The Demigods of Olympus: An Interactive Adventure (16 page)

“Excuse me, sir?” I started. “I was wondering if I could borrow your marker? I’ll give it right back.”

“You sure you don’t want a readin’ instead?” he drawled, pointing to the empty chair in front of him.

I spread out my hands. “Sorry, dude. I’m all outta cash at the moment.”

He sighed and said, “We working people has to help each other out” as he handed me a red marker. I picked up a small piece of cardboard off the street, and wrote a huge “$1” on it, and returned the marker with my thanks.

I placed the makeshift sign in front of my crate. Then, just to make sure the message was clear, I put one of my precious few dollars into the hat. Everyone knows that it takes money to make money.

I climbed back on top and extended one arm and one finger, pointing toward the Mississippi levee. I waited, trying hard not to move anything, not even my eyes. A few people stopped to read my sign, but then they kept moving. Finally, a blond man in a too-big T-shirt stumbled over and said, “One dollar. For what?”

He looked at me for an answer, but I didn’t move. He shrugged, reached into his wallet and removed a dollar, then placed it into the hat. Doing my best to move like a robot, I tilted my head and waved, then settled into a superhero pose, both hands on my hips.

The man stared, waiting for something else to happen. After about fifteen seconds, he said, “That was
terrible
!” and stumbled off down the street.

It hadn’t been great, but I’d made my first dollar. And the man hadn’t taken it back.

For the next three and a half hours, tourists came and went, a few dropping a dollar into my hat out of curiosity, nearly all of them leaving disappointed. Finally, I heard Sam singing “When the Saints Go Marching In” at the top of his lungs. I leaped down from the crate, wincing as my frozen muscles screamed in protest. I picked up the hat, wincing even harder at the sight of thirteen lonely dollar bills and a handful of pity change.

I ran over to find Sam, realizing how insanely sweaty he’d gotten. “It’s…time…to…go…” he panted. “Did…we…do…it?”

I shrugged, embarrassed. “I dunno,” I said. “I didn’t do so well.” I started counting, putting each dollar into the hat.

“…sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one.” I looked at Sam, his hair a huge frizzy halo. “We’re four dollars short,” I said.

“Oh…man,” said Sam, wiping his forehead. “We gotta
dance
!” He took a deep breath and started flailing wildly. He glanced at me, and I did my best to mirror him. I felt ridiculous, but five minutes later, we had four dollars in change sitting in Sam’s new hat.

He smiled at me. “We…did it! Let’s…
go
.”

I racked my brain, trying to come up with something I could do. I was sure that if I tried to sing or dance, we would end up
owing
money. I thought back to all of the street performers I’d seen over the years: break dancers, magicians, guitarists, mimes…none of which was something I could do. “Maybe I could juggle?” I said.

Sam wrinkled his nose like he smelled sewage. “Can you do it without dropping the balls?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never tried. How hard can it be?”

“Um, hard,” said Sam.

“Well, maybe people will appreciate the effort,” I said. “I honestly don’t know what else I could do.”

Sam cocked his head and looked at me curiously for a moment. “You know what?” he said. “It’s worth a try.” He led us down to Jackson Square. The main park area, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, was enormous and perfectly landscaped. A gothic-looking cathedral towered over everything, just behind a green-tinged statue of Andrew Jackson (he waved his hat at us). The stretch of sidewalk to the left of the main square was littered with small folding tables where psychics and tarot card readers sat. Artists had leaned paintings against the fence to attract passersby. Sam looked around, then pointed to an empty spot near some brightly painted canvases. “I’ll be over there,” he said. “If anything goes wrong, or the cops come, I’ll sing, um, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ That’ll be our time-to-go cue.”

“Okay,” I said. “Good luck.”

“You need it more than I do,” he said, then he took off his new hat and gave it to me. As he clopped over, I tucked the hat under my arm and looked around for something to juggle. About halfway down the block, I saw a man selling fruit from a cart: apples, melons, limes, coconuts. I used the rest of the change in my pocket to buy three limes (apples and melons seemed too big) and hefted them as I walked to the corner.

