The Hidden Oracle (7 page)

“Yes, I know. You’ll destroy me. Then you’ll spread every known malady across the world. You’ve been wanting to do that ever since Pandora let you out of that jar. But you can’t. I will strike you down!”

Perhaps you are wondering how I could act so confident and calm. In fact, I was terrified. My sixteen-year-old mortal instincts were screaming,
RUN!
My knees were knocking together, and my right eye had developed a nasty twitch. But the secret to dealing with plague spirits was to keep talking so as to appear in charge and unafraid. I trusted that this would allow my demigod companions time to come up with a clever plan to save me. I certainly
hoped
Meg and Percy were working on such a plan.

The spirit on the right bared his rotten teeth. “What will you strike us down with? Where is your booow?”

“It appears to be missing,” I agreed. “But is it really? What if it’s cleverly hidden under this Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and I am about to whip it out and shoot you all?”

The nosoi shuffled nervously.

“Yooou lie,” said the one in the middle.

Percy cleared his throat. “Um, hey, Apollo…”

Finally! I thought.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I told him. “You and Meg have come up with a clever plan to hold off these spirits while I run away to camp. I hate to see you sacrifice yourselves, but—”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Percy raised his blade. “I was going to ask what happens if I just slice and dice these mouth-breathers with Celestial bronze.”

The middle spirit chortled, his yellow eyes gleaming. “A sword is such a small weapon. It does not have the pooooetry of a good epidemic.”

“Stop right there!” I said. “You can’t claim both my plagues
and
my poetry!”

“You are right,” said the spirit. “Enough wooooords.”

The three corpses shambled forward. I thrust out my arms, hoping to blast them to dust. Nothing happened.

“This is insufferable!” I complained. “How do demigods do it without an auto-win power?”

Meg jabbed her tree branch into the nearest spirit’s chest. The branch stuck. Glittering smoke began swirling down the length of the wood.

“Let go!” I warned. “Don’t let the nosoi touch you!”

Meg released the branch and scampered away.

Meanwhile, Percy Jackson charged into battle. He swung his sword, dodging the spirits’ attempts to snare him, but his efforts were futile. Whenever his blade connected with the nosoi, their bodies simply dissolved into glittery mist, then resolidified.

A spirit lunged to grab him. From the ground, Meg scooped up a frozen black peach and threw it with such force it embedded itself in the spirit’s forehead, knocking him down.

“We gotta run,” Meg decided.

“Yeah.” Percy backtracked toward us. “I like that idea.”

I knew running would not help. If it were possible to run from disease spirits, the medieval Europeans would’ve put on their track shoes and escaped the Black Death. (And FYI, the Black Death was
not
my fault. I took one century off to lie around the beach in Cabo, and came back and found that the nosoi had gotten loose and a third of the continent was dead.
Gods
, I was so irritated.)

But I was too terrified to argue. Meg and Percy sprinted off through the orchard, and I followed.

Percy pointed to a line of hills about a mile ahead. “That’s the western border of camp. If we can just get there…”

We passed an irrigation tank on a tractor-trailer. With a casual flick of his hand, Percy caused the side of the tank to rupture. A wall of water crashed into the three nosoi behind us.

“That was good.” Meg grinned, skipping along in her new green dress. “We’re going to make it!”

No, I thought, we’re not.

My chest ached. Each breath was a ragged wheeze. I resented that these two demigods could carry on a conversation while running for their lives while I, the immortal Apollo, was reduced to gasping like a catfish.

“We can’t—” I gulped. “They’ll just—”

Before I could finish, three glittering pillars of smoke plumed from the ground in front of us. Two of the nosoi solidified into cadavers—one with a peach for a third eye, the other with a tree branch sticking out of his chest.

The third spirit…Well, Percy didn’t see it in time. He ran straight into the plume of smoke.

“Don’t breathe!” I warned him.

