The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5)(13)

They plummeted towards the volcano as their largest piece of luggage – the forty-foot-tall Athena Parthenos – trailed after them, leashed to a harness on Nico’s back like a very ineffective parachute.

‘That’s Vesuvius below us!’ Reyna shouted over the wind. ‘Nico, teleport us out of here!’

His eyes were wild and unfocused. His dark feathery hair whipped around his face like a raven shot out of the sky. ‘I – I can’t! No strength!’

Coach Hedge bleated. ‘News flash, kid! Goats can’t fly! Zap us out of here or we’re gonna get flattened into an Athena Parthenos omelette!’

Reyna tried to think. She could accept death if she had to, but if the Athena Parthenos was destroyed their quest would fail. Reyna could not accept that.

‘Nico, shadow-travel,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll lend you my strength.’

He stared at her blankly. ‘How –’

‘Do it!’

She tightened her grip on his hand. The torch-and-sword symbol of Bellona on her forearm grew painfully hot, as if it were being seared into her skin for the first time.

Nico gasped. Colour returned to his face. Just before they hit the volcano’s steam plume, they slipped into shadows.

The air turned frigid. The sound of the wind was replaced by a cacophony of voices whispering in a thousand languages. Reyna’s insides felt like a giant piragua – cold syrup trickled over crushed ice – her favourite treat from her childhood in Viejo San Juan.

She wondered why that memory would surface now, when she was on the verge of death. Then her vision cleared. Her feet rested on solid ground.

The eastern sky had begun to lighten. For a moment Reyna thought she was back in New Rome. Doric columns lined an atrium the size of a baseball diamond. In front of her, a bronze faun stood in the middle of a sunken fountain decorated with mosaic tile.

Crepe myrtles and rosebushes bloomed in a nearby garden. Palm trees and pines stretched skyward. Cobblestone paths led from the courtyard in several directions – straight, level roads of good Roman construction, edging low stone houses with colonnaded porches.

Reyna turned. Behind her, the Athena Parthenos stood intact and upright, dominating the courtyard like a ridiculously oversized lawn ornament. The little bronze faun in the fountain had both his arms raised, facing Athena, so he seemed to be cowering in fear of the new arrival.

On the horizon, Mount Vesuvius loomed – a dark, humpbacked shape now several miles away. Thick pillars of steam curled from the crest.

‘We’re in Pompeii,’ Reyna realized.

‘Oh, that’s not good,’ Nico said, and he immediately collapsed.

‘Whoa!’ Coach Hedge caught him before he hit the ground. The satyr propped him against Athena’s feet and loosened the harness that attached Nico to the statue.

Reyna’s own knees buckled. She’d expected some backlash; it happened every time she shared her strength. But she hadn’t anticipated so much raw anguish from Nico di Angelo. She sat down heavily, just managing to stay conscious.

Gods of Rome. If this was only a portion of Nico’s pain … how could he bear it?

She tried to steady her breathing while Coach Hedge rummaged through his camping supplies. Around Nico’s boots, the stones cracked. Dark seams radiated outwards like a shotgun blast of ink, as if Nico’s body were trying to expel all the shadows he’d travelled through.

Yesterday had been worse: an entire meadow withering, skeletons rising from the earth. Reyna wasn’t anxious for that to happen again.

‘Drink something.’ She offered him a canteen of unicorn draught – powdered horn mixed with sanctified water from the Little Tiber. They’d found it worked on Nico better than nectar, helping to cleanse the fatigue and darkness from his system with less danger of spontaneous combustion.

Nico gulped it down. He still looked terrible. His skin had a bluish tint. His cheeks were sunken. Hanging at his side, the sceptre of Diocletian glowed angry purple, like a radioactive bruise.

He studied Reyna. ‘How did you do that … that surge of energy?’

Reyna turned her forearm. The tattoo still burned like hot wax: the symbol of Bellona, SPQR, with four lines for her years of service. ‘I don’t like to talk about it,’ she said, ‘but it’s a power from my mother. I can impart strength to others.’

Coach Hedge looked up from his rucksack. ‘Seriously? Why haven’t you hooked me up, Roman girl? I want super-muscles!’

Reyna frowned. ‘It doesn’t work like that, Coach. I can only do it in life-and-death situations, and it’s more useful in large groups. When I command troops, I can share whatever attributes I have – strength, courage, endurance – multiplied by the size of my forces.’

Nico arched an eyebrow. ‘Useful for a Roman praetor.’

Reyna didn’t answer. She preferred not to speak of her power for exactly this reason. She didn’t want the demigods under her command to think she was controlling them, or that she’d become a leader because she had some special magic. She could only share the qualities she already possessed, and she couldn’t help anyone who wasn’t worthy of being a hero.

Coach Hedge grunted. ‘Too bad. Super-muscles would be nice.’ He went back to sorting through his pack, which seemed to hold a bottomless supply of cooking utensils, survivalist gear and random sports equipment.