The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4) (34 page)

T
HEY FOUND
L
EO
at the top of the city fortifications. He was sitting at an open-air café, overlooking the sea, drinking a cup of coffee and dressed in … wow. Time warp. Leo’s outfit was identical to the one he’d worn the day they first arrived at Camp Half-Blood – jeans, a white shirt and an old army jacket. Except that jacket had burned up months ago.

Piper nearly knocked him out of his chair with a hug. ‘Leo! Gods, where have you been?’

‘Valdez!’ Coach Hedge grinned. Then he seemed to remember he had a reputation to protect and he forced a scowl. ‘You ever disappear like that again, you little punk, I’ll knock you into next month!’

Frank patted Leo on the back so hard it made him wince. Even Nico shook his hand.

Hazel kissed Leo on the cheek. ‘We thought you were dead!’

Leo mustered a faint smile. ‘Hey, guys. Nah, nah, I’m good.’

Jason could tell he
wasn’t
good. Leo wouldn’t meet their eyes. His hands were perfectly still on the table. Leo’s hands were
never
still. All the nervous energy had drained right out of him, replaced by a kind of wistful sadness.

Jason wondered why his expression seemed familiar. Then he realized Nico di Angelo had looked the same way after facing Cupid in the ruins of Salona.

Leo was heartsick.

As the others grabbed chairs from the nearby tables, Jason leaned in and squeezed his friend’s shoulder.

‘Hey, man,’ he said, ‘what happened?’

Leo’s eyes swept around the group. The message was clear:
Not here. Not in front of everyone.

‘I got marooned,’ Leo said. ‘Long story. How about you guys? What happened with Khione?’

Coach Hedge snorted. ‘What happened?
Piper
happened! I’m telling you, this girl has skills!’

‘Coach …’ Piper protested.

Hedge began retelling the story, but in his version Piper was a kung fu assassin and there were a lot more Boreads.

As the coach talked, Jason studied Leo with concern. This café had a perfect view of the harbour. Leo must have seen the
Argo II
sail in. Yet he’d sat here drinking coffee – which he didn’t even
like
– waiting for them to find him. That wasn’t like Leo at all. The ship was the most important thing in his life. When he saw it coming to rescue him, Leo should have run down to the docks, whooping at the top of his lungs.

Coach Hedge was just describing how Piper had defeated Khione with a roundhouse kick when Piper interrupted.

‘Coach!’ she said. ‘It didn’t happen like that at all. I couldn’t have done
anything
without Festus.’

Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘But Festus was deactivated.’

‘Um, about that,’ Piper said. ‘I sort of woke him up.’

Piper explained her version of events – how she’d rebooted the metal dragon with charmspeak.

Leo tapped his fingers on the table, like some of his old energy was coming back.

‘Shouldn’t be possible,’ he murmured. ‘Unless the upgrades let him respond to voice commands. But if he’s permanently activated, that means the navigation system and the crystal …’

‘Crystal?’ Jason asked.

Leo flinched. ‘Um, nothing. Anyway, what happened after the wind bomb went off?’

Hazel took up the story. A waitress came over and offered them menus. In no time they were chowing down on sandwiches and sodas, enjoying the sunny day almost like a group of regular teenagers.

Frank grabbed a tourist brochure stuck under the napkin dispenser. He began to read it. Piper patted Leo’s arm, like she couldn’t believe he was really here. Nico stood at the edge of the group, eyeing the passing pedestrians as if they might be enemies. Coach Hedge munched on the salt and pepper shakers.

Despite the happy reunion, everybody seemed more subdued than usual – like they were picking up on Leo’s mood.
Jason had never really considered how important Leo’s sense of humour was to the group. Even when things were super serious, they could always depend on Leo to lighten things up. Now, it felt like the whole team had dropped anchor.

‘So then Jason harnessed the
venti
,’ Hazel finished. ‘And here we are.’

Leo whistled. ‘Hot-air horses? Dang, Jason. So, basically, you held a bunch of gas together all the way to Malta and then you let it loose.’

Jason frowned. ‘You know, it doesn’t sound so heroic when you put it that way.’

‘Yeah, well. I’m an expert on hot air. I’m still wondering, why Malta? I just kind of ended up here on the raft, but was that a random thing, or –’

‘Maybe because of this.’ Frank tapped his brochure. ‘Says here Malta was where Calypso lived.’

A pint of blood drained from Leo’s face. ‘W-what, now?’

Frank shrugged. ‘According to this, her original home was an island called Gozo just north of here. Calypso’s a Greek myth thingie, right?’

