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

The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3) Page 35

Hazel studied him warily, like she wanted to believe it. “Bad things might happen. You shouldn’t—”

“I won’t sell it,” Sammy said. “I promise! I’ll just keep it as a token of your flavor.”

Hazel forced a smile. “I think you mean token of my favor.”

“There you are! We should get going. It’s time for our next scene: Hedy Lamarr nearly dies of boredom in English class.”

Sammy held out his elbow like a gentleman, but Hazel pushed him away playfully. “Thanks for being there, Sammy.”

“Miss Lamarr, I will always be there for you!” he said brightly. The two of them raced back into the schoolhouse.

Leo felt more like a ghost than ever. Maybe he had actually been an eidolon his whole life, because this kid he’d just seen should have been the real Leo. He was smarter, cooler, and funnier. He flirted so well with Hazel that he had obviously stolen her heart.

No wonder Hazel had looked at Leo so strangely when they first met. No wonder she had said Sammy with so much feeling. But Leo wasn’t Sammy, any more than Flathead Rufus was Clark Gable.

“Hazel,” he said. “I—I don’t—”

The schoolyard dissolved into a different scene.

Hazel and Leo were still ghosts, but now they stood in front of a rundown house next to a drainage ditch overgrown with weeds. A clump of banana trees drooped in the yard. Perched on the steps, an old-fashioned radio played conjunto music, and on the shaded porch, sitting in a rocking chair, a skinny old man gazed at the horizon.

“Where are we?” Hazel asked. She was still only vapor, but her voice was full of alarm. “This isn’t from my life!”

Leo felt as if his ghostly self was thickening, becoming more real. This place seemed strangely familiar.

“It’s Houston,” he realized. “I know this view. That drainage ditch…This is my mom’s old neighborhood, where she grew up. Hobby Airport is over that way.”

“This is your life?” Hazel said. “I don’t understand! How—?”

“You’re asking me?” Leo demanded.

Suddenly the old man murmured, “Ah, Hazel…”

A shock went up Leo’s spine. The old man’s eyes were still fixed on the horizon. How did he know they were here?

“I guess we ran out of time,” the old man continued dreamily. “Well…”

He didn’t finish the thought.

Hazel and Leo stayed very still. The old man made no further sign that he saw them or heard them. It dawned on Leo that the guy had been talking to himself. But then why had he said Hazel’s name?

He had leathery skin, curly white hair, and gnarled hands, like he’d spent a lifetime working in a machine shop. He wore a pale yellow shirt, spotless and clean, with gray slacks and suspenders and polished black shoes.

Despite his age, his eyes were sharp and clear. He sat with a kind of quiet dignity. He looked at peace—amused, even, like he was thinking, Dang, I lived this long? Cool!

Leo was pretty sure he had never seen this man before. So why did he seem familiar? Then he realized the man was tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, but the tapping wasn’t random. He was using Morse code, just like Leo’s mother used to do with him…and the old man was tapping the same message: I love you.

The screen door opened. A young woman came out. She wore jeans and a turquoise blouse. Her hair was cut in a short black wedge. She was pretty, but not delicate. She had well-muscled arms and calloused hands. Like the old man’s, her brown eyes glinted with amusement. In her arms was a baby, wrapped in a blue blanket.

“Look, mijo,” she said to the baby. “This is your bisabuelo. Bisabuelo, you want to hold him?”

When Leo heard her voice, he sobbed.

It was his mother—younger than he remembered her, but very much alive. That meant the baby in her arms…

The old man broke into a huge grin. He had perfect teeth, as white as his hair. His face crinkled with smile lines. “A boy! Mi bebito, Leo!”

“Leo?” Hazel whispered. “That—that’s you? What is bisabuelo?”

Leo couldn’t find his voice. Great-grandfather, he wanted to say.

The old man took baby Leo in his arms, chuckling with appreciation and tickling the baby’s chin—and Ghost Leo finally realized what he was seeing.

Somehow, Hazel’s power to revisit the past had found the one event that connected both of their lives—where Leo’s time line touched Hazel’s.

This old man…

“Oh…” Hazel seemed to realize who he was at the same moment. Her voice became very small, on the verge of tears. “Oh, Sammy, no…”

“Ah, little Leo,” said Sammy Valdez, aged well into his seventies. “You’ll have to be my stunt double, eh? That’s what they call it, I think. Tell her for me. I hoped I would be alive, but, ay, the curse won’t have it!”

Hazel sobbed. “Gaea…Gaea told me that he died of a heart attack, in the 1960s. But this isn’t—this can’t be…”

Sammy Valdez kept talking to the baby, while Leo’s mother, Esperanza, looked on with a pained smile—perhaps a little worried that Leo’s bisabuelo was rambling, a little sad that he was speaking nonsense.

“That lady, Doña Callida, she warned me.” Sammy shook his head sadly. “She said Hazel’s great danger would not happen in my lifetime. But I promised I would be there for her. You will have to tell her I’m sorry, Leo. Help her if you can.”

