by Rick Riordan
Leo had never played a musical instrument, but he imagined it must be like this – knowing each key or note so well that you didn’t really think about what your hands were doing. You just concentrated on the kind of sound you wanted to create.
He started small. He focused on one reasonably intact gold sphere down in the main room. The gold sphere shuddered. It grew a tripod of legs and clattered over to the Taser ball. A tiny circular saw popped out of the gold sphere’s head, and it began cutting into Taser ball’s brain.
Leo tried to activate another orb. This one burst in a small mushroom cloud of bronze dust and smoke.
‘Oops,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry, Archimedes.’
‘What are you doing?’ Wolf Head demanded. ‘Stop your foolishness and surrender!’
‘Oh, yes, I surrender!’ Leo said. ‘I’m totally surrendering!’
He tried to take control of a third orb. That one broke, too. Leo felt bad about ruining all these ancient inventions, but this was life or death. Frank had accused him of caring more for machines than people, but, if it came down to saving old spheres or his friends, there was no choice.
The fourth try went better. A ruby-encrusted orb popped its top and helicopter blades unfolded. Leo was glad Buford the table wasn’t here – he would’ve fallen in love. The ruby orb spun into the air and sailed straight for the cubbyholes. Thin golden arms extended from its middle and snapped up the precious scroll cases.
‘Enough!’ Wolf Head yelled. ‘I will destroy the –’
He turned in time to see the ruby sphere take off with the scrolls. It zipped across the room and hovered in the far corner.
‘What?!’ Wolf Head cried. ‘Kill the prisoners!’
He must have been talking to the Taser ball. Unfortunately, Taser Ball was in no shape to comply. Leo’s gold sphere was sitting on top of its sawed-open head, picking through its gears and wires like it was scooping out a pumpkin.
Thank the gods, Hazel and Frank began to stir.
‘Bah!’ Wolf Head gestured to Lion Head at the opposite gate. ‘Come! We will destroy the demigods ourselves.’
‘I don’t think so, guys.’ Leo turned towards Lion Head. His hands worked the control sphere, and he felt a shock travel through the floor.
Lion Head shuddered and lowered his sword.
Leo grinned. ‘You’re in Leo World, now.’
Lion Head turned and stormed down the stairs. Instead of advancing on Hazel and Leo, he marched up the opposite stairs and faced his comrade.
‘What are you doing?’ Wolf Head demanded. ‘We have to –’
BLONG!
Lion Head slammed his shield into Wolf Head’s chest. He smashed the pommel of his sword into his comrade’s helmet, so Wolf Head became Flat, Deformed, Not Very Happy Wolf Head.
‘Stop that!’ Wolf Head demanded.
‘I cannot!’ Lion Head wailed.
Leo was getting the hang of it now. He commanded both suits of armour to drop their swords and shields and slap each other repeatedly.
‘Valdez!’ called Wolf Head in a warbling voice. ‘You will die for this!’
‘Yeah,’ Leo called out. ‘Who’s possessing who now, Casper?’
The machine men tumbled down the stairs, and Leo forced them to jitterbug like 1920s flappers. Their joints began smoking. The other spheres around the room began to pop. Too much energy was surging through the ancient system. The control sphere in Leo’s hand grew uncomfortably warm.
‘Frank, Hazel!’ Leo shouted. ‘Take cover!’
His friends were still dazed, staring in amazement at the jitterbugging metal guys, but they got his warning. Frank pulled Hazel under the nearest table and shielded her with his body.
One last twist of the sphere, and Leo sent a massive jolt through the system. The armoured warriors blew apart. Rods, pistons and bronze shards flew everywhere. On all the tables, spheres popped like hot soda cans. Leo’s gold sphere froze. His flying ruby orb dropped to the floor with the scroll cases.
The room was suddenly quiet except for a few random sparks and sizzles. The air smelled like burning car engines. Leo raced down the stairs and found Frank and Hazel safe under their table. He had never been so happy to see those two hugging.
‘You’re alive!’ he said.
Hazel’s left eye twitched, maybe from the Taser shock. Otherwise she looked okay. ‘Uh, what exactly happened?’
