Rick Riordan Percy Jackson and the Olympians
75
75 hugged him before. " I ' ll make it up to you, Dad!" He smiled, but his expression was chilly. He studied her like he wasn ' t seeing his daughter— just the young lady he wanted her to be, once Clarion Academy got through with her. " Yes, Rachel," he agreed. " You most certainly will." The scene faded. I mumbled in my sleep: " Rachel, no!" I was still tossing and turning when Thalia shook me awake. " Percy," she said. " Come on. It ' s late afternoon. We ' ve got visitors." I sat up, disoriented. The bed was too comfortable, and I hated sleeping in the middle of the day. " Visitors?" I said. Thalia nodded grimly. " A Titan wants to see you, under a flag of truce. He has a message from Kronos."
Chapter Thirteen
A Titan Brings Me A Present
We could see the white flag from half a mile away. It was as big as a soccer field, carried by a thirty-foot-tall giant with bright blue skin and icy gray hair.
" A Hyperborean," Thalia said. " The giants of the north. It ' s a bad sign that they sided with Kronos. They ' re usually peaceful."
" You ' ve met them?" I said. " Mmm. There ' s a big colony in Alberta. You do not want to get into a snowball fight with those guys."
As the giant got closer, I could see three human-size envoys with him: a half-blood in armor, an empousa demon with a black dress and flaming hair, and a tall man in a tuxedo. The empousa held the tux dude ' s arm, so they looked like a couple on their way to a Broadway show or something— except for her flaming hair and fangs. The group walked leisurely toward the Heckscher Playground. The swings and ball courts were empty. The only sound was the fountain on Umpire Rock. I looked at Grover. " The tux dude is the Titan?" He nodded nervously. " He looks like a magician. I hate magicians. They usually have rabbits." I stared at him. " You ' re scared of bunnies?"
" Blah-hah-hah! They ' re big bullies. Always stealing celery from defenseless satyrs!" Thalia coughed. " What?" Grover demanded. " We ' ll have to work on your bunny phobia later," I said. " Here they come." The man in the tux stepped forward. He was taller than an average human— about seven feet. His black hair was tied in a ponytail. Dark round glasses covered his eyes, but what really caught my attention was the skin on his face. It was covered in scratches, like he ' d been attacked by a small animal— a really, really mad hamster, maybe. " Percy Jackson," he said in a silky voice. " It ' s a great honor." His lady friend the empousa hissed at me. She ' d probably heard how I ' d destroyed two of her sisters last summer. " My dear," Tux Dude said to her. " Why don ' t you make yourself comfortable over there, eh?"
She released his arm and drifted over to a park bench.
I glanced at the armed demigod behind Tux Dude. 1 hadn ' t recognized him in his new helmet, but it was my old backstabbing buddy Ethan Nakamura. His nose looked like a squashed tomato from our fight on the Williamsburg Bridge. That made me feel better.
" Hey, Ethan," I said. " You ' re looking good."