“Oh, that’s very helpful. I mean, what is it?”
Then I heard heavy footsteps shaking the corridor—coming toward us.
“Run?” I asked.
“Run,” Rachel agreed.
We turned and fled the way we’d come, but we didn’t make it twenty feet before we ran straight into some old friends. Two dracaenae—snake women in Greek armor—leveled their javelins at our chests. Standing between them was Kelli, the empousa cheerleader.
“Well, well,” Kelli said.
I uncapped Riptide, and Annabeth pulled her knife; but before my sword was even out of pen form, Kelli pounced on Rachel. Her hand turned into a claw and she spun Rachel around, holding her tight with her talons at Rachel’s neck.
“Taking your little mortal pet for a walk?” Kelli asked me. “They’re such fragile things. So easy to break!”
Behind us, the footsteps came closer. A huge form appeared out of the gloom—an eight-foot-tall Laistrygonian giant with red eyes and fangs.
The giant licked his lips when he saw us. “Can I eat them?”
“No,” Kelli said. “Your master will want these. They will provide a great deal of entertainment.” She smiled at me. “Now march, half-bloods. Or you all die here, starting with the mortal girl.”
***
It was pretty much my worst nightmare. And believe me, I’ve had plenty of nightmares. We were marched down the tunnel, flanked by dracaenae, with Kelli and the giant in back, just in case we tried to run for it. Nobody seemed to worry about us running forward. That was the direction they wanted us to go.
Up ahead I could see bronze doors. They were about ten feet tall, emblazoned with a pair of crossed swords. From behind them came a muffled roar, like from a crowd.
“Oh, yessssss,” said the snake woman on my left. “You’ll be very popular with our hossssst.”
I’d never gotten to look at a dracaena up close before, and I wasn’t real thrilled to have the opportunity. She would’ve had a beautiful face, except her tongue was forked and her eyes were yellow with black slits for pupils. She wore bronze armor that stopped at her waist. Below that, where her legs should’ve been, were two massive snake trunks, mottled bronze and green. She moved by a combination of slithering and walking, as if she were on living skis.
“Who’s your host?” I asked.
She hissed, which might have been a laugh. “Oh, you’ll sssssee. You’ll get along furiousssly. He’ssss your brother, after all.”
“My what?” Immediately I thought of Tyson, but that was impossible. What was she talking about?
The giant pushed past us and opened the doors. He picked up Annabeth by her shirt and said, “You stay here.”
“Hey!” she protested, but the guy was twice her size and he’d already confiscated her knife and my sword.
Kelli laughed. She still had her claws at Rachel’s neck. “Go on, Percy. Entertain us. We’ll wait here with your friends to make sure you behave.”
I looked at Rachel. “I’m sorry. I’ll get you out of this.”
She nodded as much as she could with a demon at her throat. “That would be nice.”
The dracaenae prodded me toward the doorway at javelin-point, and I walked out onto the floor of an arena.
***
I guess it wasn’t the largest arena I’d ever been in, but it seemed pretty spacious considering the whole place was underground. The dirt floor was circular, just big enough that you could drive a car around the rim if you pulled it really tight. In the center of the arena, a fight was going on between a giant and a centaur. The centaur looked panicked. He was galloping around his enemy, using sword and shield, while the giant swing a javelin the size of a telephone pole and the crowd cheered.
The first tier of seats was twelve feet above the arena floor. Plain stone benches wrapped all the way around, and every seat was full. There were giants, dracaenae, demigods, telekhines, and stranger things: bat-winged demons and creatures that seemed half human and half you name it—bird, reptile, insect, mammal.
But the creepiest things were the skulls. The arena was full of them. They ringed the edge of the railing. Three-foot-high piles of them decorated the steps between the benches. They grinned from pikes at the back of the stands and hung on chains from the ceiling like horrible chandeliers. Some of them looked very old—nothing but bleached-white bone. Others looked a lot fresher. I’m not going to describe them. Believe me, you don’t want me to.
In the middle of all this, proudly displayed on the side of the spectator’s wall, was something that made no sense to me—a green banner with the trident of Poseidon in the center. What was that doing in a horrible place like this?
Above the banner, sitting in a seat of honor, was an old enemy.
“Luke,” I said.
I’m not sure he could hear me over the roar of the crowd, but he smiled coldly. He was wearing camouflage pants, a white T-shirt, and bronze breastplate, just like I’d seen in my dream. But he still wasn’t wearing his sword, which I thought was strange. Next to him sat the largest giant I’d ever seen, much larger than the one on the floor fighting the centaur. The giant next to Luke must’ve been fifteen feet tall, easy, and so wide he took up three seats. He wore only a loincloth, like a sumo wrestler. His skin was dark red and tattooed with blue wave designs. I figured he must be Luke’s new bodyguard or something.
There was a cry from the arena floor, and I jumped back as the centaur crashed to the dirt beside me.
He met my eyes pleadingly. “Help!”
I reached for my sword, but it had been taken from me and hadn’t reappeared in my pocket yet.