We Hail the Taxi of Eternal Torment

**We Hail the Taxi of Eternal Torment** is the eighty-first chapter of The Gift of a Best Friend. It was first published on March 15th, 2019.

## Chapter

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**Annabeth's POV**
We were waiting for Percy in an alley down Church Street. We pulled him and Tyson off the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Meriwether Prep.
“Where’d you find *him*?” I demanded, pointing at Tyson.
“He’s my friend,” Percy told me.
“Is he homeless?”
“What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don’t you ask him?”
I was still surprised by that. “He can talk?”
“I talk,” Tyson admitted. “You two are pretty.”
“Ah! Gross!” I stepped away from him.
Jasmine just smiled sheepishly. “Thank you.”
Percy looked at Tyson’s hands.
“Tyson,” he said in disbelief. “Your hands aren’t even burned.”
“Of course not,” I muttered. “I’m surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around.”
“Maybe they thought he was after the same thing they were,” Jasmine said.
Tyson seemed fascinated by my hair. He tried to touch it, but I smacked his hand away. Jasmine laughed.
“Annabeth,” Percy said, “what are you talking about? Laistry-what?”
“Laistrygonians,” I said. “The monsters in the gym. They’re a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I’ve never seen them as far south as New York before.”
“Laistry—I can’t even say that. What would you call them in English?”
“Probably Canadians,” Jasmine answered.
“Come on,” I said. “We have to get out of here.”
“The police’ll be after me,” Percy said.
“That’s the least of our problems. Have you been having the dreams?”
“The dreams . . . about Grover?”
Jasmine and I exchanged confused and concerned looks.
“Grover?” I asked. “No, what about Grover?”
He told us about his dream: Grover running for his life, possibly somewhere in Florida in the middle of a thunder storm, being chased by something unknown. Him hiding behind a rack of wedding dresses in a bridal boutique, thinking he was safe there, but whatever was chasing him had found him, and that’s where Percy’s dream ended.
“Oh my God,” Jasmine said. “Poor Grover.”
I felt like my mind was racing at a million miles an hour. My dream about camp and Percy’s dream about Grover had to be connected.
“Why?” Percy asked me. “What were *you* dreaming about?”
“Camp,” I said. “Big trouble at camp.”
“My mom was saying the same thing! But what kind of trouble?”
“I don’t know exactly. Something’s wrong. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing us all the way from Missouri, trying to stop us. Have you had a lot of attacks?”
I shook my head. “None all year . . . until today.”
“None? But how . . .”
My eyes drifted to Tyson.
“Oh,” Jasmine and I both said in unison.
“What do you mean ‘oh’?” Percy asked.
Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. “Canadians in the gym called Percy something . . . Son of the Sea God?”
Percy, Jasmine, and I exchanged looks.
I decided to leave the explanation to Percy.
“Big guy,” he said, “you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena—”
“Yes,” Tyson said.
“Well . . . those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they’re in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods.”
“Yes,” Tyson said, like he was still waiting for him to get to the point.
“Uh, well, Annabeth and I are half-bloods,” Percy said. “We’re like . . . heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That’s what those giants were in the gym. Monsters.”
“Yes.”
Percy stared at him. Tyson didn’t seem surprised or confused by what he was telling him, which surprised and confused Percy. “So . . . you believe me?”
Tyson nodded. “But you are . . . Son of the Sea God?”
“Yeah,” Percy admitted. “My dad is Poseidon.”
Tyson frowned. *Now* he looked confused. “But then . . .”
A siren wailed. A police car raced past our alley.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “We’ll talk in a taxi.”
“A taxi all the way to camp?” Percy said. “You know how much money—”
“Trust me.”
“And also, may I remind you that I happen to be a part of the richest family on the planet?” Jasmine said, sounding offended.
Percy hesitated. “What about Tyson? We can’t just leave him. He’ll be in trouble, too.”
“Yeah,” I reluctantly agreed. “We definitely need to take him. Now come on.”
I headed down the alley. Together the five of us sneaked through the side streets of downtown while a huge column of smoke billowed up behind us from Meriwether College Prep’s gymnasium.
———————————————————————————————————————
“Here.” I stopped us on the corner of Thomas and Trimble. I fished around in my backpack. “I hope I have one left.”
“What are you looking for?” Percy asked.
All around us, sirens wailed.
Jasmine held her palm out, it glowing white, and a drachma shot out of my backpack and into her hand.
“Thank the gods,” I said.
I reached out for it, but she held it back.
“Why?” she asked.
“We don’t have time for this, Jasmine,” I complained. “We need to get to camp.”
“But why this way? I can think of a hell of a lot better, faster way of getting there.”
She gestured to Toothless on her shoulder.
“He won’t be able to carry all of us,” I argued. “Especially not *him*.” I looked accusingly at Tyson. “Now give me that.”
