The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

55. The God Of Madness

"Tell me when it's over!" Thalia said. Her eyes were shut tight. The statues were holding on to them all so they couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched her statue's arm as if it were the most important thing in the world.

"Are—are we very high?" she asked.

Y/N looked down. Below them, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. He stretched out his foot and kicked snow off one of the peaks.

"Nah," he said. "Not that high."

"We are in the Sierras!" Zoë yelled, hanging next to Thalia. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" Y/N, Ethan and Percy's angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"

"Oh, man," the other angel said. "I am so there!"

"You guys have visited San Francisco?" Percy asked.

"We automatons have some fun once in a while, right?" their statue said. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And—"

"Hank!" the other statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, man."

"Oh, right." If bronze statues could blush, Hank certainly did. "Back to flying."

They sped up, so Y/N could tell the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and then they were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.

Grover played his pipes to pass the time. Zoë got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as they flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and they passed dozens of them—she would peg the store's sign with a few bull-eyes at a hundred miles an hour.

Thalia kept her eyes closed the whole way. She muttered to herself a lot, as if she was praying.

Hank's voice woke up Y/N from a nap. "Where you guys want to land?"

Y/N looked down and remained speechless.

He'd seen San Francisco in pictures before, but never in real life. It was probably the most beautiful city he'd ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been surrounded by green hills and fog. There was a huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge sticking up out of the fog. He felt like he should take a picture or something. Greetings from Frisco. Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.

"There," Zoë suggested. "By the Embarcadero Building."

"Good thinking," Chuck said. "Me and Hank can blend in with the pigeons."

They all looked at him.

"Kidding," he said. "Sheesh, can't statues have a sense of humor?"

As it turned out, there wasn't much need to blend in. It was early in the morning and not many people were around. They freaked out a homeless guy on the ferry dock when they landed. He screamed when he saw Hank and Chuck and ran off yelling something about metal angels from Mars.

They said their goodbyes to the angels, who flew off to party with their statue friends.

"What do we do, now?" Y/N asked. They'd made it to the West Coast. Artemis was here somewhere. More importantly, Annabeth was here. How to find them, he had no idea. And tomorrow was the winter solstice. They still hadn't found the monster Artemis had been hunting. How were they supposed to get to Annabeth without it? It was supposed to "show the trail," but it never had so far. Now they were stuck on the ferry dock with not much money, no friends, and no luck.