‘Archimedes came through!’ Leo said. ‘Just enough power left in those old machines for one final show. Once I had the access code, it was easy.’
He patted the control sphere, which was steaming in a bad way. Leo didn’t know if it could be fixed, but at the moment he was too relieved to care.
‘The eidolons,’ Frank said. ‘Are they gone?’
Leo grinned. ‘My last command overloaded their kill switches – basically locked down all their circuits and melted their cores.’
‘In English?’ Frank asked.
‘I trapped the eidolons inside the wiring,’ Leo said. ‘Then I melted them. They won’t be bothering anyone again.’
Leo helped his friends to their feet.
‘You saved us,’ Frank said.
‘Don’t sound so surprised.’ Leo glanced around the destroyed workshop. ‘Too bad all this stuff got wrecked, but at least I salvaged the scrolls. If I can get them back to Camp Half-Blood, maybe I can learn how to recreate Archimedes’s inventions.’
Hazel rubbed the side of her head. ‘But I don’t understand. Where is Nico? That tunnel was supposed to lead us to Nico.’
Leo had almost forgotten why they’d come down here in the first place. Nico obviously wasn’t here. The place was a dead end. So why …?
‘Oh.’ He felt like there was a buzz-saw sphere on his own head, pulling out his wires and gears. ‘Hazel, how exactly were you tracking Nico? I mean, could you just sense him nearby because he was your brother?’
She frowned, still looking a bit wobbly from her electric shock treatment. ‘Not – not totally. Sometimes I can tell when he’s close, but, like I said, Rome is so confusing, so much interference because of all the tunnels and caves –’
‘You tracked him with your metal-finding senses,’ Leo guessed. ‘His sword?’
She blinked. ‘How did you know?’
‘You’d better come here.’ He led Hazel and Frank up to the control room and pointed to the black sword.
‘Oh. Oh, no.’ Hazel would’ve collapsed if Frank hadn’t caught her. ‘But that’s impossible! Nico’s sword was with him in the bronze jar. Percy saw it in his dream!’
‘Either the dream was wrong,’ Leo said, ‘or the giants moved the sword here as a decoy.’
‘So this was a trap,’ Frank said. ‘We were lured here.’
‘But why?’ Hazel cried. ‘Where’s my brother?’
A hissing sound filled the control booth. At first, Leo thought the eidolons were back. Then he realized the bronze mirror on the table was steaming.
Ah, my poor demigods. The sleeping face of Gaia appeared in the mirror. As usual, she spoke without moving her mouth, which could only have been creepier if she’d had a ventriloquism puppet. Leo hated those things.
You had your choice, Gaia said. Her voice echoed through the room. It seemed to be coming not just from the mirror but from the stone walls as well.
Leo realized she was all around them. Of course. They were in the earth. They’d gone to all the trouble of building the Argo II so they could travel by sea and air, and they’d ended up in the earth anyway.
I offered salvation to all of you, Gaia said. You could have turned back. Now it is too late. You’ve come to the ancient lands where I am strongest – where I will wake.
Leo pulled a hammer from his tool belt. He whacked the mirror. Being metal, it just quivered like a tea tray, but it felt good to smash Gaia in the nose.
‘In case you haven’t noticed, Dirt Face,’ he said, ‘your little ambush failed. Your three eidolons got melted in bronze, and we’re fine.’
The workshop door slammed shut.
You are trapped in my embrace, Gaia said. Meanwhile, Annabeth Chase faces her death alone, terrified and crippled, at the hands of her mother’s greatest enemy.
The image in the mirror changed. Leo saw Annabeth sprawled on the floor of a dark cavern, holding up her bronze knife as if warding off a monster. Her face was gaunt. Her leg was wrapped up in some sort of splint. Leo couldn’t see what she was looking at, but it was obviously something horrible. He wanted to believe the image was a lie, but he had a bad feeling it was real, and it was happening right now.
The others, Gaia said, Jason Grace, Piper McLean and my dear friend Percy Jackson – they will perish within minutes.
