FIC: The Curse of Lethe, chpt 4

[shiiki]

Title: The Curse of Lethe
Author: shiiki
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Percy Jackson/Annabeth Chase, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Thalia Grace/Reyna Ramírez-Arellano + a full cast of supporting characters
Fandom: Percy Jackson

Summary: Percy and Annabeth intended to retire and spend a quiet four years at college in New Rome. However, old enemies have other ideas, and one very determined attack leaves Percy poisoned and fighting for his life and Annabeth facing the difficult decision of giving him the only cure: water from the Lethe...and dealing with the heartbreaking side-effects. There is hope, though, but will Percy, Annabeth, and their friends have the courage to brave Tartarus again to retrieve Percy's memories from the edge of Chaos?

In this chapter
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Percy Jackson, OC, Clarisse La Rue, Annabeth Chase, Nico di Angelo, Hazel Levesque, Jason Grace
Word Count: 5,158

Chapter Summary: A curious dream sends Percy searching for clues about his past, and leads him to find more than he bargained for.

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IV
PERCY

Over the next few days, Bella filled Percy in slowly with more details about the life he couldn't remember. No, he'd never known his parents; they'd died when he was a little kid. He'd met her a few years ago-him a street kid and her a high school sophomore trying to get into college. Now he mostly bummed around her house while she majored in kinesiology at Arizona State. She talked about using her magical powers to help people in physical therapy, which at least explained the collection of prosthetics cluttering up her apartment.

'The demigods won't believe we could do good, though,' Bella said bitterly. 'They just want to drive us extinct.'

The tattoo was a result of something the demigods had done to him when he'd first gotten drawn into Bella's world. Bella wasn't sure why they'd marked him, but she speculated that it was so they could identify him as an enemy.

Percy traced the thin letters curiously. 'Why didn't they just kill me?'

'I guess they didn't realise then that you weren't going to leave me,' Bella said. Her voice grew soft and inviting. 'They thought you'd fall in with them, but you stuck by me. You're so good, Perseus.'

She lingered over his name like it was a piece of candy she was savouring in her mouth. And it was always Perseus she called him-maybe 'Percy' just didn't have the same sweetness. He wasn't actually sure where he'd picked up the nickname. Had he heard it somewhere?

Bella's eyes locked on his. It was like drowning in a pool of gold. All the questions he had about his background faded into it. His thoughts clouded over. He forgot what he had been asking.

Bella lay her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelt like the outdoors: grassy and pine-fresh. It jolted his brain with something he'd meant to bring up.

'I was thinking,' he said, 'maybe I should go out today. You know, go round the city and see if anything jogs my memory.'

Bella's head snapped up.

'No!' The vehemence in her tone made him jump. She took a deep breath and then continued in a more modulated tone, 'You're safe indoors, Perseus. The demigods are still out there, remember? They already got you once. I would just die if they finished the job.'

'Yeah, but…'

Bella shuddered. 'Don't even think about it.' She handed him a glass. 'Drink your water.'

He sipped obediently at it. The taste was starting to grow on him. He'd disliked the warmth of it at first-why she couldn't add ice, with the weather this hot, he didn't know-but it did go well with the soothing calm that always seemed to spread through him while drinking. After he drained the glass, the only thought left in his head was how lucky he and Bella were to have each other.

That night, he had another strange dream. He was standing on the banks of a river that flowed sluggishly towards a setting sun. Although the riverbed was wide, the river itself cut a narrow course down the middle, so that its dry banks extended out a good fifty feet on either side. The ground beneath his feet looked like it might once have been flooded over, but over time, it had forgotten its life as wet marsh and turned into cracked, hardened mud.

On the other side of the dwindling river, a dark-haired man lounged in a blue and white striped deck chair. Next to him, a long fishing pole was planted firmly in a crack in the hard ground. Its line extended into the water, drifting loosely in the current.

The fisherman raised his hand in greeting to Percy.

'Is there even anything in there to catch?' Percy asked. The river looked dangerously close to the end of its life. The scent of salt hung in the air, so thick he could practically taste it on his lips.

The fisherman scrutinised his line. 'Maybe not any more,' he said. He got up, took his fishing rod, and started to walk towards Percy. When he stepped into the water, the river expanded, rising over the banks and filling its bed.

