EDEN WAS VAGUELY aware of Hazel shouting, "Go! I'll take care of Nico!"
As if she was going to turn back. Sure, she hoped the kid was okay, but Eden's girlfriend was fucking tied to the helm. With Coach Hedge.
Eden bounded up the steps with Fire Boy, Perfect Jason, and Frank.
The situation on deck was even worse than she'd feared.
Coach Hedge and Piper were struggling against their duct tape bonds while one of the demon monkey dwarfs danced around the deck, picking up whatever wasn't tied down and sticking it in his bag. He was maybe four feet tall, even shorter than Coach Hedge, with bowed legs and chimp-like feet, his clothes so loud they gave Eden vertigo. His green-plaid pants were pinned at the cuffs, and held up with bright-red suspenders over a striped pink-and-black woman's blouse. He wore half a dozen gold watches on each arm, and a zebra-patterned cowboy hat with a price tag dangling from the brim. His skin was covered with patches of scraggly red fur, though ninety percent of his body hair seemed to be concentrated in his magnificent eyebrows.
Eden was just forming the thought Where's the other dwarf? when she heard a click behind her and yelped, jumping up in the air.
It wasn't her proudest moment, but at least it wasn't an actual bomb. It sounded a lot like Apollo's music, which just sucked, honestly. It didn't kill, but it left Eden feeling like she'd just gotten airsick.
Her vision blurred, until it focused in on the ugliest outfit Eden had ever seen. And she'd seen some ugly shit.
The brown-furred dwarf was dressed even worse than his friend, in a green bowler hat like a leprechaun's, dangly diamond earrings, and a white-and-black referee's shirt. He showed off the prize he'd just stolen — Leo's tool belt — then danced away from Leo's lying body, who tried to grab him.
The dwarf frolicked over to the nearest ballista, which his red-furred friend was priming to launch.
The brown-furred dwarf jumped onto the projectile like it was a skateboard, and his friend shot him into the sky.
Red Fur pranced over to Coach Hedge. He gave the satyr a big smack on the cheek, then skipped to the rail. He bowed to Leo, doffing his zebra cowboy hat, and did a backflip over the side.
Leo managed to get up. Perfect Jason was already on his feet, stumbling and running into things. Frank had turned into a silverback gorilla (why, Eden wasn't sure; maybe to commune with the monkey dwarfs?) but the flash grenade had hit him hard. He was sprawled on the deck with his tongue hanging out and his gorilla eyes rolled up in his head.
"Piper!" Eden suddenly remembered, hopping down to the helm and carefully pulled the gag out of her mouth.
"Don't waste your time on me!" Kaleidoscope said. "Go after them!"
At the mast, Coach Hedge mumbled, "HHHmmmmm-hmmm!"
Eden figured that meant: "KILL THEM!" Easy translation, since most of the coach's sentences involved the word kill.
Fire Boy turned to Perfect Jason. "You feeling good enough to control the winds? I need a lift."
Perfect Jason frowned. "Sure, but—"
"Good," Leo said. "We've got some monkey dudes to catch. C'mon, Water Girl."
Eden, Perfect Jason, and Leo touched down in a big piazza lined with white marble government buildings and outdoor cafés. Bikes and Vespas clogged the surrounding streets, but the square itself was empty except for pigeons and a few old men drinking espresso.
None of the locals seemed to notice the huge Greek warship hovering over the piazza, or the fact that they had just flown down, Eden with a dagger, Perfect Jason wielding a gold sword, and Leo . . . well, pretty much empty-handed.
"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.
"If we had a secret lair," said Red Fur, "I would want a firehouse pole."
"And a waterslide!" said Brown Fur, who was pulling random tools out of Leo's belt, tossing aside wrenches, hammers, and staple guns.
"Stop that!" Leo tried to grab the dwarf's feet, but he couldn't reach the top of the pedestal. Haha. Short.
"Too short?" Brown Fur sympathized.
"You're calling me short?" Leo looked around, probably to chuck something at Brown Fur. "Give me my belt, you stupid—"
"Now, now!" said Brown Fur. "We haven't even introduced ourselves. I'm Akmon. And my brother over there—"
"—is the handsome one!" The red-furred dwarf lifted his espresso. Judging from his dilated eyes and his maniacal grin, he didn't need any more caffeine. "Passalos! Singer of songs! Drinker of coffee! Stealer of shiny stuff!"
"Please!" shrieked his brother, Akmon. "I steal much better than you."
Passalos snorted. "Stealing naps, maybe!" He took out a knife — Piper's knife — and started picking his teeth with it.
"Hey!" Eden yelled. "That's my girlfriend's knife!"
She lunged at Passalos, but the red-furred dwarf was ready for it. He sprang from his chair, bounced off Perfect Jason's head, did a flip, and landed next to Leo, his hairy arms around Leo's waist. It made Eden gag.
