Percy woke with a jolt as the plane started its descent.
Hazel laid her hand on his shoulder. “Sleep okay?”
Percy sat up groggily. “How long was I out?”
Frank stood in the aisle, wrapping his spear and new bow in his ski bag. “A few hours,” he said. “We’re almost there. ”
Percy looked out the window. A glittering inlet of the sea snaked between snowy mountains. In the distance, a city was carved out of the wilderness, surrounded by lush green forestson one side and icy black beaches on the other.
“Welcome to Alaska,” Hazel said. “We’re beyond the help of the gods. ”
XXXVIII Percy
THE PILOT SAID THE PLANE COULDN’T WAIT for them, but that was okay with Percy. If they survived till the next day, he hoped they could find a different way back—anything but a plane.
He should’ve been depressed. He was stuck in Alaska, the giant’s home territory, out of contact with his old friends just as his memories were coming back. He had seen an image of Polybotes’s army about to invade Camp Jupiter. He’d learned that the giants planned to use him as some kind of blood sacrifice to awaken Gaea. Plus, tomorrow evening was the Feast of Fortuna. He, Frank, and Hazel had an impossible task to complete before then. At best, they would unleash Death, who might take Percy’s two friends to the Underworld. Not much to look forward to.
Still, Percy felt strangely invigorated. His dream of Tyson had lifted his spirits. He remembered Tyson, his brother. They’d fought together, celebrated victories, shared good times at
Camp Half-Blood. He remembered his home, and that gave him a new determination to succeed. He was fighting for two camps now—two families.
Juno had stolen his memory and sent him to Camp Jupiter for a reason. He understood that now. He still wanted to punch her in her godly face, but at least he got her reasoning. If the two camps could work together, they stood a chance of stopping their mutual enemies. Separately, both camps were doomed.
There were other reasons Percy wanted to save Camp Jupiter. Reasons he didn’t dare put into words—not yet, anyway. Suddenly he saw a future for himself and for Annabeth that he’d never imagined before.
As they took a taxi into downtown Anchorage, Percy told Frank and Hazel about his dreams. They looked anxious but not surprised when he told them about the giant’s army closing in on camp.
Frank choked when he heard about Tyson. “You have a half-brother who’s a Cyclops?”
“Sure,” Percy said. “Which makes him your great-great-great—”
“Please. ” Frank covered his ears. “Enough. ”
“As long as he can get Ella to camp,” Hazel said. “I’m worried about her. ”
Percy nodded. He was still thinking about the lines of prophecy the harpy had recited—about the son of Neptune drowning, and the mark of Athena burning through Rome.
/> He wasn’t sure what the first part meant, but he was starting to have an idea about the second. He tried to set the question aside. He had to survive this quest first.
The taxi turned on Highway One, which looked more like a small street to Percy, and took them north toward downtown. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high in the sky.
“I can’t believe how much this place has grown,” Hazel muttered.
The taxi driver grinned in the rearview mirror. “Been a long time since you visited, miss?”
“About seventy years,” Hazel said.
The driver slid the glass partition closed and drove on in silence.
According to Hazel, almost none of the buildings were the same, but she pointed out features of the landscape: the vast forests ringing the city, the cold, gray waters of Cook Inlet tracing the north edge of town, and the Chugach Mountains rising grayish-blue in the distance, capped with snow even in June. Percy had never smelled air this clean before. The town itself had a weather-beaten look to it, with closed stores, rusted-out cars, and worn apartment complexes lining the road, but it was still beautiful. Lakes and huge stretches of woods cut through the middle. The arctic sky was an amazing combination of turquoise and gold.
Then there were the giants. Dozens of bright-blue men, each thirty feet tall with gray frosty hair, were wading through the forests, fishing in the bay, and striding across the mountains. The mortals didn’t seem to notice them. The taxi passed within a few yards of one who was sitting at the edge of a lake washing his feet, but the driver didn’t panic.
“Um…” Frank pointed at the blue guy.
“Hyperboreans,” Percy said. He was amazed he remembered that name. “Northern giants. I fought some when Kronos invaded Manhattan. ”
“Wait,” Frank said. “When who did what?”
“Long story. But these guys look…I don’t know, peaceful. ”
“They usually are,” Hazel agreed. “I remember them. They’re everywhere in Alaska, like bears. ”
“Bears?” Frank said nervously.
“The giants are invisible to mortals,” Hazel said. “They never bothered me, though one almost stepped on me by accident once. ”
That sounded fairly bothersome to Percy, but the taxi kept driving. None of the giants paid them any attention. One stood right at the intersection of Northern Lights Road, straddling the highway, and they drove between his legs. The Hyperborean was cradling a Native American totem pole wrapped in furs, humming to it like a baby. If the guy hadn’t been the size of a building, he would’ve been almost cute.
The taxi drove through downtown, past a bunch of tourists’ shops advertising furs, Native American art, and gold. Percy hoped Hazel wouldn’t get agitated and make the jewelry shops explode.
As the driver turned and headed toward the seashore, Hazel knocked on the glass partition. “Here is good. Can you let us out?”
They paid the driver and stepped onto Fourth Street. Compared to Vancouver, downtown Anchorage was tiny—more like a college campus than a city, but Hazel looked amazed.