I snatched the drachma out of her hand.
“Fine,” Jasmine detested.
“Annabeth,” Percy said, “New York taxi drivers won’t take that.”
“We know,” Jasmine said.
“Stêthi,” I shouted in Ancient Greek. “O hárma diabolês!”
Just so you know, that meant Stop, Chariot of Damnation!
I threw the coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right through and disappeared.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space—bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze.
It was a taxi, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn’t yellow. It was smoky gray. It looked like it was *woven* out of smoke, like you could walk right through it. There were words printed on the door: GRAY SISTERS. (I couldn’t actually read it because my dyslexia made it hard for me to decipher, making it look something like GYAR SSIRES, but I figured it was pretty obvious.)
The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird rumbling way, like she’d just had a shot of Novocain. “Passage? Passage?”
“Four to Camp Half-Blood,” I said.
Jasmine glared at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Five.”
I opened the cab’s back door and waved at Percy to get in.
“Ach!” the old woman screeched. “We don’t take *his* kind!”
She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.
I didn’t blame her, but Percy sure didn’t like the comment.
“Extra pay,” I promised. “Three more drachma on arrival.”
“Done!” the woman screamed.
Percy got in the cab. Tyson squeezed in the middle. I sat in the last seat.
“I’m going to hate you for this,” Jasmine said, then turned Toothless into a small dragon and herself into a Pikachu and jumped on my lap.
“Now you know how I feel,” I retorted and closed the door.
The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough. The seat was cracked and lumpy—no different than most taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating us from the three Gray Sisters, all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering her eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress. I knew their names, but I didn’t know which one was which.
The one driving said, “Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!”
She floored the accelerator, and my head slammed against the backrest. A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I’m out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!
I looked down and found a large black chain instead of a seat belt. I decided not to put it on until I was absolutely desperate.
The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the gray lady sitting in the middle screeched, “Look out! Go left!”
“Well, if you’d give me the eye, Tempest, I could *see* that!” the driver complained.
“Oh, not this crap,” Jasmine groaned.
The driver swerved to avoid an oncoming delivery truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling *thump*, and flew into the next block.
“Wasp!” the third lady said to the driver. “Give me the girl’s coin! I want to bite it.”
“You bit it last time, Anger!” said the driver, whose name must’ve been Wasp. “It’s my turn!”
“Is not!” yelled the one called Anger.
So the driver was Wasp, the one in the middle was Tempest, and the one sitting next to the passenger window was Anger.
The middle one, Tempest, screamed. “Red light!”
“Brake!” yelled Anger.
Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster ride. I held on for dear life.
“Excuse me,” Percy said. “But . . . can you see?”
“No!” screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.
“No!” screamed Anger by the shotgun window.
“Of course!” screamed Tempest from the middle.
Percy looked at me. “They’re blind?”
“Not completely,” Annabeth said. “They have an eye.”
“One eye?”
“Yeah.”
“Each?”
“No. One eye total.”
Next to me, Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. “Not feeling so good.”
“Oh, man,” Percy said. “Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?”
The three gray ladies were too busy squabbling to pay him any attention. Percy and Jasmine both looked at me and gave me a *why-did-you-do-this-to-me* look.
“Hey,” I said. “Gray Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp.”
“Then why didn’t you take it from Missouri?” Percy asked.
“Because Toothless is better and faster,” Jasmine said.
“And Missouri is outside their service area,” I said, like it was obvious. “They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities.”
“We’ve had famous people in this cab!” Anger exclaimed. “Jason! You remember him?”
“Don’t remind me!” Wasp wailed. “And we didn’t have a cab back then, you old bat. That was three thousand years ago!”
“Give me the tooth!” Anger tried to grab at Wasp’s mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.
“Only if Tempest gives me the eye!”
“No!” Tempest screeched. “You had it yesterday!”
“But I’m driving, you old hag!”
“Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!”
Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street, squishing Percy between Tyson and the door. She punched the gas and we shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour.
