BLOOD OF OLYMPUS

xxxvi
Leo
AT THE END OF THE HALL stood a walnut door with a bronze plaque:
ASCLEPIUS
MD, DMD, DME, DC, DVS, FAAN, OMG, EMT, TTYL, FRCP, ME, IOU, OD, OT, PHARMD, BAMF, RN, PHD, INC.,
SMH
There may have been more acronyms in the list, but by that point Leo’s brain had exploded.
Piper knocked. ‘Dr Asclepius?’
The door flew open. The man inside had a kindly smile, crinkles around his eyes, short salt-andpepper
hair and a well-trimmed beard. He wore a white lab coat over a business suit and a
stethoscope around his neck – your stereotypical doctor outfit, except for one thing: Asclepius held a
polished black staff with a live green python coiled around it.
Leo wasn’t happy to see another snake. The python regarded him with pale yellow eyes, and Leo
had a feeling it was not set to idiot mode.
‘Hello!’ said Asclepius.
‘Doctor.’ Piper’s smile was so warm it would’ve melted a Boread. ‘We’d be so grateful for your
help. We need the physician’s cure.’
Leo wasn’t even her target, but Piper’s charmspeak washed over him irresistibly. He would’ve
done anything to help her get that cure. He would’ve gone to medical school, got twelve doctorate
degrees and bought a large green python on a stick.
Asclepius put his hand over his heart. ‘Oh, my dear, I would be delighted to help.’
Piper’s smile wavered. ‘You would? I mean, of course you would.’
‘Come in! Come in!’ Asclepius ushered them into his office.
The guy was so nice that Leo figured his office would be full of torture devices, but it looked like
… well, a doctor’s office: a big maple desk, bookshelves stuffed with medical books, and some of
those plastic organ models Leo loved to play with as a kid. He remembered getting in trouble one
time because he had turned a cross-section kidney and some skeleton legs into a kidney monster and
scared the nurse.
Life was simpler back then.
Asclepius took the big comfy doctor’s chair and laid his staff and serpent across his desk. ‘Please,
sit!’
Jason and Piper took the two chairs on the patients’ side. Leo had to remain standing, which was
fine with him. He didn’t want to be eye-level with the snake.
‘So.’ Asclepius leaned back. ‘I can’t tell you how nice it is to actually talk with patients. The last