The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(39)

Short of injecting myself with pure caffeine and electrifying my underwear, I wasn’t sure how I could possibly be more alert or swivel-headed, but Meg and I followed Piper down the grim fluorescent hall.

Another thirty yards, and the corridor opened into a vast space that looked like …

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Is this an underground parking garage?’

It certainly seemed so, except for the complete absence of cars. Stretching into the darkness, the polished cement floor was painted with yellow directional arrows and rows of empty grid spaces. Lines of square pillars supported the ceiling twenty feet above. Posted on some of them were signs like: HONK. EXIT. YIELD TO LEFT.

In a car-crazy town like LA, it seemed odd that anyone would abandon a usable parking garage. Then again, I supposed street meters sounded pretty good when your other option was a creepy maze frequented by taggers, dryad search parties and government workers.

‘This is the place,’ Piper said. ‘Where Jason and I got separated.’

The smell of sulphur was stronger here, mixed with a sweeter fragrance … like cloves and honey. It made me edgy, reminding me of something I couldn’t quite place – something dangerous. I resisted the urge to run.

Meg wrinkled her nose. ‘Pee-yoo.’

‘Yeah,’ Piper agreed. ‘That smell was here last time. I thought it meant …’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway, right about here, a wall of flames came roaring out of nowhere. Jason ran right. I ran left. I’m telling you – that heat seemed malevolent. It was the most intense fire I’ve ever felt, and I’ve fought Enceladus.’

I shivered, remembering that giant’s fiery breath. We used to send him boxes of chewable antacids for Saturnalia, just to make him mad.

‘And after you and Jason got separated?’ I asked.

Piper moved to the nearest pillar. She ran her hand along the letters of a YIELD sign. ‘I tried to find him, of course. But he just disappeared. I searched for a long time. I was pretty freaked out. I wasn’t going to lose another …’

She hesitated, but I understood. She had already suffered the loss of Leo Valdez, who until recently she had assumed dead. She wasn’t going to lose another friend.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I started smelling that fragrance. That kind of clove scent?’

‘It’s distinctive,’ I agreed.

‘Yucky,’ Meg corrected.

‘It started to get really strong,’ Piper said. ‘I’ll be honest, I got scared. Alone, in the dark, I panicked. I left.’ She grimaced. ‘Not very heroic, I know.’

I wasn’t going to criticize, given the fact that my knees were presently knocking together the Morse code message RUN AWAY!

‘Jason showed up later,’ Piper said. ‘Simply walked out of the exit. He wouldn’t talk about what had happened. He just said going back in the maze wouldn’t accomplish anything. The answers were elsewhere. He said he wanted to look into some ideas and get back to me.’ She shrugged. ‘That was two weeks ago. I’m still waiting.’

‘He found the Oracle,’ I guessed.

‘That’s what I’m wondering. Maybe if we go that way –’ Piper pointed to the right – ‘we’ll find out.’

None of us moved. None of us yelled Hooray! and skipped merrily into the sulphur-infused darkness.

My thoughts spun so rapidly I wondered if my head actually was on a swivel.

Malevolent heat, as if it had a personality. The nickname of the emperor: Neos Helios, the New Sun, Caligula’s bid to brand himself as a living god. Something Naevius Macro had said: I just hope there’s enough of you left for the emperor’s magical friend to work with.

And that fragrance, clove and honey … like an ancient perfume, combined with sulphur.

‘Agave said “she just came out of nowhere”,’ I recalled.

Piper’s hand tightened on the hilt of her dagger. ‘I was hoping I misheard that. Or maybe by she, she meant Money Maker.’

‘Hey,’ Meg said. ‘Listen.’

It was difficult over the loud swivelling of my head and the electricity crackling in my underwear, but finally I heard it: the clatter of wood and metal echoing in the darkness, and the hiss and scrape of large creatures moving at a fast pace.

‘Piper,’ I said, ‘what did that perfume remind you of? Why did it scare you?’

Her eyes now looked as electric blue as her harpy feather. ‘An – an old enemy, somebody my mom warned me I would see again some day. But she couldn’t possibly be –’

‘A sorceress,’ I guessed.

‘Guys,’ Meg interrupted.

‘Yeah.’ Piper’s voice turned cold and heavy, as if she was just realizing how much trouble we were actually in.

‘A sorceress from Colchis,’ I said. ‘A grandchild of Helios, who drove a chariot.’

‘Pulled by dragons,’ Piper said.

‘Guys,’ Meg said, more urgently, ‘we need to hide.’

Too late, of course.

The chariot rattled around the corner, pulled by twin golden dragons that spewed yellow fumes from their nostrils like sulphur-fuelled locomotives. The driver had not changed since I’d last seen her, a few thousand years ago. She was still dark-haired and regal, her black silk dress rippling around her.