The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(21)

“Yes, the shiny ball is nice.” Passalos took off his cowboy hat. Like a magician producing a rabbit, he pulled out the Archimedes sphere and began tinkering with the ancient bronze dials.

“Stop!” Leo yelled. “That’s a delicate machine.”

Jason came to his side and glared up at the dwarfs. “Who are you two, anyway?”

“The Kerkopes!” Akmon narrowed his eyes at Jason. “I bet you’re a son of Jupiter, eh? I can always tell.”

“Just like Black Bottom,” Passalos agreed.

“Black Bottom?” Leo resisted the urge to jump at the dwarfs’ feet again. He was sure Passalos was going to ruin the Archimedes sphere any second now.

“Yes, you know.” Akmon grinned. “Hercules. We called him Black Bottom because he used to go around without clothes. He got so tan that his backside, well—”

“At least he had a sense of humor!” Passalos said. “He was going to kill us when we stole from him, but he let us go because he liked our jokes. Not like you two. Grumpy, grumpy!”

“Hey, I’ve got a sense of humor,” Leo snarled. “Give me back our stuff, and I’ll tell you a joke with a good punch line.”

“Nice try!” Akmon pulled a ratchet wrench from the tool belt and spun it like a noisemaker. “Oh, very nice! I’m definitely keeping this! Thanks, Blue Bottom!”

Blue Bottom?

Leo glanced down. His pants had slipped around his ankles again, revealing his blue undershorts. “That’s it!” he shouted. “My stuff. Now. Or I’ll show you how funny a flaming dwarf is.”

His hands caught fire.

“Now we’re talking.” Jason thrust his sword into the sky. Dark clouds began to gather over the piazza. Thunder boomed.

“Oh, scary!” Akmon shrieked.

“Yes,” Passalos agreed. “If only we had a secret lair to hide in.”

“Alas, this statue isn’t the doorway to a secret lair,” Akmon said. “It has a different purpose.”

Leo’s gut twisted. The fires died in his hands, and he realized something was very wrong. He yelled, “Trap!” and dove out of the fountain. Unfortunately, Jason was too busy summoning his storm.

Leo rolled on his back as five golden cords shot from the Neptune statue’s fingers. One barely missed Leo’s feet. The rest homed in on Jason, wrapping him like a rodeo calf and yanking him upside down.

A bolt of lightning blasted the tines of Neptune’s trident, sending arcs of electricity up and down the statue, but the Kerkopes had already disappeared.

“Bravo!” Akmon applauded from a nearby café table. “You make a wonderful piñata, son of Jupiter!”

“Yes!” Passalos agreed. “Hercules hung us upside down once, you know. Oh, revenge is sweet!”

Leo summoned a fireball. He lobbed it at Passalos, who was trying to juggle two pigeons and the Archimedes sphere.

“Eek!” The dwarf jumped free of the explosion, dropping the sphere and letting the pigeons fly.

“Time to leave!” Akmon decided.

He tipped his bowler and sprang away, jumping from table to table. Passalos glanced at the Archimedes sphere, which had rolled between Leo’s feet.

Leo summoned another fireball. “Try me,” he snarled.

“Bye!” Passalos did a backflip and ran after his brother.

Leo scooped up the Archimedes sphere and ran over to Jason, who was still hanging upside down, thoroughly hog-tied except for his sword arm. He was trying to cut the cords with his gold blade but having no luck.

“Hold on,” Leo said. “If I can find a release switch—”

“Just go!” Jason growled. “I’ll follow you when I get out of this.”

“But—”

“Don’t lose them!”

The last thing Leo wanted was some alone time with the monkey dwarfs, but the Kerkopes were already disappearing around the far corner of the piazza. Leo left Jason hanging and ran after them.

THE DWARFS DIDN’T TRY VERY HARD TO LOSE HIM, which made Leo suspicious. They stayed just at the edge of his vision, scampering over red-tiled rooftops, knocking over window boxes, whooping and hollering and leaving a trail of screws and nails from Leo’s tool belt—almost as if they wanted Leo to follow.

He jogged after them, cursing every time his pants fell down. He turned a corner and saw two ancient stone towers jutting into the sky, side by side, much taller than anything else in the neighborhood—maybe medieval watchtowers? They leaned in different directions like gearshifts on a race car.

The Kerkopes scaled the tower on the right. When they reached the top, they climbed around the back and disappeared.

Had they gone inside? Leo could see some tiny windows at the top, covered with metal grates; but he doubted those would stop the dwarfs. He watched for a minute, but the Kerkopes didn’t reappear. Which meant Leo had to get up there and look for them.

“Great,” he muttered. No flying friend to carry him up. The ship was too far away to call for help. He could jury-rig the Archimedes sphere into some sort of flying device, maybe, but only if he had his tool belt—which he didn’t. He scanned the neighborhood, trying to think. Half a block down, a set of double glass doors opened and an old lady hobbled out, carrying plastic shopping bags.