The scene changed again. Percy was holding Riptide, leading Jason and Piper down a spiral staircase into the darkness.
Their powers will betray them, Gaia said. They will die in their own elements. I almost hoped they would survive. They would have made a better sacrifice. But alas, Hazel and Frank, you will have to do. My minions will collect you shortly and bring you to the ancient place. Your blood will awaken me at last. Until then, I will allow you to watch your friends perish. Please … enjoy this last glimpse of your failed quest.
Leo couldn’t stand it. His hand glowed white hot. Hazel and Frank scrambled back as he pressed his palm against the mirror and melted it into a puddle of bronze goo.
The voice of Gaia went silent. Leo could only hear the roar of blood in his ears. He took a shaky breath.
‘Sorry,’ he told his friends. ‘She was getting annoying.’
‘What do we do?’ Frank asked. ‘We have to get out and help the others.’
Leo scanned the workshop, now littered with smoking pieces of broken spheres. His friends still needed him. This was still his show. As long as he had his tool belt, Leo Valdez wasn’t going to sit around helplessly watching the Demigod Death Channel.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘But it’s going to take all three of us.’
He started telling them the plan.
XLI
Piper
Piper tried to make the best of the situation.
Once she and Jason had got tired of pacing the deck, listening to Coach Hedge sing ‘Old MacDonald’ (with weapons instead of animals), they decided to have a picnic in the park.
Hedge grudgingly agreed. ‘Stay where I can see you.’
‘What are we, kids?’ Jason asked.
Hedge snorted. ‘Kids are baby goats. They’re cute, and they have redeeming social value. You are definitely not kids.’
They spread their blanket under a willow tree next to a pond. Piper turned over her cornucopia and spilled out an entire meal – neatly wrapped sandwiches, canned drinks, fresh fruit and (for some reason) a birthday cake with purple icing and candles already lit.
She frowned. ‘Is it someone’s birthday?’
Jason winced. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’
‘Jason!’
‘There’s too much going on,’ he said. ‘And honestly … before last month I didn’t even know when my birthday was. Thalia told me the last time she was at camp.’
Piper wondered what that would be like – not even knowing the day you were born. Jason had been given to Lupa the wolf when he was only two years old. He’d never really known his mortal mom. He’d only been reunited with his sister last winter.
‘July first,’ Piper said. ‘The Kalends of July.’
‘Yeah.’ Jason smirked. ‘The Romans would find that auspicious – the first day of the month named for Julius Caesar. Juno’s sacred day. Yippee.’
Piper didn’t want to push it or make a celebration if he didn’t feel like celebrating.
‘Sixteen?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Oh, boy. I can get my driver’s license.’
Piper laughed. Jason had killed so many monsters and saved the world so many times that the idea of him sweating a driving test seemed ridiculous. She pictured him behind the wheel of some old Lincoln with a STUDENT DRIVER sign on top and a grumpy teacher in the passenger seat with an emergency brake pedal.
‘Well?’ she urged. ‘Blow out the candles.’
Jason did. Piper wondered if he’d made a wish – hopefully that he and Piper would survive this quest and stay together forever. She decided not to ask him. She didn’t want to jinx that wish, and she definitely didn’t want to find out that he’d wished for something different.
Since they’d left the Pillars of Hercules yesterday evening, Jason had seemed distracted. Piper couldn’t blame him. Hercules had been a pretty huge disappointment as a big brother, and the old river god Achelous had said some unflattering things about the sons of Jupiter.
Piper stared at the cornucopia. She wondered if Achelous was getting used to having no horns at all. She hoped so. Sure, he had tried to kill them, but Piper still felt bad for the old god. She didn’t understand how such a lonely, depressed spirit could produce a horn of plenty that shot out pineapples and birthday cakes. Could it be that the cornucopia had drained all the goodness out of him? Maybe now that the horn was gone, Achelous would be able to fill up with some happiness and keep it for himself.
She also kept thinking about Achelous’s advice: If you had made it to Rome, the story of the flood would have served you better. She knew the story he was talking about. She just didn’t understand how it would help.
