Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
cold.
45
45
"Well," Luke said, spreading his arms proudly. "A little nicer than Cabin Eleven, huh?"
He'd changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a
button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was
now clipped short. He looked like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age
villain was wearing to Harvard this year.
He still had the scar under his eye—a jagged white line from his battle with a dragon. And
propped against the sofa was his magical sword, Backbiter, glinting strangely with its half-steel, half-
Celestial bronze blade that could kill both mortals and monsters.
"Sit," he told us. He waved his hand and three dining chairs scooted themselves into the
center of the room.
None of us sat.
Luke's large friends were still pointing their javelins at us. They looked like twins, but they
weren't human. They stood about eight feet tall, for one thing, and wore only blue jeans, probably
because their enormous chests were already shag-carpeted with thick brown fur. They had claws
for fingernails, feet like paws. Their noses were snoutlike, and their teeth were all pointed canines.
"Where are my manners?" Luke said smoothly. "These are my assistants, Agrius and
Oreius. Perhaps you've heard of them."
I said nothing. Despite the javelins pointed at me, it wasn't the bear twins who scared me.
I'd imagined meeting Luke again many times since he'd tried to kill me last summer. I'd
pictured myself boldly standing up to him, challenging him to a duel. But now that we were face-to-
face, I could barely stop my hands from shaking.
"You don't know Agrius and Oreius's story?" Luke asked. "Their mother ... well, it's sad,
really. Aphrodite ordered the young woman to fall in love. She refused and ran to Artemis for help.
Artemis let her become one of her maiden huntresses, but Aphrodite got her revenge. She
bewitched the young woman into falling in love with a bear. When Artemis found out, she
abandoned the girl in disgust. Typical of the gods, wouldn't you say? They fight with one another
and the poor humans get caught in the middle. The girl's twin sons here, Agrius and Oreius, have
no love for Olympus. They like half-bloods well enough, though ..."
"For lunch," Agrius growled. His gruff voice was the one I'd heard talking with Luke earlier.
"Hehe! Hehe!" His brother Oreius laughed, licking his fur-lined lips. He kept laughing like he
was having an asthmatic fit until Luke and Agrius both stared at him.
"Shut up, you idiot!" Agrius growled. "Go punish yourself!"
Oreius whimpered. He trudged over to the corner of the room, slumped onto a stool, and
banged his forehead against the dining table, making the silver plates rattle.
Luke acted like this was perfectly normal behavior. He made himself comfortable on the sofa
and propped his feet up on the coffee table. "Well, Percy, we let you survive another year. I hope
you appreciated it. How's your mom? How's school?"
"You poisoned Thalia's tree."
Luke sighed. "Right to the point, eh? Okay, sure I poisoned the tree. So what?"
"How could you?" Annabeth sounded so angry I thought she'd explode. "Thalia saved your
life! Our lives! How could you dishonor her—"
"I didn't dishonor her!" Luke snapped. "The gods dishonored her, Annabeth! If Thalia were
alive, she'd be on my side."
"Liar!"
"If you knew what was coming, you'd understand—"
"I understand you want to destroy the camp!" she yelled. "You're a monster!"
Luke shook his head. "The gods have blinded you. Can't you imagine a world without them,
Annabeth? What good is that ancient history you study? Three thousand years of baggage! The
West is rotten to the core. It has to be destroyed. Join me! We can start the world anew. We could
use your intelligence, Annabeth."
"Because you have none of your own!"
His eyes narrowed. "I know you, Annabeth. You deserve better than tagging along on some
hopeless quest to save the camp. Half-Blood Hill will be overrun by monsters within the month. The
heroes who survive will have no choice but to join us or be hunted to extinction. You really want to