By the time I woke up Calypso was back to normal. A quick glance at my own body showed the same. We'd slept peacefully on our dirty mattress amidst wreckage that had once been an entire wing of classrooms, totally spent from the rounds of intense lovemaking.
With the whole building in ruins I would've expected at least somebody to come and check what happened, but they hadn't. We were the only ones anywhere in sight.
Which I wasn't necessarily upset about. Our clothes were buried beneath the rubble.
I struggled upright on the mattress, sending a small stream of pebbles cascading from the top of the pile toward the bottom. A second later, I hopped off followed their path, sliding toward solid ground. It got me to the bottom like I pictured, but I didn't exactly style the landing. I hit the ground on all-fours, narrowly managing to avoid banging my jaw. Chalk up another reason to be grateful for the zero spectators.
Pushing up to my feet, I couldn't help but notice something, though. My body felt great. I stretched my fingers and watched them strain. I hopped in place, landing deftly. My body felt like my own again. All that awkwardness from the past week was completely burned away.
More than that, I felt like I could go even further. I don't know where that confidence was coming from. It just felt, somehow, like if I pushed my body exactly like this…
Heat — familiar heat — collected in my right arm. It began to smolder. Whatever was supposed to happen, I was doing it.
Something pricked at my senses, not painful but certainly distracting. I spun around while only half understanding why.
Sitting on a cement path not twenty feet away was the same dark snake that spied on Calypso and I days earlier, or at least another of its kind. The eyes observed me with the same cool intelligence as back then, and I had no doubt that observing was what it was literally doing.
The snake turned its head from me, up to Calypso's sleeping body. After a moment, it turned and started to slither away. Once it got into the grass, spotting it would become impossible.
"You're a water moccasin."
At the sound of my voice, the snake stopped, its head crooking up to stare at me once more.
"Agkistrodon piscivorus, commonly known as the Cottonmouth. The only venomous semi-aquatic snake native to the United States. Despite being able to bring down a grown man with one bite, Cottonmouths aren't aggressive, only biting when they feel deeply threatened." Facts poured out of my mouth one at a time. This was a creature that came from the water, and so was I. We should be able to understand one another at least this much. "You're native only to the Southeastern United States. Rio brought you, didn't he? He uses you as his servants."
The cottonmouth regarded me. It didn't suddenly start speaking, but that was fine. I was certain we could still communicate.
"You're from his river. You do his bidding. But… is that right?"
If a snake could roll its eyes, I'm sure this one did at me now. It put its head down and started to slither away, back to its master to report, apparently deciding that I wasn't worth its time.
"Stop."
The single word wasn't loud, and yet it was deafening. I wasn't asking. I was informing this creature that it would not move. And it didn't.
I walked closer. Maybe I was going crazy, but I could've sworn the snake got nervous as I drew close.
"Your fangs are powerful, but you only use them when you have to." I knelt, and reaching out, tapped the snake on the back of its scaly head. "Rio couldn't be more different. He lashes out and anything around him, biting and biting and biting again. But his fangs aren't like yours. They don't pack any punch. And, sooner or later, they're going to strike somebody that yanks them straight from his mouth. You deserve more than that. You deserve a better master."
The snake's eyes were watching me. I gave its head a few more strokes to emphasize my point. Then I stood.
"Go," I said. "But don't forget what I told you."
The cottonmouth fired off into the grass as if shot from a cannon. I felt its presence receding quickly. I just knew, though, that my words had an effect.
Whether they were enough, we would have to wait and see.
As a strong wind blew past, I sniffed the air. Something acrid and foul was carried on it, faint and yet all too noticeable. My eyes drifted to Calypso, sleeping peacefully still atop the rubble mountain. She still showed no signs of waking.
That was fine. Quickly digging my clothes free and donning them, I set my sights in the direction of the football field, the same way the wind was blowing from.
And I started to run.
-
I was fast.
I always considered myself pretty quick (running for your life since the age of eleven will do that for you) but I'd never moved like this before. My arms pumped at my sides. My legs covered yards under each bound. All the unwieldy strength of my new body was combining with my newfound fine motor control to create a level of physical performance the old me would never have been able to match.
Buildings blurred by. The pathway turned to a streak of gray. Within minutes the football field had come into sight.