"Save me?" the dwarf pleaded.
"Get off!" Leo tried to shove him away, but Passalos did a backward somersault and landed out of reach. Leo's pants promptly fell around his knees.
Passalos was grinning and holding a small zigzaggy strip of metal. Somehow, the dwarf had stolen the zipper right off Leo's pants.
"Give — stupid — zipper!" Leo stuttered, trying to shake his fist and hoist up his pants at the same time. Eden noticed that Perfect Jason was red. Huh.
"Eh, not shiny enough." Passalos tossed it away.
Perfect Jason lunged with his sword. Passalos launched himself straight up and was suddenly sitting on the statue's pedestal next to his brother.
"Tell me I don't have moves," Passalos boasted.
"Okay," Akmon said. "You don't have moves."
"Bah!" Passalos said. "Give me the tool belt. I want to see."
"No!" Akmon elbowed him away. "You got the knife and the shiny ball."
"Yes, the shiny ball is nice." Passalos took off his cowboy hat. Like a magician producing a rabbit, he pulled out the sphere and began tinkering with it.
"Stop!" Leo yelled. "That's a delicate machine."
Perfect Jason came to his side and glared up at the dwarfs. "Who are you two, anyway?"
"The Kerkopes!" Akmon narrowed his eyes at Perfect Jason. "I bet you're a son of Jupiter, eh? I can always tell."
"Just like Black Bottom," Passalos agreed.
"Black Bottom?" Eden frowned, coming up to them.
"Yes, you know." Akmon grinned. "Hercules. We called him Black Bottom because he used to go around without clothes. He got so tan that his backside, well—"
"At least he had a sense of humor!" Passalos said. "He was going to kill us when we stole from him, but he let us go because he liked our jokes. Not like you three. Grumpy, grumpy!"
Eden snorted. "I'll be funny once you give me my shit back. And my girl's."
"Hey, I've got a sense of humor," Leo snarled. "Give me back our stuff, and I'll tell you a joke with a good punch line."
"Nice try!" Akmon pulled a ratchet wrench from the tool belt and spun it like a noisemaker. "Oh, very nice! I'm definitely keeping this! Thanks, Blue Bottom!"
Blue Bottom?
Eden glanced down. Leo's pants had slipped around his ankles again, revealing his blue undershorts. "That's it!" he shouted. "My stuff. Now. Or I'll show you how funny a flaming dwarf is."
His hands caught fire.
"Now we're talking." Perfect Jason thrust his sword into the sky. Dark clouds began to gather over the piazza. Thunder boomed.
"God, y'all are so dramatic," Eden muttered under her breath.
"Oh, scary!" Akmon shrieked.
"Yes," Passalos agreed. "If only we had a secret lair to hide in."
"Alas, this statue isn't the doorway to a secret lair," Akmon said. "It has a different purpose."
Leo yelled, "Trap!" and dove out of the fountain. Unfortunately, Perfect Jason was too busy summoning his storm.
Five golden cords shot from the Poseidon statue's fingers. One barely missed Leo's feet. The rest homed in on Perfect Jason, wrapping him like a rodeo calf and yanking him upside down.
A bolt of lightning blasted the tines of Neptune's trident, sending arcs of electricity up and down the statue, but the Kerkopes had already disappeared.
And sadly, the other fingers went off, wrapping the fucking cords around Eden's body and holding her against the statue.
"Bravo!" Akmon applauded from a nearby café table. "You make a wonderful piñata, son of Jupiter, daughter of Neptune!"
"Yes!" Passalos agreed. "Hercules hung us upside down once, you know. Oh, revenge is sweet!"
Leo summoned a fireball. He lobbed it at Passalos, who was trying to juggle two pigeons and the Archimedes sphere.
"Eek!" The dwarf jumped free of the explosion, dropping the sphere and letting the pigeons fly.
"Time to leave!" Akmon decided.
He tipped his bowler and sprang away, jumping from table to table. Passalos glanced at the shiny sphere, which had rolled between Leo's feet.
Leo summoned another fireball. "Try me," he snarled.
"Bye!" Passalos did a backflip and ran after his brother.
Leo scooped up the Archimedes sphere and ran over to Perfect Jason, who was still hanging upside down, thoroughly hog-tied except for his sword arm. He was trying to cut the cords with his gold blade but having no luck. Eden was chilling with hers, wriggling to get her arm free just like her caretakers had taught her.
"Hold on," Leo said. "If I can find a release switch—"
"Just go!" Perfect Jason growled. "We'll follow you when we get out of this."
"But—"
"Don't lose them!" Eden said hotly, getting her arm free.
Leo left them hanging and ran after the dwarves.