The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3)(130)

Percy took the lead as they crawled down the drainage pipe. After thirty feet, it opened into a wider tunnel. To their left, somewhere in the distance, Percy heard rumbling and creaking, like a huge machine needed oiling. He had absolutely no desire to find out what was making that sound, so he figured that must be the way to go.

Several hundred feet later, they reached a turn in the tunnel. Percy held up his hand, signaling Jason and Piper to wait. He peeked around the corner.

The corridor opened into a vast room with twenty-foot ceilings and rows of support columns. It looked like the same parking-garage-type area Percy had seen in his dreams, but now much more crowded with stuff.

The creaking and rumbling came from huge gears and pulley systems that raised and lowered sections of the floor for no apparent reason. Water flowed through open trenches (oh, great, more water), powering waterwheels that turned some of the machines. Other machines were connected to huge hamster wheels with hellhounds inside. Percy couldn’t help thinking of Mrs. O’Leary, and how much she would hate being trapped inside one of those.

Suspended from the ceiling were cages of live animals—a lion, several zebras, a whole pack of hyenas, and even an eight-headed hydra. Ancient-looking bronze and leather conveyor belts trundled along with stacks of weapons and armor, sort of like the Amazons’ warehouse in Seattle, except this place was obviously much older and not as well organized.

Leo would love it, Percy thought. The whole room was like one massive, scary, unreliable machine.

“What is it?” Piper whispered.

Percy wasn’t even sure how to answer. He didn’t see the giants, so he gestured for his friends to come forward and take a look.

About twenty feet inside the doorway, a life-size wooden cutout of a gladiator popped up from the floor. It clicked and whirred along a conveyor belt, got hooked on a rope, and ascended through a slot in the roof.

Jason murmured, “What the heck?”

They stepped inside. Percy scanned the room. There were several thousand things to look at, most of them in motion, but one good aspect of being an ADHD demigod was that Percy was comfortable with chaos. About a hundred yards away, he spotted a raised dais with two empty oversized praetor chairs. Standing between them was a bronze jar big enough to hold a person.

“Look.” He pointed it out to his friends.

Piper frowned. “That’s too easy.”

“Of course,” Percy said.

“But we have no choice,” Jason said. “We’ve got to save Nico.”

“Yeah.” Percy started across the room, picking his way around conveyor belts and moving platforms.

The hellhounds in the hamster wheels paid them no attention. They were too busy running and panting, their red eyes glowing like headlights. The animals in the other cages gave them bored looks, as if to say, I’d kill you, but it would take too much energy.

Percy tried to watch out for traps, but everything here looked like a trap. He remembered how many times he’d almost died in the labyrinth a few years ago. He really wished Hazel were here so she could help with her underground skills (and of course so she could be reunited with her brother).

They jumped over a water trench and ducked under a row of caged wolves. They had made it about halfway to the bronze jar when the ceiling opened over them. A platform lowered. Standing on it like an actor, with one hand raised and his head high, was the purple-haired giant Ephialtes.

Just like Percy had seen in his dreams, the Big F was small by giant standards—about twelve feet tall—but he had tried to make up for it with his loud outfit. He’d changed out of the gladiator armor and was now wearing a Hawaiian shirt that even Dionysus would’ve found vulgar. It had a garish print made up of dying heroes, horrible tortures, and lions eating slaves in the Colosseum. The giant’s hair was braided with gold and silver coins. He had a ten-foot spear strapped to his back, which wasn’t a good fashion statement with the shirt. He wore bright white jeans and leather sandals on his…well, not feet, but curved snakeheads. The snakes flicked their tongues and writhed as if they didn’t appreciate holding up the weight of a giant.

Ephialtes smiled at the demigods like he was really, really pleased to see them.

“At last!” he bellowed. “So very happy! Honestly, I didn’t think you’d make it past the nymphs, but it’s so much better that you did. Much more entertaining. You’re just in time for the main event!”

Jason and Piper closed ranks on either side of Percy. Having them there made him feel a little better. This giant was smaller than a lot of monsters he had faced, but something about him made Percy’s skin crawl. Ephialtes’s eyes danced with a crazy light.

“We’re here,” Percy said, which sounded kind of obvious once he had said it. “Let our friend go.”

“Of course!” Ephialtes said. “Though I fear he’s a bit past his expiration date. Otis, where are you?”

A stone’s throw away, the floor opened, and the other giant rose on a platform.

“Otis, finally!” his brother cried with glee. “You’re not dressed the same as me! You’re…” Ephialtes’s expression turned to horror. “What are you wearing?”

Otis looked like the world’s largest, grumpiest ballet dancer. He wore a skin-tight baby-blue leotard that Percy really wished left more to the imagination. The toes of his massive dancing slippers were cut away so that his snakes could protrude. A diamond tiara (Percy decided to be generous and think of it as a king’s crown) was nestled in his green, firecracker-braided hair. He looked glum and miserably uncomfortable, but he managed a dancer’s bow, which couldn’t have been easy with snake feet and a huge spear on his back.