The Son of Neptune

XXXVI
Frank

FRANK TOOK THE QUICKEST POSSIBLE SHOWER, put on the clothes Hazel had set out – an olive-green shirt with beige cargo pants, really? – then grabbed his spare bow and quiver and bounded up the attic stairs.

The attic was full of weapons. His family had collected enough ancient armaments to supply an army. Shields, spears and quivers of arrows hung along one wall – almost as many as in the Camp Jupiter armoury. At the back window, a scorpion crossbow was mounted and loaded, ready for action. At the front window stood something that looked like a machine gun with a cluster of barrels.

‘Rocket launcher?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Nope, nope,’ said a voice from the corner. ‘Potatoes. Ella doesn’t like potatoes.’

The harpy had made a nest for herself between two old steamer trunks. She was sitting in a pile of Chinese scrolls, reading seven or eight at once.

‘Ella,’ Frank said, ‘where are the others?’

‘Roof.’ She glanced upward, then returned to her reading, alternately picking at her feathers and turning pages. ‘Roof. Ogre-watching. Ella doesn’t like ogres. Potatoes.’

‘Potatoes?’ Frank didn’t understand until he swivelled the machine gun around. Its eight barrels were loaded with spuds. At the base of the gun, a basket was filled with more edible ammunition.

He looked out of the window – the same window his mom had watched him from when he had met the bear. Down in the yard, the ogres were milling around, shoving each other, occasionally yelling at the house, and throwing bronze cannonballs that exploded in midair.

‘They have cannonballs,’ Frank said. ‘And we have a potato gun.’

‘Starch,’ Ella said thoughtfully. ‘Starch is bad for ogres.’

The house shook from another explosion. Frank needed to reach the roof and see how Percy and Hazel were doing, but he felt bad leaving Ella alone.

He knelt next to her, careful not to get too close. ‘Ella, it’s not safe here with the ogres. We’re going to be flying to Alaska soon. Will you come with us?’

Ella twitched uncomfortably. ‘Alaska. Six hundred twenty-six thousand, four hundred twenty-five square miles. State mammal: the moose.’

Suddenly she switched to Latin, which Frank could just barely follow thanks to his classes at Camp Jupiter: ‘To the north, beyond the gods, lies the legion’s crown. Falling from ice, the son of Neptune shall drown -’ She stopped and scratched her dishevelled red hair. ‘Hmm. Burnt. The rest is burnt.’

Frank could hardly breathe. ‘Ella, was … was that a prophecy? Where did you read that?’

‘Moose,’ Ella said, savouring the word. ‘Moose. Moose. Moose.’

The house shook again. Dust rained down from the rafters. Outside, an ogre bellowed, ‘Frank Zhang! Show yourself!’

‘Nope,’ Ella said. ‘Frank shouldn’t. Nope.’

‘Just … stay here, okay?’ Frank said. ‘I’ve got to go help Hazel and Percy.’

He pulled down the ladder to the roof.

‘Morning,’ Percy said grimly. ‘Beautiful day, huh?’

He wore the same clothes as the day before – jeans, his purple T-shirt and Polartec jacket – but they’d obviously been freshly washed. He held his sword in one hand and a garden hose in the other. Why there was a garden hose on the roof, Frank wasn’t sure, but every time the giants sent up a cannonball, Percy summoned a high-powered blast of water and detonated the sphere in midair. Then Frank remembered – his family was descended from Poseidon, too. Grandmother had said their house had been attacked before. Maybe they had put a hose up here for just that reason.

Hazel patrolled the widow’s walk between the two attic gables. She looked so good it made Frank’s chest hurt. She wore jeans, a cream-coloured jacket and a white shirt that made her skin look as warm as cocoa. Her curly hair fell around her shoulders. When she came close, Frank could smell jasmine shampoo.

She gripped her sword. When she glanced at Frank, her eyes flashed with concern. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘Why are you smiling?’

‘Oh, uh, nothing,’ he managed. ‘Thanks for breakfast. And the clothes. And … not hating me.’

Hazel looked baffled. ‘Why would I hate you?’

Frank’s face burned. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut, but it was too late now. Don’t let her get away, his grandmother had said. You need strong women.

‘It’s just … last night,’ he stammered. ‘When I summoned the skeleton. I thought … I thought that you thought … I was repulsive … or something.’

Hazel raised her eyebrows. She shook her head in dismay. ‘Frank, maybe I was surprised. Maybe I was scared of that thing. But repulsed? The way you commanded it, so confident and everything – like, Oh, by the way, guys, I have this all-powerfulspartuswe can use. I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t repulsed, Frank. I was impressed.’

Frank wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. ‘You were … impressed … by me?’

Percy laughed. ‘Dude, it was pretty amazing.’

‘Honest?’ Frank asked.