Percy’s eyes bugged out as if to say,
Seriously?
He fell to his knees, clawing at his throat. As a son of Poseidon, he could probably breathe underwater, but holding one’s breath for an indeterminate amount of time was a different matter altogether.

Meg picked up another withered peach from the field, but it would offer her little defense against the forces of darkness.

I tried to figure out how to help Percy—because I am all about helping—but the branch-impaled nosos charged at me. I turned and fled, running face-first into a tree. I’d like to tell you that was part of my plan, but even I, with all my poetic skill, cannot put a positive spin on it.

I found myself flat on my back, spots dancing in my eyes, the cadaverous visage of the plague spirit looming over me.

“Which fatal illness shall I use to kill the great Apolloooo?” the spirit gurgled. “Anthrax? Perhaps eboooola…”

“Hangnails,” I suggested, trying to squirm away from my tormentor. “I live in fear of hangnails.”

“I have the answer!” the spirit cried, rudely ignoring me. “Let’s try this!”

He dissolved into smoke and settled over me like a glittering blanket.

Peaches in combat

I am hanging it up now

My brain exploded

I WILL NOT SAY
my life passed before my eyes.

I wish it had. That would’ve taken several months, giving me time to figure out an escape plan.

Instead, my regrets passed before my eyes. Despite being a gloriously perfect being, I do have a few regrets. I remembered that day at Abbey Road Studios, when my envy led me to set rancor in the hearts of John and Paul and break up the Beatles. I remembered Achilles falling on the plains of Troy, cut down by an unworthy archer because of my wrath.

I saw Hyacinthus, his bronze shoulders and dark ringlets gleaming in the sunlight. Standing on the sideline of the discus field, he gave me a brilliant smile.
Even you can’t throw that far,
he teased.

Watch me,
I said. I threw the discus, then stared in horror as a gust of wind made it veer, inexplicably, toward Hyacinthus’s handsome face.

And of course I saw
her
—the other love of my life—her fair skin transforming into bark, her hair sprouting green leaves, her eyes hardening into rivulets of sap.

Those memories brought back so much pain, you might think I would welcome the glittering plague mist descending over me.

Yet my new mortal self rebelled. I was too young to die! I hadn’t even had my first kiss! (Yes, my godly catalogue of exes was filled with more beautiful people than a Kardashian party guest list, but none of that seemed real to me.)

If I’m being totally honest, I have to confess something else: all gods fear death, even when we are
not
encased in mortal forms.

That may seem silly. We are immortal. But as you’ve seen, immortality can be taken away. (In my case,
three stinking times
.)

Gods know about fading. They know about being forgotten over the centuries. The idea of ceasing to exist altogether terrifies us. In fact—well, Zeus would not like me sharing this information, and if you tell anyone, I will deny I ever said it—but the truth is we gods are a little in awe of you mortals. You spend your whole lives knowing you will die. No matter how many friends and relatives you have, your puny existence will quickly be forgotten. How do you cope with it? Why are you not running around constantly screaming and pulling your hair out? Your bravery, I must admit, is quite admirable.

Now where was I?

Right. I was dying.

I rolled around in the mud, holding my breath. I tried to brush off the disease cloud, but it was not as easy as swatting a fly or an uppity mortal.

I caught a glimpse of Meg, playing a deadly game of tag with the third nosos, trying to keep a peach tree between herself and the spirit. She yelled something to me, but her voice seemed tinny and far away.

Somewhere to my left, the ground shook. A miniature geyser erupted from the field. Percy crawled toward it desperately. He thrust his face in the water, washing away the smoke.

My eyesight began to dim.

Percy struggled to his feet. He ripped out the source of the geyser—an irrigation pipe—and turned the water on me.

Normally I do not like being doused. Every time I go camping with Artemis, she likes to wake me up with a bucket of ice-cold water. But in this case, I didn’t mind.

The water disrupted the smoke, allowing me to roll away and gasp for air. Nearby, our two gaseous enemies re-formed as dripping wet corpses, their yellow eyes glowing with annoyance.