I placed the hat and one of the limes on the ground in front of me, then tossed one of the fruits into the air and caught it. Easy. I did that a few times, then I did it with two, tossing them gently from hand to hand. It felt strangely simple, like the limes were almost moving in slow motion. Maybe this demigod thing was good for something.…

I picked up the third lime and started slowly. Toss one piece of fruit from the right hand into the air, then the lime from the left, then the third lime from the right hand while catching the second. Rinse. Repeat. I dropped the fruit a few times, but then I managed to get through one rotation without dropping.

Then two.

Soon, I was keeping it going for ten or twenty seconds at a time…then longer.

“Juggling!” I shouted, unable to keep the smile off my face. “Come and get your juggling!”

A kid in a stained Cirque du Soleil shirt walked up and watched me for a few seconds until I dropped one of the limes. He picked it up and handed it back to me, so I started again. I juggled and juggled and he started clapping. A few other people stopped to check me out, and I said, “Money helps!” They laughed and put some change into my hat.

I got into the zone, getting better and better as the minutes flew by. Each lime seemed to hover in the air, allowing me more than enough time to grab it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that bills were piling up in my hat. By the time I heard Sam singing “When the Saints Go Marching In” at the top of his lungs, it was literally overflowing with money.

I gave the limes to a couple of gaping kids, scooped up all the cash, and ran over to Sam. He was insanely sweaty. “It’s…time…to…go…” he panted. “Did…we…do…it?”

I started counting, putting each dollar into the hat. “…eighty-four…eighty-five…eighty-six…eighty-seven! Sam, we killed it! We made eighty-seven dollars!” I shouted, then hugged him, immediately regretting it as his wet goat scent clung to me.

“Come…on,” he gasped. “We…only…have…fifteen…minutes.…”

I laughed and shoved all of the bills into my pockets. “If this demigod gig doesn’t work out, maybe we can take our show on the road.”

We sprinted over to Preservation Hall and purchased two tickets with minutes to spare. The place was tiny, with bare wooden walls, dim lighting, and minimal seating. A large crowd was already packed in, and Sam and I made our way to the front of the room.

A lone musician, a woman with dark hair flowing down her back, was tapping out a rhythm on a tall conga drum. Her gray eyes locked with mine and she smiled. An electric current ran up my spine.

“Sam, you see that woman?”

The band filtered in just then, blocking our view of her. When the musicians moved aside, she was gone, but her drum remained. Except…

“Look!”

A fog seemed to lift from around the conga, revealing an earthenware container of roughly the same shape and size. The tuning lugs had morphed into two handles. A solid clay lid, not a thin drum skin, covered the top.

“The pithos! It was hidden by the Mist!” Sam said. “Should we grab it and go?”

We couldn’t claim it yet, because the band had started to play. I’d never listened to live jazz before and thought the music was amazing. The little boy sitting next to me had a different opinion. He clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. The boy’s father caught my eye and shrugged. “Guess not everyone is a music lover.”

The band finished its set forty-five minutes later. I’d hoped to sneak on stage and get the pithos while the audience filed out. But the musicians lingered, chatting with a few fans.

“Now what?” Sam whispered.

“We try the direct approach.” I moved to the trumpet player, an older man who had been introduced as Lou Garoo. He had a patchy beard, bushy hair, and a long nose. “Excuse me, sir, but is that pith—er, conga for sale?”

“Nope.” Lou’s voice was deep and husky, almost a growl.

My heart sank as I searched my mind for ideas.

Then he said, “But could be I’d trade ya something for it.”

“Anything!”

He nodded at Sam. “I got a liking for your hat.”

“My hat?” Sam turned to me. “He wants my nub hat?”

“Sensible design, those slits,” Lou said. “Works for mules and other…creatures…who might need a little extra room up top. Next full moon, a hat like that could fit me just right.” He grinned, and suddenly his face looked less human and more…canine. Like the Big Bad Wolf.

“Lou Garoo.” I gulped.
Loups-garoux
. “You’re a—a—”

“Friend. Let’s leave it at that.” He combed his fingers (with the longest fingernails I’d ever seen) through his hair. “So, we have a deal? Hat for pith—er, conga?”

