“Give me the tooth!” Anger tried to grab at Wasp’s mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.
“Only if Tempest gives me the eye!”
“No!” Tempest screeched. “You had it yesterday!”
“But I’m driving, you old hag!”
“Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!”
Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street, squishing me between Tyson and the door. She punched the gas and we shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour.
The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp’s face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest’s. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other, I realized that none of the sisters had any teeth except for Wasp, who had one mossy yellow incisor. Instead of eyes, they just had closed, sunken eyelids, except for Anger, who had one bloodshot green eye that stared at everything hungrily, as if it couldn’t get enough of anything it saw.
Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp’s mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, “’Ivit back! ’Ivit back!”
Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.
“Uh, if anybody’s interested,” I said, “we’re going to die!”
“Don’t worry,” Annabeth told me, sounding pretty worried. “The Gray Sisters know what they’re doing. They’re really very wise.”
This coming from the daughter of Athena, but I wasn’t exactly reassured. We were skimming along the edge of a bridge a hundred and thirty feet above the East River.
“Yes, wise!” Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. “We know things!”
“Every street in Manhattan!” Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. “The capital of Nepal!”
“The location you seek!” Tempest added.
Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either side, screaming, “Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn’t even ask yet!”
“What?” I said. “What location? I’m not seeking any—”
“Nothing!” Tempest said. “You’re right, boy. It’s nothing!”
“Tell me.”
“No!” they all screamed.
“The last time we told, it was horrible!” Tempest said.
“Eye tossed in a lake!” Anger agreed.
“Years to find it again!” Wasp moaned. “And speaking of that—give it back!”
“No!” yelled Anger.
“Eye!” Wasp yelled. “Gimme!”
She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and something flew out of Anger’s face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into my lap.
I jumped so hard, my head hit the ceiling and the eyeball rolled away.
“I can’t see!” all three sisters yelled.
“Give me the eye!” Wasp wailed.
“Give her the eye!” Annabeth screamed.
“I don’t have it!” I said.
“There, by your foot,” Annabeth said. “Don’t step on it! Get it!”
“I’m not picking that up!”
The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.
“Going to be sick!” Tyson warned.
“Annabeth,” I yelled, “let Tyson use your backpack!”
“Are you crazy? Get the eye!”
Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. We hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any human taxi. The Gray Sisters screeched and pummeled each other and cried out for their eye.
At last I steeled my nerves. I ripped off a chunk of my tie-dyed T-shirt, which was already falling apart from all the burn marks, and used it to pick the eyeball off the floor.
“Nice boy!” Anger cried, as if she somehow knew I had her missing peeper. “Give it back!”
“Not until you explain,” I told her. “What were you talking about, the location I seek?”
“No time!” Tempest cried. “Accelerating!”
I looked out the window. Sure enough, trees and cars and whole neighborhoods were now zipping by in a gray blur. We were already out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.
“Percy,” Annabeth warned, “they can’t find our destination without the eye. We’ll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces.”
“First they have to tell me,” I said. “Or I’ll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic.”
“No!” the Gray Sisters wailed. “Too dangerous!”
“I’m rolling down the window.”
“Wait!” the Gray Sisters screamed. “30, 31, 75, 12!”
They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play.
“What do you mean?” I said. “That makes no sense!”
“30, 31, 75, 12!” Anger wailed. “That’s all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!”
We were off the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island. I could see Half-Blood Hill ahead of us, with its giant pine tree at the crest—Thalia’s tree, which contained the life force of a fallen hero.
“Percy!” Annabeth said more urgently. “Give them the eye now!”
I decided not to argue. I threw the eye into Wasp’s lap.
The old lady snatched it up, pushed it into her eye socket like somebody putting in a contact lens, and blinked. “Whoa!”
She slammed on the brakes. The taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill.
Tyson let loose a huge belch. “Better now.”
“All right,” I told the Gray Sisters. “Now tell me what those numbers mean.”
“No time!” Annabeth opened her door. “We have to get out now.”
I was about to ask why, when I looked up at Half-Blood Hill and understood.
At the crest of the hill was a group of campers. And they were under attack.
FOUR
TYSON PLAYS WITH FIRE
Mythologically speaking, if there’s anything I hate worse than trios of old ladies, it’s bulls. Last summer, I fought the Minotaur on top of Half-Blood Hill. This time what I saw up there was even worse: two bulls. And not just regular bulls—bronze ones the size of elephants. And even that wasn’t bad enough. Naturally they had to breathe fire, too.
As soon as we exited the taxi, the Gray Sisters peeled out, heading back to New York, where life was safer. They didn’t even wait for their extra three-drachma payment. They just left us on the side of the road, Annabeth with nothing but her backpack and knife, Tyson and me still in our burned-up tie-dyed gym clothes.
“Oh, man,” said Annabeth, looking at the battle raging on the hill.
What worried me most weren’t the bulls themselves. Or the ten heroes in full battle armor who were getting their bronze-plated booties whooped. What worried me was that the bulls were ranging all over the hill, even around the back side of the pine tree. That shouldn’t have been possible. The camp’s magic boundaries didn’t allow monsters to cross past Thalia’s tree. But the metal bulls were doing it anyway.