‘Honest,’ Hazel promised. ‘But right now we have other problems to worry about. Okay?’

She gestured at the army of ogres, who were getting increasingly bold, shuffling closer and closer to the house.

Percy readied the garden hose. ‘I’ve got one more trick up my sleeve. Your lawn has a sprinkler system. I can blow it up and cause some confusion down there, but that’ll destroy your water pressure. No pressure, no hose, and those cannonballs are going to plough right into the house.’

Hazel’s praise was still ringing in Frank’s ears, making it difficult to think. Dozens of ogres were camped on his lawn, waiting to tear him apart, and Frank could barely control the urge to grin.

Hazel didn’t hate him. She was impressed.

He forced himself to concentrate. He remembered what his grandmother had told him about the nature of his gift, and how he had to leave her here to die.

You’ve got a role to play, Mars had said.

Frank couldn’t believe he was Juno’s secret weapon, or that this big Prophecy of the Seven depended on him. But Hazel and Percy were counting on him. He had to do his best.

He thought about that weird partial prophecy Ella had recited in the attic, about the son of Neptune drowning.

You don’t understand her true value, Phineas had told them in Portland. The old blind man had thought that controlling Ella would make him a king.

All these puzzle pieces swirled around in Frank’s mind. He got the feeling that when they finally connected, they would create a picture he didn’t like.

‘Guys, I’ve got an escape plan.’ He told his friends about the plane waiting at the airfield, and his grandmother’s note for the pilot. ‘He’s a legion veteran. He’ll help us.’

‘But Arion’s not back,’ Hazel said. ‘And what about your grandmother? We can’t just leave her.’

Frank choked back a sob. ‘Maybe – maybe Arion will find us. As for my grandmother … she was pretty clear. She said she’d be okay.’

It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was as much as Frank could manage.

‘There’s another problem,’ Percy said. ‘I’m not good with air travel. It’s dangerous for a son of Neptune.’

‘You’ll have to risk it … and so will I,’ Frank said. ‘By the way, we’re related.’

Percy almost stumbled off the roof. ‘What?’

Frank gave them the five-second version: ‘Periclymenus. Ancestor on my mom’s side. Argonaut. Grandson of Poseidon.’

Hazel’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re a – a descendant of Neptune? Frank, that’s -’

‘Crazy? Yeah. And there’s this ability my family has, supposedly. But I don’t know how to use it. If I can’t figure it out -’

Another massive cheer went up from the Laistrygonians. Frank realized they were staring up at him, pointing and waving and laughing. They had spotted their breakfast.

‘Zhang!’ they yelled. ‘Zhang!’

Hazel stepped closer to him. ‘They keep doing that. Why are they yelling your name?’

‘Never mind,’ Frank said. ‘Listen, we’ve got to protect Ella, take her with us.’

‘Of course,’ Hazel said. ‘The poor thing needs our help.’

‘No,’ Frank said. ‘I mean yes, but it’s not just that. She recited a prophecy downstairs. I think … I think it was about this quest.’

He didn’t want to tell Percy the bad news, about a son of Neptune drowning, but he repeated the lines.

Percy’s jaw tightened. ‘I don’t know how a son of Neptune can drown. I can breathe underwater. But the crown of the legion -’

‘That’s got to be the eagle,’ Hazel said.

Percy nodded. ‘And Ella recited something like this once before, in Portland – a line from the old Great Prophecy.’

‘The what?’ Frank asked.

‘Tell you later.’ Percy turned his garden hose and shot another cannonball out of the sky.

It exploded in an orange fireball. The ogres clapped with appreciation and yelled, ‘Pretty! Pretty!’

‘The thing is,’ Frank said, ‘Ella remembers everything she reads. She said something about the page being burned, like she’d read a damaged text of prophecies.’

Hazel’s eyes widened. ‘Burned books of prophecy? You don’t think – but that’s impossible!’

‘The books Octavian wanted, back at camp?’ Percy guessed.

Hazel whistled under her breath. ‘The lost Sibylline books that outlined the entire destiny of Rome. If Ella actually read a copy somehow, and memorized it -’

‘Then she’s the most valuable harpy in the world,’ Frank said. ‘No wonder Phineas wanted to capture her.’

‘Frank Zhang!’ an ogre shouted from below. He was bigger than the rest, wearing a lion’s cape like a Roman standard bearer and a plastic bib with a lobster on it. ‘Come down, son of Mars! We’ve been waiting for you. Come, be our honoured guest!’

Hazel gripped Frank’s arm. ‘Why do I get the feeling that “honoured guest” means the same thing as “dinner”?’

Frank wished Mars were still there. He could use somebody to snap his fingers and make his battle jitters go away.

Hazel believes in me, he thought. I can do this.

He looked at Percy. ‘Can you drive?’

‘Sure. Why?’

