Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
11
11
tangled in her ponytail, as if she'd slept several nights in the open. The slashes on the hems of her
jeans looked suspiciously like claw marks.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
All around us, sirens wailed. I figured it wouldn't be long before more cops cruised by,
looking for juvenile delinquent gym-bombers. No doubt Matt Sloan had given them a statement by
now. He'd probably twisted the story around so that Tyson and I were the bloodthirsty cannibals.
"Found one. Thank the gods." Annabeth pulled out a gold coin that I recognized as a
drachma, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus's likeness stamped on one side and the
Empire State Building on the other.
"Annabeth," I said, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."
"Stêthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ô hárma diabolês!"
As usual, the moment she spoke in the language of Olympus, I somehow understood it.
She'd said: Stop, Chariot of Damnation!
That didn't exactly make me feel real excited about whatever her plan was.
She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank
right through and disappeared.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool
about the size of a parking space—bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze.
It was a taxi, all right, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn't yellow. It was smoky
gray. I mean it looked like it was woven out of smoke, like you could walk right through it. There
were words printed on the door—something like GYAR SSIRES—but my dyslexia made it hard for
me to decipher what it said.
The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop
of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she'd just had a
shot of Novocain. "Passage? Passage?"
"Three to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at
me to get in, like this was all completely normal.
"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!"
She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.
What was it? Pick-on-Big-and-Ugly-Kids Day?
"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."
"Done!" the woman screamed.
Reluctantly I got in the cab. Tyson squeezed in the middle. Annabeth crawled in last.
The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough. The seat was cracked and lumpy—
no different than most taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating us from the old lady driving
... Wait a minute. There wasn't just one old lady. There were three, all crammed in the front seat,
each with stringy hair covering her eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress.
The one driving said, "Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!"
She floored the accelerator, and my head slammed against the backrest. A prerecorded
voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out
buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!
I looked down and found a large black chain instead of a seat belt. I decided I wasn't that
desperate ... yet.
The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the gray lady sitting in the middle
screeched, "Look out! Go left!"
"Well, if you'd give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!" the driver complained.
Wait a minute. Give her the eye?
I didn't have time to ask questions because the driver swerved to avoid an oncoming delivery
truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling thump, and flew into the next block.
"Wasp!" the third lady said to the driver. "Give me the girl's coin! I want to bite it."
"You bit it last time, Anger!" said the driver, whose name must've been Wasp. "It's my turn!"
"Is not!" yelled the one called Anger.
The middle one, Tempest, screamed, "Red light!"
"Brake!" yelled Anger.