Gary nodded. “You must defeat me in wrestling. If you win, I will give you the chalice. If I win . . . you will fulfill your purpose sooner than expected, and I will turn you into a pile of powdered bone. Do we have an agreement?”
In the demigod business, we call this atrick question.
If I refused, I would get zapped to dust. If I agreed, I’d have to wrestle an old guy. Then I’d get zapped to dust. . . .
Looking at Gary, I found it hard to focus—and not just because of his filthy loincloth or his missing teeth. His presence made me feel claustrophobic in my own body. Blood roared in my ears. My hands turned sweaty. I had to fight a sense of panic, like my flesh had already started to crumble.
I understood why even a goddess like Iris might be scared of this guy. Immortality was one thing. Being old forever . . . that was something else. Other gods preferred to look young and beautiful. Gary owned his age, every millennium of it. I imagined that when the Olympians looked at him, they saw just how ancient they really were. He was like the painting in that story about the guy who never ages, but his portrait does. Earl Grey? No. That’s a kind of tea. Whatever, the story creeped me out.
None of that helped me come up with an answer. Gary was staring at me expectantly, so I fell back on my demigod tool of last resort: procrastination.
“I have conditions,” I said.
Gary tilted his wrinkly head. “Medical conditions?”
“No. Conditions for fighting you. First, if I lose, you only kill me. You leave my friends alone.”
“Old Age never leaves anyone alone.”
“You know what I mean. You don’t dust them now. You let them go.”
“Acceptable.”
“Next . . .” I faltered. Come on, Percy. There has to be a next. “When you say I have to defeat you, what would that look like? You’re a god. I can’t kill you.”
“Obviously, young fool,” Gary scoffed. “If you can bend even one of my knees to the ground, I will consider that sufficient. I, on the other hand, will win when I flatten your face against the pavement. That is more than fair.”
“That was the first word that came to my mind,” I said. “Fair.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.” I racked my brain, wondering what other demands I should make. Bottled water? A bowl of only blue M&M’s in my dressing room? I needed Annabeth here to help me think.
Oh. Right. That was a thing I could ask for.
“Let my friends go,” I told Gary.
“You already asked that.”
“No,” I said. “I mean let them go from whatever you’re doing to them right now.” I gestured at Annabeth, who was still frozen at the chess game.
“I just slowed them down,” said Gary. “Old Age does that to everyone.”
“I want them here,” I said. “To say good-bye, if nothing else. Whatever happens to me, I want them to see it.”
“This is not a spectator sport,” he grumbled, which was the first time anyone had ever said that about wrestling.
“Do you want to fight me or not?” I asked.
I felt like I could risk saying that, because the gleam in Gary’s eyes told me he was eager to push my face into the pavement. He wasn’t the first person who’d ever felt that way.
“Fine,” he grunted.
He snapped his bony fingers. Annabeth and Grover both unfroze. They turned in my direction, removed their super-attractive menthol Kleenex tusks, and ran toward the playground.
By the time Annabeth reached us, she had drawn her knife. Grover was wielding a black-sesame mochi donut like a shuriken.
“What’s going on?” Grover demanded, hefting his pastry like he was ready to go full donut assassin.
Annabeth sized up Gary, then cursed under her breath. “Geras, I presume? I should have known we were fighting Old Age.”
Gary chuckled. “And I should have spoken to you first, young lady. You’re clearly the brains of this operation.”
“It’s cool,” I told my friends. “We’ve come to an agreement.”
Annabeth scowled at the god. “Let me guess. A wrestling match? Excuse me. I need a word with my client.”
She grabbed my arm and dragged me to the other end of the playground. Behind us, I heard Gary ask Grover, “You going to eat that?”
Annabeth gripped my shoulders. “Percy, you can’t do this.”
“Hey, it isn’t something I want to do.”
“You can’t beat him.”
I wanted to argue that this was our best shot. It was a lot better than all three of us getting turned into grave dust. But I could tell from Annabeth’s expression that she had already run the angles. She was way ahead, as usual.