The House of Hades - Detect and Warn Lemures

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.”


- The House of Hades, Chapter 18