by Rick Riordan
‘Stupid curse!’ The camper waved his hammer at the sky. ‘I just want a magic bug killer! Is that too much to ask?’
‘Ouch,’ Leo said.
Nyssa pulled the needles out of his shirt. ‘Ah, you’re fine. Let’s move on before they rebuild it.’
Leo rubbed his chest as they walked. ‘That sort of thing happen a lot?’
‘Lately,’ Nyssa said, ‘everything we build turns to junk.’
‘The curse?’
Nyssa frowned. ‘I don’t believe in curses. But something’s wrong. And if we don’t figure out the dragon problem it’s gonna get even worse.’
‘The dragon problem?’ Leo hoped she was talking about a miniature dragon, maybe one that killed cockroaches, but he got the feeling he wasn’t going to be so lucky.
Nyssa took him over to a big wall map that a couple of girls were studying. The map showed the camp – a semicircle of land with Long Island Sound on the north shore, the woods to the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.
‘It’s got to be in the hills,’ the first girl said.
‘We looked in the hills,’ the second argued. ‘The woods are a better hiding place.’
‘But we already set traps –’
‘Hold up,’ Leo said. ‘You guys lost a dragon? A real full-size dragon?’
‘It’s a bronze dragon,’ Nyssa said. ‘But, yes, it’s a life-size automaton. Hephaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers back, when Beckendorf found it in pieces and rebuilt it. It’s been helping protect the camp, but, um, it’s a little unpredictable.’
‘Unpredictable,’ Leo said.
‘It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, sets people on fire, tries to eat the satyrs.’
‘That’s pretty unpredictable.’
Nyssa nodded. ‘Beckendorf was the only one who could control it. Then he died, and the dragon just got worse and worse. Finally it went berserk and ran off. Occasionally it shows up, demolishes something and runs away again. Everyone expects us to find it and destroy it –’
‘Destroy it?’ Leo was appalled. ‘You’ve got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?’
‘It breathes fire,’ Nyssa explained. ‘It’s deadly and out of control.’
‘But it’s a dragon! Dude, that’s so awesome. Can’t you try talking to it, controlling it?’
‘We tried. Jake Mason tried. You saw how well that worked.’
Leo thought about Jake, wrapped in a body cast, lying alone on his bunk. ‘Still –’
‘There’s no other option.’ Nyssa turned to the other girls. ‘Let’s try more traps in the woods – here, here and here. Bait them with thirty-weight motor oil.’
‘The dragon drinks that?’ Leo asked.
‘Yeah.’ Nyssa sighed regretfully. ‘He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. If he springs a trap, we can come in with acid sprayers – should melt through his hide. Then we get metal cutters and … and finish the job.’
They all looked sad. Leo realized they didn’t want to kill the dragon any more than he did.
‘Guys,’ he said. ‘There has to be another way.’
Nyssa looked doubtful, but a few other campers stopped what they were working on and drifted over to hear the conversation.
‘Like what?’ one asked. ‘The thing breathes fire. We can’t even get close.’
Fire, Leo thought. Oh, man, the things he could tell them about fire … But he had to be careful, even if these were his brothers and sisters. Especially if he had to live with them.
‘Well …’ He hesitated. ‘Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So don’t any of you have like fire resistance or something?’
Nobody acted as if it were a crazy question, which was a relief, but Nyssa shook her head gravely.
‘That’s a Cyclops ability, Leo. Demigod children of Hephaestus … we’re just good with our hands. We’re builders, craftsmen, weaponsmiths – stuff like that.’
Leo’s shoulders slumped. ‘Oh.’
A guy in the back said, ‘Well, a long time ago –’
‘Yeah, okay,’ Nyssa conceded. ‘A long time ago some children of Hephaestus were born with power over fire. But that ability was very, very rare. And always dangerous. No demigod like that has been born in centuries. The last one …’ She looked at one of the other kids for help.
