Chapter 47: The Minotaur
"Percy," "James," our mother said, "we have to . . ." Her voice faltered.
We looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, we saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made our skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands looks like he had horns.
We swallowed hard. "Who is----"
"Percy," "James," our mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."
Our mother threw herself against the driver's-side door.
It was jammed shut on the mud. Percy tried his. Stuck too. We looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.
"Climb out of the passenger's side!" our mother told us.
"Percy and James-----you have to run. Do you both see that big tree?"
"What?"
Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof we saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
"That's the property line," our mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll both see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."
"Mom, you're coming too."
Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.
"No!" We shouted. You are coming with us. Help us carry Grover."
"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.
The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, we realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-----huge meaty hands----were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head . . . was his head. And the points that looked like horns . . .
"He doesn't want us," our mother told us. "He wants you both. Besides, I can't cross the property line."
"But . . ."
"We don't have time, Percy. James. Go. Please."
We got mad, then----mad at our mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.
We climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."
"I told you both----"
"Mom! We are not leaving you. Help us with Grover."
We didn't wait for her answer. We scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but Percy couldn't have carried him very far if both his mom and older brother hadn't come to his aid.
Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.
Glancing back, we got our first clear look at the monster.
He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine------bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other "ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-----We mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-----which would've have looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.
His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as our arms, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-----enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.
We recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.
We blinked the rain out of our eyes. "That's-----"
"Pasiphae's son," our mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill the both of you."
"But he's the Min----"
"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."
The pine tree was still way too far-----a hundred yards uphill at least.
We glanced behind us again.
The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-----or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. We weren't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.
"Food?" Grover moaned.
"Shhh," we told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"
"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."
As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.
Not a scratch, we remembered Gabe saying.
Oops.
Chapter 48: Our Mother Teaches Us Bullfighting.
The rain fell in icy sheets, soaking through our clothes and chilling us to the bone. The air reeked of ozone, pine, and the undeniable, rotten-meat stench of the monster that had hunted us all night.
"Percy." "James." Our mom said, her voice a strained but steady anchor in the storm. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way—directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you both understand?"
"How do you know all this?" Percy gasped, his face pale under the streaks of mud and rain.
"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you both near me."
"Keeping us near you? But—" I started, my own heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The questions died as another earth-shaking bellow of rage tore through the night. The bull-man—the Minotaur—had found our trail and was now tromping uphill, a mountain of muscle and fury silhouetted against the storm-lit sky.
He'd smelled us.
The pine tree, that strange, twisted landmark Mom had been desperately aiming for, was only a few more yards ahead. But the hill had become a treacherous, slick mudslide, and Grover—our protector, the satyr who had tried to guide us to safety—was a dead weight on Mom's back, unconscious from his own brave efforts.
The Minotaur closed in. The ground trembled with each step. Another few seconds and those horns would be goring into us.
Our mother, mustering a strength I didn't know she possessed, shouldered Grover's limp form higher. "Go, Percy, James! Separate! Remember what I said!"
We didn't want to. Splitting up felt like a death sentence for one of us. But the terror in her eyes wasn't for herself—it was for us. It was our only chance. Percy sprinted to the left, and I followed, turning just in time to see the creature alter its course, its black eyes glowing with pure hate, now bearing down on me and my younger brother. The stench of its breath was a physical blow.
It lowered its head, the razor-sharp horns gleaming like polished bone, aimed straight at our chests.
Primordial fear, cold and liquid, flooded my stomach, screaming at me to run. But Mom was right. We could never outrun this. So we held our ground, our sneakers slipping in the mud, and at the very last moment, we threw ourselves sideways.
The Minotaur stormed past like a freight train, a blur of matted fur and rage. But it didn't turn for us. Its momentum carried it toward our mother, who had just laid Grover down in the wet grass.
We'd reached the crest of the hill. Below, just as she'd promised, was a valley, and in the distance, the warm, impossible yellow lights of a farmhouse glowed through the relentless rain. Salvation. Half a mile away. It might as well have been on the moon.
The Minotaur grunted, pawing the ground, clods of earth flying. It eyed our mother, who was now backing slowly downhill, back toward the road, a brave, heartbreaking decoy trying to lead the monster away from Grover and us.
"Run, Percy! James!" She screamed, her voice breaking. "I can't go any further. Run!"
But we were statues, frozen in a nightmare, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, executing her own advice perfectly, but the monster had learned. Its massive, clawed hand shot out with surprising speed and closed around her neck, lifting her from the ground as she struggled, her kicks and punches useless against its immensity.
A sound tore from my throat, raw and guttural, before my mind could even form the words. "Get your fucking hands off of our mother's neck!"
Something within me—something vast, dark, and patiently waiting—uncoiled.
The shadows around us, deepened by the storm and the pine trees, stopped being mere absences of light. They *stirred*. They thickened, pulsed, and came alive. From my own shadow, stretched long and grotesque by the farmhouse lights, figures emerged. Silent Shinobi in dark armor materialized first, followed by hulking, bestial forms that radiated ancient power—my Tailed Beasts. They did not roar, not yet. Their silence was more terrifying. They simply appeared, an army born of darkness, and they turned their attention to the Minotaur, awaiting a command.
