The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(17)

Leo had zoned out so totally he didn’t realize Jason was still talking.

“—the House of Hades,” he was saying. “Nico?”

Nico sat forward. “I communed with the dead last night.”

He just tossed that line out there, like he was saying he got a text from a buddy.

“I was able to learn more about what we’ll face,” Nico continued. “In ancient times, the House of Hades was a major site for Greek pilgrims. They would come to speak with the dead and honor their ancestors.”

Leo frowned. “Sounds like Día de los Muertos. My Aunt Rosa took that stuff seriously.”

He remembered being dragged by her to the local cemetery in Houston, where they’d clean up their relatives’ gravesites and put out offerings of lemonade, cookies, and fresh marigolds. Aunt Rosa would force Leo to stay for a picnic, as if hanging out with dead people were good for his appetite.

Frank grunted. “Chinese have that, too—ancestor worship, sweeping the graves in the springtime.” He glanced at Leo. “Your Aunt Rosa would’ve gotten along with my grandmother.”

Leo had a terrifying image of his Aunt Rosa and some old Chinese woman in wrestlers’ outfits, whaling on each other with spiked clubs.

“Yeah,” Leo said. “I’m sure they would’ve been best buds.”

Nico cleared his throat. “A lot of cultures have seasonal traditions to honor the dead, but the House of Hades was open year-round. Pilgrims could actually speak to the ghosts. In Greek, the place was called the Necromanteion, the Oracle of Death. You’d work your way through different levels of tunnels, leaving offerings and drinking special potions—”

“Special potions,” Leo muttered. “Yum.”

Jason flashed him a look like, Dude, enough. “Nico, go on.”

“The pilgrims believed that each level of the temple brought you closer to the Underworld, until the dead would appear before you. If they were pleased with your offerings, they would answer your questions, maybe even tell you the future.”

Frank tapped his mug of hot chocolate. “And if the spirits weren’t pleased?”

“Some pilgrims found nothing,” Nico said. “Some went insane, or died after leaving the temple. Others lost their way in the tunnels and were never seen again.”

“The point is,” Jason said quickly, “Nico found some information that might help us.”

“Yeah.” Nico didn’t sound very enthusiastic. “The ghost I spoke to last night…he was a former priest of Hecate. He confirmed what the goddess told Hazel yesterday at the crossroads. In the first war with the giants, Hecate fought for the gods. She slew one of the giants—one who’d been designed as the anti-Hecate. A guy named Clytius.”

“Dark dude,” Leo guessed. “Wrapped in shadows.”

Hazel turned toward him, her gold eyes narrowing. “Leo, how did you know that?”

“Kind of had a dream.”

No one looked surprised. Most demigods had vivid nightmares about what was going on in the world.

His friends paid close attention as Leo explained. He tried not to look at the wall images of Camp Half-Blood as he described the place in ruins. He told them about the dark giant, and the strange woman on Half-Blood Hill, offering him a multiple-choice death.

Jason pushed away his plate of pancakes. “So the giant is Clytius. I suppose he’ll be waiting for us, guarding the Doors of Death.”

Frank rolled up one of the pancakes and started munching—not a guy to let impending death stand in the way of a hearty breakfast. “And the woman in Leo’s dream?”

“She’s my problem.” Hazel passed a diamond between her fingers in a sleight of hand. “Hecate mentioned a formidable enemy in the House of Hades—a witch who couldn’t be defeated except by me, using magic.”

“Do you know magic?” Leo asked.

“Not yet.”

“Ah.” He tried to think of something hopeful to say, but he recalled the angry woman’s eyes, the way her steely grip made his skin smoke. “Any idea who she is?”

Hazel shook her head. “Only that…” She glanced at Nico, and some sort of silent argument happened between them. Leo got the feeling that the two of them had had private conversations about the House of Hades, and they weren’t sharing all the details. “Only that she won’t be easy to defeat.”

“But there is some good news,” Nico said. “The ghost I talked to explained how Hecate defeated Clytius in the first war. She used her torches to set his hair on fire. He burned to death. In other words, fire is his weakness.”

Everybody looked at Leo.

“Oh,” he said. “Okay.”

Jason nodded encouragingly, like this was great news—like he expected Leo to walk up to a towering mass of darkness, shoot a few fireballs, and solve all their problems. Leo didn’t want to bring him down, but he could still hear Gaea’s voice: He is the void that consumes all magic, the cold that consumes all fire, the silence that consumes all speech.

Leo was pretty sure it would take more than a few matches to set that giant ablaze.

“It’s a good lead,” Jason insisted. “At least we know how to kill the giant. And this sorceress…well, if Hecate believes Hazel can defeat her, then so do I.”