The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5)(3)

Most looked like Lares from Camp Jupiter – transparent purple wraiths in tunics and sandals. A few revellers had decayed bodies with grey flesh, matted clumps of hair and nasty wounds. Others seemed to be regular living mortals – some in togas, some in modern business suits or army fatigues. Jason even spotted one guy in a purple Camp Jupiter T-shirt and Roman legionnaire armour.

In the centre of the atrium, a grey-skinned ghoul in a tattered Greek tunic paraded through the crowd, holding a marble bust over his head like a sports trophy. The other ghosts cheered and slapped him on the back. As the ghoul got closer, Jason noticed that he had an arrow in his throat, the feathered shaft sprouting from his Adam’s apple. Even more disturbing: the bust he was holding … was that Zeus?

It was hard to be sure. Most Greek god statues looked similar. But the bearded, glowering face reminded Jason very much of the giant Hippie Zeus in Cabin One at Camp Half-Blood.

‘Our next offering!’ the ghoul shouted, his voice buzzing from the arrow in his throat. ‘Let us feed the Earth Mother!’

The partiers yelled and pounded their cups. The ghoul made his way to the central fountain. The crowd parted, and Jason realized the fountain wasn’t filled with water. From the three-foot-tall pedestal, a geyser of sand spewed upward, arcing into an umbrella-shaped curtain of white particles before spilling into the circular basin.

The ghoul heaved the marble bust into the fountain. As soon as Zeus’s head passed through the shower of sand, the marble disintegrated like it was going through a wood chipper. The sand glittered gold, the colour of ichor – godly blood. Then the entire mountain rumbled with a muffled BOOM, as if belching after a meal.

The dead partygoers roared with approval.

‘Any more statues?’ the ghoul shouted to the crowd. ‘No? Then I guess we’ll have to wait for some real gods to sacrifice!’

His comrades laughed and applauded as the ghoul plopped himself down at the nearest feast table.

Jason clenched his walking stick. ‘That guy just disintegrated my dad. Who does he think he is?’

‘I’m guessing that’s Antinous,’ said Annabeth, ‘one of the suitors’ leaders. If I remember right, it was Odysseus who shot him through the neck with that arrow.’

Piper winced. ‘You’d think that would keep a guy down. What about all the others? Why are there so many?’

‘I don’t know,’ Annabeth said. ‘Newer recruits for Gaia, I guess. Some must’ve come back to life before we closed the Doors of Death. Some are just spirits.’

‘Some are ghouls,’ Jason said. ‘The ones with the gaping wounds and the grey skin, like Antinous … I’ve fought their kind before.’

Piper tugged at her blue harpy feather. ‘Can they be killed?’

Jason remembered a quest he’d taken for Camp Jupiter years ago in San Bernardino. ‘Not easily. They’re strong and fast and intelligent. Also, they eat human flesh.’

‘Fantastic,’ Annabeth muttered. ‘I don’t see any option except to stick to the plan. Split up, infiltrate, find out why they’re here. If things go bad –’

‘We use the backup plan,’ Piper said.

Jason hated the backup plan.

Before they left the ship, Leo had given each of them an emergency flare the size of a birthday candle. Supposedly, if they tossed one in the air, it would shoot upward in a streak of white phosphorus, alerting the Argo II that the team was in trouble. At that point, Jason and the girls would have a few seconds to take cover before the ship’s catapults fired on their position, engulfing the palace in Greek fire and bursts of Celestial bronze shrapnel.

Not the safest plan, but at least Jason had the satisfaction of knowing that he could call an air strike on this noisy mob of dead guys if the situation got dicey. Of course, that was assuming he and his friends could get away. And assuming Leo’s doomsday candles didn’t go off by accident – Leo’s inventions sometimes did that – in which case the weather would get much hotter, with a ninety percent chance of fiery apocalypse.

‘Be careful down there,’ he told Piper and Annabeth.

Piper crept around the left side of the ridge. Annabeth went right. Jason pulled himself up with his walking stick and hobbled towards the ruins.

He flashed back to the last time he’d plunged into a mob of evil spirits, in the House of Hades. If it hadn’t been for Frank Zhang and Nico di Angelo …

Gods … Nico.

Over the past few days, every time Jason sacrificed a portion of a meal to Jupiter, he prayed to his dad to help Nico. That kid had gone through so much, and yet he had volunteered for the most difficult job: transporting the Athena Parthenos statue to Camp Half-Blood. If he didn’t succeed, the Roman and Greek demigods would slaughter each other. Then, no matter what happened in Greece, the Argo II would have no home to return to.

Jason passed through the palace’s ghostly gateway. He realized just in time that a section of mosaic floor in front of him was an illusion covering a ten-foot-deep excavation pit. He sidestepped it and continued into the courtyard.

The two levels of reality reminded him of the Titan stronghold on Mount Othrys – a disorienting maze of black marble walls that randomly melted into shadow and solidified again. At least during that fight Jason had had a hundred legionnaires at his side. Now all he had was an old man’s body, a stick and two friends in slinky dresses.