FRANK MIGHT HAVE LIKED VENICE if it hadn’t been summertime and tourist season, and if the city wasn’t overrun with large hairy creatures. Between the rows of old houses and the canals, the sidewalks were already too narrow for the crowds jostling one another and stopping to take pictures. The monsters made things worse. They shuffled around with their heads down, bumping into mortals and sniffing the pavement.
One seemed to find something it liked at the edge of a canal. It nibbled and licked at a crack between the stones until it dislodged some sort of greenish root. The monster sucked it up happily and shambled along.
“Well, they’re plant-eaters,” Frank said. “That’s good news.”
Hazel slipped her hand into his. “Unless they supplement their diet with demigods. Let’s hope not.”
Frank was so pleased to be holding her hand, the crowds and the heat and the monsters suddenly didn’t seem so bad. He felt needed—useful.
Not that Hazel required his protection. Anybody who’d seen her charging on Arion with her sword drawn would know she could take care of herself. Still, Frank liked being next to her, imagining he was her bodyguard. If any of these monsters tried to hurt her, Frank would gladly turn into a rhinoceros and push them into the canal.
Could he do a rhino? Frank had never tried that before.
Nico stopped. “There.”
They’d turned onto a smaller street, leaving the canal behind. Ahead of them was a small plaza lined with five-story buildings. The area was strangely deserted—as if the mortals could sense it wasn’t safe. In the middle of the cobblestone courtyard, a dozen shaggy cow creatures were sniffing around the mossy base of an old stone well.
“A lot of cows in one place,” Frank said.
“Yeah, but look,” Nico said. “Past that archway.”
Nico’s eyes must’ve been better than his. Frank squinted. At the far end of the plaza, a stone archway carved with lions led into a narrow street. Just past the arch, one of the town houses was painted black—the only black building Frank had seen so far in Venice.
“La Casa Nera,” he guessed.
Hazel’s grip tightened on his fingers. “I don’t like that plaza. It feels…cold.”
Frank wasn’t sure what she meant. He was still sweating like crazy.
But Nico nodded. He studied the town-house windows, most of which were covered with wooden shutters. “You’re right, Hazel. This neighborhood is filled with lemures.”
“Lemurs?” Frank asked nervously. “I’m guessing you don’t mean the furry little guys from Madagascar?”
“Angry ghosts,” Nico said. “Lemures go back to Roman times. They hang around a lot of Italian cities, but I’ve never felt so many in one place. My mom told me…” He hesitated. “She used to tell me stories about the ghosts of Venice.”
Again Frank wondered about Nico’s past, but he was afraid to ask. He caught Hazel’s eye.
Go ahead, she seemed to be saying. Nico needs practice talking to people.
The sounds of assault rifles and atom bombs got louder in Frank’s head. Mars and Ares were trying to outsing each other with “Dixie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Frank did his best to push that aside.
“Nico, your mom was Italian?” he guessed. “She was from Venice?”
Nico nodded reluctantly. “She met Hades here, back in the 1930s. As World War Two got closer, she fled to the U.S. with my sister and me. I mean…Bianca, my other sister. I don’t remember much about Italy, but I can still speak the language.”
Frank tried to think of a response. Oh, that’s nice didn’t seem to cut it.
He was hanging out with not one but two demigods who’d been pulled out of time. They were both, technically, about seventy years older than he was.
“Must’ve been hard on your mom,” Frank said. “I guess we’ll do anything for someone we love.”
Hazel squeezed his hand appreciatively. Nico stared at the cobblestones. “Yeah,” he said bitterly. “I guess we will.”
Frank wasn’t sure what Nico was thinking. He had a hard time imagining Nico di Angelo acting out of love for anybody, except maybe Hazel. But Frank decided he’d gone as far as he dared with the personal questions.
“So, the lemures…” He swallowed. “How do we avoid them?”
“I’m already on it,” Nico said. “I’m sending out the message that they should stay away and ignore us. Hopefully that’s enough. Otherwise…things could get messy.”
Hazel pursed her lips. “Let’s get going,” she suggested.
Halfway across the piazza, everything went wrong; but it had nothing to do with ghosts.
They were skirting the well in the middle of the square, trying to give the cow monsters some distance, when Hazel stumbled on a loose piece of cobblestone. Frank caught her. Six or seven of the big gray beasts turned to look at them. Frank glimpsed a glowing green eye under one’s mane, and instantly he was hit with a wave of nausea, the way he felt when he ate too much cheese or ice cream.
The creatures made deep throbbing sounds in their throats like angry foghorns.
“Nice cows,” Frank murmured. He put himself between his friends and the monsters. “Guys, I’m thinking we should back out of here slowly.”
“I’m such a klutz,” Hazel whispered. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Nico said. “Look at your feet.”
Frank glanced down and caught his breath.
Under their shoes, the paving stones were moving—spiky plant tendrils were pushing up from the cracks.