Jason plucked an extinguished candle from his cake. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
That snapped Piper back to the present. Coming from your boyfriend, I’ve been thinking was kind of a scary line.
‘About?’ she asked.
‘Camp Jupiter,’ he said. ‘All the years I trained there. We were always pushing teamwork, working as a unit. I thought I understood what that meant. But honestly? I was always the leader. Even when I was younger –’
‘The son of Jupiter,’ Piper said. ‘Most powerful kid in the legion. You were the star.’
Jason looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t deny it. ‘Being in this crew of seven … I’m not sure what to do. I’m not used to being one of so many, well, equals. I feel like I’m failing.’
Piper took his hand. ‘You’re not failing.’
‘It sure felt that way when Chrysaor attacked,’ Jason said. ‘I’ve spent most of this trip knocked out and helpless.’
‘Come on,’ she chided. ‘Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It just means that you’re brave enough to stand up and do what’s needed.’
‘And if I don’t know what’s needed?’
‘That’s what your friends are for. We’ve all got different strengths. Together, we’ll figure it out.’
Jason studied her. Piper wasn’t sure that he bought what she was saying, but she was glad he could confide in her. She liked it that he had a little self-doubt. He didn’t succeed all the time. He didn’t think the universe owed him an apology whenever something went wrong – unlike another son of the sky god she’d recently met.
‘Hercules was a jerk,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘I never want to be like that. But I wouldn’t have had the courage to stand up to him without you taking the lead. You were the hero that time.’
‘We can take turns,’ she suggested.
‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘You’re not allowed to say that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a break-up line. Unless you’re breaking up –’
Jason leaned over and kissed her. The colours of the Roman afternoon suddenly seemed sharper, as if the world had switched to high definition.
‘No break-ups,’ he promised. ‘I may have busted my head a few times, but I’m not that stupid.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now, about that cake –’
Her voice faltered. Percy Jackson was running towards them, and Piper could tell from his expression that he brought b
ad news.
They gathered on deck so that Coach Hedge could hear the story. When Percy was done, Piper still couldn’t believe it.
‘So Annabeth was kidnapped on a motor scooter,’ she summed up, ‘by Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.’
‘Not kidnapped, exactly,’ Percy said. ‘But I’ve got this bad feeling …’ He took a deep breath, like he was trying hard not to freak out. ‘Anyway, she’s – she’s gone. Maybe I shouldn’t have let her, but –’
‘You had to,’ Piper said. ‘You knew she had to go alone. Besides, Annabeth is tough and smart. She’ll be fine.’
Piper put some charmspeak in her voice, which maybe wasn’t cool, but Percy needed to be able to focus. If they went into battle, Annabeth wouldn’t want him getting hurt because he was too distracted about her.
His shoulders relaxed a little. ‘Maybe you’re right. Anyway, Gregory – I mean Tiberinus – said we had less time to rescue Nico than we thought. Hazel and the guys aren’t back yet?’
Piper checked the time on the helm control. She hadn’t realized how late it was getting. ‘It’s two in the afternoon. We said three o’clock for a rendezvous.’
‘At the latest,’ Jason said.
Percy pointed at Piper’s dagger. ‘Tiberinus said you could find Nico’s location … you know, with that.’
Piper bit her lip. The last thing she wanted to do was check Katoptris for more terrifying images.
‘I’ve tried,’ she said. ‘The dagger doesn’t always show what I want to see. In fact, it hardly ever does.’
‘Please,’ Percy said. ‘Try again.’
He pleaded with those sea-green eyes, like a cute baby seal that needed help. Piper wondered how Annabeth ever won an argument with this guy.
‘Fine,’ she sighed, and drew her dagger.
‘While you’re at it,’ said Coach Hedge, ‘see if you can get the latest baseball scores. Italians don’t cover baseball worth beans.’
‘Shh.’ Piper studied the bronze blade. The light shimmered. She saw a loft apartment filled with Roman demigods. A dozen of them stood around a dining table as Octavian talked and pointed to a big map. Reyna paced next to the windows, gazing down at Central Park.
‘That’s not good,’ Jason muttered. ‘They’ve already set up a forward base in Manhattan.’