The shadows spat him out in a supply closet.
He hit the floor hard, on his hands and knees, in the dark, among mops and buckets and a broken vacuum cleaner. His head was spinning. His stomach was turning itself inside out. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been pulled through a keyhole. Which, he supposed, it kind of had.
[LONG-RANGE SHADOW TRAVEL: Success (barely).]
[Distance: 97 miles.]
[MP: 760 → 0.]
[Status: SHADOW-SICK. All stats -30% for 2 hours. Nausea. Disorientation.]
[Great Sage notes: The Host is extraordinarily lucky.]
Thanks, Percy thought, and threw up in a bucket.
When he could stand again, he pushed the closet door open a crack.
He knew this hallway. He'd walked it every day for a year, in another life. Green lockers. Scuffed linoleum. A bulletin board covered in flyers for the spring musical and the chess club and something called the Save the Whales Bake Sale. The smell of floor wax and old sneakers and cafeteria pizza.
Meriwether College Prep. Downtown Manhattan. A progressive school, they called it, which meant there were beanbag chairs in the classrooms instead of desks, and nobody got grades, and the teachers wore sandals.
At the end of the hall, behind a pair of double doors, he could hear yelling. Cheering. The squeak of sneakers on a wooden floor. And a thump. Thump. Thump. Like something heavy hitting a wall.
Dodgeball.
[EMERGENCY QUEST: THE SCHOOL ON THE HILL. Time until engagement: 4 minutes.]
Percy started down the hall.
He was shaking. His legs felt like rubber. His MP was empty, which meant no lightning, no Proteus shapes that cost anything, no shadows, nothing but a bronze ring and his own two fists and thirty percent less of everything. He'd fought on worse. He'd fought on a lot worse. But not against three Laistrygonian giants at Level 70.
Doesn't matter, he thought. Get in there. Get Ezra out. Get everybody out. Figure out the rest after.
He got to the double doors. He put his hand on the push bar.
And he stopped.
Because through the narrow window in the door, he could see the gym. And what was happening in it was not what he'd expected.
It had started exactly the way it had in his first life.
He could tell. The gym was a wreck. Somebody had set the bleachers on fire. Half the windows were smashed. There were dodgeballs everywhere, red rubber ones, and some of them were smoking. Some of them were still on fire. Real fire, white-hot, like they'd been dipped in tar and lit.
And at the far end of the gym, crouched behind an overturned rack of basketballs, were about thirty seventh and eighth graders, screaming.
In the middle of the court were the giants.
There were three of them. They were enormous. Eight, nine feet tall, with broad shoulders and long arms and skin the color of old meat. They had fangs. They had little piggy eyes. One of them had a tattoo on his arm of a heart with an arrow through it that said MOM. They were wearing the ripped remains of Meriwether gym uniforms. They'd been disguised as eighth graders, Percy realized, until about five minutes ago. And they were holding flaming bronze cannonballs in their hands like they weighed nothing at all.
[ENEMIES: LAISTRYGONIAN GIANTS (x3).]
[Joe Bob (Lv 72). Skull Eater (Lv 74). Marrow Sucker (Lv 70).]
[Note: Cannibals. Notably fond of demigods.]
And standing in the middle of the court between them and the screaming kids, with a glowing bronze sword in his hand and his back to Percy, was Ezra Coleman.
And Ezra wasn't scared.
That was the first thing Percy noticed. In his first life, Percy had been terrified in this gym. Desperate and panicking, swinging Riptide wildly at monsters that were three times his size, while flaming dodgeballs flew past his head. He'd survived, but only barely. And only because a big, sweet, simple kid named Tyson had stepped in front of him and caught a cannonball with his bare hands.
Ezra wasn't panicking.
He was standing very still, on the balls of his feet, with Riptide held low in a loose, easy guard. The way Percy had taught him on the beach last summer. Watching the giants' hips, not their hands. Breathing.
Behind him, crouched in front of the screaming kids with his arms spread wide like a wall, was a boy. A huge boy. Six and a half feet tall, with shoulders like a refrigerator and a mop of shaggy brown hair and a face so open and gentle it was almost painful to look at. He was wearing a torn flannel shirt. And there was something strange about his eyes. Or eye. Percy couldn't quite see it clearly through the Mist.
Tyson.
"Ezra!" Tyson was shouting. "Ezra, they have fire balls! Bad fire balls! Be careful, brother!"
"I know, big guy," Ezra called back, without taking his eyes off the giants. His voice was calm. "Just keep the little kids behind you. Okay? Just like we practiced. I got this."
