CHAPTER 19 (Part-1)

                                    

                                          
(Percy's POV) 
I sat bolt upright in the Lamborghini's driver's seat because of what I'd seen in my dream. Nora was shaking my arm. 
"Perce, wake up." she said. "It's morning. The train's stopped. Come on!"
I tried to shake off my drowsiness. Grover, Thalia, Zoe, & Bianca had already rolled up the metal curtains. Outside were snowy mountains dotted with pine trees, the sun rising red between two peaks. 
I fished my pen out of my pocket & stared at it. Anaklusmos, the Ancient Greek name for Riptide. A different form, but I was sure it was the same blade I'd seen in my dream. 
And I was sure of something else, too. The girl I'd seen was Zoe Nightshade...
We'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. 
The sign said, WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO. The air was cold & thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, & dirty mounds of it, piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch black shadows, though the morning was sunny.
Even with my lion-skin coat, I was freezing by the time we got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. As we walked, I told Grover about our conversation with Apollo the night before- how he'd told us to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.
Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first." 
I tried not to get too depressed about our chances. I didn't want to send Grover into a panic, but I knew we had another huge deadline looming, aside from saving Artemis in time for her council of the gods. The General had said Annabeth would only be kept alive until the winter solstice. That was Friday, only four days away. And he'd said something about a sacrifice. I didn't like the sound of that at all. 
We stopped in the middle of town. You could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores & cafes, some ski cabins, & a grocery store. 
"Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out." 
"There's a coffee shop!" Grover said. 
"Yes," Zoe said. "Coffee is good." 
"And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And wax paper." 
Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about you two go get us some food. Percy, Bianca, Nora & I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions." 
We agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes. Bianca looked a little uncomfortable coming with us, but she did. 
Inside the store, we found out a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow for skiing, the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each, & there was no easy way in or out of town unless you had your own car. 
"You can call a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, but it would take at least an hour to get here. Cost several hundred dollars." 
The clerk looked so lonely, I bought a rubber rat. Then we headed back outside & stood on the porch. 
"Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has a suggestion." 
"But the clerk said-" 
"I know," she told me. "I'll check anyway."
"You want me to come with, Tal?" Nora asked her. But she shook her head & left.