‘Sixteen sixty-six,’ the girl offered. ‘Guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the Great Fire of London, destroyed most of the city.’
‘Right,’ Nyssa said. ‘When a child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we don’t need any more catastrophes.’
Leo tried to keep his face clear of emotion, which wasn’t his strong suit. ‘I guess I see your point. Too bad, though. If you could resist flames, you could get close to the dragon.’
‘Then it would kill you with its claws and fangs,’ Nyssa said. ‘Or simply step on you. No, we’ve got to destroy it. Trust me, if anyone could figure out another answer …’
She didn’t finish, but Leo got the message. This was the cabin’s big test. If they could do something only Beckendorf could do, if they could subdue the dragon without killing it, then maybe their curse would be lifted. But they were stumped for ideas. Any camper who figured out how would be a hero.
A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting away their tools and projects. Leo hadn’t realized it was getting so late, but he looked through the windows and saw the sun going down. His ADHD did that to him sometimes. If he was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If he was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and bam – the day was over.
‘Dinner,’ Nyssa said. ‘Come on, Leo.’
‘Up at the pavilion, right?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘You guys go ahead,’ Leo said. ‘Can you … give me a second?’
Nyssa hesitated. Then her expression softened. ‘Sure. It’s a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you’re ready. Just don’t touch anything. Almost every project in here can kill you if you’re not careful.’
‘No touching,’ Leo promised.
His cabinmates filed out of the forge. Soon Leo was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels and small machines clicking and whirring.
He stared at the map of camp – the locations where his newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon. It was wrong. Plain wrong.
Very rare, he thought. And always dangerous.
He held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not calloused like the other Hephaestus campers’. Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He’d survived in tough neighbourhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester, because he’d learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren’t scared, you usually didn’t get beaten up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humour was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn’t work there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over.
There was a Plan C, but he’d promised himself never to use it again.
He felt an urge to try it now – something he hadn’t done since the accident, since his mom’s death.
He extended his fingers and felt them tingle, like they were waking up – pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm.
VII
JASON
As soon as Jason saw the house, he knew he was a dead man.
‘Here we are!’ Drew said cheerfully. ‘The Big House, camp headquarters.’
It didn’t look threatening, just a four-storey manor painted baby blue with white trim. The wraparound porch had lounge chairs, a card table and an empty wheelchair. Wind chimes shaped like nymphs turned into trees as they spun. Jason could imagine old people coming here for
summer vacation, sitting on the porch and sipping prune juice while they watched the sunset. Still, the windows seemed to glare down at him like angry eyes. The wide-open doorway looked ready to swallow him. On the highest gable, a bronze eagle weathervane spun in the wind and pointed straight in his direction, as if telling him to turn around.
Every molecule in Jason’s body told him he was on enemy ground.
‘I am not supposed to be here,’ he said.
Drew circled her arm through his. ‘Oh, please. You’re perfect here, sweetie. Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of heroes.’
Drew smelled like Christmas – a strange combination of pine and nutmeg. Jason wondered if she always smelled like that, or if it was some kind of special perfume for the holidays. Her pink eyeliner was really distracting. Every time she blinked, he felt compelled to look at her. Maybe that was the point, to show off her warm brown eyes. She was pretty. No doubt about that. But she made Jason feel uncomfortable.
He slipped his arm away as gently as he could. ‘Look, I appreciate –’
‘Is it that girl?’ Drew pouted. ‘Oh, please, tell me you are not dating the Dumpster Queen.’
‘You mean Piper? Um …’
Jason wasn’t sure how to answer. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Piper before today, but he felt strangely guilty about it. He knew he shouldn’t be in this place. He shouldn’t befriend these people, and certainly he shouldn’t date one of them. Still … Piper had been holding his hand when he woke up on that bus. She believed she was his girlfriend. She’d been brave on the skywalk, fighting those venti, and when Jason had caught her in midair and they’d held each other face to face, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t a little tempted to kiss her. But that wasn’t right. He didn’t even know his own story. He couldn’t play with her emotions like that.
