The Titan's Curse

pounding on my door.
    I grabbed Riptide and got out of bed.
    “Hello?” I called.
    THUMP. THUMP.
    I crept to the door.
    I uncapped the blade, flung open the door, and found myself face-to-face with a black pegasus.
    Whoa, boss! Its voice spoke in my mind as it clopped away from the sword blade. I don’t wanna be a horse-ke-bob!
    Its black wings spread in alarm, and the wind buffeted me back a step.
    “Blackjack,” I said, relieved but a little irritated. “It’s the middle of the night!”
    Blackjack huffed. Ain’t either, boss. It’s five in the morning. What you still sleeping for?
    “How many times have I told you? Don’t call me boss.”
    Whatever you say, boss. You’re the man. You’re my number one.
    I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and tried not to let the pegasus read my thoughts. That’s the problem with being Poseidon’s son: since he created horses out of sea foam, I can understand most equestrian animals, but they can understand me, too. Sometimes, like in Blackjack’s case, they kind of adopt me.
    See, Blackjack had been a captive on board Luke’s ship last summer, until we’d caused a little distraction that allowed him to escape. I’d really had very little to do with it, seriously, but Blackjack credited me with saving him.
    “Blackjack,” I said, “you’re supposed to stay in the stables.”
    Meh, the stables. You see Chiron staying in the stables?
    “Well . . . no.”
    Exactly. Listen, we got another little sea friend needs your help.
    “Again?”
    Yeah. I told the hippocampi I’d come get you.
    I groaned. Anytime I was anywhere near the beach, the hippocampi would ask me to help them with their problems. And they had a lot of problems. Beached whales, porpoises caught in fishing nets, mermaids with hangnails— they’d call me to come underwater and help.
    “All right,” I said. “I’m coming.”
    You’re the best, boss.
    “And don’t call me boss!”
    Blackjack whinnied softly. It might’ve been a laugh.
    I looked back at my comfortable bed. My bronze shield still hung on the wall, dented and unusable. And on my nightstand was Annabeth’s magic Yankees cap. On an impulse, I stuck the cap in my pocket. I guess I had a feeling, even then, that I wasn’t coming back to my cabin for a long, long time.

EIGHT

I MAKE A DANGEROUS PROMISE
    Blackjack gave me a ride down the beach, and I have to admit it was cool. Being on a flying horse, skimming over the waves at a hundred miles an hour with the wind in my hair and the sea spray in my face—hey, it beats waterskiing any day.
    Here. Blackjack slowed and turned in a circle. Straight down.
    “Thanks.” I tumbled off his back and plunged into the icy sea.
    I’d gotten more comfortable doing stunts like that the past couple of years. I could pretty much move however I wanted to underwater, just by willing the ocean currents to change around me and propel me along. I could breathe underwater, no problem, and my clothes never got wet unless I wanted them to.
    I shot down into the darkness.
    Twenty, thirty, forty feet. The pressure wasn’t uncomfortable. I’d never tried to push it—to see if there was a limit to how deep I could dive. I knew most regular humans couldn’t go past two hundred feet without crumpling like an aluminum can. I should’ve been blind, too, this deep in the water at night, but I could see the heat from living forms, and the cold of the currents. It’s hard to describe. It wasn’t like regular seeing, but I could tell where everything was.
    As I got closer to the bottom, I saw three hippocampi—fish-tailed horses—swimming in a circle around an overturned boat. The hippocampi were beautiful to watch. Their fish tails shimmered in rainbow colors, glowing phosphorescent. Their manes were white, and they were galloping through the water the way nervous horses do in a thunderstorm. Something was upsetting them.
    I got closer and saw the problem. A dark shape—some kind of animal—was wedged halfway under the boat and tangled in a fishing net, one of those big nets they use on trawlers to catch everything at once. I hated those things. It was bad enough they drowned porpoises and dolphins, but they also occasionally caught mythological animals. When the nets got tangled, some lazy fishermen would just cut them loose and let the trapped animals die.
    Apparently this poor creature had been mucking around on the bottom of Long Island Sound and had somehow gotten itself tangled in the net of