‘Ah, a Greek myth thingie!’ Coach Hedge rubbed his hands together. ‘Maybe we get to fight her! Do we get to fight her? ’Cause I’m ready.’

‘No,’ Leo murmured. ‘No, we don’t have to fight her, Coach.’

Piper frowned. ‘Leo, what’s wrong? You look –’

‘Nothing’s wrong!’ Leo shot to his feet. ‘Hey, we should get going. We’ve got work to do!’

‘But … where did you go?’ Hazel asked. ‘Where did you get those clothes? How –’

‘Jeez, ladies!’ Leo said. ‘I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need two extra moms!’

Piper smiled uncertainly. ‘Okay, but –’

‘Ships to fix!’ Leo said. ‘Festus to check! Earth goddesses to punch in the face! What are we waiting for? Leo’s back!’

He spread his arms and grinned.

He was making a brave attempt, but Jason could see the sadness lingering in his eyes. Something had happened to him … something to do with Calypso.

Jason tried to remember the story about her. She was a sorceress of some sort, maybe like Medea or
Circe
. But, if Leo had escaped from an evil sorceress’s lair, why did he seem so sad? Jason would have to talk to him later, make sure his buddy was okay. For now Leo clearly didn’t want to be interrogated.

Jason got up and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Leo’s right. We should get going.’

Everybody took the cue. They started wrapping up their food and finishing their drinks.

Suddenly, Hazel gasped. ‘Guys …’

She pointed to the northeast horizon. At first, Jason saw nothing but the sea. Then a streak of darkness shot into the air like black lightning – as if pure night had torn through the daytime.

‘I don’t see anything,’ Coach Hedge grumbled.

‘Me neither,’ Piper said.

Jason scanned his friends’ faces. Most of them just looked
confused. Nico was the only other one who seemed to have noticed the black lightning.

‘That can’t be …’ Nico muttered. ‘Greece is still hundreds of miles away.’

The darkness flashed again, momentarily leaching the colour from the horizon.

‘You think it’s Epirus?’ Jason’s whole skeleton tingled, the way he felt when he got hit by a thousand volts. He didn’t know why he could see the dark flashes. He wasn’t a child of the Underworld. But it gave him a very bad feeling.

Nico nodded. ‘The House of Hades is open for business.’

A few seconds later, a rumbling sound washed over them like distant artillery.

‘It’s begun,’ Hazel said.

‘What has?’ Leo asked.

When the next flash happened, Hazel’s gold eyes darkened like foil in fire. ‘Gaia’s final push,’ she said. ‘The Doors of Death are working overtime. Her forces are entering the mortal world en masse.’

‘We’ll never make it,’ Nico said. ‘By the time we arrive, there’ll be too many monsters to fight.’

Jason set his jaw. ‘We’ll defeat them. And we’ll make it there fast. We’ve got Leo back. He’ll give us the speed we need.’

He turned to his friend. ‘Or is that just hot air?’

Leo managed a crooked grin. His eyes seemed to say:
Thanks.

‘Time to fly, boys and girls,’ he said. ‘Uncle Leo’s still got a few tricks up his sleeves!’

P
ERCY WASN’T DEAD YET,
but he was already tired of being a corpse.

As they trudged towards the heart of Tartarus, he kept glancing down at his body, wondering how it could belong to him. His arms looked like bleached leather pulled over sticks. His skeletal legs seemed to dissolve into smoke with every step. He’d learned to move normally within the Death Mist, more or less, but the magical shroud still made him feel like he was wrapped in a coat of helium.

He worried that the Death Mist might cling to him forever, even if they somehow managed to survive Tartarus. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking like an extra from
The Walking Dead
.

Percy tried to focus on something else, but there was no safe direction to look.

Under his feet, the ground glistened a nauseating purple, pulsing with webs of veins. In the dim red light of the blood
clouds, Death Mist Annabeth looked like a freshly risen zombie.

Ahead of them was the most depressing view of all.

Spread to the horizon was an army of monsters – flocks of winged
arai
, tribes of lumbering Cyclopes, clusters of floating evil spirits. Thousands of baddies, maybe
tens
of thousands, all milling restlessly, pressing against one another, growling and fighting for space – like the locker area of an overcrowded school between classes, if all the students were ’roid-raging mutants who smelled
really
bad.

Bob led them towards the edge of the army. He made no effort to hide, not that it would have done any good. Being ten feet tall and glowing silver, Bob didn’t do stealth very well.

About thirty yards from the nearest monsters, Bob turned to face Percy.

