CHAPTER FIVE:
PIGEONS FROM HELL

      The next few days weren't as bad as Percy says.

      First there was Tyson moving into the Poseidon cabin, giggling to himself every fifteen seconds and saying, "Percy is my brother!" and "River is sister!" like he'd just won the lottery.

      "Aw, Tyson," Percy would say. "It's not that simple."

      But there was no explaining it to him. He was in heaven. Percy on the other hand, as much as he claimed to like the big guy, he was clearly a mix a embarrassed and ashamed.

      The only problem I had were the comments from the other campers. Suddenly, I wasn't River Jackson, the cool kid who'd retrieved Zeus's lightning bolt last summer. Now I was River Jackson, the poor schmuck with the ugly monster for a brother.

      I'd always yell some curse at them, sometimes I would debate hitting them, but I wasn't gonna let that Antless guy have the glory of yelling at me.

      Percy would yell back "He's not my real brother!" whenever Tyson wasn't around. "He's more like a half-brother on the monstrous side of the family. Like...a half-brother twice removed, or something."

      I tried to ignore it, but it was getting kind of annoying.

      He was our brother, whether Percy liked it or not.

      Annabeth tried to make him feel better. She suggested we team up for the chariot race to take our minds off our problems. Don't get me wrong—we all hated Tantalus and we were worried sick about camp—but we didn't know what to do about it. Until we could come up with some brilliant plan to save Thalia's tree, we figured we might as well go along with the races. After all, Annabeth's mom, Athena, had invented the chariot, and our dad had created horses. Together we would own that track.

      One morning we were sitting by the canoe lake sketching chariot designs when some jokers from Aphrodite's cabin walked by and asked me if I needed to borrow some eyeliner for my eye... "Oh sorry, eyes."

      If Percy wasn't sitting there I probably would have broken one of their noses. Not that it would matter, somehow they would still look beautiful.

      As they walked away laughing, Annabeth grumbled, "Just ignore them, Percy. It isn't your fault you have a monster for a brother."

      "He's not my brother!" Percy snapped.

      "And he's not a monster, either" I added.

      Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Hey, don't get mad at me! And technically, he is a monster."

      "Well you gave him permission to enter the camp." Percy said.

      "Because it was the only way to save your life! I mean...I'm sorry, Percy, I didn't expect Poseidon to claim him. Cyclopes are the most deceitful, treacherous—"

      "He is not! What have you got against Cyclopes, anyway?"

      Annabeth's ears turned pink. I got the feeling there was something she wasn't telling us—something bad.

      "Just forget it," she said. "Now, the axle for this chariot—"

      "You're treating him like he's this horrible thing," Percy said. "He saved my life."

      Annabeth threw down her pencil and stood. "Then maybe you should design a chariot with him."

      "Maybe I should."

      "Fine!"

      "Fine!"

      She stormed off and left me sitting with Percy. "Dude. She was the only chance we had to win" I said before standing up and walking away.

      The next couple of days, I tried to keep my mind off my problems.

      Silena Beauregard, one of the nicer girls from Aphrodite's cabin, gave me my first riding lesson on a pegasus. She explained that there was only one immortal winged horse named Pegasus, who still wandered free somewhere in the skies, but over the eons he'd sired a lot of children, none quite so fast or heroic, but all named after the first and greatest.

      Being the daughter of the sea god, I never liked going into the air. My dad had this rivalry with Zeus, so I tried to stay out of the lord of the sky's domain as much as possible. But riding a winged horse felt different. It didn't make me nearly as nervous as being in an airplane.

      The problem was that Tyson wanted to ride the "chicken ponies," too, but the pegasi got skittish whenever he approached. I told them telepathically that Tyson wouldn't hurt them, but they didn't seem to believe me. That made Tyson cry.

      The only person at camp who had no problem with Tyson was Beckendorf from the blacksmith guys cabin.

      The blacksmith god had always worked with Cyclopes in his forges, so Beckendorf took Tyson down to the armory to teach him metalworking. He said he'd have Tyson crafting magic items like a master in no time.

      Beckendorf was officially my favorite hepfeetstis kid.

      I still feel like im saying that wrong?

      After lunch, we worked out in the arena with Apollo's cabin. Swordplay had never exactly been my strength, but it never hurts to practice.

      Actually it hurts my arms.

