The Demigod Diaries (The Heroes of Olympus)(23)

The whole cavern rumbled as a thousand water pipes burst overhead. A not-so-clean waterfall slammed Cacus in the face. I yanked Annabeth out the way, then leaped back into the edge of the torrent, carrying Annabeth with me.

“What are you—?” She made a strangling sound. “Ahhh!”

I’d never attempted this before, but I willed myself to travel upstream like a salmon, jumping from current to current as the water gushed into the cavern. If you’ve ever tried running up a wet slide, it was kind of like that, except at a ninety-degree angle and with no slide—just water.

Far below I heard Cacus bellowing as millions, maybe even thousands of filthy gallons of water slammed into him. Meanwhile Annabeth alternately shouted, gagged, hit me, called me endearing pet names like “Idiot! Stupid—dirty—moron—” and topped it all off with “Kill you!”

Finally we shot out of the ground atop a disgusting geyser and landed safely on the pavement.

Pedestrians and cops backed away, yelling in alarm at our sewage version of Old Faithful. Brakes screeched and cars rear-ended each other as drivers stopped to watch the chaos.

I willed myself dry—a handy trick—but I still smelled pretty bad. Annabeth had old cotton balls stuck in her hair and a wet candy wrapper plastered to her face.

“That,” she said, “was horrible!”

“On the bright side,” I said, “we’re alive.”

“Without the caduceus!”

I grimaced. Yeah…minor detail. Maybe the giant would drown. Then he’d dissolve and return to Tartarus the way most defeated monsters do, and we could go collect the caduceus.

That sounded reasonable enough.

The geyser receded, followed by the horrendous sound of water draining down the tunnel, like somebody up on Olympus had flushed the godly toilet.

Then a distant snaky voice spoke in my mind. Gag me, said George. Even for me that was disgusting, and I eat rats.

Incoming! Martha warned. Oh, no! I think the giant has figured out—

An explosion shook the street. A beam of blue light shot out of the tunnel, carving a trench up the side of a glass office building, melting windows and vaporizing concrete. The giant climbed from the pit, his velour housecoat steaming, and his face spattered with slime.

He did not look happy. In his hands, the caduceus now resembled a bazooka with snakes wrapped around the barrel and a glowing blue muzzle.

“Okay,” Annabeth said faintly. “Um, what is that?”

“That,” I guessed, “would be laser mode.”

To all of you who live in the Meatpacking District, I apologize. Because of the smoke, debris, and chaos, you probably just call it the Packing District now, since so many of you had to move out.

Still, the real surprise is that we didn’t do more damage.

Annabeth and I fled as another laser bolt gouged a ditch through the street to our left. Chunks of asphalt rained down like confetti.

Behind us, Cacus yelled, “You ruined my fake Rolexes! They aren’t waterproof, you know! For that, you die!”

We kept running. My hope was to get this monster away from innocent mortals, but that’s kind of hard to do in the middle of New York. Traffic clogged the streets. Pedestrians screamed and ran in every direction. The two police officers I’d seen earlier were nowhere in sight, maybe swept away by the mob.

“The park!” Annabeth pointed to the elevated tracks of the High Line. “If we can get him off street level—”

BOOM! The laser cut through a nearby food truck. The vendor dove out his service window with a fistful of shish kebabs.

Annabeth and I sprinted for the park stairs. Sirens screamed in the distance, but I didn’t want more police involved. Mortal law enforcement would only make things more complicated, and through the Mist, the police might even think Annabeth and I were the problem. You just never knew.

We climbed up to the park. I tried to get my bearings. Under different circumstances, I would’ve enjoyed the view of the glittering Hudson River and the rooftops of the surrounding neighborhood. The weather was nice. The park’s flower beds were bursting with color.

The High Line was empty, though—maybe because it was a workday, or maybe because the visitors were smart and ran when they heard the explosions.

Somewhere below us, Cacus was roaring, cursing, and offering panicked mortals deep discounts on slightly damp Rolexes. I figured we only had a few seconds before he found us.

I scanned the park, hoping for something that would help. All I saw were benches, walkways, and lots of plants. I wished we had a child of Demeter with us. Maybe they could entangle the giant in vines, or turn flowers into ninja throwing stars. I’d never actually seen a child of Demeter do that, but it would be cool.

I looked at Annabeth. “Your turn for a brilliant idea.”

“I’m working on it.” She was beautiful in combat. I know that’s a crazy thing to say, especially after we’d just climbed a sewage waterfall, but her gray eyes sparkled when she was fighting for her life. Her face shone like a goddess’s, and believe me, I’ve seen goddesses. The way her Camp Half-Blood beads rested against her throat—Okay, sorry. Got a little distracted.

She pointed. “There!”

A hundred feet away, the old railroad tracks split and the elevated platform formed a Y. The shorter piece of the Y was a dead end—part of the park that was still under construction. Stacks of potting soil bags and plant flats sat on the gravel. Jutting over the edge of the railing was the arm of a crane that must’ve been sitting down at ground level. Far above us, a big metal claw hung from the crane’s arm—probably what they’d been using to hoist garden supplies.