Nico stepped back. The roots snaked out in his direction, trying to follow. The tendrils got thicker, exuding a steamy green vapor that smelled of boiled cabbage.
“These roots seem to like demigods,” Frank noted.
Hazel’s hand drifted to her sword hilt. “And the cow creatures like the roots.”
The entire herd was now looking their direction, making foghorn growls and stamping their hooves. Frank understood animal behavior well enough to get the message: You are standing on our food. That makes you enemies.
Frank tried to think. There were too many monsters to fight. Something about their eyes hidden under those shaggy manes…Frank had gotten sick from the barest glimpse. He had a bad feeling that if those monsters made direct eye contact, he might get a lot worse than nauseous.
“Don’t meet their eyes,” Frank warned. “I’ll distract them. You two back up slowly toward that black house.”
The creatures tensed, ready to attack.
“Never mind,” Frank said. “Run!”
As it turned out, Frank could not turn into a rhino, and he lost valuable time trying.
Nico and Hazel bolted for the side street. Frank stepped in front of the monsters, hoping to keep their attention. He yelled at the top of his lungs, imagining himself as a fearsome rhinoceros, but with Ares and Mars screaming in his head, he couldn’t concentrate. He remained regular-old Frank.
Two of the cow monsters peeled off from the herd to chase Nico and Hazel.
“No!” Frank yelled after them. “Me! I’m the rhino!”
The rest of the herd surrounded Frank. They growled, emerald-green gas billowing from their nostrils. Frank stepped back to avoid the stuff, but the stench nearly knocked him over.
Okay, so not a rhino. Something else. Frank knew he had only seconds before the monsters trampled or poisoned him, but he couldn’t think. He couldn’t hold the image of any animal long enough to change form.
Then he glanced up at one of the town-house balconies and saw a stone carving—the symbol of Venice.
The next instant, Frank was a full-grown lion. He roared in challenge, then sprang from the middle of the monster herd and landed eight meters away, on top of the old stone well.
The monsters growled in reply. Three of them sprang at once, but Frank was ready. His lion reflexes were built for speed in combat.
He slashed the first two monsters into dust with his claws, then sank his fangs into the third one’s throat and tossed it aside.
There were seven left, plus the two chasing his friends. Not great odds, but Frank had to keep the bulk of herd focused on him. He roared at the monsters, and they edged away.
They outnumbered him, yes. But Frank was a top-of-the-chain predator. The herd monsters knew it. They had also just watched him send three of their friends to Tartarus.
He pressed his advantage and leaped off the well, still baring his fangs. The herd backed off.
If he could just maneuver around them, then turn and run after his friends…
He was doing all right, until he took his first backward step toward the arch. One of cows, either the bravest or the stupidest, took that as a sign of weakness. It charged and blasted Frank in the face with green gas.
He slashed the monster to dust, but the damage was already done. He forced himself not to breathe. Regardless, he could feel the fur burning off his snout. His eyes stung. He staggered back, half-blind and dizzy, dimly aware of Nico screaming his name.
“Frank! Frank!”
He tried to focus. He was back in human form, retching and stumbling. His face felt like it was peeling off. In front of him, the green cloud of gas floated between him and the herd. The remaining cow monsters eyed him warily, probably wondering if Frank had any more tricks up his sleeve.
He glanced behind him. Under the stone arch, Nico di Angelo was holding his black Stygian iron sword, gesturing at Frank to hurry. At Nico’s feet, two puddles of darkness stained the pavement—no doubt the remains of the cow monsters that had chased them.
And Hazel…she was propped against the wall behind her brother. She wasn’t moving.
Frank ran toward them, forgetting about the monster herd. He rushed past Nico and grabbed Hazel’s shoulders. Her head slumped against her chest.
“She got a blast of green gas right in the face,” Nico said miserably. “I—I wasn’t fast enough.”
Frank couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Rage and despair battled inside him. He’d always been scared of Nico. Now he wanted to drop-kick the son of Hades into the nearest canal. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but Frank didn’t care. Neither did the war gods screaming in his head.
“We need to get her back to the ship,” Frank said.
The cow monster herd prowled cautiously just beyond the archway. They bellowed their foghorn cries. From nearby streets, more monsters answered. Reinforcements would soon have the demigods surrounded.
“We’ll never make it on foot,” Nico said. “Frank, turn into a giant eagle. Don’t worry about me. Get her back to the Argo II!”
With his face burning and the voices screaming in his mind, Frank wasn’t sure he could change shape; but he was about to try when a voice behind them said, “Your friends can’t help you. They don’t know the cure.”
Frank spun. Standing in the threshold of the Black House was a young man in jeans and a denim shirt. He had curly black hair and a friendly smile, though Frank doubted he was friendly. Probably he wasn’t even human.
At the moment, Frank didn’t care.
“Can you cure her?” he asked.
“Of course,” the man said. “But you’d better hurry inside. I think you’ve angered every katobleps in Venice.”
