Read Online The Blood of the Hydra by Michelle Madow - Free Book Online

and closed her eyes. “How do we kill the creatures escaping from Kerberos?” She spoke slowly, as if that would help the Book understand her. Then she opened her eyes and lifted her hands, looking down at the Book in question. “Do I just… open it?” she asked.
    “I don’t know any more than you do,” I said. “But yes, that seems like it would make sense.”
    “Right.” She hovered over the Book and took a deep breath, wringing her fingers together. “Here goes nothing.” She opened the Book and flipped through the pages, her expression blank as she looked through them.
    “Well?” Danielle asked, tapping her fingers on her knee.
    “There’s still nothing there.” Kate sat back on her heels and sighed. “It’s empty.”
    “So much for that,” Chris said. “Looks like we’re back to where we were last night.”
    “I’m not so sure about that.” Blake rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the Book. “Nicole was the only one who could lift the Book from the stand. Maybe she should ask it what’s inside.”
    “It’s worth a try.” I kneeled in front of the coffee table, closed the Book, and placed my hands on the cover. “How do we kill the creatures from Kerberos?” I asked, repeating Kate’s words exactly.
    Heat surged up my arm, feeling like it was coming straight from the Book, and I took a sharp breath inward.
    “What?” Kate asked. “Did something happen?”
    “I think so…” I pulled my hands off the Book, opened it, and gasped at what I saw. Now, instead of being blank, the first page had Table of Contents written in old text. One row down, it said Crafting Your Weapons, page 4.
    The others gathered around me—Darius, too—their mouths open as they saw the script on the page. We were all silent as I turned to page four. Now, instead of being blank, it was full of text.
    “I need my reading glasses to see that,” Darius said, moving back to his armchair. “So would one of you like to read out loud?”
    “I’ll do it,” I volunteered, barely taking a breath before starting to read. “It says that by now, the Fire Elemental should have begun welding the weapons found in the book he received in his clue.” We all nodded, because Blake had done a fantastic job creating the weapons described in the book. He was a complete natural. My bow, Danielle’s katana, and Chris’s knives had all been crafted by Blake. “Part of the curse put on the creatures in Kerberos, to keep them there for all eternity, is that if they ever find themselves back on Earth, they will be returned to Kerberos upon their death.”
    “It makes sense,” Kate said. “Kerberos was supposed to be the most secure place to imprison them—even more secure than Tartarus. The Olympians never expected anyone to be able to escape, but of course they needed a back up plan in case it happened.”
    “But there’s something we can do to change it, right?” Chris asked.
    “I’m getting to that,” I said, continuing to read. “However, if the correct ingredients are gathered and mixed by the Elementals, the mixture can be coated onto their weapons. When used to fatally wound, these weapons will send the creature to limbo for one year. This will prevent them from being immediately returned to Kerberos.”
    “Just as I suspected,” Darius mused. “It is impossible to permanently destroy the soul of any immortal creature. However, sending them to limbo will buy us time to figure out how to seal the portal. What are the ingredients you’ll need?”
    “They’re all listed here,” I said, finding them on the center of the page. “There are three of them. The seed of the lotus fruit, the milk from the sacred immortal cattle of Helios, and the blood of the slain hydra.”
    “Sounds like we won’t be able to walk into the grocery store and pick that up,” Chris said. “Where are we supposed to find that stuff?”
    I scanned the rest of the information in the Book. “It doesn’t say,” I said.