The Blood of Olympus(71)

‘Your sister’s right,’ Thalia said. ‘You need to go.’

Nico and Hedge fell in alongside her, both looking very pleased with themselves. They had apparently gone shopping at the Barrachina souvenir shop, where they’d replaced their dirty tattered shirts with loud tropical numbers.

‘Nico,’ Reyna said, ‘you look –’

‘Not a word about the shirt,’ he warned. ‘Not one word.’

‘Why did you come looking for me?’ she demanded. ‘You could have got away free. The giant has been tracking me. If you had just left –’

‘You’re welcome, cupcake,’ the coach grumbled. ‘We weren’t about to leave without you. Now let’s get out of …’

He glanced over Reyna’s shoulder and his voice faltered.

Reyna turned.

Behind her, the second-storey balconies of her family house were crowded with glowing figures: a man with a forked beard and rusted conquistador armour; another bearded man in eighteenth-century pirate clothes, his shirt peppered with gunshot holes; a lady in a bloody nightgown; a U.S. Navy captain in his dress whites; and a dozen more Reyna knew from her childhood – all of them glaring at her accusingly, their voices whispering in her mind: Traitor. Murderer.

‘No …’ Reyna felt like she was ten years old again. She wanted to curl up in the corner of her room and press her hands over her ears to stop the whispering.

Nico took her arm. ‘Reyna, who are they? What do they – ?’

‘I can’t,’ she pleaded. ‘I – I can’t.’

She’d spent so many years building a dam inside her to hold back the fear. Now, it broke. Her strength washed away.

‘It’s all right.’ Nico gazed up at the balconies. The ghosts disappeared, but Reyna knew they weren’t really gone. They were never really gone. ‘We’ll get you out of here,’ Nico promised. ‘Let’s move.’

Thalia took Reyna’s other arm. The four of them ran for the restaurant and the Athena Parthenos. Behind them, Reyna heard Orion roaring in pain, Greek fire exploding.

And in her mind the voices still whispered: Murderer. Traitor. You can never flee your crime.





XXV


Jason


JASON ROSE FROM HIS DEATHBED so he could drown with the rest of the crew.

The ship was tilting so violently he had to climb the floor to get out of sickbay. The hull creaked. The engine groaned like a dying water buffalo. Cutting through the roar of the wind, the goddess Nike screamed from the stables: ‘YOU CAN DO BETTER, STORM! GIVE ME A HUNDRED AND TEN PERCENT!’

Jason climbed the stairs to the middle deck. His legs shook. His head spun. The ship pitched to port, knocking him against the opposite wall.

Hazel stumbled out of her cabin, hugging her stomach. ‘I hate the ocean!’

When she saw him, her eyes widened. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’

‘I’m going up there!’ he insisted. ‘I can help!’

Hazel looked like she wanted to argue. Then the ship tilted to starboard and she staggered towards the bathroom, her hand over her mouth.

Jason fought his way to the stairs. He hadn’t been out of bed in a day and a half, ever since the girls got back from Sparta and he’d unexpectedly collapsed. His muscles rebelled at the effort. His gut felt like Michael Varus was standing behind him, repeatedly stabbing him and yelling, Die like a Roman! Die like a Roman!

Jason forced down the pain. He was tired of people taking care of him, whispering how worried they were. He was tired of dreaming about being a shish kebab. He’d spent enough time nursing the wound in his gut. Either it would kill him or it wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to wait around for the wound to decide. He had to help his friends.

Somehow he made it above deck.

What he saw there made him almost as nauseous as Hazel. A wave the size of a skyscraper crashed over the forward deck, washing the front crossbows and half the port railing out to sea. The sails were ripped to shreds. Lightning flashed all around, hitting the sea like spotlights. Horizontal rain blasted Jason’s face. The clouds were so dark he honestly couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

The crew was doing what they could … which wasn’t much.

Leo had lashed himself to the console with a bungee cord harness. That might have seemed like a good idea when he rigged it up, but every time a wave hit he was washed away, then smacked back into his control board like a human paddleball.

Piper and Annabeth were trying to save the rigging. Since Sparta they’d become quite a team – able to work together without even talking, which was just as well, since they couldn’t have heard each other over the storm.