'Ah.' He tried to think of something hopeful to say, but he recalled the angry woman's eyes, the way her steely grip made his skin smoke. 'Any idea who she is?'

Hazel shook her head. 'Only that ...' She glanced at Nico, and some sort of silent argument happened between them. Leo got the feeling that the two of them had had private conversations about the House of Hades and they weren't sharing all the details. 'Only that she won't be easy to defeat.'

'But there is some good news,' Nico said. 'The ghost I talked to explained how Hecate defeated Clytius in the first war. She used her torches to set his hair on fire. He burned to death. In other words, fire is his weakness.'

Everybody looked at Leo.

'Oh,' he said. 'Okay.'

Jason nodded encouragingly, like this was great news like he expected Leo to walk up to a towering ma.s.s of darkness, shoot a few fireb.a.l.l.s and solve all their problems. Leo didn't want to bring him down, but he could still hear Gaia's voice: He is the void that consumes all magic, the cold that consumes all fire, the silence that consumes all speech.

Leo was pretty sure it would take more than a few matches to set that giant ablaze.

'It's a good lead,' Jason insisted. 'At least we know how to kill the giant. And this sorceress ... well, if Hecate believes Hazel can defeat her, then so do I.'

Hazel dropped her eyes. 'Now we just have to reach the House of Hades, battle our way through Gaia's forces '

'Plus a bunch of ghosts,' Nico added grimly. 'The spirits in that temple may not be friendly.'

' and find the Doors of Death,' Hazel continued. 'a.s.suming we can somehow arrive at the same time as Percy and Annabeth and rescue them.'

Frank swallowed a bite of pancake. 'We can do it. We have to.'

Leo admired the big guy's optimism. He wished he shared it.

'So, with this detour,' Leo said, 'I'm estimating four or five days to arrive at Epirus, a.s.suming no delays for, you know, monster attacks and stuff.'

Jason smiled sourly. 'Yeah. Those never happen.'

Leo looked at Hazel. 'Hecate told you that Gaia was planning her big Wake Up party on August first, right? The Feast of Whatever?'

'Spes,' Hazel said. 'The G.o.ddess of hope.'

Jason turned his fork. 'Theoretically, that leaves us enough time. It's only July fifth. We should be able to close the Doors of Death, then find the giants' HQ and stop them from waking Gaia before August first.'

'Theoretically,' Hazel agreed. 'But I'd still like to know how we make our way through the House of Hades without going insane or dying.'

n.o.body volunteered any ideas.

Frank set down his pancake roll like it suddenly didn't taste so good. 'It's July fifth. Oh, jeez, I hadn't even thought of that ...'

'Hey, man, it's cool,' Leo said. 'You're Canadian, right? I didn't expect you to get me an Independence Day present or anything ... unless you wanted to.'

'It's not that. My grandmother ... she always told me that seven was an unlucky number. It was a ghost number. She didn't like it when I told her there would be seven demiG.o.ds 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 embarra.s.sing if his friends understood Morse code. 'But that's just coincidence, right?'

Frank's expression didn't rea.s.sure 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 the way 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 G.o.ddess 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 above deck. 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.

LEO WAS VAGUELY AWARE OF HAZEL 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 danced around the deck, picking up whatever wasn't tied down and sticking it in his bag. He was maybe four feet tall, even shorter than Coach Hedge, with bowed legs and chimp-like feet, his clothes so loud they gave Leo vertigo. His green-plaid trousers were pinned at the cuffs and held up with bright-red suspenders over a striped pink-and-black woman's blouse. He wore half a dozen gold watches on each arm and a zebra-patterned cowboy hat with a price tag dangling from the brim. His skin was covered with patches of scraggly red fur, though ninety percent of his body hair seemed to be concentrated in his magnificent eyebrows.

Leo was just forming the thought Where's the other dwarf? when he heard a click behind him and realized he'd led his friends into a trap.

'Duck!' He hit the deck as the explosion blasted his eardrums.

Note to self, Leo thought groggily. Do not leave boxes of magic grenades where dwarfs can reach them.

At least he was alive. Leo had been experimenting with all sorts of weapons based on the Archimedes sphere that he'd recovered in Rome. He'd built grenades that could spray acid, fire, shrapnel or freshly b.u.t.tered popcorn. (Hey, you never knew when you'd get hungry in battle.) Judging from the ringing in Leo's ears, the dwarf had detonated the flash-bang grenade, which Leo had filled with a rare vial of Apollo's music, pure liquid extract. It didn't kill, but it left Leo feeling like he'd just done a belly flop off the deep end.

He tried to get up. His limbs were useless. Someone was tugging at his waist, maybe a friend trying to help him up? No. His friends didn't smell like heavily perfumed monkey cages.

He managed to turn over. His vision was out of focus and tinted pink, like the world had been submerged in strawberry jelly. A grinning, grotesque face loomed over him. The brown-furred dwarf was dressed even worse than his friend, in a green bowler hat like a leprechaun's, dangly diamond earrings and a white-and-black referee's shirt. He showed off the prize he'd just stolen Leo's tool belt then danced away.

Leo tried to grab him, but his fingers were numb. The dwarf frolicked over to the nearest ballista, which his red-furred friend was priming to launch.

The brown-furred dwarf jumped onto the projectile like it was a skateboard, and his friend shot him into the sky.

