The House of Hades - Lares and Lemures

Still… Jason didn’t get why Nico pushed people away, why he never spent much time at either camp, why he preferred the dead to the living. He really didn’t get why Nico had promised to lead the Argo II to Epirus if he hated Percy Jackson so much.

Nico’s eyes swept the windows above them. “Roman dead are everywhere here… Lares. Lemures. They’re watching. They’re angry.”

“At us?” Jason’s hand went to his sword.

“At everything.” Nico pointed to a small stone building on the west end of the courtyard. “That used to be a temple to Jupiter. The Christians changed it to a baptistery. The Roman ghosts don’t like that.”

Jason stared at the dark doorway.

He’d never met Jupiter, but he thought of his father as a living person—the guy who’d fallen in love with his mom. Of course he knew his dad was immortal, but somehow the full meaning of that had never really sunk in until now, as he stared at a doorway Romans had walked through, thousands of years ago, to worship his dad. The idea gave Jason a splitting headache.

“And over there…” Nico pointed east to a hexagonal building ringed with freestanding columns. “That was the mausoleum of the emperor.”

“But his tomb isn’t there anymore,” Jason guessed.

“Not for centuries,” Nico said. “When the empire collapsed, the building was turned into a Christian cathedral.”

Jason swallowed. “So if Diocletian’s ghost is still around here—”

“He’s probably not happy.”

The wind rustled, pushing leaves and food wrappers across the peristyle. In the corner of his eye, Jason caught a glimpse of movement—a blur of red and gold.


(They're at Diocletian's old palace, for reference)


- The House of Hades, Chapter 35