The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(123)

Hazel chewed her lip. “It would be safer not to say her name. But stay alert. One thing I’m sure of: From this point on, the dead are stronger than the living.”

Frank wasn’t sure how she knew that, but he believed her. The voices in the darkness seemed to whisper louder. He caught glimpses of movement in the shadows. From the way his friends’ eyes darted around, he guessed they were seeing things too.

“Where are the monsters?” he wondered aloud. “I thought Gaea had an army guarding the Doors.”

“Don’t know,” Jason said. His pale skin looked as green as the poison from the chalice. “At this point I’d almost prefer a straight-up fight.”

“Careful what you wish for, man.” Leo summoned a ball of fire to his hand, and for once Frank was glad to see the flames. “Personally, I’m hoping nobody’s home. We walk in, find Percy and Annabeth, destroy the Doors of Death, and walk out. Maybe stop at the gift shop.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “That’ll happen.”

The tunnel shook. Rubble rained down from the ceiling.

Hazel grabbed Frank’s hand. “That was close,” she muttered. “These passageways won’t take much more.”

“The Doors of Death just opened again,” Nico said.

“It’s happening like every fifteen minutes,” Piper noted.

“Every twelve,” Nico corrected, though he didn’t explain how he knew. “We’d better hurry. Percy and Annabeth are close. They’re in danger. I can sense it.”

As they traveled deeper, the corridors widened. The ceilings rose to six meters high, decorated with elaborate paintings of owls in the branches of white poplars. The extra space should have made Frank feel better, but all he could think about was the tactical situation. The tunnels were big enough to accommodate large monsters, even giants. There were blind corners everywhere, perfect for ambushes. Their group could be flanked or surrounded easily. They would have no good options for retreat.

All of Frank’s instincts told him to get out of these tunnels. If no monsters were visible, that just meant they were hiding, waiting to spring a trap. Even though Frank knew that, there wasn’t much he could do about it. They had to find the Doors of Death.

Leo held his fire close to the walls. Frank saw Ancient Greek graffiti scratched into the stone. He couldn’t read Ancient Greek, but he guessed they were prayers or supplications to the dead, written by pilgrims thousands of years ago. The tunnel floor was littered with ceramic shards and silver coins.

“Offerings?” Piper guessed.

“Yes,” Nico said. “If you wanted your ancestors to appear, you had to make an offering.”

“Let’s not make an offering,” Jason suggested.

Nobody argued.

“The tunnel from here is unstable,” Hazel warned. “The floor might…well, just follow me. Step exactly where I step.”

She made her way forward. Frank walked right behind her—not because he felt particularly brave, but because he wanted to be close if Hazel needed his help. The voices of the war gods were arguing again in his ears. He could sense danger—very close now.

Fai Zhang.

He stopped cold. That voice…it wasn’t Ares or Mars. It seemed to come from right next to him, like someone whispering in his ear.

“Frank?” Jason whispered behind him. “Hazel, hold up a second. Frank, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Frank murmured. “I just—”

Pylos, the voice said. I await you in Pylos.

Frank felt like the poison was bubbling back up his throat. He’d been scared plenty of times before. He’d even faced the god of Death.

But this voice terrified him in a different way. It resonated right down to his bones, as if it knew everything about him—his curse, his history, his future.

His grandmother had always been big on honoring the ancestors. It was a Chinese thing. You had to appease ghosts. You had to take them seriously.

Frank always thought his grandmother’s superstitions were silly. Now he changed his mind. He had no doubt…the voice that spoke to him was one of his ancestors.

“Frank, don’t move.” Hazel sounded alarmed.

He looked down and realized he’d been about to step out of line.

To survive, you must lead, the voice said. At the break, you must take charge.

“Lead where?” he asked aloud.

Then the voice was gone. Frank could feel its absence, as if the humidity had suddenly dropped.

“Uh, big guy?” Leo said. “Could you not freak out on us? Please and thank you.”

Frank’s friends were all looking at him with concern.

“I’m okay,” he managed. “Just…a voice.”

Nico nodded. “I did warn you. It’ll only get worse. We should—”

Hazel held up her hand for silence. “Wait here, everybody.”

Frank didn’t like it, but she forged ahead alone. He counted to twenty-three before she came back, her face drawn and pensive.

“Scary room ahead,” she warned. “Don’t panic.”

“Those two things don’t go together,” Leo murmured. But they followed Hazel into the cavern.

The place was like a circular cathedral, with a ceiling so high it was lost in the gloom. Dozens of other tunnels led off in different directions, each echoing with ghostly voices. The thing that made Frank nervous was the floor. It was a gruesome mosaic of bones and gems—human femurs, hip bones, and ribs twisted and fused together into a smooth surface, dotted with diamonds and rubies. The bones formed patterns, like skeletal contortionists tumbling together, curling to protect the precious stones—a dance of death and riches.