I SCOOP POOP

I lost hope when I saw the horses' teeth.

As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the

smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He

bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's.

I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with most horses.

Hi, I told him. I'm going to clean your stables. Won't that be great?

Yes! The horse said. Come inside! Eat you! Tasty half-blood!

But I'm Poseidon's son, I protested. He created horses.

Usually this gets me VIP treatment in the equestrian world, but not this

time.

Yes! The horse agreed enthusiastically. Poseidon can come in, too! We

will eat you both! Seafood!

Seafood! The other horses chimed in as they waded through the field.

Flies were buzzing everywhere, and the heat of the day didn't make the

smell any better. I'd had some idea that I could do this challenge, because I

remembered how Hercules had done it. He'd channeled a river into the

stables and cleaned them out that way. I figured I could maybe control the

water. But if I couldn't get close to the horses without getting eaten, that was

a problem. And the river was downhill from the stables, a lot farther away

than I'd realized, almost half a mile. The problem of the poop looked a lot

bigger up close. I picked up a rusted shovel and experimentally scooped

some away from the fence line. Great. Only four billion shovelfuls to go.

The sun was already sinking. I had a few hours at best. I decided the river

was my only hope. At least it would be easier to think at the riverside than it

was here. I set off downhill.

* * *

When I got to the river, I found a girl waiting for me. She was wearing

jeans and a green T-shirt and her long brown hair was braided with river

grass. She had a stern look on her face. Her arms were crossed.

"Oh no you don't," she said.

I stared at her. "Are you a naiad?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course!"

"But you speak English. And you're out of the water."

"What, you don't think we can act human if we want to?"

I'd never thought about it. I kind of felt stupid, though, because I'd seen

plenty of naiads at camp, and they'd never done much more than giggle and

wave at me from the bottom of the canoe lake.

"Look," I said. "I just came to ask—"

"I know who you are," she said. "And I know what you want. And the

answer is no! I'm not going to have my river used again to clean that filthy

stable."

"But—"

"Oh, save it, sea boy. You ocean-god types always think you're soooo

much more important than some little river, don't you? well let me tell you,

this naiad is not going to be pushed around just because your daddy is

Poseidon. This is freshwater territory, mister. The last guy who asked me

this favor—oh, he was way better-looking than you, by the way—he

convinced me, and that was the worst mistake I've ever made! Do you have

any idea what all that horse manure does to my ecosystem? Do I look like a

sewage treatment plant to you? My fish will die. I'll never get the much out

of my plants. I'll be sick for years. NO THANK YOU!"

The way she talked reminded me of my mortal friend, Rachel Elizabeth

Dare—kind of like she was punching me with words. I couldn't blame the

naiad. Now that I thought about it, I'd be pretty mad if somebody dumped

four million pounds of manure in my home. But still…"

"My friends are in danger," I told her.

"Well, that's too bad! But it's not my problem. And you're not going to

ruin my river."

She looked like she was ready for a fight. Her fists were balled, but I

thought I heard a little quiver in her voice. Suddenly I realized that despite

her angry attitude, she was afraid of me. She probably thought I was going

to fight her for control of the river, and she was worried she would lose.

The thought made me sad. I felt like a bully, a son of Poseidon throwing

his weight around.

I sat down on a tree stump. "Okay, you win."

The naiad looked surprised. "Really?"

"I'm not going to fight you. It's your river."

She relaxed her shoulders. "Oh. Oh, good. I mean—good thing for you!"

"But my friends and I are going to get sold to the Titans if I don't clean

those stables by sunset. And I don't know how."

The river gurgled along cheerfully. A snake slid through the water and

ducked its head under. Finally the naiad sighed.

"I'll tell you a secret, son of the sea god. Scoop up some dirt."

"What?"

"You heard me."

I crouched down and scooped up a handful of Texas dirt. It was dry and

black and spotted with tiny clumps of white rock…No, something besides

rock.

"Those are shells," the naiad said. "Petrified seashells. Millions of years

ago, even before the time of the gods, when only Gaea and Ouranos reigned,

this land was under the water. It was part of the sea."