      Percy on the other hand is great, people say he is better at it than any camper in the last hundred years, except maybe Luke.

      People always compared him to Luke.

      It made me so mad.

      He thrashed the Apollo guys easily. He should've been testing himself against the Ares and Athena cabins, since they had the best sword fighters, but we didn't get along with Clarisse and her siblings, and after his argument with Annabeth, he refused to see her.

      I went to archery class, even though I was terrible at it, and it wasn't the same without Chiron teaching.

      In arts and crafts, I made myself a bracelet, since that's all I knew how to craft.

      I scaled the climbing wall in full lava-and earthquake mode. And in the evenings, I did border patrol with Percy. Even though the new director guy had insisted we forget trying to protect the camp, some of the campers had quietly kept it up, working out a schedule during our free times.

      We sat at the top of Half-Blood Hill and watched the dryads come and go, singing to the dying pine tree. Satyrs brought their reed pipes and played nature magic songs, and for a while the pine needles seemed to get fuller. The flowers on the hill smelled a little sweeter and the grass looked greener. But as soon as the music stopped, the sickness crept back into the air. The whole hill seemed to be infected, dying from the poison that had sunk into the tree's roots. The longer I sat there, the angrier I got.

      "Luke had done this." Percy would constantly mutter, andI knew he was right. He'd pretended to be his friend, and the whole time he'd been Kronos's number-one servant.

      I felt bad for Percy, but anytime I tried to talk to him about it he would change the subject.

      The night before the race, we finished our chariot. It was wicked cool. Tyson had made the metal parts in the armory's forges. Percy and I had sanded the wood and put the carriage together. It was blue and white, with wave designs on the sides and a trident painted on the front. After all that work, it seemed only fair that Tyson would ride shotgun with percy, though I knew the horses wouldn't like it, and Tyson's extra weight would slow them down, I decided that I would rather not get run over by Clarisse's chariot.

      As we were turning in for bed, Tyson said, "You are mad?" I looked over from my bunk. He was talking to Percy "Nah. I'm not mad." Percy said.

      He lay down in his bunk and was quiet in the dark. His body was way too long for his bed. When he pulled up the covers, his feet stuck out the bottom. "I am a monster."

      "Don't say that."

      "It is okay. I will be a good monster. Then you will not have to be mad."

      I hated seeing Tyson sad, it made me want to cry.

      "It's just... I never had a half-brother before." Percy said, his voice slightly echoing through the cabin. "It's really different for me. And I'm worried about the camp. And another friend of mine, Grover...he might be in trouble. I keep feeling like I should be doing something to help, but I don't know what."

      Tyson said nothing.

      "I'm sorry," percy told him. "It's not your fault. I'm mad at Poseidon. I feel like he's trying to embarrass me, like he's trying to compare us or something, and I don't understand why."

      I heard a deep rumbling sound. Tyson was snoring.

      He sighed. "Good night, big guy." Percy looked over at me "night River" and then closed his eyes too.

      It took me over an hour to fall asleep. I mean it was never easy for me to fall asleep, but lately it's gotten worse. It's like everytime I came to camp it would stir up bad dreams that scared me awake.

      In my dream, I was standing at the edge of the ocean. It was dark, thankfully no rain (I was getting sick of those dreams), the beach seamed to stretch to each side so far I couldn't even see the end.

      It was quiet. A kind of quiet that would have been weird if I wasn't in a dream.

      The wind was strong. I could hear trees blowing, even tho there were no trees. The waves crashed onto shore every few second.

      If I said this didn't scare me, I'd be lying.

      Just when I thought nothing was gonna happen I heard a voice. It was female, that much I knew, it wasn't high pitch, but also not deep.

      It had this slight familiarity to it, like I was supposed to know who it was, as if I'd met her.

      "Over here demigod" the voice called, echoing throughout the area. Safe to say I had no idea where "over here" was.

      I spun around, looking in all directions hoping to find the source, but there was nothing.

      "Behind you" the voice whispered in my ear.

      I spun around so fast I could've broken my neck. I let out my sword, slashing it in a wide arch behind me, but it hit nothing.

      This was getting creepy.

      I noticed a large cloud of fog begin to circle around me maybe a mile out. But it was dark, almost black. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, is not normal.

      I felt a sudden brush again my back, as if someone slid their freezing cold fingers down my back. I practically jumped 20 feet in the air.

