The Titans Curse

by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Thalia Grace get a ride from Sally Jackson to Westover Hall, a boarding school in Nico and Bianca di Angelo to Camp Half-Blood. They are attacked by a teacher named Dr. Thorn, who is actually a manticore. Though the goddess Artemis and her hunters arrive to help, Dr. Thorn jumps off a cliff with Annabeth on his back. Artemis is troubled by the manticore's mention of a "Great Stirring" of monsters, and goes off alone to hunt an Olympus-destroying monster she believes to have finally returned from Tartarus. She sends the half-bloods and Hunters (whose numbers now include Bianca di Angelo, after she takes their oath) to Camp Half-Blood with her brother Apollo on his solar chariot.

At camp, Percy and Blackjack, his pegasus friend, save a sea monster that Percy nicknames Bessie, and Artemis's lieutenant Zoë Nightshade begins having mysterious dreams about Artemis in grave danger. Percy has dreams about Annabeth saving Luke from being crushed by the ceiling of a cave and holding it up for him. Both Zoë and Percy are unable to act until the Oracle (an old mummy) somehow leaves the attic in the Big House by itself, during a capture the flag game in which Thalia and Percy almost get into a physical confrontation. After it delivers a prophecy to Zoë, she and Chiron organize a quest, and she decides to bring Thalia, Grover Underwood, Bianca, and another Hunter with her (who is then taken out of commission by a deadly prank). Percy is forbidden from going because the Hunters refuse to travel or associate with a male, due to their chastity vows. Before leaving, he meets up with Nico, to whom he promises to keep Bianca safe during the quest. He successfully sneaks away from camp on Blackjack and follows the group, though he is almost stopped by Mr. D while on the Chrysler Building, who only agrees to let him go because there is a high chance Percy will be killed while on the quest.

When he arrives in Luke Castellan and a large man called the General are there, and together they summon spartoi, undead skeleton warriors, to hunt the official quest group, who are nearby in the National Air and Space Museum. Percy tries to warn the group, but they are attacked by the Nemean lion before they can leave. They fight the lion and manage to kill it, with Percy taking its impenetrable pelt as a spoil of war. The quest group and Percy flee, and, on the advice of Apollo (in disguise as a homeless man), travel to Pan, who sends the Erymanthian boar to help them escape the spartoi. The boar carries them as far as Gila Claw, Arizona, where the "Junkyard of the Gods" lies. After a brief encounter with Ares and Aphrodite (in which Aphrodite analyzes Percy's attraction to Annabeth, but also warns him of the dangers of the Junkyard), the group enters the junkyard, where Bianca tries to take a cursed statuette for Nico. Her theft awakens a prototype of Talos, and she gives her life to bring it down. The remaining quest members sullenly travel to Hoover Dam after stealing boats. There, Percy meets a mortal girl who can see through the Mist named Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and with the help of Athena (in disguise as a tour guide), the quest members narrowly escape the spartoi again, arriving in San Francisco on the backs of two bronze flying angels.

Once there, Percy seeks out Nereus and learns that the monster Artemis was hunting is Bessie, the monster he saved back at camp with Blackjack, who is an ophiotaurus (a creature whose entrails can be burned to acquire the power to destroy Olympus). Using this fact, Luke attempts to coax Thalia into joining the side of the Titans, as she is almost 16 and appears to be the hero of the Great Prophecy, and she hesitantly refuses. After a final encounter with Dr. Thorn, in which Percy pleads with Mr. D to help him defeat the manticore, Grover heads back to Camp Half-Blood with Bessie, with Percy offering the Nemean lion's pelt as tribute to Poseidon for their safe journey. Zoë, Percy, and Thalia go to find Frederick Chase, Annabeth's father and a plane pilot, in the hope that he will help them reach their final destination: Mount Tamalpais, the modern location of the Titans' fortress on Mount Othrys. In Professor Chase's car, they travel to the Garden of the Hesperides. After confronting the Hesperides (whom Zoë is an exiled member of, due to her helping Heracles steal a golden apple during the Labours of Hercules by gifting him Riptide, Percy's sword), Zoë is wounded by the poison of the dragon Ladon while they pass through. At the place where the Titan Atlas once held up the sky, the group finds Artemis now doing his job. After seeing Annabeth tied up and held hostage by Luke, and learning that "the General" is not only Atlas, but Zoë's father, Percy briefly takes the sky's weight from Artemis so she can fight against the Titan. Artemis engages Atlas, and is able to trap him under the sky again with the help of Percy, but not before he seriously wounds Zoë by pushing her off of a cliff. Thalia battles Luke, and is kicked off the side of the mountain by her, apparently dead. With the help of Mr. Chase, who arrives in a biplane he has fitted with machine guns that fire celestial bronze bullets, they escape and travel to a nearby airfield in Artemis' silver chariot. Zoë dies from her injuries shortly after landing, and Artemis makes a new constellation in her honor. The rest of the group then head for Mount Olympus.

During the winter solstice meeting, the gods are finally convinced by Artemis to take action against the Titans. Thalia is also asked by Artemis to become an immortal Huntress, and she accepts, delaying the onset of the Great Prophecy by keeping her forever 15 years old. Percy is told by his father, Poseidon, that Luke is miraculously alive. Athena warns Percy to stay away from Annabeth. The two return to Camp Half-Blood, skeptical and worried about the future. Before Percy is able to go home, however, Percy is forced to explain Bianca's death to Nico. Nico immediately blames Percy, as Percy promised to keep her safe. When a group of spartoi arrive to attack Percy, Nico banishes them to the underworld, revealing himself as a son of Hades. Shortly after, Nico runs away from camp, and Percy tells the truth of Nico's parentage to Annabeth and Grover. They promise to hide the fact from everyone else, especially the Titans' army, because this means that there are once again two possible heroes for the Great Prophecy.