Melpomene (PJO)

13. The child murderer

Mari didn't remember a lot after that.

She recalled the feeling Adela's hands on her back, a sweater in between so they wouldn't touch. Something soft and furry in Mari's arms - that was Gladys the cat. Adela had hooked her elbows around Mari's underarms and dragged her, kicking and screaming, away from the Pit. Every time Mari blinked she could see the edge, stained with a splatter of red. That same red was on her hands, too, crimson under her fingernails. She wondered if Mason would be at the bottom already. What little she knew about the Pit was that it was deep. Adela had steered her through corridor after corridor - one which looked like a derelict version of the London Underground, another that was a horrifying thing with slimy fleshy walls that felt like it was breathing, and finally one that seemed like a never-ending Ikea. All of it had passed through Mari's mind like there was a film of bubble-wrap separating her from reality, until finally they stopped.

She wasn't sure how long it had taken them to get there, but they were standing under a familiar-looking hole in the ceiling, closed off by bronze.

It was the entrance back to camp.

A small, slightly-hysterical part of Mari almost laughed. How had they managed to get so lucky? Luke would probably sell The Princess Andromeda and his left arm for this. Adela pinched the fabric of the jumper over Mari's shoulders, removing it without any contact from her hands. Then she shrugged it back on, took Gladys back and ushered Mari towards several small bronze knobs on the wall.

"My mother told me how this world work," she said. "You need to find the Delta. It should be..."

Mari pressed the small Delta before Adela could finish talking. She already knew where this one was, because she'd used it before, to enter with Annabeth, Percy, Tyson and Grover. The mark of Daedalus glowed blue. The tiny bronze knobs along the wall whirred, and then grew into ladder rungs leading up to the hole. Mari looked towards Adela, who tucked Gladys into her jumper front pocket and gave Mari a nod. Mari turned towards the ladder again and began to climb. One hand in front of the other, one foot after another, don't think about Mason, it hurt too much. She could hear Adela following. As they got closer, the ceiling began to make clicking sounds and the hole opened up like an eye. Bright, happy sunlight came through. Her father must have been in a very good mood. That made one of them. Mari reached the top, poking her head out.

She was immediately greeted by a sword in her face.

"Stay ba - Mari?!" Drew Tanaka lowered her sword and promptly heaved Mari out of the labyrinth, catching her before she stumbled. Behind Drew was Silena Beauregard, the head counsellor of the Aphrodite cabin, who looked downright horrified. It must have been Cabin 10's turn to guard the entrance. Mitchell Drove and Vera Amren, two of Drew's younger siblings, were behind Silena, each with a different shade of wariness on their faces.

The clearing around Zeus's Fist looked different, too. It was bordered by a semicircle trench, covered in makeshift fabric. Someone, probably the Ares cabin, had wrapped barbed wire around the beams holding up the cloth, and it looked like the wire was electrified if the gentle buzzing was any indication. If Mari squinted she could make out a few sections of the tree line in the distance, where scraps of celestial bronze were sticking out, glimmering in the sun. She would bet drachma that Hephaestus's children had set up a number of complicated traps. The jarring part was the trees themselves. Usually they fluttered in a hundred different directions, regardless of the wind. If you listened closely you could make out a melodic giggling, as if the Dryades were laughing to each other as they gossiped. Now the trees were empty, as if the nymphs in question had fled the location of the coming battle.

"Vera." Silena turned towards the younger camper. "Go get Chiron, now. Full speed."

"Right on." Vera gave Selina a mock salute and snapped on a pair of bright pink safety goggles. Then she slung a heart-patterned seatbelt over her shoulder and pushed a sparkly switch on the arm of her celestial bronze wheelchair. The wheels retracted, being replaced by a pair of motorised skates, and Vera was zooming away at a speed that would make Connor or Travis Stoll jealous, throwing a thumbs up back at them all as she went.