The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus #2)(67)

The basilisk did the smart thing. It turned to flee. In a blur of motion, the skeleton pulled something from his shirt and flung it across the clearing, impaling the basilisk in the dirt. Frank thought it was a knife. Then he realized it was one of the skeleton’s own ribs.

Frank was glad his stomach was empty. “That…that was gross.”

The skeleton stumbled over to the basilisk. It pulled out its rib and used it to cut off the creature’s head. The basilisk dissolved into ashes. Then the skeleton decapitated the other two monster carcasses and kicked all the ashes to disperse them. Frank remembered the two gorgons in the Tiber—the way the river had pulled apart their remains to keep them from re-forming. “You’re making sure they don’t come back,” Frank realized.

“Or slowing them down, anyway.”

The skeleton warrior stood at attention in front of Frank. Its poisoned foot and hand were mostly gone. Its head was still burning.

“What—what are you?” Frank asked. He wanted to add, Please don’t hurt me.

The skeleton saluted with its stump of a hand. Then it began to crumble, sinking back into the ground.

“Wait!” Frank said. “I don’t even know what to call you! Tooth Man? Bones? Gray?”

As its face disappeared beneath the dirt, the warrior seemed to grin at the last name—or maybe that was just its skeletal teeth showing. Then it was gone, leaving Frank alone with his pointless spear.

“Gray,” he muttered. “Okay ... but...”

He examined the tip of his spear. Already, a new dragon tooth was starting to grow out of the golden shaft.

You get three charges out of it, Mars had said, so use it wisely.

Frank heard footsteps behind him. Percy and Hazel ran into the clearing. Percy looked better, except he was carrying a-tie-dyed man satchel from R.O.F.L.—definitely not his style. Riptide was in his hand. Hazel had drawn her spatha.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Percy turned in a circle, looking for enemies. “Iris told us you were out here battling the basilisks by yourself, and we were like, What? We came as fast as we could. What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Frank admitted.

Hazel crouched next to the dirt where Gray disappeared. “I sense death. Either my brother has been here or…the basilisks are dead?”

Percy stared at him in awe. “You killed them all?”

Frank swallowed. He already felt like enough of a misfit without trying to explain his new undead minion.

Three charges. Frank could call on Gray twice more. But he’d sensed malevolence in the skeleton. It was no pet. It was a vicious, undead killing force, barely controlled by the power of Mars. Frank got the feeling it would do what he said—but if his friends happened to be in the line of fire, oh well. And if Frank was a little slow giving it directions, it might start killing whatever was in its path, including its master.

Mars had told him the spear would give him breathing room until he learned to use his mother’s talents. Which meant Frank needed to learn those talents—fast.

“Thanks a lot, Dad,” he grumbled.

“What?” Hazel asked. “Frank, are you okay?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said. “Right now, there’s a blind man in Portland we’ve got to see.”

XXV

PERCY ALREADY FELT LIKE THE lamest demigod in the history of lame. The purse was the final insult.

They’d left R.O.F.L. in a hurry, so maybe Iris hadn’t meant the bag as a criticism. She’d quickly stuffed it with vitamin-enriched pastries, dried fruit leather, macrobiotic beef jerky, and a few crystals for good luck. Then she’d shoved it at Percy:

Here, you’ll need this. Oh, that looks good.The purse—sorry, masculine accessory bag—was rainbow tie-dyed with a peace symbol stitched in wooden beads and the slogan Hug the Whole World. Percy wished it said Hug the Commode. He felt like the bag was a comment on his mas sive, incredible uselessness. As they sailed north, he put the man satchel as far away from him as he could, but the boat was small.

He couldn’t believe how he’d broken down when his friends had needed him. First, he’d been dumb enough to leave them alone when he had run back to the boat, and Hazel had gotten kidnapped. Then he’d watched that army marching south and had some kind of nervous breakdown.

Embarrassing? Yeah. But he couldn’t help it. When he’d seen those evil centaurs and Cyclopes, it had seemed so wrong, so backward, that he thought his head would explode. And the giant Polybotes…that giant had given him a feeling the opposite of what he felt when he stood in the ocean. Percy’s energy had drained out of him, leaving him weak and feverish, like his insides were eroding.

Iris’s medicinal tea had helped his body feel better, but his mind still hurt. He’d heard stories about amputees who had phantom pains where their missing legs and arms used to be. That’s how his mind felt—like his missing memories were aching.

Worst of all, the farther north Percy went, the more those memories faded. He had started to feel better at Camp Jupiter, remembering random names and faces. But now even Annabeth’s face was getting dimmer. At R.O.F.L., when he’d tried to send an Iris-message to Annabeth, Fleecy had just shaken her head sadly.

It’s like you’re dialing somebody, she said, but you’ve forgotten the number. Or someone is jamming the signal. Sorry, dear. I just can’t connect you.