The Son of Neptune

XXXIV
Frank

THEY STOPPED AT THE FRONT PORCH. As Frank had feared, a loose ring of campfires glowed in the woods, completely surrounding the property, but the house itself seemed untouched.

Grandmother’s wind chimes jangled in the night breeze. Her wicker chair sat empty, facing the road. Lights shone through the downstairs windows, but Frank decided against ringing the doorbell. He didn’t know how late it was, or if Grandmother was asleep or even home. Instead he checked the stone elephant statue in the corner – a tiny duplicate of the one in Portland. The spare key was still tucked under its foot.

He hesitated at the door.

‘What’s wrong?’ Percy asked.

Frank remembered the morning he’d opened this door for the military officer who had told him about his mother. He remembered walking down these steps to her funeral, holding his piece of firewood in his coat for the first time. He remembered standing here and watching the wolves come out of the woods – Lupa’s minions, who would lead him to Camp Jupiter. That seemed so long ago, but it had only been six weeks.

Now he was back. Would Grandmother hug him? Would she say, Frank, thank the gods you’ve come! I’m surrounded by monsters!

More likely she’d scold him, or mistake them for intruders and chase them off with a frying pan.

‘Frank?’ Hazel asked.

‘Ella is nervous,’ the harpy muttered from her perch on the railing. ‘The elephant – the elephant is looking at Ella.’

‘It’ll be fine.’ Frank’s hand was shaking so badly he could barely fit the key in the lock. ‘Just stay together.’

Inside, the house smelled closed-up and musty. Usually the air was scented with jasmine incense, but all the burners were empty.

They examined the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, which wasn’t right. Grandmother’s maid came every day – unless she’d been scared off by the giants.

Or eaten for lunch, Frank thought. Ella had said the Laistrygonians were cannibals.

He pushed that thought aside. Monsters ignored regular mortals. At least, they usually did.

In the parlour, Buddha statues and Taoist immortals grinned at them like psycho clowns. Frank remembered Iris, the rainbow goddess, who’d been dabbling in Buddhism and Taoism. Frank figured one visit to this creepy old house would cure her of that.

Grandmother’s large porcelain vases were strung with cobwebs. Again – that wasn’t right. She insisted that her collection be dusted regularly. Looking at the porcelain, Frank felt a twinge of guilt for having destroyed so many pieces the day of the funeral. It seemed silly to him now – getting angry at Grandmother when he had so many others to be angry at: Juno, Gaia, the giants, his dad Mars. Especially Mars.

The fireplace was dark and cold.

Hazel hugged her chest as if to keep the piece of firewood from jumping into the hearth. ‘Is that -’

‘Yeah,’ Frank said. ‘That’s it.’

‘That’s what?’ Percy asked.

Hazel’s expression was sympathetic, but that just made Frank feel worse. He remembered how terrified, how repulsed she had looked when he had summoned Grey.

‘It’s the fireplace,’ he told Percy, which sounded stupidly obvious. ‘Come on. Let’s check upstairs.’

The steps creaked under their feet. Frank’s old room was the same. None of his things had been touched – his extra bow and quiver (he’d have to grab those later), his spelling awards from school (yeah, he probably was the only non-dyslexic spelling champion demigod in the world, as if he weren’t enough of a freak already) and his photos of his mom – in her flak jacket and helmet, sitting on a Humvee in Kandahar Province; in her soccer coach uniform, the season she’d coached Frank’s team; in her military dress uniform, her hands on Frank’s shoulders, the time she’d visited his school for career day.

‘Your mother?’ Hazel asked gently. ‘She’s beautiful.’

Frank couldn’t answer. He felt a little embarrassed – a sixteen-year-old guy with a bunch of pictures of his mom. How hopelessly lame was that? But mostly he felt sad. Six weeks since he’d been here. In some ways it seemed like forever. But when he looked at his mom’s smiling face in those photos, the pain of losing her was as fresh as ever.