Drew rolled her eyes. ‘Let me help you decide, sweetie. You can do better. A guy with your looks and obvious talent?’
She wasn’t looking at him, though. She was staring at a spot right above his head.
‘You’re waiting for a sign,’ he guessed. ‘Like what popped over Leo’s head.’
‘What? No! Well … yes. I mean, from what I heard, you’re pretty powerful, right? You’re going to be important at camp, so I figure your parent will claim you right away. And I’d love to see that. I wanna be with you every step of the way! So is your dad or mom the god? Please tell me it’s not your mom. I would hate it if you were an Aphrodite kid.’
‘Why?’
‘Then you’d be my half-brother, silly. You can’t date somebody from your own cabin. Yuck!’
‘But aren’t all the gods related?’ Jason asked. ‘So isn’t everyone here your cousin or something?’
‘Aren’t you cute! Sweetie, the godly side of your family doesn’t count except for your parent. So anybody from another cabin – they’re fair game. So who’s your godly parent – mom or dad?’
As usual, Jason didn’t have an answer. He looked up, but no glowing sign popped above his head. At the top of the Big House, the weathervane was still pointing his direction, that bronze eagle glaring as if to say, Turn around, kid, while you still can.
Then he heard footsteps on the front porch. No – not footsteps – hooves.
‘Chiron!’ Drew called. ‘This is Jason. He’s totally awesome!’
Jason backed up so fast he almost tripped. Rounding the corner of the porch was a man on horseback. Except he wasn’t on horseback – he was part of the horse. From the waist up he was human, with curly brown hair and a well-trimmed beard. He wore a T-shirt that said World’s Best Centaur, and had a quiver and bow strapped to his back. His head was so high up he had to duck to avoid the porch lights, because from the waist down, he was a white stallion.
Chiron started to smile at Jason. Then the colour drained from his face.
‘You …’ The centaur’s eyes flared like a cornered animal’s. ‘You should be dead.’
Chiron ordered Jason – well, invited, but it sounded like an order – to come inside the house. He told Drew to go back to her cabin, which Drew didn’t look happy about.
The centaur trotted over to the empty wheelchair on the porch. He slipped off his quiver and bow and backed up to the chair, which opened like a magician’s box. Chiron gingerly stepped into it with his back legs and began scrunching himself into a space that should’ve been much too small. Jason imagined a truck’s reversing noises – beep, beep, beep – as the centaur’s lower half disappeared and the chair folded up, popping out a set of fake human legs covered in a blanket, so Chiron appeared to be a regular mortal guy in a wheelchair.
‘Follow me,’ he ordered. ‘We have lemonade.’
The living room looked like it had been swallowed by a rain forest. Grapevines curved up the walls and across the ceiling, which Jason found a little strange. He didn’t think plants grew like that inside, especially in the winter, but these were leafy green and bursting with bunches of red grapes.
Leather couches faced a stone fireplace with a crackling fire. Wedged in one corner, an old-style Pac-Man arcade game beeped and blinked. Mounted on the walls was an assortment of masks – smiley/frowny Greek-theatre types, feathered Mardi Gras masks, Venetian Carnevale masks with big beaklike noses, carved wooden masks from Africa. Grapevines grew through their mouths so they seemed to have leafy tongues. Some had red grapes bulging through their eyeholes.
But the weirdest thing was the stuffed leopard’s head above the fireplace. It looked so real its eyes seemed to follow Jason. Then it snarled, and Jason nearly leaped out of his skin.
‘Now, Seymour,’ Chiron chided. ‘Jason is a friend. Behave yourself.’
‘That thing is alive!’ Jason said.
Chiron rummaged through the side pocket of his wheelchair and brought out a package of Snausages. He threw one to the leopard, who snapped it up and licked his lips.
