Apollo let out an audible exhale as we slowly inched forward, hardly moving at all.

Meg turned and gazed out the rear windshield, scanning the back view with careful, analytical eyes, well analytical for an ADHD twelve year old.

"At least we're not being–"

"Don't say it," I warned.

Meg huffed. "You don't know what I was going to–"

"You were going to say, 'At least we're not being followed," I said. "That'll jinx us. Immediately we'll notice that we are being followed. Then we'll end up in a big battle that totals my family car and probably destroys the whole freeway. Then we'll have to run all the way to camp."

Meg's eyes widened. "You can tell the future?"

"Don't need to." I changed lanes to one that was crawling slightly less slowly. "I've just done this a lot. Besides," I gave Apollo a look, "nobody can tell the future anymore. The Oracle isn't working."

"What Oracle?" Meg asked.

No one answered, as if no one could be brave enough.

"It still isn't working?" Apollo piped up, though his voice was a tone quieter than usual.

"You didn't know?" I asked sceptically, "I mean, sure, you've been out of it for six months, but this happened on your watch."

My eyebrows raised as I watched Apollo swallow nervously.

"I just assumed–I hoped this would be taken care of by now," he admitted.

"You mean by demigods," I said, "going on a big quest to reclaim the Oracle of Delphi?"

"Exactly!" he replied, missing my sarcasm, "I suppose Chiron just forgot. I'll remind him when we get to camp, and he can dispatch some of you talented fodder–I mean heroes-"

"Well, here's the thing," I explained slowly. "To go on a quest, we need a prophecy, right? Those are the rules. If there's no Oracle, there are no prophecies, so we're stuck in a–"

"A Catch-88." Apollo sighed.

Meg threw a piece of lint at him. "It's a Catch-22."

"No," Apollo said, "this is a Catch-88, which is four times as bad."

"Hey, you two." Meg hit us with stray pieces of lint.

"Yes, sorry, Meg," Apollo said. "You see, the Oracle of Delphi is an ancient–"

"I don't care about that," she stated, "There are three shiny blobs now."

"What?" I asked, silently cursing the gods, then shooting Apollo a well-aimed glare.

She pointed behind us. "Look."

Weaving through the traffic, closing in on us rapidly, were three glittery, vaguely humanoid apparitions-like billowing plumes from smoke grenades touched by King Midas.

"Just once I'd like an easy commute," I grumbled. "Everybody, hold on. We're going cross-country."

I shot down the nearest exit ramp, wove across the parking lot of a shopping mall, then blasted through the drive-through of a Mexican restaurant without even ordering anything for once.

We swerved into an industrial area of warehouses, the spirits still closing in behind us. Gods, they were annoyingly fast.

"Is your plan to avoid a fight by dying in a traffic accident?" Apollo demanded.

"Ha-ha." I yanked the wheel to the right. We sped north, the warehouses giving way to apartment buildings and abandoned strip malls. "I'm getting us to the beach. I fight better near water."

"Because Poseidon?" Meg asked, steadying herself against the door handle.

"Yep," I agreed. "That pretty much describes my entire life: Because Poseidon."

Meg bounced up and down with excitement, and I yearned for the old times when I could get excited by small things, by just living life.

"You're gonna be like Aquaman?" she asked. "Get the fish to fight for you?"

"Thanks," I said, trying to ignore the deep pang in ny chest, "I haven't heard enough Aquaman jokes for one lifetime."

"I wasn't joking!" Meg protested.

I glanced out the rear mirror. The three glittering plumes were still gaining. One of them passed through a middle-aged man crossing the street. The pedestrian instantly collapsed, the remains of his body smoking into the air.

"Ah, I know these spirits!" Apollo cried. "They are um..."

"What?" I demanded. "They are what?"

"I've forgotten!" Apollo shouted,"I hate being mortal! Four thousand years of knowledge, the secrets of the universe, a sea of wisdom-lost, because I can't contain it all in this teacup of a head!"

"Hold on!" I said as we flew through a railroad crossing, momentarily airborne. Meg yelped as her head hit the ceiling. Then she began giggling uncontrollably.

The landscape opened into painting worthy countryside fields, vineyards, orchards of bare fruit trees.

"Just another mile or so to the beach," I said. "Plus we're almost to the western edge of camp. We can do it. We can do it."

Then, one of the shiny smoke clouds pulled a dirty trick, pluming from the pavement directly in front of us.

Instinctively, I swerved.

Paul's Prius went off the road, straight through a barbed wire fence and into an orchard. I managed to avoid hitting any of the trees, but the car skidded in the icy mud and wedged itself between two tree trunks, just to be awkward. Of course, it would only happen to me.

I popped my seat belt. "You guys okay?"

Meg shoved against her passenger-side door. "Won't open. Get me out of here!"

I tried my own door. It was firmly jammed against the side of a peach tree.

"Back here," Apollo said. "Climb over!"

He kicked his door open and staggered out.

The three smoky figures had stopped at the edge of the orchard. Now they advanced slowly, taking on solid shapes. They grew arms and legs. Their faces formed eyes and wide, hungry mouths.

Meg and I struggled to get out of the Prius. We needed more time.

"STOP!" Apollo yelled. "I am the god Apollo!"

The three spirits stopped, like they were thinking, who the Hades was this wacko? They hovered in place about forty feet away, looking the spitting image of those guys in ghost movies.

Meg grunted as she tumbled out of the backseat and I stumbled out after her, attempting to regain my newly lost balance.

Apollo was advancing toward the spirits, his hand in the three-fingered gesture for warding off evil. My chest gave a pang. Grover.

"Leave us or be destroyed!" Apollo told the spirits. "BLOFIS!"

The smoky shapes trembled and solidified into ghoulish corpses with yellow eyes. Their clothes were tattered rags, their limbs covered with gaping wounds and running sores, yellowing with infection.

"Oh, dear." Apollo said, "I remember now."

I stepped to Apollo's side, Riptide growing into a sword with a satisfying clink.

"Remember what?" I asked. "How to kill these things?"

"No," Apollo answered. "I remember what they are: nosoi, plague spirits. Also, they can't be killed."