The Last Olympian

head and scratched and growled like a really angry black wig.
    The rest of the battle wasn’t going well. The centaurs had panicked under the onslaught of giants and demons. An occasional orange camp T-shirt appeared in the sea of fighting, but quickly disappeared. Arrows screamed. Fire exploded in waves across both armies, but the action was moving across the street to the entrance of the Empire State Building. We were losing ground.
    Suddenly Annabeth materialized on the drakon’s back. Her invisibility cap rolled off her head as she drove her bronze knife between a chink in the serpent’s scales.
    The drakon roared. It coiled around, knocking Annabeth off its back.
    I reached her just as she hit the ground. I dragged her out of the way as the serpent rolled, crushing a lamppost right where she’d been.
    “Thanks,” she said.
    “I told you to be careful!”
    “Yeah, well, DUCK!”
    It was her turn to save me. She tackled me as the monster’s teeth snapped above my head. Mrs. O’Leary body-slammed the drakon’s face to get its attention, and we rolled out of the way.
    Meanwhile our allies had retreated to the doors of the Empire State Building. The entire enemy army was surrounding them.
    We were out of options. No more help was coming. Annabeth and I would have to retreat before we were cut off from Mount Olympus.
    Then I heard a rumbling in the south. It wasn’t a sound you hear much in New York, but I recognized it immediately: chariot wheels.
    A girl’s voice yelled, “ARES!”
    And a dozen war chariots charged into battle. Each flew a red banner with the symbol of the wild boar’s head. Each was pulled by a team of skeletal horses with manes of fire. A total of thirty fresh warriors, armor gleaming and eyes full of hate, lowered their lances as one—making a bristling wall of death.
    “The children of Ares!” Annabeth said in amazement. “How did Rachel know?”
    I didn’t have an answer. But leading the charge was a girl in familiar red armor, her face covered by a boar’s-head helm. She held aloft a spear that crackled with electricity. Clarisse herself had come to the rescue. While half her chariots charged the monster army, Clarisse led the other six straight for the drakon.
    The serpent reared back and managed to throw off Mrs. O’Leary. My poor pet hit the side of the building with a yelp. I ran to help her, but the serpent had already zeroed in on the new threat. Even with only one eye, its glare was enough to paralyze two chariot drivers. They veered into a line of cars. The other four chariots kept charging. The monster bared its fangs to strike and got a mouthful of Celestial bronze javelins.
    “EEESSSSS!!!!!” it screamed, which is probably drakon for OWWWW!
    “Ares, to me!” Clarisse screamed. Her voice sounded shriller than usual, but I guess that wasn’t surprising given what she was fighting.
    Across the street, the arrival of six chariots gave the Party Ponies new hope. They rallied at the doors of the Empire State Building, and the enemy army was momentarily thrown into confusion.
    Meanwhile, Clarisse’s chariots circled the drakon. Lances broke against the monster’s skin. Skeletal horses breathed fire and whinnied. Two more chariots overturned, but the warriors simply leaped to their feet, drew their swords, and went to work. They hacked at chinks in the creature’s scales. They dodged poison spray like they’d been training for this all their lives, which of course they had.
    No one could say the Ares campers weren’t brave. Clarisse was right there in front, stabbing her spear at the drakon’s face, trying to put out its other eye. But as I watched, things started to go wrong. The drakon snapped up one Ares camper in a gulp. It knocked aside another and sprayed poison on a third, who retreated in a panic, his armor melting.
    “We have to help,” Annabeth said.
    She was right. I’d just been standing there frozen in amazement. Mrs. O’Leary tried to get up but yelped again. One of her paws was bleeding.
    “Stay back, girl,” I told her. “You’ve done enough already.”
    Annabeth and I jumped onto the monster’s back and ran toward its head, trying to draw its attention away from Clarisse.
    Her cabinmates threw javelins, most of which broke, but some lodged in the monster’s teeth. It snapped its jaws together until its mouth was a mess of green blood, yellow foamy poison, and splintered weapons.
    “You can do it!” I screamed at Clarisse. “A