The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

say,
Well? Do you?
    Hazel calmed her nerves, trying to avoid pulling more gold from the ground. She remembered the dream she’d had of her father Pluto’s voice:
The dead see what they
believe
they will see. So do the living. That is the secret.
    She understood what she had to do. She hated the idea more than she hated that farting weasel, more than she hated Sciron’s feet.
    ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Hazel said. ‘We have to let Sciron win.’
    ‘What?’ Jason demanded.
    Hazel told him the plan.

XXVIII
     

HAZEL
     
    ‘F INALLY!’ S CIRON CRIED. ‘That was
much
longer than two minutes!’
    ‘Sorry,’ Jason said. ‘It was a big decision … which foot.’
    Hazel tried to clear her mind and imagine the scene through Sciron’s eyes – what he desired, what he expected.
    That
was the key to using the Mist. She couldn’t force someone to see the world her way. She couldn’t make Sciron’s reality appear
less
believable. But if she showed him what he wanted to see … well, she was a child of Pluto. She’d spent decades with the dead, listening to them yearn for past lives that were only half-remembered, distorted by nostalgia.
    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 knitted 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 odour 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 backwards over the edge, his arms flailing, screaming as hefell. When he was about to hit the water, the turtle rose up and swallowed him in one bite, then