‘Grandmother’s car is in the garage. It’s an old Cadillac. The thing is like a tank. If you can get it started -’

‘We’ll still have to break through a line of ogres,’ Hazel said.

‘The sprinkler system,’ Percy said. ‘Use it as a distraction?’

‘Exactly,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll buy you as much time as I can. Get Ella, and get in the car. I’ll try to meet you in the garage, but don’t wait for me.’

Percy frowned. ‘Frank -’

‘Give us your answer, Frank Zhang!’ the ogre yelled up. ‘Come down, and we will spare the others – your friends, your poor old granny. We only want you!’

‘They’re lying,’ Percy muttered.

‘Yeah, I got that,’ Frank agreed. ‘Go!’

His friends ran for the ladder.

Frank tried to control the beating of his heart. He grinned and yelled, ‘Hey, down there! Who’s hungry?’ The ogres cheered as Frank paced along the widow’s walk and waved like a rock star.

Frank tried to summon his family power. He imagined himself as a fire-breathing dragon. He strained and clenched his fist and thought about dragons so hard, beads of sweat popped up on his forehead. He wanted to sweep down on the enemy and destroy them. That would be extremely cool. But nothing happened. He had no clue how to change himself. He had never even seen a real dragon. For a panicky moment, he wondered if Grandmother had played some sort of cruel joke on him. Maybe he’d misunderstood the gift. Maybe Frank was the only member of the family who hadn’t inherited it. That would be just his luck.

The ogres started to become restless. The cheering turned to catcalls. A few Laistrygonians hefted their cannonballs.

‘Hold on!’ Frank yelled. ‘You don’t want to char me, do you? I won’t taste very good that way.’

‘Come down!’ they yelled. ‘Hungry!’

Time for Plan B. Frank just wished he had one.

‘Do you promise to spare my friends?’ Frank asked. ‘Do you swear on the River Styx?’

The ogres laughed. One threw a cannonball that arced over Frank’s head and blew up the chimney. By some miracle, Frank wasn’t hit with shrapnel.

‘I’ll take that as a no,’ he muttered. Then he shouted down: ‘Okay, fine! You win! I’ll be right down. Wait there!’

The ogres cheered, but their leader in the lion-skin cape scowled suspiciously. Frank wouldn’t have much time. He descended the ladder into the attic. Ella was gone. He hoped that was a good sign. Maybe they’d got her to the cadillac. He grabbed an extra quiver of arrows labelled ASSORTED VARIETIES in his mother’s neat printing. Then he ran to the machine gun.

He swivelled the barrel, took aim at the lead ogre, and pressed the trigger. Eight high-powered spuds blasted the giant in the chest, propelling him backwards with such force that he crashed into a stack of bronze cannonballs, which promptly exploded, leaving a smoking crater in the yard.

Apparently starch was bad for ogres.

While the rest of the monsters ran around in confusion, Frank pulled his bow and rained arrows on them. Some of the missiles detonated on impact. Others splintered like buckshot and left the giants with some painful new tattoos. One hit an ogre and instantly turned him into a potted rosebush.

Unfortunately, the ogres recovered quickly. They began throwing cannonballs – dozens at a time. The whole house groaned under the impact. Frank ran for the stairs. The attic disintegrated behind him. Smoke and fire poured down the second-floor hallway.

‘Grandmother!’ he cried, but the heat was so intense, he couldn’t reach her room. He raced to the ground floor, clinging to the banister as the house shook and huge chunks of the ceiling collapsed.

The base of the staircase was a smoking crater. He leaped over it and stumbled through the kitchen. Choking from the ash and soot, he burst into the garage. The Cadillac’s headlights were on. The engine was running and the garage door was opening.

‘Get in!’ Percy yelled.

Frank dived in the back next to Hazel. Ella was curled up in the front, her head tucked under her wings, muttering, ‘Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.’

Percy gunned the engine. They shot out of the garage before it was fully open, leaving a Cadillac-shaped hole of splintered wood.

The ogres ran to intercept, but Percy shouted at the top of his lungs, and the irrigation system exploded. A hundred geysers shot into the air along with clods of earth, pieces of pipe and very heavy sprinkler heads.

The Cadillac was going about forty when they hit the first ogre, who disintegrated on impact. By the time the other monsters overcame their confusion, the Cadillac was half a mile down the road. Flaming cannonballs burst behind them.

Frank glanced back and saw his family mansion on fire, the walls collapsing inward and smoke billowing into the sky. He saw a large black speck – maybe a buzzard – circling up from the fire. It might’ve been Frank’s imagination, but he thought it had flown out of the second-storey window.

‘Grandmother?’ he murmured.

It seemed impossible, but she had promised she would die in her own way, not at the hands of the ogres. Frank hoped she had been right.

They drove through the woods and headed north.

‘About three miles!’ Frank said. ‘You can’t miss it!’

