The Son of Neptune

XXIV
Frank

FRANK SWEPT HIS SPEAR BACK AND FORTH. ‘Stay back!’ His voice sounded squeaky. ‘I’ve got … um … amazing powers – and stuff.’

The basilisks hissed in three-part harmony. Maybe they were laughing.

The spear tip was almost too heavy to lift now, as if the jagged white triangle of bone was trying to touch the earth. Then something clicked in the back of Frank’s mind: Mars had said the tip was a dragon’s tooth. Hadn’t there been some story about dragon’s teeth planted in the ground? Something he’d read in monster class at camp …?

The basilisks circled him, taking their time. Maybe they were hesitating because of the spear. Maybe they just couldn’t believe how stupid Frank was.

It seemed like madness, but Frank let the spear tip drop. He drove it into the ground. Crack.

When he lifted it out, the tip was gone – broken off in the dirt.

Wonderful. Now he had a golden stick.

Some crazy part of him wanted to bring out his piece of firewood. If he was going to die anyway, maybe he could set off a massive blaze – incinerate the basilisks, so at least his friends could get away.

Before he could get up the courage, the ground rumbled at his feet. Dirt spewed everywhere, and a skeletal hand clawed the air. The basilisks hissed and backed up.

Frank couldn’t blame them. He watched in horror as a human skeleton crawled out of the ground. It took on flesh as if someone were pouring gelatin over its bones, covering them in glowing, transparent grey skin. Then ghostly clothes enveloped it – a tight T-shirt, camo pants and army boots. Everything about the creature was grey: grey clothes on grey flesh on grey bones.

It turned towards Frank. Its skull grinned beneath an expressionless grey face. Frank whimpered like a puppy. His legs shook so badly he had to support himself with the spear shaft. The skeleton warrior was waiting, Frank realized – waiting for orders.

‘Kill the basilisks!’ he yelped. ‘Not me!’

The skeletal warrior leaped into action. He grabbed the nearest snake and, though his grey flesh began to smoke on contact, he strangled the basilisk with one hand and flung down its limp body. The other two basilisks hissed with rage. One sprang at Frank, but he knocked it aside with the butt of his spear.

The other snake belched fire directly in the skeleton’s face. The warrior marched forward and stomped the basilisk’s head under his boot.

Frank turned towards the last basilisk, which was curled at the edge of the clearing studying them. Frank’s Imperial gold spear shaft was steaming but, unlike his bow, it didn’t seem to be crumbling from the basilisk’s touch. The skeleton warrior’s right foot and hand were slowly dissolving from poison. His head was on fire, but otherwise he looked pretty good.

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? Grey?’

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.

‘Grey,’ 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 earth where Grey had 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 Grey 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.’