Rick Riordan - The Son of Neptune

THE SNAKE-HAIRED LADIES WERE starting to annoy Percy.

They should have died three days ago when he dropped a crate of bowling balls on them at the Napa Bargain Mart. They should have died two days ago when he ran over them with a police car in Martinez. They definitely should have died this morning when he cut off their heads in Tilden Park.

No matter how many times Percy killed them and watched them crumble to powder, they just kept re-forming like large evil dust bunnies. He couldnt even seem to outrun them.

He reached the top of the hill and caught his breath. How long since hed last killed them? Maybe two hours. They never seemed to stay dead longer than that.

The past few days, hed hardly slept. Hed eaten whatever he could scroungevending machine gummi bears, stale bagels, even a Jack in the Crack burrito, which was a new personal low. His clothes were torn, burned, and splattered with monster slime.

Hed only survived this long because the two snake-haired-ladiesgorgons, they called themselvescouldnt seem to kill him either. Their claws didnt cut his skin. Their teeth broke whenever they tried to bite him. But Percy couldnt keep going much longer. Soon hed collapse from exhaustion, and thenas hard as he was to kill, he was pretty sure the gorgons would find a way.

Where to run?

He scanned his surroundings. Under different circumstances, he mightve enjoyed the view. To his left, golden hills rolled inland, dotted with lakes, woods, and a few herds of cows. To his right, the flatlands of Berkeley and Oakland marched westa vast checkerboard of neighborhoods, with several million people who probably did not want their morning interrupted by two monsters and a filthy demigod.

Farther west, San Francisco Bay glittered under a silvery haze. Past that, a wall of fog had swallowed most of San Francisco, leaving just the tops of skyscrapers and the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A vague sadness weighed on Percys chest. Something told him hed been to San Francisco before. The city had some connection to Annabeththe only person he could remember from his past. His memory of her was frustratingly dim. The wolf had promised he would see her again and regain his memoryif he succeeded in his journey.

Should he try to cross the bay?

It was tempting. He could feel the power of the ocean just over the horizon. Water always revived him. Salt water was the best. Hed discovered that two days ago when he had strangled a sea monster in the Carquinez Strait. If he could reach the bay, he might be able to make a last stand. Maybe he could even drown the gorgons. But the shore was at least two miles away. Hed have to cross an entire city.

He hesitated for another reason. The she-wolf Lupa had taught him to sharpen his sensesto trust the instincts that had been guiding him south. His homing radar was tingling like crazy now. The end of his journey was closealmost right under his feet. But how could that be? There was nothing on the hilltop.

The wind changed. Percy caught the sour scent of reptile. A hundred yards down the slope, something rustled through the woodssnapping branches, crunching leaves, hissing.

Gorgons.

For the millionth time, Percy wished their noses werent so good. They had always said they could smell him because he was a demigodthe half-blood son of some old Roman god. Percy had tried rolling in mud, splashing through creeks, even keeping air-freshener sticks in his pockets so hed have that new car smell; but apparently demigod stink was hard to mask.

He scrambled to the west side of the summit. It was too steep to descend. The slope plummeted eighty feet, straight to the roof of an apartment complex built into the hillside. Fifty feet below that, a highway emerged from the hills base and wound its way toward Berkeley.

Great. No other way off the hill. Hed managed to get himself cornered.

He stared at the stream of cars flowing west toward San Francisco and wished he were in one of them. Then he realized the highway must cut through the hill. There must be a tunnelright under his feet.

His internal radar went nuts. He was in the right place, just too high up. He had to check out that tunnel. He needed a way down to the highwayfast.

He slung off his backpack. Hed managed to grab a lot of supplies at the Napa Bargain Mart: a portable GPS, duct tape, lighter, superglue, water bottle, camping roll, a Comfy Panda Pillow Pet (as seen on TV), and a Swiss army knifepretty much every tool a modern demigod could want. But he had nothing that would serve as a parachute or a sled.

That left him two options: jump eighty feet to his death, or stand and fight. Both options sounded pretty bad.

He cursed and pulled his pen from his pocket.

The pen didnt look like much, just a regular cheap ballpoint, but when Percy uncapped it, it grew into a glowing bronze sword. The blade balanced perfectly. The leather grip fit his hand like it had been custom designed for him. Etched along the guard was an Ancient Greek word Percy somehow understood: AnaklusmosRiptide.

Hed woken up with this sword his first night at the Wolf Housetwo months ago? More? Hed lost track. Hed found himself in the courtyard of a burned-out mansion in the middle of the woods, wearing shorts, an orange T-shirt, and a leather necklace with a bunch of strange clay beads. Riptide had been in his hand, but Percy had had no idea how hed gotten there, and only the vaguest idea who he was. Hed been barefoot, freezing, and confused. And then the wolves came....

Right next to him, a familiar voice jolted him back to the present: There you are!

Percy stumbled away from the gorgon, almost falling off the edge of the hill.