Harry Hates Luke
The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the sol-stice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and I was sure that was obvious.
"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."
"We can't use phones, right?"
"I'm not talking about phones."
Harry and Percy exchanged a confused look.
We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn't sure what Annabeth was looking for. The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humid-ity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at me, like a tidal wave about to crash into the city. Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were three adolescents hang-ing out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.
"What exactly are we doing?" I asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.
"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled.
"I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"
"Don't look at me," she said. "The dining car wiped me out."
I fished out my last bit of change and passed Grover a quarter, which left me two nickels and one drachma from Medusa's place. "Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."
"What are you talking about?" He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST.
"I-M'ing."
"Instant messaging?"
"Iris-messaging," Annabeth corrected. "The rainbow god-dess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."
"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?" Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow."
Harry just stared at the satyr disbelievingly.
Sure enough, late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors. Annabeth held her palm out to me. "Drachma, please." I handed it over. She raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering." She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer. "Half-Blood Hill," Annabeth requested.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandyhaired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.
"Luke!" I called. He turned, eyes wide. I could swear he was standing three feet in front of me through a screen of mist, except I could only see the part of him that appeared in the rainbow.
"Percy!" His scarred face broke into a grin. "Is that Annabeth, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"
"We're ... uh ... fine," Annabeth stammered. She was madly straightening her dirty T-shirt, trying to comb the loose hair out of her face. "We thought-Chiron-I mean-"
"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded. "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"
"I'm right here," Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke's line of vision. Harry didn’t miss the way the blonde boy asked nothing about him but decided to leave it be.
"What kind of issues?" Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.
"Chiron had to-what's that noise?" Luke yelled.
"I'll take care of it.'" Annabeth yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight. "Grover, come on!”
"What?" Grover said. "But-"
"Give Percy the nozzle and come on!" she ordered. Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi, then he handed me the spray gun and followed Annabeth. I readjusted the hose so I could keep the rainbow going and still see Luke.
"Chiron had to break up a fight," Luke shouted to me over the music. "Things are pretty tense here, Percy. Word leaked out about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how-probably the same scumbag who sum-moned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."
I shuddered to think that Clarisse's cabin would ever be on my dad's side for anything. In the next stall, I heard Annabeth and some guy arguing with each other, then the music's volume decreased drastically.
"So what's your status?" Luke asked me. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you." I told him pretty much everything, including my dreams. It felt so good to see him, to feel like I was back at camp even for a few minutes, that I didn't realize how long I had talked until the beeper went off on the spray machine, and I realized I only had one more minute before the water shut off.
"I wish I could be there," Luke told me. "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen ... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."
"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly."
"That's true," Luke said, looking troubled. "Still ... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."
We were both silent, until Luke seemed to realize what he'd said. Harry looked mutinous.
"Oh, hey," he protested. "I didn't mean Annabeth. She and I have known each other forever. She would never ... I mean, she's like a little sister to me."
I wondered if Annabeth would like that description. In the stall next to us, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash.
"You'd better go see what that was," Luke said. "Listen, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."
"Oh ... uh, yeah!" I tried not to sound like a guilty liar. "Yeah, they've come in handy."
"Really?" He grinned. "They fit and everything?"
The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate. "Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver," Luke called, his voice getting fainter. "And tell Grover it'll be bet-ter this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just-"
But the mist was gone, and Luke's image faded to noth-ing. I was alone in a wet, empty car wash stall
I turned to Harry but stopped short when I saw how enraged he was.
Harry paced back and forth. “That- That… Manipulator. How dare he, who does he think he is? You noticed it too, right? The way he implicated Annabeth without giving away what he was doing. I knew that guy was nothing but trouble just like I knew with Snape, Quirrel and Lockhart.”
“Erm- Harry. I don’t think he was-” Percy tried to say but Harry cut him off.
“Of course he was! His wording was too careful for it to be anything else.”
It was then that Annabeth and Grover reappeared. Annabeth looked particularly smug.
“What did he say?” Annabeth asked as she dusted her hand on her jeans.
Harry nearly burst a vein and he spouted off what Luke had said. By the end of the story Annabeth had a devastated look on her face and Grover looked like he was going to be sick.
Percy stepped forward to comfort his friends. “Hey, I’m sure it was nothing. Harry is just overreacting,” He said, rubbing a hand across Annabeth’s back.
“Don't do that, Percy! Don’t defend him, he knew what he was doing when he said that,” Harry pointed a finger at Percy.
“I think you’re just being a bit para-” Percy tried to say in a placating tone but Harry’s eyes began to glow and silver seeped into his midnight hair.
“If you say I am paranoid one more time I will walk away and you can do this quest yourself,” He warned. “You guys keep saying I’m just being paranoid but every time you say it I have been right!”
Annabeth sighed. “Percy…might be right, Luke might have just slipped up.”
Harry turned to face her. “Are you so caught up in your infatuation that you can’t see his lies? You are a daughter of wisdom, I shouldn’t need to spell this out to you,” He knew from the looks on everyone’s faces that he had lost.
Annabeth glared at him. “How dare you! You think you can turn Luke against me? This whole quest you have been against him and now you are trying to frame him for gods knows what!”
“I AM NOT FRAMING HIM. HE IS SUSPICIOUS AND IF I DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER I WOULD SAY HE IS THE LIGHTNING THIEF,” He yelled, furious at their blindness.
They all stared at him, the silence stretching. Percy cleared his throat. “Harry…I don’t know why you- Luke isn’t- I-” Percy’s eyes were filled with concern for his friend, he stepped forward to calm him.
Harry stepped back, with wide sad but accepting eyes. “You don’t believe me, do you?” At their silence he sighed. “Luke is a son of Hermes, he was at the winter solstice meeting and was close enough that he could say Hades had attended, he has tried to make others seem guilty so as to not draw attention to himself, and he gave Percy cursed shoes. What more proof do you need?”
Annabeth had tears in her eyes. “You don’t know that those shoes were cursed.”
This was evidently the wrong thing to say. Harry looked them each in the eye. “Do it yourself, then,” He said before storming off down the street.