The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4) (20 page)

After they had retreated back down the stairs, Octavian wheeled on Reyna. ‘Are you
mad
?’

‘I am praetor of the legion,’ Reyna said. ‘I judge this to be in the best interest of Rome.’

‘To get yourself killed? To break our oldest laws and travel to the ancient lands? How will you even find their ship, assuming you survive the journey?’

‘I will find them,’ Reyna said. ‘If they are sailing for Greece, I know a place Jason will stop. To face the ghosts in the House of Hades, he will need an army. There is only one place where he can find that sort of help.’

In Jason’s dream, the building seemed to tilt under his feet. He remembered a conversation he’d had with Reyna years ago, a promise they had made to each other. He knew what she was talking about.

‘This is insanity,’ Octavian muttered. ‘We’re already under attack. We must take the offensive! Those hairy dwarfs have been stealing our supplies, sabotaging our scouting parties – you
know
the Greeks sent them.’

‘Perhaps,’ Reyna said. ‘But you will
not
launch an attack without my orders. Continue scouting the enemy camp. Secure your positions. Gather all the allies you can, and if you catch those dwarfs you have my blessing to send them back to Tartarus. But do
not
attack Camp Half-Blood until I return.’

Octavian narrowed his eyes. ‘While you’re gone, the augur is the senior officer. I will be in charge.’

‘I know.’ Reyna didn’t sound happy about it. ‘But you have my orders. You all heard them.’ She scanned the faces of the centurions, daring them to question her.

She stormed off, her purple cloak billowing and her dogs at her heels.

Once she was gone, Octavian turned to the centurions. ‘Gather all the senior officers. I want a meeting as soon as Reyna has left on her fool’s quest. There will be a few changes in the legion’s plans.’

One of the centurions opened his mouth to respond, but for some reason he spoke in Piper’s voice: ‘
WAKE UP!
’

Jason’s eyes snapped open, and he saw the ocean’s surface hurtling towards him.

J
ASON SURVIVED – BARELY.

Later, his friends explained that they hadn’t seen him falling from the sky until the last second. There was no time for Frank to turn into an eagle and catch him; no time to formulate a rescue plan.

Only Piper’s quick thinking and charmspeak had saved his life. She’d yelled
WAKE UP!
with so much force that Jason felt like he’d been hit with defibrillator paddles. With a millisecond to spare, he’d summoned the winds and avoided becoming a floating patch of demigod grease on the surface of the Adriatic.

Back on board, he had pulled Leo aside and suggested a course correction. Fortunately, Leo trusted him enough not to ask why.

‘Weird vacation spot.’ Leo grinned. ‘But, hey, you’re the boss!’

Now, sitting with his friends in the mess hall, Jason felt
so
awake he doubted he would sleep for a week. His hands were jittery. He couldn’t stop tapping his feet. He guessed that this was how Leo felt all the time, except that Leo had a sense of humour.

After what Jason had seen in his dream, he didn’t feel much like joking.

While they ate lunch, Jason reported on his midair vision. His friends were quiet long enough for Coach Hedge to finish a peanut butter and banana sandwich, along with the ceramic plate.

The ship creaked as it sailed through the Adriatic, its remaining oars still out of alignment from the giant turtle attack. Every once in a while Festus the figurehead creaked and squeaked through the speakers, reporting the autopilot status in that weird machine language that only Leo could understand.

‘A note from Annabeth.’ Piper shook her head in amazement. ‘I don’t see how that’s possible, but if it is –’

‘She’s alive,’ Leo said. ‘Thank the gods and pass the hot sauce.’

Frank frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

Leo wiped the chip crumbs off his face. ‘It means pass the hot sauce, Zhang. I’m still hungry.’

Frank slid over a jar of salsa. ‘I can’t believe Reyna would try to find us. It’s taboo, coming to the ancient lands. She’ll be stripped of her praetorship.’

‘If she lives,’ Hazel said. ‘It was hard enough for us to make
it this far with seven demigods and a warship.’

‘And me.’ Coach Hedge belched. ‘Don’t forget, cupcake, you got the
satyr
advantage.’

Jason had to smile. Coach Hedge could be pretty ridiculous, but Jason
was
glad he’d come along. He thought about the satyr he’d seen in his dream – Grover Underwood. He couldn’t imagine a satyr more different from Coach Hedge, but they both seemed brave in their own way.

It made Jason wonder about the fauns back at Camp Jupiter – whether they could be like that if the Roman demigods expected more from them. Another thing to add to his list …

His list.
He hadn’t realized that he
had
one until that moment, but ever since leaving Camp Half-Blood he’d been thinking of ways to make Camp Jupiter more … 
Greek.

He had grown up at Camp Jupiter. He’d done well there. But he had always been a little unconventional. He chafed under the rules.

He’d joined the Fifth Cohort because everyone told him not to. They warned him it was the worst unit. So he’d thought,
Fine, I’ll make it the best.

