BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

68.

"Where to?" Perfect Jason asked.

Leo stared at him. "Well, I dunno. Let me pull my dwarf-tracking GPS out of my tool belt . . . Oh, wait! I don't have a dwarf-tracking GPS—or my tool belt!"

"Fine," Perfect Jason grumbled. He glanced up at the ship as if to get his bearings, then pointed across the piazza. "The ballista fired the first dwarf in that direction, I think. Come on."

"How the fuck did you see things that I didn't?" Eden muttered, but followed him in the crowd.

They waded through a lake of pigeons, then maneuvered down a side street of clothing stores and gelato shops. The sidewalks were lined with white columns covered in graffiti. A few panhandlers asked for change ( Eden didn't know Italian, but she got the message loud and clear. She knew when people wanted money, because she wanted money all the time. )

Leo kept patting his waist, as if looking for something like Perfect Jason's arm.

"We'll find it," Perfect Jason promised, lifting Leo's hand and kissing it.

Eden gagged. "Don't try me with your fucking PDA right now."

Leo gave her his middle finger as her Fourth of July gift.

God, they were actually good together. Eden didn't really notice it throughout this entire trip, but the way they looked at each other . . . despite the fact that Perfect Jason had a personality like the stalest, uneaten piece of bread, he treated Leo well.

And honestly, that's just what Eden wanted for her best friend.

Eden was so absorbed with her thoughts, she didn't notice where they were until Perfect Jason stopped her. "Check it out."

She  looked up. They'd arrived in a smaller piazza. Looming over them was a huge bronze statue of a buck-naked Poseidon.

"Ah, jeez." Leo averted his eyes.

"What the fuck, dad?" Eden did not want to see that that early in the morning. Or ever.

Eden's father stood on a big marble column in the middle of a fountain that wasn't working. ( which seemed kind of ironic ) On either side of Poseidon, little winged Cupid dudes were sitting, kind of chillin', like, What's up? Poseidon himself (avoid the groin) was throwing his hip to one side in an Elvis Presley move. He gripped his trident loosely in his right hand and stretched his left hand out like he was blessing Eden, or possibly attempting to levitate her.

She hated it the more she looked at it.

"Some kind of clue?" Leo wondered.

Perfect Jason frowned. "Maybe, maybe not. There are statues of the gods all over the place in Italy. I'd just feel better if we ran across Jupiter. Or Minerva. Anybody but Neptune, really."

"You fucking think?" Eden retorted angrily.

Leo climbed into the dry fountain, putting his hand on the statue's pedestal.

"It's mechanical," he said. "Maybe a doorway to the dwarfs' secret lair?"

"Ooooo!" shrieked the red dwarf. "Secret lair?"

"I want a secret lair!" yelled the brown dwarf.

Perfect Jason stepped back, his sword ready. Eden got out a butterfly knife from one of her rings. The red-furred dwarf in the cowboy hat was sitting about thirty feet away at the nearest café table, sipping an espresso held by his monkey-like foot. The brown-furred dwarf in the green bowler was perched on the marble pedestal at Poseidon's feet, just above Leo's head.