Untitled Part 38
THE WAYSTATION FELT SO DIFFERENT IN the summer.
Emmie's rooftop garden was bursting at the seams with tomatoes, peas, cabbage and watermelon. The great hall was bursting at the seams with old friends.
The Hunters of Artemis were in residence, having taken quite a beating on their most recent excursion to catch the Teumessian Fox.
'That fox is murder,' said Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, rubbing her bruised neck. 'Led us right into a den of werewolves, the little punk.'
'Ugh,' agreed Thalia Grace, pulling a werewolf tooth out of her leather cuirass. 'TF spreads destruction everywhere he goes.'
'TF?' I asked.
'Easier than saying Teumessian Fox twenty times a day,' Thalia told me. 'Anyway, the fox runs through a town and stirs up every monster within twenty miles. Peoria is pretty much in ruins.'
This sounded like a tragic loss, but I was more concerned with my Hunter buddies.
'Are you regretting your decision to join up?' I asked Reyna.
She grinned. 'Not for a minute. This is fun!'
Thalia punched her in the shoulder. 'Great Hunter, this one. I knew she would be. We'll get that fox one of these days.'
Emmie called to them from the kitchen to help with dinner, because the carrots weren't going to dice themselves. The two friends strode off together, laughing and sharing stories. It did my heart good to see them so happy, even if their version of fun was a never-ending foxhunt that destroyed large portions of the Midwest.
Jo was teaching Georgina, their daughter (and possibly mine, too), to forge weapons in the smithy. When Georgina saw me, she looked unexcited, as if we'd just parted a few minutes ago. 'You keep my doll?' she demanded.
'Ah ...' I could have lied. I could have magically produced an exact likeness of the pipe-cleaner figure and said Of course. But the truth was that I had no idea where the little guy had ended up, perhaps in Delphi or Tartarus or Chaos? I told her the truth. 'Would you make me another one?'
Georgina thought about this. 'Nah.'
Then she went back to quenching hot blades with her mom.
The swordsman Lityerses seemed to be adjusting well. He was overseeing an 'elephant visitation programme' with Waystation resident Livia and Hannibal from Camp Jupiter. The two pachyderms were romping around together in the back lot, flirting by throwing medicine balls at each other.
After dinner, I got to visit with Leo Valdez, who had just straggled back home after a full day of community service. He was teaching homeless kids shop skills at a local shelter.
'That's amazing,' I said.
He grinned, biting off a chunk of Emmie's fresh-made buttermilk scones. 'Yeah. Bunch of kids like me, you know? They never had much. Least I can show them somebody cares. Plus, some of them are excellent mechanics.'
'Don't you need tools?' I asked. 'A shop?'
'Festus!' Leo said. 'A bronze dragon makes the best mobile shop. Most of the kids just see him as a truck, with the Mist and all, but a few of them ... they know what's up.'
Jo passed by on her way to the griffin lofts and patted him on the shoulder. 'Doing good, this one. He's got potential.'
'Thanks, Mom,' Leo said.
Jo scoffed, but she looked pleased.
'And Calypso?' I asked Leo.
A flurry of emotions passed across his face – enough to tell me that Leo was more lovesick than ever over the former goddess, and things were still complicated.
'Yeah, she's good,' he said at last. 'I've never seen anyone actually like high school before. But the routine, the homework, the people ... She ate it up. I guess it's just so different from being stuck on Ogygia.'
I nodded, though the idea of an ex-immortal liking high school didn't make much sense to me either. 'Where is she now?'
'Band camp.'
I stared. 'Excuse me?'
'She's a counsellor at a band camp,' Leo said. 'Like, for regular mortal kids who are practising music and stuff. I don't know. She's gone all summer.'
He shook his head, clearly worried, clearly missing her, perhaps having nightmares about all the hot clarinet-player counsellors Calypso might be hanging around with.
'It's all good,' he said, forcing a smile. 'You know, a little time apart to think. We'll make it work.'
Reyna passed by and heard the last part. 'Talking about Calypso? Yeah, I had to have a heart-to-heart with mi hermano here.' She squeezed Leo's shoulder. 'You don't call a young lady mamacita. You got to have more respect, entiendes?'
'I –' Leo looked ready to protest, then seemed to think better about it. 'Yeah, okay.'
Reyna smiled at me. 'Valdez grew up without his mom. Never learned these things. Now he's got two great foster moms and a big sister who isn't afraid to smack him when he gets out of line.' She flicked a finger playfully against his cheek.
'Ain't that the truth,' Leo muttered.
'Cheer up,' Reyna said. 'Calypso will come around. You're a doofus sometimes, Valdez, but you've got a heart of Imperial gold.'
Next stop: Camp Jupiter.
It did not surprise me that Hazel and Frank had become the most efficient and respected pair of praetors ever to run the Twelfth Legion. In record time they had inspired a rebuilding effort in New Rome, repaired all the damage from our battle against Tarquin and the two emperors, and started a recruitment drive with Lupa's wolves to bring in new demigods from the wild. At least twenty had arrived since I left, which made me wonder where they'd all been hiding, and how busy my fellow gods must have been in the last few decades to have so many children.
