ix. the helm

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WHEN THEY MAKE IT TO THE BEACH, THEA KICKS A SANDCASTLE APART. They hadn't done anything, Ares had tricked them, and they had to be saved by the damn coast guard. She throws the 'I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD!' towel on the ground as if it makes it any better.

Worse: the saltwater has made her hair a mess, and all she can do is tie it back. And her clothes are soaking wet, which is a feeling Thea has come to loathe after all the times she's been caught in the rain.

"I don't believe it," Annabeth says. "We went all that way—"

"It was a trick," Percy says. "A strategy worthy of Athena." He looks at her. "You get it, don't you?"

She sighs. "Yeah. I get it."

"But I don't get it," Thea huffs. "Ares—it's not like I've ever met him before this, but my mother knew him. She knew him a bit too well. And that—that's not something Ares would do. He'd think it was cowardly getting kids to do his dirty work like that, and he would know it'd lead right back to him and—"

"Gods change," Annabeth reminds her. "Maybe he's different now."

He did let her mother die, the woman he apparently loved so much. Maybe he has changed.

"You're right," she agrees. "Everything my mom taught me, it doesn't matter. Everything she did—"

"There he is," Percy says, seething. And there Ares is, down the beach, leaning against his motorcycle. It's no use stopping him, and Thea follows behind the others as they walk toward Ares. The god is wearing his typical attire—leather jacket, sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat with several dents in it—and that stupid smirk that seems like a snarl from the scar on his lips.

The hunting knife he had given her in the diner is still in her bag.

"Hey, kid," Ares greets, almost pleasantly. "You were supposed to die."

"You tricked me," Percy says. "You stole the helm and the master bolt."

The god of war grins. "Well, no. I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power—that's a big no-no. But you're not the only hero in the world who can run errands."

"Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice."

The idea seems to amuse Ares, like his daughter isn't good enough for that. "Doesn't matter. Point is, kid, you're impeding the war effort. See, you've got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus' master bolt, so Zeus'll be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this . . ."

He pulls a black ski mask out of his pocket and Thea's eyes widen, her heart leaping into her throat. The helm can take any shape; and it did, forming into an elaborate bronze war helmet once he sits it on his handlebars. Thea's rattled face stares back at her, dirty and cut.

"The helm of darkness," Grover gasps.

"Exactly," Ares says. "Now where was I? Oh yeah, Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon, because he doesn't know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice little three-way slugfest going."

"But they're your family!" Annabeth protests.

Ares shrugs. "Best kind of war. Always the bloodiest. Nothing like fighting with your relatives, I always say."

"You gave me the backpack back in Denver," Percy states. "The master bolt was in there the whole time."

"Yes and no," Ares says. "It's probably too complicated for your little mortal brain to follow, but the backpack is the master bolt's sheath, just morphed a bit. The bolt is connected to it, sort of like that sword you got, kid. It always returns to your pocket, right?"

Is he going to kill them? Surely he can't get away with that, it would start a war from both Percy and Annabeth's parents. But isn't that what Ares wants, an all-out war between the gods?

"Anyway," Ares continues, "I tinkered with the magic a bit, so the bolt would only return to the sheath once you reached the Underworld. You get close to Hades . . . Bingo, you got mail. If you died along the way—no loss. I still had the weapon."

"But why not just keep the master bolt for yourself?" Percy asks. "Why send it to Hades?"

Ares' jaw twitches and his eyebrows knit together deeply. His eyes are narrowed, as if he's arguing with a voice inside himself, or maybe listening to it. "Why didn't I . . . yeah . . . with that kind of firepower . . ."

He holds the trance for one second, two seconds . . .

His face clears. "I didn't want the trouble. Better to have you caught redhanded, holding the thing."

"You're lying," Percy says. "Sending the bolt to the Underworld wasn't your idea, was it?"

"Of course it was!" Smoke is drifting from behind his sunglasses, a hissing sound coming from the god.

"You didn't order the theft," Percy guesses. "Someone else sent a hero to steal the two items. Then, when Zeus sent you to hunt him down, you caught the thief. But you didn't turn him over to Zeus. Something convinced you to let him go. You kept the items until another hero could come along and complete the delivery. That thing in the pit is ordering you around."

"I am the god of war! I take orders from no one! I don't have dreams!"

Percy hesitates, blinking in surprise. "Who said anything about dreams?"

He covers up his agitation with a smirk. "Let's get back to the problem at hand, kid. You're alive. I can't have you taking that bolt to Olympus. You just might get those hard-headed idiots to listen to you. So I've got to kill you. Nothing personal."

