I shifted in my metal seat.Ěfter so many weeks of travel, I was tired and saddle sore. She also happened to be my demigod master, thanks to Zeus’s twisted sense of humor.Ěs long as I remained mortal, Meg could order me to do anything, even kill myself….No.ěetter not to think of such possibilities. The truly sad thing about this? Meg was one of my better friends. If you cannot bring him to me alive, kill him. I had heard my old enemy Nero give orders to Meg: Go west.ĜaptureĚpollo before he can find the next Oracle. Nor could I imagine why Meg McCaffrey would be sent here to capture me. I could think of no reason why an evil triumvirate of ancient Roman emperors would take interest in such a location. And, no, Hera, why would I be talking about you?)Īnd, no, Hera, why would I be talking about you?) After falling to earth in New YorkĜity, I found Indianapolis desolate and uninspiring, as if one proper New York neighborhood-Midtown, perhaps-had been stretched out to encompass the entire area of Manhattan, then relieved of two-thirds of its population and vigorously power-washed. (Not the yummy kind of licorice, either the nasty variety that sits for eons in your stepmother’s candy bowl on the coffee table. Indiana was flat country-highways crisscrossing scrubby brown plains, shadows of winter clouds floating above urban sprawl.Ěround us rose a meager cluster of downtown high-rises-stacks of stone and glass like layered wedges of black and white licorice. “Apollo, just try, will you? Does this look like the city you dreamed about or not?” I scanned the horizon. “Godly positioning systems.” “That’s not a real thing!” “Guys, cool it.” Leo patted the dragon’s neck. “That doesn’t mean I can pinpoint her location with my mind! Zeus has revoked my access to GPS!” “GPS?”Ĝalypso asked. “You said your friend Meg would be here.” Just hearing Meg’s name gave me a twinge of pain. “Apollo, you sense anything?” “Why is it my job to sense things? Just because I used to be a god of prophecy-” “You’re the one who’s been having visions,”Ĝalypso reminded me. Leo glanced back, his face streaked with soot. I had a flashback to the time I installed a life-size statue of the museĜalliope on my sun chariot and the extra weight of the hood ornament made me nosedive intoĜhina and create the Gobiĝesert. It wasn’t enough that I had to toil upon the earth doing (ugh) heroic quests until I could find a way back into my father’s good graces, or that I had a case of acne which simply would not respond to over-the-counter zit medicine.ĝespite my New York State junior driver’s license, Leo Valdez didn’t trust me to operate his aerial bronze steed! Festus’s claws scrabbled for a hold on the green copper dome, which was much too small for a dragon his size. Oh, the indignities I had suffered since Zeus stripped me of my divine powers! It wasn’t enough that I was now a sixteen-year-old mortal with the ghastly alias Lester Papadopoulos. I, the most important passenger, the youth who had once been the glorious godĚpollo, was forced to sit in the back of the dragon. “Could we please get to the ground? Gently this time?” For a formerly immortal sorceress who once controlled air spirits,Ĝalypso was not a fan of flying.Ĝold wind blew her chestnut hair into my face, making me blink and spit. No blowtorching public monuments!” Behind him on the dragon’s spine,Ĝalypso grippedğestus’s scales for balance.
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