Hazel’s whole body tingled. She glanced at her friends. ‘Jason,’ she whispered. ‘She fought Jason. He might still be alive.’
Frank nodded. ‘Do those other names mean anything to you?’
Hazel shook her head. She didn’t know any Leo or Piper at camp. Percy still looked sickly and dazed. If the names meant anything to him, he didn’t show it.
Hazel pondered what the Cyclops had said:
Below them, the army began to march south again, but the giant Polybotes stood to one side, frowning and sniffing the air.
‘Sea god,’ he muttered. To Hazel’s horror, he turned in their direction. ‘I smell sea god.’
Percy was shaking. Hazel put her hand on his shoulder and tried to press him flat against the rock.
The lady Cyclops Ma Gasket snarled. ‘Of course you smell sea god! The sea is right over there!’
‘More than that,’ Polybotes insisted. ‘I was born to destroy Neptune. I can sense …’ He frowned, turning his head and shaking out a few more snakes.
‘Do we march or sniff the air?’ Ma Gasket scolded. ‘I don’t get muffins, you don’t get sea god!’
Polybotes growled. ‘Very well. March! March!’ He took one last look at the rainbow-encased store, then raked his fingers through his hair. He brought out three snakes that seemed larger than the rest, with white markings around their necks. ‘A gift, goddess! My name, Polybotes, means “Many-to-Feed”! Here are some hungry mouths for you. See if your store gets many customers with these sentries outside.’
He laughed wickedly and threw the snakes into the tall grass on the hillside.
Then he marched south, his massive Komodo legs shaking the earth. Gradually, the last column of monsters passed over the hills and disappeared into the night.
Once they were gone, the blinding rainbow shut off like a spotlight.
Hazel, Frank and Percy were left alone in the dark, staring across the road at a closed-up convenience store.
‘That was different,’ Frank muttered.
Percy shuddered violently. Hazel knew he needed help, or rest, or something. Seeing that army seemed to have triggered some kind of memory, leaving him shell-shocked. They should get him back to the boat.
On the other hand, a huge stretch of grassland lay between them and the beach. Hazel got the feeling the
‘Let’s go to the store,’ she said. ‘If there’s a goddess inside, maybe she can help us.’
‘Except a bunch of snake things are guarding the hill now,’ Frank said. ‘And that burning rainbow might come back.’
They both looked at Percy, who was shaking like he had hypothermia.
‘We’ve got to try,’ Hazel said.
Frank nodded grimly. ‘Well … any goddess who throws a muffin at a giant can’t be all bad. Let’s go.’
XXI
Frank
FRANK HATED CHOCOLATE MUFFINS. He hated snakes. And he hated his life. Not necessarily in that order.
As he trudged up the hill, he wished that he could pass out like Hazel – just go into a trance and experience some other time, like before he got drafted for this insane quest, before he found out his dad was a godly drill sergeant with an ego problem.
His bow and spear slapped against his back. He hated the spear, too. The moment he got it, he silently swore he’d never use it.
Maybe there had been a mix-up. Wasn’t there some sort of DNA test for gods’ kids? Perhaps the godly nursery had accidentally switched Frank with one of Mars’s buff little bully babies. No way would Frank’s mother have got involved with that blustering war god.
Frank shook the thought out of his head. He was no prince or hero. He was a lactose-intolerant klutz, who couldn’t even protect his friend from getting kidnapped by wheat.
His new medals felt cold against his chest: the centurion’s crescent, the Mural Crown. He should’ve been proud of them, but he felt like he’d only got them because his dad had bullied Reyna.
Frank didn’t know how his friends could stand to be around him. Percy had made it clear that he hated Mars, and Frank couldn’t blame him. Hazel kept watching Frank out of the corner of her eye, like she was afraid he might turn into a muscle-bound freak.
Frank looked down at his body and sighed. Correction: even
She was right. Frank had a job to do. He had to complete this impossible quest, which at the moment meant reaching the convenience store alive.
As they got closer, Frank worried that the store might burst into rainbow light and vaporize them, but the building stayed dark. The snakes Polybotes had dropped seemed to have vanished.
They were twenty yards from the porch when something hissed in the grass behind them.
‘Go!’ Frank yelled.
Percy stumbled. While Hazel helped him up, Frank turned and nocked an arrow.
He shot blindly. He thought he’d grabbed an exploding arrow, but it was only a signal flare. It skidded through the grass, bursting into orange flame and whistling:
At least it illuminated the monster. Sitting in a patch of withered yellow grass was a lime-coloured snake as short and thick as Frank’s arm. Its head was ringed with a mane of spiky white fins. The creature stared at the arrow zipping by as if wondering,
Then it fixed its large, yellow eyes on Frank. It advanced like an inchworm, hunching up in the middle. Wherever it touched, the grass withered and died.
Frank heard his friends climbing the steps of the store. He didn’t dare turn and run. He and the snake studied each other. The snake hissed, flames billowing from its mouth.
‘Nice creepy reptile,’ Frank said, very aware of the driftwood in his coat pocket. ‘Nice poisonous, fire-breathing reptile.’
‘Frank!’ Hazel yelled behind him. ‘Come on!’
The snake sprang at him. It sailed through the air so fast, there wasn’t time to nock an arrow. Frank swung his bow and smacked the monster down the hill. It spun out of sight, wailing, ‘
Frank felt proud of himself until he looked at his bow, which was steaming where it had touched the snake. He watched in disbelief as the wood crumbled to dust.
He heard an outraged hiss, answered by two more hisses further downhill.
Frank dropped his disintegrating bow and ran for the porch. Percy and Hazel pulled him up the steps. When Frank turned, he saw all three monsters circling in the grass, breathing fire and turning the hillside brown with their poisonous touch. They didn’t seem able or willing to come closer to the store, but that wasn’t much comfort to