The Lightning Thief

him to follow.
    “Admit it, kid,” Ares said. “You got no hope. I’m just toying with you.”
    My senses were working overtime. I now understood what Annabeth had said about ADHD keeping you alive in battle. I was wide awake, noticing every little detail.
    I could see where Ares was tensing. I could tell which way he would strike. At the same time, I was aware of Annabeth and Grover, thirty feet to my left. I saw a second cop car pulling up, siren wailing. Spectators, people who had been wandering the streets because of the earthquake, were starting to gather. Among the crowd, I thought I saw a few who were walking with the strange, trotting gait of disguised satyrs. There were shimmering forms of spirits, too, as if the dead had risen from Hades to watch the battle. I heard the flap of leathery wings circling somewhere above.
    More sirens.
    I stepped farther into the water, but Ares was fast. The tip of his blade ripped my sleeve and grazed my forearm.
    A police voice on a megaphone said, “Drop the guns! Set them on the ground. Now!”
    Guns?
    I looked at Ares’s weapon, and it seemed to be flickering; sometimes it looked like a shotgun, sometimes a two-handed sword. I didn’t know what the humans were seeing in my hands, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t make them like me.
    Ares turned to glare at our spectators, which gave me a moment to breathe. There were five police cars now, and a line of officers crouching behind them, pistols trained on us.
    “This is a private matter!” Ares bellowed. “Be gone!”
    He swept his hand, and a wall of red flame rolled across the patrol cars. The police barely had time to dive for cover before their vehicles exploded. The crowd behind them scattered, screaming.
    Ares roared with laughter. “Now, little hero. Let’s add you to the barbecue.”
    He slashed. I deflected his blade. I got close enough to strike, tried to fake him out with a feint, but my blow was knocked aside. The waves were hitting me in the back now. Ares was up to his thighs, wading in after me.
    I felt the rhythm of the sea, the waves growing larger as the tide rolled in, and suddenly I had an idea. Little waves , I thought. And the water behind me seemed to recede. I was holding back the tide by force of will, but tension was building, like carbonation behind a cork.
    Ares came toward, grinning confidently. I lowered my blade, as if I were too exhausted to go on. Wait for it , I told the sea. The pressure now was almost lifting me off my feet. Ares raised his sword. I released the tide and jumped, rocketing straight over Ares on a wave.
    A six-foot wall of water smashed him full in the face, leaving him cursing and sputtering with a mouth full of seaweed. I landed behind him with a splash and feinted toward his head, as I’d done before. He turned in time to raise his sword, but this time he was disoriented, he didn’t anticipate the trick. I changed direction, lunged to the side, and stabbed Riptide straight down into the water, sending the point through the god’s heel.
    The roar that followed made Hades’s earthquake look like a minor event. The very sea was blasted back from Ares, leaving a wet circle of sand fifty feet wide.
    Ichor, the golden blood of the gods, flowed from a gash in the war god’s boot. The expression on his face was beyond hatred. It was pain, shock, complete disbelief that he’d been wounded.
    He limped toward me, muttering ancient Greek curses.
    Something stopped him.
    It was as if a cloud covered the sun, but worse. Light faded. Sound and color drained away. A cold, heavy presence passed over the beach, slowing time, dropping the temperature to freezing, and making me feel like life was hopeless, fighting was useless.
    The darkness lifted.
    Ares looked stunned.
    Police cars were burning behind us. The crowd of spectators had fled. Annabeth and Grover stood on the beach, in shock, watching the water flood back around Ares’s feet, his glowing golden ichor dissipating in the tide.
    Ares lowered his sword.
    “You have made an enemy, godling,” he told me. “You have sealed your fate. Every time you raise your blade in battle, every time you hope for success, you will feel my curse. Beware, Perseus Jackson. Beware.”
    His body began to glow.
    “Percy!” Annabeth shouted. “Don’t watch!”
    I turned away as the god Ares revealed his true immortal form. I somehow knew that if I looked, I would disintegrate into ashes.
    The light died.
    I looked back. Ares