The Blood of Olympus(82)

Nico didn’t want to push Reyna. What right did he have?

He set down his oatmeal creme pie … and noticed that his fingertips were turning to smoke. The sunlight returned. His hands became solid again, but Nico’s nerves jangled. He felt as if he’d been pulled back from the edge of a high balcony.

Your voice is your identity, he’d told Reyna. If you don’t use it, you’re halfway to Asphodel already.

He hated when his own advice applied to himself.

‘My dad gave me a present once,’ Nico said. ‘It was a zombie.’

Reyna stared at him. ‘What?’

‘His name is Jules-Albert. He’s French.’

‘A … French zombie?’

‘Hades isn’t the greatest dad, but occasionally he has these want to know my son moments. I guess he thought the zombie was a peace offering. He said Jules-Albert could be my chauffeur.’

The corner of Reyna’s mouth twitched. ‘A French zombie chauffeur.’

Nico realized how ridiculous it sounded. He’d never told anyone about Jules-Albert – not even Hazel. But he kept talking.

‘Hades had this idea that I should, you know, try to act like a modern teenager. Make friends. Get to know the twenty-first century. He vaguely understood that mortal parents drive their kids around a lot. He couldn’t do that. So his solution was a zombie.’

‘To take you to the mall,’ Reyna said. ‘Or the drive-through at In-N-Out Burger.’

‘I suppose.’ Nico’s nerves began to settle. ‘Because nothing helps you make friends faster than a rotting corpse with a French accent.’

Reyna laughed. ‘I’m sorry … I shouldn’t make fun.’

‘It’s okay. Point is … I don’t like talking about my dad either. But sometimes,’ he said, looking her in the eyes, ‘you have to.’

Reyna’s expression turned serious. ‘I never knew my father in his better days. Hylla said he used to be gentler when she was very small, before I was born. He was a good soldier – fearless, disciplined, cool under fire. He was handsome. He could be very charming. Bellona blessed him, as she had with so many of my ancestors, but that wasn’t enough for my dad. He wanted her for his wife.’

Over in the woods, Coach Hedge muttered to himself as he wrote. Three paper aeroplanes were already spiralling upward in the breeze, heading to gods knew where.

‘My father dedicated himself completely to Bellona,’ Reyna continued. ‘It’s one thing to respect the power of war. It’s another thing to fall in love with it. I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to win Bellona’s heart. My sister was born just before he went to Iraq for his last tour of duty. He was honourably discharged, came home a hero. If … if he’d been able to adjust to civilian life, everything might have been all right.’

‘But he couldn’t,’ Nico guessed.

Reyna shook her head. ‘Shortly after he got back, he had one last encounter with the goddess … that’s the, um, reason I was born. Bellona gave him a glimpse of the future. She explained why our family was so important to her. She said the legacy of Rome would never fail as long as one of our bloodline remained, fighting to defend our homeland. Those words … I think she meant them to be reassuring, but my father became fixated on them.’

‘War can be hard to get over,’ Nico said, remembering Pietro, one of his neighbours from his childhood in Italy. Pietro had come back from Mussolini’s African campaign in one piece, but, after shelling Ethiopian civilians with mustard gas, his mind was never the same.

Despite the heat, Reyna drew her cloak around her. ‘Part of the problem was post-traumatic stress. He couldn’t stop thinking about the war. And then there was the constant pain – a roadside bomb had left shrapnel in his shoulder and chest. But it was more than that. Over the years, as I was growing up, he … he changed.’

Nico didn’t respond. He’d never had anyone talk to him this openly before, except maybe for Hazel. He felt like he was watching a flock of birds settle on a field. One loud sound might startle them away.

‘He became paranoid,’ Reyna said. ‘He thought Bellona’s words were a warning that our bloodline would be exterminated and the legacy of Rome would fail. He saw enemies everywhere. He collected weapons. He turned our house into a fortress. At night, he would lock Hylla and me in our rooms. If we sneaked out, he would yell at us and throw furniture and … well, he terrified us. At times, he even thought we were the enemies. He became convinced we were spying on him, trying to undermine him. Then the ghosts started appearing. I guess they’d always been there, but they picked up on my father’s agitation and began to manifest. They whispered to him, feeding his suspicions. Finally one day … I can’t tell you for sure when, I realized he had ceased to be my father. He had become one of the ghosts.’