The Hidden Oracle (13 page)

And if Calypso was involved…that complicated things. The sorceress and I had a rocky history, but even
I
had to admit she was beguiling. If she’d captured Leo’s heart, it was entirely possible he had gotten sidetracked. Odysseus spent seven years with her before returning home.

Whatever the case, it seemed unlikely that Valdez would be back in time to help me. My quest to master the Valdezinator’s arpeggios would have to wait.

Kayla and Austin had been very quiet, following our conversation with wonder and amazement. (My words have that effect on people.)

Now Kayla scooted toward me. “What did you guys talk about in the Big House? Chiron told you about the disappearances…?”

“Yes.” I tried to avoid looking in the direction of the woods. “We discussed the situation.”

“And?” Austin spread his fingers on the table. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want them to see my fear.

I wished my head would stop pounding. On Olympus, headaches were so much easier to cure. Hephaestus simply split one’s skull open and extracted whatever newborn god or goddess happened to be banging around in there. In the mortal world, my options were more limited.

“I need time to think about it,” I said. “Perhaps in the morning I’ll have some of my godly powers back.”

Austin leaned forward. In the torchlight, his cornrows seemed to twist into new DNA patterns. “Is that how it works? Your strength comes back over time?”

“I—I think so.” I tried to remember my years of servitude with Admetus and Laomedon, but I could barely conjure their names and faces. My contracting memory terrified me. It made each moment of the present balloon in size and importance, reminding me that time for mortals was limited.

“I have to get stronger,” I decided. “I
must
.”

Kayla squeezed my hand. Her archer’s fingers were rough and calloused. “It’s okay, Apollo…Dad. We’ll help you.”

Austin nodded. “Kayla’s right. We’re in this together. If anybody gives you trouble, Kayla will shoot them. Then I’ll curse them so bad they’ll be speaking in rhyming couplets for weeks.”

My eyes watered. Not so long ago—like this morning, for instance—the idea of these young demigods being able to help me would have struck me as ridiculous. Now their kindness moved me more than a hundred sacrificial bulls. I couldn’t recall the last time someone had cared about me enough to curse my enemies with rhyming couplets.

“Thank you,” I managed.

I could not add
my children.
It didn’t seem right. These demigods were my protectors and my family, but for the present I could not think of myself as their father. A father should do more—a father should give more to his children than he takes. I have to admit that this was a novel idea for me. It made me feel even worse than before.

“Hey…” Will patted my shoulder. “It’s not so bad. At least with everybody being on high alert, we might not have to do Harley’s obstacle course tomorrow.”

Kayla muttered an ancient Greek curse. If I had been a
proper
godly father, I would have washed her mouth out with olive oil.

“I forgot all about that,” she said. “They’ll
have
to cancel it, won’t they?”

I frowned. “What obstacle course? Chiron mentioned nothing about this.”

I wanted to object that my entire day had been an obstacle course. Surely they couldn’t expect me to do their camp activities as well. Before I could say as much, one of the satyrs blew a conch horn at the head table.

Chiron raised his arms for attention.

“Campers!” His voice filled the pavilion. He could be quite impressive when he wanted to be. “I have a few announcements, including news about tomorrow’s three-legged death race!”

Three-legged death race

Five terrible syllables

Oh, gods. Please not Meg

IT WAS ALL HARLEY’S FAULT.

After addressing the disappearance of Miranda Gardiner—“As a precautionary measure, please stay away from the woods until we know more”—Chiron called forward the young son of Hephaestus to explain how the three-legged death race would work. It quickly became apparent that Harley had masterminded the whole project. And, really, the idea was so horrifying, it could only have sprung from the mind of an eight-year-old boy.

I confess I lost track of the specifics after he explained the exploding chain-saw Frisbees.

“And they’ll be like, ZOOM!” He bounced up and down with excitement. “And then BUZZ! And POW!” He pantomimed all sorts of chaos with his hands. “You have to be really quick or you’ll die, and it’s awesome!”

