The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan Read Free Book Online Page B

statue of the big dude himself: Jupiter the sky god, dressed in a silk XXXL purple toga, holding a lightning bolt.
    “It doesn’t look like that,” Percy muttered.
    “What?” Hazel asked.
    “The master bolt,” Percy said.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I—” Percy frowned. For a second, he’d thought he remembered something. Now it was gone. “Nothing, I guess.”
    The kid at the altar raised his hands. More red lightning flashed in the sky, shaking the temple. Then he put his hands down, and the rumbling stopped. The clouds turned from gray to white and broke apart.
    A pretty impressive trick, considering the kid didn’t look like much. He was tall and skinny, with straw-colored hair, oversized jeans, a baggy T-shirt, and a drooping toga. He looked like a scarecrow wearing a bed sheet.
    “What’s he doing?” Percy murmured.
    The guy in the toga turned. He had a crooked smile and a slightly crazy look in his eyes, like he’d just been playing an intense video game. In one hand he held a knife. In the other hand was something like a dead animal. That didn’t make him look any less crazy.
    “Percy,” Hazel said, “this is Octavian.”
    “The graecus !” Octavian announced. “How interesting.”
    “Uh, hi,” Percy said. “Are you killing small animals?”
    Octavian looked at the fuzzy thing in his hand and laughed. “No, no. Once upon a time, yes. We used to read the will of the gods by examining animal guts—chickens, goats, that sort of thing. Nowadays, we use these.”
    He tossed the fuzzy thing to Percy. It was a disemboweled teddy bear. Then Percy noticed that there was a whole pile of mutilated stuffed animals at the foot of Jupiter’s statue.
    “Seriously?” Percy asked.
    Octavian stepped off the dais. He was probably about eighteen, but so skinny and sickly pale, he could’ve passed for younger. At first he looked harmless, but as he got closer, Percy wasn’t so sure. Octavian’s eyes glittered with harsh curiosity, like he might gut Percy just as easily as a teddy bear if he thought he could learn something from it.
    Octavian narrowed his eyes. “You seem nervous.”
    “You remind me of someone,” Percy said. “I can’t remember who.”
    “Possibly my namesake, Octavian—Augustus Caesar. Everyone says I bear a remarkable resemblance.”
    Percy didn’t think that was it, but he couldn’t pin down the memory. “Why did you call me ‘the Greek’?”
    “I saw it in the auguries.” Octavian waved his knife at the pile of stuffing on the altar. “The message said: The Greek has arrived. Or possibly: The goose has cried. I’m thinking the first interpretation is correct. You seek to join the legion?”
    Hazel spoke for him. She told Octavian everything that had happened since they met at the tunnel—the gorgons, the fight at the river, the appearance of Juno, their conversation with Reyna.
    When she mentioned Juno, Octavian looked surprised.
    “Juno,” he mused. “We call her Juno Moneta. Juno the Warner. She appears in times of crisis, to counsel Rome about great threats.”
    He glanced at Percy, as if to say: like mysterious Greeks, for instance.
    “I hear the Feast of Fortuna is this week,” Percy said. “The gorgons warned there’d be an invasion on that day. Did you see that in your stuffing?”
    “Sadly, no.” Octavian sighed. “The will of the gods is hard to discern. And these days, my vision is even darker.”
    “Don’t you have…I don’t know,” Percy said, “an oracle or something?”
    “An oracle!” Octavian smiled. “What a cute idea. No, I’m afraid we’re fresh out of oracles. Now, if we’d gone questing for the Sibylline books, like I recommended—”
    “The Siba-what?” Percy asked.
    “Books of prophecy,” Hazel said, “which Octavian is obsessed with. Romans used to consult them when disasters happened. Most people believe they burned up when Rome fell.”
    “Some people believe that,” Octavian corrected. “Unfortunately