IT WASN’T AS HARD AS THEY’D THOUGHT. The screaming and
the weed whacker helped.
They’d brought lightweight Polartec jackets with their
supplies, so they bundled up against the cold rain and
walked for a few blocks through the mostly deserted
streets. This time Percy was smart and brought most of
his supplies from the boat. He even stuffed the
macrobiotic jerky in his coat pocket, in case he needed to
threaten any more killer whales.
They saw some bicycle traffic and a few homeless guys
huddled in doorways, but the majority of Portlanders
seemed to be staying indoors.
As they made their way down Glisan Street, Percy
looked longingly at the folks in the cafés enjoying coffee
and pastries. He was about to suggest that they stop for
breakfast when he heard a voice down the street yelling:
‘HA! TAKE THAT, STUPID CHICKENS!’ followed by the
revving of a small engine and a lot of squawking.
Percy glanced at his friends. ‘You think –?’
‘Probably,’ Frank agreed.
They ran towards the sounds.
The next block over, they found a big open parking lot
with tree-lined sidewalks and rows of food trucks facing the
streets on all four sides. Percy had seen food trucks
before, but never so many in one place. Some were
simple white metal boxes on wheels, with awnings and
serving counters. Others were painted blue or purple or
polka-dotted, with big banners out front and colourful
menu boards and tables like do-it-yourself sidewalk cafés.
One advertised Korean/-Brazilian fusion tacos, which
sounded like some kind of top-secret radioactive cuisine.
Another offered sushi on a stick. A third was selling deepfried
ice-cream sandwiches. The smell was amazing –
dozens of different kitchens cooking at once.
Percy’s stomach rumbled. Most of the food carts were
open for business, but there was hardly anyone around.
They could get anything they wanted! Deep-fried ice
cream sandwiches? Oh, man, that sounded way better
than wheat germ.
Unfortunately, there was more happening than just
cooking. In the centre of the lot, behind all the food trucks,
an old man in a bathrobe was running around with a weed
whacker, screaming at a flock of bird-ladies who were
trying to steal food off a picnic table.
‘Harpies,’ said Hazel. ‘Which means –’
‘That’s Phineas,’ Frank guessed.
They ran across the street and squeezed between the
Korean/Brazilian truck and a Chinese egg-roll burrito
vendor.
The backs of the food trucks weren’t nearly as
appetizing as the fronts. They were cluttered with stacks of
plastic buckets, overflowing garbage cans, and makeshift
clotheslines hung with wet aprons and towels. The parking
lot itself was nothing but a square of cracked asphalt,
marbled with weeds. In the middle was a picnic table piled
high with food from all the different trucks.
The guy in the bathrobe was old and fat. He was mostly
bald, with scars across his forehead and a rim of stringy
white hair. His bathrobe was spattered with ketchup, and
he kept stumbling around in fuzzy pink bunny slippers,
swinging his gas-powered weed whacker at the half-dozen
harpies who were hovering over his picnic table.
He was clearly blind. His eyes were milky white, and
usually he missed the harpies by a lot, but he was still
doing a pretty good job fending them off.
‘Back, dirty chickens!’ he bellowed.
Percy wasn’t sure why, but he had a vague sense that
harpies were supposed to be plump. These looked like
they were starving. Their human faces had sunken eyes
and hollow cheeks. Their bodies were covered in moulting
feathers, and their wings were tipped with tiny, shrivelled
hands. They wore ragged burlap sacks for dresses. As
they dived for the food, they seemed more desperate than
angry. Percy felt sorry for them.
WHIRRRR! The old man swung his weed whacker. He
grazed one of the harpies’ wings. The harpy yelped in pain
and fluttered off, dropping yellow feathers as she flew.
Another harpy circled higher than the rest. She looked
younger and smaller than the others, with bright-red
feathers. She watched carefully for an opening, and when
the old man’s back was turned she made a wild dive for
the table. She grabbed a burrito in her clawed feet, but,
before she could escape, the blind man swung his weed
whacker and smacked her in the back so hard that Percy
winced. The harpy yelped, dropped the burrito and flew off.
‘Hey, stop it!’ Percy yelled.