Ares snaps his fingers. At his feet, the sand explodes, and out charges a boar. Thea instinctively pulls her sword, only to cry out as her sword falls into the sand. Her injured hand flares with pain all the way up to her elbow, so forceful she can practically feel it in her teeth.

"Thea!" Grover grabs her under the arm as she stumbles forward when she tries to grab your sword. "Don't fight it, you're too tired!"

"I brought myself halfway across the United States with monsters chasing me the entire way," she huffs as she leans onto her sword, the tip deep in the sand. "I can fight a stupid boar, even if I'm—"

She falls forward, a cold sweat breaking out on her, the sand sticking to her quickly paling skin. Grover curses in panic and drags her over to a stack of beach chairs—the only cover they have—and tries to pry her sword out of her hand.

"Oh, come on, let go of it!" he yells. "Let me see your hand, those arrows could have been laced with something!"

"They weren't laced with anything," she says, fighting to keep her eyes open. "If they were, I'd be dead by now, they were meant for gods. But I—I'm so . . . tired, just a little nap—"

"No, no nap!" Grover yells, poking her in a cut on her cheek. "Wake up! If Percy—if Percy can't fight, we need you."

"Don't touch me, goat boy, I'll—I'll make a—"

As she starts to lull to sleep Grover shakes her awake. "Medusa!"

Thea sits up groggily, eyes wide, grasping for her sword until the realization sets in. "Grover, you ass!" She blinks tiredly. "I—I think the Underworld did something to me. Maybe it was because I was stone for so long, I don't know . . . Wait, where's Percy?"

"Don't look, he's fighting Ares." Thea looks anyway. "Dammit, Thea—"

"Percy!" Annabeth yells, somewhere a few feet away. "Cops!"

"Oh, shit," Thea whispers, gripping the hilt of her sword tightly. "There's too many cops to take on with just the three of us."

Grover lets out a goat-like noise of surprise. "Take on? They're mortals!"

"And they're pointing a gun at Percy and Ares," Thea says, eyes narrowed. Someone yells on a megaphone for them to put the guns down. "They think they have guns. They'll try to shoot Ares and he'll let it hit Percy—we need a distraction, something to get them off their backs."

"Thea, you're not killing—"

"No, I'm not killing them, just giving them a little . . . surprise." She whispers under her breath, closing her eyes as she picks up a handful of sand—and the screams follow. Monsters in the form of sand are chasing the cops away, back into the city.

"Oh, great, didn't think that would work." Thea wipes back the cold sweat on her forehead. "I don't want to alarm you, but I'm either going to throw up or pass out, one of those."

"What—Thea!"

Ares lets out a bellow of rage from the sea where he's fighting Percy and water sprays back toward them, slapping Thea square in the face, and saltwater fills her mouth.

She promptly turns and throws up behind the pile of chairs and Grover lets out a bleat of complaint. Thea wipes at her mouth, breathing raggedly as she coughs up the saltwater.

Thea's head spins, her hand aching in sync with her forming headache, and she wants to crawl into a hole and take a thousand-year nap.

"Is she dead?" she hears Percy say.

"What—no, I'm not dead," she hisses. She wipes at her mouth one more time before she gets to her feet, stumbling greatly. Annabeth grabs her elbow to steady her and Thea frowns at her, but the girl doesn't stop. "What happened? Where's Ares?"

"He—he's gone, I stabbed him," Percy explains. "He's fine. I think."

"And the helm?"

"I gave it to the Furies."

She decides not to ask about that, because her head is pounding too loudly to hear about it.

"Did you guys feel that . . . whatever it was?" Percy asks.

Everyone nods, even Thea. She isn't sure if they're talking about the same thing, but something made her immediately sick once the two started fighting.

"Must've been the Furies overhead," Grover suggests.

Thea glances at Annabeth and Percy, and it's clear none of them believe that. Whatever it was, it's the same thing from the pit of Tartarus, and Thea is too terrified to even say the name in her own head.

"We have to get back to New York," Percy says. "By tonight."

"That's impossible," Annabeth says. "Not unless we—"

"Fly," he agrees.

Thea shakes her head. "Woah, woah. That's an awful idea, Percy. It's, like, the first rule of Demigod Life Literacy"—she ignores their odd looks at that—"that you can't fly unless it's important. And you're carrying Zeus' master bolt, the thing that could obliterate all of us. That's your plan?"

"Yeah," he says. "Pretty much exactly like that. Come on."

She's going to break Percy Jackson's nose one day.

A/N: reminder that if you're
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