The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(33)

He glanced behind him. Under the stone arch, Nico di Angelo was holding his black Stygian iron sword, gesturing at Frank to hurry. At Nico’s feet, two puddles of darkness stained the pavement—no doubt the remains of the cow monsters that had chased them.

And Hazel…she was propped against the wall behind her brother. She wasn’t moving.

Frank ran toward them, forgetting about the monster herd. He rushed past Nico and grabbed Hazel’s shoulders. Her head slumped against her chest.

“She got a blast of green gas right in the face,” Nico said miserably. “I—I wasn’t fast enough.”

Frank couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Rage and despair battled inside him. He’d always been scared of Nico. Now he wanted to drop-kick the son of Hades into the nearest canal. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but Frank didn’t care. Neither did the war gods screaming in his head.

“We need to get her back to the ship,” Frank said.

The cow monster herd prowled cautiously just beyond the archway. They bellowed their foghorn cries. From nearby streets, more monsters answered. Reinforcements would soon have the demigods surrounded.

“We’ll never make it on foot,” Nico said. “Frank, turn into a giant eagle. Don’t worry about me. Get her back to the Argo II!”

With his face burning and the voices screaming in his mind, Frank wasn’t sure he could change shape; but he was about to try when a voice behind them said, “Your friends can’t help you. They don’t know the cure.”

Frank spun. Standing in the threshold of the Black House was a young man in jeans and a denim shirt. He had curly black hair and a friendly smile, though Frank doubted he was friendly. Probably he wasn’t even human.

At the moment, Frank didn’t care.

“Can you cure her?” he asked.

“Of course,” the man said. “But you’d better hurry inside. I think you’ve angered every katobleps in Venice.”

THEY BARELY MADE IT INSIDE.

As soon as their host threw the bolts, the cow monsters bellowed and slammed into the door, making it shudder on its hinges.

“Oh, they can’t get in,” the man in denim promised. “You’re safe now!”

“Safe?” Frank demanded. “Hazel is dying!”

Their host frowned as if he didn’t appreciate Frank ruining his good mood. “Yes, yes. Bring her this way.”

Frank carried Hazel as they followed the man farther into the building. Nico offered to help, but Frank didn’t need it. Hazel weighed nothing, and Frank’s body hummed with adrenaline. He could feel Hazel shivering, so at least he knew she was alive; but her skin was cold. Her lips had taken on a greenish tinge—or was that just Frank’s blurry vision?

His eyes still burned from the monster’s breath. His lungs felt like he’d inhaled a flaming cabbage. He didn’t know why the gas had affected him less than it had Hazel. Maybe she’d gotten more of it in her lungs. He would have given anything to change places if it meant saving her.

The voices of Mars and Ares yelled in his head, urging him to kill Nico and the man in denim and anyone else he could find, but Frank forced down the noise.

The house’s front room was some sort of greenhouse. The walls were lined with tables of plant trays under fluorescent lights. The air smelled of fertilizer solution. Maybe Venetians did their gardening inside, since they were surrounded by water instead of soil? Frank wasn’t sure, but he didn’t spend much time worrying about it.

The back room looked like a combination garage, college dorm, and computer lab. Against the left wall glowed a bank of servers and laptops, their screen savers flashing pictures of plowed fields and tractors. Against the right wall sat a single bed, a messy desk, and an open wardrobe filled with extra denim clothes and a stack of farm implements, like pitchforks and rakes.

The back wall was a huge garage door. Parked next to it was a red-and-gold chariot with an open carriage and a single axle, like the chariots Frank had raced at Camp Jupiter. Sprouting from the sides of the driver’s box were giant feathery wings. Wrapped around the rim of the left wheel, a spotted python snored loudly.

Frank hadn’t known that pythons could snore. He hoped he hadn’t done that himself in python form last night.

“Set your friend here,” said the man in denim.

Frank placed Hazel gently on the bed. He removed her sword and tried to make her comfortable, but she was as limp as a scarecrow. Her complexion definitely had a greenish tint.

“What were those cow things?” Frank demanded. “What did they do to her?”

“Katoblepones,” said their host. “Singular: katobleps. In English, it means down-looker. Called that because—”

“They’re always looking down.” Nico smacked his forehead. “Right. I remember reading about them.”

Frank glared at him. “Now you remember?”

Nico hung his head almost as low as a katobleps. “I, uh…used to play this stupid card game when I was younger. Mythomagic. The katobleps was one of the monster cards.”

Frank blinked. “I played Mythomagic. I never saw that card.”

“It was in the Africanus Extreme expansion deck.”

“Oh.”

Their host cleared his throat. “Are you two done, ah, geeking out, as they say?”