      This time when I spun around, there was a woman. A very beautiful woman, might I add.

      She had long brown hair that cascaded down her back in evenly placed curls. Her face had just the lightest splash of freckles the remained only on her cheeks. Then there were her eyes, they were the coldest set of brown eyes I've seen in my entire life.

      She looked weirdly familiar.

      "Hello River" my shock finally slapped me across the face and I screamed, tripped over my own feet, and flopped into the sand.

      The woman laughed. And though it should have been creepy, it was kinda calming.

      "You should not be scared, dear" she smiled holding out her hand "I am only here to help, that's all"

      I hesitantly took her hand and she pulled me up.

      "Yeah you made that very clear with the creepy whispers and the fog" I said standing up straight and dusting the sand off my pants.

      She laughed again.

      It was such a beautiful laugh I couldn't help but smile.

      I took that moment to take in the rest of her appearance. She was maybe 5'6", probably around 18-20, and dressed in a beautiful whiteish-blue gown. Around her perfectly toned arms were a few bracelets, one of which looked like a braid. She was very clearly a goddess.

      "It is always fun to scare you a little" the goddess said. With a wave of her hand the fog was gone and replaced by a beautiful view of a forest.

      "Beautiful isn't it" she asked from beside me. She must have noticed my staring.

      "I— yes, it's like one of those views you don't think exist because you can only seem to find them on Google."

      She looked confused for a second before slightly nodding. "I suppose I know what you mean"

      She began to walk down the beach, I followed.

      "Who are you?" I asked before we got too far into the conversation.

      "Well you knew who I was last time we met" she gave me a small smile.

      "The last time we met?" I'm pretty sure I would remember meeting someone this beautiful.

      "Oh yes, but I don't believe you would remember that" she looked slightly annoyed "after the whole lotus layer incident"

      "The hotel?" I asked. She nodded, taking a sip of the drink I didn't even know she had.

      "To answer your past question, I am Anemone" the words rolled off her tongue in a sweet harmony "I believe you—oh what is it you mortals say—have a crush my daughter"

      I began to choke on the air. "I don't— it's not— you—" my face went flat "I don't know what you're talking about"

      The goddess stopped and turned to me "do you believe me to be stupid?" She asked, her voice stern.

      My face dropped "No"

      A smile grew back onto her face "good, I would hate to have to kill you"

      I began to walk next to her again, only much more cautiously.

      "I had hoped you were not the one" she hummed tapping her glass "though my daughter does deserve someone like you"

      I looked towards her "What do you mean by that"

      "Only that you are kind, loyal—much like your brother—, beautiful, and brave" her voice trailed off and she glanced over at me for a brief second.

      When a literal goddess says you are beautiful, it is very reasonable to pass out. Thankfully I held my composure.

      "I only wish you did not already have your fate so set in stone" my heart dropped.

      "Wait what"

      She turned to me "I have said to much already, love." She gave me a sad look.

      I looked down "Yeah, I get it"

      "You are very kind River Jackson, and you must know that what you will face in the future, is nothing I would consider kind, but I believe that you will prove the others wrong." She set her glass down on a table beside her.

      Where the hell did that table come from?

      She looked up at the sky, a light breeze blowing her hair to the side. "I must go now" she said.

      There was another crash from the waves and my feet were suddenly soaked.

      "Keep my daughter safe, will you?"

      I nodded.

      "Goodbye, River, I hope we will speak again" she then disappeared.

      The dream faded and my eyes slowly opened.

      I looked out the widow closest to my bed. It was bright out, which hopefully meant it was morning.

      Tyson and Percy were still asleep in there beds, Tyson was snoring louder then a lawnmower, while Percy looked to be slightly shivering, even though it was pretty warm outside.

      I walked over to his bed and lightly placed my hand on his shoulder. His eyes snapped open, it was actually kinda freaky.

      "You okay" I asked quietly. He froze for a moment before nodding.

      I didn't exactly believe him, but if he didn't want to talk about it, I wasn't gonna push him.

      The morning of the race was hot and humid. Fog lay low on the ground like sauna steam. Millions of birds were roosting in the trees—fat gray-and-white pigeons, except they didn't coo like regular pigeons. They made this annoying metallic screeching sound that reminded me of submarine radar.

