The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(19)

“Stealing my stuff!” Leo yelled, and he ran for the stairs.

LEO WAS VAGUELY AWARE OF HAZEL SHOUTING, “Go! I’ll take care of Nico!”

As if Leo was going to turn back. Sure, he hoped di Angelo was okay, but he had headaches of his own.

Leo bounded up the steps, with Jason and Frank behind him.

The situation on deck was even worse than he’d feared.

Coach Hedge and Piper were struggling against their duct tape bonds while one of the demon monkey dwarfs danced around the deck, picking up whatever wasn’t tied down and sticking it in his bag. He was maybe four feet tall, even shorter than Coach Hedge, with bowed legs and chimp-like feet, his clothes so loud they gave Leo vertigo. His green-plaid pants were pinned at the cuffs, and held up with bright-red suspenders over a striped pink-and-black woman’s blouse. He wore half a dozen gold watches on each arm, and a zebra-patterned cowboy hat with a price tag dangling from the brim. His skin was covered with patches of scraggly red fur, though ninety percent of his body hair seemed to be concentrated in his magnificent eyebrows.

Leo was just forming the thought Where’s the other dwarf? when he heard a click behind him and realized he’d led his friends into a trap.

“Duck!” He hit the deck as the explosion blasted his eardrums.

Note to self, Leo thought groggily. Do not leave boxes of magic grenades where dwarfs can reach them.

At least he was alive. Leo had been experimenting with all sorts of weapons based on the Archimedes sphere that he’d recovered in Rome. He’d built grenades that could spray acid, fire, shrapnel, or freshly buttered popcorn. (Hey, you never knew when you’d get hungry in battle.) Judging from the ringing in Leo’s ears, the dwarf had detonated the flash-bang grenade, which Leo had filled with a rare vial of Apollo’s music, pure liquid extract. It didn’t kill, but it left Leo feeling like he’d just done a belly flop off the deep end.

He tried to get up. His limbs were useless. Someone was tugging at his waist, maybe a friend trying to help him up? No. His friends didn’t smell like heavily perfumed monkey cages.

He managed to turn over. His vision was out of focus and tinted pink, like the world had been submerged in strawberry jelly. A grinning, grotesque face loomed over him. The brown-furred dwarf was dressed even worse than his friend, in a green bowler hat like a leprechaun’s, dangly diamond earrings, and a white-and-black referee’s shirt. He showed off the prize he’d just stolen—Leo’s tool belt—then danced away.

Leo tried to grab him, but his fingers were numb. The dwarf frolicked over to the nearest ballista, which his red-furred friend was priming to launch.

The brown-furred dwarf jumped onto the projectile like it was a skateboard, and his friend shot him into the sky.

Red Fur pranced over to Coach Hedge. He gave the satyr a big smack on the cheek, then skipped to the rail. He bowed to Leo, doffing his zebra cowboy hat, and did a backflip over the side.

Leo managed to get up. Jason was already on his feet, stumbling and running into things. Frank had turned into a silverback gorilla (why, Leo wasn’t sure; maybe to commune with the monkey dwarfs?) but the flash grenade had hit him hard. He was sprawled on the deck with his tongue hanging out and his gorilla eyes rolled up in his head.

“Piper!” Jason staggered to the helm and carefully pulled the gag out of her mouth.

“Don’t waste your time on me!” she said. “Go after them!”

At the mast, Coach Hedge mumbled, “HHHmmmmm-hmmm!”

Leo figured that meant: “KILL THEM!” Easy translation, since most of the coach’s sentences involved the word kill.

Leo glanced at the control console. His Archimedes sphere was gone. He put his hand to his waist, where his tool belt should have been. His head started to clear, and his sense of outrage came to a boil. Those dwarfs had attacked his ship. They’d stolen his most precious possessions.

Below him spread the city of Bologna—a jigsaw puzzle of red-tiled buildings in a valley hemmed by green hills. Unless Leo could find the dwarfs somewhere in that maze of streets…Nope. Failure wasn’t an option. Neither was waiting for his friends to recover.

He turned to Jason. “You feeling good enough to control the winds? I need a lift.”

Jason frowned. “Sure, but—”

“Good,” Leo said. “We’ve got some monkey dudes to catch.”

Jason and Leo touched down in a big piazza lined with white marble government buildings and outdoor cafés. Bikes and Vespas clogged the surrounding streets, but the square itself was empty except for pigeons and a few old men drinking espresso.

None of the locals seemed to notice the huge Greek warship hovering over the piazza, or the fact that Jason and Leo had just flown down, Jason wielding a gold sword, and Leo…well, Leo pretty much empty-handed.

“Where to?” Jason asked.

Leo stared at him. “Well, I dunno. Let me pull my dwarf-tracking GPS out of my tool belt.… Oh, wait! I don’t have a dwarf-tracking GPS—or my tool belt!”

“Fine,” Jason grumbled. He glanced up at the ship as if to get his bearings, then pointed across the piazza. “The ballista fired the first dwarf in that direction, I think. Come on.”

They waded through a lake of pigeons, then maneuvered down a side street of clothing stores and gelato shops. The sidewalks were lined with white columns covered in graffiti. A few panhandlers asked for change (Leo didn’t know Italian, but he got the message loud and clear).