Behind them, more explosions ripped through the forest. Smoke boiled into the sky.

‘How fast can Laistrygonians run?’ Hazel asked.

‘Let’s not find out,’ Percy said.

The gates of the airfield appeared before them – only a few hundred yards away. A private jet idled on the runway. Its stairs were down.

The Cadillac hit a pothole and went airborne. Frank’s head slammed into the ceiling. When the wheels touched the ground, Percy floored the brakes, and they swerved to a stop just inside the gates.

Frank climbed out and drew his bow. ‘Get to the plane! They’re coming!’

The Laistrygonians were closing in with alarming speed. The first line of ogres burst out of the woods and barrelled towards the airfield – five hundred yards away, four hundred yards …

Percy and Hazel managed to get Ella out of the Cadillac, but as soon as the harpy saw the aeroplane, she began to shriek.

‘N-n-no!’ she yelped. ‘Fly with wings! N-n-no aeroplanes.’

‘It’s okay,’ Hazel promised. ‘We’ll protect you!’

Ella made a horrible, painful wail like she was being burned.

Percy held up his hands in exasperation. ‘What do we do? We can’t force her.’

‘No,’ Frank agreed. The ogres were three hundred yards out.

‘She’s too valuable to leave behind,’ Hazel said. Then she winced at her own words. ‘Gods, I’m sorry, Ella. I sound as bad as Phineas. You’re a living thing, not a treasure.’

‘No planes. N-n-no planes.’ Ella was hyperventilating.

The ogres were almost in throwing distance.

Percy’s eyes lit up. ‘I’ve got an idea. Ella, can you hide in the woods? Will you be safe from the ogres?’

‘Hide,’ she agreed. ‘Safe. Hiding is good for harpies. Ella is quick. And small. And fast.’

‘Okay,’ Percy said. ‘Just stay around this area. I can send a friend to meet you and take you to Camp Jupiter.’

Frank unslung his bow and nocked an arrow. ‘A friend?’

Percy waved his hand in a tell you later gesture. ‘Ella, would you like that? Would you like my friend to take you to Camp Jupiter and show you our home?’

‘Camp,’ Ella muttered. Then in Latin: ‘“Wisdom’s daughter walks alone, the Mark of Athena burns through Rome.”’

‘Uh, right,’ Percy said. ‘That sounds important, but we can talk about that later. You’ll be safe at camp. All the books and food you want.’

‘No planes,’ she insisted.

‘No planes,’ Percy agreed.

‘Ella will hide now.’ Just like that, she was gone – a red streak disappearing into the woods.

‘I’ll miss her,’ Hazel said sadly.

‘We’ll see her again,’ Percy promised, but he frowned uneasily, as if he were really troubled by that last bit of prophecy – the thing about Athena.

An explosion sent the airfield’s gate spinning into the air.

Frank tossed his grandmother’s letter to Percy. ‘Show that to the pilot! Show him your letter from Reyna too! We’ve got to take off now.’

Percy nodded. He and Hazel ran for the plane.

Frank took cover behind the Cadillac and started firing at the ogres. He targeted the largest clump of enemies and shot a tulip-shaped arrow. Just as he’d hoped, it was a hydra. Ropes lashed out like squid tentacles, and the entire front row of ogres ploughed face first into the ground.

Frank heard the plane’s engines rev.

He shot three more arrows as fast as he could, blasting enormous craters in the ogres’ ranks. The survivors were only a hundred yards away, and some of the brighter ones stumbled to a stop, realizing that they were now within hurling range.

‘Frank!’ Hazel shrieked. ‘Come on!’

A fiery cannonball hurtled towards him in a slow arc. Frank knew instantly it was going to hit the plane. He nocked an arrow. I can do this, he thought. He let the arrow fly. It intercepted the cannonball midair, detonating a massive fireball.

Another two cannonballs sailed towards him. Frank ran.

Behind him, metal groaned as the Cadillac exploded. He dived into the plane just as the stairs started to rise.

The pilot must’ve understood the situation just fine. There was no safety announcement, no pre-flight drink and no waiting for clearance. He pushed the throttle, and the plane shot down the runway. Another blast ripped through the runway behind them, but then they were in the air.

Frank looked down and saw the airstrip riddled with craters like a piece of burning Swiss cheese. Swathes of Lynn Canyon Park were on fire. A few miles to the south, a swirling pyre of flames and black smoke was all that remained of the Zhang family mansion.

So much for Frank being impressive. He’d failed to save his grandmother. He’d failed to use his powers. He hadn’t even saved their harpy friend. When Vancouver disappeared in the clouds below, Frank buried his head in his hands and started to cry.

The plane banked to the left.

Over the intercom, the pilot’s voice said, ‘Senatus Populusque Romanus, my friends. Welcome aboard. Next stop: Anchorage, Alaska.’