'd been sleeping. Her bed was messed
up. Sheets hung over a bunch of artist's easels. Dirty clothes and old energy bar wrappers were
strewn around the floor, but when you've got a room that big, the mess doesn't look so bad. Out the
windows you could see the entire nighttime skyline of Manhattan.
The picture she was attacking was a painting of me standing over the giant Antaeus. Rachel
had painted it a couple of months ago. My expression in the picture was fierce—disturbing, even—
so it was hard to tell if I was the good guy or the bad guy, but Rachel said I'd looked just like that
after the battle.
"Demigods," Rachel muttered as she threw another dart at the canvas. "And their stupid
quests."
Most of the darts bounced off, but a few stuck. One hung off my chin like a goatee.
Someone pounded on her bedroom door.
"Rachel!" a man shouted. "What in the world are you doing? Turn off that—"
Rachel scooped up her remote control and shut off the music. "Come in!"
Her dad walked in, scowling and blinking from the light. He had rust-colored hair a little
darker than Rachel's. It was smushed on one side like he'd lost a fight with his pillow. His blue silk
pajamas had "WD" monogrammed on the pocket. Seriously, who has monogrammed pajamas?
"What is going on?" he demanded. "It's three in the morning."
"Couldn't sleep," Rachel said.
On the painting, a dart fell off my face. Rachel hid the rest behind her back, but Mr. Dare
noticed.
"So . . . I take it your friend isn't coming to St. Thomas?" That's what Mr. Dare called me.
Never Percy. Just your friend. Or young man if he was talking to me, which he rarely did.
Rachel knit her eyebrows. "I don't know."
"We leave in the morning," her dad said. "If he hasn't made up his mind yet—"
"He's probably not coming," Rachel said miserably. "Happy?"
Mr. Dare put his hands behind his back. He paced the room with a stern expression. I
imagined he did that in the boardroom of his land development company and made his employees
nervous.