𝒊𝒗. 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔

𝒗𝒊𝒊.

The good news: the left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. The bad news: it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred yards, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path. Behind them, the sounds of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor. Something—definitely not human— was on their tail.

"Tyson," Percy said, "can you—" 

"Yes!" He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled from the stone ceiling. 

"Hurry!" Grover said. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!"

The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise. Tyson pushed it into a small room and they dashed through behind it. 

"Close the entrance!" Annabeth said. 

They all got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor. 

"We trapped it," Noelle said, panting as she leaned on the boulder. 

"Or trapped ourselves," Grover said.

She turned. They were in a twenty-foot-square cement room, and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They'd tunneled straight into a cell. 

"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars. They didn't budge. Through the bars they could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard—at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks. 

"A prison," Percy said. "Maybe Tyson can break—" 

"Shh," said Grover. "Listen."

Somewhere above them, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too—a raspy voice muttering something that only the three with enhanced hearing could make out clearly. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler. 

"What's that language?" Noelle whispered. 

Tyson's eye widened. "Can't be."

"What?" Percy asked. 

He grabbed two bars on their cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through. 

"Wait!" Grover called. 

But Tyson wasn't about to wait. They ran after him, Noelle in front due to her better sight. The prison was dark, only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above. 

"I know this place," Annabeth told them. "This is Alcatraz." 

"You mean that island near San Francisco?" 

She nodded. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum." 

It didn't seem possible that they could've popped out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country, but Annabeth had been living in San Francisco all year, keeping an eye on Mount Tamalpais just across the bay. She probably knew what she was talking about. 

"Freeze," Grover warned. 

But Tyson kept going. Noelle grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all her strength. "Stop, Tyson!" she whispered. "Can't you see it?"

Percy looked where she was pointing, and his stomach did a somersault. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything he'd ever seen before. 

It was sort of like a centaur, with a woman's body from the waist up. But instead of a horse's lower body, it had the body of a dragon—at least twenty feet long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail. Her legs looked like they were tangled in vines, but then Percy realized they were sprouting snakes, hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly looking for something to bite. The woman's hair was also made of snakes, like Medusa's. Weirdest of all, around her waist, where the woman part met the dragon part, her skin bubbled and morphed, occasionally producing the heads of animals—a vicious wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she were wearing a belt of ever-changing creatures. Percy got the feeling he was looking at something half formed, a monster so old it was from the beginning of time, before shapes had been fully defined.