Reyna drew her sword. You can’t learn anything from ghosts, she had told her sister. Perhaps she couldn’t learn anything from giants, either.
‘This is not my home,’ she said. ‘And we are not alike.’
‘I have seen the truth.’ The giant sounded truly sympathetic. ‘You cling to the fantasy that you can make your enemies love you. You cannot, Reyna. There is no love for you at Camp Half-Blood.’
Aphrodite’s words echoed in her head: No demigod shall heal your heart.
Reyna studied the giant’s handsome, cruel face, his glowing mechanical eyes. For a terrible moment, she could understand how even a goddess, even an eternal maiden like Artemis, might fall for Orion’s honeyed words.
‘I could have killed you twenty times by now,’ the giant said. ‘You realize that, don’t you? Let me spare you. A simple show of faith is all I need. Tell me where the statue is.’
Reyna almost dropped her sword. Where the statue is …
Orion hadn’t located the Athena Parthenos. The Hunters’ camouflage had worked. All this time, the giant had been tracking Reyna, which meant that even if she died right now Nico and Coach Hedge might stay safe. The quest was not doomed.
She felt as if she’d shed a hundred pounds of armour. She laughed. The sound echoed down the cobblestone street.
‘Phoebe outsmarted you,’ she said. ‘By tracking me, you lost the statue. Now my friends are free to continue their mission.’
Orion curled his lip. ‘Oh, I will find them, Praetor. After I deal with you.’
‘Then I suppose,’ Reyna said, ‘we will have to deal with you first.’
‘That is my sister,’ Hylla said proudly.
Together they charged.
The giant’s first shot would have skewered Reyna, but Hylla was fast. She sliced the arrow out of the air and lunged at Orion. Reyna stabbed at his chest. The giant intercepted both of their attacks with his bow.
He kicked Hylla backwards into the hood of an old Chevy. Half a dozen cats scattered from underneath it. The giant spun, a dagger suddenly in his hand, and Reyna just managed to dodge the blade.
She stabbed again, ripping through his leather jerkin, but only managed to graze his chest.
‘You fight well, Praetor,’ he admitted. ‘But not well enough to live.’
Reyna willed her blade to extend into a pilum. ‘My death means nothing.’
If her friends could continue their quest in peace, she was fully prepared to go down fighting. But first she intended to hurt this giant so badly he would never forget her name.
‘What about your sister’s death?’ Orion asked. ‘Does that mean something?’
Faster than Reyna could blink, he sent an arrow flying towards Hylla’s chest. A scream built in Reyna’s throat, but somehow Hylla caught the arrow.
Hylla slid off the hood of the car and snapped the arrow with one hand. ‘I am the queen of the Amazons, you idiot. I wear the royal belt. With the strength it gives me, I will avenge the Amazons you killed today.’
Hylla grabbed the front bumper of the Chevy and flipped the entire car towards Orion, as easily as if she were splashing him with water in a swimming pool.
The Chevy sandwiched Orion against the wall of the nearest house. Stucco cracked. A banana tree toppled. More cats fled.
Reyna ran towards the wreckage, but the giant bellowed and shoved away the car.
‘You will die together!’ he promised. Two arrows appeared nocked in his bow, the string fully drawn back.
Then the rooftops exploded with noise.
‘DIE!’ Gleeson Hedge dropped directly behind Orion, smacking his baseball bat over the giant’s head so hard the Louisville Slugger cracked in half.
At the same time, Nico di Angelo dropped in front. He slashed his Stygian sword across the giant’s bowstring, causing pulleys and gears to zip and creak, the string recoiling with hundreds of pounds of force until it whacked Orion in the nose like a hydraulic bullwhip.
‘OOOOOOOOW!!’ Orion staggered backwards, dropping his bow.
Hunters of Artemis appeared along the rooftops, shooting Orion full of silver arrows until he resembled a glowing hedgehog. He staggered blindly, holding his nose, his face streaming with golden ichor.
Someone grabbed Reyna’s arm. ‘Come on!’ Thalia Grace had returned.
‘Go with her!’ Hylla ordered.
Reyna’s heart felt like it was shattering. ‘Sister –’
‘You have to leave! NOW!’ It was exactly what Hylla had said to her six years ago, the night they escaped their father’s house. ‘I’ll delay Orion as long as possible.’
Hylla grabbed one of the giant’s legs. She yanked him off balance and tossed him several blocks down the Calle San Jose, to the general consternation of several dozen more cats. The Hunters ran after him along the rooftops, shooting arrows that exploded in Greek fire, wreathing the giant in flames.
‘Your sister’s right,’ Thalia said. ‘You need to go.’
Nico and Hedge fell in alongside her, both looking very pleased with themselves. They had apparently gone shopping at the Barrachina souvenir shop, where they’d replaced their dirty tattered shirts with loud tropical numbers.
‘Nico,’ Reyna said, ‘you look –’
‘Not a word about the shirt,’ he warned. ‘Not one word.’
‘Why did you come looking for me?’ she demanded. ‘You could have got away free. The giant has been tracking me. If you had just left –’
‘You’re welcome, cupcake,’ the coach grumbled. ‘We weren’t about to leave without you. Now let’s get out of …’
He glanced over Reyna’s shoulder and his voice faltered.
Reyna turned.
Behind her, the second-storey balconies of her family house were crowded with glowing figures: a man with a forked beard and rusted conquistador armour; another bearded man in eighteenth-century pirate clothes, his shirt peppered with gunshot holes; a lady in a bloody nightgown; a U.S. Navy captain in his dress whites; and a dozen more Reyna knew from her childhood – all of them glaring at her accusingly, their voices whispering in her mind: Traitor. Murderer.
‘No …’ Reyna felt like she was ten years old again. She wanted to curl up in the corner of her room and press her hands over her ears to stop the whispering.
Nico took her arm. ‘Reyna, who are they? What do they – ?’
‘I can’t,’ she pleaded. ‘I – I can’t.’
She’d spent so many years building a dam inside her to hold back the fear. Now, it broke. Her strength washed away.
‘It’s all right.’ Nico gazed up at the balconies. The ghosts disappeared, but Reyna knew they weren’t really gone. They were never really gone. ‘We’ll get you out of here,’ Nico promised. ‘Let’s move.’
Thalia took Reyna’s other arm. The four of them ran for the restaurant and the Athena Parthenos. Behind them, Reyna heard Orion roaring in pain, Greek fire exploding.
And in her mind the voices still whispered: Murderer. Traitor. You can never flee your crime.