The Blood of Olympus(53)
‘I love these Cherokee stories,’ Jason said. ‘They’re so cheerful.’
‘Yeah, well.’
‘So the guy turned into a snake. The moral is: Frank has been eating squirrels?’
She laughed, which felt good. ‘No, stupid. The point is, trust your instincts. Squirrel meat might be just fine for one person, but taboo for another. The second hunter knew he had a serpent spirit inside him, waiting to take over. He knew he shouldn’t feed that bad spirit by eating squirrel meat, but he did it anyway.’
‘So … I shouldn’t eat squirrels.’
Piper was relieved to see the gleam in his eyes. She thought about something Hazel had confided to her a few nights ago: I think Jason is the linchpin to Hera’s whole scheme. He was her first play; he’s going to be her last.
‘My point,’ Piper said, poking his chest, ‘is that you, Jason Grace, are very familiar with your own bad spirits, and you try your best not to feed them. You have solid instincts, and you know how to follow them. Whatever annoying qualities you have, you are a genuinely good person who always tries to make the right choice. So no more talk about giving up.’
Jason frowned. ‘Wait. I have annoying qualities?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Come here.’
She was about to kiss him when there was a knock on the door.
Leo leaned inside. ‘A party? Am I invited?’
Jason cleared his throat. ‘Hey, Leo. What’s going on?’
‘Oh, not much.’ He pointed upstairs. ‘The usual obnoxious venti trying to destroy the ship. You ready for guard duty?’
‘Yeah.’ Jason leaned forward and kissed Piper. ‘Thanks. And don’t worry. I’m good.’
‘That,’ she told him, ‘was kind of my point.’
After the boys left, Piper lay on her pegasus-down pillows and watched the constellations her lamp projected on the ceiling. She didn’t think she could sleep, but a full day of fighting monsters in the summer heat had taken its toll. At last she closed her eyes and drifted into a nightmare.
The Acropolis.
Piper had never been there, but she recognized it from pictures – an ancient stronghold perched on a hill almost as impressive as Gibraltar. Rising four hundred feet over the night-time sprawl of modern Athens, the sheer cliffs were topped with a crown of limestone walls. On the clifftop, a collection of ruined temples and modern cranes gleamed silver in the moonlight.
In her dream, Piper flew above the Parthenon – the ancient temple of Athena, the left side of its hollow shell encased in metal scaffolding.
The Acropolis seemed devoid of mortals, perhaps because of the financial problems in Greece. Or perhaps Gaia’s forces had arranged some pretext to keep the tourists and construction workers away.
Piper’s view zoomed to the centre of the temple. So many giants had gathered there it looked like a cocktail party for redwood trees. A few Piper recognized: those horrible twins from Rome, Otis and Ephialtes, dressed in matching construction worker outfits; Polybotes, looking just as Percy had described him, with poison dripping from his dreadlocks and a breastplate sculpted to resemble hungry mouths; worst of all, Enceladus, the giant who had kidnapped Piper’s dad. His armour was etched with flame designs, his hair braided with bones. His flagpole-sized spear burned with purple fire.
Piper had heard that each giant was born to oppose a particular god, but there were way more than twelve giants gathered in the Parthenon. She counted at least twenty and, if that wasn’t intimidating enough, around the giants’ feet milled a horde of smaller monsters – Cyclopes, ogres, six-armed Earthborn and serpent-legged dracaenae.
In the centre of the crowd stood an empty, makeshift throne of twisted scaffolding and stone blocks apparently yanked at random from the ruins.
As Piper watched, a new giant lumbered up the steps at the far end of the Acropolis. He wore a massive velour tracksuit with gold chains around his neck and greased-back hair, so he looked like a thirty-foot-tall mobster – if mobsters had dragon feet and burnt-orange skin. The mafia giant ran towards the Parthenon and stumbled inside, flattening several Earthborn under his feet. He stopped, gasping for breath at the foot of the throne.
‘Where is Porphyrion?’ he demanded. ‘I have news!’
Piper’s old enemy Enceladus stepped forward. ‘Tardy as usual, Hippolytos. I hope your news is worth the wait. King Porphyrion should be …’
The ground between them split. An even larger giant leaped from the earth like a breaching whale.
‘King Porphyrion is here,’ announced the king.
He looked just as Piper remembered from the Wolf House in Sonoma. Forty feet tall, he towered over his brethren. In fact, Piper realized queasily, he was the same size as the Athena Parthenos that had once dominated the temple. In his seaweed-coloured braids, captured demigod weapons glittered. His face was cruel and pale green, his eyes as white as the Mist. His body radiated its own sort of gravity, causing the other monsters to lean towards him. Soil and pebbles skittered across the ground, pulled towards his massive dragon feet.