The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(136)

“You can’t stand at all,” Hazel countered. “Look.”

She pointed at the feet of the sorceress. A trapdoor opened underneath Pasiphaë. She fell, screaming, into a bottomless pit that didn’t really exist.

The floor solidified. The sorceress was gone.

Leo stared at Hazel in amazement. “How did you—”

Just then the elevator dinged. Rather than pushing the UP button, Clytius stepped back from the controls, keeping their friends trapped inside.

“Leo!” Hazel yelled.

They were thirty feet away—much too far to reach the elevator—but Leo pulled out a screwdriver and chucked it like a throwing knife. An impossible shot. The screwdriver spun straight past Clytius and slammed into the UP button.

The Doors of Death opened with a hiss. Black smoke billowed out, and two bodies spilled face-first onto the floor—Percy and Annabeth, limp as corpses.

Hazel sobbed. “Oh, gods…”

She and Leo started forward, but Clytius raised his hand in an unmistakable gesture—stop. He lifted his massive reptilian foot over Percy’s head.

The giant’s smoky shroud poured over the floor, covering Annabeth and Percy in a pool of dark fog.

“Clytius, you’ve lost,” Hazel snarled. “Let them go, or you’ll end up like Pasiphaë.”

The giant tilted his head. His diamond eyes gleamed. At his feet, Annabeth lurched like she’d hit a power line. She rolled on her back, black smoke coiling from her mouth.

“I am not Pasiphaë.” Annabeth spoke in a voice that wasn’t hers—the words as deep as a bass guitar. “You have won nothing.”

“Stop that!” Even from thirty feet away, Hazel could sense Annabeth’s life force waning, her pulse becoming thready. Whatever Clytius was doing, pulling words from her mouth—it was killing her.

Clytius nudged Percy’s head with his foot. Percy’s face lolled to one side.

“Not quite dead.” The giant’s words boomed from Percy’s mouth. “A terrible shock to the mortal body, I would imagine, coming back from Tartarus. They’ll be out for a while.”

He turned his attention back to Annabeth. More smoke poured from between her lips. “I’ll tie them up and take them to Porphyrion in Athens. Just the sacrifice we need. Unfortunately, that means I have no further use for you two.”

“Oh, yeah?” Leo growled. “Well, maybe you got the smoke, buddy, but I’ve got the fire.”

His hands blazed. He shot white-hot columns of flame at the giant, but Clytius’s smoky aura absorbed them on impact. Tendrils of black haze traveled back up the lines of fire, snuffing out the light and heat and covering Leo in darkness.

Leo fell to his knees, clutching at his throat.

“No!” Hazel ran toward him, but Gale chattered urgently on her shoulder—a clear warning.

“I would not.” Clytius’s voice reverberated from Leo’s mouth. “You do not understand, Hazel Levesque. I devour magic. I destroy the voice and the soul. You cannot oppose me.”

Black fog spread farther across the room, covering Annabeth and Percy, billowing toward Hazel.

Blood roared in Hazel’s ears. She had to act—but how? If that black smoke could incapacitate Leo so quickly, what chance did she have?

“F-fire,” she stammered in a small voice. “You’re supposed to be weak against it.”

The giant chuckled, using Annabeth’s vocal cords this time. “You were counting on that, eh? It is true I do not like fire. But Leo Valdez’s flames are not strong enough to trouble me.”

Somewhere behind Hazel, a soft, lyrical voice said, “What about my flames, old friend?”

Gale squeaked excitedly and jumped from Hazel’s shoulder, scampering to the entrance of the cavern where a blond woman stood in a black dress, the Mist swirling around her.

The giant stumbled backward, bumping into the Doors of Death.

“You,” he said from Percy’s mouth.

“Me,” Hecate agreed. She spread her arms. Blazing torches appeared in her hands. “It has been millennia since I fought at the side of a demigod, but Hazel Levesque has proven herself worthy. What do you say, Clytius? Shall we play with fire?”

IF THE GIANT HAD RUN AWAY SCREAMING, Hazel would’ve been grateful. Then they all could have taken the rest of the day off.

Clytius disappointed her.

When he saw the goddess’s torches blazing, the giant seemed to recover his wits. He stomped his foot, shaking the floor and almost stepping on Annabeth’s arm. Dark smoke billowed around him until Annabeth and Percy were totally hidden. Hazel could see nothing but the giant’s gleaming eyes.

“Bold words.” Clytius spoke from Leo’s mouth. “You forget, goddess. When we last met, you had the help of Hercules and Dionysus—the most powerful heroes in the world, both of them destined to become gods. Now you bring…these?”

Leo’s unconscious body contorted in pain.

“Stop it!” Hazel yelled.

She didn’t plan what happened next. She simply knew she had to protect her friends. She imagined them behind her, the same way she’d imagined new tunnels appearing in Pasiphaë’s Labyrinth. Leo dissolved. He reappeared at Hazel’s feet, along with Percy and Annabeth. The Mist whirled around her, spilling over the stones and enveloping her friends. Where the white Mist met the dark smoke of Clytius, it steamed and sizzled, like lava rolling into the sea.