‘You must excuse the decor,’ Chiron said. ‘All this was a parting gift from our old director before he was recalled to Mount Olympus. He thought it would help us to remember him. Mr D has a strange sense of humour.’
‘Mr D,’ Jason said. ‘Dionysus?’
‘Mmm hmm.’ Chiron poured lemonade, though his hands were trembling a little. ‘As for Seymour, well, Mr D liberated him from a Long Island garage sale. The leopard is Mr D’s sacred animal, you see, and Mr D was appalled that someone would stuff such a noble creature. He decided to grant it life, on the assumption that life as a mounted head was better than no life at all. I must say it’s a kinder fate than Seymour’s previous owner got.’
Seymour bared his fangs and sniffed the air, as if hunting for more Snausages.
‘If he’s only a head,’ Jason said, ‘where does the food go when he eats?’
‘Better not to ask,’ Chiron said. ‘Please, sit.’
Jason took some lemonade, though his stomach was fluttering. Chiron sat back in his wheelchair and tried for a smile, but Jason could tell it was forced. The old man’s eyes were as deep and dark as wells.
‘So, Jason,’ he said, ‘would you mind telling me – ah – where you’re from?’
‘I wish I knew.’ Jason told him the whole story, from waking up on the bus to crash-landing at Camp Half-Blood. He didn’t see any point in hiding the details, and Chiron was a good listener. He didn’t react to the story, other than to nod encouragingly for more.
When Jason was done, the old man sipped his lemonade.
‘I see,’ Chiron said. ‘And you must have questions for me.’
‘Only one,’ Jason admitted. ‘What did you mean when you said that I should be dead?’
Chiron studied him with concern, as if he expected Jason to burst into flames. ‘My boy, do you know what those marks on your arm mean? The colour of your shirt? Do you remember anything?’
Jason looked at the tattoo on his forearm: SPQR, the eagle, twelve straight lines.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing.’
‘Do you know where you are?’ Chiron asked. ‘Do you unde
rstand what this place is, and who I am?’
‘You’re Chiron the centaur,’ Jason said. ‘I’m guessing you’re the same one from the old stories, who used to train the Greek heroes like Heracles. This is a camp for demigods, children of the Olympian gods.’
‘So you believe those gods still exist?’
‘Yes,’ Jason said immediately. ‘I mean, I don’t think we should worship them or sacrifice chickens to them or anything, but they’re still around because they’re a powerful part of civilization. They move from country to country as the centre of power shifts – like they moved from Ancient Greece to Rome.’
‘I couldn’t have said it better.’ Something about Chiron’s voice had changed. ‘So you already know the gods are real. You have already been claimed, haven’t you?’
‘Maybe,’ Jason answered. ‘I’m not really sure.’
Seymour the leopard snarled.
Chiron waited, and Jason realized what had just happened. The centaur had switched to another language and Jason had understood, automatically answering in the same tongue.
‘Quis erat –’ Jason faltered, then made a conscious effort to speak English. ‘What was that?’
‘You know Latin,’ Chiron observed. ‘Most demigods recognize a few phrases, of course. It’s in their blood, but not as much as Ancient Greek. None can speak Latin fluently without practice.’
Jason tried to wrap his mind around what that meant, but too many pieces were missing from his memory. He still had the feeling that he shouldn’t be here. It was wrong – and dangerous. But at least Chiron wasn’t threatening. In fact the centaur seemed concerned for him, afraid for his safety.
The fire reflected in Chiron’s eyes, making them dance fretfully. ‘I taught your namesake, you know, the original Jason. He had a hard path. I’ve seen many heroes come and go. Occasionally they have happy endings. Mostly, they don’t. It breaks my heart, like losing a child each time one of my pupils dies. But you – you are not like any pupil I’ve ever taught. Your presence here could be a disaster.’
‘Thanks,’ Jason said. ‘You must be an inspiring teacher.’
‘I am sorry, my boy. But it’s true. I had hoped that after Percy’s success –’