The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(36)

Grover refastened his mangled seat belt. ‘Why would he lie?’

‘That,’ Piper said, ‘is a very good question and a good reason to go back there without him. To see for myself.’

I had a sense that Piper was holding back quite a bit herself – doubts, guesses, personal feelings, maybe what had happened to her in the Labyrinth.

Hooray, I thought. Nothing spices up a dangerous quest like personal drama between formerly romantically involved heroes who may or may not be telling each other (and me) the whole truth.

Piper directed me into downtown Los Angeles.

I considered this a bad sign. ‘Downtown Los Angeles’ had always struck me as an oxymoron, like ‘hot ice cream’ or ‘military intelligence’. (Yes, Ares, that was an insult.)

Los Angeles was all about sprawl and suburbs. It wasn’t meant to have a downtown, any more than pizza was meant to have mango chunks. Oh, sure, here and there among the dull grey government buildings and closed-up shopfronts, parts of downtown had been revitalized. As we zigzagged through the surface streets, I spotted plenty of new condos, hip stores and swanky hotels. But, to me, all those efforts seemed about as effective as putting make-up on a Roman legionnaire. (And, believe me, I’d tried.)

We pulled over near Grand Park, which was neither grand nor much of a park. Across the street rose an eight-storey honeycomb of concrete and glass. I seemed to recall going there once, decades before, to register my divorce from Greta Garbo. Or was it Liz Taylor? I couldn’t recall.

‘The Hall of Records?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ Piper said. ‘But we’re not going inside. Just park in the fifteen-minute loading zone over there.’

Grover leaned forward. ‘What if we’re not back in fifteen minutes?’

Piper smiled. ‘Then I’m sure the towing company will take good care of Mr Bedrossian’s Escalade.’

Once on foot, we followed Piper to the side of the government complex, where she put her finger to her lips for quiet, then motioned for us to peek around the corner.

Running the length of the block was a twenty-foot-high concrete wall, punctuated by unremarkable metal doors that I assumed were service entrances. In front of one of those doors, about halfway down the block, stood a strange-looking guard.

Despite the warm day, he wore a black suit and tie. He was squat and burly, with unusually large hands. Wrapped around his head was something I couldn’t quite figure out, like an extra-large Arabic kaffiyeh made of fuzzy white terrycloth, which draped across his shoulders and hung halfway down his back. That alone might not have been so strange. He could have been a private security guard working for some Saudi oil tycoon. But why was he standing in an alley next to a nondescript metal door? And why was his face entirely covered in white fur – fur that exactly matched his headdress?

Grover sniffed the air, then pulled us back around the corner.

‘That guy isn’t human,’ he whispered.

‘Give the satyr a prize,’ Piper whispered back, though I wasn’t sure why we were being so quiet. We were half a block away, and there was plenty of street noise.

‘What is he?’ Meg asked.

Piper checked the dart in her blowpipe. ‘That’s a good question. But they can be real trouble if you don’t take them by surprise.’

‘They?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ Piper frowned. ‘Last time, there were two. And they had black fur. Not sure how this one is different. But that door is the entrance to the maze, so we need to take him out.’

‘Should I use my swords?’ Meg asked.

‘Only if I miss.’ Piper took a few deep breaths. ‘Ready?’

I didn’t imagine she would accept no as an answer, so I nodded along with Grover and Meg.

Piper stepped out, raised her blowpipe and fired.

It was a fifty-foot shot, at the edge of what I consider practical blowpipe range, but Piper hit her target. The dart pierced the man’s left trouser leg.

The guard looked down at the strange new accoutrement protruding from his thigh. The shaft’s fletching matched his white fur perfectly.

Oh, great, I thought. We just made him angry.

Meg summoned her golden swords.

Grover fumbled for his reed pipes.

I prepared to run away screaming.

‘Wait,’ Piper said.

The guard listed sideways, as if the whole city were tilting to starboard, then passed out cold on the sidewalk.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Poison?’

‘Grandpa Tom’s special recipe,’ Piper said. ‘Now, come on. I’ll show you what’s really weird about Fuzz Face.’





15


Grover leaves early

Grover is a smart satyr

Lester, not so much





‘What is he?’ Meg asked again. ‘He’s fun.’

Fun would not have been my adjective of choice.

The guard lay sprawled on his back, his lips foaming, his half-lidded eyes twitching in a semiconscious state.

Each of his hands had eight fingers. That explained why they’d looked so large from a distance. Judging from the width of his black leather shoes, I guessed he had eight toes as well. He seemed young, no more than a teenager in human terms, but, except for his forehead and cheeks, his whole face was covered in fine white fur that resembled the chest hair of a terrier.