Chapter 20

We stowed our backpacks. Annabeth kept slapping her Yankees cap nervously

against her thigh.

As the last passengers got on, Annabeth clamped her hand onto my knee.

“Percy.”

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace

gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big

paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, and my heart

skipped a beat.

It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.

I scrunched down in my seat.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat.

Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds—same gnarled hands, paisley

handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses.

Triplet demon grandmothers.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed

their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear

message: nobody leaves.

The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of

Manhattan. “She didn’t stay dead long,” I said, trying to keep my voice from

quivering. “I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime.”

“I said if you’re lucky,” Annabeth said. “You’re obviously not.”

“All three of them,” Grover whimpered. “Di immortales!”

“It’s okay,” Annabeth said, obviously thinking hard. “The Furies. The three

worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We’ll just slip out

the windows.”

“They don’t open,” Grover moaned.

“A back exit?” she suggested.

There wasn’t one. Even if there had been, it wouldn’t have helped. By that

time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

“They won’t attack us with witnesses around,” I said. “Will they?”

“Mortals don’t have good eyes,” Annabeth reminded me. “Their brains can

only process what they see through the Mist.”

“They’ll see three old ladies killing us, won’t they?”

She thought about it. “Hard to say. But we can’t count on mortals for help.

Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?”

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights

down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she’d rehearsed it, she announced to

the whole bus: “I need to use the rest-room.”

“So do I,” said the second sister.

“So do I,” said the third sister.

They all started coming down the aisle.

“I’ve got it,” Annabeth said. “Percy, take my hat.”

“What?”

“You’re the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass

you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away.”

“But you guys—”

“There’s an outside chance they might not notice us,” Annabeth said. “You’re

a son of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering.”

“I can’t just leave you.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Grover said. “Go!”

My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it

on.

When I looked down, my body wasn’t there anymore.

I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an

empty seat just as the Furies walked past.

Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was

pounding.

Apparently she didn’t see anything. She and her sisters kept going.

I was free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the

Lincoln Tunnel now.

I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wailing

from the back row.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same—I

guess those couldn’t get any uglier— but their bodies had shriveled into leathery

brown hag bodies with bat’s wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their

handbags had turned into fiery whips.

The Furies surrounded Grover and Annabeth, lashing their whips, hissing:

“Where is it?

Where?”

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw

something, all right.

“He’s not here!” Annabeth yelled. “He’s gone!”

The Furies raised their whips.

Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag

and prepared to throw it.

What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should’ve been named

ADHD poster child of the year.

The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview

mirror.

Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left.

Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was

the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.

“Hey!” the driver yelled. “Hey—whoa!”

We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel,

grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.

We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people

and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.

Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a

dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural

roads where you can’t believe there’s so much nothing right across the river from

New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the

driver seemed to be veering toward the river.

Another great idea: I hit the emergency brake.

The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees.

The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one

out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver’s

seat and let them pass.

The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Annabeth while

she waved her knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover

threw tin cans.

I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go, but I couldn’t leave my friends.

I took off the invisible cap. “Hey!”

The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly

seemed like an excellent idea. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do

in class, about to deliver my F- math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red

flames danced along the barbed leather.

Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and

crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.

“Perseus Jackson,” Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from

somewhere farther south than Georgia. “You have offended the gods. You shall die.”

“I liked you better as a math teacher,” I told her.

She growled.

Annabeth and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an

opening.

I took the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and uncapped it. Riptide elongated

into a shimmering double-edged sword.

The Furies hesitated.

Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide’s blade before. She obviously didn’t like seeing it

again.

“Submit now,” she hissed. “And you will not suffer eternal torment.”

“Nice try,” I told her.

“Percy, look out!” Annabeth cried.

Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the

either side lunged at me.

My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop

Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a

seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with

her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Annabeth got Mrs. Dodds in a

wrestler’s hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her

hands.

“Ow!” he yelled. “Ow! Hot! Hot!”

The Fury I’d hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide

and she broke open like a piñata.

Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed,

hissed and bit, but Annabeth held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds’s legs tied up in

her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried

to get up, but she didn’t have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

“Zeus will destroy you!” she promised. “Hades will have your soul!”

“Braccas meas vescimini!” I yelled.

I wasn’t sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant “Eat my pants!”

Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

“Get out!” Annabeth yelled at me. “Now!” I didn’t need any encouragement.

We rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze,

arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, “We’re going to die!” A

Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap

my sword.

“Our bags!” Grover realized. “We left our—”

BOOOOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning

shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds

was not yet dead.

“Run!” Annabeth said. “She’s calling for reinforcements! We have to get out

of here!”

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind

us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

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