The Titan's Curse Read Online Free PDF Page B

how it turned from a pen into a sword just by uncapping it.
    “Cool! Does it ever run out of ink?”
    “Um, well, I don’t actually write with it.”
    “Are you really the son of Poseidon?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “Can you surf really well, then?”
    I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.
    “Jeez, Nico,” I said. “I’ve never really tried.”
    He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn’t answer that one.) If Annabeth’s mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn’t Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff ? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)
    I figured any second he was going to ask me how many hit points I had, and I’d lose my cool completely, but then Zoë Nightshade came up to us.
    “Percy Jackson.”
    She had dark brown eyes and a slightly upturned nose. With her silver circlet and her proud expression, she looked so much like royalty that I had to resist the urge to sit up straight and say “Yes, ma’am.” She studied me distastefully, like I was a bag of dirty laundry she’d been sent to fetch.
    “Come with me,” she said. “Lady Artemis wishes to speak with thee.”
    * * *
    Zoë led me to the last tent, which looked no different from the others, and waved me inside. Bianca di Angelo was seated next to the auburn-haired girl, who I still had trouble thinking of as Artemis.
    The inside of the tent was warm and comfortable. Silk rugs and pillows covered the floor. In the center, a golden brazier of fire seemed to burn without fuel or smoke. Behind the goddess, on a polished oak display stand, was her huge silver bow, carved to resemble gazelle horns. The walls were hung with animal pelts: black bear, tiger, and several others I didn’t recognize. I figured an animal rights activist would’ve had a heart attack looking at all those rare skins, but maybe since Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, she could replenish whatever she shot. I thought she had another animal pelt lying next to her, and then I realized it was a live animal—a deer with glittering fur and silver horns, its head resting contentedly in Artemis’s lap.
    “Join us, Percy Jackson,” the goddess said.
    I sat across from her on the tent floor. The goddess studied me, which made me uncomfortable. She had such old eyes for a young girl.
    “Are you surprised by my age?” she asked.
    “Uh . . . a little.”
    “I could appear as a grown woman, or a blazing fire, or anything else I want, but this is what I prefer. This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray.”
    “Go astray?” I asked.
    “Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. Forget themselves.”
    “Oh.”
    Zoë sat down at Artemis’s right. She glared at me as if all the stuff Artemis had just said was my fault, like I’d invented the idea of being a guy.
    “You must forgive my Hunters if they do not welcome you,” Artemis said. “It is very rare that we would have boys in this camp. Boys are usually forbidden to have any contact with the Hunters. The last one to see this camp . . .” She looked at Zoë. “Which one was it?”
    “That boy in Colorado,” Zoë said. “You turned him into a jackalope.”
    “Ah, yes.” Artemis nodded, satisfied. “I enjoy making jackalopes. At any rate, Percy, I’ve asked you here so that you might tell me more of the manticore. Bianca has reported some of the . . . mmm, disturbing things the monster said. But she may not have understood them. I’d like to hear them from you.”
    And so I told her.
    When I was done, Artemis put her hand thoughtfully on her silver bow. “I feared this was the answer.”
    Zoë sat forward. “The scent, my lady?”
    “Yes.”
    “What scent?” I asked.
    “Things are