Brother, Percy thought, startled. He called him brother. Does Ezra already know? About Tyson? About the Cyclops?
The biggest giant, Skull Eater, laughed. It was a deep, ugly, wet sound.
"Son of the sea god," he rumbled. "We've been watching you all year, little fish. Waiting for the last day. You smell so good. Like salt and fear." He licked his lips. "We'll eat you first. Then the big one. Then the rest. Dessert."
"Yeah?" Ezra said. "Come try it."
Percy pushed the door open an inch. He drew a breath to shout. He took a step—
And Ezra moved.
It was the most beautiful thing Percy had ever seen a son of Poseidon do.
The first giant, Joe Bob, hurled his flaming cannonball. Straight at Ezra's head, so fast it was a streak of orange fire across the gym.
Ezra didn't dodge it.
He lifted his free hand. Just lifted it, palm out, like a traffic cop stopping a car. And the fire sprinklers in the ceiling of the gym, all forty of them, exploded at once.
Water came down like a monsoon. Not just a spray, but a torrent, a waterfall, roaring down from the ceiling in great white sheets. And it didn't just fall. It moved. It swirled in the air, it bent, it gathered itself in a great spinning column around Ezra, like a shield made of rain. The flaming cannonball hit the column and went out with a hiss like a giant snake, and dropped to the gym floor, steaming, harmless.
Joe Bob stared at it.
Ezra didn't give him time to stare long.
He pushed.
The column of water shot out from around him like a fist. It hit Joe Bob square in the chest, a thousand gallons of water at once, and picked him up off his feet and slammed him into the far wall of the gym so hard that the cinderblocks cracked. The giant slid down the wall, gasping, coughing up water.
Ezra was already moving. He crossed the court in three long strides, quick and light, Riptide flashing. Joe Bob tried to get up. He didn't make it. The bronze blade went in under his arm, and he burst into a cloud of golden dust.
[Laistrygonian Giant (Joe Bob) defeated.]
The other two giants roared.
They came at Ezra together. Skull Eater from the front and Marrow Sucker from the side, both of them hurling burning cannonballs as they charged. And Ezra spun on his heel, and flicked his wrist. The puddles all over the gym floor rose up at once in a dozen whips of water, and lashed out, and caught the cannonballs in midair. Every one. Wrapped around them, and smothered the fire, and flung them back at the giants who'd thrown them.
Marrow Sucker took his own cannonball in the face, and went down howling.
Skull Eater dodged his. He was quicker than the others, and older, and smarter. He came in close, inside the water, inside the reach of the sword, one huge meaty hand closing around Ezra's throat. He lifted Ezra off the floor like a doll.
Percy's heart stopped. He started to run—
Ezra didn't struggle.
He looked down at Skull Eater, dangling in the giant's grip, his face going red. And very calmly, he put his free hand flat against the giant's chest.
Right over his heart.
And the water inside the giant moved.
Percy felt it. The way you feel thunder before you hear it. Every drop of water in Skull Eater's body, every drop of blood in his veins, lurched, all at once, in the same direction. The giant's face went white. His eyes bulged. His grip went slack. He dropped Ezra, and staggered back, clutching his chest, making a horrible gasping sound like a fish on dry land.
Ezra landed on his feet, coughing. And put Riptide through Skull Eater's heart.
[Laistrygonian Giant (Skull Eater) defeated.]
The last giant, Marrow Sucker, was trying to crawl away across the wet gym floor, his face burned and blistered from his own cannonball. Ezra walked over to him. He didn't hurry. He stood over the giant for a moment, breathing hard, dripping wet, with the sprinklers still pouring down around him like rain.
"You said you were going to eat the little kids," he said quietly. "For dessert."
Marrow Sucker snarled up at him.
Ezra brought Riptide down.
[Laistrygonian Giant (Marrow Sucker) defeated.]
[EMERGENCY QUEST: THE SCHOOL ON THE HILL — RESOLVED.]
[Note: The Host did not intervene.]
The gym was very quiet, except for the hiss of the sprinklers and the soft crying of thirty traumatized middle schoolers.
Ezra stood in the middle of the court, with water pouring down on him, breathing hard. Riptide hung loose in his hand. His shoulders were shaking a little. From the cold, or from the adrenaline, or from something else.
Then he lifted his hand, and the sprinklers stopped. All of them, all at once. The water on the floor drew back into the drains like a tide going out.
