The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4) (12 page)

‘Agony!’ Mars bellowed. ‘Go! Hurry!’

Frank didn’t ask questions. Despite his exhaustion, he turned into a giant eagle, snatched up the python in his massive claws and launched himself into the air.

When he glanced back, a miniature mushroom cloud erupted from the middle of the bridge, rings of fire washing outwards, and a pair of voices – Mars and Ares – screamed, ‘Noooo!’

Frank wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he had no time to think about it. He flew over the city – now completely empty of monsters – and headed for the house of Triptolemus.

‘You found one!’ the farmer god exclaimed.

Frank ignored him. He stormed into La Casa Nera, dragging the python by its tail like a very strange Santa Claus bag, and dropped it next to the bed.

He knelt at Hazel’s side.

She was still alive – green and shivering, barely breathing, but alive. As for Nico, he was still a corn plant.

‘Heal them,’ Frank said. ‘Now.’

Triptolemus crossed his arms. ‘How do I know the snake will work?’

Frank gritted his teeth. Since the explosion on the bridge, the voices of the war god had gone silent in his head, but he still felt their combined anger churning inside him. He felt physically different, too. Had Triptolemus got shorter?

‘The snake is a gift from Mars,’ Frank growled. ‘It will work.’

As if on cue, the Burmese python slithered over to the chariot and wrapped itself around the right wheel. The other snake woke up. The two serpents checked each other out, touching noses, then turned their wheels in unison. The chariot inched forward, its wings flapping.

‘You see?’ Frank said. ‘Now, heal my friends!’

Triptolemus tapped his chin. ‘Well, thank you for the snake, but I’m not sure I like your tone, demigod. Perhaps I’ll turn you into –’

Frank was faster. He lunged at Trip and slammed him into the wall, his fingers locked around the god’s throat.

‘Think about your next words,’ Frank warned, deadly calm. ‘Or, instead of beating my sword into a ploughshare, I will beat it into your head.’

Triptolemus gulped. ‘You know … I think I’ll heal your friends.’

‘Swear it on the River Styx.’

‘I swear it on the River Styx.’

Frank released him. Triptolemus touched his throat, as if making sure it was still there. He gave Frank a nervous smile, edged around him and scurried off to the front room. ‘Just – just gathering herbs!’

Frank watched as the god picked leaves and roots and crushed them in a mortar. He rolled a pill-sized ball of green goop and jogged to Hazel’s side. He placed the gunk ball under Hazel’s tongue.

Instantly, she shuddered and sat up, coughing. Her eyes flew open. The greenish tint in her skin disappeared.

She looked around, bewildered, until she saw Frank. ‘What –?’

Frank tackled her in a hug. ‘You’re going to be fine,’ he said fiercely. ‘Everything is fine.’

‘But …’ Hazel gripped his shoulders and stared at him in amazement. ‘Frank, what
happened
to you?’

‘To
me
?’ He stood, suddenly self-conscious. ‘I don’t …’

He looked down and realized what she meant. Triptolemus hadn’t got shorter. Frank was taller. His gut had shrunk. His chest seemed bulkier.

Frank had had growth spurts before. Once he’d woken up two centimetres taller than when he’d gone to sleep. But this was nuts. It was as if some of the dragon and lion had stayed with him when he’d turned back to human.

‘Uh … I don’t … Maybe I can fix it.’

Hazel laughed with delight. ‘Why? You look amazing!’

‘I – I do?’

‘I mean, you were handsome before! But you look older, and taller, and so distinguished –’

Triptolemus heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘Yes, obviously some sort of blessing from Mars. Congratulations, blah, blah, blah. Now, if we’re done here …?’

Frank glared at him. ‘We’re not done. Heal Nico.’

The farm god rolled his eyes. He pointed at the corn plant, and BAM! Nico di Angelo appeared in an explosion of corn silk.

Nico looked around in a panic. ‘I – I had the weirdest nightmare about popcorn.’ He frowned at Frank. ‘Why are you
taller
?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Frank promised. ‘Triptolemus was about to tell us how to survive the House of Hades. Weren’t you, Trip?’

The farm god raised his eyes to the ceiling, like,
Why me, Demeter?

‘Fine,’ Trip said. ‘When you arrive at Epirus, you will be offered a chalice to drink from.’

‘Offered by whom?’ Nico asked.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Trip snapped. ‘Just know that it is filled with deadly poison.’

Hazel shuddered. ‘So you’re saying that we shouldn’t drink it.’

‘No!’ Trip said. ‘You
must
drink it, or you’ll never be able to make it through the temple. The poison connects you to the world of the dead, lets you pass into the lower levels. The secret to surviving is –’ his eyes twinkled –
‘
barley.
’

Frank stared at him. ‘Barley.’

‘In the front room, take some of my special barley. Make it into little cakes. Eat these before you step into the House of Hades. The barley will absorb the worst of the poison, so it will
affect
you, but not kill you.’

‘That’s it?’ Nico demanded. ‘Hecate sent us halfway across Italy so you could tell us to eat barley?’