I could tell right away that something was very wrong. The scent of Rio's monstrous entourage was thick in the air. Loose tumbleweeds idled past. And yet, nobody was running past me. The last time the god showed up nearly half the camp had fled, but this time, I couldn't see a single person.
I tore around the side of the bleachers and got my first look at the situation.
What struck me right away was the hissing. It was almost deafening. Arrayed around the makeshift camp on three sides was an entire army of snakes identical to the one I met. Their tales jerked back and forth threateningly, like a much quieter version of their rattle-carrying relatives, while low hisses oozed from their serpentine throats. Scared faces crowded together between the tents, staring out but finding nowhere to flee.
That was because while the snakes only blocked three directions, it didn't mean the last side was safe.
In fact, that was where the main event was.
I didn't slow down or hesitate for a single second. I was prepared to clear as many of the snakes as I could in a single jump, and with the way my body was feeling, I was pretty sure that meant most of them.
That wasn't necessary.
As I got close, a different kind of hissing swept across the scaly crowd. Slowly, they split to form an aisle in my path. It was so unexpected that I almost stopped, before catching my mistake. The most important thing now was time.
No snakes struck out as I ran between them. It wasn't a trap. My first real obstacle, ironically, ended up being the crowd of cowering people. They were staring at me with so much confusion that not a single one stepped out of the way.
I tried my hardest not to be rough as I shoved them out of the way, especially considering the strength I had now, but there simply wasn't time to wait politely for them to move.
Fortunately, the crowd was thicker around the edges. Once I got to the middle of camp it thinned out alot, allowing me to run again (although at a much more regular speed than my sprint to the field). Just as I started making better time, people behind me began to shout.
I spun, but at first I couldn't see anything, just people hopping around looking panicked. Then the first one came into sight. Slowly, every single one of the snakes slithered forward, passing through the people they'd been entrapping.
They were following me, every single one watching attentively.
A woman's scream told me I'd already waited too long. Trusting that these snakes had better things to do than bite random people, I turned and finally managed to reach my destination.
Rio was in the exact same spot where he appeared last time. In fact, everything about him was the same— his cowboy hat, leather getup, and the nasty sneer that seemed permanently etched across his ugly mug. This time, though, he'd doubled down on the entourage.
All the old faces were there, minus Junior, the Laistrygonian that I punched into dust at the end of their visit. Only now they weren't alone. Twice as many Laistrygonians and Telkhines meandered behind the huge green fledgling drakon I recognized from last time. He even added a few Cyclops and, most surprisingly, what looked like regular humans. They were dressed in a ragtag collection of miscellaneous body armor and combat fatigues and wielding everything from clubs to automatic rifles, but I was certain they were just normal people. It gave me flashbacks to fighting Atlas years ago, and to a certain quote of Zoë's. Sometimes, mortals could be worse than any monster.
The entire ugly, armed and mean menagerie looked like complete overkill considering they were facing down a group of four unarmed mortals, but something told me this group didn't care too much about playing fair.
It was Aubrey who I heard scream. Somehow she'd been caught away from the others, and Rio got himself between her and the tents. Stuck between the god and his army, Aubrey's usually despondent eyes darted in every direction looking for a way out. She hadn't spotted one. Rio reached for her and her legs gave out, dropping her onto her butt.
"Don't be like that. I promise I'll treat you right," Rio said. He eyed Aubrey's shivering form, pupils lingering on the legs shaking too badly to stand. "On second thought, you can stay like that if you like. No reason you gotta be standing for what we're gonna do, and if you're happiest letting your little friends watch, I'm a gracious enough man for that."
The only other people around were Mikey, Grace and Annie. Their hands were clenched with rage, but none of them moved… until now. Annie ran forward, ignoring Grace's shout for her to stop.
Annie jumped between Rio and Aubrey, hurling her arm out to block him. It almost looked comical because she was so short, but that didn't fool me. It took a big person to stand up to a god like that.
"What's this? Trying to join?" Rio's eyes raked Aubrey's figure from head to toe, lingering at the chest and hips. "Y'know, looking like that you're welcome any time."
"You said we had a week!" Annie cried. "So why are you here now?"
