𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐢━━Nico di Angelo

62

Hazel, Ajax and Leo stumbled to a stop. In front of them stretched a chasm so wide, Ajax couldn't see the other side. From somewhere below in the darkness came the sound of hissing—thousands and thousands of snakes.

Ajax was tempted to retreat, but the tunnel was closing behind them, leaving them stranded on a tiny ledge. Gale the weasel paced across Ajax's shoulders and farted with anxiety.

"Okay, okay," Leo muttered. "The walls are moving parts. They gotta be mechanical. Give me a second."

"No, Leo," Hazel said. "There's no way back."

"But—"

"Hold my hand," Ajax told them. "On three."

"But—"

Ajax grabbed Leo's hand in his right and Hazel's in his left.

"Three!"

"What?"

Ajax leaped into the pit, pulling Leo and Hazel with him. He tried to ignore their screaming and the flatulent weasel clinging to his neck. He bent all his will into redirecting the magic of the Labyrinth.

Pasiphaë laughed with delight, knowing that any moment they would be crushed or bitten to death in a pit of snakes.

Instead, Ajax imagined a chute in the darkness, just to their left. He twisted in midair and fell toward it. They hit the chute hard and slid into the cavern, landing right on top of Pasiphaë.

"Ack!" The sorceress's head smacked against the floor as Leo sat down hard on her chest.

For a moment, the four of them and the weasel were a pile of sprawling bodies and flailing limbs. Hazel tried to draw her sword, but Pasiphaë managed to extricate herself first. The sorceress backed away, her hairdo bent sideways like a collapsed cake. Her dress was smeared with grease stains from Leo's tool belt.

"You miserable wretches!" she howled.

The maze was gone. A few feet away, Clytius stood with his back to them, watching the Doors of Death. By Ajax's calculation, they had about thirty seconds until their friends arrived. Ajax felt exhausted from his run through the maze while controlling the Mist, but he needed to pull off one more trick.

He had successfully made Pasiphaë see what she most desired. Now Ajax had to make the sorceress see what she most feared.

"You must really hate demigods," Ajax said, trying to mimic Pasiphaë's cruel smile. "We always get the best of you, don't we, Pasiphaë?"

"Nonsense!" screamed Pasiphaë. "I will tear you apart! I will—"

"We're always pulling the rug out from under your feet," Ajax sympathized, though he grinned at her arrogance clear in his voice.  "Your husband betrayed you. Theseus killed the Minotaur and stole your daughter Ariadne. Now three second-rate failures have turned your own maze against you. But you knew it would come to this, didn't you? You always fall in the end."

"I am immortal!" Pasiphaë wailed. She took a step back, fingering her necklace. "You cannot stand against me!"

"You can't stand at all," Ajax countered. "Look."

He pointed at the feet of the sorceress. A trapdoor opened underneath Pasiphaë. She fell, screaming, into a bottomless pit that didn't really exist.

The floor solidified. The sorceress was gone.

Leo and Hazel stared at Ajax in amazement. "How did you—"

Just then the elevator dinged. Rather than pushing the UP button, Clytius stepped back from the controls, keeping their friends trapped inside.

"Guys!" Ajax yelled.

They were thirty feet away—much too far to reach the elevator—but Leo pulled out a screwdriver and chucked it like a throwing knife. An impossible shot.

Ajax could tell already, it wasn't going to make it.

Magic flowed from his fingertips.

Using the mist for his gains was fun enough, and in a way, his magic was mist as well. But it was more familiar, easier to do. It felt like breathing.

In and out.

The screwdriver lifted a couple centimeters, still headed straight for the lift. It spun straight past Clytius and slammed into the UP button.

The Doors of Death opened with a hiss. Black smoke billowed out, and two bodies spilled face-first onto the floor—Percy and Annabeth, limp as corpses.

Hazel sobbed. "Oh, gods..."

She and Leo started forward, but Clytius raised his hand in an unmistakable gesture—stop. He lifted his massive reptilian foot over Percy's head.

The giant's smoky shroud poured over the floor, covering Annabeth and Percy in a pool of dark fog.

"Clytius, you've lost," Ajax snarled. "Let them go, or you'll end up like Pasiphaë."

The giant tilted his head. His diamond eyes gleamed. At his feet, Annabeth lurched like she'd hit a power line. She rolled on her back, black smoke coiling from her mouth.

"I am not Pasiphaë." Annabeth spoke in a voice that wasn't hers—the words as deep as a bass guitar. "You have won nothing."

"Stop that!" Hazel looked horrified, Ajax didn't have to be a child of Hades to understand whatever Clytius was doing was harming Annabeth.

Clytius nudged Percy's head with his foot. Percy's face lolled to one side.

"Not quite dead." The giant's words boomed from Percy's mouth. "A terrible shock to the mortal body, I would imagine, coming back from Tartarus. They'll be out for a while."

He turned his attention back to Annabeth. More smoke poured from between her lips. "I'll tie them up and take them to Porphyrion in Athens. Just the sacrifice we need. Unfortunately, that means I have no further use for you two."

"Oh, yeah?" Leo growled. "Well, maybe you got the smoke, buddy, but I've got the fire."

His hands blazed. He shot white-hot columns of flame at the giant, but Clytius's smoky aura absorbed them on impact. Tendrils of black haze traveled back up the lines of fire, snuffing out the light and heat and covering Leo in darkness.

Leo fell to his knees, clutching at his throat.

"No!" Ajax and Hazel ran toward him, but Gale chattered urgently on his shoulder—a clear warning.

"I would not." Clytius's voice reverberated from Leo's mouth. "You do not understand, Ajax. I devour magic. I destroy the voice and the soul. You cannot oppose me."

Black fog spread farther across the room, covering Annabeth and Percy, billowing toward Hazel and Ajax.

It shot out towards the daughter of Pluto and there was nothing Ajax could do as Hazel too was taken under Clytius' control.

Surrounded by his friends and a monster, Ajax felt terribly alone.

Blood roared in Ajax's ears. He had to act—but how? If that black smoke could incapacitate Leo and Hazel so quickly, what chance did he have?

"F-fire," He stammered in a small voice. "You're supposed to be weak against it."

The giant chuckled, using Hazel's vocal cords this time. "You were counting on that, eh? It is true I do not like fire. But Leo Valdez's flames are not strong enough to trouble me."

Somewhere behind Ajax, a soft, lyrical voice said, "What about my flames, old friend?"

Gale squeaked excitedly and jumped from Ajax's shoulder, scampering to the entrance of the cavern where a blond woman stood in a black dress, the Mist swirling around her.

The giant stumbled backward, bumping into the Doors of Death.

"You," he said from Percy's mouth.

"Me," Hecate agreed. She spread her arms. Blazing torches appeared in her hands. "It has been millennia since I fought at the side of a demigod, but my son has proven himself worthy. What do you say, Clytius? Shall we play with fire?"