The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5)(43)

After trudging across the island in the afternoon heat, they found the cave perched halfway up a beachside cliff. Frank insisted that Piper wait for him at the bottom while he checked it out.

Piper wasn’t happy about that, but she stood obediently on the beach, squinting up at the cave entrance and hoping she hadn’t guided Frank into a death trap.

Behind her, a stretch of white sand hugged the foot of the hills. Sunbathers sprawled on blankets. Little kids splashed in the waves. The blue sea glittered invitingly.

Piper wished she could surf those waters. She’d promised to teach Hazel and Annabeth someday, if they ever came out to Malibu … if Malibu still existed after 1 August.

She glanced up at the cliff’s summit. The ruins of an old castle clung to the ridge. Piper wasn’t sure if that was part of the shape-changers’ hideout or not. Nothing moved on the parapets. The entrance of the cave sat about seventy feet down the cliff face – a circle of black in the chalky yellow rock like the hole of a giant pencil sharpener.

Nestor’s Cave, the Laundromat ghost had called it. Supposedly the ancient king of Pylos had stashed his treasure there in times of crisis. The ghost also claimed that Hermes had once hidden the stolen cattle of Apollo in that cave.

Cows.

Piper shuddered. When she was little, her dad had driven her past a meat-processing plant in Chino. The smell had been enough to turn her into a vegetarian. Ever since, just the thought of cows made her ill. Her experiences with Hera the cow queen, the katoblepones of Venice and the pictures of creepy death cows in the House of Hades hadn’t helped.

Piper was just starting to think, Frank’s been gone too long – when he appeared at the cave entrance. Next to him stood a tall grey-haired man in a white linen suit and a pale yellow tie. The older man pressed a small shiny object – like a stone or a piece of glass – into Frank’s hands. He and Frank exchanged a few words. Frank nodded gravely. Then the man turned into a seagull and flew away.

Frank picked his way down the trail until he reached Piper.

‘I found them,’ he said.

‘I noticed. You okay?’

He stared at the seagull as it flew towards the horizon.

Frank’s close-cropped hair pointed forward like an arrow, making his gaze even more intense. His Roman badges – mural crown, centurion, praetor – glittered on his shirt collar. On his forearm, the SPQR tattoo with the crossed spears of Mars stood out darkly in the full sunlight.

He looked good in his new outfit. The giant warthog had slimed his old clothes pretty badly, so Piper had taken him for some emergency shopping in Pylos. Now he wore new black jeans, soft leather boots and a dark green Henley shirt that fitted him snugly. He’d been self-conscious about the shirt. He was used to hiding his bulk in baggy clothes, but Piper assured him he didn’t have to worry about that any more. Since his growth spurt in Venice, he’d grown into his bulkiness just fine.

You haven’t changed, Frank, she’d told him. You’re just more you.

It was a good thing Frank Zhang was still so sweet and soft-spoken. Otherwise he would’ve been a scary guy.

‘Frank?’ she prompted gently.

‘Yeah, sorry.’ He focused on her. ‘My, uh … cousins, I guess you’d call them … they’ve been living here for generations, all descended from Periclymenus the Argonaut. I told them my story, how the Zhang family had gone from Greece to Rome to China to Canada. I told them about the legionnaire ghost I saw in the House of Hades, urging me to come to Pylos. They … they didn’t seem surprised. They said it’s happened before, long-lost relatives coming home.’

Piper heard the wistfulness in his voice. ‘You were expecting something different.’

He shrugged. ‘A bigger welcome. Some party balloons. I’m not sure. My grandmother told me I would close the circle – bring our family honour and all that. But my cousins here … they acted kind of cold and distant, like they didn’t want me around. I don’t think they liked that I’m a son of Mars. Honestly, I don’t think they liked that I’m Chinese, either.’

Piper glared into the sky. The seagull was long gone, which was probably a good thing. She would have been tempted to shoot it out of the air with a glazed ham. ‘If your cousins feel that way, they’re idiots. They don’t know how great you are.’

Frank shuffled from foot to foot. ‘They got a little more friendly when I told them I was just passing through. They gave me a going-away present.’

He opened his hand. In his palm gleamed a metallic vial no bigger than an eyedropper.

Piper resisted the urge to step away. ‘Is that the poison?’

Frank nodded. ‘They call it Pylosian mint. Apparently the plant sprang from the blood of a nymph who died on a mountain near here, back in ancient times. I didn’t ask for details.’

The vial was so tiny … Piper worried there wouldn’t be enough. Normally she didn’t wish for more deadly poison. Nor was she sure how it would help them make the so-called physician’s cure that Nike had mentioned. But, if the cure could really cheat death, Piper wanted to brew a six-pack – one dose for each of her friends.

Frank rolled the vial around in his palm. ‘I wish Vitellius Reticulus were here.’

Piper wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. ‘Ridiculous who?’