Rio shook his head. "Tut-tut. Now, I don't like that you're paintin' me out as the bad guy in all of this. If ya paid attention, I told Calypso I'd be back in a week for her answer. I didn't say a damn word to any of y'all. I ain't breaking no word of mine showing up here now."
"Big talk for a liar!" Annie said.
Rio's face darkened. "Now, I just been over this. If you're too dumb to understand, don't go blaming that on me."
Annie glared at him. She was livid, but she was also terrified. The hand she had out barring Rio's way was trembling. Her chest was moving faster than it should've been, quick shallow breaths matching an erratic pulse. Her eyes dipped briefly down to Aubrey, paralyzed with fear on the ground, and her breathing slowed just slightly.
"I don't want to hear anything about us being dumb from the guy who can't understand a single-syllable no," she said, her tone deceptively calm. "Calypso's turned you down so many times, and yet you can't get that through your thick head."
"I don't like the way you talk," Rio decided. "Fortunately for us both, I've got better uses for your mouth."
Annie flinched, but she also bristled and glared.
"Try it, and I'll bite your dick off so we can see if it regrows!"
A wince swept over every man in attendance, even the Laistrygonians (which raised some implications I really didn't want to consider). For a moment Rio looked stunned, but it didn't last. He raised his hand to deliver a blow. Rather than run, Annie braced herself. She moved to the side, just slightly, so that the follow-through wouldn't catch Aubrey where she lay.
Rio was really going to hit her, too. He didn't hold back at all. I knew because when I caught his descending limb even my muscles strained slightly.
I hadn't just been standing idle as Rio talked. Slowly, I'd worked myself closer without being obvious about it. The results were clear. Rio never looked my way until the moment I grabbed his wrist and stopped it in place.
Annie's eyes cracked open with her arms still up to shield her face.
"Take Aubrey and run," I told her. She hesitated for a moment, and I added, "Now."
I didn't shout. I didn't need to. The terse command punched through her surprise. She grabbed Aubrey by the hand and dragged the woman to her feet, pulling them quickly back to Grace and Mikey.
Rio watched them go the way someone would watch a rambunctious dog on a leash. He took a long moment admiring the view, his eyes fixed low as his tongue slid across his lips. Finally, he turned his attention to me. "You're going to let go of me now."
I didn't.
"Leave," I told him.
"This business again?" Rio sighed deeply enough to make his sideburns twitch. "Like I told the little ladies, a week was only ever for a promise to your master."
He pulled against my grip, trying to yank his arm free. When I didn't budge, his lips pressed together more tightly. He tried to look casual, pretending that he hadn't actually tried what he just tried.
"I'll let you in on a secret," I said. "I don't care about your promises. I don't care about whatever loopholes you're using to convince yourself that you didn't lie, and I really couldn't care any less about how clever you think that makes you. I'm going to tell you one more time. Leave."
Rio laughed. "You think you're hot shit."
"I know what I am," I said. And it was true: ever since sleeping with Calypso, my head had cleared in a way I didn't know was possible. "I'm Perseus Jackson."
"A failed hero and son of a defeated god, crawling around because he didn't have the good grace to die when he ought to have."
"And a god himself," I added. "One that Kronos will regret failing to finish off."
The change was instantaneous. As soon as the Titan lord's name left my mouth the heat was sucked out of the day. The wind turned from hot and dry, Rio's trademark, to cold and biting. Even some of the monsters shuddered.
Rio wrenched his hand back again with every ounce of his strength. This time he broke free, but the sheer force he put into the action backfired, and he toppled over onto the ground.
"You're crazy!" he accused. "Do you realize what you've just done? If he pays attention to us now, you'll really be destroyed! And when he drags the truth of what happened here from your dying lips, he'll destroy me for offering to hide you!"
Rio was worried for nothing. Kronos wasn't really watching. At most, one one-thousandth of his attention had drifted this way, attracted by the sound of his name. But that was enough. When my powers grew, and I finally marched on his cloistered little fortress and knocked down the doors, he would realize. That insignificant gnat that mentioned his name once but he brushed aside was actually me. And he would realize his own carelessness was what lost him his best — and only — chance to crush me.
"You sure like making innocent people cower," I said. "But if you ask me, Rio, you look more natural on this side of the cowering."