'We're going to install more barracks over there,' Hazel told me, as she and Frank gave me the five-denarius tour of the repaired camp. 'We've expanded the thermal baths, and we're constructing a victory arch on the main road into New Rome to commemorate our defeat of the emperors.' Her amber eyes flashed with excitement. 'It's going to be plated with gold. Completely over the top.'
Frank smiled. 'Yeah. As far as we can tell, Hazel's curse is officially broken. We did an augury at Pluto's shrine, and it came up favourable. She can summon jewels, precious metals ... and use them or spend them now without causing any curses.'
'But we're not going to abuse that power,' Hazel hastened to add. 'We'll only use it to improve the camp and honour the gods. We're not going to buy any yachts or private aeroplanes or big golden necklaces with "H plus F 4Ever" diamond pendants, are we, Frank?'
Frank pouted. 'No. I guess not.'
Hazel ribbed him.
'No, definitely not,' Frank amended. 'That would be tacky.'
Frank still lumbered along like a friendly grizzly bear, but his posture seemed more relaxed, his mood more cheerful, as if it were starting to sink in that his destiny was no longer controlled by a small piece of firewood. For Frank Zhang, like the rest of us, the future was open for business.
He brightened. 'Oh, and check this out, Apollo!'
He swirled his purple praetor's cloak like he was about to turn into a vampire bat (which Frank was fully capable of doing). Instead, the cloak simply turned into an oversize sweater wrap. 'I figured it out!'
Hazel rolled her eyes. 'My sweet, sweet Frank. Could you please not with the sweater wrap?'
'What?' Frank protested. 'It's impenetrable and comfortable!'
Later that day, I visited my other friends. Lavinia Asimov had made good on her threat/promise to teach the Fifth Cohort to tap-dance. The unit was now feared and respected in the war games for their ability to form a testudo shield wall while doing the three-beat shuffle.
Tyson and Ella were happily back at work in their bookshop. The unicorns were still weaponized. The Jason Grace temple-expansion plan was still moving forward, with new shrines being added every week.
What did surprise me: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase had arrived and taken up residence in New Rome, giving them two months to adjust to their new environs before the fall semester of their freshman year in college.
'Architecture,' Annabeth said, her grey eyes as bright as her mother's. She said the word architecture as if it were the answer to all the world's problems. 'I'm going to focus on environmental design at UC Berkeley while dualenrolling at New Rome University. By year three, I figure –'
'Whoa, there, Wise Girl,' Percy said. 'First you have to help me get through freshman English. And math. And history.'
Annabeth's smile lit up the empty dorm room. 'Yeah, Seaweed Brain, I know. We'll take the basics together. But you will do your own homework.'
'Man,' Percy said, looking at me for commiseration. 'Homework.'
I was pleased to see them doing so well, but I agreed with him about homework. Gods never got it. We didn't want it. We just assigned it in the form of deadly quests.
'And your major?' I asked him.
'Yeah, uh ... marine biology? Aquaculture? I dunno. I'll figure it out.'
'You're both staying here?' I gestured at the bunk beds. New Rome University may have been a college for demigods, but its dorm rooms were as basic and uninspired as any other university's.
'No .' Annabeth sounded offended. 'Have you seen the way this guy throws his dirty clothes around? Gross. Besides, dorms are required for all freshmen and they aren't co-ed. My roommate probably won't arrive until September.'
'Yeah.' Percy sighed. 'Meanwhile, I'll be all the way across campus in this empty boys' dormitory. Two whole blocks away.'
Annabeth swatted his arm. 'Besides, Apollo, our living arrangements are none of your business.'
I held up my hands in surrender. 'But you did travel across the country together to get here?'
'With Grover,' Percy said. 'It was great, just the three of us again. But, man, that road trip ...'
'Kind of went sideways,' Annabeth agreed. 'And up, down and diagonal. But we made it here alive.'
I nodded. This was, after all, about the most that could be said for any demigod trip.
I thought about my own trip from Los Angeles to Camp Jupiter, escorting the coffin of Jason Grace. Percy and Annabeth both seemed to read my thoughts. Despite the happy days ahead of them, and the general spirit of optimism at Camp Jupiter, sadness still lingered, hovering and flickering at the corners of my vision like one of the camp's Lares.
'We found out when we arrived,' Percy said. 'I still can't ...'
His voice caught. He looked down and picked at his palm.
'I cried myself sick,' Annabeth admitted. 'I still wish ... I wish I'd been there for Piper. I hope she's doing okay.'
'Piper is a tough young lady,' I said. 'But yes ... Jason. He was the best of us.'
No one argued with that.
'By the way,' I said, 'your mother is doing well, Percy. I just saw her and Paul. Your little sister is entirely too adorable. She never stops laughing.'
He brightened. 'I know, right? Estelle is awesome. I just miss my mom's baking.'
'I might be able to help with that.' As I had promised Sally Jackson, I teleported a plate of her fresh-baked blue cookies straight into my hands.
'Dude!' Percy stuffed a cookie in his mouth. His eyes rolled up in ecstasy. 'Apollo, you're the best. I take back almost everything I've said about you.'
'It's quite all right,' I assured him. 'Wait ... what do you mean, almost ?'
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen3h.Co