Meg yelled again. This time I understood her words. “GET DOWN!”

I found this inconsiderate, since I’d only just gotten up. All around the orchard, the frozen blackened remnants of the harvest were beginning to levitate.

Believe me, in four thousand years I have seen some strange things. I have seen the dreaming face of Ouranos etched in stars across the heavens, and the full fury of Typhon as he raged across the earth. I’ve seen men turn into snakes, ants turn into men, and otherwise rational people dance the macarena.

But never before had I seen an uprising of frozen fruit.

Percy and I hit the ground as peaches shot around the orchard, ricocheting off trees like eight balls, ripping through the nosoi’s cadaverous bodies. If I had been standing up, I would have been killed, but Meg simply stood there, unfazed and unhurt, as frozen dead fruit zinged around her.

All three nosoi collapsed, riddled with holes. Every piece of fruit dropped to the ground.

Percy looked up, his eyes red and puffy. “Whah jus happened?”

He sounded congested, which meant he hadn’t completely escaped the effects of the plague cloud, but at least he wasn’t dead. That was generally a good sign.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Meg, is it safe?”

She was staring in amazement at the carnage of fruit, mangled corpses, and broken tree limbs. “I—I’m not sure.”

“How’d you do thah?” Percy snuffled.

Meg looked horrified. “I didn’t! I just knew it would happen.”

One of the cadavers began to stir. It got up, wobbling on its heavily perforated legs.

“But you
did
doooo it,” the spirit growled. “Yooou are strong, child.”

The other two corpses rose.

“Not strong enough,” said the second nosos. “We will finish you now.”

The third spirit bared his rotten teeth. “Your guardian would be sooooo disappointed.”

Guardian?
Perhaps the spirit meant me. When in doubt, I usually assumed the conversation was about me.

Meg looked as if she’d been punched in the gut. Her face paled. Her arms trembled. She stamped her foot and yelled, “NO!”

More peaches swirled into the air. This time the fruit blurred together in a fructose dust devil, until standing in front of Meg was a creature like a pudgy human toddler wearing only a linen diaper. Protruding from his back were wings made of leafy branches. His babyish face might have been cute except for the glowing green eyes and pointy fangs. The creature snarled and snapped at the air.

“Oh, no.” Percy shook his head. “I hate these things.”

The three nosoi also did not look pleased. They edged away from the snarling baby.

“Wh-what is it?” Meg asked.

I stared at her in disbelief. She had to be the cause of this fruit-based strangeness, but she looked as shocked as we were. Unfortunately, if Meg didn’t know how she had summoned this creature, she would not know how to make it go away, and like Percy Jackson, I was no fan of
karpoi
.

“It’s a grain spirit,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “I’ve never seen a peach karpos before, but if it’s as vicious as other types…”

I was about to say,
we’re doomed
, but that seemed both obvious and depressing.

The peach baby turned toward the nosoi. For a moment, I feared he would make some hellish alliance—an axis of evil between illnesses and fruits.

The middle corpse, the one with the peach in his forehead, inched backward. “Do not interfere,” he warned the karpos. “We will not allooow—”

The peach baby launched himself at the nosos and bit his head off.

That is not a figure of speech. The karpos’s fanged mouth unhinged, expanding to an unbelievable circumference, then closed around the cadaver’s head, and chomped it off in one bite.

Oh, dear…I hope you weren’t eating dinner as you read that.

In a matter of seconds, the nosos had been torn to shreds and devoured.

Understandably, the other two nosoi retreated, but the karpos crouched and sprang. He landed on the second corpse and proceeded to rip it into plague-flavored Cream of Wheat.

The last spirit dissolved into glittering smoke and tried to fly away, but the peach baby spread his leafy wings and launched himself in pursuit. He opened his mouth and inhaled the sickness, snapping and swallowing until every wisp of smoke was gone.