The Battle of the Labyrinth (2 page)

Tammi and Kelli were still wearing their purple-and-white cheerleader costumes, holding pom-poms from the rally.

“What do they really look like?” I asked, but Rachel seemed too stunned to answer.

“Oh, forget her.” Tammi gave me a brilliant smile and started walking toward us. Kelli stayed by the doors, blocking our exit.

They’d trapped us. I knew we’d have to fight our way out, but Tammi’s smile was so dazzling it distracted me. Her blue eyes were beautiful, and the way her hair swept over her shoulders…

“Percy,” Rachel warned.

I said something really intelligent like, “Uhhh?”

Tammi was getting closer. She held out her pom-poms.

“Percy!” Rachel’s voice seemed to be coming from a long way away.

“Snap out of it!”

It took all my willpower, but I got my pen out of my pocket and uncapped it. Riptide grew into a three-foot-long bronze sword, its blade glowing with a faint golden light. Tammi’s smile turned to a sneer.

“Oh, come on,” she protested. “You don’t need that. How about a kiss instead?”

She smelled like roses and clean animal fur—a weird but somehow intoxicating smell.

Rachel pinched my arm, hard. “Percy, she wants to bite you! Look at her!”

She’s just jealous,” Tammi looked back at Kelli. “May I, mistress?”

Kelli was still blocking the door, licking her lips hungrily. “Go ahead, Tammi. You’re doing fine.”

Tammi took another step forward, but I leveled the tip of my sword at her chest. “Get back.”

She snarled. “Freshmen,” she said with disgust. “This is
our
school, halfblood. We feed on whom we choose!”

Then she began to change. The color drained out of her face and arms. Her skin turned as white as chalk, her eyes completely red. Her teeth grew into fangs.

“A vampire!” I stammered. Then I noticed her legs. Below the cheerleader skirt, her left leg was brown and shaggy with a donkey’s hoof. Her right leg was shaped like a human leg, but it was made of bronze. “Uhh, a vampire with—”

“Don’t mention the legs!” Tammi snapped. “It’s rude to make fun!”

She advanced on her weird, mismatched legs. She looked totally bizarre, especially with the pom-poms, but I couldn’t laugh—not facing those red eyes and sharp fangs.

“A vampire, you say?” Kelli laughed. “That silly legend was based on
us
, you fool. We are
empousai
, servants of Hecate.”

“Mmmm.” Tammi edged closer to me. “Dark magic formed us from animal, bronze, and ghost! We exist to feed on the blood of young men. Now come, give me that kiss!”

She bared her fangs. I was so paralyzed I couldn’t move, but Rachel threw a snare drum at the
empousa
’s head.

The demon hissed and batted the drum away. It went rolling along the aisles between music stands, its springs rattling against the drumhead. Rachel threw a xylophone, but the demon just swatted that away, too.

“I don’t usually kill girls,” Tammi growled. “But for you, mortal, I’ll make an exception. Your eyesight is a little too good!”

She lunged at Rachel.

“No!” I slashed with Riptide. Tammi tried to dodge my blade, but I sliced straight through her cheerleader uniform, and with a horrible wail she exploded into dust all over Rachel.

Rachel coughed. She looked like she’d just had a sack of flour dumped on her head. “Gross!”

“Monsters do that,” I said. “Sorry.”

“You killed my trainee!” Kelli yelled. “You need a lesson in school spirit, half-blood!”

Then she too began to change. Her wiry hair turned into flickering flames. Her eyes turned red. She grew fangs. She loped toward us, her brass foot and hoof clopping unevenly on the band-room floor.

“I am senior
empousa
,” she growled. “No hero has bested me in a thousand years.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Then you’re overdue!”

Kelli was a lot faster than Tammi. She dodged my first strike and rolled into the brass section, knocking over a row of trombones with a mighty crash. Rachel scrambled out of the way. I put myself between her and the
empousa
. Kelli circled us, her eyes going from me to the sword.

“Such a pretty little blade,” she said. “What a shame it stands between us.”

Her form shimmered—sometimes a demon, sometimes a pretty cheerleader. I tried to keep my mind focused, but it was really distracting.

