The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(55)

The dead saw what they believed they would see. So did the living.

Pluto was the god of the Underworld, the god of wealth. Maybe those two spheres of influence were more connected than Hazel had realized. There wasn’t much difference between longing and greed.

If she could summon gold and diamonds, why not summon another kind of treasure—a vision of the world people wanted to see?

Of course she could be wrong, in which case she and Jason were about to be turtle food.

She rested her hand on her jacket pocket, where Frank’s magical firewood seemed heavier than usual. She wasn’t just carrying his lifeline now. She was carrying the lives of the entire crew.

Jason stepped forward, his hands open in surrender. “I’ll go first, Sciron. I’ll wash your left foot.”

“Excellent choice!” Sciron wriggled his hairy, corpse-like toes. “I may have stepped on something with that foot. It felt a little squishy inside my boot. But I’m sure you’ll clean it properly.”

Jason’s ears reddened. From the tension in his neck, Hazel could tell that he was tempted to drop the charade and attack—one quick slash with his Imperial gold blade. But Hazel knew if he tried, he would fail.

“Sciron,” she broke in, “do you have water? Soap? How are we supposed to wash—”

“Like this!” Sciron spun his left flintlock. Suddenly it became a squirt bottle with a rag. He tossed it to Jason.

Jason squinted at the label. “You want me to wash your feet with glass cleaner?”

“Of course not!” Sciron knit his eyebrows. “It says multi-surface cleanser. My feet definitely qualify as multi-surface. Besides, it’s antibacterial. I need that. Believe me, water won’t do the trick on these babies.”

Sciron wiggled his toes, and more zombie café odor wafted across the cliffs.

Jason gagged. “Oh, gods, no…”

Sciron shrugged. “You can always choose what’s in my other hand.” He hefted his right flintlock.

“He’ll do it,” Hazel said.

Jason glared at her, but Hazel won the staring contest.

“Fine,” he muttered.

“Excellent! Now…” Sciron hopped to the nearest chunk of limestone that was the right size for a footstool. He faced the water and planted his foot, so he looked like some explorer who’d just claimed a new country. “I’ll watch the horizon while you scrub my bunions. It’ll be much more enjoyable.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I bet.”

Jason knelt in front of the bandit, at the edge of the cliff, where he was an easy target. One kick, and he’d topple over.

Hazel concentrated. She imagined she was Sciron, the lord of bandits. She was looking down at a pathetic blond-haired kid who was no threat at all—just another defeated demigod about to become his victim.

In her mind, she saw what would happen. She summoned the Mist, calling it from the depths of the earth the way she did with gold or silver or rubies.

Jason squirted the cleaning fluid. His eyes watered. He wiped Sciron’s big toe with his rag and turned aside to gag. Hazel could barely watch. When the kick happened, she almost missed it.

Sciron slammed his foot into Jason’s chest. Jason tumbled backward over the edge, his arms flailing, screaming as he fell. When he was about to hit the water, the turtle rose up and swallowed him in one bite, then sank below the surface.

Alarm bells sounded on the Argo II. Hazel’s friends scrambled on deck, manning the catapults. Hazel heard Piper wailing all the way from the ship.

It was so disturbing, Hazel almost lost her focus. She forced her mind to split into two parts—one intensely focused on her task, one playing the role Sciron needed to see.

She screamed in outrage. “What did you do?”

“Oh, dear…” Sciron sounded sad, but Hazel got the impression he was hiding a grin under his bandana. “That was an accident, I assure you.”

“My friends will kill you now!”

“They can try,” Sciron said. “But in the meantime, I think you have time to wash my other foot! Believe me, my dear. My turtle is full now. He doesn’t want you too. You’ll be quite safe, unless you refuse.”

He leveled the flintlock pistol at her head.

She hesitated, letting him see her anguish. She couldn’t agree too easily, or he wouldn’t think she was beaten.

“Don’t kick me,” she said, half-sobbing.

His eyes twinkled. This was exactly what he expected. She was broken and helpless. Sciron, the son of Poseidon, had won again.

Hazel could hardly believe this guy had the same father as Percy Jackson. Then she remembered that Poseidon had a changeable personality, like the sea. Maybe his children reflected that. Percy was a child of Poseidon’s better nature—powerful, but gentle and helpful, the kind of sea that sped ships safely to distant lands. Sciron was a child of Poseidon’s other side—the kind of sea that battered relentlessly at the coastline until it crumbled away, or carried the innocents from shore and let them drown, or smashed ships and killed entire crews without mercy.

She snatched up the spray bottle Jason had dropped.

“Sciron,” she growled, “your feet are the least disgusting thing about you.”

His green eyes hardened. “Just clean.”