Suddenly I saw what she meant. There were little pieces of ancient sea

urchins in my hand, mollusk shells. Even the limestone rocks had

impressions of seashells embedded in them.

"Okay," I said. "What good does that do me?"

"You're not so different from me, demigod. Even when I'm out of the

water, the water is within me. It is my life source." She stepped back, put her

feet in the river, and smiled. "I hope you find a way to rescue your friends."

And with that she turned to liquid and melted into the river.

* * *

The sun was touching the hills when I got back to the stables. Somebody

must've come by and fed the horses, because they were tearing into huge

animal carcasses. I couldn't tell what kind of animal, and I really didn't want

to know. If it was possible for the stables to get more disgusting, fifty horses

tearing into raw meat did it.

Seafood! one thought when he saw me. Come in! We're still hungry!

What was I supposed to do? I couldn't use the river. And the fact that this

place had been under water a million years ago didn't exactly help me now. I

looked at the little calcified seashell in my palm, then at the huge mountain

of dung.

Frustrated, I threw the shell into the poop. I was about to turn my back on

the horses when I heard a sound.

PFFFFFFT! Like a balloon with a leak.

I looked down where I had thrown the shell. A tiny spout of water was

shooting out of the muck.

"No way," I muttered.

Hesitantly, I stepped toward the fence. "Get bigger," I told the waterspout.

SPOOOOOOOSH!

Water shot three feet into the air and kept bubbling. It was impossible, but

there it was. A couple of horses came over to check it out. One put his

mouth to the spring and recoiled.

Yuck! he said. Salty!

It was seawater in the middle of a Texas ranch. I scooped up another

handful of dirt and picked out the shell fossils. I didn't really know what I

was doing, but I ran around the length of the stable, throwing shells into the

dung piles. Everywhere a shell hit, a saltwater spring erupted.

Stop! The horses cried. Meat is good! Baths are bad!

Then I noticed the water wasn't running out of the stables or flowing

downhill like water normally would. It simply bubbled around each spring

and sank into the ground, taking the dung with it. The horse poop dissolved

in the saltwater, leaving regular old wet dirt.

"More!" I yelled.

There was a tugging sensation in my gut, and the waterspouts exploded

like the world's largest carwash. Salt water shot twenty feet into the air. The

horses went crazy, running back and forth as the geysers sprayed them from

all directions. Mountains of poop began to melt like ice.

The tugging sensation became more intense, painful even, but there was

something exhilarating about seeing all that salt water. I had made this. I had

brought the ocean to this hillside.

Stop, lord! a horse cried. Stop, please!

Water was sloshing everywhere now. The horses were drenched, and

some were panicking and slipping in the mud. The poop was completely

gone, tons of it just dissolved into the earth, and the water was now starting

to pool, trickling out of the stable, making a hundred little streams down

toward the river.

"Stop," I told the water.

Nothing happened. The pain in my gut was building. If I didn't shut off

the geysers soon, the salt water would run into the river and poison the fish

and plants.

"Stop!" I concentrated all my might on shutting off the force of the sea.

Suddenly the geysers shut down. I collapsed to my knees, exhausted. In

front of me was a shiny clean horse stable, a field of wet salty mud, and fifty

horses that had been scoured so thoroughly their coats gleamed. Even the

meat scraps between their teeth had been washed out.

We won't eat you! the horses wailed. Please, lord! no more salty baths!

"On one condition," I said. "You only eat the food your handlers give you

from now on. Not people. Or I'll be back with more seashells!"

The horses whinnied and made me a whole lot of promises that they

would be good flesh-eating horses from now on, but I didn't stick around to

chat. The sun was going down. I turned and ran full speed toward the ranch

house.

* * *

I smelled barbecue before I reached the house, and that made me madder

than ever, because I really love barbecue.

The deck was set up for a party. Streamers and balloons decorated the

railing. Geryon was flipping burgers on a huge barbecue cooker made from

an oil drum. Eurytion lounged at a picnic table, picking his fingernails with a

knife. The two-headed dog sniffed the ribs and burgers that were frying on

the grill. And then I saw my friends: Tyson, Grover, Annabeth, and Nico all

tossed in a corner, tied up like rodeo animals, with their ankles and wrists

roped together and their mouths gagged.

