Read Online The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4) by Rick Riordan - Free Book Online Page B

It was a
ghost
number. She didn’t like it when I told her there would be seven demigods on our quest. And July is the seventh month.’
    ‘Yeah, but …’ Leo tapped his fingers nervously on the table. He realized he was doing the Morse code for
I love you
, the way he used to do with his mom, which would have been pretty embarrassing if his friends understood Morse code. ‘But that’s just coincidence, right?’
    Frank’s expression didn’t reassure him.
    ‘Back in China,’ Frank said, ‘in the old days, people called the seventh month the
ghost month
. That’s when the spirit world and the human world were closest. The living and the dead could go back and forth. Tell me it’s a coincidence we’re searching for the Doors of Death during the ghost month.’
    No one spoke.
    Leo wanted to think that an old Chinese belief couldn’t have anything to do with the Romans and the Greeks. Totally different, right? But Frank’s existence was proof that the cultures were tied together. The Zhang family went all theway back to Ancient Greece. They’d found their way through Rome and China and finally to Canada.
    Also, Leo kept thinking about his meeting with the revenge goddess Nemesis at the Great Salt Lake. Nemesis had called him the
seventh wheel
, the odd man out on the quest. She didn’t mean seventh as in
ghost
, did she?
    Jason pressed his hands against the arms of his chair. ‘Let’s focus on the things we can deal with. We’re getting close to Bologna. Maybe we’ll get more answers once we find these dwarfs that Hecate –’
    The ship lurched as if it had hit an iceberg. Leo’s breakfast plate slid across the table. Nico fell backwards out of his chair and banged his head against the sideboard. He collapsed on the floor, with a dozen magic goblets and platters crashing down on top of him.
    ‘Nico!’ Hazel ran to help him.
    ‘What –?’ Frank tried to stand, but the ship pitched in the other direction. He stumbled into the table and went face-first into Leo’s plate of scrambled eggs.
    ‘Look!’ Jason pointed at the walls. The images of Camp Half-Blood were flickering and changing.
    ‘Not possible,’ Leo murmured.
    No way those enchantments could show anything other than scenes from camp, but suddenly a huge, distorted face filled the entire port-side wall: crooked yellow teeth, a scraggly red beard, a warty nose and two mismatched eyes – one much larger and higher than the other. The face seemed to be trying to eat its way into the room.
    The other walls flickered, showing scenes from abovedeck. Piper stood at the helm, but something was wrong. From the shoulders down she was wrapped in duct tape, her mouth gagged and her legs bound to the control console.
    At the mainmast, Coach Hedge was similarly bound and gagged, while a bizarre-looking creature – a sort of gnome/chimpanzee combo with poor fashion sense – danced around him, doing the coach’s hair in tiny pigtails with pink rubber bands.
    On the port-side wall, the huge ugly face receded so that Leo could see the entire creature – another gnome chimp, in even crazier clothes. This one began leaping around the deck, stuffing things into a burlap bag – Piper’s dagger, Leo’s Wii controllers. Then he prised the Archimedes sphere out of the command console.
    ‘No!’ Leo yelled.
    ‘Uhhh,’ Nico groaned from the floor.
    ‘Piper!’ Jason cried.
    ‘Monkey!’ Frank yelled.
    ‘Not monkeys,’ Hazel grumbled. ‘I think those are dwarfs.’
    ‘Stealing my stuff!’ Leo yelled, and he ran for the stairs.

XI
     

LEO
     
    L EO WAS VAGUELY AWARE OF H AZEL SHOUTING, ‘Go! I’ll take care of Nico!’
    As if Leo was going to turn back. Sure, he’d hoped di Angelo was okay, but he had headaches of his own.
    Leo bounded up the steps, with Jason and Frank behind him.
    The situation on deck was even worse than he’d feared.
    Coach Hedge and Piper were struggling against their duct-tape bonds while one of the demon monkey dwarfs