And he turned around, and looked straight at the double doors, where Percy was standing frozen with one hand still on the push bar.
"How long have you been standing there?" Ezra said.
Percy opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
Ezra grinned. It was a tired, soaking-wet, slightly shaky grin. But it was real.
"You were gonna jump in," he said. "Weren't you. I saw the door move. Right before I hit the first one."
"...Yeah," Percy admitted.
"Glad you didn't."
Percy pushed the doors open and walked into the gym. His sneakers squeaked on the wet floor. Behind the overturned ball rack, Tyson was patting the heads of crying seventh graders with his huge gentle hands, saying "It's okay, it's okay, Ezra got the bad guys, it's okay."
Percy walked across the court until he was standing right in front of the son of Poseidon.
He looked at him. Really looked. At the calm, steady way he was standing. At the scar on his forearm that hadn't been there in August. At the eyes. They were different. Older. The arrogant, angry, scared kid who'd walked into Camp Half-Blood a year ago, thinking the world owed him something, was gone. Or not gone, but... grown. Changed. Like a sapling that had finally put down roots.
"That," Percy said slowly, "was incredible."
Ezra's grin faded into something more serious.
"I told you," he said. "Last summer. On the beach. I said I'd keep training. Every single day." He wiped water off his face. "And I did. Every day. Through the whole school year. My dad came down to the beach in Montauk three times and showed me stuff. The thing with the water in their bodies, that was him. He said only a few of his kids ever figure out how to do that." He hesitated. "He said he was proud of me."
"He should be," Percy said. "I am."
Ezra looked at him for a long moment.
Then he said, very quietly, very seriously, "I'm going to catch up to you, Percy."
Percy blinked.
"I know I'm not there yet," Ezra said. "I know you're way ahead of me. Like, miles. You've got lightning, and shadows, and that sword that turns into everything, and whatever it is you do at night that makes you come back with bruises." His jaw set. "But I'm gonna catch up. I'm going to get stronger. Strong enough that you don't have to walk in front of me anymore. Strong enough that next time, I'm the one walking in front of you."
Percy stared at him.
And then he started to laugh.
He couldn't help it. It came up out of him, helpless and delighted and a little bit wet, standing in the middle of a flooded gym in Manhattan surrounded by golden giant dust. In his first life, he'd been the one saying that. Not out loud, but in his head. To Luke. To Annabeth. To his father. I'm going to catch up. I'm going to be strong enough. He'd never thought he'd hear someone say it to him.
"Okay," he said, still laughing. "Okay. Deal. I'll be waiting."
Ezra grinned again. And stuck out his hand.
Percy took it.
[FAITH: Ezra Coleman believes in the Host. +100 Faith.]
[Note: Ezra Coleman has chosen a rival. He has chosen well.]
[Great Sage notes: Ezra Coleman's thread has grown thick enough to stand on its own.]
There was golden dust all over the gym floor, in three big piles where the giants had been.
Percy looked at it for a moment. He felt the familiar pull in his chest. The darkness, coiled and waiting.
I'm at nine, he thought. Out of thirteen.
[Shadow Army: 9 / 13.]
[Shadow Extraction available. Targets: Laistrygonian Giant (x3).]
[Warning: The Host's MP is depleted. Extraction draws from the Host's life force instead. HP cost: 10% per extraction.]
He thought about it.
Three giants. Cannibals, who'd been planning to eat thirty seventh graders for dessert. Not exactly the kind of soldiers he wanted.
But they were strong. And big. And they knew how to throw things very, very hard.
And somewhere out there, Kronos's army was growing. Every month, a little bigger. A little bolder. The Laistrygonians had come for Ezra on the last day of school because someone had sent them.
He was going to need every soldier he could get.
Two, he decided. The two biggest. Skull Eater and Joe Bob. Leave room for whatever comes next.
He held out his hand.
"Arise," he said.
[HP: 3,040 → 2,736 → 2,432.]
The darkness came up out of two of the golden piles like smoke. It coiled up toward the high ceiling of the gym, and took shape. Two enormous figures of living shadow, eight feet tall, broad as doors, with burning eyes and huge hands that crackled with dark fire. They knelt in front of Percy on the wet gym floor, and bowed their heads.
[Shadow Extraction successful.]
[New Shadows: LAISTRYGONIAN BRUTE (x2). Rank: KNIGHT.]
[Shadow ability retained: Hellfire Volley. Hurl burning projectiles at siege range.]
[Name your shadows.]
"Hammer," Percy said, pointing at the first. "And Anvil."