"Let them go!" I yelled, still out of breath from running up the steps. "I

cleaned the stables!"

Geryon turned. He wore an apron on each chest, with one word on each,

so together they spelled out: KISS—THE—CHEF. "Did you, now? How'd

you manage it?"

I was pretty impatient, but I told him.

He nodded appreciatively. "Very ingenious. It would've been better if

you'd poisoned that pesky naiad, but no matter."

"Let my friends go," I said. "We had a deal."

"Ah, I've been thinking about that. The problem is, if I let them go, I

don't get paid."

"You promised!"

Geryon made a tsk-tsk noise. "But did you make me swear on the River

Styx? No you didn't. So it's not binding. When you're conducting business,

sonny, you should always get a binding oath."

I drew my sword. Orthus growled. One head leaned down next to

Grover's ear and bared its fangs.

"Eurytion," Geryon said, "the boy is starting to annoy me. Kill him."

Eurytion studied me. I didn't like my odds against him and that huge club.

"Kill him yourself," Eurytion said.

Geryon raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Eurytion grumbled. "You keep sending me out to do

your dirty work. You pick fights for no good reason, and I'm getting tired of

dying for you. You want to fight the kid, do it yourself."

It was the most un-Areslike thing I'd ever heard son of Ares say.

Geryon threw down his spatula. "You dare defy me? I should fire you

right now!"

"And who'd take care of your cattle? Orthus, heel."

The dog immediately stopped growling at Grover and came to sit by the

cowherd's feet.

"Fine!" Geryon snarled. "I'll deal with you later, after the boy is dead!"

He picked up two carving knives and threw them at me. I deflected one

with my sword. The other impaled itself in the picnic table an inch from

Eurytion's hand.

I went on the attack. Geryon parried my first strike with a pair of red-hot

tongs and lunged at my face with a barbecue fork. I got inside his next thrust

and stabbed him right through the middle chest.

"Aghhh!" He crumpled to his knees. I waited for him to disintegrate, the

way monsters usually do. But instead he just grimaced and started to stand

up. The wound in his chef's apron started to heal.

"Nice try, sonny," he said. "Thing is, I have three hearts. The perfect

backup system."

He tipped over the barbecue, and coals spilled everywhere. One landed

next to Annabeth's face, and she let out a muffled scream. Tyson strained

against his bonds, but even his strength wasn't enough to break them. I had

to end this fight before my friends got hurt.

I jabbed Geryon in the left chest, but he only laughed. I stuck him in the

right stomach. No good. I might as well have been sticking a sword in a

teddy bear for all the reaction he showed.

Three hearts. The perfect backup system. Stabbing one at a time was no

good….

I ran into the house.

"Coward!" he cried. "Come back and die right!"

The living room walls were decorated with a bunch of gruesome hunting

trophies—stuffed deer and dragon heads, a gun case, a sword display, and a

bow with a quiver.

Geryon threw his barbecue fork, and it thudded into the wall right next to

my head. He drew two swords from the wall display. "Your head's gonna go

right there, Jackson! Next to the grizzly bear!"

I had a crazy idea. I dropped Riptide and grabbed the bow off the wall.

I was the worst archery shot in the world. I couldn't hit the targets at camp,

much less a bull's eye. But I had no choice. I couldn't win this fight with a

sword. I prayed to Artemis and Apollo, the twin archers, hoping they might

take pity on me for once. Please, guys. Just one shot. Please.

I notched an arrow.

Geryon laughed. "You fool! One arrow is no better than one sword."

He raised his swords and charged. I dove sideways. Before he could turn,

I shot my arrow into the side of his right chest. I heard THUMP, THUMP,

THUMP, as the arrow passed clean through each of his chests and flew out

his left side, embedding itself in the forehead of the grizzly bear trophy.

Geryon dropped his swords. He turned and stared at me. "You can't shoot.

