The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3)

The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3) Page 13

“Oh, man,” Leo muttered, summoning fire in his free hand. “Straight-up fighting isn’t my thing.”

“Hold the Celestial bronze.” Hazel drew her sword. “Get behind me!”

“Get behind me!” Echo repeated. The camouflaged girl was racing ahead of the mob now. She stopped in front of Leo and turned, spreading her arms as if she meant to personally shield him.

“Echo?” Leo could hardly talk with the lump in his throat. “You’re one brave nymph.”

“Brave nymph?” Her tone made it a question.

“I’m proud to have you on Team Leo,” he said. “If we survive this, you should forget Narcissus.”

“Forget Narcissus?” she said uncertainly.

“You’re way too good for him.”

The nymphs surrounded them in a semicircle.

“Trickery!” Narcissus said. “They don’t love me, girls! We all love me, don’t we?”

“Yes!” the girls screamed, except for one confused nymph in a yellow dress who squeaked, “Team Leo!”

“Kill them!” Narcissus ordered.

The nymphs surged forward, but the sand in front of them exploded. Arion raced out of nowhere, circling the mob so quickly he created a sandstorm, showering the nymphs in white lime, spraying their eyes.

“I love this horse!” Leo said.

The nymphs collapsed, coughing and gagging. Narcissus stumbled around blindly, swinging his bow like he was trying to hit a piñata.

Hazel climbed into the saddle, hoisted up the bronze, and offered Leo a hand.

“We can’t leave Echo!” Leo said.

“Leave Echo,” the nymph repeated.

She smiled, and for the first time Leo could clearly see her face. She really was pretty. Her eyes were bluer than he’d realized. How had he missed that?

“Why?” Leo asked. “You don’t think you can still save Narcissus…”

“Save Narcissus,” she said confidently. And even though it was only an echo, Leo could tell that she meant it. She’d been given a second chance at life, and she was determined to use it to save the guy she loved—even if he was a completely hopeless (though very handsome) moron.

Leo wanted to protest, but Echo leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then pushed him gently away.

“Leo, come on!” Hazel called.

The other nymphs were starting to recover. They wiped the lime out of their eyes, which were now glowing green with anger. Leo looked for Echo again, but she had dissolved into the scenery.

“Yeah,” he said, his throat dry. “Yeah, okay.”

He climbed up behind Hazel. Arion took off across the water, the nymphs screaming behind them, and Narcissus shouting, “Bring me back! Bring me back!”

As Arion raced toward the Argo II, Leo remembered what Nemesis had said about Echo and Narcissus: Perhaps they’ll teach you a lesson.

Leo had thought she’d meant Narcissus, but now he wondered if the real lesson for him was Echo—invisible to her brethren, cursed to love someone who didn’t care for her. A seventh wheel. He tried to shake that thought. He clung to the sheet of bronze like a shield.

He was determined never to forget Echo’s face. She deserved at least one person who saw her and knew how good she was. Leo closed his eyes, but the memory of her smile was already fading.

Chapter 9

Piper didn’t want to use the knife.

But sitting in Jason’s cabin, waiting for him to wake up, she felt alone and helpless.

Jason’s face was so pale, he might’ve been dead. She remembered the awful sound of that brick hitting his forehead—an injury that had happened only because he’d tried to shield her from the Romans.

Even with the nectar and ambrosia they’d managed to force-feed him, Piper couldn’t be sure he would be okay when he woke up. What if he’d lost his memories again—but this time, his memories of her?

That would be the cruelest trick the gods had played on her yet, and they’d played some pretty cruel tricks.

She heard Gleeson Hedge in his room next door, humming a military song—“Stars and Stripes Forever,” maybe? Since the satellite TV was out, the satyr was probably sitting on his bunk reading back issues of Guns & Ammo magazine. He wasn’t a bad chaperone, but he was definitely the most warlike old goat Piper had ever met.

Of course she was grateful to the satyr. He had helped her dad, movie actor Tristan McLean, get back on his feet after being kidnapped by giants the past winter. A few weeks ago, Hedge had asked his girlfriend, Mellie, to take charge of the McLean household so he could come along to help with this quest.

Coach Hedge had tried to make it sound like returning to Camp Half-Blood had been all his idea, but Piper suspected there was more to it. The last few weeks, whenever Piper called home, her dad and Mellie had asked her what was wrong. Maybe something in her voice had tipped them off.

Piper couldn’t share the visions she’d seen. They were too disturbing. Besides, her dad had taken a potion that had erased all of Piper’s demigod secrets from his memory. But he could still tell when she was upset, and she was pretty sure her dad had encouraged Coach to look out for her.

She shouldn’t draw her blade. It would only make her feel worse.

Finally the temptation was too great. She unsheathed Katoptris. It didn’t look very special, just a triangular blade with an unadorned hilt, but it had once been owned by Helen of Troy. The dagger’s name meant “looking glass.”

Piper gazed at the bronze blade. At first, she saw only her reflection. Then light rippled across the metal. She saw a crowd of Roman demigods gathered in the forum. The blond scarecrow-looking kid, Octavian, was speaking to the mob, shaking his fist. Piper couldn’t hear him, but the gist was obvious: We need to kill those Greeks!