The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp’s face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest’s. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other, I could now see that none of the sisters had any teeth except for Wasp, who had one mossy yellow incisor. Instead of eyes, they just had closed, sunken eyelids, except for Anger, who had one bloodshot green eye that stared at everything hungrily, as if it couldn’t get enough of anything it saw.
Finally Tempest, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp’s mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, “’Ivit back! ’Ivit back!”
Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.
“Uh, if anybody’s interested,” Percy said, “we’re going to die!”
“You’re telling me!” Jasmine agreed, clutching onto my shirt.
“Don’t worry,” I told them, even though I was pretty worried. “The Gray Sisters know what they’re doing. They’re really very wise.”
“This coming from you.”
I guess she had a point, me being the daughter of Athena and all.
We were skimming along the edge of a bridge a hundred and thirty feet above the East River.
“Yes, wise!” Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. “We know things!”
“Every street in Manhattan!” Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. “The capital of Nepal!”
“The location you seek!” Tempest added.
Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either side, screaming, “Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn’t even ask yet!”
“What?” Percy said. “What location? I’m not seeking any—”
“Nothing!” Tempest said. “You’re right, boy. It’s nothing!”
“Tell me.”
“No!” they all screamed.
“The last time we told, it was horrible!” Tempest said.
“Eye tossed in a lake!” Anger agreed.
“Years to find it again!” Wasp moaned. “And speaking of that—give it back!”
“No!” yelled Anger.
“Eye!” Wasp yelled. “Gimme!”
She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and the eyeball flew out of Anger’s face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into Percy’s lap.
He jumped so hard, his head hit the ceiling and the eyeball rolled away. Jasmine laughed.
“I can’t see!” all three sisters yelled.
“Give me the eye!” Wasp wailed.
“Give her the eye!” I screamed.
“I don’t have it!” Percy said.
“There, by your foot,” I said. “Don’t step on it! Get it!”
“I’m not picking that up!”
“Oh my God!” Jasmine said. “Just pick it up!”
The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.
“Going to be sick!” Tyson warned.
“Annabeth,” Percy yelled, “let Tyson use your backpack!”
“Are you crazy? Get the eye!”
Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. We hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any human taxi. The Gray Sisters screeched and pummeled each other and cried out for their eye.
At last Percy steeled his nerves. He ripped off a chunk of his tie-dyed T-shirt, which was already falling apart from all the burn marks, and used it to pick the eyeball off the floor.
“Nice boy!” Anger cried, as if she knew he had her missing peeper. “Give it back!”
“Not until you explain,” he told her. “What were you talking about, the location I seek?”
“No time!” Tempest cried. “Accelerating!”
I looked out the window. Sure enough, trees and cars and whole neighborhoods were now zipping by in a gray blur. We were already out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.
“Percy,” I warned, “they can’t find our destination without the eye. We’ll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces.”
“First they have to tell me,” he said. “Or I’ll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic.”
“Do it,” Jasmine said.
“Don’t encourage him,” I scolded her.
“No!” the Gray Sisters wailed. “Too dangerous!”
“I’m rolling down the window,” Percy said.
“Wait!” the Gray Sisters screamed. “30, 31, 75, 12.”
They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play.
“What do you mean?” Percy said. “That makes no sense!”
“30, 31, 75, 12!” Anger wailed. “That’s all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!”
We were off the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island. I could see Half-Blood Hill ahead of us, with its giant pine tree at the crest—Thalia’s tree, which contained her life force.
“Percy!” I said more urgently. “Give them the eye *now*!”
He decided not to argue. He threw the eye into Wasp’s lap.
The old lady snatched it up, pushed it into her eye socket like somebody putting in contact lens, and blinked. “Whoa!”
She slammed on the brakes. The taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill.
Tyson let loose a huge belch. “Better now.”
“And you’re probably the only one,” Jasmine said, falling onto the floor of the cab next to my feet, landing on top of Toothless.
I looked up at Half-Blood Hill, and I did not like what I saw.
“All right,” Percy told the Gray Sisters. “Now tell me what those numbers mean.”
“No time!” I opened my door. “We have to get out *now*.”
At the crest of the hill was a group of campers. And they were under attack.

**You may or may not have noticed some contradictions in this chapter. That will happen sometimes because I don't want to change quotes at all unless necessary, even if sometimes it doesn't make sense.**
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**Nobody edit above this box**
## Character Appearances

### Main Characters

* Annabeth Chase
* Jasmine Saturday
* Percy Jackson

### Minor Characters

* Tyson
* Tempest
* Wasp
* Anger