Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Book 3: The Ship of the Dead (Rick Riordan’s Norse Mythology) Read online

  But Annabeth and Percy had a chance for a normal life. They’d already made it through high school, which Annabeth told me was the most dangerous time for Greek demigods. In the fall, they’d go off to college on the West Coast. If they made it through that, they had a decent chance of surviving adulthood. They could live in the mortal world without monsters attacking them every five minutes.

  Unless my friends and I failed to stop Loki, in which case the world—all the worlds—would end in a few weeks. But, you know…no pressure.

  I set down my pita sandwich. Even falafel could only do so much to lift my spirits.

  “What about you guys?” I asked. “Straight back to New York today?”

  “Yeah,” Percy said. “I gotta babysit tonight. I’m psyched!”

  “That’s right,” I remembered. “Your new baby sister.”

  Yet another important life hanging in the balance, I thought.

  But I managed a smile. “Congratulations, man. What’s her name?”

  “Estelle. It was my grandmother’s name. Um, on my mom’s side, obviously. Not Poseidon’s.”

  “I approve,” Alex said. “Old-fashioned and elegant. Estelle Jackson.”

  “Well, Estelle Blofis,” Percy corrected. “My stepdad is Paul Blofis. Not much I can do about that surname, but my little sis is awesome. Five fingers. Five toes. Two eyes. She drools a lot.”

  “Just like her brother,” Annabeth said.

  Alex laughed.

  I could totally imagine Percy bouncing baby Estelle in his arms, singing “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid. That made me feel even more miserable.

  Somehow I had to buy little Estelle enough decades to have a proper life. I had to find Loki’s demonic ship full of zombie warriors, stop it from sailing off into battle and triggering Ragnarok, then recapture Loki and put him back in chains so he couldn’t cause any more world-burning mischief. (Or at least not as much world-burning mischief.)

  “Hey.” Alex threw a piece of pita at me. “Stop looking so glum.”

  “Sorry.” I tried to appear more cheerful. It wasn’t as easy as mending my ankle by sheer force of will. “I’m looking forward to meeting Estelle someday, when we get back from our quest. And I appreciate you guys coming up to Boston. Really.”

  Percy glanced over at Jack, who was still chatting up Riptide. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help. The sea is”—he shrugged—“kinda unpredictable.”

  Alex stretched his legs. “At least Magnus fell a lot better the second time. If worse comes to worst, I can always turn into a dolphin and save his sorry butt.”

  The corner of Percy’s mouth twitched. “You can turn into a dolphin?”

  “I’m a child of Loki. Want to see?”

  “No, I believe you.” Percy gazed into the distance. “I’ve got a friend named Frank who’s a shape-shifter. He does dolphins. Also giant goldfish.”

  I shuddered, imagining Alex Fierro as a giant pink-and-green koi. “We’ll make do. We’ve got a good team.”

  “That’s important,” Percy agreed. “Probably more important than having sea skills…” He straightened and furrowed his eyebrows.

  Annabeth unfolded herself from his side. “Uh-oh. I know that look. You’ve got an idea.”

  “Something my dad told me…” Percy rose. He walked over to his sword, interrupting Jack in the middle of a fascinating tale about the time he’d embroidered a giant’s bowling bag. Percy picked up Riptide and studied her blade.

  “Hey, man,” Jack complained. “We were just starting to hit it off.”

  “Sorry, Jack.” From his pocket, Percy pulled out his pen cap and touched it to the tip of his sword. With a faint shink, Riptide shrank back into a ballpoint. “Poseidon and I had this conversation about weapons one time. He told me that all sea gods have one thing in common: they’re really vain and possessive when it comes to their magic items.”

  Annabeth rolled her eyes. “That sounds like every god we’ve met.”

  “True,” Percy said. “But sea gods even more so. Triton sleeps with his conch-shell trumpet. Galatea spends most of her time polishing her magic sea-horse saddle. And my dad is super-paranoid about losing his trident.”

  I thought about my one and only encounter with a Norse sea goddess. It hadn’t gone well. Ran had promised to destroy me if I ever sailed into her waters again. But she had been obsessed with her magical nets and the junk collection that swirled inside them. Because of that, I’d been able to trick her into giving me my sword.

