The Mark of Athena hoo-3 Page 8

  “What in the world are you thinking?” She sounded pretty flustered.

  “I try not to think,” Leo admitted. “It interferes with being nuts. Just concentrate on moving that Celestial bronze. Echo, you ready?”

  “Ready,” she said.

  Leo took a deep breath. He strutted back toward the pond, hoping he looked awesome and not like he had some sort of nervous affliction. “Leo is the coolest!” he shouted.

  “Leo is the coolest!” Echo shouted back.

  “Yeah, baby, check me out!”

  “Check me out!” Echo said.

  “Make way for the king!”

  “The king!”

  “Narcissus is weak!”

  “Weak!”

  The crowd of nymphs scattered in surprise. Leo shooed them away as if they were bothering him. “No autographs, girls. I know you want some Leo time, but I’m way too cool. You better just hang around that ugly dweeb Narcissus. He’s lame!”

  “Lame!” Echo said with enthusiasm.

  The nymphs muttered angrily.

  “What are you talking about?” one demanded.

  “You’re lame,” said another.

  Leo adjusted his goggles and smiled. He flexed his biceps, though he didn’t have much to flex, and showed off his HOT STUFF tattoo. He had the nymphs’ attention, if only because they were stunned; but Narcissus was still fixed on his own reflection.

  “You know how ugly Narcissus is?” Leo asked the crowd. “He’s so ugly, when he was born his mama thought he was a backward centaur—with a horse butt for a face.”

  Some of the nymphs gasped. Narcissus frowned, as though he was vaguely aware of a gnat buzzing around his head.

  “You know why his bow has cobwebs?” Leo continued. “He uses it to hunt for dates, but he can’t find one!”

  One of the nymphs laughed. The others quickly elbowed her into silence.

  Narcissus turned and scowled at Leo. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the Super-sized McShizzle, man!” Leo said. “I’m Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme. And the ladies love a bad boy.”

  “Love a bad boy!” Echo said, with a convincing squeal.

  Leo took out a pen and autographed the arm of one of the nymphs. “Narcissus is a loser! He’s so weak, he can’t bench-press a Kleenex. He’s so lame, when you look up lame on Wikipedia, it’s got a picture of Narcissus—only the picture’s so ugly, no one ever checks it out.”

  Narcissus knit his handsome eyebrows. His face was turning from bronze to salmon pink. For the moment, he’d totally forgotten about the pond, and Leo could see the sheet of bronze sinking into the sand.

  “What are you talking about?” Narcissus demanded. “I am amazing. Everyone knows this.”

  “Amazing at pure suck,” Leo said. “If I was as suck as you, I’d drown myself. Oh wait, you already did that.”

  Another nymph giggled. Then another. Narcissus growled, which did make him look a little less handsome. Meanwhile Leo beamed and wiggled his eyebrows over his goggles and spread his hands, gesturing for applause.

  “That’s right!” he said. “Team Leo for the win!”

  “Team Leo for the win!” Echo shouted. She’d wriggled into the mob of nymphs, and because she was so hard to see, the nymphs apparently thought the voice came from one of their own.

  “Oh my god, I am so awesome!” Leo bellowed.

  “So awesome!” Echo yelled back.

  “He is funny,” a nymph ventured.

  “And cute, in a scrawny way,” another said.

  “Scrawny?” Leo asked. “Baby, I invented scrawny. Scrawny is the new sizzling hot. And I GOT the scrawny. Narcissus? He’s such a loser even the Underworld didn’t want him. He couldn’t get the ghost girls to date him.”

  “Eww,” said a nymph.

  “Eww!” Echo agreed.

  “Stop!” Narcissus got to his feet. “This is not right! This person is obviously not awesome, so he must be…” He struggled for the right words. It had probably been a long time since he’d talked about anything other than himself. “He must be tricking us.”

  Apparently Narcissus wasn’t completely stupid. Realization dawned on his face. He turned back to the pond. “The bronze mirror is gone! My reflection! Give me back to me!”

  “Team Leo!” one of the nymphs squeaked. But the others returned their attention to Narcissus.

  “I’m the beautiful one!” Narcissus insisted. “He’s stolen my mirror, and I’m going to leave unless we get it back!”

  The girls gasped. One pointed. “There!”

  Hazel was at the top of the crater, running away as fast as she could while lugging a large sheet of bronze.

  “Get it back!” cried a nymph.

  Probably against her will, Echo muttered, “Get it back.”

  “Yes!” Narcissus unslung his bow and grabbed an arrow from his dusty quiver. “The first one who gets that bronze, I will like you almost as much as I like me. I might even kiss you, right after I kiss my reflection!”

  “Oh my gods!” the nymphs screamed.

  “And kill those demigods!” Narcissus added, glaring very handsomely at Leo. “They are not as cool as me!”

  Leo could run pretty fast when someone was trying to kill him. Sadly, he’d had a lot of practice.

  He overtook Hazel, which was easy, since she was struggling with fifty pounds of Celestial bronze. He took one side of the metal plate and glanced back. Narcissus was nocking an arrow, but it was so old and brittle, it broke into splinters.

  “Ow!” he yelled very attractively. “My manicure!”

  Normally nymphs were quick—at least the ones at Camp Half-Blood were—but these were burdened with posters, T-shirts, and other Narcissus™ merchandise. The nymphs also weren’t great at working as a team. They kept stumbling over one another, pushing and shoving. Echo made things worse by running among them, tripping and tackling as many as she could.

  Still, they were closing rapidly.

  “Call Arion!” Leo gasped.

  “Already did!” Hazel said.

  They ran for the beach. They made it to the edge of the water and could see the Argo II, but there was no way to get there. It was much too far to swim, even if they hadn’t been toting bronze.

  Leo turned. The mob was coming over the dunes, Narcissus in the lead, holding his bow like a band major’s baton. The nymphs had conjured assorted weapons. Some held rocks. Some had wooden clubs wreathed in flowers. A few of the water nymphs had squirt guns—which seemed not quite as terrifying—but the look in their eyes was still murderous.

  “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 lik
e 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.

  P IPER 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 hap
pened 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.”

  “Great.” Percy handed the bucket of tar to Frank and Annabeth. “You guys help Leo. I’ll hold off the water spirits as long as I can.”

  “On it!” Frank promised.

  The three of them ran off, leaving Hazel at the cabin door. The ship listed again, and Hazel hugged her stomach like she was going to be sick.

  “I’ll just…” She swallowed, pointed weakly down the passageway, and ran off.

  Jason and Piper stayed below as the ship rocked back and forth. For a hero, Piper felt pretty useless. Waves crashed against the hull as angry voices came from above deck—Percy shouting, Coach Hedge yelling at the lake. Festus the figurehead breathed fire several times. Down the hall, Hazel moaned miserably in her cabin. In the engine room below, it sounded like Leo and the others were doing an Irish line dance with anvils tied to their feet. After what seemed like hours, the engine began to hum. The oars creaked and groaned, and Piper felt the ship lift into the air.