‘Good luck!’ Triptolemus sprinted across the room and hopped in his chariot. ‘And, Frank Zhang, I forgive you! You’ve got spunk. If you ever change your mind, my offer is open. I’d love to see you get a degree in farming!’

‘Yeah,’ Frank muttered. ‘Thanks.’

The god pulled a lever on his chariot. The snake-wheels turned. The wings flapped. At the back of the room, the garage doors rolled open.

‘Oh, to be mobile again!’ Trip cried. ‘So many ignorant lands in need of my knowledge. I will teach them the glories of tilling, irrigation, fertilizing!’ The chariot lifted off and zipped out of the house, Triptolemus shouting to the sky, ‘Away, my serpents! Away!’

‘That,’ Hazel said, ‘was very strange.’

‘The glories of fertilizing.’ Nico brushed some corn silk off his shoulder. ‘Can we get out of here now?’

Hazel put her hand on Frank’s shoulder. ‘Are you okay, really? You bartered for our lives. What did Triptolemus make you do?’

Frank tried to hold it together. He scolded himself for feeling so weak. He could face an army of monsters, but as soon as Hazel showed him kindness he wanted to break
down and cry. ‘Those cow monsters … the
katoblepones
that poisoned you … I had to destroy them.’

‘That was brave,’ Nico said. ‘There must have been, what, six or seven left in that herd.’

‘No.’ Frank cleared his throat. ‘All of them. I killed
all
of them in the city.’

Nico and Hazel stared at him in stunned silence. Frank was afraid they might doubt him, or start to laugh. How many monsters had he killed on that bridge – two hundred? Three hundred?

But he saw in their eyes that they believed him. They were children of the Underworld. Maybe they could sense the death and carnage he’d unleashed.

Hazel kissed his cheek. She had to stand on her tiptoes to do it now. Her eyes were incredibly sad, as if she realized something had changed in Frank – something much more important than the physical growth spurt.

Frank knew it too. He would never be the same. He just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

‘Well,’ Nico said, breaking the tension, ‘does anyone know what barley looks like?’

A
NNABETH DECIDED THE MONSTERS
wouldn’t kill her. Neither would the poisonous atmosphere, nor the treacherous landscape with its pits, cliffs and jagged rocks.

Nope. Most likely she would die from an overload of
weirdness
that would make her brain explode.

First, she and Percy had had to drink fire to stay alive. Then they were attacked by a gaggle of vampires, led by a cheerleader Annabeth had killed two years ago. Finally, they were rescued by a Titan janitor named Bob who had Einstein hair, silver eyes and wicked broom skills.

Sure. Why not?

They followed Bob through the wasteland, tracing the route of the Phlegethon as they approached the storm front of darkness. Every so often they stopped to drink firewater, which kept them alive, but Annabeth wasn’t happy about it. Her throat felt like she was constantly gargling with battery acid.

Her only comfort was Percy. Every so often he would glance over and smile, or squeeze her hand. He had to be just as scared and miserable as she was, and she loved him for trying to make her feel better.

‘Bob knows what he’s doing,’ Percy promised.

‘You have interesting friends,’ Annabeth murmured.

‘Bob is interesting!’ The Titan turned and grinned. ‘Yes, thank you!’

The big guy had good ears. Annabeth would have to remember that.

‘So, Bob …’ She tried to sound casual and friendly, which wasn’t easy with a throat scorched by firewater. ‘How did you get to Tartarus?’

‘I jumped,’ he said, like it was obvious.

‘You jumped into Tartarus,’ she said, ‘because Percy said your name?’

‘He needed me.’ Those silver eyes gleamed in the darkness. ‘It is okay. I was tired of sweeping the palace. Come along! We are almost at a rest stop.’

A rest stop.

Annabeth couldn’t imagine what those words meant in Tartarus. She remembered all the times she, Luke and Thalia had relied on highway rest stops when they were homeless demigods, trying to survive.

Wherever Bob was taking them, she hoped it had clean restrooms and a snack machine. She repressed the giggles. Yes, she was definitely losing it.

Annabeth hobbled along, trying to ignore the rumble in her stomach. She stared at Bob’s back as he led them towards
the wall of darkness, now only a few hundred yards away. His blue janitor’s coveralls were ripped between the shoulder blades, as if someone had tried to stab him. Cleaning rags stuck out of his pocket. A squirt bottle swung from his belt, the blue liquid inside sloshing hypnotically.

Annabeth remembered Percy’s story about meeting the Titan. Thalia Grace, Nico di Angelo and Percy had worked together to defeat Bob on the banks of the Lethe. After wiping his memory, they didn’t have the heart to kill him. He became so gentle and sweet and cooperative that they left him at the palace of Hades, where Persephone promised he would be looked after.

Apparently, the Underworld king and queen thought ‘looking after’ someone meant giving him a broom and having him sweep up their messes. Annabeth wondered how even Hades could be so callous. She’d never felt sorry for a Titan before, but it didn’t seem right taking a brainwashed immortal and turning him into an unpaid janitor.