Once he’d become praetor, he’d campaigned to rename the legion the First Legion rather than the Twelfth Legion, to symbolize a new start for Rome. The idea had almost caused a mutiny. New Rome was all about tradition and legacies; the rules didn’t change easily. Jason had learned to live with that and even rose to the top.

But now that he had seen both camps he couldn’t shake the feeling that Camp Half-Blood might have taught him
more about himself. If he survived this war with Gaia and returned to Camp Jupiter as a praetor, could he change things for the better?

That was his duty.

So why did the idea fill him with dread? He felt guilty about leaving Reyna to rule without him, but still … part of him wanted to go back to Camp Half-Blood with Piper and Leo. He guessed that that made him a pretty terrible leader.

‘Jason?’ Leo asked. ‘
Argo II
to Jason. Come in.’

He realized his friends were looking at him expectantly. They needed reassurance. Whether or not he made it back to New Rome after the war, Jason had to step up now and act like a praetor.

‘Yeah, sorry.’ He touched the groove that Sciron the bandit had cut in his hair. ‘Crossing the Atlantic is a hard journey, no doubt. But I’d never bet against Reyna. If anyone can make it, she will.’

Piper circled her spoon through her soup. Jason was still a little nervous about her getting jealous of Reyna, but when she looked up she gave him a dry smile that seemed more teasing than insecure.

‘Well, I’d
love
to see Reyna again,’ she said. ‘But how is she supposed to find us?’

Frank raised his hand. ‘Can’t you just send her an Iris-message?’

‘They’re not working very well,’ Coach Hedge put in. ‘Horrible reception. Every night, I swear, I could
kick
that rainbow goddess …’

He faltered. His face turned bright red.

‘Coach?’ Leo grinned. ‘Who have you been calling every night, you old goat?’

‘No one!’ Hedge snapped. ‘Nothing! I just meant –’

‘He means we’ve already tried,’ Hazel intervened, and the coach gave her a grateful look. ‘Some magic is interfering … maybe Gaia. Contacting the Romans is even harder. I think they’re shielding themselves.’

Jason looked from Hazel to the coach, wondering what was going on with the satyr and how Hazel knew about it. Now that Jason thought about it, the coach hadn’t mentioned his cloud nymph girlfriend Mellie in a long time …

Frank drummed his fingers on the table. ‘I don’t suppose Reyna has a cell phone …? Nah. Never mind. She’d probably have bad reception on a pegasus flying over the Atlantic.’

Jason thought about the
Argo II
’s journey across the ocean, the dozens of encounters that had nearly killed them. Thinking about Reyna making that journey alone – he couldn’t decide whether it was terrifying or awe-inspiring.

‘She’ll find us,’ he said. ‘She mentioned something in the dream – she’s expecting me to go to a certain place on our way to the House of Hades. I – I’d forgotten about it, actually, but she’s right. It’s a place I need to visit.’

Piper leaned towards him, her caramel braid falling over her shoulder. Her multicoloured eyes made it hard for him to think straight.

‘And where is this place?’ she asked.

‘A … uh, a town called Split.’

‘Split.’ She smelled really good – like blooming honeysuckle.

‘Um, yeah.’ Jason wondered if Piper was working some sort of Aphrodite magic on him – like maybe every time he mentioned Reyna’s name she would befuddle him so much he couldn’t think about anything but Piper. He supposed it wasn’t the worst sort of revenge. ‘In fact, we should be getting close. Leo?’

Leo punched the intercom button. ‘How’s it going up there, buddy?’

Festus the figurehead creaked and steamed.

‘He says maybe ten minutes to the harbour,’ Leo reported. ‘Though I still don’t get why you want to go to Croatia, especially a town called
Split
. I mean, you name your city
Split
, you gotta figure it’s a warning to, you know,
split
. Kind of like naming your city
Get Out!
’

‘Wait,’ Hazel said. ‘Why are we going to Croatia?’

Jason noticed that the others were reluctant to meet her eyes. Since her trick with the Mist against Sciron the bandit, even Jason felt a little nervous around her. He knew that wasn’t fair to Hazel. It was hard enough being a child of Pluto, but she’d pulled off some
serious
magic on that cliff. And afterwards, according to Hazel, Pluto himself had appeared to her. That was something Romans typically called a
bad
omen
.

Leo pushed his chips and hot sauce aside. ‘Well, technically we’ve been in Croatian territory for the past day or so. All that coastline we’ve been sailing past is
it
, but I guess back in the Roman times it was called … what’d you say, Jason? Bodacious?’

‘Dalmatia,’ Nico said, making Jason jump.

Holy Romulus … 
Jason wished he could put a bell around Nico di Angelo’s neck to remind him the guy was there. Nico had this disturbing habit of standing silently in the corner, blending into the shadows.

He stepped forward, his dark eyes fixed on Jason. Since they’d rescued him from the bronze jar in Rome, Nico had slept very little and eaten even less, as if he were still subsisting on those emergency pomegranate seeds from the Underworld. He reminded Jason a little too much of a flesh-eating ghoul he’d once fought in San Bernardino.

‘Croatia used to be Dalmatia,’ Nico said. ‘A major Roman province. You want to visit
Diocletian
’s Palace, don’t you?’