  “You’re saying I’ll have to use their own stuff against them,” I guessed.

  “Right,” Percy confirmed. “Also, what you said about having a good team—sometimes being the son of a sea god hasn’t been enough to save me, even underwater. One time, my friend Jason and I got pulled to the bottom of the Mediterranean by this storm goddess, Kymopoleia? I was useless. Jason saved my butt by offering to make trading cards and action figures of her.”

  Alex almost choked on his falafel. “What?”

  “The point is,” Percy continued, “Jason knew nothing about the ocean. He saved me anyway. It was kind of embarrassing.”

  Annabeth smirked. “I guess so. I never heard the details about that.”

  Percy’s ears turned as pink as Alex’s jeans. “Anyway, maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong. I’ve been trying to teach you sea skills. But the most important thing is to use whatever you’ve got on hand—your team, your wits, the enemy’s own magical stuff.”

  “And there’s no way to plan for that,” I said.

  “Exactly!” Percy said. “My work here is done!”

  Annabeth frowned. “Percy, you’re saying the best plan is no plan. As a child of Athena, I can’t really endorse that.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “And, personally, I still like my plan of turning into a sea mammal.”

  Percy raised his hands. “All I’m saying is the most powerful demigod of our generation is sitting right here, and it isn’t me.” He nodded to Annabeth. “Wise Girl can’t shape-shift or breathe underwater or talk to pegasi. She can’t fly, and she isn’t superstrong. But she’s crazy smart and good at improvising. That’s what makes her deadly. Doesn’t matter whether she’s on land, in water, in the air, or in Tartarus. Magnus, you were training with me all weekend. I think you should’ve been training with Annabeth instead.”

  Annabeth’s stormy gray eyes were hard to read. At last she said, “Okay, that was sweet.” She kissed Percy on the cheek.

  Alex nodded. “Not bad, Seaweed Brain.”

  “Don’t you start with that nickname, too,” Percy muttered.

  From the wharf came the deep rumbling sound of warehouse doors rolling open. Voices echoed off the sides of the buildings.

  “That’s our cue to leave,” I said. “This ship just got back from dry dock. They’re reopening it to the public tonight in a big ceremony.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “The glamour won’t obscure our presence once the whole crew is aboard.”

  Percy arched an eyebrow. “Glamour? You mean like your outfit?”

  Alex snorted. “No. Glamour as in illusion magic. It’s the force that clouds the vision of regular mortals.”

  “Huh,” Percy said. “We call that the Mist.”

  Annabeth rapped her knuckles on Percy’s head. “Whatever we call it, we’d better hurry. Help me clean up.”

  We reached the bottom of the gangplank just as the first sailors were arriving. Jack floated along ahead of us, glowing different colors and singing “Walk Like a Man” in a terrible falsetto. Alex changed form from a cheetah to a wolf to a flamingo. (He does a great flamingo.)

  The sailors gave us blank looks and a wide berth, but nobody challenged us.

  Once we were clear of the docks, Jack turned into a runestone pendant. He dropped into my hand and I reattached him to the chain around my neck. It wasn’t like him to shut up so suddenly. I figured he was miffed about his date with Riptide being cut short.

  As we strolled do
wn Constitution Road, Percy turned to me. “What was that back there—the shape-shifting, the singing sword? Were you trying to get caught?”

  “Nah,” I said. “If you flaunt the weird magical stuff, it confuses mortals even more.” It felt good to be able to teach him something. “It kind of short-circuits mortal brains, makes them avoid you.”

  “Huh.” Annabeth shook her head. “All these years sneaking around, and we could’ve just been ourselves?”

  “You should always do that.” Alex strolled alongside, back in human form, though he still had a few flamingo feathers stuck in his hair. “And you have to flaunt the weird, my friends.”

  “I’m going to quote you on that,” Percy said.

  “You’d better.”

  We stopped at the corner, where Percy’s Toyota Prius was parked at a meter. I shook his hand and got a big hug from Annabeth.

  My cousin gripped my shoulders. She studied my face, her gray eyes tight with concern. “Take care of yourself, Magnus. You will come back safely. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I promised. “We Chases have to stick together.”

