The Demigod Diaries (The Heroes of Olympus)(10)

“What is it?” Thalia asked. “I know that look. You’re on to something.”

“Let me see the keyboard.” I sat at the computer and did a new Web search.

An article popped up immediately.

Thalia peered over my shoulder. “Luke, that would be perfect! But I thought that stuff was just a legend.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “If it’s real, how do we make it? There’s no recipe here.”

Hal rapped his knuckles on the desk to get our attention. His face was animated. He pointed at his bookshelves.

“Ancient history books,” Thalia said. “Hal’s right. A lot of those are really old. They probably have information that wouldn’t be on the Internet.”

All three of us ran to the shelves. We started pulling out books. Soon Hal’s library looked like it had been hit by a hurricane, but the old man didn’t seem to care. He tossed titles and flipped through pages as fast as we did. In fact, without him, we never would’ve found the answer. After lots of fruitless searching, he came racing over, tapping a page in an old leather-bound book.

I scanned the list of ingredients, and my excitement built. “This is it. The recipe for Greek fire.”

How had I known to search for it? Perhaps my dad, Hermes, the jack-of-all-trades god, was guiding me, since he’s got a way with potions and alchemy. Perhaps I’d seen the recipe somewhere before, and searching the apartment had triggered that memory.

Everything we needed was in this room. I’d seen all of the ingredients when we’d gone through the supplies from defeated demigods: pitch from the old torches, a bottle of godly nectar, alcohol from Hal’s first-aid kit…

Actually, I shouldn’t write down the whole recipe, even in this diary. If someone came across it and learned the secret of Greek fire…well, I don’t want to be responsible for burning down the mortal world.

I read to the end of the list. There was only one thing missing.

“A catalyst.” I looked at Thalia. “We need lightning.”

Her eyes widened. “Luke, I can’t. Last time—”

Hal dragged us to the computer and typed, You can summon lightning????

“Sometimes,” Thalia admitted. “It’s a Zeus thing. But I can’t do it indoors. And even if we were outside, I’d have trouble controlling the strike. Last time, I almost killed Luke.”

The hairs on my neck stood up as I remembered that accident.

“It’ll be fine.” I tried to sound confident. “I’ll prepare the mixture. When it’s ready, there’s an outlet under the computer. You can call down a lightning strike on the house and blast it through the electrical wiring.”

“And set the house on fire,” Thalia added.

Hal typed, You’ll do that anyway if you succeed. You do understand how dangerous Greek fire is?

I swallowed. “Yeah. It’s magical fire. Whatever it touches, it burns. You can’t put it out with water, or a fire extinguisher, or anything else. But if we can make enough for some kind of bomb and throw it at the leucrotae—”

“They’ll burn.” Thalia glanced at the old man. “Please tell me the monsters aren’t immune to fire.”

Hal knit his eyebrows. I don’t think so, he typed. But Greek fire will turn this room into an inferno. It will spread through the entire house in a matter of seconds.

I looked at the empty enclosure. According to Hal’s clock, we had roughly an hour before sunset. When those bars rose and the leucrotae attacked, we might have a chance—if we could surprise the monsters with an explosion, and if we could somehow get around them and reach the escape panel at the back of the cage without getting eaten or burned alive. Too many ifs.

My mind ran through a dozen different strategies, but I kept coming back to what Hal had said about sacrifice. I couldn’t escape the feeling there was no way all three of us could get out alive.

“Let’s make the Greek fire,” I said. “Then we’ll figure out the rest.”

Thalia and Hal helped me gather the things we needed. We started Hal’s stovetop and did some extremely dangerous cooking. Time passed too quickly. Outside in the hallway, the leucrotae growled and clacked their jaws.

The drapes on the window blocked out all sunlight, but the clock told us we were almost out of time.

My face beaded with sweat as I mixed the ingredients. Every time I blinked, I remembered Hal’s words on that computer screen, as if they’d been burned onto the back of my eyes: A sacrifice in your future. A choice. But also a betrayal.

What did he mean? I was sure he hadn’t told me everything. But one thing was clear: My future terrified him.

I tried to focus on my work. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I had no choice. Maybe Hermes was watching out for me, lending me some of his alchemy know-how. Or maybe I just got lucky. Finally I had a pot full of goopy black gunk, which I poured into an old glass jelly jar. I sealed the lid.

“There.” I handed the jar to Thalia. “Can you zap it? The glass should keep it from exploding until we break the jar.”

Thalia didn’t look thrilled. “I’ll try. I’ll have to expose some wiring in the wall. And to summon the lightning, that’ll take a few minutes of concentration. You guys should probably step back, in case…you know, I explode or something.”