by Rick Riordan
‘Right,’ Annabeth said. ‘The first communication from a god in a month, and it’s Hera, the least helpful goddess, and she contacts me, her least favourite demigod. She tells me I’ll find out what happened to Percy if I go to the Grand Canyon skywalk and look for a guy with one shoe. Instead, I find you guys, and the guy with one shoe is Jason. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Something bad is happening,’ Rachel agreed. She looked at Piper, and Piper felt an overwhelming desire to tell them about her dream, to confess that she knew what was happening – at least part of the story. And the bad stuff was only beginning.
‘Guys,’ she said. ‘I – I need to –’
Before she could continue, Rachel’s body stiffened. Her eyes began to glow with a greenish light, and she grabbed Piper by the shoulders.
Piper tried to back away, but Rachel’s hands were like steel clamps.
Free me, she said. But it wasn’t Rachel’s voice. It sounded like an older woman, speaking from somewhere far away, down a long, echoing pipe. Free me, Piper McLean, or the earth shall swallow us. It must be by the solstice.
The room started spinning. Annabeth tried to separate Piper from Rachel, but it was no use. Green smoke enveloped them, and Piper was no longer sure if she was awake or dreaming. The giant statue of the goddess seemed to rise from its throne. It leaned over Piper, its eyes boring into her. The statue’s mouth opened, its breath like horribly thick perfume. It spoke in the same echoing voice: Our enemies stir. The fiery one is only the first. Bow to his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. FREE ME!
Piper’s knees buckled, and everything went black.
V
LEO
Leo’s tour was going great until he learned about the dragon.
The archer dude, Will Solace, seemed pretty cool. Everything he showed Leo was so amazing it should’ve been illegal. Real Greek warships moored at the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts-and-crafts sessions where you could make sculptures with chain saws and blowtorches? Leo was like, Sign me up! The woods were stocked with dangerous monsters, and no one should ever go in there alone? Nice! And the camp was overflowing with fine-looking girls. Leo didn’t quite understand the whole related-to-the-gods business, but he hoped that didn’t mean he was cousins with all these ladies. That would suck. At the very least, he wanted to check out those underwater girls in the lake again. They were definitely worth drowning for.
Will showed him the cabins, the dining pavilion and the sword arena.
‘Do I get a sword?’ Leo asked.
Will glanced at him like he found the idea disturbing. ‘You’ll probably make your own, seeing as how you’re in Cabin Nine.’
‘Yeah, what’s up with that? Vulcan?’
‘Usually we don’t call the gods by their Roman names,’ Will said. ‘The original names are Greek. Your dad is Hephaestus.’
‘Festus?’ Leo had heard somebody say that before, but he was still dismayed. ‘Sounds like the god of cowboys.’
‘He-phaestus,’ Will corrected. ‘God of blacksmiths and fire.’
Leo had heard that, too, but he was trying not to think about it. The god of fire … seriously? Considering what had happened to his mom, that seemed like a sick joke.
‘So the flaming hammer over my head,’ Leo said. ‘Good thing or bad thing?’
Will took a while to answer. ‘You were claimed almost immediately. That’s usually good.’
‘But that Rainbow Pony dude, Butch – he mentioned a curse.’
‘Ah … look, it’s nothing. Since Cabin Nine’s last head counsellor died –’
‘Died? Like, painfully?’
‘I ought to let your bunkmates tell you about it.’
‘Yeah, where are my home dawgs? Shouldn’t their counsellor be giving me the VIP tour?’
‘He, um, can’t. You’ll see why.’ Will forged ahead before Leo could ask anything else.
‘Curses and death,’ Leo said to himself. ‘This just gets better and better.’
He was halfway across the green when he spotted his old babysitter. And she was not the kind of person he expected to see at a demigod camp.
Leo froze in his tracks.
‘What’s wrong?’ Will asked.
Tía Callida – Auntie Callida. That’s what she’d called herself, but Leo hadn’t seen her since he was five years old. She was just standing there, in the shadow of a big white cabin at the end of the green, watching him. She wore her black linen widow’s dress, with a black shawl pulled over her hair. Her face hadn’t changed – leathery skin, piercing dark eyes. Her withered hands were like claws. She looked ancient, but no different than Leo remembered.
‘That old lady …’ Leo said. ‘What’s she doing here?’
Will tried to follow his gaze. ‘What old lady?’
‘Dude, the old lady. The one in black. How many old ladies do you see over there?’
Will frowned. ‘I think you’ve had a long day, Leo. The Mist could still be playing tricks on your mind. How about we head straight to your cabin now?’
Leo wanted to protest, but when he looked back towards the big white cabin Tía Callida was gone. He was sure she’d been there, almost as if thinking about his mom had summoned Callida back from the past.
And that wasn’t good, because Tía Callida had tried to kill him.
‘Just messing with you, man.’ Leo pulled some gears and levers from his pockets and started fiddling with them to calm his nerves. He couldn’t have everybody at camp thinking he was crazy. At least, not crazier than he really was.
‘Let’s go see Cabin Nine,’ he said. ‘I’m in the mood for a good curse.’
