The army of skeletons rushed forward, swords out, guns clicking to full automatic. The Furies lunged, their whips bursting into flame.
Just as the skeletons opened fire, the pearl fragments at my feet exploded with a burst of green light and a gust of fresh sea wind. I was encased in a milky white sphere, which was starting to float off the ground.
Annabeth and Grover were right behind me. Spears and bullets sparked harmlessly off the pearl bubbles as we floated up. Hades yelled with such rage, the entire fortress shook and I knew it was not going to be a peaceful night in L.A.
"Look up.'" Grover yelled. "We're going to crash!" Sure enough, we were racing right toward the stalactites, which I figured would pop our bubbles and skewer us.
"How do you control these things?" Annabeth shouted.
"I don't think you do!" I shouted back.
We screamed as the bubbles slammed into the ceiling and ... Darkness. Were we dead?
No, I could still feel the racing sensation. We were going up, right through solid rock as easily as an air bubble in water. That was the power of the pearls, I realized— What belongs to the sea will always return to the sea.
For a few moments, I couldn't see anything outside the smooth walls of my sphere, then my pearl broke through on the ocean floor. The two other milky spheres, Annabeth and Grover, kept pace with me as we soared upward through the water. And— ker-blam!
We exploded on the surface, in the middle of the Santa Monica Bay, knocking a surfer off his board with an indignant, "Dude!"
I grabbed Grover and hauled him over to a life buoy. I caught Annabeth and dragged her over too. A curious shark was circling us, a great white about eleven feet long. I said, "Beat it."
The shark turned and raced away.
The surfer screamed something about bad mushrooms and paddled away from us as fast as he could.
Somehow, I knew what time it was: early morning, June 21, the day of the summer solstice. In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, all right, and it was Hades's fault. He was probably sending an army of the dead after me right now.
But at the moment, the Underworld wasn't my biggest problem.
I had to get to shore. I had to get Zeus's thunderbolt back to Olympus. Most of all, I had to have a serious conversation with the god who'd tricked me.
20 I BATTLE MY
JERK RELATIVE
A Coast Guard boat picked us up, but they were too busy to keep us for long, or to wonder how three kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. There was a disaster to mop up. Their radios were jammed with distress calls.
They dropped us off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around our shoulders and water bottles that said I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people. Our clothes were sopping wet, even mine. When the Coast Guard boat had appeared, I'd silently prayed they wouldn't pick me out of the water and find me perfectly dry, which might've raised some eyebrows. So I'd willed myself to get soaked. Sure enough, my usual waterproof magic had abandoned me. I was also barefoot, because I'd given my shoes to Grover. Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of us was barefoot than wonder why one of us had hooves. After reaching dry land, we stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. I felt as if I'd just come back from the dead—which I had. My backpack was heavy with Zeus's master bolt. My heart was even heavier from seeing my mother.
"I don't believe it," Annabeth said. "We went all that way—"
"It was a trick," I said. "A strategy worthy of Athena."
"Hey," she warned.
"You get it, don't you?"
She dropped her eyes, her anger fading. "Yeah. I get it."
"Well, I don't!" Grover complained. "Would somebody—"
"Percy ..." Annabeth said. "I'm sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry...." I pretended not to hear her. If I talked about my mother, I was going to start crying like a little kid.
"The prophecy was right," I said. "You shall go west and face the god who has turned.' But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and Hades's helm, and framed me because I'm Poseidon's kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And I'll have caused it."
Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?"
I stopped in my tracks, looking down the beach. "Gee, let me think." There he was, waiting for us, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red.
"Hey, kid," Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see me. "You were supposed to die."