They told me you couldn't…"

His face turned a sickly shade of green. He collapsed to his knees and

began crumbling into sand, until all that was left were three cooking aprons

and an oversized pair of cowboy boots.

* * *

I got my friends untied. Eurytion didn't try to stop me. Then I stoked up

the barbecue and threw the food into the flames as a burnt offering for

Artemis and Apollo.

"Thanks, guys," I said. "I owe you one."

The sky thundered in the distance, so I figured maybe the burgers smelled

okay.

"Yay for Percy!" Tyson said.

"Can we tie up this cowherd now?" Nico asked.

"Yeah!" Grover agreed. "And that dog almost killed me!"

I looked at Eurytion, who still was sitting relaxed at the picnic table.

Orthus had both his heads on the cowherd's knees.

"How long will it take Geryon to re-form?" I asked him.

Eurytion shrugged. "Hundred years? He's not one of those fast re-formers,

thank the gods. You've done me a favor."

"You said you'd died for him before," I remembered. "How?"

"I've worked for that creep for thousands of years. Started as a regular

half-blood, but I chose immortality when my dad offered it. Worst mistake I

ever made. Now I'm stuck here at this ranch. I can't leave. I can't quit. I just

tend the cows and fight Geryon's fights. We're kinda tied together."

"Maybe you can change things," I said.

Eurytion narrowed his eyes. "How?"

"Be nice to the animals. Take care of them. Stop selling them for food.

And stop dealing with the Titans."

Eurytion thought about that. "That'd be all right."

"Get the animals on your side, and they'll help you. Once Geryon gets

back, maybe he'll be working for you this time."

Eurytion grinned. "Now, that I could live with."

"You won't try to stop us leaving?"

"Shoot, no."

Annabeth rubbed her bruised wrists. She was still looking at Eurytion

suspiciously. "Your boss said somebody paid for our safe passage. Who?"

The cowherd shrugged. "Maybe he was just saying that to fool you."

"What about the Titans?" I asked. "Did you Iris-message them about Nico

yet?"

"Nope. Geryon was waiting until after the barbecue. They don't know

about him."

Nico as glaring at me. I wasn't sure what to do about him. I doubted he

would agree to come with us. On the other hand, I couldn't just let him roam

around on his own.

"You could stay here until we're done with our quest," I told him. "It

would be safe."

"Safe?" Nico said. "What do you care if I'm safe? You got my sister

killed!"

"Nico," Annabeth said, "that wasn't Percy's fault. And Geryon wasn't

lying about Kronos wanting to capture you. If he knew who you were, he'd

do anything to get you on his side."

"I'm not on anyone's side. And I'm not afraid."

"You should be," Annabeth said. "Your sister wouldn't want—"

"If you cared for my sister, you'd help me bring her back!"

"A soul for a soul?" I said.

"Yes!"

"But if you didn't want my soul—"

"I'm not explaining anything to you!" He blinked tears out of his eyes.

"And I will bring her back."

"Bianca wouldn't want to be brought back," I said. "Not like that."

"You didn't know her!" he shouted. "How do you know what she'd

want?"

I stared at the flames in the barbecue pit. I thought about the line in

Annabeth's prophecy: You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand. That

had to be Minos, and I had to convince Nico not to listen to him. "Let's ask

Bianca."

The sky seemed to grow darker all of a sudden.

"I've tried," Nico said miserably. "She won't answer."

"Try again. I've got a feeling she'll answer with me here."

"Why would she?"

"Because she's been sending me Iris-messages," I said, suddenly sure of it.

"She's been trying to warn me what you're up to, so I can protect you."

Nico shook his head. "That's impossible."

"One way to find out. You said you're not afraid." I turned to Eurytion.

"We're going to need a pit, like a grave. And food and drinks."

"Percy," Annabeth warned. "I don't think this is a good—"

"All right," Nico said. "I'll try."

Eurytion scratched his beard. "There's a hole dug out back for a septic

tank. We could use that. Cyclops boy, fetch my ice chest from the kitchen. I

hope the dead like root beer."