“Deal.” Sam handed over his nub hat, we grabbed the pithos, and the two of us shot out of there before we became doggie treats.

On visit number two to Saint Louis Cemetery Number One—after hours this time—we crouched behind a tomb, the pithos between us. I had just unzipped my backpack to get my dual action toothbrush—it turned into a sword
and
prevented tooth decay—when I heard the sound of brick scraping against brick. I risked a peek. A shadowy form moved swiftly through the gloom and disappeared.

“Something’s out there,” I hissed.

“Where?”

“Behind you,” said a gravelly voice.

Sam and I whirled around.

A seven-foot-tall man leaned casually against a crypt. He was dressed in a tight-fitting pinstriped suit, purple vest, and white shirt. A top hat perched on his head and a smoking cigar dangled from his mouth. His face was painted to look like a skull. He wore sunglasses with one lens missing.

One thing was instantly obvious: no way was he going to fit into our pithos.

The Mormo’s lips peeled back in a ghastly grin.

“Look at its teeth,” Sam whimpered.

There were only four, two upper and two lower, shaped like snake fangs and oozing venom. “Let me guess,” he said, his voice raspy and low. “You want me to get into your little clay pot.”

“Uh, just for a second?” said Sam.

The Mormo cackled, apparently genuinely amused. “You demigods. Not only will I never,
ever
get into your silly pithos, I am
highly
doubtful that you’ll even get the chance to try and make me.”

I pulled out my toothbrush, flicked the bristles, and it transformed into a Celestial bronze sword. “No?” I said.

“Nope,” said the Mormo, and lazily snapped his fingers.

“Zane!” shouted Sam, and I spun around to find a horde of ghosts moving toward me. I’d forgotten the Mormo could summon them. Their leader, a thick-necked woman with a hatchet in one hand and a decapitated chicken in the other, flew at me. I doubted she could do much damage with the chicken. The hatchet, though? I didn’t wait to find out. I sliced my sword straight through her vaporous form. She vanished with a shriek and the stench of sulfur.

Sam yelled my name again. While I’d been playing chicken with the Chicken Lady, the other specters had closed in around him.

“Duck!” I cried.

He dropped just as I swung my blade in a swooping, neck-high arc. The ghosts winked out one after another.

“Man, that smells bad!” Sam waved his hand in front of his nose.

The Mormo strode into the clearing and slow-clapped sarcastically. “Well-played. Let’s see what else you can handle.”

I charged forward with my sword raised, piercing his leg to the bone. The Mormo howled. I thrust again—but this time, I hit nothing. A split second before I struck, he flickered from solid to gas.

“Huh. Nice trick.”

“If you like that, you’ll love this.” The Mormo snapped his fingers.

Several vaults burst open. Skeletal remains, some with meat still clinging to the bones, clattered out and assembled themselves into semi-humans. In the distance, I spotted more ghosts floating toward us.

Sam picked up a piece of wood and swung it in a large circle. We attacked together. The bone people we knocked apart stayed down, but more kept coming. “There’s too many of them!” Sam cried as we backed away, slicing and dicing for our lives. “Maybe we should run for it?”

A low rumble shook the graveyard, and Sam groaned as five enormous spirits materialized on our left. “More?” he bleated. But they were uninterested in us and advanced slowly on the pithos, which we’d left behind a few crypts over.

These demons’ legs were thick red-brown pillars of lumpy clay. Three held hammers; their faces were patchworks of pottery shards. Scorch marks covered the torso and face of the fourth, who clutched a blazing torch. The last, inexplicably, wore a chef’s hat on top of his misshapen head.

“Smash?” one of the hammer dudes queried.

“Destroy!” agreed the second.

“Shatter,” the third added.

“The Demons Karaoke,” Sam groaned. “Forgot about them.”

“We can’t let them destroy the pithos,” I said.

“No
way
we can take these guys,” said Sam in a high-pitched voice.

Somewhere nearby, I heard the Mormo cackle. Now I understood his confidence—we were facing five massive demons, a horde of weapon-wielding ghosts, and about forty slow-moving zombies.

That’s it. We’re goners.
It’s over.