He kept forgetting that Piper’s dad was Tristan McLean, A-list movie star. I remember him telling me there were dogs everywhere. For a moment it turned into an old, fat beagle. Frank wondered how the mortals could be so calm. The tourists parted around it, unconcerned. Their overgrown gray manes completely covered their eyes.įrank watched as one of the creatures lumbered across the promenade, snuffling and licking the pavement with its long tongue.
Their long, anteater-like snouts drooped to the ground. The creatures’ heads seemed much too heavy for their necks.
They had gathered at the starboard rail to stare at the dozens of weird shaggy monsters milling through the crowds.Įach monster was about the size of a cow, with a bowed back like a broken-down horse, matted gray fur, skinny legs, and black cloven hooves. Hazel and the rest of his friends weren’t paying attention to any of that, though. Frank had thought Rome was full of tourists. Along the docks, the sidewalks were mobbed with tourists shopping at the T-shirt kiosks, overflowing from stores, and lounging across acres of outdoor café tables, like pods of sea lions. Where streets should have been, green canals etched their way through the neighborhoods, each one jammed with motorboats. There were so many, Frank figured the lion must be the city’s mascot. On the other spread the city of Venice-red-tiled roofs, metal church domes, steepled towers, and sun-bleached buildings in all the colors of Valentine candy hearts-red, white, ochre, pink, and orange.Įverywhere there were statues of lions-on top of pedestals, over doorways, on the porticoes of the largest buildings. On one side stretched a shipping channel about half a kilometer wide. That hope was shattered as soon as he climbed above deck. Maybe he could finally get those annoying screaming mini-gods under control. The two sides of the war god seemed to be kicking and punching each other inside Frank’s head, using his sinuses as a wrestling mat. Leo hadn’t made any gorilla jokes at his expense yet. Frank was better known for the Giant Goldfish Fiasco in Atlanta, and, just yesterday, for turning into a two-hundred-kilo gorilla only to get knocked senseless by a flash-bang grenade. So what? His biggest claim to helpfulness so far had been changing into a weasel to escape from an underground workshop, and even that had been Leo’s idea. On the Argo II, Frank definitely felt like the LVP-Least Valuable Player. Just another one of Leo’s stupid jokes, but the comment hit a little too close to home.
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