      The racetrack had been built in a grassy field between the archery range and the woods.
Hephaestus's cabin had used the bronze bulls, which were completely tame since they'd had their heads smashed in, to plow an oval track in a matter of minutes.

      There were rows of stone steps for the spectators—Tantalus, the satyrs, a few dryads, and all of the campers who weren't participating. Mr. D didn't show. He never got up before ten o'clock.

"Right!" Tantalus announced as the teams began to assemble. A naiad had brought him a big platter of pastries, and as Tantalus spoke, his right hand chased a chocolate eclair across the judge's table.

"You all know the rules. A quarter-mile track. Twice around to win. Two horses per chariot. Each team will consist of a driver and a fighter. Weapons are allowed. Dirty tricks are expected. But try not to kill anybody!" Tantalus smiled at us like we were all naughty children. "Any killing will result in harsh punishment. No s'mores at the campfire for a week! Now ready your chariots!"

Beckendorf led the Hephaestus team onto the track. They had a sweet ride made of bronze and iron-even the horses, which were magical automatons like the Colchis bulls. I had no doubt that their chariot had all kinds of mechanical traps and more fancy options than a fully loaded Maserati.

The Ares chariot was bloodred, and pulled by two grisly horse skeletons. Clarisse climbed aboard with a batch of javelins, spiked balls, caltrops, and a bunch of other nasty toys.

Apollo's chariot was trim and graceful and completely gold, pulled by two beautiful palominos. Their fighter was Lee, who was armed with a bow, though he had promised not to shoot regular pointed arrows at the opposing drivers.

Hermes's chariot was green and kind of old-looking, as if it hadn't been out of the garage in years. It didn't look like anything special, but it was manned by the Stoll brothers, and I knew that they definitely had some dirty tricks.

That left two chariots: one driven by Annabeth, and the other by Percy.

Before the race began, i noticed Percy try to speak to Annabeth, but she just seemed to get angry at him.

I joined the other campers on the bleachers, sitting between Aella and Estella.

The two of them looked completely out of it.

Aella hadn't taken her eyes off of Thalia's tree, it was as if they were having a staring contest and she was determined to win.

Estella looked like she hadn't slept all winter. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, but peices of hair still split out everywhere. She looks as if she lost half her weight, which made her look closer to 18 then 15. Her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying for the past week and had dark circles below them.

I wanted to say that she was like this because of Thalia's tree, but from what I know, the two didn't even know each other.

"You okay Estella" I asked. She snapped out of her daze and slightly turned to me. She didn't say anything, she just nodded.

I looked at her suspiciously before turning to Aella "What about you" I asked.

Aella didn't answer, she kept staring.

Before I could repeat myself, the conch horn sounded.

"Charioteers!" Tantalus called. "To your mark!"

Once I took my eyes off the girls beside me, I noticed how many more pigeons were in the trees now-screeching like crazy, making the whole forest rustle. Nobody else seemed to be paying them much attention, but they made me nervous. Their beaks glinted strangely. Their eyes seemed shinier than regular birds.

Now, if you've never seen a Greek chariot, it's built for speed, not safety or comfort. It's basically a wooden basket, open at the back, mounted on an axle between two wheels. The driver stands up the whole time, and you can feel every bump in the road. The carriage is made of such light wood that if you wipe out making the hairpin turns at either end of the track, you'll probably tip over and crush both the chariot and yourself.

As the chariots lined up, more shiny-eyed pigeons gathered in the woods. They were screeching so loudly the people in the stands were starting to take notice, glancing nervously at the trees, which shivered under the weight of the birds. Tantalus didn't look concerned, but he did have to speak up to be heard over the noise.

"Charioteers!" he shouted. "Attend your mark!"

He waved his hand and the starting signal dropped. The chariots roared to life. Hooves thundered against the dirt. The crowd cheered.

Almost immediately there was a loud nasty crack! The Apollo chariot had flip over. The Hermes chariot had rammed into it—maybe by mistake, probably not. The riders were thrown free, but their panicked horses dragged the golden chariot diagonally across the track. The Hermes team, Travis and Connor Stoll, were laughing at their good luck, but not for long. The Apollo horses crashed into theirs, and the Hermes chariot flipped too, leaving a pile of broken wood and four rearing horses in the dust.

Two chariots down in the first twenty feet. Percy and Tyson were so screwed.