Percy took a wary step back from the water's edge as it lapped towards him like the waves of the sea. The fisherman kept coming closer, wading through the water, which rose only to his waist, as though it was nothing more than a field of wheat. Finally, he reached Percy's side. Up close, the weather-beaten contours of his face stood out sharply. They fell in kindly wrinkles about his mouth and eyes. Eyes that were the same shifting green of the sunlight-dappled water.

The same shade as Percy's own eyes.

'This river won't harm you, son,' the fisherman said, looking at where Percy stood, hanging back from the water's edge. 'The Salt River is kind to those who carry the Curse of Lethe. It runs under the city of rebirth, after all.'

He handed Percy the fishing rod, and then with a warm, fatherly smile, he glowed so brightly that Percy had to avert his eyes to avoid the blinding light. When he looked back again, the fisherman was gone. The river was retreating as well, shrinking back into its narrow path in the centre of the channel.

There was a tug on the fishing line. Percy started to wind it up, but the bite on the other end was so strong, it dragged him forward towards the dwindling river. As though he was the one being reeled in, the line pulled him straight into the salty water.

It was deeper than should have been possible, given that it had only come up to the fisherman's waist. Percy gasped as the waters closed over his head and he kept going down and down. To his surprise, no water filled his lungs-he was breathing as easily as he did on land. The water seemed to clear his head and heighten his senses. His body felt fresh and ready for action.

The currents continued to carry him along underground. Little golden bubbles floated up to him here and there, bearing disjointed images inside them: a grey stone cabin with seashells embedded in its walls; two tiny figures locked in a tight, underwater embrace; a stone statue of a bearded man with a trident, who looked uncannily like the fisherman in the river.

Then he heard Bella's voice calling to him, 'Where are you?'

'The Salt River,' he called back, though he wasn't sure how he knew this.

'I'll find you!' Her voice sounded a long way off. 'I'll find you, Pers-'

The rushing of the water drowned her out. Percy woke up, feeling like he'd just emerged from a long, dark tunnel.

'Where's the Salt River?' he asked Bella the next morning.

Bella frowned. 'It runs south of the city. Well, used to. It's really just a dried-up riverbed now. Why do you ask?'

When he told Bella about his dream, she went so pale, he was afraid she might faint.

'What's wrong?' he asked.

'Demigods,' she whispered. 'Oh Hecate, they're getting to you. Perseus, you need to try and block the dreams. That's how they track you. Oh, I should have guessed they'd try it. I'm so sorry I didn't warn you before.'

'It's okay,' he said. But he couldn't shake the sense that the dream was trying to give him a hint.

The next day, when Bella was in class, he snuck out of the apartment.

Bella had locked the door from the outside, but Percy managed to squeeze out of the tiny window and lower himself onto the fire escape of the apartment below. He felt a bit guilty, sneaking out when Bella had gone to such great lengths to protect him, but he had to know if the clues in his dream were worth following.

Phoenix wasn't the easiest city to navigate; every other block looked like the one before. Percy struggled to keep track of how many turns he'd made so that he could find his way back again. The weather was as hot as ever, and he found himself longing for Bella's water. He was starting to feel a little silly, coming out here. He didn't even have any real idea where he was meant to start looking.

It must have been around noon when he finally realised that the dry, cracked stretch of land he'd just hiked across actually was the Salt River. Unlike in his dream, not even the thin channel of water in the centre remained.

His mouth tasted of dusty disappointment. There wasn't anything to find here after all. For a while he sat by the freeway, wondering if maybe the river was running underground beneath the concrete city. He didn't know why the idea made him feel better. It wasn't like he had the means to find an underground river. But the thought of the river not existing at all had a bitter tang to it.

Finally he got up and headed back into the city.

He stopped to get a drink from a public fountain at a cluster of orange buildings on a street lined with palm trees. There was a stone statue next to it, a carving of some dude with a long beard and a stick in his hand.

No, not a stick. It had three prongs at the upper end.

Percy's eyes widened. He'd seen this statue in his dreams: one of the images in the golden bubbles-the fisherman with a trident.

He didn't have time to look more closely, though. No sooner had he recognised the statue did someone yell at him from across a parking lot.

'Hey you! Punk!'

The girl yelling at him would have fit in well with a biker gang. She was practically twice his size, with biceps like tree trunks and a nasty scowl on her face. Her expression said clearly: I'm gonna pulverise you.

