Well, at least southern California was. The sun was . . . everywhere. Big and round in the endless blue sky, glinting off the roofs and windshields of the nonstop stream of cars barely moving on I-405. Waves of heat rolled off the asphalt, and even with the air conditioner on full blast, the warmth was creeping into the vehicle.

Six hours in the car was painful and the windy mountainous roads with Seth behind the wheel had me thankful more than once that I was a demigod, but the place was . . . gods, I’d seen nothing like it before. The peaks and bluffs were vast and beautiful, and I wanted to stop at one of the many look-out points, but figured no one would appreciate that.

I’d rolled down the window and the roaring warm air lifted my ponytail and washed over my skin as we’d raced up Kanan Road. The moment we crested the last hill and the ocean came into view, I almost forgot about what we were here to do.

The sea was endless.

A shade of blue that grew deeper and brighter the closer we got. I’d never seen the ocean before, and it went on, until it faded into the sky. I’d never felt sand between my toes or the white frothy tips of an ocean’s wave. Being here, finally, was surreal.

And all I could think about was where Malibu Barbie would live.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we ended up stopping at an older, retro-style motel along the Pacific Coast Highway, creatively named the Malibu Motel. Unloading our bags and the massive number of weapons didn’t take that long. The inside of the motel kind of reminded me of the one Seth and I had stayed at before, except we weren’t in the honeymoon suite this time.

Based on what Hercules had discovered with Apollo, we figured we’d find Poseidon’s offspring somewhere in Malibu, but the place wasn’t particularly small and there were people, lots of . . . really attractive and thin people.

We hit the area of Paradise Cove in the afternoon, and while I was thrilled to get sand between my toes, I wished I’d had some shorts to pack. Sweat was already accumulating in places sweat should never gather, but the sun felt good on my skin. It seemed like it had been way too long since I’d actually felt warm.

Plus, I felt like an ogre around these people. A big, hairy ogre.

The first day searching was a fail on many levels. We didn’t find who we were looking for. We nearly lost Hercules to a group of bikini-clad girls multiple times, and we had to drive further out from the coast to find a store that sold shorts my thighs would actually fit in.

Sigh.