They were making good time, pulling ahead of Ares, but Annabeth's chariot was way ahead of them. She was already making her turn around the first post, her javelin man grinning and waving at them, shouting something I couldn't hear.

The Hephaestus chariot was starting to gain on them, too.

Beckendorf pressed a button, and a panel slid open on the side of his chariot.

"Sorry, Percy!" he yelled (I think). Three sets of balls and chains shot straight toward their wheels. They would've wrecked them completely if Tyson hadn't whacked them aside with a quick swipe of his pole.

He gave the Hephaestus chariot a good shove and sent them skittering sideways while him and Percy pulled ahead.

They yelled something towards each other that I could quite make out with all the noise, but I did notice Tyson point towards the trees.

The pigeons had risen from the trees. They were spiraling like a huge tornado, heading toward the track.

I'm a blink of an eye the birds had crossed the track and mixed into the stands.

The only thing I was able to concentrate on was the pinches of pain all over my body as they continuously bite me.

My ring turned into a sword and I began to bat them off as if it were a fly-swatter. It took a moment before I saw Aella doing the same thing.

There was screaming coming from the people around us and only a few seemed to have snapped out of the panic and fight off the birds.

      Aella swung her hand out and a big gust of wind took out a good chunk of the birds, but also made a few people lose their footing and fall.

The pigeons were swarming—thousands of them dive-bombing the others in the stands, attacking the other chariots.

Beckendorf was mobbed. His fighter tried to bat the birds away but he couldn't see anything. The chariot veered off course and plowed through the strawberry fields, the mechanical horses steaming.

In the Ares chariot, Clarisse barked an order to her fighter, who quickly threw a screen of camouflage netting over their basket. The birds swarmed around it, pecking and clawing at the fighter's hands as he tried to hold up the net, but Clarisse just gritted her teeth and kept driving. Her skeletal horses seemed immune to the distraction. The pigeons pecked uselessly at their empty eye sockets and flew through their rib cages, but the stallions kept right on running.

The birds were slashing at any bit of exposed flesh, driving everyone into a panic. Now that the birds were closer, it was clear they weren't normal pigeons.

Their eyes were beady and evil-looking. Their beaks were made of bronze, and judging from the yelps of the campers, they must've been razor sharp.

Some of the computers had started trying to fight back. The Athena campers were calling for shields. The archers from Apollo's cabin brought out their bows and arrows, ready to slay the menace, but with so many campers mixed in with the birds, it wasn't safe to shoot.

I stayed close to Aella cause I knew she's probably one of the safest people to be around in a situation like this.

Clarisse has just pulled across the finish line, completely unopposed, and seemed to notice for the first time how serious the bird problem was.

I had no idea where Percy went, and it was starting to scare me.

Down at the track, the chariots were in flames.

Wounded campers ran in every direction, with birds shredding their clothes and pulling out their hair, while Tantalus chased breakfast pastries around the stands, every once in a while yelling, "Everything's under control! Not to worry."

Finally I found Percy. He and Annabeth pulled up to the finish line. Annabeth grabbed something and began to mess with it.

Percy pressed something and loud music started to play. Suddenly the air was filled with violins and a bunch of guys moaning in Italian.

The demon pigeons went nuts. They started flying in circles, running into each other like they wanted to bash their own brains out. Then they abandoned the track altogether and flew skyward in a huge dark wave.

"Now!" I heard Annabeth shout. "Archers!"

With clear targets, Apollo's archers had flawless aim. Most of them could nock five or six arrows at once. Within minutes, the ground was littered with dead bronze-beaked pigeons, and the survivors were a distant trail of smoke on the horizon.

The camp was saved, but the wreckage wasn't pretty. Most of the chariots had been completely destroyed. Almost everyone was wounded, bleeding from multiple bird pecks.

I had many myself.

The kids from Aphrodite's cabin were screaming because their hairdos had been ruined and their clothes pooped.

"Bravo!" Tantalus said, but he wasn't looking at Percy or Annabeth. "We have our first winner!" He walked to the finish line and awarded the golden laurels for the race to a stunned-looking Clarisse.

Then he turned and smiled at Percy. "And now to punish the troublemakers who disrupted this race."

AUTHOR TALKS!!
one more chapter till we get to the quest, which is when I actually start to like this book.
My favorite part of writing this book is River getting all the gods names wrong. Antless, hepfeetstis or hepatitis, and diagnosis