Rio's face hardened. He got up quickly— not with a lot of grace, but with a lot of urgency.
"I need to close your mouth before they get here," he decided. "All of your mouths. Boys! It's time to earn keep!"
The drakon's twin heads pulled back and roared. The mortals hefted weapons. Telkhines howled like they just spotted the moon, while giants giggled and laughed at the promise of action. Just as the army was about to charge, I spoke.
"Whoever moves first, dies first."
My voice was clearly audible across the din. I wasn't even yelling. It shouldn't have been possible but, well, we went over this: gods just didn't care about little things like logic.
I guess that impossibility wasn't enough to instill the sheer threat of my words. It should've been, but nobody ever accused Laistrygonians of being particularly bright.
After giving me nothing more than a dismissive glance, the monsters began their charge. Three Lasitrygonians led the way, followed by a smattering of smaller cyclopes and Telkhines. They skirted far to the right, trying to bypass me and reach the camp behind.
I raised my food and brought it straight down with tremendous force. A boom echoed as small bits of rubber flew straight up into the air.
What happened next was too fast to follow. Heat collected in my arm. I lashed out, and it was less than a blur: to average eyes, it wouldn't have even looked like I moved. All they would've seen were bits of innocuous black rubber firing like buckshot at blistering speeds. Every monster that had moved froze in place as tens to hundreds of holes opened up all across their bodies. They disintegrated without ever understanding what hit them.
For a moment nobody spoke or reacted, which I used to my advantage.
"Take Mikey and Aubrey and get to the others," I told Annie and Grace. "You have to lead them away from here. You don't have to go far. Just far enough that they won't get caught in what's coming."
My words helped Rio collect himself. For some reason, they seemed to make him feel like he was back in control. "Run?" he said snidely. "Run to where?"
"Anywhere," I said, like it was obvious. When he just stared at me, I started to laugh. "What, did you still think you had these people trapped?"
Only then did he notice them. I guess that wasn't too surprising— unlike his monsters, they were smart enough to stay back at a safe distance. The water moccasins had collected at the edge of camp, every single one he brought. They were just watching.
"Run straight past them," I told the others. "They won't stop you."
Grace and Annie nodded. Without hesitation, they took the other two and rushed away. Mikey yelled his disagreement, wanting to stay, but Grace scooped him up and carried him as he thrashed, not giving any ground to his protestations.
"Stop them!" Rio roared at his snakes. "Bite them! Chew through their ankles! For Othry's sake just don't let them leave!"
The snakes observed him in unreadable silence. My words rang true. My friends passed by them no problem.
"They don't listen to you right now," I said.
Rio tossed his hands up. "Well why the dang hell not?"
"Because they're testing you. To see if you're worth following."
Rio blinked. He stared at me. A strange noise burst from his mouth, sort of like a cough. I only realized it had been a laugh when more began pouring out. He hunched forward, his hat flopping down over his eyes as the studs on his clothes clinked noisily. He wrapped his arms around his stomach, busting a gut.
"Testing me?" Still hunched over, he wiped away a tear. "They… Right now…"
Abruptly, his laughter stopped dead. He looked up with murder in his eyes. "Mere snakes think they have the right to test me."
"Yes," I said.
"I see." He tilted his head. "I'll skin them, I think. One by one. But first, you're in my way."
His skin started to glow. I'd seen the process enough times to know what came next. This time, though, I wasn't a mortal anymore. I didn't have to look away. I observed Rio's true form in all its glory.
Spoiler: that glory wasn't all that much. His sideburns hardened and turned a deep blue, becoming a sort of fin/gill hybrid. The shade of his skin became a reddish, clay-like color, and his hands grew claws at the tip of each finger. The barrels on his guns lengthened. He grew taller, but only by a couple of inches.
I changed too. Heat collected the way it had with Calypso in the classroom, except this time I was in complete command. I willed the change to happen, and it did, reacting to my intent. I knew it would. I'd already used this trick once before when I vaporized the charging Laistrygonians using rubber bits.
My right arm grew slightly larger and longer. Familiar fissures formed in the skin, glowing with internal light. My fingers flexed, and even that much was enough to send out a brief burst of wind.