The harpies took that the wrong way. They glanced over
at the three demigods and immediately fled. Most of them
fluttered away and perched in the trees around the square,
staring dejectedly at the picnic table. The red-feathered
one with the hurt back flew unsteadily down Glisan Street
and out of sight.
‘Ha!’ The blind man yelled in triumph and killed the
power on his weed whacker. He grinned vacantly in
Percy’s direction. ‘Thank you, strangers! Your help is most
appreciated.’
Percy bit back his anger. He hadn’t meant to help the
old man, but he remembered that they needed
information from him.
‘Uh, whatever.’ He approached the old guy, keeping one
eye on the weed whacker. ‘I’m Percy Jackson. This is –’
‘Demigods!’ the old man said. ‘I can always smell
demigods.’
Hazel frowned. ‘Do we smell that bad?’
The old man laughed. ‘Of course not, my dear. But
you’d be surprised how sharp my other senses became
once I was blinded. I’m Phineas. And you – wait, don’t tell
me –’
He reached for Percy’s face and poked him in the eyes.
‘Ow!’ Percy complained.
‘Son of Neptune!’ Phineas exclaimed. ‘I thought I
smelled the ocean on you, Percy Jackson. I’m also a son
of Neptune, you know.’
‘Hey … yeah. Okay.’ Percy rubbed his eyes. Just his
luck he was related to this grubby old dude. He hoped all
sons of Neptune didn’t share the same fate. First, you start
carrying a man satchel. Next thing you know, you’re
running around in a bathrobe and pink bunny slippers,
chasing chickens with a weed whacker.
Phineas turned to Hazel. ‘And here … Oh my, the smell
of gold and deep earth. Hazel Levesque, daughter of
Pluto. And next to you – the son of Mars. But there’s more
to your story, Frank Zhang –’
‘Ancient blood,’ Frank muttered. ‘Prince of Pylos. Blah,
blah, blah.’
‘Periclymenus, exactly! Oh, he was a nice fellow. I loved
the Argonauts!’
Frank’s mouth fell open. ‘W-wait. Perry who?’
Phineas grinned. ‘Don’t worry. I know about your family.
That story about your great-grandfather? He didn’t really
destroy the camp. Now, what an interesting group. Are you
hungry?’
Frank looked like he’d been run over by a truck, but
Phineas had already moved on to other matters. He
waved his hand at the picnic table. In the nearby trees, the
harpies shrieked miserably. As hungry as Percy was, he
couldn’t stand to think about eating with those poor bird
ladies watching him.
‘Look, I’m confused,’ Percy said. ‘We need some
information. We were told –’
‘– that the harpies were keeping my food away from me,’
Phineas finished, ‘and, if you helped me, I’d help you.’
‘Something like that,’ Percy admitted.
Phineas laughed. ‘That’s old news. Do I look like I’m
missing any meals?’
He patted his belly, which was the size of an
overinflated basketball.
‘Um … no,’ Percy said.
Phineas waved his weed whacker in an expansive
gesture. All three of them ducked.
‘Things have changed, my friends!’ he said. ‘When I first
got the gift of prophecy, aeons ago, it’s true Jupiter cursed
me. He sent the harpies to steal my food. You see, I had a
bit of a big mouth. I gave away too many secrets that the
gods wanted kept.’ He turned to Hazel. ‘For instance,
you’re supposed to be dead. And you –’ He turned to
Frank. ‘Your life depends on a burnt stick.’
Percy frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
Hazel blinked like she’d been slapped. Frank looked
like the truck had backed up and run over him again.
‘And you,’ Phineas turned to Percy, ‘well now, you don’t
even know who you are! I could tell you, of course,
but … ha! What fun would that be? And Brigid
O’Shaughnessy shot Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon.
And Darth Vader is actually Luke’s father. And the winner
of the next Super Bowl will be –’
‘Got it,’ Frank muttered.
Hazel gripped her sword like she was tempted to
pommel-whip the old man. ‘So you talked too much, and
the gods cursed you. Why did they stop?’
‘Oh, they didn’t!’ The old man arched his bushy
eyebrows like, Can you believe it? ‘I had to make a deal
with the Argonauts. They wanted information, too, you see.
I told them to kill the harpies, and I’d cooperate. Well, they
drove those nasty creatures away, but Iris wouldn’t let
them kill the harpies. An outrage! So this time, when my
patron brought me back to life –’
‘Your patron?’ Frank asked.