Percy didn't hang around to find out if she really meant to. He took off at a sprint in the opposite direction.

'Wait! Get back here, punk! Percy!'

The use of his name filled him with dread. The biker girl was probably a demigod, one of those Bella had warned him about, who were out for his blood. He turned randomly down side streets, trying to throw her off.

Several twists and turns later, the sound of her footsteps pounding the pavement behind him faded away. He slowed to a jog and chanced a look over his shoulder.

She didn't seem to be chasing him any more. That was the good part.

The bad part: he had no clue where he'd ended up.

And unfortunately, the demigod girl must have known the city a lot better. She appeared out of nowhere, leaping a fence and tackling him from above. Percy hit the ground hard, pinned under her massive bulk.

'Gotcha!'

Percy flailed, trying to buck the demigod off his back. She was obviously an experienced wrestler-her thighs and knees kept his body pinned expertly while she twisted his arms into a painful lock behind his back. With one free hand, she tossed a gold coin into a puddle inches from Percy's head. It landed in a rainbow spill of oil.

'Iris, accept my offering!'

Percy had no idea who Iris was. Probably back-up. He wriggled harder against the demigod's iron grip.

'Hold still, punk!' She pressed his head down against the ground so that all he could see was gravel. 'Annabeth Chase, at Camp Jupiter.'

'Clarisse, what-oh my gods, you found him!'

The voice coming from the puddle sounded so much like Bella's, Percy stopped struggling for a second. No, it couldn't be. There was no way Bella would be in league with a demigod who wanted to kill him.

'Yeah, he keeps trying to run from-OOF!'

The weight lifted from his back. Someone had barrelled straight into the demigod girl, knocking her off. Perseus scrambled to his feet, fists balled. It took him a moment to recognise Bella, who was moving so quickly she was a brown-haired blur, attacking the demigod with one of the prosthetic legs from her collection.

The demigod was quicker than he expected. She met Bella's blow with a spear. The air crackled when it connected with the metal leg. Bella shrieked and flew backwards into Percy. He caught her before she could hit the ground. Her skin prickled with static.

The damn spear was electric.

'That's not fair!' Percy growled, though it was probably pointless to expect an enemy to play fair when they were out to kill you. He grabbed the prosthetic from Bella and ran at the demigod. Surprisingly, she didn't charge at him with her spear.

'What the hell, punk!' she said, dodging his swing. It caught the end of the spear instead and smacked it out of her hands.

'Oh no, not again!' hissed the demigod as she dived for it.

Bella grabbed his arm. 'Percy, RUN!'

He didn't need telling twice. Taking advantage of the demigod's momentary distraction, he followed Bella's lead, once again sprinting away from his demigod pursuer. Either the demigod was tired now-or maybe more hesitant to chase after prey that outnumbered her-or Bella just knew the city and which alleys to take. This time they managed to lose her for real.

They finally collapsed, totally winded, at the entrance to a dead-end alley lined with pipes that ran along both sides of the walls.

'You were right,' Percy gasped. 'The demigod girl, she recognised me-'

Bella flung her arms around him. 'I can't lose you now, Perseus,' she whispered in his ear. 'You're a part of me.'

She kissed him, and this time he didn't fight it. His adrenaline-filled body responded, inviting her in and kissing her back.

It was like taking a gulp of fiery whisky. His legs trembled and threatened to buckle under him. Bella pushed him against the wall, her lips sucking fervently on his as if she were breathing in his essence. The burning intensity of their kiss had an overwhelming gravitational pull. He couldn't break away from it even if he wanted to.

Why had he been fighting this again? It felt good to be a part of her, like they could fuse their very souls together…

'Get off him, empousa!'

It was Bella's voice, but it wasn't coming from her. Bella herself snarled and whirled around to face the intruders, breaking off their kiss. Percy pressed his palms against the wall to steady himself.

Three figures had simply melted right out of the shadows. There was simply no other way they could have appeared there in the dead end of the alley. Two were shorter: a goth-looking dude with olive skin who was holding hands with a buxom African-American girl with wild, cinnamon-brown hair.

The last one…

Percy did a double-take when he saw her. It was like looking at a replica of Bella, if Bella had blond hair and grey eyes that flashed angrily with the threat of storms.