“Poor dear.” Kelli chuckled. “You don’t even know what’s happening, do you? Soon, your pretty little camp in flames, your friends made slaves to the Lord of Time, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. It would be merciful to end your life now, before you have to see that.”

From down the hall, I heard voices. A tour group was approaching. A man was saying something about locker combinations.

The
empousa
’s eyes lit up. “Excellent! We’re about to have company!”

She picked up a tuba and threw it at me. Rachel and I ducked. The tuba sailed over our heads and crashed through the window.

The voices in the hall died down.

“Percy!” Kelli shouted, pretending to be scared, “why did you throw that?”

I was too surprised to answer. Kelli picked up a music stand and swiped a row of clarinets and flutes. Chairs and musical instruments crashed to the floor.

“Stop it!” I said.

People were tromping down the hall now, coming in our direction.

“Time to greet our visitors!” Kelli bared her fangs and ran for the doors. I charged after her with Riptide. I had to stop her from hurting the mortals.

“Percy, don’t!” Rachel shouted. But I hadn’t realized what Kelli was up to until it was too late.

Kelli flung open the doors. Paul Blofis and a bunch of freshmen stepped back in shock. I raised my sword.

At the last second, the
empousa
turned toward me like a cowering victim.

“Oh no, please!” she cried. I couldn’t stop my blade. It was already in motion.

Just before the celestial bronze hit her, Kelli exploded into flames like a Molotov cocktail. Waves of fire splashed over everything. I’d never seen a monster do that before, but I didn’t have time to wonder about it. I backed into the band room as the flames engulfed the doorway.

“Percy?” Paul Blofis looked completely stunned, staring at me from across the fire. “What have you done?”

Kids screamed and ran down the hall. The fire alarm wailed. Ceiling sprinklers hissed to life.

In the chaos, Rachel tugged on my sleeve. “You have to get out of here!”

She was right. The school was in flames and I’d be held responsible. Mortals couldn’t see through the Mist properly. To them it would look like I’d just attacked a helpless cheerleader in front of a group of witnesses. There was no way I could explain it. I turned from Paul and sprinted for the broken band room window.

* * *

I burst out of the alley onto East 81st and ran straight into Annabeth.

“Hey, you’re out early!” she laughed, grabbing my shoulders to keep me from tumbling into the street. “Watch where you’re going, Seaweed Brain.”

For a split second she was in a good mood and everything was fine. She was wearing jeans and an orange camp T-shirt and her clay bead necklace. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her gray eyes sparkled. She looked like she was ready to catch a movie, have a cool afternoon hanging out together.

Then Rachel Elizabeth Dare, still covered in monster dust, came charging out of the alley, yelling, “Percy, wait up!”

Annabeth’s smile melted. She stared at Rachel, then at the school. For the first time, she seemed to notice the black smoke and ringing fire alarms. She frowned at me. “What did you do this time? And who is this?”

“Oh, Rachel—Annabeth. Annabeth—Rachel. Um, she’s a friend, I guess.”

I wasn’t sure what else to call Rachel. I mean, I barely knew her, but after being in two life-or-death situations together, I couldn’t just call her nobody.

“Hi,” Rachel said. Then she turned to me. “You are in so much trouble. And you still owe me an explanation!”

Police sirens wailed on FDR Drive.

“Percy,” Annabeth said coldly. “We should go.”

“I want to know more about half-bloods,” Rachel insisted. “And monsters. And this stuff about the gods.” She grabbed my arm, whipped out a permanent marker, and wrote a phone number on my hand. “You’re going to call me and explain, okay? You owe me that. Now get going.”

“But—”

“I’ll make up some story,” Rachel said. “I’ll tell them it wasn’t your fault. Just go!”

She ran back toward the school, leaving Annabeth and me in the street.

“Hey!” I jogged after her. “There were these two
empousai
,” I tried to explain. “They were cheerleaders, see, and they said camp was going to burn, and—”

“You told a mortal girl about half-bloods?”

“She can see through the Mist. She saw the monsters before I did.”

“So you told her the truth?”

“She recognized me from Hoover Dam, so—”

“You’ve met her
before
?”

