To their left, the Olympic valley shimmered in the afternoon heat. To their right, the visitors’ lot was crammed with tour buses. Good thing the Argo II was moored a hundred feet in the air, because they never would’ve found parking.
Leo skipped a stone across the river. He wished Hazel and Frank would get back. He felt awkward hanging out with Percy.
For one thing, he wasn’t sure what kind of small talk to make with a guy who’d recently come back from Tartarus. Catch that last episode of Doctor Who? Oh, right. You were trudging through the Pit of Eternal Damnation!
Percy had been intimidating enough before – summoning hurricanes, duelling pirates, killing giants in the Colosseum …
Now … well, after what happened in Tartarus, it seemed like Percy had graduated to a totally different level of butt-kickery.
Leo had trouble even thinking of him as part of the same camp. The two of them had never been at Camp Half-Blood at the same time. Percy’s leather necklace had four beads for four completed summers. Leo’s leather necklace had exactly none.
The only thing they had in common was Calypso, and every time Leo thought about that he wanted to punch Percy in the face.
Leo kept thinking he should bring it up, just to clear the air, but the timing never seemed right. And, as the days went by, the subject got harder and harder to broach.
‘What?’ Percy asked.
Leo stirred. ‘What, what?’
‘You were staring at me, like, angry.’
‘Was I?’ Leo tried to muster a joke, or at least a smile, but he couldn’t. ‘Um, sorry.’
Percy gazed at the river. ‘I suppose we need to talk.’ He opened his hand and the stone Leo had skipped flew out of the stream, right into Percy’s palm.
Oh, Leo thought, we’re showing off now?
He considered shooting a column of fire at the nearest tour bus and blowing up the gas tank, but he decided that might be a tad dramatic. ‘Maybe we should talk. But not –’
‘Guys!’ Frank stood at the far end of the parking lot, waving at them to come over. Next to him, Hazel sat astride her horse Arion, who had appeared unannounced as soon as they’d landed.
Saved by the Zhang, Leo thought.
He and Percy jogged over to meet their friends.
‘This place is huge,’ Frank reported. ‘The ruins stretch from the river to the base of that mountain over there, about half a kilometre.’
‘How far is that in regular measurements?’ Percy asked.
Frank rolled his eyes. ‘That is a regular measurement in Canada and the rest of the world. Only you Americans –’
‘About five or six football fields,’ Hazel interceded, feeding Arion a big chunk of gold.
Percy spread his hands. ‘That’s all you needed to say.’
‘Anyway,’ Frank continued, ‘from overhead, I didn’t see anything suspicious.’
‘Neither did I,’ Hazel said. ‘Arion took me on a complete loop around the perimeter. A lot of tourists, but no crazy goddess.’
The big stallion nickered and tossed his head, his neck muscles rippling under his butterscotch coat.
‘Man, your horse can cuss.’ Percy shook his head. ‘He doesn’t think much of Olympia.’
For once, Leo agreed with the horse. He didn’t like the idea of tromping through fields full of ruins under a blazing sun, shoving his way through hordes of sweaty tourists while searching for a split-personality victory goddess. Besides, Frank had already flown over the whole valley as an eagle. If his sharp eyes hadn’t seen anything, maybe there was nothing to see.
On the other hand, Leo’s tool-belt pockets were full of dangerous toys. He would hate to go home without blowing anything up.
‘So we blunder around together,’ he said, ‘and let trouble find us. It’s always worked before.’
They poked about for a while, avoiding tour groups and ducking from one patch of shade to the next. Not for the first time, Leo was struck by how similar Greece was to his home state of Texas – the low hills, the scrubby trees, the drone of cicadas and the oppressive summer heat. Switch out the ancient columns and ruined temples for cows and barbed wire, and Leo would’ve felt right at home.
Frank found a tourist pamphlet (seriously, that dude would read the ingredients on a soup can) and gave them a running commentary on what was what.
‘This is the Propylon.’ He waved towards a stone path lined with crumbling columns. ‘One of the main gates into the Olympic valley.’
‘Rubble!’ said Leo.
‘And over there –’ Frank pointed to a square foundation that looked like the patio for a Mexican restaurant – ‘is the Temple of Hera, one of the oldest structures here.’