‘Stay quiet and stay behind me,’ he advised. ‘They will not notice you.’

‘We hope,’ Percy muttered.

On the Titan’s shoulder, Small Bob woke up from a nap. He purred seismically and arched his back, turning skeletal then back to calico. At least
he
didn’t seem nervous.

Annabeth examined her own zombie hands. ‘Bob, if we’re invisible … how can
you
see us? I mean, you’re technically, you know …’

‘Yes,’ Bob said. ‘But we are friends.’

‘Nyx and her children could see us,’ Annabeth said.

Bob shrugged. ‘That was in Nyx’s realm. That is different.’

‘Uh … right.’ Annabeth didn’t sound reassured, but they were here now. They didn’t have any choice but to try.

Percy stared at the swarm of vicious monsters. ‘Well, at least we won’t have to worry about bumping into any other
friends
in this crowd.’

Bob grinned. ‘Yes, that is good news! Now, let’s go. Death is close.’

‘The
Doors
of Death are close,’ Annabeth corrected. ‘Let’s watch the phrasing.’

They plunged into the crowd. Percy trembled so badly he was afraid the Death Mist would shake right off him. He’d seen large groups of monsters before. He’d fought an army of them during the Battle of Manhattan. But this was different.

Whenever he’d fought monsters in the mortal world, Percy at least knew he was defending his home. That gave him courage, no matter how bad the odds were. Here,
Percy
was the invader. He didn’t belong in this multitude of monsters any more than the
Minotaur
belonged in Penn Station at rush hour.

A few feet away, a group of
empousai
tore into the carcass of a gryphon while other gryphons flew around them, squawking in outrage. A six-armed Earthborn and a
Laistrygonian giant
pummelled each other with rocks, though Percy wasn’t sure if they were fighting or just messing around. A dark wisp of smoke – Percy guessed it must be an
eidolon
– seeped into a Cyclops, made the monster hit himself in the face, then drifted off to possess another victim.

Annabeth whispered, ‘Percy, look.’

A stone’s throw away, a guy in a cowboy outfit was cracking a whip at some fire-breathing horses. The wrangler wore a Stetson hat on his greasy hair, an extra-large set of jeans and
a pair of black leather boots. From the side, he might have passed for human – until he turned, and Percy saw that his upper body was split into three different chests, each one dressed in a different colour Western shirt.

It was definitely Geryon, who had tried to kill Percy two years ago in Texas. Apparently the evil rancher was anxious to break in a new herd. The idea of that guy riding out of the Doors of Death made Percy’s sides hurt all over again. His ribs throbbed where the
arai
had unleashed Geryon’s dying curse back in the forest. He wanted to march up to the three-bodied rancher, smack him in the face and yell,
Thanks a lot, Tex!

Sadly, he couldn’t.

How many other old enemies were in this crowd? Percy began to realize that every battle he’d ever won had only been a temporary victory. No matter how strong or lucky he was, no matter how many monsters he destroyed, Percy would eventually fail. He was only one mortal. He would get too old, too weak, or too slow. He would die. And these monsters … they lasted
forever.
They just kept coming back. Maybe it would take them months or years to re-form, maybe even centuries. But they
would
be reborn.

Seeing them assembled in Tartarus, Percy felt as hopeless as the spirits in the River Cocytus. So what if he was a hero? So what if he did something brave? Evil was always here, regenerating, bubbling under the surface. Percy was no more than a minor annoyance to these immortal beings. They just had to outwait him. Some day, Percy’s sons or daughters might have to face them all over again.

Sons and daughters.

The thought jarred him. As quickly as hopelessness had overtaken him, it disappeared. He glanced at Annabeth. She still looked like a misty corpse, but he imagined her true appearance – her grey eyes full of determination, her blonde hair pulled back in a bandanna, her face weary and streaked with grime, but as beautiful as ever.

Okay, maybe monsters kept coming back forever. But so did demigods. Generation after generation, Camp Half-Blood had endured. And Camp Jupiter. Even separately, the two camps had survived. Now, if the Greeks and Romans could come together, they would be even stronger.

There was still hope. He and Annabeth come this far. The Doors of Death were almost within reach.

Sons and daughters.
A ridiculous thought. An awesome thought. Right there in the middle of Tartarus, Percy grinned.

‘What’s wrong?’ Annabeth whispered.

With his zombie Death Mist disguise, Percy probably looked like he was grimacing in pain.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I was just –’

Somewhere in front of them, a deep voice bellowed: ‘IAPETUS!’