Bella's fingers clamped around his wrist. 'Get back,' she spat at the intruders.

'Get away from him!' repeated her look-alike. The girl drew a sword that looked like it had been made of sharpened bone. Her two companions unsheathed their weapons as well. Goth-boy's sword had a blade as black as night. The African-American girl's was longer, made of silver, and dead straight.

'He's mine,' Bella said. Her arm curved around his neck.

The African-American girl snapped her fingers. 'Show yourself!' she commanded.

The air in front of him wavered like a shimmer of heat. Bella shrieked and released him, hissing angrily at the African-American girl. Percy yelped when he turned to look at her.

Bella's entire form changed. Her brown hair sizzled with orange flames, lighting her eyes a demonic red. Her teeth elongated into sharp fangs and her nails grew out into pointed claws. Her shapely legs gave way to a pair of mismatched limbs: one a shiny bronze prosthetic like the ones littered about her apartment, the other furry and crooked at the knee, ending in a cloven hoof.

'How dare you use the magic of mother Hecate against me?' Bella screeched.

'Please,' said the African-American girl dismissively. 'Hecate taught me to manipulate the Mist herself.'

'What did you do to her?' Percy demanded. 'Turn her back!'

'Percy,' cried Bella's look-alike. 'She's an empousa! She's trying to kill you.'

'Nice try,' he said. 'You realise you're the ones attacking us with swords?'

Bella laughed. 'You see, demigods? This one is mine. I already have his soul.'

Percy stared at her. What was she saying? Was she trying to confuse the demigods? Trick them so that she and Percy could escape?

'You're lying,' said Bella's look-alike.

'Oh no,' Bella assured her. 'I have waited to find the right soul for a long time, the one that can fulfil the legendary promise to my kind. A soul of a true hero…and this one Lethe-clean to boot! Once I finish binding his soul to me, I will be immortal!'

'She's telling the truth,' said Goth-boy. 'I can sense it. But you haven't finished. And we won't let you.'

Bella grabbed Percy's neck again. 'Try and stop me,' she hissed at the demigods.'

'Bella, what-'

'Hush,' she told him. 'Trust me.'

'Wait,' said her look-alike. 'We can trade. You can have me instead.'

Bella laughed. 'Even if I were to believe that, you're a useless girl. No empousa would spare you a glance-except to kill you like the pesky demigod you are.'

Percy's head was ready to explode. Bella wasn't making sense. Nothing about this exchange was making any sense, and it definitely wasn't just because he couldn't remember his past.

The pressure of his confusion built up in him, like boiling water confined in a covered pot. At any moment, he was going to spill over. It twisted sharply, deep in his gut.

Then the pipes along the walls exploded, drenching them in a warm shower that reeked of sewage. They had to duck as metal debris rained down. When he looked up again, Bella's look-alike had vanished. Only Goth-boy and the African-American girl remained, advancing on them.

Percy grabbed the top of a trash can and held it up like a shield. Not that it would do much good against two demigods with swords and magic that could mutate people and make things explode. But he wasn't about to go down without a fight.

Beside him, Bella let out a sharp gasp. Percy turned and watched in horror as the point of the missing demigod girl's sword emerged from her midriff.

'No-Perseus-my soul-' she breathed. Her hands, now scaly claws thanks to the African-American girl's dirty magic trick, stretched out towards him. Percy reached for them.

His hands swiped through air as Bella disintegrated before his eyes into a shower of fine ash. For a moment, it looked like she was returning to her proper appearance. Then he realised it was her look-alike, standing where Bella had been, the sword with which she'd impaled Bella in one hand, a baseball cap in the other.

He heard Bella's last whisper: 'I will find you, Perseus.' Then a stabbing pain erupted in the small of his back. He fell to his knees in Bella's ashes, at the feet of her look-alike. Her murderer. His hands hit the ground and his fingers closed around a small, hard object.

Bella's murderer grabbed his shoulders, supporting him.

'Percy,' she whispered.

Red hot needles radiated up his spine from his lower back. One of his other two assailants must have gotten him. He was going to die here after all, killed by the demigods just as Bella had warned. And he'd gotten her killed, too.

Well, he wasn't going to die in the arms of her murderer if he could help it. Percy grabbed the demigod's arms and twisted them away from him. Then he drew back his fist and punched her in the face-the only revenge he could exact for Bella.

