Rick Riordan
The Sea Monsters - 02
body. I knew with horrible certainty that my friend had just been turned into a column of ashes.
But when the fire died, Tyson was still standing there, completely unharmed. Not even his
grungy clothes were scorched. The bull must've been as surprised as I was, because before it could
unleash a second blast, Tyson balled his fists and slammed them into the bull's face. "BAD COW!"
His fists made a crater where the bronze bull's snout used to be. Two small columns of flame
shot out of its ears. Tyson hit it again, and the bronze crumpled under his hands like aluminum foil.
The bull's face now looked like a sock puppet pulled inside out.
"Down!" Tyson yelled.
The bull staggered and fell on its back. Its legs moved feebly in the air, steam coming out of
its ruined head in odd places.
Annabeth ran over to check on me.
My ankle felt like it was filled with acid, but she gave me some Olympian nectar to drink from
her canteen, and I immediately started to feel better. There was a burning smell that I later learned
was me. The hair on my arms had been completely singed off.
"The other bull?" I asked.
Annabeth pointed down the hill. Clarisse had taken care of Bad Cow Number Two. She'd
impaled it through the back leg with a celestial bronze spear. Now, with its snout half gone and a
huge gash in its side, it was trying to run in slow motion, going in circles like some kind of merry-go-
round animal.
Clarisse pulled off her helmet and marched toward us. A strand of her stringy brown hair was
smoldering, but she didn't seem to notice. "You—ruin—everything!" she yelled at me. "I had it under
control!"
I was too stunned to answer. Annabeth grumbled, "Good to see you too, Clarisse."
"Argh!" Clarisse screamed. "Don't ever, EVER try saving me again!"
"Clarisse," Annabeth said, "you've got wounded campers."
That sobered her up. Even Clarisse cared about the soldiers under her command.
"I'll be back," she growled, then trudged off to assess the damage.
I stared at Tyson. "You didn't die."
Tyson looked down like he was embarrassed. "I am sorry. Came to help. Disobeyed you."
"My fault," Annabeth said. "I had no choice. I had to let Tyson cross the boundary line to
save you. Otherwise, you would've died."
"Let him cross the boundary line?'" I asked. "But—"
"Percy," she said, "have you ever looked at Tyson closely? I mean ... in the face. Ignore the
Mist, and really look at him."
The Mist makes humans see only what their brains can process ... I knew it could fool
demigods too, but...
I looked Tyson in the face. It wasn't easy. I'd always had trouble looking directly at him,
though I'd never quite understood why. I'd thought it was just because he always had peanut butter
in his crooked teeth. I forced myself to focus at his big lumpy nose, then a little higher at his eyes.
No, not eyes.
One eye. One large, calf-brown eye, right in the middle of his forehead, with thick lashes and
big tears trickling down his cheeks on either side.
"Tyson," I stammered. "You're a ..."
"Cyclops," Annabeth offered. "A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn't get past
the boundary line as easily as the bulls. Tyson's one of the homeless orphans."
"One of the what?"
"They're in almost all the big cities," Annabeth said distastefully. "They're ... mistakes, Percy.
Children of nature spirits and gods ... Well, one god in particular, usually ... and they don't always
come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don't
know how this one found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to Chiron, let him
decide what to do."
"But the fire. How—"
"He's a Cyclops." Annabeth paused, as if she were remembering something unpleasant.
"They work the forges of the gods. They have to be immune to fire. That's what I was trying to tell
you."
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