The Dark Prophecy by Rick Riordan

Oh, Magic 8 Ball

Epic fail at prophecies

Leo’s ear’s on fire

THE GHOST DRIFTEDtoward us. His mood was difficult to discern, since he had no face, but he seemed agitated. He pointed at me, then made a series of hand gestures I didn’t understand—shaking his fists, lacing his fingers, cupping one hand as if holding a sphere. He stopped on the opposite side of the coffee table.

“’Sup, Cheese?” Leo asked.

Josephine snorted. “Cheese?”

“Yeah, he’s orange,” Leo said. “Why is that? Also, why is he headless?”

“Leo,” Calypso chided. “Don’t be rude.”

“Hey, it’s a fair question.”

Emmie studied the ghost’s hand gestures. “I’ve never seen him this worked up. He glows orange because…Well, actually I have no idea. As for why he is headless—”

“His brother cut off his head,” I supplied. The memory surfaced from the dark stew of my mortal brain, though I did not recall the details. “Agamethus was the brother of Trophonius, the spirit of the Dark Oracle. He…” There was something else, something that filled me with guilt, but I couldn’t remember.

The others stared at me.

“His brother did what?” Calypso asked.

“How did you know that?” Emmie demanded.

I had no answer. I was not sure myself where the information had come from. But the ghost pointed at me as if to say, This dude knows what’s up, or possibly, more disturbingly, It’s your fault. Then he again made the gesture of holding a sphere.

“He wants the Magic 8 Ball,” Josephine interpreted. “I’ll be right back.”

She jogged over to her workshop.

“The Magic 8 Ball?” Leo grinned at Emmie. The name tag on his borrowed overalls read GEORGIE. “She’s kidding, right?”

“She’s dead serious,” Emmie said. “Er…so to speak. We might as well sit.”

Calypso and Emmie took the armchairs. Leo hopped onto the couch next to me, bouncing up and down with such enthusiasm I had an annoying pang of nostalgia for Meg McCaffrey. As we waited for Josephine, I tried to dredge my memory for more specifics about this ghost Agamethus. Why would his brother Trophonius have decapitated him, and why did I feel so guilty about it? But I had no success—just a vague sense of unease, and the feeling that despite his lack of eyes, Agamethus was glaring at me.

Finally, Josie trotted back over. In one hand, she gripped a black plastic sphere the size of a honeydew melon. On one side, painted in the middle of a white circle, was the number 8.

“I love those things!” Leo said. “Haven’t seen one in years.”

I scowled at the sphere, wondering if it was some sort of bomb. That would explain Leo’s excitement. “What does it do?”

“Are you kidding?” asked Leo. “It’s a Magic 8 Ball, man. You ask it questions about the future.”

“Impossible,” I said. “I am the god of prophecy. I know every form of divination, and I have never heard of a Magic 8 Ball.”

Calypso leaned forward. “I’m not familiar with this form of sorcery, either. How does it work?”

Josephine beamed. “Well, it’s supposed to be just a toy. You shake it, turn it over, and an answer floats up in this little plastic window on the bottom. I made some modifications. Sometimes the Magic 8 Ball picks up on Agamethus’s thoughts and conveys them in writing.”

“Sometimes?” Leo asked.

Josephine shrugged. “Like, thirty percent of the time. Best I could manage.”

I still had no idea what she was talking about. The Magic 8 Ball struck me as a very shady form of divination—more like a Hermes game of chance than an Oracle worthy of me.

“Wouldn’t it be faster if Agamethus simply wrote down what he wanted to say?” I asked.

Emmie shot me a warning look. “Agamethus is illiterate. He’s a little sensitive about that.”

The ghost turned toward me. His aura darkened to the color of a blood orange.

“Ah…” I said. “And those hand gestures he was making?”

“It’s no form of sign language that we can figure out,” Jo said. “We’ve been trying for seven years, ever since Agamethus joined us. The Magic 8 Ball’s the best form of communication we’ve got. Here, buddy.”

She tossed him the magical sphere. Since Agamethus was ethereal, I expected the ball to sail right through him and shatter on the floor. Instead, Agamethus caught it easily.

“Okay!” Josephine said. “So, Agamethus, what do you want to tell us?”

The ghost shook the Magic 8 Ball vigorously and then threw it to me. I was not prepared for the sphere to be full of liquid, which, as any water-bottle-flipper can tell you, makes an object much more difficult to control. It hit my chest and dropped into my lap. I barely caught it before it wobbled off the couch.

“Master of dexterity,” Calypso muttered. “Turn it over. Weren’t you listening?”

“Oh, be quiet.” I wished Calypso could only communicate 30 percent of the time. I rotated the ball bottom-up.

As Josephine had described, a layer of clear plastic was set in the base of the sphere, providing a window to the liquid inside. A large white multisided die floated into view. (I knew this thing smacked of Hermes’s wretched gambling games!) One side of it pressed against the window, revealing a sentence written in block letters.

“‘Apollo must bring her home,’” I read aloud.

I looked up. Emmie’s and Josephine’s faces had become twin masks of shock. Calypso and Leo exchanged a wary glance.

Leo started to say, “Uh, what—?”

Simultaneously, Emmie and Josephine unleashed a torrent of questions: “Is she alive? Is she safe? Where is she? Tell me!”

Emmie shot to her feet. She began to pace, sobbing in great dry heaves, while Josephine advanced on me, her fists clenched, her gaze as sharp as the pointed flame of her welding torch.