“Um, last winter. But seriously, I barely know her.”

“She’s kind of cute.”

“I—I never thought about it.”

Annabeth kept walking toward York Avenue.

“I’ll deal with the school,” I promised, anxious to change the subject.

“Honest, it’ll be fine.”

Annabeth wouldn’t even look at me. “I guess our afternoon is off. We should get you out of here, now that the police will be searching for you.”

Behind us, smoke billowed up from Goode High School. In the dark column of ashes, I thought I could almost see a face—a she-demon with red eyes, laughing at me.

Your pretty little camp in flames
, Kelli had said.
Your friends made slaves
to the Lord of Time.

“You’re right,” I told Annabeth, my heart sinking. “We have to get to Camp Half-Blood.
Now
.”

TWO

THE UNDERWORLD SENDS

ME A PRANK CALL

Nothing caps off the perfect morning like a long taxi ride with an angry girl.

I tried to talk to Annabeth, but she was acting like I’d just punched her grandmother. All I managed to get out of her was that she’d had a monsterinfested spring in San Francisco; she’d come back to camp twice since Christmas but wouldn’t tell me why (which kind of ticked me off, because she hadn’t even told me she was in New York); and she’d learned nothing about the whereabouts of Nico di Angelo (long story).

“Any word on Luke?” I asked.

She shook her head. I knew this was a touchy subject for her. Annabeth had always admired Luke, the former head counselor for Hermes who had betrayed us and joined the evil Titan Lord Kronos. She wouldn’t admit it, but I knew she still liked him. When we’d fought Luke on Mount Tamalpais last winter, he’d somehow survived a fifty-foot fall off a cliff. Now, as far as I knew, he was still sailing around on his demon-infested cruise ship while his chopped-up Lord Kronos re-formed, bit by bit, in a golden sarcophagus, biding his time until he had enough power to challenge the Olympian gods. In demigod-speak, we call this a “problem.”

“Mount Tam is still overrun with monsters,” Annabeth said. “I didn’t dare go close, but I don’t think Luke is up there. I think I would know if he was.”

That didn’t make me feel much better. “What about Grover?”

“He’s at camp,” she said. “We’ll see him today.”

“Did he have any luck? I mean, with the search for Pan?”

Annabeth fingered her bead necklace, the way she does when she’s worried.

“You’ll see,” she said. But she didn’t explain.

As we headed through Brooklyn, I used Annabeth’s phone to call my mom. Half-bloods try not to use cell phones if we can avoid it, because broadcasting our voices is like sending up a flare to the monsters:
Here I am!

Please eat me now!
But I figured this call was important. I left a message on our home voice mail, trying to explain what had happened at Goode. I probably didn’t do a very good job. I told my mom I was fine, she shouldn’t worry, but I was going to stay at camp until things cooled down. I asked her to tell Paul Blofis I was sorry.

We rode in silence after that. The city melted away until we were off the expressway and rolling through the countryside of northern Long Island, past orchards and wineries and fresh produce stands.

I stared at the phone number Rachel Elizabeth Dare had scrawled on my hand. I knew it was crazy, but I was tempted to call her. Maybe she could help me understand what the
empousa
had been talking about—the camp burning, my friends imprisoned. And why had Kelli exploded into flames?

I knew monsters never truly died. Eventually—maybe weeks, months, or years from now—Kelli would re-form out of the primordial nastiness seething in the Underworld. But still, monsters didn’t usually let themselves get destroyed so easily. If she really
was
destroyed. The taxi exited on Route 25A. We headed through the woods along the North Shore until a low ridge of hills appeared on our left. Annabeth told the driver to pull over on Farm Road 3.141, at the base of Half-Blood Hill. The driver frowned. “There ain’t nothing here, miss. You sure you want out?”

“Yes, please,” Annabeth handed him a roll of mortal cash, and the driver decided not to argue.

Annabeth and I hiked to the crest of the hill. The young guardian dragon was dozing, coiled around the pine tree, but he lifted his coppery head as we approached and let Annabeth scratch under his chin. Steam hissed out his nostrils like from a teakettle, and he went cross-eyed with pleasure.