The Blood of Olympus - Bones

He remembered the thousands of skeletons in the Chapel of Bones. He recalled what Hades had said about this public square, where the Inquisition had burned hundreds of people alive.

This was an ancient city. How many dead lay in the ground beneath his feet?

“Coach,” he said, “you can climb?”

Hedge scoffed. “I’m half goat. Of course I can climb!”

“Get up to the statue and secure the rigging. Make a rope ladder and drop it down for us.”

“Uh, but the pack of wolves—”

“Reyna,” Nico said, “you and your dogs will have to cover our retreat.”

The praetor nodded grimly. “Understood.”

Lycaon howled with laughter. “Retreat to where, son of Hades? There is no escape. You cannot kill us!”

“Maybe not,” Nico said. “But I can slow you down.”

He spread his hands and the ground erupted.

Nico hadn’t expected it to work so well. He had pulled bone fragments from the earth before. He’d animated rat skeletons and unearthed the odd human skull. Nothing prepared him for the wall of bones that burst skyward—hundreds of femurs, ribs, and fibulas entangling the wolves, forming a spiky briar of human remains.

Most of the wolves were hopelessly trapped. Some writhed and gnashed their teeth, trying to free themselves from their haphazard cages. Lycaon himself was immobilized in a cocoon of rib bones, but that didn’t stop him from screaming curses.

“You worthless child!” he roared. “I will rip the flesh from your limbs!”

“Coach, go!” Nico said.

The satyr sprinted toward the temple. He made the top of the podium in a single leap and scrambled up the left pillar.

Two wolves broke free from the thicket of bones. Reyna threw her knife and impaled one in the neck. Her dogs pounced on the other. Aurum’s fangs and claws slipped harmlessly off the wolf’s hide, but Argentum brought the beast down.

Argentum’s head was still bent sideways from the fight in Pompeii. His left ruby eye was still missing, but he managed to sink his fangs into the wolf’s scruff. The wolf dissolved into a puddle of shadow.

Thank goodness for silver dogs, Nico thought.

Reyna drew her sword. She scooped a handful of silver coins from Hedge’s baseball cap, grabbed duct tape from the coach’s supply bag, and began taping coins around her blade. The girl was nothing if not inventive.

“Go!” she told Nico. “I’ll cover you!”

The wolves struggled, causing the bone thicket to crack and crumble. Lycaon freed his right arm and began smashing through his prison of rib cages.

“I will flay you alive!” he promised. “I will add your pelt to my cloak!”

Nico ran, pausing just long enough to grab Reyna’s silver pocketknife from the ground.

He wasn’t a mountain goat, but he found a set of stairs at the back of the temple and raced to the top. He reached the base of the columns and squinted up at Coach Hedge, who was precariously perched at the feet of the Athena Parthenos, unraveling ropes and knotting a ladder.

“Hurry!” Nico yelled.

“Oh, really?” the coach called down. “I thought we had tons of time!”

The last thing Nico needed was satyr sarcasm. Down in the square, more wolves broke free of their bone restraints. Reyna swatted them aside with her modified duct-tape-coin-sword, but a handful of change wasn’t going to hold back a pack of werewolves for long. Aurum snarled and snapped in frustration, unable to hurt the enemy. Argentum did his best, sinking his claws into the throat of another wolf, but the silver dog was already damaged. Soon he’d be hopelessly outnumbered.

Lycaon freed both his arms. He started pulling his legs from their rib cage restraints. There were only a few seconds until he would be loose.

Nico was out of tricks. Summoning that wall of bones had drained him. It would take all his remaining energy to shadow-travel—assuming he could even find a shadow to travel into.

A shadow.

He looked at the silver pocketknife in his hand. An idea came to him—possibly the stupidest, craziest idea he’d had since he thought: Hey, I’ll get Percy to swim in the River Styx! He’ll love me for that!

“Reyna, get up here!” he yelled.

She slammed another wolf in the head and ran. In mid-stride, she flicked her sword, which elongated into a javelin, then used it to launch herself up like a pole-vaulter. She landed next to Nico.

“What’s the plan?” she asked, not even out of breath.

“Show-off,” he grumbled.

A knotted rope fell from above.

“Climb, ya silly non-goats!” Hedge yelled.

“Go,” Nico told her. “Once you’re up there, hang on tight to the rope.”

“Nico—”

“Do it!”

Her javelin shrank back into a sword. Reyna sheathed it and began to climb, scaling the column despite her armor and her supplies.

Down in the plaza, Aurum and Argentum were nowhere to be seen. Either they’d retreated or they’d been destroyed.

Lycaon broke free of his bone cage with a triumphant howl. “You will suffer, son of Hades!”

What else is new? Nico thought.

He palmed the pocketknife. “Come get me, you mutt! Or do you have to stay like a good dog until your master shows up?”

Lycaon sprang through the air, his claws extended, his fangs bared. Nico wrapped his free hand around the rope and concentrated, a bead of sweat trickling down his neck.


- The Blood of Olympus, Chapter 16