The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(3)

I struggled to rise, at least as far as I could in the cramped tunnel. With the fire gone, my skin felt clammy. The corridor in front of us had gone dark and silent, as if it couldn’t possibly have been a vent for hellfire, but I’d spent enough time in the sun chariot to gauge the heat of flames. If we’d been caught in that blast, we would’ve been ionized into plasma.

‘We’ll have to go left,’ Grover decided.

‘Um,’ I said, ‘left is the direction from which the fire came.’

‘It’s also the quickest way.’

‘How about backwards?’ Meg suggested.

‘Guys, we’re close,’ Grover insisted. ‘I can feel it. But we’ve wandered into his part of the maze. If we don’t hurry –’

Screee!

The noise echoed from the corridor behind us. I wanted to believe it was some random mechanical sound the Labyrinth often generated: a metal door swinging on rusty hinges, or a battery-operated toy from the Halloween clearance store rolling into a bottomless pit. But the look on Grover’s face told me what I already suspected: the noise was the cry of a living creature.

SCREEE! The second cry was angrier, and much closer.

I didn’t like what Grover had said about us being in his part of the maze. Who was his referring to? I certainly didn’t want to run into a corridor that had an insta-grill setting, but, on the other hand, the cry behind us filled me with terror.

‘Run,’ Meg said.

‘Run,’ Grover agreed.

We bolted down the left-hand tunnel. The only good news: it was slightly larger, allowing us to flee for our lives with more elbow room. At the next crossroads, we turned left again, then took an immediate right. We jumped a pit, climbed a staircase and raced down another corridor, but the creature behind us seemed to have no trouble following our scent.

SCREEE! it cried from the darkness.

I knew that sound, but my faulty human memory couldn’t place it. Some sort of avian creature. Nothing cute like a parakeet or a cockatoo. Something from the infernal regions – dangerous, bloodthirsty, very cranky.

We emerged in a circular chamber that looked like the bottom of a giant well. A narrow ramp spiralled up the side of the rough brick wall. What might be at the top, I couldn’t tell. I saw no other exits.

SCREEE!

The cry grated against the bones of my middle ear. The flutter of wings echoed from the corridor behind us – or was I hearing multiple birds? Did these things travel in flocks? I had encountered them before. Confound it, I should know this!

‘What now?’ Meg asked. ‘Up?’

Grover stared into the gloom above, his mouth hanging open. ‘This doesn’t make any sense. This shouldn’t be here.’

‘Grover!’ Meg said. ‘Up or no?’

‘Yes, up!’ he yelped. ‘Up is good!’

‘No,’ I said, the back of my neck tingling with dread. ‘We won’t make it. We need to block this corridor.’

Meg frowned. ‘But –’

‘Magic plant stuff!’ I shouted. ‘Hurry!’

One thing I will say for Meg: when you need plant stuff done magically, she’s your girl. She dug into the pouches on her belt, ripped open a packet of seeds and flung them into the tunnel.

Grover whipped out his panpipes. He played a lively jig to encourage growth as Meg knelt before the seeds, her face scrunched in concentration.

Together, the lord of the Wild and the daughter of Demeter made a super gardening duo. The seeds erupted into tomato plants. Their stems grew, interweaving across the mouth of the tunnel. Leaves unfurled with ultra-speed. Tomatoes swelled into fist-size red fruits. The tunnel was almost closed off when a dark feathery shape burst through a gap in the net.

Talons raked my left cheek as the bird flew past, narrowly missing my eye. The creature circled the room, screeching in triumph, then settled on the spiral ramp ten feet above us, peering down with round gold eyes like searchlights.

An owl? No, it was twice as big as Athena’s largest specimens. Its plumage glistened obsidian black. It lifted one leathery red claw, opened its golden beak and, using its thick black tongue, licked the blood from its talons – my blood.

My sight grew fuzzy. My knees turned to rubber. I was dimly aware of other noises coming from the tunnel – frustrated shrieks, the flapping of wings as more demon birds battered against the tomato plants, trying to get through.

Meg appeared at my side, her scimitars flashing in her hands, her eyes fixed on the huge dark bird above us. ‘Apollo, you okay?’

‘Strix,’ I said, the name floating up from the recesses of my feeble mortal mind. ‘That thing is a strix.’

‘How do we kill it?’ Meg asked. Always the practical one.

I touched the cuts on my face. I could feel neither my cheek nor my fingers. ‘Well, killing it could be a problem.’

Grover yelped as the strixes outside screamed and threw themselves at the plants. ‘Guys, we’ve got six or seven more trying to get in. These tomatoes aren’t going to hold them.’

‘Apollo, answer me right now,’ Meg ordered. ‘What do I need to do?’

I wanted to comply. Really, I did. But I was having trouble forming words. I felt as if Hephaestus had just performed one of his famous tooth extractions on me and I was still under the influence of his giggle nectar.