  “Speaking of that…” She lowered her voice. “Have you been over there yet?”

  I felt like I was in free fall again, swan-diving toward a painful death.

  “Not yet,” I admitted. “Today. I promise.”

  The last I saw of Percy and Annabeth, their Prius was turning the corner on First Avenue, Percy singing along with Led Zeppelin on the radio, Annabeth laughing at his bad voice.

  Alex crossed his arms. “If those two were any cuter together, they’d cause a nuclear explosion of cuteness and destroy the Eastern Seaboard.”

  “Is that your idea of a compliment?” I asked.

  “Probably as close as you’ll ever hear.” He glanced over. “Where did you promise Annabeth you would go?”

  My mouth tasted like I’d been chewing foil. “My uncle’s house. There’s something I need to do.”

  “Ohhh.” Alex nodded. “I hate that place.”

  I’d been avoiding this task for weeks. I didn’t want to do it alone. I also didn’t want to ask any of my other friends—Samirah, Hearthstone, Blitzen, or the rest of the gang from floor nineteen of the Hotel Valhalla. It felt too personal, too painful. But Alex had been to the Chase mansion with me before. The idea of his company didn’t bother me. In fact, I realized with surprise, I wanted him along pretty badly.

  “Uh…” I cleared the last falafel and seawater out of my throat. “You want to come with me to a creepy mansion and look through a dead guy’s stuff?”

  Alex beamed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “THAT’S NEW,” said Alex.

  The brownstone’s front door had been forced open, the dead bolt busted out of the frame. In the foyer, sprawled across the Oriental rug, lay the carcass of a wolf.

  I shuddered.

  You couldn’t swing a battle-ax in the Nine Worlds without hitting some kind of wolf: Fenris Wolf, Odin’s wolves, Loki’s wolves, werewolves, big bad wolfs, and independently contracted small business wolves that would kill anybody for the right price.

  The dead wolf in Uncle Randolph’s foyer looked very much like the beasts that had attacked my mom two years ago, the night she died.

  Wisps of blue luminescence clung to its shaggy black coat. Its mouth was contorted in a permanent snarl. On the top of its head, seared into the skin, was a Viking rune, though the fur around it was so badly burned I couldn’t tell which symbol it was. My friend Hearthstone might have been able to identify it.

  Alex circled its pony-size carcass. He kicked it in the ribs. The creature remained obligingly dead.

  “Its body hasn’t started to dissolve,” he noted. “Usually monsters disintegrate pretty soon after you kill them. You can still smell the burning fur on this one. Must’ve happened recently.”

  “You think the rune was some kind of trap?”

  Alex smirked. “I think your uncle knew a thing or two about magic. The wolf hit the carpet, triggering that rune, and BAM!”

  I remembered all the times when, as a homeless kid, I’d broken into Uncle Randolph’s house when he wasn’t there to steal food, rifle through his office, or just be annoying. I’d never been bammed. I’d always considered Randolph a failure at home security. Now I felt a little nauseous, wondering if I could’ve ended up dead on the welcome mat with a rune burned into my forehead.

  Was this trap the reason Randolph’s will had been so specific about Annabeth and me visiting the property before we took possession? Had Randolph been trying to get some postmortem revenge?

  “You think the rest of the house is safe to explore?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Alex said cheerfully. “So let’s do it.”

  On the first floor, we found no more dead wolves. No runes exploded in our faces. The most gruesome thing we discovered was in Uncle Randolph’s refrigerator, where expired yogurt, sour milk, and moldy carrots were evolving into a preindustrial society. Randolph hadn’t even left me any chocolate in the pantry, the old villain.

  On the second floor, nothing had changed. In Randolph’s study, the sun streamed through the stained-glass window, slanting red and orange light across the bookshelves and the displays of Viking artifacts. In one corner sat a big runestone carved with the sneering red face of (naturally) a wolf. Tattered maps and faded yellow parchments covered Randolph’s desk. I scanned the documents, looking for something new, something important, but I saw nothing I hadn’t seen the last time I’d been here.

  I remembered the wording of Randolph’s will, which Annabeth had sent me.

