The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

that book.’

XVIII
     

FRANK
     
    F RANK MIGHT HAVE LIKED V ENICE if it hadn’t been summertime and tourist season, and if the city wasn’t overrun with large hairy creatures. Between the rows of old houses and the canals, the stone pavements were already too narrow for the crowds jostling one another and stopping to take pictures. The monsters made things worse. They shuffled around with their heads down, bumping into mortals and sniffing the ground.
    One seemed to find something it liked at the edge of a canal. It nibbled and licked at a crack between the stones until it dislodged some sort of greenish root. The monster sucked it up happily and shambled along.
    ‘Well, they’re plant-eaters,’ Frank said. ‘That’s good news.’
    Hazel slipped her hand into his. ‘Unless they supplement their diet with demigods. Let’s hope not.’
    Frank was so pleased to be holding her hand that the crowds and the heat and the monsters suddenly didn’t seem so bad. He felt
needed
– useful.
    Not that Hazel required his protection. Anybody who’d seen her charging on Arion with her sword drawn would know she could take care of herself. Still, Frank liked being next to her, imagining he was her bodyguard. If any of these monsters tried to hurt her, Frank would gladly turn into a rhinoceros and push them into the canal.
    Could he do a rhino? Frank had never tried that before.
    Nico stopped. ‘There.’
    They’d turned onto a smaller street, leaving the canal behind. Ahead of them was a small plaza lined with five-storey buildings. The area was strangely deserted – as if the mortals could sense it wasn’t safe. In the middle of the cobblestone courtyard, a dozen shaggy cow creatures were sniffing around the mossy base of an old stone well.
    ‘A lot of cows in one place,’ Frank said.
    ‘Yeah, but look,’ Nico said. ‘Past that archway.’
    Nico’s eyes must’ve been better than his. Frank squinted. At the far end of the plaza, a stone archway carved with lions led into a narrow street. Just past the arch, one of the town houses was painted black – the only black building Frank had seen so far in Venice.
    ‘La Casa Nera,’ he guessed.
    Hazel’s grip tightened on his fingers. ‘I don’t like that plaza. It feels … cold.’
    Frank wasn’t sure what she meant. He was still sweating like crazy.
    But Nico nodded. He studied the town-house windows, most of which were covered with wooden shutters. ‘You’re right, Hazel. This neighbourhood is filled with
lemures .
’
    ‘Lemurs?’ Frank asked nervously. ‘I’m guessing you don’t mean the furry little guys from Madagascar?’
    ‘Angry ghosts,’ Nico said. ‘
Lemures
go back to Roman times. They hang around a lot of Italian cities, but I’ve never felt so many in one place. My mom told me …’ He hesitated. ‘She used to tell me stories about the ghosts of Venice.’
    Again Frank wondered about Nico’s past, but he was afraid to ask. He caught Hazel’s eye.
    Go ahead
, she seemed to be saying.
Nico needs practice talking to people.
    The sounds of assault rifles and atom bombs got louder in Frank’s head. Mars and Ares were trying to outsing each other with ‘Dixie’ and ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’. Frank did his best to push that aside.
    ‘Nico, your mom was Italian?’ he guessed. ‘She was from Venice?’
    Nico nodded reluctantly. ‘She met Hades here, back in the 1930s. As World War Two got closer, she fled to the U.S. with my sister and me. I mean … Bianca, my other sister. I don’t remember much about Italy, but I can still speak the language.’
    Frank tried to think of a response.
Oh, that’s nice
didn’t seem to cut it.
    He was hanging out with not one but
two
demigods who’d been pulled out of time. They were both, technically, about seventy years older than he was.
    ‘Must’ve been hard on your mom,’ Frank said. ‘I guess we’ll do anything for someone we love.’
    Hazel squeezed his hand appreciatively. Nico stared at the cobblestones. ‘Yeah,’ he said bitterly. ‘I guess we will.’
    Frank wasn’t sure what Nico was thinking. He had a hard time imagining Nico di Angelo acting out of love for anybody, except maybe Hazel. But Frank decided he’d gone as far as he dared with the personal questions.
    ‘So, the
lemures
 …’ He swallowed. ‘How do we avoid them?’
    ‘I’m already on it,’ Nico said. ‘I’m sending out the message that they should stay away and ignore us. Hopefully