He’s not your friend, she reminded herself.

She was terrified that Bob would suddenly remember himself. Tartarus was where monsters came to regenerate. What if it healed his memory? If he became Iapetus again … well, Annabeth had seen the way he had dealt with those
empousai.
Annabeth had no weapon. She and Percy were in no condition to fight a Titan.

She glanced nervously at Bob’s broom handle, wondering how long it would be before that hidden spearhead jutted out and was pointed at her.

Following Bob through Tartarus was a crazy risk. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a better plan.

They picked their way across the ashen wasteland as red lightning flashed overhead in the poisonous clouds. Just another lovely day in the dungeon of creation. Annabeth couldn’t see far in the hazy air, but the longer they walked, the more certain she became that the entire landscape was a downward curve.

She’d heard conflicting descriptions of Tartarus. It was a bottomless pit. It was a fortress surrounded by brass walls. It was nothing but an endless void.

One story described it as the inverse of the sky – a huge, hollow, upside-down dome of rock. That seemed the most accurate, though if Tartarus was a dome Annabeth guessed it was like the sky – with no real bottom but made of multiple layers, each one darker and less hospitable than the last.

And even
that
wasn’t the full, horrible truth …

They passed a blister in the ground – a writhing, translucent bubble the size of a minivan. Curled inside was the half-formed body of a drakon. Bob speared the blister without a second thought. It burst in a geyser of steaming yellow slime, and the drakon dissolved into nothing.

Bob kept walking.

Monsters are zits on the skin of Tartarus, Annabeth thought. She shuddered. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have such a good imagination, because now she was certain they were walking across a living thing. This whole twisted landscape – the dome, pit or whatever you called it – was the
body of the god Tartarus – the most ancient incarnation of evil. Just as Gaia inhabited the surface of the earth, Tartarus inhabited the pit.

If that god noticed them walking across his skin, like fleas on a dog … Enough. No more thinking.

‘Here,’ Bob said.

They stopped at the top of a ridge. Below them, in a sheltered depression like a moon crater, stood a ring of broken black marble columns surrounding a dark stone altar.

‘Hermes’s shrine,’ Bob explained.

Percy frowned. ‘A Hermes shrine in
Tartarus
?’

Bob laughed in delight. ‘Yes. It fell from somewhere long ago. Maybe mortal world. Maybe Olympus. Anyway, monsters steer clear. Mostly.’

‘How did you know it was here?’ Annabeth asked.

Bob’s smile faded. He got a vacant look in his eyes. ‘Can’t remember.’

‘That’s okay,’ Percy said quickly.

Annabeth felt like kicking herself. Before Bob became Bob, he had been Iapetus the Titan. Like all his brethren, he’d been imprisoned in Tartarus for aeons. Of
course
he knew his way around. If he remembered this shrine, he might start recalling other details of his old prison and his old life. That would
not
be good.

They climbed into the crater and entered the circle of columns. Annabeth collapsed on a broken slab of marble, too exhausted to take another step. Percy stood over her protectively, scanning their surroundings. The inky storm front was less than a hundred feet away now, obscuring
everything ahead of them. The crater’s rim blocked their view of the wasteland behind. They’d be well hidden here, but if monsters
did
stumble across them they would have no warning.

‘You said someone was chasing us,’ Annabeth said. ‘Who?’

Bob swept his broom around the base of the altar, occasionally crouching to study the ground as if looking for something. ‘They are following, yes. They know you are here. Giants and Titans. The defeated ones. They know.’

The defeated ones …

Annabeth tried to control her fear. How many Titans and giants had she and Percy fought over the years? Each one had seemed like an impossible challenge. If
all
of them were down here in Tartarus, and if they were actively hunting Percy and Annabeth …

‘Why are we stopping, then?’ she said. ‘We should keep moving.’

‘Soon,’ Bob said. ‘But mortals need rest. Good place here. Best place for … oh, long, long way. I will guard you.’

Annabeth glanced at Percy, sending him the silent message:
Uh, no.
Hanging out with a Titan was bad enough. Going to sleep while the Titan guarded you … she didn’t need to be a daughter of Athena to know that was one hundred percent unwise.

‘You sleep,’ Percy told her. ‘I’ll keep the first watch with Bob.’

Bob rumbled in agreement. ‘Yes, good. When you wake, food should be here!’

Annabeth’s stomach did a rollover at the mention of food.
She didn’t see how Bob could summon food in the midst of Tartarus. Maybe he was a caterer as well as a janitor.

She didn’t want to sleep, but her body betrayed her. Her eyelids turned to lead. ‘Percy, wake me for second watch. Don’t be a hero.’

He gave her that smirk she’d come to love. ‘Who, me?’

He kissed her, his lips parched and feverishly warm. ‘Sleep.’

Annabeth felt like she was back in the
Hypnos
cabin at Camp Half-Blood, overcome with drowsiness. She curled up on the hard ground and closed her eyes.