The other campers grumbled and shifted on their benches.

Chiron raised his hand for silence. “Now, I know there were problems last time,” he said, “but fortunately our healers in the Apollo cabin were able to reattach Paolo’s arms.”

At a table in back, a muscular teen boy rose and began ranting in what I thought was Portuguese. He wore a white tank top over his dark chest, and I could see faint white scars around the tops of his biceps. Cursing rapidly, he pointed at Harley, the Apollo cabin, and pretty much everyone else.

“Ah, thank you, Paolo,” Chiron said, clearly baffled. “I’m glad you are feeling better.”

Austin leaned toward me and whispered, “Paolo understands English okay, but he only speaks Portuguese. At least, that’s what he claims. None of us can understand a word he says.”

I didn’t understand Portuguese either. Athena had been lecturing us for years about how Mount Olympus might migrate to Brazil someday, and we should all be prepared for the possibility. She’d even bought the gods Berlitz Portuguese DVDs for Saturnalia presents, but what does Athena know?

“Paolo seems agitated,” I noted.

Will shrugged. “He’s lucky he’s a fast healer—son of Hebe, goddess of youth, and all that.”

“You’re staring,” Nico noted.

“I am not,” Will said. “I am merely assessing how well Paolo’s arms are functioning after surgery.”

“Hmph.”

Paolo finally sat down. Chiron went through a long list of other injuries they had experienced during the first three-legged death race, all of which he hoped to avoid this time: second-degree burns, burst eardrums, a pulled groin, and two cases of chronic Irish step dancing.

The lone demigod at the Athena table raised his hand. “Chiron, just going to throw this out there….We’ve had three campers disappear. Is it really wise to be running a dangerous obstacle course?”

Chiron gave him a pained smile. “An excellent question, Malcolm, but this course will not take you into the woods, which we believe is the most hazardous area. The satyrs, dryads, and I will continue to investigate the disappearances. We will not rest until our missing campers are found. In the meantime, however, this three-legged race can foster important team-building skills. It also expands our understanding of the Labyrinth.”

The word smacked me in the face like Ares’s body odor. I turned to Austin. “The Labyrinth? As in
Daedalus’s
Labyrinth?”

Austin nodded, his fingers worrying the ceramic camp beads around his neck. I had a sudden memory of his mother, Latricia—the way she used to fiddle with her cowry necklace when she lectured at Oberlin. Even
I
learned things from Latricia Lake’s music theory class, though I had found her distractingly beautiful.

“During the war with Gaea,” Austin said, “the maze reopened. We’ve been trying to map it ever since.”

“That’s impossible,” I said. “Also insane. The Labyrinth is a malevolent sentient creation! It can’t be mapped or trusted.”

As usual, I could only draw on random bits and pieces of my memories, but I was fairly certain I spoke the truth. I remembered Daedalus. Back in the old days, the king of Crete had ordered him to build a maze to contain the monstrous Minotaur. But, oh no, a simple maze wasn’t
good
enough for a brilliant inventor like Daedalus. He had to make his Labyrinth self-aware and self-expanding. Over the centuries, it had honeycombed under the planet’s surface like an invasive root system.

Stupid brilliant inventors.

“It’s different now,” Austin told me. “Since Daedalus died…I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. Doesn’t feel so evil. Not quite as deadly.”

“Oh, that’s hugely reassuring. So of course you decided to do three-legged races through it.”

Will coughed. “The other thing, Dad…Nobody wants to disappoint Harley.”

I glanced at the head table. Chiron was still holding forth about the virtues of team building while Harley bounced up and down. I could see why the other campers might adopt the boy as their unofficial mascot. He was a cute little pipsqueak, even if he was scarily buff for an eight-year-old. His grin was infectious. His enthusiasm seemed to lift the mood of the entire group. Still, I recognized the mad gleam in his eyes. It was the same look his father, Hephaestus, got whenever he invented some automaton that would later go berserk and start destroying cities.