Reyna, the praetor, stood to one side, her face tight with suppressed emotion. Bitterness? Anger? Piper wasn’t sure.

She’d been prepared to hate Reyna, but she couldn’t. During the feast in the forum, Piper had admired the way Reyna kept her feelings in check.

Reyna had sized up Piper and Jason’s relationship right away. As a daughter of Aphrodite, Piper could tell stuff like that. Yet Reyna had stayed polite and in control. She’d put her camp’s needs ahead of her emotions. She’d given the Greeks a fair chance…right up until the Argo II had started destroying her city.

She’d almost made Piper feel guilty about being Jason’s girlfriend, though that was silly. Jason hadn’t ever been Reyna’s boyfriend, not really.

Maybe Reyna wasn’t so bad, but it didn’t matter now. They’d messed up the chance for peace. Piper’s power of persuasion had, for once, done absolutely no good.

Her secret fear? Maybe she hadn’t tried hard enough. Piper had never wanted to make friends with the Romans. She was too worried about losing Jason to his old life. Maybe unconsciously she hadn’t put her best effort into the charmspeak.

Now Jason was hurt. The ship had been almost destroyed. And according to her dagger, that crazy teddy-bear-strangling kid, Octavian, was whipping the Romans into a war frenzy.

The scene in her blade shifted. There was a rapid series of images she’d seen before, but she still didn’t understand them: Jason riding into battle on horseback, his eyes gold instead of blue; a woman in an old-fashioned Southern belle dress, standing in an oceanside park with palm trees; a bull with the face of a bearded man, rising out of a river; and two giants in matching yellow togas, hoisting a rope on a pulley system, lifting a large bronze vase out of a pit.

Then came the worst vision: she saw herself with Jason and Percy, standing waist-deep in water at the bottom of a dark circular chamber, like a giant well. Ghostly shapes moved through the water as it rose rapidly. Piper clawed at the walls, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go. The water reached their chests. Jason was pulled under. Percy stumbled and disappeared.

How could a child of the sea god drown? Piper didn’t know, but she watched herself in the vision, alone and thrashing in the dark, until the water rose over her head.

Piper shut her eyes. Don’t show me that again, she pleaded. Show me something helpful.

She forced herself to look at the blade again.

This time, she saw an empty highway cutting between fields of wheat and sunflowers. A mileage marker read: TOPEKA 32. On the shoulder of the road stood a man in khaki shorts and a purple camp shirt. His face was lost in the shadow of a broad hat, the brim wreathed in leafy vines. He held up a silver goblet and beckoned to Piper. Somehow she knew he was offering her some sort of gift—a cure, or an antidote.

“Hey,” Jason croaked.

Piper was so startled she dropped the knife. “You’re awake!”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Jason touched his bandaged head and frowned. “What…what happened? I remember the explosions, and—”

“You remember who I am?”

Jason tried to laugh, but it turned into a painful wince. “Last I checked, you were my awesome girlfriend Piper. Unless something has changed since I was out?”

Piper was so relieved she almost sobbed. She helped him sit up and gave him some nectar to sip while she brought him up to speed. She was just explaining Leo’s plan to fix the ship when she heard horse hooves clomping across the deck over their heads.

Moments later, Leo and Hazel stumbled to a stop in the doorway, carrying a large sheet of hammered bronze between them.

“Gods of Olympus.” Piper stared at Leo. “What happened to you?”

His hair was greased back. He had welding goggles on his forehead, a lipstick mark on his cheek, tattoos all over his arms, and a T-shirt that read HOT STUFF, BAD BOY, and TEAM LEO.

“Long story,” he said. “Others back?”

“Not yet,” Piper said.

Leo cursed. Then he noticed Jason sitting up, and his face brightened. “Hey, man! Glad you’re better. I’ll be in the engine room.”

He ran off with the sheet of bronze, leaving Hazel in the doorway.

Piper raised an eyebrow at her. “Team Leo?”

“We met Narcissus,” Hazel said, which didn’t really explain much. “Also Nemesis, the revenge goddess.”

Jason sighed. “I miss all the fun.”

On the deck above, something went THUMP, as if a heavy creature had landed. Annabeth and Percy came running down the hall. Percy was toting a steaming five-gallon plastic bucket that smelled horrible. Annabeth had a patch of black sticky stuff in her hair. Percy’s shirt was covered in it.

“Roofing tar?” Piper guessed.

Frank stumbled up behind them, which made the hallway pretty jam-packed with demigods. Frank had a big smear of the black sludge down his face.

“Ran into some tar monsters,” Annabeth said. “Hey, Jason, glad you’re awake. Hazel, where’s Leo?”

She pointed down. “Engine room.”

Suddenly the entire ship listed to port. The demigods stumbled. Percy almost spilled his bucket of tar.

“Uh, what was that?” he demanded.

“Oh…” Hazel looked embarrassed. “We may have angered the nymphs who live in this lake. Like…all of them.”