They checked the other bedrooms. The middle two were empty. A dim light flickered under the last door – Grandmother’s room.

Frank knocked quietly. No one answered. He pushed open her door. Grandmother lay in bed, looking gaunt and frail, her white hair spread around her face like a basilisk’s crown. A single candle burned on the nightstand. At her bedside sat a large man in beige Canadian Forces fatigues. Despite the gloom, he wore dark sunglasses with blood-red light glowing behind the lenses.

‘Mars,’ Frank said.

The god looked up impassively. ‘Hey, kid. Come on in. Tell your friends to take a hike.’

‘Frank?’ Hazel whispered. ‘What do mean, Mars? Is your grandmother … is she okay?’

Frank glanced at his friends. ‘You don’t see him?’

‘See who?’ Percy gripped his sword. ‘Mars? Where?’

The war god chuckled. ‘Nah, they can’t see me. Figured it was better this time. Just a private conversation – father/son, right?’

Frank clenched his fists. He counted to ten before he trusted himself to speak.

‘Guys, it’s … it’s nothing. Listen, why don’t you take the middle bedrooms?’

‘Roof,’ Ella said. ‘Roofs are good for harpies.’

‘Sure,’ Frank said in a daze. ‘There’s probably food in the kitchen. Would you give me a few minutes alone with my grandmother? I think she -’

His voice broke. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry or scream or punch Mars in the glasses – maybe all three.

Hazel laid her hand on his arm. ‘Of course, Frank. Come on, Ella, Percy.’

Frank waited until his friends’ steps had receded. Then he walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

‘Is it really you?’ he asked Mars. ‘This isn’t a trick or illusion or something?’

The god shook his head. ‘You’d prefer it if it wasn’t me?’

‘Yes,’ Frank confessed.

Mars shrugged. ‘Can’t blame you. Nobody welcomes war – not if they’re smart. But war finds everyone sooner or later. It’s inevitable.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Frank said. ‘War isn’t inevitable. It kills people. It -’

‘- took your mom,’ Mars finished.

Frank wanted to smack the calm look off his face, but maybe that was just Mars’s aura making him feel aggressive. He looked down at his grandmother, sleeping peacefully. He wished she would wake up. If anyone could take on a war god, his grandmother could.

‘She’s ready to die,’ Mars said. ‘She’s been ready for weeks, but she’s holding on for you.’

‘For me?’ Frank was so stunned he almost forgot his anger. ‘Why? How could she know I was coming back? I didn’t know!’

‘The Laistrygonians outside knew,’ Mars said. ‘I imagine a certain goddess told them.’

Frank blinked. ‘Juno?’

The war god laughed so loudly the windows rattled, but Grandmother didn’t even stir. ‘Juno? Boar’s whiskers, kid. Not Juno! You’re Juno’s secret weapon. She wouldn’t sell you out. No, I meant Gaia. Obviously she’s been keeping track of you. I think you worry her more than Percy or Jason or any of the seven.’

Frank felt like the room was tilting. He wished there were another chair to sit in. ‘The seven … you mean in the ancient prophecy, the Doors of Death? I’m one of the seven? And Jason, and -’

‘Yes, yes.’ Mars waved his hand impatiently. ‘Come on, boy. You’re supposed to be a good tactician. Think it through! Obviously your friends are being groomed for that mission, too, assuming you make it back from Alaska alive. Juno aims to unite the Greeks and Romans and send them against the giants. She believes it’s the only way to stop Gaia.’

Mars shrugged, clearly unconvinced of the plan. ‘Anyway, Gaia doesn’t want you to be one of the seven. Percy Jackson … she believes she can control him. All of the others have weaknesses she can exploit. But you – you worry her. She’d rather kill you right away. That’s why she summoned the Laistrygonians. They’ve been here for days, waiting.’

Frank shook his head. Was Mars playing some kind of trick? No way would a goddess be worried about Frank, especially when there was somebody like Percy Jackson to worry about.