Strong hands pulled him away and held him down. Something hard slammed into the side of his head.

The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the shocked grey eyes of the girl who looked like Bella.

OoOoO

Bella was speaking to someone in a soft, low voice.

'We were almost too late. Will checked him out-he was being drugged the whole time, and she probably twisted the Mist, too. She almost got him. We nearly delivered him straight to her.'

A dream, he thought in relief. Then, more guiltily, I was supposed to block them.

He opened his eyes. He was lying in a soft bed with light blue sheets that smelt of lemons. The room was windowless, lit only by a standing lamp next to his bed, so he couldn't tell what time of the day it was.

Behind the closed door, the two voices were still speaking.

'It was all my fault,' Bella said. 'The whole reason he's in this state-I got overconfident and he got hurt. And then-'

'Stop,' said another voice, this one male. 'Annabeth, you can't blame yourself.'

Annabeth. Not Bella.

Because Bella was dead.

Percy rubbed his forehead. So it wasn't a dream. There really had been that chase through Phoenix, and Bella's fierce, desperate kiss, interrupted by three demigods…

Bella acting like she wanted to kill him, too.

Pipes exploding. Bella with a sword through her middle, dissolving into ashes.

Why wasn't he dead, though? The demigods had caught him. He definitely remembered their swords pointed at him.

He looked around the room, as if figuring out his surroundings might help make sense of the insanity that was his life. Unfortunately, everything in it was as conflicting as his memories. The closet on his right had one door open to reveal jeans and t-shirts hanging untidily off hangers, with a small pile of clothes accumulated at the bottom. At the far end of the room, an overturned skateboard lay under a table. However, a lacy sweater draped over a chair next to it looked like it might belong to a girl. And stacked in the corner between the table and the door was an assortment of battle gear: scuffed bronze breastplates and shin guards, a gold helmet with a blue feather sticking out at an angle, and several other mismatched pieces of weaponry and armour.

Above the table was a corkboard to which a number of pictures were tacked. Percy got out of bed to have a closer look. Many of them were crayon scrawls-squiggly lines that barely connected and made no pattern that he could decipher. Several were polaroid strips featuring different groups of people. He recognised his own face in some of them, but none of the others were familiar: a sweet-faced middle-aged lady holding a chubby baby with wispy brown hair; a grinning teenager with bad acne, a goatee, and a colourful rasta cap on his head; a freckled redhead sticking her tongue out at the camera; an entire group of friends with their arms slung around each other's shoulders.

If that was indeed him in the photos with these people, he couldn't remember any of it.

Or maybe this was all another elaborate hoax.

In the centre of the table was a large framed photo. Percy picked it up and studied the two people in it. He was obviously one of them, dressed in the armour that stood in the corner of this room. He was leaning towards his companion, who also wore armour, but looked far more attractive in it. Her sun-bleached hair was pulled back into a poofy ponytail under a bandanna. She carried her own helmet under one arm. She wasn't looking at the camera but towards him, her free hand reaching for the plume on his helmet. The expression on her face was a mixture of exasperation and fondness.

She was the same girl who had attacked him and Bella in the alleyway. The one who looked like Bella.

The one who had run her through with a sword.

The photo frame slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor, creating a jagged split in the glass between him and the girl in the picture.

The conversation in the other room stopped abruptly.

'I think Percy's awake,' the girl, Annabeth, said. 'I'd better go. Thanks for Iris-messaging, Jason.'

'Good luck,' Jason said. 'And remember, break it to him easy.'

A knock came at the door seconds later. 'Percy'? Are you awake?'

When he didn't reply, the door opened anyway. The curly-haired blonde in the picture entered. He was once again struck by her resemblance to Bella-just like a twin with dyed hair.

Except for the eyes. They were unfathomably deep, like staring straight into the eye of a hurricane.

They darted now to the fallen picture frame. Annabeth swallowed hard, but didn't comment on it.

'How are you feeling?'

'Why didn't you kill me yet?' he blurted out.

Annabeth's eyes widened. 'Percy…' She put a hand to her temple. 'Oh gods.'

'You're a demigod,' he said.

'Yes…'

'You're dangerous-you…' He tried to recall all of Bella's warnings about them. His head buzzed uncomfortably.

