“You—can’t—kill me,” Alcyoneus growled. “You can’t—”
Frank turned back to his normal form. He walked up to the giant, whose oily wounds were steaming. The gems fell out of his hair and sizzled in the snow. His golden skin began to corrode, breaking into chunks.
Hazel dismounted and stood next to Frank, her sword ready. “May I?”
Frank nodded. He looked into the giant’s seething eyes. “Here’s a tip, Alcyoneus. Next time you choose the biggest state for your home, don’t set up base in the part that’s only ten miles wide. Welcome to Canada, idiot.”
Hazel’s sword came down on the giant’s neck. Alcyoneus dissolved into a pile of very expensive rocks.
For a while Hazel and Frank stood together, watching the remains of the giant melt into the ice. Frank picked up his rope.
“An elephant?” Hazel asked.
Frank scratched his neck. “Yeah. It seemed like a good idea.”
He couldn’t read her expression. He was afraid he’d finally done something so weird that she’d never want to be around him again. Frank Zhang: lumbering klutz, child of Mars, part-time pachyderm.
Then she kissed him—a real kiss on the lips, much better than the kind of kiss she’d given Percy on the airplane.
“You are amazing,” she said. “And you make a very hand some elephant.”
Frank felt so flustered that he thought his boots might melt through the ice. Before he could say anything, a voice echoed across the valley:
You haven’t won.
Frank looked up. Shadows were shifting across the nearest mountain, forming the face of a sleeping woman.
You will never reach home in time, taunted the voice of Gaea. Even now, Thanatos is attending the death of Camp Jupiter, the final destruction of your Roman friends.
The mountain rumbled as if the whole earth were laughing. The shadows disappeared.
Hazel and Frank looked at each other. Neither said a word. They climbed onto Arion and sped back toward Glacier Bay.
PERCY WAS WAITING FOR THEM. He looked mad.
He stood at the edge of the glacier, leaning on the staff with the golden eagle, gazing down at the wreckage he’d caused: several hundred acres of newly open water dotted with icebergs and flotsam from the ruined camp.
The only remains on the glacier were the main gates, which listed sideways, and a tattered blue banner lying over a pile of snow-bricks.
When they ran up to him, Percy said, “Hey,” like they were just meeting for lunch or something.
“You’re alive!” Frank marveled.
Percy frowned. “The fall? That was nothing. I fell twice that far from the St. Louis Arch.”
“You did what?” Hazel asked.
“Never mind. The important thing was I didn’t drown.”
“So the prophecy was incomplete!” Hazel grinned. “It probably said something like: The son of Neptune will drown a whole bunch of ghosts.”
Percy shrugged. He was still looking at Frank like he was miffed. “I got a bone to pick with you, Zhang. You can turn into an eagle? And a bear?”
“And an elephant,” Hazel said proudly.
“An elephant.” Percy shook his head in disbelief. “That’s your family gift? You can change shape?”
Frank shuffled his feet. “Um…yeah. Periclymenus, my ancestor, the Argonaut—he could do that. He passed down the ability.”
“And he got that gift from Poseidon,” Percy said. “That’s completely unfair. I can’t turn into animals.”
Frank stared at him. “Unfair? You can breathe underwater and blow up glaciers and summon freaking hurricanes—and it’s unfair that I can be an elephant?”
Percy considered. “Okay. I guess you got a point. But next time I say you’re totally beast—”
“Just shut up,” Frank said. “Please.”
Percy cracked a smile.
“If you guys are done,” Hazel said, “we need to go. Camp Jupiter is under attack. They could use that gold eagle.”
Percy nodded. “One thing first, though. Hazel, there’s about a ton of Imperial gold weapons and armor at the bottom of the bay now, plus a really nice chariot. I’m betting that stuff could come in handy.…”
It took them a long time—too long—but they all knew those weapons could make the difference between victory and defeat if they got them back to camp in time.
Hazel used her abilities to levitate some items from the bottom of the sea. Percy swam down and brought up more. Even Frank helped by turning into a seal, which was kind of cool, though Percy claimed his breath smelled like fish.
It took all three of them to raise the chariot, but finally they’d managed to haul everything ashore to a black sand beach near the base of the glacier. They couldn’t fit everything in the chariot, but they used Frank’s rope to strap down most of the gold weapons and the best pieces of armor.
“It looks like Santa’s sleigh,” Frank said. “Can Arion even pull that much?”
Arion huffed.