There Ain’t No Cure for the Beast-Breath Blues
At least Annabeth didn’t take the entire blast. To cover the most ground,
Phaedra breathed on us the way you might slash with a blade—diagonally, top to bottom. Annabeth got fogged in the face. I got it across the chest.
Grover got fumigated below the belt.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. I felt so relieved I smacked Phaedra in
the nose with the hilt of my sword. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed. Annabeth elbowed Daedra in the face, putting her on the floor, too. I hoped there were some good plastic surgeons in the area because after this fight, the twins were going to need matching nose jobs.
Both of our attackers were down. The bees had been smashed. We’d only destroyed half the laboratory, and Gale was still alive, watching us cautiously from her perch in the air duct.
I sighed in relief. “That … actually could have been worse.” I shouldn’t have said that.
Annabeth responded, “WHOOOO!”
I would have jumped out of my pants if I’d been wearing any. Where my girlfriend’s face had been a second before, two huge black eyes stared out over a hooked golden beak. Her head had turned into a heart-shaped expanse of white plumage, rimmed with speckled brown feathers. From the neck up, my Wise Girl was a barn owl.
“What?!” I yelped.
Annabeth’s new head turned sideways. “WHO?”
They were both really good questions. Grover sobbed. “Percy—oh my gods!”
“It—it’ll be fine,” I stammered. “We’ll figure it out.” “No, look at yourself!” Grover demanded.
I glanced down. I was still bare-chested. Still in my underwear. I raised my hands—except I didn’t have hands anymore. Where my arms used to be
were eight thick purple tentacles lined with pink suction cups. One tentacle
was curled around Riptide. I was so shocked I loosened my hold, letting the blade drop.
“Oh …”
I wanted to throw up. No offense to octopuses. I’ve had some great
conversations with octopuses. But I didn’t want to have their tentacles. My
new appendages felt wet and slimy. Powerful muscles rippled under the skin. The suckers clasped and unclasped, smelling the air, searching for something to grip. “This is bad.”
“That’s not all,” Grover whimpered.
It was hard to get out of my own misery zone, but I forced myself to look at Grover.
He was staring down at his legs and weeping. Where his furry goat
hindquarters had been, there was bare skin, forward-articulating knees, and instead of hooves … feet. Five-toed feet not too different from mine.
“Human,” he sniffled. “That’s the worst kind of beast!”
I fought down a little resentment, because of the three of us, I felt like he’d gotten the least-awful deal. Beestings included. Then again, I wasn’t a satyr.
“It’s—Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry, man. But there has to be a cure.” “There isn’t!” wailed Phaedra from the floor.
These naiads were tough. Phaedra had sap leaking out her broken nose and white beast juice crusted around her battered mouth, but she was already trying to get back up.
“How are you still conscious?” I demanded.
“You fool!” she cried. “Beast breath has no antidote. You will be like that forever!”
Annabeth turned her head 180 degrees and shrieked at the nymph.
“AWK!”
It sounded like more of a statement than a question. I guessed Annabeth was cursing in owl. Or maybe she was just reacting to noise from a rival predator. Had the potion changed the inside of her head, too? Did she now have the brain of a raptor?
I knew owls were supposed to be Athena’s animals, wise and knowing and all that, but I didn’t like the idea of my girlfriend having to live the rest of her life with the head of a bird. I mean … yes, I was pretty nocturnal. We could try to make it work. But if she started swallowing rodents whole and coughing up owl pellets … No! There had to be a solution.
The whole room felt like it was shaking. I tried to calm the tremors in my gut.
“Grover,” I said. “Can you tie these nymphs up tight this time?” He stared miserably at his legs.
“I feel so violated,” he muttered. “My beautiful fur … My hocks and dewclaws—”
“Grover!” I flailed my tentacles. I hadn’t meant to, but they responded to my agitation, shimmying around and coiling into loops. I was lucky I didn’t squirt ink out of my armpits. “Grover, I know, man, but please.”
“Don’t call me a man!” he sobbed.
The tremble in my gut was getting worse and started moving down into my legs. I wished I’d been first in line with the beast breath. I probably would have turned into a mackerel head or something, but at least Annabeth
would’ve still been able to talk and tell us what to do. She would’ve had an idea.
Me … I had a hundred new suckers and a strange desire to hunt lobsters. “Grover, tie up the twins, would you?” I pleaded. “I gotta think ….” “Okay, okay.” Grover shuffled awkwardly toward Daedra. “How do you
walk on these? They’re so tender! Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.”
Meanwhile, Annabeth, who, thankfully, still had human arms, started tying Phaedra’s wrists together with rubber hoses. I hoped that meant she was still thinking like herself.
Grover grabbed some duct tape. He knelt next to Daedra, who was now groaning and half-conscious, then apparently realized it was going to be hard to tie her wrists together since she only had one hand. He padded over to the severed bear paw, picked it up by one claw, and took it back to Daedra. He duct-taped it back to her wrist, despite the fact that it was several sizes too big.
“A good surgeon should be able to reattach this if you hurry,” Grover said. “It’s a bear paw!” Daedra complained. “I’m a nymph!”
“Er, there, there,” Grover said, patting her shoulder, which did not seem to comfort her.
“There’s got to be something in this lab,” I said. “All these potions …”
“There isn’t,” Phaedra said. “You’re doomed to stay as you are! Even if you
could concoct a cure, you don’t have time.”
“WHO?” Annabeth asked.
“Look!” Phaedra pointed with her chin.
The bubbling pool of cauldron soup continued to spread. It was now six feet in diameter, with gooey tendrils snaking between the stone tiles, cracking the floor apart. Noxious steam rose from the fissures. The trembling I felt wasn’t just me. The room was shaking.
“We may be doomed,” Phaedra cackled, “but you are too if you stay here! Soon this entire building will collapse into a bottomless pit!”
That definitely didn’t sound good.
What would Annabeth do? I mean, if she wasn’t a barn owl …
I glanced up at Gale, still watching us curiously from the air duct. I remembered my shadow-travel disco experience with Hecuba, and the way we had finally bonded at the ruins of Troy ….
“Grover, Annabeth,” I said. “Get the twins out of here. Get to safety.” “Looking like this?” Grover demanded.
“AWK!” screeched Owl-a-beth. “I have an idea,” I promised.
I met Annabeth’s big black bird eyes. I didn’t need to be an expert in owl facial expressions to know she was skeptical. I had ideas the way other
people had rashes … they were usually embarrassing and not something you wanted to share.
“Trust me,” I said, flailing my new purple tentacles. “I’m going to talk to the polecat.”
