The Heroes of Olympus: The Demigod Diaries Read Free Page B

right in front of us.
    He wore snakeskin boots and a mottled green-and-brown suit that might’ve been made from the same material. He was tall and gaunt, with spiky gray hair almost as wild as Thalia’s. He looked like a very old, sickly, fashionably dressed Einstein.
    His shoulders slumped. His sad green eyes were underscored with bags. He might’ve been handsome once, but the skin of his face hung loose as if he’d been partially deflated.
    His room was arranged like a studio apartment. Unlike the rest of the house, it was in fairly good shape. Against the far wall was a twin bed, a desk with a computer, and a window covered with dark drapes like the ones downstairs. Along the right wall stood a bookcase, a small kitchenette, and two doorways—one leading into a bathroom, the other into a large closet.
    Thalia said, “Um, Luke…”
    She pointed to our left.
    My heart almost burst out of my rib cage.
    The left side of the room had a row of iron bars like a prison cell. Inside was the scariest zoo exhibit I’d ever seen. A gravel floor was littered with bones and pieces of armor, and prowling back and forth was a monster with a lion’s body and rust-red fur. Instead of paws it had hooves like a horse, and its tail lashed around like a bullwhip. Its head was a mixture of horse and wolf—with pointed ears, an elongated snout, and black lips that looked disturbingly human.
    The monster snarled. For a second I thought it was wearing one of those mouth guards that boxers use. Instead of teeth, it had two solid horseshoe-shaped plates of bone. When it snapped its mouth, the bone plates made the jarring clack, clack, clack I’d heard downstairs.
    The monster fixed its glowing red eyes on me. Saliva dripped from its weird bony ridges. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. I could still hear the other creatures—at least two of them—growling out in the hallway.
    Thalia helped me to my feet. I gripped her hand and faced the old man.
    “Who are you?” I demanded. “What’s that thing in the cage?”
    The old man grimaced. His expression was so full of misery I thought he might cry. He opened his mouth, but when he spoke, the words didn’t come from him.
    Like some horrific ventriloquist act, the monster spoke for him, in the voice of an old man: “I am Halcyon Green. I’m terribly sorry, but you are in the cage. You’ve been lured here to die.”

    We’d left Thalia’s spear downstairs, so we had just one weapon—my golf club. I brandished it at the old man, but he made no threatening moves. He looked so pitiful and depressed I couldn’t bring myself to smack him.
    “Y-you’d better explain,” I stammered. “Why—how—what…?”
    As you can tell, I’m good with words.
    Behind the bars, the monster clacked its bone-plated jaws.
    “I understand your confusion,” it said in the old man’s voice. Its sympathetic tone didn’t match the homicidal glow in its eyes.
    “The creature you see here is a leucrota. It has a talent for imitating human voices. That is how it lures its prey.”
    I looked back and forth from the man to the monster. “But…the voice is yours? I mean, the dude in the snakeskin suit—I’m hearing what he wants to say?”
    “That is correct.” The leucrota sighed heavily. “I am, as you say, the dude in the snakeskin suit. Such is my curse. My name is Halcyon Green, son of Apollo.”
    Thalia stumbled backward. “You’re a demigod ? But you’re so—”
    “Old?” the leucrota asked. The man, Halcyon Green, studied his liver-spotted hands, as if he couldn’t believe they were his. “Yes, I am.”
    I understood Thalia’s surprise. We’d only met a few other demigods in our travels—some friendly, some not so much. But they’d all been kids like us. Our lives were so dangerous, Thalia and I figured it was unlikely any demigod could live to be an adult. Yet Halcyon Green was ancient , like sixty at least.
    “How long have you been here?” I asked.
    Halcyon shrugged