  It is critical, Randolph had stated, that my beloved nephew Magnus examine my worldly belongings as soon as possible. He should pay special attention to my papers.

  I didn’t know why Randolph had put those lines in his will. In his desk drawers, I found no letter addressed to me, no heartfelt apology like Dear Magnus, I’m sorry I got you killed, then betrayed you by siding with Loki, then stabbed your friend Blitzen, then almost got you killed again.

  He hadn’t even left me the mansion’s Wi-Fi password.

  I gazed out the office window. Across the street in the Commonwealth Mall, folks were walking their dogs, playing Frisbee, enjoying the nice weather. The statue of Leif Erikson stood on his pedestal, proudly flaunting his metal bra, surveying the traffic on Charlesgate, and probably wondering why he wasn’t in Scandinavia.

  “So.” Alex came up next to me. “You inherit all of this, huh?”

  During our walk over, I’d told him the basics about Uncle Randolph’s will, but Alex still looked incredulous, almost offended.

  “Randolph left the house to Annabeth and me,” I said. “Technically, I’m dead. That means it’s all Annabeth’s. Randolph’s lawyers contacted Annabeth’s dad, who told her, who told me. Annabeth asked me to check it out and”—I shrugged—“decide what to do with this place.”

  From the nearest bookshelf, Alex picked up a framed photo of Uncle Randolph with his wife and daughters. I’d never met Caroline, Emma, or Aubrey. They’d died in a storm at sea many years ago. But I’d seen them in my nightmares. I knew they were the leverage Loki had used to warp my uncle, promising Randolph that he could see his family again if he helped Loki escape his bonds….And in a way, Loki had told the truth. The last time I’d seen Uncle Randolph, he was tumbling into a chasm straight to Helheim, the land of the dishonorable dead.

  Alex turned over the photo, maybe hoping to find a secret note on the back. The last time we’d been in this office, we’d found a wedding invitation that way, and it had led us into all sorts of trouble. This time, there was no hidden message—just blank brown paper, which was a lot less painful to look at than the smiling faces of my dead relatives.

  Alex put the picture back on the shelf. “Annabeth doesn’t care what you do with the house?”

  “Not really. She’s got enough going on with college and, you know, demigod stuff. She just wants me to let her know if I fi
nd anything interesting—old photo albums, family history, that kind of thing.”

  Alex wrinkled his nose. “Family history.” His face had the same slightly disgusted, slightly intrigued expression as when he’d kicked the dead wolf. “So what’s upstairs?”

  “I’m not sure. When I was a kid, we weren’t allowed above the first two floors. And the few times I broke in more recently…” I turned up my palms. “I guess I never made it that far.”

  Alex peered at me over the top of his glasses, his dark brown eye and his amber eye like mismatched moons cresting the horizon. “Sounds intriguing. Let’s go.”

  The third floor consisted of two large bedrooms. The front one was spotlessly clean, cold, and impersonal. Two twin beds. A dresser. Bare walls. Maybe a guest room, though I doubted Randolph entertained many people. Or maybe this had been Emma and Aubrey’s room. If so, Randolph had removed all traces of their personalities, leaving a white void in the middle of the house. We didn’t linger.

  The second bedroom must have been Randolph’s. It smelled like his old-fashioned clove cologne. Towers of musty books leaned against the walls. Chocolate-bar wrappers filled the wastebasket. Randolph had probably eaten his entire stash right before leaving home to help Loki destroy the world.

  I supposed I couldn’t blame him. I always say, Eat chocolate first, destroy the world later.

  Alex hopped onto the four-poster bed. He bounced up and down, grinning as the springs squeaked.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Making noise.” He leaned over and rifled through Randolph’s nightstand drawer. “Let’s see. Cough drops. Paper clips. Some wadded-up Kleenex that I am not going to touch. And…” He whistled. “Medication for bowel discomfort! Magnus, all this bounty belongs to you!”

  “You’re a strange person.”

  “I prefer the term fabulously weird.”

  We searched the rest of the bedroom, though I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Pay special attention to my papers, Randolph’s will had urged. I doubted he meant the wadded-up tissues.