From the outside, the Hephaestus cabin looked like an oversized motorhome with shiny metal walls and metal-slatted windows. The entrance was like a bank vault door, circular and several feet thick. It opened with lots of brass gears turning and hydraulic pistons blowing smoke.
Leo whistled. ‘They’ve got a steampunk theme going on, huh?’
Inside, the cabin seemed deserted. High-tech steel bunks were folded against the walls. Each had a digital control panel, blinking LED lights, glowing gems and interlocking gears. Leo figured each camper had his own combination lock to release his bed, and there was probably an alcove behind it with storage, maybe some traps to keep out unwanted visitors. At least, that’s the way Leo would’ve designed it. A fire pole came down from the floor above, even though the cabin didn’t appear to have another floor from the outside. A circular staircase led down into some kind of basement. The walls were lined with every kind of power tool Leo could imagine, plus a huge assortment of knives, swords and other implements of destruction. A large workbench overflowed with scrap metal – screws, bolts, washers, nails, rivets and a million other machine parts. Leo had a strong urge to shovel them all into his coat pockets. He loved that kind of stuff. But he’d need a hundred more coats to fit it all.
Looking around, he could almost imagine he was back in his mom’s machine shop. Not the weapons, maybe – but the tools, the piles of scrap, the smell of grease and metal and hot engines. She would’ve loved this place.
He pushed that thought away. He didn’t like painful memories. Keep moving – that was his motto. Don’t dwell on things. Don’t stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness.
He picked a long implement from the wall. ‘A weed whacker? What’s the god of fire want with a weed whacker?’
A voice in the shadows said, ‘You’d be surprised.’
At the back of the room, one of the bunk beds was occupied. A curtain of dark camouflage material retracted, and Leo could see the guy who’d been invisible a second before. It was hard to tell much about him because he was covered in a body cast. His head was wrapped in gauze except for his face, which was puffy and bruised. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy after a beat-down.
‘I’m Jake Mason,’ the guy said. ‘I’d shake your hand, but …�
�
‘Yeah,’ Leo said. ‘Don’t get up.’
The guy cracked a smile, then winced like it hurt to move his face. Leo wondered what had happened to him, but he was afraid to ask.
‘Welcome to Cabin Nine,’ Jake said. ‘Been almost a year since we had any new kids. I’m head counsellor for now.’
‘For now?’ Leo asked.
Will Solace cleared his throat. ‘So where is everybody, Jake?’
‘Down at the forges,’ Jake said wistfully. ‘They’re working on … you know, that problem.’
‘Oh.’ Will changed the subject. ‘So, you got a spare bed for Leo?’
Jake studied Leo, sizing him up. ‘You believe in curses, Leo? Or ghosts?’
I just saw my evil babysitter Tía Callida, Leo thought. She’s got to be dead after all these years. And I can’t go a day without remembering my mom in that machine shop fire. Don’t talk to me about ghosts, doughboy.
But aloud, he said, ‘Ghosts? Pfft. Nah. I’m cool. A storm spirit chucked me down the Grand Canyon this morning, but you know, all in a day’s work, right?’
Jake nodded. ‘That’s good. Because I’ll give you the best bed in the cabin – Beckendorf’s.’
‘Whoa, Jake,’ Will said. ‘You sure?’
Jake called out: ‘Bunk 1-A, please.’
The whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiralled open like a camera lens, and a full-size bed popped up. The bronze frame had a built-in game station at the footboard, a stereo system in the headboard, a glass-door refrigerator mounted into the base, and a whole bunch of control panels running down the side.
Leo jumped right in and lay back with arms behind his head. ‘I can handle this.’
‘It retracts into a private room below,’ Jake said.
‘Oh, heck, yes,’ Leo said. ‘See y’all. I’ll be down in the Leo Cave. Which button do I press?’
‘Hold on,’ Will Solace protested. ‘You guys have private underground rooms?’
Jake probably would’ve smiled if it didn’t hurt so much. ‘We’ve got lots of secrets, Will. You Apollo guys can’t have all the fun. Our campers have been excavating the tunnel system under Cabin Nine for almost a century. We still haven’t found the end. Anyway, Leo, if you don’t mind sleeping in a dead man’s bed, it’s yours.’
Suddenly Leo didn’t feel like kicking back. He sat up, careful not to touch any of the buttons. ‘The counsellor who died – this was his bed?’
‘Yeah,’ Jake said. ‘Charles Beckendorf.’
Leo imagined saw-blades coming through the mattress, or maybe a grenade sewn inside the pillows. ‘He didn’t, like, die in this bed, did he?’
‘No,’ Jake said. ‘In the Titan War, last summer.’
‘The Titan War,’ Leo repeated, ‘which has nothing to do with this very fine bed?’
‘The Titans,’ Will said, like Leo was an idiot. ‘The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods. They tried to make a comeback last summer. Their leader, Kronos, built a new palace on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies came to New York and almost destroyed Mount Olympus. A lot of demigods died trying to stop them.’