Rio didn't seem to find it all that impressive. He stared at me. Slowly, he raised his arm and pointed, laughter exploding out of his chest.
"You… You… You can only transform one arm?" He continued to laugh so hard that he could barely get words out. "I've never seen a god so pathetic! What's your domain, performance issues? Is your sacred symbol a box of viagra?"
BOOM!
The noise wasn't how skin was supposed to sound. It was more like an elephant jumping up and down on a car, amplified by about a dozen professional-grade speakers. Rio's henchmen, who had ducked and shut their eyes to save themselves when he changed forms, pressed hands to their ears.
That was the best way to describe the sound of my first hitting Rio's face.
For just a moment, he pulled the stupidest face I've ever seen, with his eyes bulging and his teeth chomping down on his own tongue. Then he was flying back, head over heels like a runaway pinwheel blade. When he touched down he skipped like a stone, still spinning, leaving a line of upturned earth in his wake. By the time he stopped moving he'd traveled over a hundred feet.
Rio yowled something incoherent, ichor trailing from his mouth. He drew his revolvers and fired, launching bullets that had a thin stream of water trailing behind them as they flew at impossibly velocities.
His aim was perfectly sighted on my forehead. A moment before the bullets cracked my skull, my right arm blurred.
I caught each, hardly feeling a thing, and hurled them back in a single motion. The aim was perfect. They shot straight back down the revolver barrels they emerged from, exploding each gun into shrapnel. Rio cried out as metal and scalding water bathed his body, eating away swathes of his cowboy get up.
He leaped forward with a roar, covering the ground between us in one bound. At the height of his jump he drew his spare gun, a Snubnosed revolver, firing it wildly but no less accurately. Bullets exploded out toward all of my vitals, but I deflected each with my arm. You could tell he wasn't thinking clearly. What kind of ranged fighter charges the enemy just because they're mad? Somewhere far above us in the stars, I imagined Zoë shaking her head and mumbling something about "Men."
I caught Rio by the throat as soon as he was in range. The move only made him bare blood-drenched teeth in a deranged grin. At point-blank range, he aimed for my head and fired.
All in the time it took him to pull the trigger, my arm moved. I released his throat. I grabbed his wrist, turning it a hundred and eighty degrees toward his own chest. I was gripping his throat again before he had the chance to fall more than an inch.
The revolver went off. Its bullet buried in Rio's own chest, splattering my face with gold blood. His grin turned into a bellow of pain.
"How?" Rio wailed. "This isn't possible! Menoetius trusts me! I'm the god of rivers, right hand man of the ruler of the West! I can't lose to a runt who can't even use his own body!"
He looked so pathetic that I almost pitied him.
Almost.
"You aren't the god of rivers," I said. "You're the god of one river. I bartered with gods better than you before I turned sixteen. It really doesn't matter who said nice things to you, who trusted you, anything. At the end of the day, this is your level."
I squeezed. His clay-colored skin turned dark and splotchy. Just a little more and his neck would snap. That wouldn't be enough to take down a god in his true form, but it would incapacitate him. From there the rest would only take a bit of time. My fingers tightened.
"Let's put a pause on this."
A hand caressed my arm gently. It was so unexpected a gesture that I actually stopped, releasing Rio. He dropped onto the turf, coughing ichor onto the artificial grass.
Calypso stood at my side, watching me sternly.
"We went over this," she said. "Destroying Rio will only bring ruin! You knew that."
"Well, I remembered that you said that, at least."
"So why do it?"
I scratched the back of my head.
"The problem is that getting rid of him will get the attention of the Masters, right?"
"Exactly!"
"Then there's no problem if I get rid of the Masters too, right?"
To Calypso's credit, she only hesitated for a moment. "You're serious?"
"Every last one of them," I confirmed. "They destroyed my world. I think it's only fair to destroy theirs."
"It will not be easy," she warned.
"I'm ready for that."
"You will lose things."
"Yeah, well, not like that's anything new, is it? If I'm going to suffer, I may as well suffer on my feet."
"That is so very like you, Percy Jackson," Calypso said.
And the way she looked at me — the way she said it — was equal parts loving, angry, and lustful.
"Calypso?" a voice interrupted us.
