“Narcissus, listen.” Hazel kept her sword at the ready. “Echo brought us here to help you. Didn’t you, Echo?”
“Echo,” said Echo.
“Who?” Narcissus said.
“The only girl who cares what happens to you, apparently,” Hazel said. “Do you remember dying?”
Narcissus frowned. “I…no. That can’t be right. I am much too important to die.”
“You died staring at yourself,” Hazel insisted. “I remember the story now. Nemesis was the goddess who cursed you, because you broke so many hearts. Your punishment was to fall in love with your own reflection.”
“I love me so, so much,” Narcissus agreed.
“You finally died,” Hazel continued. “I don’t know which version of the story is true. You either drowned yourself or turned into a flower hanging over the water or—Echo, which is it?”
“Which is it?” she said hopelessly.
Leo stood. “It doesn’t matter. The point is you’re alive again, man. You have a second chance. That’s what Nemesis was telling us. You can get up, and get on with your life. Echo is trying to save you. Or you can stay here and stare at yourself until you die again.”
“Stay here!” all the nymphs screamed.
“Marry me before you die!” another squeaked.
Narcissus shook his head. “You just want my reflection. I don’t blame you, but you can’t have it. I belong to me.”
Hazel sighed in exasperation. She glanced at the sun, which was sinking fast. Then she gestured with her sword toward the edge of the crater. “Leo, could we talk for a minute?”
“Excuse us,” Leo told Narcissus. “Echo, want to come with?”
“Come with,” Echo confirmed.
The nymphs clustered around Narcissus again and began recording new videos and taking more photos.
Hazel led the way until they were out of earshot. “Nemesis was right,” she said. “Some demigods can’t change their nature. Narcissus is going to stay there until he dies again.”
“No,” Leo said.
“No,” Echo agreed.
“We need that bronze,” Leo said. “If we take it away, it might give Narcissus a reason to snap out of it. Echo could have a chance to save him.”
“A chance to save him,” Echo said gratefully.
Hazel stabbed her sword in the sand. “It could also make several dozen nymphs very angry with us,” she said. “And Narcissus might still know how to shoot his bow.”
Leo pondered that. The sun was just about down. Nemesis had mentioned that Narcissus got agitated after dark, probably because he couldn’t see his reflection anymore. Leo didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out what the goddess meant by agitated. He’d also had experience with mobs of crazed nymphs. He wasn’t anxious to repeat that.
“Hazel,” he said, “your power with precious metal— Can you just detect it, or can you actually summon it to you?”
She frowned. “Sometimes I can summon it. I’ve never tried with a piece of Celestial bronze that big before. I might be able to draw it to me through the earth, but I’d have to be fairly close. It would take a lot of concentration, and it wouldn’t be fast.”
“Be fast,” Echo warned.
Leo cursed. He had hoped they could just go back to the ship, and Hazel could teleport the Celestial bronze from a safe distance.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll have to try something risky. Hazel, how about you try to summon the bronze from right here? Make it sink through the sand and tunnel over to you, then grab it and run for the ship.”
“But Narcissus is looking at it all the time,” she said.
“All the time,” Echo echoed.
“That’ll be my job,” Leo said, hating his own plan already. “Echo and I will cause a distraction.”
“Distraction?” Echo asked.
“I’ll explain,” Leo promised. “Are you willing?”
“Willing,” Echo said.
“Great,” Leo said. “Now, let’s hope we don’t die.”
Chapter 8
Leo psyched himself up for an extreme makeover. He summoned some breath mints and a pair of welding goggles from his tool belt. The goggles weren’t exactly sunglasses, but they’d have to do. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He used some machine oil to grease back his hair. He stuck a wrench in his back pocket (why exactly, he wasn’t sure) and he had Hazel draw a tattoo on his biceps with a marker: HOT STUFF, with a skull and crossbones.
“What in the world are you thinking?” She sounded pretty flustered.
“I try not to think,” Leo admitted. “It interferes with being nuts. Just concentrate on moving that Celestial bronze. Echo, you ready?”
“Ready,” she said.
Leo took a deep breath. He strutted back toward the pond, hoping he looked awesome and not like he had some sort of nervous affliction. “Leo is the coolest!” he shouted.
“Leo is the coolest!” Echo shouted back.
“Yeah, baby, check me out!”
“Check me out!” Echo said.
“Make way for the king!”
“The king!”
“Narcissus is weak!”
“Weak!”
The crowd of nymphs scattered in surprise. Leo shooed them away as if they were bothering him. “No autographs, girls. I know you want some Leo time, but I’m way too cool. You better just hang around that ugly dweeb Narcissus. He’s lame!”
“Lame!” Echo said with enthusiasm.
The nymphs muttered angrily.
“What are you talking about?” one demanded.
“You’re lame,” said another.