Phineas gave him a wicked grin. ‘Why, Gaia, of course.
Who do you think opened the Doors of Death? Your
girlfriend here understands. Isn’t Gaia your patron, too?’
Hazel drew her sword. ‘I’m not his – I don’t – Gaia is not
my patron!’
Phineas looked amused. If he had heard the sword
being drawn, he didn’t seem concerned. ‘Fine, if you want
to be noble and stick with the losing side, that’s your
business. But Gaia is waking. She’s already rewritten the
rules of life and death! I’m alive again, and in exchange
for my help – a prophecy here, a prophecy there – I get
my fondest wish. The tables have been turned, so to
speak. Now I can eat all I want, all day long, and the
harpies have to watch and starve.’
He revved his weed whacker, and the harpies wailed in
the trees.
‘They’re cursed!’ the old man said. ‘They can eat only
food from my table, and they can’t leave Portland. Since
the Doors of Death are open, they can’t even die. It’s
beautiful!’
‘Beautiful?’ Frank protested. ‘They’re living creatures.
Why are you so mean to them?’
‘They’re monsters!’ Phineas said. ‘And mean? Those
feather-brained demons tormented me for years!’
‘But it was their duty,’ Percy said, trying to control
himself. ‘Jupiter ordered them to.’
‘Oh, I’m mad at Jupiter, too,’ Phineas agreed. ‘In time,
Gaia will see that the gods are properly punished. Horrible
job they’ve done, ruling the world. But, for now, I’m
enjoying Portland. The mortals take no notice of me.
They think I’m just a crazy old man shooing away
pigeons!’
Hazel advanced on the seer. ‘You’re awful!’ she told
Phineas. ‘You belong in the Fields of Punishment!’
Phineas sneered. ‘One dead person to another, girlie? I
wouldn’t be talking. You started this whole thing! If it weren’t
for you, Alcyoneus wouldn’t be alive!’
Hazel stumbled back.
‘Hazel?’ Frank’s eyes got as wide as quarters. ‘What’s
he talking about?’
‘Ha!’ Phineas said. ‘You’ll find out soon enough, Frank
Zhang. Then we’ll see if you’re still sweet on your
girlfriend. But that’s not what you’re here about, is it? You
want to find Thanatos. He’s being kept at Alcyoneus’s lair.
I can tell you where that is. Of course I can. But you’ll have
to do me a favour.’
‘Forget it,’ Hazel snapped. ‘You’re working for the
enemy. We should send you back to the Underworld
ourselves.’
‘You could try.’ Phineas smiled. ‘But I doubt I’d stay
dead very long. You see, Gaia has shown me the easy
way back. And with Thanatos in chains there’s no one to
keep me down! Besides, if you kill me, you won’t get my
secrets.’
Percy was tempted to let Hazel use her sword. In fact he
wanted to strangle the old man himself.
Camp Jupiter, he told himself. Saving the camp is
more important. He remembered Alcyoneus taunting him
in his dreams. If they wasted time searching through
Alaska looking for the giant’s lair, Gaia’s armies would
destroy the Romans … and Percy’s other friends,
wherever they were.
He gritted his teeth. ‘What’s the favour?’
Phineas licked his lips greedily. ‘There’s one harpy
who’s quicker than the rest.’
‘The red one,’ Percy guessed.
‘I’m blind! I don’t know colours!’ the old man groused. ‘At
any rate, she’s the only one I have trouble with. She’s wily,
that one. Always does her own thing, never roosts with the
others. She gave me these.’
He pointed at the scars on his forehead.
‘Capture that harpy,’ he said. ‘Bring her to me. I want her
tied up where I can keep an eye on her … ah, so to speak.
Harpies hate being tied up. It causes them extreme pain.
Yes, I’ll enjoy that. Maybe I’ll even feed her so that she
lasts longer.’
Percy looked at his friends. They came to a silent
agreement: they would never help this creepy old man.
On the other hand, they had to get his information. They
needed a Plan B.
‘Oh, go talk among yourselves,’ Phineas said breezily. ‘I
don’t care. Just remember that without my help your quest
will fail. And everyone you love in the world will die. Now,
off with you! Bring me a harpy!’
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