Red Fur pranced over to Coach Hedge. He gave the satyr a big smack on the cheek, then skipped to the rail. He bowed to Leo, doffing his zebra cowboy hat, and did a backflip over the side.

Leo managed to get up. Jason was already on his feet, stumbling and running into things. Frank had turned into a silverback gorilla (why, Leo wasn't sure; maybe to commune with the monkey dwarfs?) but the flash grenade had hit him hard. He was sprawled on the deck with his tongue hanging out and his gorilla eyes rolled up in his head.

'Piper!' Jason staggered to the helm and carefully pulled the gag out of her mouth.

'Don't waste your time on me!' she said. 'Go after them!'

At the mast, Coach Hedge mumbled, 'HHHmmmmm hmmm!'

Leo figured that meant: 'KILL THEM!' Easy translation, since most of the coach's sentences involved the word kill.

Leo glanced at the control console. His Archimedes sphere was gone. He put his hand to his waist, where his tool belt should have been. His head started to clear, and his sense of outrage came to a boil. Those dwarfs had attacked his ship. They'd stolen his most precious possessions.

Below him spread the city of Bologna a jigsaw puzzle of red-tiled buildings in a valley hemmed in by green hills. Unless Leo could find the dwarfs somewhere in that maze of streets ... Nope. Failure wasn't an option. Neither was waiting for his friends to recover.

He turned to Jason. 'You feeling good enough to control the winds? I need a lift.'

Jason frowned. 'Sure, but '

'Good,' Leo said. 'We've got some monkey dudes to catch.'

Jason and Leo touched down in a big piazza lined with white marble government buildings and outdoor cafes. Bikes and Vespas clogged the surrounding streets, but the square itself was empty except for pigeons and a few old men drinking espressos.

None of the locals seemed to notice the huge Greek warship hovering over the piazza, nor the fact that Jason and Leo had just flown down Jason wielding a gold sword, and Leo ... well, Leo pretty much empty-handed.

'Where to?' Jason asked.

Leo stared at him. 'Well, I dunno. Let me pull my dwarf-tracking GPS out of my tool belt ... Oh, wait! I don't have a dwarf-tracking GPS or my tool belt!'

'Fine,' Jason grumbled. He glanced up at the ship as if to get his bearings, then pointed across the piazza. 'The ballista fired the first dwarf in that direction, I think. Come on.'

They waded through a lake of pigeons, then manoeuvred down a side street of clothing stores and gelato shops. The sidewalks were lined with white columns covered in graffiti. A few panhandlers asked for change (Leo didn't know Italian, but he got the message loud and clear).

He kept patting his waist, hoping his tool belt would magically reappear. It didn't. He tried not to freak, but he'd come to depend on that belt for almost everything. He felt like somebody had stolen one of his hands.

'We'll find it,' Jason promised.

Usually, Leo would have felt rea.s.sured. Jason had a talent for staying levelheaded in a crisis, and he'd got Leo out of plenty of bad sc.r.a.pes. Today, though, all Leo could think about was the stupid fortune cookie he had opened in Rome. The G.o.ddess Nemesis had promised him help, and he'd got it: the code to activate the Archimedes sphere. At the time, Leo had had no choice but to use it if he wanted to save his friends but Nemesis had warned that her help came with a price.

Leo wondered if that price would ever be paid. Percy and Annabeth were gone. The ship was hundreds of miles off course, heading towards an impossible challenge. Leo's friends were counting on him to beat a terrifying giant. And now he didn't even have his tool belt or his Archimedes sphere.

He was so absorbed with feeling sorry for himself that he didn't notice where they were until Jason grabbed his arm. 'Check it out.'

Leo looked up. They'd arrived in a smaller piazza. Looming over them was a huge bronze statue of a buck-naked Neptune.

'Ah, jeez.' Leo averted his eyes. He really didn't need to see a G.o.dly groin this early in the morning.

The sea G.o.d stood on a big marble column in the middle of a fountain that wasn't working (which seemed kind of ironic). On either side of Neptune, little winged Cupid dudes were sitting, kind of chillin', like, What's up? Neptune himself (avoid the groin) was throwing his hip to one side in an Elvis Presley move. He gripped his trident loosely in his right hand and stretched his left hand out like he was blessing Leo, or possibly attempting to levitate him.

'Some kind of clue?' Leo wondered.

Jason frowned. 'Maybe, maybe not. There are statues of the G.o.ds all over the place in Italy. I'd just feel better if we ran across Jupiter. Or Minerva. Anybody but Neptune, really.'

Leo climbed into the dry fountain. He put his hand on the statue's pedestal, and a rush of impressions surged through his fingertips. He sensed Celestial bronze gears, magical levers, springs and pistons.

'It's mechanical,' he said. 'Maybe a doorway to the dwarfs' secret lair?'

'Ooooo!' shrieked a nearby voice. 'Secret lair?'

'I want a secret lair!' yelled another voice from above.

Jason stepped back, his sword ready. Leo almost got whiplash trying to look in two places at once. The red-furred dwarf in the cowboy hat was sitting about thirty feet away at the nearest cafe table, sipping an espresso held by his monkey-like foot. The brown-furred dwarf in the green bowler was perched on the marble pedestal at Neptune's feet, just above Leo's head.

'If we had a secret lair,' said Red Fur, 'I would want a firehouse pole.'

'And a waterslide!' said Brown Fur, who was pulling random tools out of Leo's belt, tossing aside wrenches, hammers and staple guns.