Coach Hedge managed another heroic belch. ‘
Whose
palace? And is Dalmatia where those Dalmatian dogs come from? That
101 Dalmatians
movie – I still have nightmares.’

Frank scratched his head. ‘Why would you have nightmares about that?’

Coach Hedge looked like he was about to launch into a major speech about the evils of cartoon Dalmatians, but Jason decided he didn’t want to know.

‘Nico is right,’ he said. ‘I need to go to Diocletian’s Palace. It’s where Reyna will go first, because she knows
I
would go there.’

Piper raised an eyebrow. ‘And why would Reyna think that? Because you’ve always had a mad fascination with Croatian culture?’

Jason stared at his uneaten sandwich. It was hard to talk about his life before
Juno
wiped his memory. His years at
Camp Jupiter seemed made up, like a movie he’d acted in decades before.

‘Reyna and I used to talk about Diocletian,’ he said. ‘We both kind of idolized the guy as a leader. We talked about how we’d like to visit Diocletian’s Palace. Of course we knew that was impossible. No one could travel to the ancient lands. But still we made this pact that if we ever
did
that’s where we’d go.’

‘Diocletian …’ Leo considered the name, then shook his head. ‘I got nothing. Why was he so important?’

Frank looked offended. ‘He was the last great pagan emperor!’

Leo rolled his eyes. ‘Why am I not surprised you know that, Zhang?’

‘Why wouldn’t I? He was the last one who worshipped the Olympian gods, before Constantine came along and adopted Christianity.’

Hazel nodded. ‘I remember something about that. The nuns at St Agnes taught us that Diocletian was a huge villain, right along with Nero and Caligula.’ She looked askance at Jason. ‘Why would you idolize him?’

‘He wasn’t a
total
villain,’ Jason said. ‘Yeah, he persecuted Christians, but otherwise he was a good ruler. He worked his way up from nothing by joining the legion. His parents were former slaves … or at least his
mom
was. Demigods know he was a son of Jupiter – the last demigod to rule Rome. He was also the first emperor ever to retire, like,
peacefully
, and give up his power. He was from Dalmatia, so he moved back there and built a retirement palace. The town of Split grew up around …’

He faltered when he looked at Leo, who was mimicking taking notes with an air pencil.

‘Go on, Professor Grace!’ he said, wide-eyed. ‘I wanna get an A on the test.’

‘Shut up, Leo.’

Piper sipped another spoonful of soup. ‘So why is Diocletian’s Palace so special?’

Nico leaned over and plucked a grape. Probably that was the guy’s entire diet for the day. ‘It’s said to be haunted by the ghost of Diocletian.’

‘Who was a son of Jupiter, like me,’ Jason said. ‘His tomb was destroyed centuries ago, but Reyna and I used to wonder if we could find Diocletian’s ghost and ask where he was buried … well, according to the legends, his sceptre was buried with him.’

Nico gave him a thin, creepy smile. ‘Ah … 
that
legend.’

‘What legend?’ Hazel asked.

Nico turned to his sister. ‘Supposedly Diocletian’s sceptre could summon the ghosts of the Roman legions, any of them who worshipped the old gods.’

Leo whistled. ‘Okay,
now
I’m interested. Be nice to have a booty-kicking army of pagan zombies on our side when we enter the House of Hades.’

‘Not sure I would’ve put it that way,’ Jason muttered, ‘but yeah.’

‘We don’t have much time,’ Frank warned. ‘It’s already July ninth. We have to get to Epirus, close the Doors of Death –’

‘Which are guarded,’ Hazel murmured, ‘by a smoky giant and a sorceress who wants …’ She hesitated. ‘Well, I’m not sure. But according to Pluto, she plans to “rebuild her domain”. Whatever that means, it’s bad enough that my dad felt like warning me personally.’

Frank grunted. ‘And, if we survive all that, we still have to find out where the giants are waking Gaia and get there before the first of August. Besides, the longer Percy and Annabeth are in Tartarus –’

‘I know,’ Jason said. ‘We won’t take long in Split. But looking for the sceptre is worth a try. While we’re at the palace, I can leave a message for Reyna, letting her know the route we’re taking for Epirus.’

Nico nodded. ‘The sceptre of Diocletian could make a huge difference. You’ll need my help.’

Jason tried not to show his discomfort, but his skin prickled at the thought of going anywhere with Nico di Angelo.

Percy had shared some disturbing stories about Nico. His loyalties weren’t always clear. He spent more time with the dead than the living. Once, he’d lured Percy into a trap in the palace of Hades. Maybe Nico had made up for that by helping the Greeks against the Titans, but still …

Piper squeezed his hand. ‘Hey, sounds fun. I’ll go, too.’

Jason wanted to yell:
Thank the gods!

But Nico shook his head. ‘You can’t, Piper. It should only be Jason and me. Diocletian’s ghost might appear for a son of Jupiter, but any other demigods would most likely … ah,
spook
him. And I’m the only one who can talk to his spirit. Even Hazel won’t be able to do that.’