The Titan's Curse

wake him up. He groaned, his eyes fluttering.
    “Hey!” Thalia said, running up from the street. “I just . . . What’s wrong with Grover?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “He collapsed.”
    “Uuuuuhhhh,” Grover groaned.
    “Well, get him up!” Thalia said. She had her spear in her hand. She looked behind her as if she were being followed. “We have to get out of here.”
    We made it to the edge of the town before the first two skeleton warriors appeared. They stepped from the trees on either side of the road. Instead of gray camouflage, they were now wearing blue New Mexico State Police uniforms, but they had the same transparent gray skin and yellow eyes.
    They drew their handguns. I’ll admit I used to think it would be kind of cool to learn how to shoot a gun, but I changed my mind as soon as the skeleton warriors pointed theirs at me.
    Thalia tapped her bracelet. Aegis spiraled to life on her arm, but the warriors didn’t flinch. Their glowing yellow eyes bored right into me.
    I drew Riptide, though I wasn’t sure what good it would do against guns.
    Zoë and Bianca drew their bows, but Bianca was having trouble because Grover kept swooning and leaning against her.
    “Back up,” Thalia said.
    We started to—but then I heard a rustling of branches. Two more skeletons appeared on the road behind us. We were surrounded.
    I wondered where the other skeletons were. I’d seen a dozen at the Smithsonian. Then one of the warriors raised a cell phone to his mouth and spoke into it.
    Except he wasn’t speaking. He made a clattering, clicking sound, like dry teeth on bone. Suddenly I understood what was going on. The skeletons had split up to look for us. These skeletons were now calling their brethren. Soon we’d have a full party on our hands.
    “It’s near,” Grover moaned.
    “It’s here,” I said.
    “No,” he insisted. “The gift. The gift from the Wild.”
    I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I was worried about his condition. He was in no shape to walk, much less fight.
    “We’ll have to go one-on-one,” Thalia said. “Four of them. Four of us. Maybe they’ll ignore Grover that way.”
    “Agreed,” said Zoë.
    “The Wild!” Grover moaned.
    A warm wind blew through the canyon, rustling the trees, but I kept my eyes on the skeletons. I remembered the General gloating over Annabeth’s fate. I remembered the way Luke had betrayed her.
    And I charged.
    The first skeleton fired. Time slowed down. I won’t say I could see the bullet, but I could feel its path, the same way I felt water currents in the ocean. I deflected it off the edge of my blade and kept charging.
    The skeleton drew a baton and I sliced off his arms at the elbows. Then I swung Riptide through his waist and cut him in half.
    His bones unknit and clattered to the asphalt in a heap. Almost immediately, they began to move, reassembling themselves. The second skeleton clattered his teeth at me and tried to fire, but I knocked his gun into the snow.
    I thought I was doing pretty well, until the other two skeletons shot me in the back.
    “Percy!” Thalia screamed.
    I landed facedown in the street. Then I realized something . . . I wasn’t dead. The impact of the bullets had been dull, like a push from behind, but they hadn’t hurt me.
    The Nemean Lion’s fur! My coat was bulletproof.
    Thalia charged the second skeleton. Zoë and Bianca started firing arrows at the third and fourth. Grover stood there and held his hands out to the trees, looking like he wanted to hug them.
    There was a crashing sound in the forest to our left, like a bulldozer. Maybe the skeletons’ reinforcements were arriving. I got to my feet and ducked a police baton. The skeleton I’d cut in half was already fully re-formed, coming after me.
    There was no way to stop them. Zoë and Bianca fired at their heads point-blank, but the arrows just whistled straight through their empty skulls. One lunged at Bianca, and I thought she was a goner, but she whipped out her hunting knife and stabbed the warrior in the chest. The whole skeleton erupted into flames, leaving a little pile of ashes and a police badge.
    “How did you do that?” Zoë asked.
    “I don’t know,” Bianca said nervously. “Lucky stab?”
    “Well, do it again!”
    Bianca tried, but the remaining three skeletons were wary of her now. They pressed us back, keeping us at baton’s length.
    “Plan?” I said as we retreated.
    Nobody answered. The trees behind the