[Shadow Army: 11 / 13.]
Behind him, Ezra made a strangled noise.
"You," he said, "can make monsters into your army?"
"Yeah," said Percy. "Didn't I mention that?"
"No!"
"Huh," said Percy. "Must've forgotten."
Over by the ball rack, Tyson was staring at the two kneeling shadow giants with his mouth wide open.
"Big shadow men," he breathed. "Pretty."
That was when the screen in Percy's head went red.
Not the gold of a quest notification. Not the blue-white of a level up. Red. Blood red, and flashing.
[WARNING.]
[QUEST REWRITTEN.]
[The threat at Meriwether College Prep was a diversion.]
[NEW EMERGENCY QUEST: THE HILL BURNS.]
[Camp Half-Blood is under attack.]
[Thalia's Pine has been poisoned. The boundary is failing.]
[Enemies detected: Colchis Bulls (x2). Cyclopes (x4). More approaching.]
[Time until boundary collapse: 38 minutes.]
[Reward: ???]
[Failure: Unacceptable.]
The blood went out of Percy's face.
Thalia's tree.
In his first life, he'd come back to camp after the dodgeball game to find exactly this. The boundary failing. The tree poisoned by Luke. Bronze bulls charging over Half-Blood Hill, breathing fire, and campers fighting them with shields and spears and losing. Chiron blamed. Chiron fired.
He'd thought he'd changed it. He'd thought, after the bench by the lake, after Luke's letter...
It doesn't matter who did it, he thought. It's happening. Right now. And I'm in Manhattan.
"Percy?" Ezra said. He'd seen the look on Percy's face. "Percy, what is it? What's wrong?"
"Camp," Percy said. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. "Camp's under attack. Thalia's tree is poisoned. The border's going down."
Ezra went white.
"How do you know—"
"I just know." Percy was already moving. He looked around wildly. At the broken windows. The shadows under the burning bleachers. Shadow travel again? No. No MP. I'd die. Taxi? Two hours. Too long.
Then the gym doors banged open.
And Annabeth Chase came running in, soaking wet from the rain outside, with her Yankees cap in her hand and her knife already drawn.
She skidded to a stop in the middle of the court. She stared at the golden dust. At Ezra, dripping and holding Riptide. At Tyson, surrounded by sniffling seventh graders. At the two enormous shadow giants kneeling behind Percy.
At Percy.
"I had a dream," she panted. "About Ezra. About giants. I came as fast as I could. I took the Gray Sisters' taxi, it's outside—" She stopped. Looked around again. "...I'm too late. Aren't I."
"Ezra got them," Percy said. "All three. By himself."
Annabeth stared at Ezra. Ezra shrugged, a little sheepishly.
"Annabeth," Percy said. "Listen to me. Camp's under attack. Right now. The tree's poisoned. Take Ezra and Tyson in the taxi and get there as fast as you can."
"Tyson?" Annabeth said, startled, looking at the huge boy by the ball rack. "Who's—"
"Ezra's brother," Percy said. "Trust me. He comes too."
"What about you?"
Percy looked at the shadows under the bleachers.
"I'm going ahead," he said.
He held out his hand, and called the biggest shadow he had.
The darkness pooled on the gym floor, wide as a swimming pool, and rose. Wings first. Vast and translucent and edged with frost, filling the whole gym from wall to wall. Then the long serpentine neck, and the great head, with eyes like two cold blue stars.
Rime, the shadow dragon, lowered its head to the floor in front of Percy.
Thirty seventh graders screamed all at once. Tyson clapped his hands in delight. Annabeth made a sound Percy had never heard her make before.
"Is that," she said faintly, "a dragon?"
"Long story," said Percy, and climbed onto Rime's neck.
[Great Sage notes: A shadow summon costs no MP, but sustained flight will drain the Host's HP at 5% per minute.]
[Estimated flight time to Camp Half-Blood: 22 minutes.]
[Estimated HP on arrival: 2,432 → ~1,100.]
Enough, Percy thought. It's enough.
"Get there fast," he told Annabeth and Ezra. "Don't stop for anything."
"Percy—" Ezra started.
Rime spread its wings.
The gym's windows blew out in a burst of frost and wind. And the shadow dragon rose up through the broken skylight in the ceiling, and climbed into the gray Manhattan sky. Then it turned east, toward Long Island and the sea, and the boy on its back leaned down low against its neck and didn't look back.
Hold on, he thought. Everybody. Hold on. I'm coming.