Time seemed to slow, then warp. A power I'd kept locked away, a mantle I'd feared—the authority of the Shadow Monarch—surged through my veins. I moved with a god's speed, not running, but *translating*, the space between me and my mother collapsing into nothing. I was there, my hands closing not on the monster's arm, but on the space around my mother's form. With a wrench that came from a place deeper than muscle, I ripped her from the Minotaur's grasp just as his fingers began to tighten for the final, crushing squeeze.
I set her down gently behind me, my back to the monster. When I turned, my eyes were no longer my own. They swirled with a maelstrom of power: the red of rage, the dark green of the sea's depth, the gray of oblivion, the absolute black of the void, the silver of celestial light, and the shimmering, ever-shifting hue of raw magic. I glared at the Minotaur.
It took a step back. The mindless rage in its eyes flickered, replaced by a primal, instinctual fear. It shook, the tremor running through its colossal frame.
I felt no mercy. Only a cold, absolute purpose.
I didn't speak. A thought was enough. My shadow army descended.
They were a wave of silent, efficient destruction. Shinobi blurred, striking pressure points with precision. Monsters of shadow and myth, far older and more terrible than a simple Minotaur, seized its limbs. There was no grand battle, no heroic clash. It was a dismantling. As they held it, I acted again. A flick of my will sent a shadow Shinobi to my mother's side, its gentle hands covering her eyes and ears. I stood before Percy, my own hands doing the same for him, shielding them from the visceral horror.
Then, I called the shadows home.
The army dissolved, flowing back into me, and they pulled the Minotaur with them, not into death, but into the boundless treasury of my own power. As it was absorbed, I took more than its form. I tasted its essence—its strength, its durability, the primal skill of its charge—and claimed them. The perks, the abilities, they became mine.
But a ruler needs subjects. Before the last shred of its consciousness vanished, I exerted the core of my sovereignty. Tendrils of pure shadow, finer than silk and stronger than adamant, stitched its form back together, healing the damage. I reshaped its existence, not as a monster of flesh, but as a eternal servant of darkness. The Shadow Monarch's power forged a new bond, a tether from its core to my will. I had succeeded. The Minotaur was now *mine*.
With a final, silent command, I absorbed it fully into my shadow, where it would wait, a loyal guardian in my personal army.
Where the beast had fallen, three items remained, glowing faintly with a residual power: its massive Omega Axe and its two great horns, sharp and hard as diamond.
I knelt, and with a thought, I reshaped them. The horns melted, merged, and reformed under the pressure of my will, infused with the properties I desired. When the light faded, two beautiful Greek *xiphos* lay on the grass. They were perfectly balanced, their blades a mesmerizing blend of black and white, like a starless night meeting a cloudy sky, with wave-like patterns indented along the fuller. I enchanted them: unbreakable, eternally sharp, loyal to their owners, returning to their hand when called. They held an affinity for all magical elements. And, for discretion, they could shift form.
I picked them up, their weight comforting and right. Walking to Percy, who was just stirring, confusion and fear in his sea-green eyes, I willed the swords to change. They shimmered and shrank, becoming two simple, elegant rings, one black, one white.
I slipped the white ring onto his finger. "Here. Rub it," I said, my voice quieter now, the echoes of power fading.
He did, and the ring expanded, flowing into the form of the beautiful sword. His eyes went wide. "Whoa."
"If you want it to change," I explained, "just name the form. Ring, pendant necklace, pen, or a chain. It will obey."
I demonstrated, willing mine back to a ring. "Cool," Percy breathed, a shaky grin breaking through his terror. "You made this? That's… awesome."
I nodded, a weight of unspoken truths settling between us. There would be time for explanations later. For now, I had to ensure their safety. I knelt by our mother, who was conscious but dazed. "You're going to be okay," I whispered, and from my shadow, I extracted a single, elite shadow Shinobi. I pressed it into her own shadow, where it would merge, a silent, undetectable bodyguard bound to protect her with its existence.
Then, focusing on a place I knew well—a safe, anonymous neighborhood in New York—I wrapped her in a cocoon of gentle shadows. With a soft *pop* of displaced air, she was gone, teleported to safety, along with a mental command that would guide a portion of my amassed wealth—$700 million in untraceable assets—to her, enough for a new life, a home, an education, everything she'd ever been denied.
I teleported back to the crest of Half-Blood Hill. The rain was already washing away the signs of struggle. Grover and Percy were both unconscious, exhausted by terror and ordeal. Gently, I gathered them up, Grover over one shoulder, Percy cradled in my other arm. Their weight was nothing.
I looked down into the valley, toward the glowing lights of the farmhouse. The storm was clearing. A new, more dangerous world had just opened up for my brother. But he wouldn't face it alone. With my newfound power thrumming quietly beneath my skin, and the ring of transformed Minotaur horn cool on my finger, I carried my charges down the hill, toward the unknown sanctuary, and whatever awaited us next.