The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

Doors of Death shuddered in their chains.
    Be honoured, little demigods
, said the god of the pit.
Even the Olympians were never worthy of my personal attention. But
you
will be destroyed by Tartarus himself!

LXV
     

FRANK
     
    F RANK WAS HOPING FOR FIREWORKS.
    Or at least a big sign that read: WELCOME HOME!
    More than three thousand years ago, his Greek ancestor – good old Periclymenus the shape-shifter – had sailed east with the Argonauts. Centuries later, Periclymenus’s descendants had served in the eastern Roman legions. Then, through a series of misadventures, the family had ended up in China, finally emigrating to Canada in the twentieth century. Now Frank was back in Greece, which meant that the Zhang family had completely circled the globe.
    That seemed like cause for celebration, but the only welcoming committee was a flock of wild, hungry harpies who attacked the ship. Frank felt kind of bad as he shot them down with his bow. He kept thinking of Ella, their freakishly smart harpy friend from Portland. But these harpies weren’t Ella. They gladly would have chewed Frank’s face off. So he blasted them into clouds of dust and feathers.
    The Greek landscape below was just as inhospitable. The hills were strewn with boulders and stunted cedars, all shimmering in the hazy air. The sun beat down as if trying to hammer the countryside into a Celestial bronze shield. Even from a hundred feet up, Frank could hear the drone of cicadas buzzing in the trees – a sleepy, otherworldly sound that made his eyes heavy. Even the duelling voices of the war gods inside his head seemed to have dozed off. They had hardly bothered Frank at all since the crew had crossed into Greece.
    Sweat trickled down his neck. After being frozen below deck by that crazy snow goddess, Frank had thought he would never feel warm again, but now the back of his shirt was soaked.
    ‘Hot and steamy!’ Leo grinned at the helm. ‘Makes me homesick for Houston! What do you say, Hazel? All we need now are some giant mosquitoes, and it’ll feel just like the Gulf Coast!’
    ‘Thanks a lot, Leo,’ Hazel grumbled. ‘We’ll probably get attacked by Ancient Greek mosquito monsters now.’
    Frank studied the two of them, quietly marvelling how the tension between them had disappeared. Whatever had happened to Leo during his five days of exile, it had changed him. He still joked around, but Frank sensed something different about him – like a ship with a new keel. Maybe you couldn’t
see
the keel, but you could tell it was there by the way the ship cut through the waves.
    Leo didn’t seem so intent on teasing Frank. He chatted more easily with Hazel – not stealing those wistful, mooning glances that had always made Frank uncomfortable.
    Hazel had diagnosed the problem privately to Frank: ‘He met someone.’
    Frank was incredulous. ‘How? Where? How could you possibly know?’
    Hazel smiled. ‘I just do.’
    As if she were a child of Venus rather than Pluto. Frank didn’t get it.
    Of course he was relieved that Leo wasn’t hitting on his girl, but Frank was also kind of worried about Leo. Sure, they’d had their differences, but after all they’d been through together Frank didn’t want to see Leo get his heart broken.
    ‘There!’ Nico’s voice shook Frank out of his thoughts. As usual, di Angelo was perched atop the foremast. He pointed towards a glittering green river snaking through the hills a kilometre away. ‘Manoeuvre us that way. We’re close to the temple.
Very
close.’
    As if to prove his point, black lightning ripped through the sky, leaving dark spots before Frank’s eyes and making the hairs on his arms stand up.
    Jason strapped on his sword belt. ‘Everyone, arm yourself. Leo, get us close, but don’t land – no more contact with the ground than necessary. Piper, Hazel, get the mooring ropes.’
    ‘On it!’ Piper said.
    Hazel gave Frank a peck on the cheek and ran to help.
    ‘Frank,’ Jason called, ‘get below and find Coach Hedge.’
    ‘Yep!’
    He climbed downstairs and headed for Hedge’s cabin. As he neared the door, he slowed down. He didn’t want to surprise the satyr with any loud noises. Coach Hedge had ahabit of jumping into the gangway with his baseball bat if he thought attackers were on board. Frank had almost got his head taken off a couple of times on his way to the bathroom.
    He raised his hand to knock. Then he realized the door was cracked open. He heard Coach Hedge talking