At first, he thought the dwarfs had left. Then he looked up. Akmon and Passalos were hanging upside down from the rafters by their chimp feet, playing antigravity poker. When they saw Leo, they threw their cards like confetti and broke out in applause.
“I told you he’d do it!” Akmon shrieked in delight.
Passalos shrugged and took off one of his gold watches and handed it to his brother. “You win. I didn’t think he was that dumb. ”
They both dropped to the floor. Akmon was wearing Leo’s tool belt—he was so close that Leo had to resist the urge to lunge for it.
Passalos straightened his cowboy hat and kicked open the grate on the nearest window. “What should we make him climb next, brother? The dome of San Luca?”
Leo wanted to throttle the dwarfs, but he forced a smile. “Oh, that sounds fun! But before you guys go, you forgot something shiny. ”
“Impossible!” Akmon scowled. “We were very thorough. ”
“You sure?” Leo held up his grocery bag.
The dwarfs inched closer. As Leo had hoped, their curiosity was so strong that they couldn’t resist.
“Look. ” Leo brought out his first weapon—a lump of dried chemicals wrapped in aluminum foil—and lit it with his hand.
He knew enough to turn away when it popped, but the dwarfs were staring right at it. Toothpaste, sugar, and bug spray weren’t as good as Apollo’s music, but they made for a pretty decent flash-bang.
The Kerkopes wailed, clawing at their eyes. They stumbled toward the window, but Leo set off his homemade firecrackers—snapping them around the dwarfs’ bare feet to keep them off balance. Then, for good measure, Leo turned the dial on his Archimedes sphere, which unleashed a plume of foul white fog that filled the room.
Leo wasn’t bothered by smoke. Being immune to fire, he?
??d stood in smoky bonfires, endured dragon breath, and cleaned out blazing forges plenty of times. While the dwarfs were hacking and wheezing, he grabbed his tool belt from Akmon, calmly summoned some bungee cords, and tied up the dwarfs.
“My eyes!” Akmon coughed. “My tool belt!”
“My feet are on fire!” Passalos wailed. “Not shiny! Not shiny at all!”
After making sure they were securely bound, Leo dragged the Kerkopes into one corner and began rifling through their treasures. He retrieved Piper’s dagger, a few of his prototype grenades, and a dozen other odds and ends the dwarfs had taken from the Argo II.
“Please!” Akmon wailed. “Don’t take our shinies!”
“We’ll make you a deal!” Passalos suggested. “We’ll cut you in for ten percent if you let us go!”
“Afraid not,” Leo muttered. “It’s all mine now. ”
“Twenty percent!”
Just then, thunder boomed overhead. Lightning flashed, and the bars on the nearest window burst into sizzling, melted stubs of iron.
Jason flew in like Peter Pan, electricity sparking around him and his gold sword steaming.
Leo whistled appreciatively. “Man, you just wasted an awesome entrance. ”
Jason frowned. He noticed the hog-tied Kerkopes. “What the—”
“All by myself,” Leo said. “I’m special that way. How did you find me?”
“Uh, the smoke,” Jason managed. “And I heard popping noises. Were you having a gunfight in here?”
“Something like that. ” Leo tossed him Piper’s dagger, then kept rummaging through the bags of dwarf shinies. He remembered what Hazel had said about finding a treasure that would help them with the quest, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. There were coins, gold nuggets, jewelry, paper clips, foil wrappers, cuff links.
He kept coming back to a couple of things that didn’t seem to belong. One was an old bronze navigation device, like an astrolabe from a ship. It was badly damaged and seemed to be missing some pieces, but Leo still found it fascinating.
“Take it!” Passalos offered. “Odysseus made it, you know! Take it and let us go. ”
“Odysseus?” Jason asked. “Like, the Odysseus?”
“Yes!” Passalos squeaked. “Made it when he was an old man in Ithaca. One of his last inventions, and we stole it!”
“How does it work?” Leo asked.
“Oh, it doesn’t,” Akmon said. “Something about a missing crystal?” He glanced at his brother for help.
“‘My biggest what-if,’” Passalos said. “‘Should’ve taken a crystal. ’ That’s what he kept muttering in his sleep, the night we stole it. ” Passalos shrugged. “No idea what he meant. But the shiny is yours! Can we go now?”
Leo wasn’t sure why he wanted the astrolabe. It was obviously broken, and he didn’t get the sense that this was what Hecate meant for them to find. Still, he slipped it into one of his tool belt’s magic pockets.
He turned his attention to the other strange piece of loot—the leather-bound book. Its title was in gold leaf, in a language Leo couldn’t understand, but nothing else about the book seemed shiny. He didn’t figure the Kerkopes for big readers.