“I don’t know!” I tossed Josephine the ball as if it were a hot baklava. “Don’t kill me!”

She caught the Magic 8 Ball, then seemed to check herself. She took a heavy breath. “Sorry, Apollo. Sorry. I…” She turned to Agamethus. “Here. Answer us. Tell us.”

She threw him the ball.

Agamethus seemed to regard the magical sphere with his nonexistent eyes. His shoulders slumped as if he did not relish his job. He shook the ball once again and tossed it back to me.

“Why me?” I protested.

“Read it!” Emmie snapped.

I turned it over. A new message appeared out of the liquid.

“‘Reply hazy,’” I read aloud. “‘Try again later.’”

Emmie wailed in despair. She sank into her seat and buried her face in her hands. Josephine rushed to her side.

Leo frowned at the ghost. “Yo, Cheese, just shake it again, man.”

“It’s no use,” Josephine said. “When the Magic 8 Ball says try again later, that’s exactly what it means. We’ll have to wait.”

She sat on the arm of Emmie’s chair and cradled Emmie’s head against her. “It’s all right,” Josie murmured. “We’ll find her. We’ll get her back.”

Hesitantly, Calypso stretched out her palm, as if she weren’t sure how to help. “I’m so sorry. Who—who is missing?”

With a quivering lip, Josephine pointed to Leo.

Leo blinked. “Uh, I’m still here—”

“Not you,” Josephine said. “The name tag. Those overalls—they were hers.”

Leo patted the stitched name on his chest. “Georgie?”

Emmie nodded, her eyes puffy and red. “Georgina. Our adopted daughter.”

I was glad I was sitting down. Suddenly, so many things made sense that they overwhelmed me like another vision: the two aging Hunters who were not Hunters, the child’s empty bedroom, the crayon drawings done by a little girl. Josephine had mentioned that Agamethus arrived in their lives approximately seven years ago.

“You two left the Hunters,” I said. “For each other.”

Josephine gazed into the distance, as if the building’s walls were as transparent as the Magic 8 Ball’s base. “We didn’t exactly plan it. We left in…what, 1986?”

“Eighty-seven,” Emmie said. “We’ve been aging together ever since. Very happily.” She wiped away a tear, not looking terribly happy at the moment.

Calypso flexed her recently broken hand. “I don’t know much about Lady Artemis, or her rules for followers—”

“That’s fine,” Leo interrupted.

Calypso glared at him. “But don’t they forswear the company of men? If you two fell in love—”

“No,” I said bitterly. “All romance is off-limits. My sister is quite unreasonable in that regard. The mission of the Hunters is to live without romantic distractions of any kind.”

Thinking about my sister and her anti-romantic ideas irritated me. How could two siblings be so different? But I was also irritated with Hemithea. She had not only given up being a Hunter; in doing so she had also given up the divinity I had granted her.

Just like a human! We give you immortality and godly power, then you trade it in for love and a loft in downtown Indianapolis. The nerve!

Emmie wouldn’t meet my eyes.

She sighed wistfully. “We delighted in being Hunters, both of us. They were our family. But…” She shrugged.

“We loved each other more,” Josephine supplied.

I got the feeling they finished each other’s sentences a lot, their thoughts were in such comfortable harmony. That did not help my irritation levels.

“You must have parted with Artemis on good terms,” I said. “She let you live.”

Josephine nodded. “The Lady’s Hunters often stop here at the Waystation…though we have not seen Artemis herself in decades. Then, seven years ago, we were blessed with Georgina. She…she was brought to our door by Agamethus.”

The orange ghost bowed.

“He brought her from where?” I wondered.

Emmie spread her hands. “We’ve never been able to get that information from him. It’s the one question the Magic 8 Ball never answers.”

Leo must have been thinking deeply—a tuft of fire broke out at the top of his left ear. “Hold up. Agamethus isn’t your kid’s dad, is he? Also…you’re telling me I’m wearing the overalls of a seven-year-old girl, and they fit?”

That got a broken laugh from Josephine. “I suppose they do. And no, Leo, Agamethus is not Georgina’s father. Our ghostly friend has been dead since ancient times. Like Apollo said, he was the brother of Trophonius, the spirit of the Oracle. Agamethus appeared here with baby Georgie. Then he led us to the Oracle. That was the first we knew of its existence.”

“So you have its location,” I said.

“Of course,” Emmie murmured. “For all the good it does us.”

Too many questions crowded in my head. I wanted to divide myself into a dozen different manifestations so I could pursue every answer at once, but alas, mortals don’t split easily. “But the girl and the Oracle must be connected somehow.”

Emmie closed her eyes. I could tell she was trying hard to suppress a sob. “We didn’t realize how closely they were connected. Not until Georgie was taken from us.”

“The emperor,” I guessed.

Josephine nodded.

I hadn’t even met this second member of the Triumvirate yet, and I already hated him. I had lost Meg McCaffrey to Nero. I did not like the idea of another young girl being taken by another evil emperor.

“In my vision,” I recalled, “I heard Nero call this emperor the New Hercules. Who is he? What did he do with Georgina?”

Emmie rose unsteadily to her feet. “I—I need to do something productive with my hands. It’s the only way I’ve stayed sane the past two weeks. Why don’t you all help us make lunch? Then we’ll talk about the monster who controls our city.”