‘No weaknesses?’ he asked. ‘I’m nothing but weaknesses. My life depends on a piece of wood!’

Mars grinned. ‘You’re selling yourself short. Anyway, Gaia has these Laistrygonians convinced that if they eat the last member of your family – that being you – they’ll inherit your family gift. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. But the Laistrygonians are hungry to try.’

Frank’s stomach twisted into a knot. Grey had killed six of the ogres, but judging from the campfires around the property, there were dozens more – all waiting to cook Frank for breakfast.

‘I’m going to throw up,’ he said.

‘No, you’re not.’ Mars snapped his fingers, and Frank’s queasiness disappeared. ‘Battle jitters. Happens to everybody.’

‘But my grandmother -’

‘Yeah, she’s been waiting to talk to you. The ogres have left her alone so far. She’s the bait, see? Now that you’re here, I imagine they’ve already smelled your presence. They’ll attack in the morning.’

‘Get us out of here, then!’ Frank demanded. ‘Snap your fingers and blow up the cannibals.’

‘Ha! That would be fun. But I don’t fight my kids’ battles for them. The Fates have clear ideas about what jobs belong to gods, and what has to be done by mortals. This is your quest, kid. And, uh, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, your spear won’t be ready to use again for twenty-four hours, so I hope you’ve learned how to use the family gift. Otherwise, you’re gonna be breakfast for cannibals.’

The family gift. Frank had wanted to talk with Grandmother about it, but now he had no one to consult but Mars. He stared at the war god, who was smiling with absolutely no sympathy.

‘Periclymenus.’ Frank sounded out the word carefully, like a spelling-bee challenge. ‘He was my ancestor, a Greek prince, an Argonaut. He died fighting Hercules.’

Mars rolled his hand in a ‘go on’ gesture.

‘He had an ability that helped him in combat,’ Frank said. ‘Some sort of gift from the gods. My mom said he fought like a swarm of bees.’

Mars laughed. ‘True enough. What else?’

‘Somehow, the family got to China. I think, like in the days of the Roman Empire, one of Pericylmenus’s descendants served in a legion. My mom used to talk about a guy named Seneca Gracchus, but he also had a Chinese name, Sung Guo. I think – well, this is the part I don’t know, but Reyna always said there were many lost legions. The Twelfth founded Camp Jupiter. Maybe there was another legion that disappeared into the east.’

Mars clapped silently. ‘Not bad, kid. Ever heard of the Battle of Carrhae? Huge disaster for the Romans. They fought these guys called the Parthians on the eastern border of the empire. Fifteen thousand Romans died. Ten thousand more were taken prisoner.’

‘And one of the prisoners was my ancestor Seneca Gracchus?’

‘Exactly,’ Mars agreed. ‘The Parthians put the captured legionnaires to work, since they were pretty good fighters. Except then Parthia got invaded again from the other direction -’

‘By the Chinese,’ Frank guessed. ‘And the Roman prisoners got captured again.’

‘Yeah. Kind of embarrassing. Anyway, that’s how a Roman legion got to China. The Romans eventually put down roots and built a new hometown called -’

‘Li-Jien,’ Frank said. ‘My mother said that was our ancestral home. Li-Jien. Legion.’

Mars looked pleased. ‘Now you’re getting it. And old Seneca Gracchus, he had your family’s gift.’

‘My mom said he fought dragons,’ Frank remembered. ‘She said he was … he was the most powerful dragon of all.’

‘He was good,’ Mars admitted. ‘Not good enough to avoid the bad luck of his legion, but good. He settled in China, passed the family gift to his kids, and so on. Eventually your family emigrated to North America and got involved with Camp Jupiter -’

‘Full circle,’ Frank finished. ‘Juno said I would bring the family full circle.’

‘We’ll see.’ Mars nodded at his grandmother. ‘She wanted to tell you all this herself, but I figured I’d cover some of it since the old bird hasn’t got much strength. So do you understand your gift?’

