Daughter of Wine

Leo

I'm vaguely aware of Hazel shouting "Go! I'll take care of Nico!"

As if I'm going to turn back now. Sure, I hope di Angelo is okay, but I have headaches of my own. 

I bound up the stairs, right behind Calli, with Jason and Frank behind us. 

The situation on deck is even worse than I feared. 

Coach Hedge and Piper are struggling against their duct tape bonds while one of the demon monkey dwarves dances around the deck, picking up whatever isn't tied down and sticking it in his bag. He's maybe four feet tall, even shorter than Coach Hedge, with bowed legs and chimp-like feet, his clothes so loud they give me vertigo. His green-plaid pants are pinned at the cuffs, and are held up with bright red suspenders over a striped pink-and-black woman's blouse. He wears half a dozen gold watches on each arm, and a zebra-patterned cowboy hat with a price tag dangling from the brim. His skin is covered with patches of scraggly red fur, though ninety percent of his body hair seems to be concentrated in his magnificent eyebrows. 

I'm just forming the thought Where's the other dwarf? when I hear a click from behind me and realize me and my friends shave been led into a trap. 

"Duck!" I hit the deck as the explosion blasts my eardrums. 

Note to self, I think groggily. Do not leave boxes of magical grenades where dwarves can reach them. 

At least I'm alive. I've been experimenting with all sorts of weapons based on the Archimedes sphere. I've built grenades that can spray acid, fire, shrapnel, or freshly buttered popcorn. Judging from the ringing in my ears, the dwarf detonated the flash-bang grenade, which I'd filled with a rare vial of Apollo's music, pure liquid extract. Calli had gotten it for me. It doesn't kill, but it leaves me feeling like I did a belly flop off the deep end. 

I try to get up. My limbs are useless. Someone is tugging at my waist, maybe a friend trying to help me up? No. My friends don't smell like heavily perfumed monkey cages. 

I manage to turn over. My vision is out of focus and tinted pink, like the world has been submerged in strawberry jelly. A grinning, grotesque face looms over me. The brown-furred dwarf is 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 shows off the prize he's just stolen-my toolbelt, and runs away. 

I try to grab him, but my fingers are numb. He bends down and picks up Calli's thyrsus, which I assume got thrown from her grasp during the explosion. "Ooh! Shiny!" The dwarf frolics over to the nearest ballista, which his red-furred friend is primed to launch. 

The brown-furred dwarf jumps onto the projectile like it's a scateboard, and his friend shoots him into the sky. 

Red Fur prances over to Coach Hedge. He gives the satyr a big smack on the cheek, then skips to the rail. He bows to me, doffing his zebra cowboy hat, and does a backflip over the side. 

I manage to get up. Jason is already on his feet, stumbling and running into things. Frank turned into a silver-backed gorilla but the flash-grenade hit him hard. He's sprawled in the deck with his tongue hanging out and his gorilla eyes rolled up into his head. Ahead of me, Calli is trying to get up, but her arms keep giving out under her. 

"Piper!" Jason staggers to the helm and carefully pulls the gag out of her mouth. 

"Don't waste your time on me!" She says. "Go after them!" 

At the mast, Coach Hedge mumbles, "HHHmmmmmm!" 

I figure that means "Kill them!" Easy translation, since most of his sentences involvetheh word Kill