It hadn't been so bad when we started out, loping along at a leisurely pace. Although he had a thick fur coat, it did little to soften the angular bones that jutted from his shoulder blades, which didn't exactly make a comfortable saddle. The beads on my camp necklace bounced with every step-I bet I'd have a bad bruise on my collarbone by the time we arrived. Remy's powerful haunches rose and fell unevenly, so I was constantly tossed about. I'd take a horse, or a pegasus, or even better, a Sopwith Camel, any day. But let me tell you, riding a giant wolf is nowhere as exciting or romantic as it sounds. Remy was the size of an SUV and ran twice as fast. Their talent scout, Izzy, had loaned me the giant wolf I currently rode. Phoebe, their best healer, had loaded me up on nectar and ambrosia. Hunter Kowalski, their newest recruit, had made me a new sheath for my dagger. Nevertheless, the Hunters had sent me off with plenty of supplies. Thalia wouldn't say what they were doing there-'Classified information, sorry!' I guessed it had something to do with the war. So it wasn't that big a wrench to part ways with the Hunters in Indiana. I couldn't imagine never seeing him again. Sure, he annoyed the Hades out of me half the time, and he could act like a real idiot, but somehow when we were apart, I always got this dull ache in my chest that refused to go away. It would have meant saying goodbye permanently to my best friend, Percy Jackson. Once upon a time, I'd considered joining them, but there was one snag to their lifestyle: no boys, ever. Thalia leads the Hunters of Artemis, a group of girls who run all over the country hunting monsters and never ageing (again, long story).

I could never abandon it.ДЇor the past couple of weeks, I'd been travelling east with my friend Thalia and her band of immortal maidens. And although I didn't tell my dad this, I still regarded Camp Half-Blood as a more permanent home than San Francisco. Luke-Kronos-had promised to attack Camp Half-Blood this summer, once he rebuilt the monster army we'd decimated last year. This summer might be the most important one of my life. Tempting as the offer was, I'd told him I needed to stay. 'I could even take you to Greece while we're there. 'We'll make a real holiday of it,' he'd suggested. At spring break, he'd packed up his precious biplanes and shipped them off to Belgium, where he'd secured a grant to stage a historical re-enactment of the Battle of Ypres at its original site. He'd wanted to take me with him and my stepfamily to Europe this summer. This spring, it had finally gotten to the stage where my mother, Athena, had personally told me I had to leave and make my way to Camp Half-Blood post-haste, before the situation got 'deadly'. And ever since the Titan Kronos had taken over my friend Luke's body and established his home base on Mount Tamalpais (long story), San Francisco, where I went to school, had been crawling with monsters. I'd dealt with monsters of all speeds and sizes since I was a kid. No half-blood (half-mortal, half-Greek god) lives to the age of sixteen (which I'd be next month) without running from a monster or ten. I guess being a demigod, I should be used to monsters that wouldn't quit. Either they had super stamina or super tracking abilities, because it was impossible to shake them off. They'd appeared just as we crossed the Delaware and chased us all the way across New Jersey. There were two of them, a matched pair, female and male. The giant scorpions hadn't even noticed us speeding through Pennsylvania.Д«ut these lions were persistent. Remy had outrun the dracaenae in Columbus and the cynocephali in Pittsburgh. The other monsters had given up once they realised that the giant wolf I was riding cross-country could outstrip them easily. I should have outrun the lions two townships ago.

Paintbrush and party poughkeepsie