Rio had gathered himself enough to speak. He looked up at her with an embarrassing amount of hope, tears streaming down his ruined face.
"Did you accept my offer?" he asked. "Are you here to save your husband?"
"Oh, Rio." Calypso knelt next to him. She smiled, which confused the hell out of me and sent shivers down my spine at the same time. She gently stroked one of his hideous gills. "Poor, poor, Rio. The answer is no."
The hope in Rio's eyes shattered.
"Then why—!"
"Shhhhhhhh," Calypso quieted him. "Don't focus on the pain. I'll tell you a short story, to get your mind off of things. It starts a very long time ago. You see, I was born in the old world, before the gods were ever born, to Atlas and a nymph named Pleione. I had a long childhood, for an immortal. It was three years before I matured. And in that time I played many games."
Rio looked like he wanted to interrupt. In fact, I think he tried to, but when he opened his mouth no sound would come out. Calypso's soft smile didn't fool me. I caught the way she wiggled her fingers, her magic robbing him of his voice.
"When I was a girl they never had anything like dolls," she said. "Those are a much more recent fad. But I was always quite taken with the idea of them. I imagine I would've played and played, twisting them into the most elaborate games and dances."
As she spoke, Rio's body jerked up. He got to his feet with a series of awkward and unnatural movements. He looked more confused than I felt, with a healthy helping of panic on the side.
Beginning with a graceless pirouette, he proceeded to twirl and spin in a one-man dance routine.
"The best part, by far, would've been their endings," Calypso carried on. "They wouldn't ever be boring. Each and every last doll would go out in its own blaze of glory."
On queue, flames sprung to life. They roared ten feet high and impossibly hot. Even my right arm felt mildly uncomfortable.
Walking awkwardly like a puppet — or doll — Rio approached the flames.
"I suppose this is goodbye, Rio," Calypso said. "I cannot say it has been a pleasure, and I cannot say you will be missed. But at least you will get your own ending."
"Please—!" he said.
Rio's head jerked forward into the flames.
He definitely screamed, it just didn't last very long. Soon he wasn't making any noise at all. The rest of his body stepped into the flames, joining his head. Calypso watched the bonfire with what might've been fascination.
"I suppose that should be sufficient," she said finally, snapping her fingers. The flames disappeared. Rio had disappeared with them. All that remained was the cowboy hat that had fallen off onto the false grass. "A few thousand years of agony as dispersed flakes should teach him enough of a lesson."
The monsters that Rio brought were cracking their eyes open, sensing it was safe to look again. What they saw made them cower— their boss nowhere in sight, two hostile immortals standing over the only remnants of him. All of them turned and ran.
"Where are you going?" Calypso asked. "You all are just as culpable."
She waved her hand and more flames swept out.
"Leave the mortals alive," I said at the last second.
She gave me a curious look, but nodded. With one extra gesture gaps opened in the fire. Laistrygonians, Cyclopes, and Telkhines were burned straight to ash in an instant, but the ragtag humans only collapsed from inhaling smoke. Only the drakon managed to escape, flying high over top of the flames.
I didn't expect what happened next. As the mortals lay there, surrounded by the ash that had been their monstrous allies, snakes appeared and wrapped around their arms. The vipers didn't do anything else, but that was enough. If the men woke up still trying to cause a ruckus, it would be the last thing they did.
My eyes picked out the nearest cottonmouth. There was nothing all that different in the way it regarded me, but I couldn't shake a feeling of grudging approval coming off it.
"Good choice," I said.
The snake bowed its head.
"You seem to have made friends while I was asleep."
I turned back to Calypso. "What can I say? They deserved better than what they had."
"You also seem to have learned some new tricks," she said.
Her eyes drifted to my arm. After Rio disappeared it had returned to normal, but we both remembered the changes that had swept it.
"I have you to thank for that," I said. "Although I still don't understand how what we did worked."
Calypso bit her lip. "I have ideas. But they will require more testing…"
"I'm on board with that."
She smacked my arm. But she was smiling.
The field descended into silence. It was just us and the snakes, but they seemed to be respecting the mood and keeping quiet because I couldn't catch a single hiss coming from any of them.
"So… what now?"
"Oh, that's easy." Calypso grinned wickedly. "We are going to prepare."