'Percy, you are a demigod.'

She didn't say it with any vitriol, but it hit him like an accusation. The words crashed over him in a roaring wave. It was as though the fisherman's line in his dream was pulling him beneath the water's surface again, only now he was drowning in a river of everything he thought he knew about himself. Except the facts that he'd accrued over the past week were slipping away from him like he'd tilted his head and poured them out into the current. Panic pooled in his gut as he tried to scoop them back in. What had Bella told him again? Who was he?

Annabeth was still talking, but his ears were ringing so badly, he could only make out one word in ten-son, Poseidon, camp, monsters…

She kept repeating his name, Percy, like it was a collar she was trying to force around his neck.

I am Perseus Jackson.

The name was his only lifeline; his history was once again evaporating into misty vapour, leaving him with only the events that had happened since he'd found himself in Phoenix. Bella, a vague week at her flat, and-this last the sharpest of all-Bella's final moments.

'You killed Bella,' he said, cutting Annabeth off.

'Bel-oh, you mean the empousa. She was going to kill you.'

He shook his head. 'She was keeping me safe from you. She told me you'd find me if I went out, and she was right. I should've listened.'

'She was drugging you, Percy. She needed you to be compliant so she could capture your soul. I don't know what she told you, but-'

'She was my girlfriend!'

Annabeth looked as if he'd slapped her. Thick heavy silence twisted between them. Percy unclenched his fists, which he didn't even realise he'd balled up in the first place.

When Annabeth spoke again, her voice was slow and measured, as though her words were broken glass that might cut her on their way out

'It was all a lie, Percy. Empousai-they prey on men and drink their blood. They use magic-the Mist-to make things look different. It can make you believe things that aren't true…like false memories. That one-Bella-wanted more from you. That's probably why she kept you alive for so long.'

Once I bind his soul to me, I will be immortal.

There was just enough logic to Annabeth's words to make him question everything he knew-or thought he knew. But even if he did believe Bella had been deceitful, who was to say Annabeth wasn't trying to rewrite his history, too, and recast him into a mould she'd created?

How did he know if her story was any more real than Bella's?

'Percy, you have to trust me. You're safe now.'

'I have to trust you,' he said flatly. 'You're telling me that a vampire demon pretended to be my girlfriend, made up all these lies about who I am, and set up a whole elaborate trap to get me to fall for her so she could steal my soul.'

'Yes!'

'And of course this,' he waved his hands around the room, 'definitely isn't a set-up either. I should definitely trust another hot girl telling me I'm safe with her.'

Annabeth took a step back, as if he'd just taken a swing at her. 'I'm not pretending, Percy.' Her voice was small and hurt and for a second he wanted to take back his harsh words, apologise, and meekly agree with everything she'd told him.

But then his rage and panic flooded back. They churned in his stomach, threatening to boil over. There was a sharp tug in his gut, like the twisting of a knob.

Something outside exploded. Water seeped under the gap of the room door.

Annabeth pushed the door open to find the entire floor of the apartment outside flooded to ankle height. The plumbing had come to life: the faucets in the kitchen went off like a sprinkler system; in the bathroom, a toilet bowl spouted its contents in a lively fountain.

Percy put a hand to his stomach. He remembered the pipes exploding in the alleyway in Phoenix. Just after he'd experienced the same tugging sensation in his gut.

Maybe there was some truth to what Annabeth was telling him. He was a demigod. And his powers were every bit as lethal as Bella had suggested.

The walls of the apartment seemed to close in on him, the jaws of a trap snaring him into an identity the demigods wanted to force upon him. To them, Percy Jackson meant something-but what? And was that who he really was, or was it a clever lie?

Perseus, Bella had called him. Which was his real identity?

He pushed past Annabeth to the end of the hallway, to the exit of the apartment.

Annabeth reached for his arm. 'Percy, stop-where are you going?'

'Out,' he said, pulling away from her. 'Or are you going to tell me to stay inside where it's safe, too?'

Annabeth's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Percy felt a grim satisfaction at getting the last word. He wrenched the front door open.

There was a soft whisper-'Percy.' Annabeth had found her voice after all. His stomach clenched against the claim she tried to exert on him.

Without turning around, he fired back: 'Stop calling me Percy. My name is Perseus!'

And he slammed the door shut behind him.

Chapter 5