The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5)(66)

Percy spread his hands. ‘At least the Olympians are trying. After the last Titan war, they started paying more attention to the other gods. A lot of them have cabins now at Camp Half-Blood: Hecate, Hades, Hebe, Hypnos … uh, and probably some that don’t begin with H, too. We give them offerings at every meal, cool banners, special recognition in the end-of-summer programme –’

‘And do I get such offerings?’ Kym asked.

‘Well … no. We didn’t know you existed. But –’

‘Then save your words, brother.’ Kym’s jellyfish-tentacle hair floated towards him, as if anxious to paralyse new prey. ‘I have heard so much about the great Percy Jackson. The giants are quite obsessed with capturing you. I must say … I don’t see what the fuss is about.’

‘Thanks, sis. But, if you’re going to try to kill me, I gotta warn you it’s been tried before. I’ve faced a lot of goddesses recently – Nike, Akhlys, even Nyx herself. Compared to them, you’re not scaring me. Also, you laugh like a dolphin.’

Kym’s delicate nostrils flared. Jason got his sword ready.

‘Oh, I won’t kill you,’ Kym said. ‘My part of the bargain was simply to get your attention. Someone else is here, though, who very much wants to kill you.’

Above them, at the edge of the broken roof, a dark shape appeared – a figure even taller than Kymopoleia.

‘The son of Neptune,’ boomed a deep voice.

The giant floated down. Clouds of dark viscous fluid – poison, perhaps – curled from his blue skin. His green breastplate was fashioned to resemble a cluster of open hungry mouths. In his hands were the weapons of a retiarius – a trident and a weighted net.

Jason had never met this particular giant, but he’d heard stories. ‘Polybotes,’ he said, ‘the anti-Poseidon.’

The giant shook his dreadlocks. A dozen serpents swam free – each one lime green with a frilled crown around its head. Basilisks.

‘Indeed, son of Rome,’ the giant said. ‘But, if you’ll excuse me, my immediate business is with Perseus Jackson. I tracked him all the way across Tartarus. Now, here in his father’s ruins, I mean to crush him once and for all.’

XXVII

Jason

JASON HATED BASILISKS.

The little scum-suckers loved to burrow under the temples in New Rome. Back when Jason was a centurion, his cohort always got the unpopular chore of clearing out their nests.

A basilisk didn’t look like much – just an arm-length serpent with yellow eyes and a white frill collar – but it moved fast and could kill anything it touched. Jason had never faced more than two at a time. Now a dozen were swimming around the giant’s legs. The only good thing: underwater, basilisks wouldn’t be able to breathe fire, but that didn’t make them any less deadly.

Two of the serpents shot towards Percy. He sliced them in half. The other ten swirled around him, just out of blade’s reach. They writhed back and forth in a hypnotic pattern, looking for an opening. One bite, one touch was all it would take.

‘Hey!’ Jason yelled. ‘How about some love over here?’

The snakes ignored him.

So did the giant, who stood back and watched with a smug smile, apparently happy for his pets to do the killing.

‘Kymopoleia.’ Jason tried his best to pronounce her name right. ‘You have to stop this.’

She regarded him with her glowing white eyes. ‘Why would I do that? The Earth Mother has promised me unrestricted power. Could you make me a better offer?’

A better offer …

He sensed the possibility of an opening – room to negotiate. But what did he have that a storm goddess would want?

The basilisks closed in on Percy. He blasted them away with currents of water, but they just kept circling.

‘Hey, basilisks!’ Jason yelled.

Still no reaction. He could charge in and help, but even together he and Percy couldn’t possibly fight off ten basilisks at once. He needed a better solution.

He glanced up. A thunderstorm raged above, but they were hundreds of feet down. He couldn’t possibly summon lightning at the bottom of the sea, could he? Even if he could, water conducted electricity a little too well. He might fry Percy.

But he couldn’t think of a better option. He thrust up his sword. Immediately the blade glowed red-hot.

A diffuse cloud of yellow light billowed through the depths, like someone had poured liquid neon into the water. The light hit Jason’s sword and sprayed outwards in ten separate tendrils, zapping the basilisks.

Their eyes went dark. Their frills disintegrated. All ten serpents turned belly-up and floated dead in the water.

‘Next time,’ Jason said, ‘look at me when I’m talking to you.’

Polybotes’s smile curdled. ‘Are you so anxious to die, Roman?’

Percy raised his sword. He hurled himself at the giant, but Polybotes swept his hand through the water, leaving an arc of black oily poison. Percy charged straight into it faster than Jason could yell, Dude, what are you thinking?

Percy dropped Riptide. He gasped, clawing at his throat. The giant threw his weighted net and Percy collapsed to the floor, hopelessly entangled as the poison thickened around him.

‘Let him go!’ Jason’s voice cracked with panic.

The giant chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, son of Jupiter. Your friend will take a long time to die. After all the trouble he’s caused me, I wouldn’t dream of killing him quickly.’