The Heroes of Olympus: The Demigod Diari - The Heroes of Olympus book 5 Page 0,3
goat is from your dad?”
“She’s immortal,” Thalia said. “When Zeus was a baby, his mom Rhea hid him in a cave—”
“Because Kronos wanted to eat him?” I’d heard that story somewhere, how the old Titan king swallowed his own children.
Thalia nodded. “So this goat, Amaltheia, looked after baby Zeus in his cradle. She nursed him.”
“On Diet Mountain Dew?” I asked.
Thalia frowned. “What?”
“Read the udders,” I said. “The goat has five flavors plus an ice dispenser.”
“Blaaaah,” said Amaltheia.
Thalia patted the goat’s head. “It’s okay. He didn’t mean to insult you. Why have you led us here, Amaltheia? Where do you want me to go?”
The goat butted her head against the monument. From above came the sound of creaking metal. I looked up and saw the bronze General Lee move his right arm.
I almost hid behind the goat. Thalia and I had fought several magic moving statues before. They were called automatons, and they were bad news. I wasn’t anxious to take on Robert E. Lee with a nine-iron.
Fortunately, the statue didn’t attack. He simply pointed across the street.
I gave Thalia a nervous look. “What’s that about?”
Thalia nodded in the direction the statue was pointing.
Across the traffic circle stood a red brick mansion overgrown with ivy. On either side, huge oak trees dripped with Spanish moss. The house’s windows were shuttered and dark. Peeling white columns flanked the front porch. The door was painted charcoal black. Even on a bright sunny morning, the place looked gloomy and creepy—like a Gone with the Wind haunted house.
My mouth felt dry. “The goat wants us to go there?”
“Blaah.” Amaltheia dipped her head like she was nodding.
I wasn’t sure why, considering how afraid Thalia seemed.
The goat bothered me, and not just because she dispensed Pepsi products. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I thought I’d heard another story about Zeus’s goat, something about that glowing fur…
Suddenly the mist thickened and swelled around Amaltheia. A miniature storm cloud engulfed her. Lightning flickered through the cloud. When the mist dissolved, the goat was gone.
I hadn’t even gotten to try the ice dispenser.
I gazed across the street at the dilapidated house. The mossy trees on either side looked like claws, waiting to grasp us.
“You sure about this?” I asked Thalia.
She turned to me. “Amaltheia leads me to good things. The last time she appeared, she led me to you.”
The compliment warmed me like a cup of hot chocolate. I’m a sucker that way. Thalia can flash those blue eyes, give me one kind word, and she can get me to do pretty much whatever. But I couldn’t help wondering: back in Charleston, had the goat led her to me, or simply led her into a dragon’s cave?
I exhaled. “Okay. Creepy mansion, here we come.”
The brass door knocker was shaped like Medusa’s face, which wasn’t a good sign. The porch floorboards creaked under our feet. The windows’ shutters were falling apart, but the glass was grimy and covered on the other side with dark curtains, so we couldn’t see in.
Thalia knocked.
No answer.
She jiggled the handle, but it seemed to be locked. I was hoping she’d decide to give up. Instead she looked at me expectantly. “Can you do your thing?”
I gritted my teeth. “I hate doing my thing.”
Even though I’ve never met my dad and don’t really want to, I share some of his talents. Along with being messenger of the gods, Hermes is the god of merchants—which explains why I’m good with money—and travelers, which explains why the divine jerk left my mom and never came back. He’s also the god of thieves. He’s stolen things like—oh, Apollo’s cattle, women, good ideas, wallets, my mom’s sanity, and my chance at a decent life.
Sorry, did that sound bitter?
Anyway, because of my dad’s godly thieving, I’ve got some abilities I don’t like to advertise.
I placed my hand on the door’s dead bolt. I concentrated, sensing the internal pins that controlled the latch. With a click, the bolt slid back. The lock on the handle was even easier. I tapped it, turned it, and the door swung open.
“That is so cool,” Thalia murmured, though she’d seen me do it a dozen times.
The doorway exuded a sour evil smell, like the breath of a dying man. Thalia marched through anyway. I didn’t have much choice except to follow.
Inside was an old-fashioned ballroom. High above, a chandelier glowed with trinkets of Celestial bronze—arrowheads, bits of armor, and broken sword hilts—all