Frank hesitated. He had an idea, but it seemed crazy – even crazier than a family moving from Greece to Rome to China to Canada. He didn’t want to say it aloud. He didn’t want to be wrong and have Mars laugh at him. ‘I – I think so. But against an army of those ogres -’

‘Yeah, it’ll be tough.’ Mars stood and stretched. ‘When your grandmother wakes up in the morning, she’ll offer you some help. Then I imagine she’ll die.’

‘What? But I have to save her! She can’t just leave me.’

‘She’s lived a full life,’ Mars said. ‘She’s ready to move on. Don’t be selfish.’

‘Selfish!’

‘The old woman only stuck around this long out of a sense of duty. Your mom was the same way. That’s why I loved her. She always put her duty first, ahead of everything. Even her life.’

‘Even me.’

Mars took off his sunglasses. Where his eyes should’ve been, miniature spheres of fire boiled like nuclear explosions. ‘Self-pity isn’t helpful, kid. It isn’t worthy of you. Even without the family gift, your mom gave you your most important traits – bravery, loyalty, brains. Now you’ve got to decide how to use them. In the morning, listen to your grandmother. Take her advice. You can still free Thanatos and save the camp.’

‘And leave my grandmother behind to die.’

‘Life is only precious because it ends, kid. Take it from a god. You mortals don’t know how lucky you are.’

‘Yeah,’ Frank muttered. ‘Real lucky.’

Mars laughed – a harsh metallic sound. ‘Your mom used to tell me this Chinese proverb. Eat bitter -’

‘Eat bitter, taste sweet,’ Frank said. ‘I hate that proverb.’

‘But it’s true. What do they call it these days – no pain, no gain? Same concept. You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns out sour in the end. But if you take the hard path – ah, that’s how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something.’

Frank was so disgusted he could hardly speak. This was his father?

Sure, Frank understood about his mom being a hero. He understood she’d saved lives and been really brave. But she’d left him alone. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

‘I’ll be going,’ Mars promised. ‘But first – you said you were weak. That’s not true. You want to know why Juno spared you, Frank? Why that piece of wood didn’t burn yet? It’s because you’ve got a role to play. You think you’re not as good as the other Romans. You think Percy Jackson is better than you.’

‘He is,’ Frank grumbled. ‘He battled you and won.’

Mars shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe so. But every hero has a fatal flaw. Percy Jackson? He’s too loyal to his friends. He can’t give them up, not for anything. He was told that, years ago. And some day soon he’s going to face a sacrifice he can’t make. Without you, Frank – without your sense of duty – he’s going fail. The whole war will go sideways, and Gaia will destroy our world.’

Frank shook his head. He couldn’t hear this.

‘War is a duty,’ Mars continued. ‘The only real choice is whether you accept it, and what you fight for. The legacy of Rome is on the line – five thousand years of law, order, civilization. The gods, the traditions, the cultures that shaped the world you live in: it’s all going to crumble, Frank, unless you win this. I think that’s worth fighting for. Think about it.’

‘What’s mine?’ Frank asked.

Mars raised an eyebrow. ‘Your what?’

‘Fatal flaw. You said all heroes have one.’

The god smiled dryly. ‘You gotta answer that yourself, Frank. But you’re finally asking the right questions. Now, get some sleep. You need the rest.’

The god waved his hand. Frank’s eyes felt heavy. He collapsed, and everything went dark.

‘Fai,’ said a familiar voice, harsh and impatient.

Frank blinked his eyes. Sunlight streamed into the room.

‘Fai, get up. As much as I would like to slap that ridiculous face of yours, I am in no condition to get out of bed.’

‘Grandmother?’

She came into focus, looking down at him from the bed. He lay sprawled on the floor. Someone had put a blanket over him during the night and a pillow under his head, but he had no idea how it had happened.

‘Yes, my silly ox.’ Grandmother still looked horribly weak and pale, but her voice was as steely as ever. ‘Now, get up. The ogres have surrounded the house. We have much to discuss if you and your friends are to escape here alive.’