“Also keep in mind,” Chiron was saying, “that none of the unfortunate disappearances has been linked to the Labyrinth. Remain with your partner and you should be safe…at least, as safe as one can be in a three-legged death race.”

“Yeah,” Harley said. “Nobody has even
died
yet.” He sounded disappointed, as if he wanted us to try harder.

“In the face of a crisis,” Chiron said, “it’s important to stick to our regular activities. We must stay alert and in top condition. Our missing campers would expect no less from us. Now, as to the teams for the race, you will be allowed to choose your partner—”

There followed a sort of piranha attack of campers lunging toward each other to grab their preferred teammate. Before I could contemplate my options, Meg McCaffrey pointed at me from across the pavilion, her expression exactly like Uncle Sam’s in the recruitment poster.

Of course, I thought. Why should my luck improve now?

Chiron struck his hoof against the floor. “All right, everyone, settle down! The race will be tomorrow afternoon. Thank you, Harley, for your hard work on the…um, various lethal surprises in store.”

“BLAM!” Harley ran back to the Hephaestus table to join his older sister, Nyssa.

“This brings us to our other news,” Chiron said. “As you may have heard, two special newcomers joined us today. First, please welcome the god Apollo!”

Normally this was my cue to stand up, spread my arms, and grin as radiant light shone around me. The adoring crowd would applaud and toss flowers and chocolate bonbons at my feet.

This time I received no applause—just nervous looks. I had a strange, uncharacteristic impulse to slide lower in my seat and pull my coat over my head. I restrained myself through heroic effort.

Chiron struggled to maintain his smile. “Now, I know this is unusual,” he said, “but gods
do
become mortal from time to time. You should not be overly alarmed. Apollo’s presence among us could be a good omen, a chance for us to…” He seemed to lose track of his own argument. “Ah…do something good. I’m sure the best course of action will become clear in time. For now, please make Apollo feel at home. Treat him as you would any other new camper.”

At the Hermes table, Connor Stoll raised his hand. “Does that mean the Ares cabin should stick Apollo’s head in a toilet?”

At the Ares table, Sherman Yang snorted. “We don’t do that to everyone, Connor. Just the newbies who deserve it.”

Sherman glanced at Meg, who was obliviously finishing her last hot dog. The wispy black whiskers at the sides of her mouth were now frosted with mustard.

Connor Stoll grinned back at Sherman—a conspiratorial look if ever I saw one. That’s when I noticed the open backpack at Connor’s feet. Peeking from the top was something that looked like a net.

The implication sank in: two boys whom Meg had humiliated, preparing for payback. I didn’t have to be Nemesis to understand the allure of revenge. Still…I felt an odd desire to warn Meg.

I tried to catch her eye, but she remained focused on her dinner.

“Thank you, Sherman,” Chiron continued. “It’s good to know you won’t be giving the god of archery a swirly. As for the rest of you, we will keep you posted on our guest’s situation. I’m sending two of our finest satyrs, Millard and Herbert”—he gestured to the satyrs on his left—“to hand-deliver a message to Rachel Dare in New York. With any luck, she will be able to join us soon and help determine how we can best assist Apollo.”

There was some grumbling about this. I caught the words
Oracle
and
prophecies
. At a nearby table, a girl muttered to herself in Italian:
The blind leading the blind.

I glared at her, but the young lady was quite beautiful. She was perhaps two years older than I (mortally speaking), with dark pixie hair and devastatingly fierce almond eyes. I may have blushed.

I turned back to my tablemates. “Um…yes, satyrs. Why not send that other satyr, the friend of Percy’s?”

“Grover?” Nico asked. “He’s in California. The whole Council of Cloven Elders is out there, meeting about the drought.”

“Oh.” My spirits fell. I remembered Grover as being quite resourceful, but if he was dealing with California’s natural disasters, he was unlikely to be back anytime in the next decade.