“Bisabeulo,” Esperanza said, “you must be tired.”

She extended her arms to take the baby, but the old man cuddled him a moment longer. Baby Leo seemed perfectly fine with it.

“Tell her I’m sorry I sold the diamond, eh?” Sammy said. “I broke my promise. When she disappeared in Alaska…ah, so long ago, I finally used that diamond, moved to Texas as I always dreamed. I started my machine shop. Started my family! It was a good life, but Hazel was right. The diamond came with a curse. I never saw her again.”

“Oh, Sammy,” Hazel said. “No, a curse didn’t keep me away. I wanted to come back. I died!”

The old man didn’t seem to hear. He smiled down at the baby, and kissed him on the head. “I give you my blessing, Leo. First male great-grandchild! I have a feeling you are special, like Hazel was. You are more than a regular baby, eh? You will carry on for me. You will see her someday. Tell her hello for me.”

“Bisabuelo,” Esperanza said, a little more insistently.

“Yes, yes.” Sammy chuckled. “El viejo loco rambles on. I am tired, Esperanza. You are right. But I’ll rest soon. It’s been a good life. Raise him well, nieta.”

The scene faded.

Leo was standing on the deck of the Argo II, holding Hazel’s hand. The sun had gone down, and the ship was lit only by bronze lanterns. Hazel’s eyes were puffy from crying.

What they’d seen was too much. The whole ocean heaved under them, and now for the first time Leo felt as if they were totally adrift.

“Hello, Hazel Levesque,” he said, his voice gravelly.

Her chin trembled. She turned away and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, the ship lurched to one side.

“Leo!” Coach Hedge yelled.

Festus whirred in alarm and blew flames into the night sky. The ship’s bell rang.

“Those monsters you were worried about?” Hedge shouted. “One of ’em found us!”

Chapter 23

Leo deserved a dunce cap.

If he’d been thinking straight, he would’ve switched the ship’s detection system from radar to sonar as soon as they left Charleston Harbor. That’s what he had forgotten. He’d designed the hull to resonate every few seconds, sending waves through the Mist and alerting Festus to any nearby monsters, but it only worked in one mode at a time: water or air.

He’d been so rattled by the Romans, then the storm, then Hazel, that he had completely forgotten. Now, a monster was right underneath them.

The ship tilted to starboard. Hazel gripped the rigging. Hedge yelled, “Valdez, which button blows up monsters? Take the helm!”

Leo climbed the tilting deck and managed to grab the port rail. He started clambering sideways toward the helm, but when he saw the monster surface, he forgot how to move.

The thing was the length of their ship. In the moonlight, it looked like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach, with a pink chitinous shell, a flat crayfish tail, and millipede-type legs undulating hypnotically as the monster scraped against the hull of the Argo II.

Its head surfaced last—the slimy pink face of an enormous catfish with glassy dead eyes, a gaping toothless maw, and a forest of tentacles sprouting from each nostril, making the bushiest nose beard Leo had ever had the displeasure to behold.

Leo remembered special Friday night dinners he and his mom used to share at a local seafood restaurant in Houston. They would eat shrimp and catfish. The idea now made him want to throw up.

“Come on, Valdez!” Hedge yelled. “Take the wheel so I can get my baseball bat!”

“A bat’s not going to help,” Leo said, but he made his way toward the helm.

Behind him, the rest of his friends stumbled up the stairs.

Percy yelled, “What’s going— Gah! Shrimpzilla!”

Frank ran to Hazel’s side. She was clutching the rigging, still dazed from her flashback, but she gestured that she was all right.

The monster rammed the ship again. The hull groaned. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason tumbled to starboard and almost rolled overboard.

Leo reached the helm. His hands flew across the controls. Over the intercom, Festus clacked and clicked about leaks belowdecks, but the ship didn’t seem to be in danger of sinking—at least not yet.

Leo toggled the oars. They could convert into spears, which should be enough to drive the creature away. Unfortunately, they were jammed. Shrimpzilla must have knocked them out of alignment, and the monster was in spitting distance, which meant that Leo couldn’t use the ballistae without setting the Argo II on fire as well.

“How did it get so close?” Annabeth shouted, pulling herself up on one of the rail shields.

“I don’t know!” Hedge snarled. He looked around for his bat, which had rolled across the quarterdeck.

“I’m stupid!” Leo scolded himself. “Stupid, stupid! I forgot the sonar!”

The ship tilted farther to starboard. Either the monster was trying to give them a hug, or it was about to capsize them.

“Sonar?” Hedge demanded. “Pan’s pipes, Valdez! Maybe if you hadn’t been staring into Hazel’s eyes, holding hands for so long—”

“What?” Frank yelped.

“It wasn’t like that!” Hazel protested.

“It doesn’t matter!” Piper said. “Jason, can you call some lightning?”

Jason struggled to his feet. “I—” He only managed to shake his head. Summoning the storm earlier had taken too much out of him. Leo doubted the poor guy could pop a spark plug in the shape he was in.