Leo adjusted his goggles and smiled. He flexed his biceps, though he didn’t have much to flex, and showed off his HOT STUFF tattoo. He had the nymphs’ attention, if only because they were stunned; but Narcissus was still fixed on his own reflection.
“You know how ugly Narcissus is?” Leo asked the crowd. “He’s so ugly, when he was born his mama thought he was a backward centaur—with a horse butt for a face.”
Some of the nymphs gasped. Narcissus frowned, as though he was vaguely aware of a gnat buzzing around his head.
“You know why his bow has cobwebs?” Leo continued. “He uses it to hunt for dates, but he can’t find one!”
One of the nymphs laughed. The others quickly elbowed her into silence.
Narcissus turned and scowled at Leo. “Who are you?”
“I’m the Super-sized McShizzle, man!” Leo said. “I’m Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme. And the ladies love a bad boy.”
“Love a bad boy!” Echo said, with a convincing squeal.
Leo took out a pen and autographed the arm of one of the nymphs. “Narcissus is a loser! He’s so weak, he can’t bench-press a Kleenex. He’s so lame, when you look up lame on Wikipedia, it’s got a picture of Narcissus—only the picture’s so ugly, no one ever checks it out.”
Narcissus knit his handsome eyebrows. His face was turning from bronze to salmon pink. For the moment, he’d totally forgotten about the pond, and Leo could see the sheet of bronze sinking into the sand.
“What are you talking about?” Narcissus demanded. “I am amazing. Everyone knows this.”
“Amazing at pure suck,” Leo said. “If I was as suck as you, I’d drown myself. Oh wait, you already did that.”
Another nymph giggled. Then another. Narcissus growled, which did make him look a little less handsome. Meanwhile Leo beamed and wiggled his eyebrows over his goggles and spread his hands, gesturing for applause.
“That’s right!” he said. “Team Leo for the win!”
“Team Leo for the win!” Echo shouted. She’d wriggled into the mob of nymphs, and because she was so hard to see, the nymphs apparently thought the voice came from one of their own.
“Oh my god, I am so awesome!” Leo bellowed.
“So awesome!” Echo yelled back.
“He is funny,” a nymph ventured.
“And cute, in a scrawny way,” another said.
“Scrawny?” Leo asked. “Baby, I invented scrawny. Scrawny is the new sizzling hot. And I GOT the scrawny. Narcissus? He’s such a loser even the Underworld didn’t want him. He couldn’t get the ghost girls to date him.”
“Eww,” said a nymph.
“Eww!” Echo agreed.
“Stop!” Narcissus got to his feet. “This is not right! This person is obviously not awesome, so he must be…” He struggled for the right words. It had probably been a long time since he’d talked about anything other than himself. “He must be tricking us.”
Apparently Narcissus wasn’t completely stupid. Realization dawned on his face. He turned back to the pond. “The bronze mirror is gone! My reflection! Give me back to me!”
“Team Leo!” one of the nymphs squeaked. But the others returned their attention to Narcissus.
“I’m the beautiful one!” Narcissus insisted. “He’s stolen my mirror, and I’m going to leave unless we get it back!”
The girls gasped. One pointed. “There!”
Hazel was at the top of the crater, running away as fast as she could while lugging a large sheet of bronze.
“Get it back!” cried a nymph.
Probably against her will, Echo muttered, “Get it back.”
“Yes!” Narcissus unslung his bow and grabbed an arrow from his dusty quiver. “The first one who gets that bronze, I will like you almost as much as I like me. I might even kiss you, right after I kiss my reflection!”
“Oh my gods!” the nymphs screamed.
“And kill those demigods!” Narcissus added, glaring very handsomely at Leo. “They are not as cool as me!”
Leo could run pretty fast when someone was trying to kill him. Sadly, he’d had a lot of practice.
He overtook Hazel, which was easy, since she was struggling with fifty pounds of Celestial bronze. He took one side of the metal plate and glanced back. Narcissus was nocking an arrow, but it was so old and brittle, it broke into splinters.
“Ow!” he yelled very attractively. “My manicure!”
Normally nymphs were quick—at least the ones at Camp Half-Blood were—but these were burdened with posters, T-shirts, and other Narcissus™ merchandise. The nymphs also weren’t great at working as a team. They kept stumbling over one another, pushing and shoving. Echo made things worse by running among them, tripping and tackling as many as she could.
Still, they were closing rapidly.
“Call Arion!” Leo gasped.
“Already did!” Hazel said.
They ran for the beach. They made it to the edge of the water and could see the Argo II, but there was no way to get there. It was much too far to swim, even if they hadn’t been toting bronze.
Leo turned. The mob was coming over the dunes, Narcissus in the lead, holding his bow like a band major’s baton. The nymphs had conjured assorted weapons. Some held rocks. Some had wooden clubs wreathed in flowers. A few of the water nymphs had squirt guns—which seemed not quite as terrifying—but the look in their eyes was still murderous.