‘I’m guessing this wasn’t on the news?’ Leo said.
It seemed like a fair question, but Will shook his head in disbelief. ‘You didn’t hear about Mount St Helens erupting, or the freak storms across the country, or that building collapsing in St Louis?’
Leo shrugged. Last summer, he’d been on the run from another foster home. Then a truancy officer caught him in New Mexico, and the court sentenced him to the nearest correctional facility – the Wilderness School. ‘Guess I was busy.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Jake said. ‘You were lucky to miss it. The thing is Beckendorf was one of the first casualties, and ever since then –’
‘Your cabin’s been cursed,’ Leo guessed.
Jake didn’t answer. Then again, the dude was in a body cast. That was an answer. Leo started noticing little things that he hadn’t seen before – an explosion mark on the wall, a stain on the floor that might’ve been oil … or blood. Broken swords and smashed machines kicked into the corners of the room, maybe out of frustration. The place did feel unlucky.
Jake sighed halfheartedly. ‘Well, I should get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Leo. It used to be … really nice.’
He closed his eyes, and the camouflage curtain drew itself across the bed.
‘Come on, Leo,’ Will said. ‘I’ll take you to the forges.’
As they were leaving, Leo looked back at his new bed, and he could almost imagine a dead counsellor sitting there – another ghost who wasn’t going to leave Leo alone.
VI
LEO
‘How did he die?’ Leo asked. ‘I mean Beckendorf.’
Will Solace trudged ahead. ‘Explosion. Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn’t make it out.’
There was that name again – Percy Jackson, Annabeth’s missing boyfriend. That guy must’ve been into everything around here, Leo thought.
‘So Beckendorf was pretty popular?’ Leo asked. ‘I mean – before he blew up?’
‘He was awesome,’ Will agreed. ‘It was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake – he became head counsellor in the middle of the war. Same as I did, actually. Jake did his best, but he never wanted to be leader. He just likes building stuff. Then after the war things started to go wrong. Cabin Nine’s chariots blew up. Their automatons went haywire. Their inventions started to malfunction. It was like a curse, and eventually people started calling it that – the Curse of Cabin Nine. Then Jake had his accident –’
‘Which had something to do with the problem he mentioned,’ Leo guessed.
‘They’re working on it,’ Will said without enthusiasm. ‘And here we are.’
The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together. White marble columns lined the soot-stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborate gable carved with a bunch of gods and monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. Leo heard machinery grinding inside, fires roaring and hammers ringing on anvils.
They stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls who’d been working on various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers.
‘’Sup, guys,’ Will said. ‘This is your new brother, Leo – um, what’s your last name?’
‘Valdez.’ Leo looked around at the other campers. Was he really related to all of them? His cousins came from some big families, but he’d always just had his mom – until she died.
Kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names blurred together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). Leo knew he’d never keep everybody straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming.
None of them looked like the others – all different face types, skin tone, hair colour, height. You’d never think, Hey, look, it’s the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with callouses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn’t have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.
And all the kids shared a sad kind of seriousness. Their shoulders slumped like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Several looked as if they’d been physically beaten up, too. Leo counted two arm slings, one pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Tubigrip bandages and about seven thousand Band-Aids.
‘Well, all right!’ Leo said. ‘I hear this is the party cabin!’
Nobody laughed. They all just stared at him.
Will Solace patted Leo’s shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it’s time?’
‘I’ve got it,’ one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buff arms
and a red bandanna over a mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens.
‘Cool,’ Leo said. ‘I always wanted a sister who could beat me up.’
Nyssa didn’t smile. ‘Come on, joker boy. I’ll show you around.’
* * *
Leo was no stranger to workshops. He’d grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. His mom used to joke that his first pacifier was a lug wrench. But he’d never seen any place like the camp forge.
One guy was working on a battleaxe. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the axe cut into the slab like it was warm cheese, but the guy looked unsatisfied and went back to honing the edge.
‘What’s he planning to kill with that thing?’ Leo asked Nyssa. ‘A battleship?’
‘You never know. Even with Celestial bronze –’
‘That’s the metal?’
She nodded. ‘Mined from Mount Olympus itself. Extremely rare. Anyway, it usually disintegrates monsters on contact, but big powerful ones have notoriously tough hides. Drakons, for instances –’
‘You mean dragons?’
‘Similar species. You’ll learn the difference in monster-fighting class.’
‘Monster-fighting class. Yeah, I already got my black belt in that.’
She didn’t crack a smile. Leo hoped she wasn’t this serious all the time. His dad’s side of the family had to have some sense of humour, right?
They passed a couple of guys making a bronze wind-up toy. At least that’s what it looked like. It was a six-inch-tall centaur – half man, half horse – armed with a miniature bow. One of the campers cranked the centaur’s tail, and it whirred to life. It galloped across the table, yelling, ‘Die, mosquito! Die, mosquito!’ and shooting everything in sight.
Apparently this had happened before, because everybody knew to hit the floor except Leo. Six needle-sized arrows embedded themselves in his shirt before a camper grabbed a hammer and smashed the centaur to pieces.