𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐢━━Nico di Angelo

37

"Chiron?" Jason asked. "Like the centaur?"

The bandit rolled his eyes. "Sky-ron, my friend. Son of Poseidon! Thief extraordinaire! All-around awesome guy! But that's not important. I'm not seeing any valuables!" he cried, as if this were excellent news. "I guess that means you want to die?"

"Wait," Ajax said. "We've got valuables. But if we give them up, how can we be sure you'll let us go?"

"Oh, they always ask that," Sciron said. "I promise you, on the River Styx, that as soon as you surrender what I want, I will not shoot you. I will send you right back down that cliff."

Ajax gave Jason a wary look. River Styx or no, the way Sciron phrased his promise didn't reassure him.

"What if we fought you?" Jason asked. "You can't attack us and hold our ship hostage at the same—"

BANG! BANG!

It happened so fast, Ajax's brain needed a moment to catch up.

Smoke curled from the side of Jason's head. Just above his left ear, a groove cut through his hair like a racing stripe. One of Sciron's flintlocks was still pointed at his face. The other flintlock was pointed down, over the side of the cliff, as if Sciron's second shot had been fired at the Argo II.

Ajax choked from delayed shock. "What did you do?"

"Oh, don't worry!" Sciron laughed. "If you could see that far—which you can't—you'd see a hole in the deck between the shoes of the scrawny young man, the one with the toolbelt"

"Leo!"

Sciron shrugged. "If you say so. That was just a demonstration. I'm afraid it could have been much more serious."

He spun his flintlocks. The hammers reset, and Ajax had a feeling the guns had just magically reloaded.

Sciron waggled his eyebrows at Jason. "So! To answer your question—yes, I can attack you and hold your ship hostage at the same time. Celestial bronze ammunition. Quite deadly to demigods. You two would die first—bang, bang. Then I could take my time picking off your friends on that ship. Target practice is so much more fun with live targets running around screaming!"

Jason touched the new furrow that the bullet had plowed through his hair. For once, he didn't look very confident.

Ajax's ankles wobbled. Frank was the best shot he knew with a bow, but this bandit Sciron was inhumanly good.

"You're a son of Poseidon?" he managed. "I would've thought Apollo, the way you shoot."

The smile lines deepened around his eyes. "Why, thank you! It's just from practice, though. The giant turtle—that's due to my parentage. You can't go around taming giant turtles without being a son of Poseidon! I could overwhelm your ship with a tidal wave, of course, but it's terribly difficult work. Not nearly as fun as ambushing and shooting people."

Ajax tried to collect his thoughts, stall for time, but it was difficult while staring down the smoking barrels of those flintlocks. "Uh...what's the bandana for?"

"So no one recognizes me!" Sciron said.

"But you introduced yourself," Jason said. "You're Sciron."

The bandit's eyes widened. "How did you— Oh. Yes, I suppose I did." He lowered one flintlock and scratched the side of his head with the other. "Terribly sloppy of me. Sorry. I'm afraid I'm a little rusty. Back from the dead, and all that. Let me try again."

"Oh cool, I'm back from the dead too!" Ajax tried to grin, but it looked unnatural.

"Maybe we could have been friends in another life" Sciron grinned back. Ajax kept up the awkward smile.