Indigo Eyes

Chapter 86

The next morning, Nico had agreed to stay behind at the ranch, needing time to think since Eurytion had promised that no harm would come to him. As for the rest of them, Cressida had grabbed Annabeth's wrist anxiously when Eurytion brought out another little disc that he kept on a chain around her neck.

Except that this disc turned into a tiny metal spider in Annabeth's hands and then she was the one that was grabbing onto Cressida, using her as a shield.

Then they started running because that stupid spider wouldn't stop. If it hadn't been for Tyson and Grover's excellent hearing, they never would've known which way it was going. And then Tyson saved Percy from almost falling into an abyss.

The tunnel continued in front of them, but there was no floor for about thirty metres, just gaping darkness and a series of iron rungs in the ceiling. The mechanical spider was about halfway across, swinging from bar to bar by shooting out metal web fibre.

"Monkey bars," Annabeth said. "I'm great at these." She leapt onto the first rung and started swinging her way across. She was scared of tiny spiders, but not of plummeting to her death from a set of monkey bars. Go figure.

"Another point to whoever gets across faster," Cressida grinned before she jumped up and began swinging.

"Hey, that is not how it works!" Percy called as he began swinging after her, Tyson following with Grover on his back.

They ran through more tunnels, past another skeleton dressed in a tux, and then there were dozens more littered around them all in various stages of decay. Percy even remarked that it almost smelled as bad as Geryon's stables. That was before they saw the monster though.

She stood on a glittery dais on the opposite side of the room. She had the body of a huge lion and the head of a woman. She would've been pretty, but her hair was tied back in a tight bun and she wore too much makeup.

Tyson whimpered. "Sphinx."

Cressida was instantly in front of him protectively. Percy and Tyson had both told her what happened to him, that when he was small he'd been attacked by a Sphinx in New York. He still had the scars on his back to prove it.

Spotlights blazed on either side of the creature. The only exit was a tunnel right behind the dais. The mechanical spider scuttled between the Sphinx's paws and disappeared. Annabeth stepped forward to try and follow it but the Sphinx roared, baring her fangs. Bars came down on both tunnel exits, behind them and in front and then the monster's snarl turned into a brilliant smile.

"Welcome, lucky contestants!" she announced. "Get ready to play... ANSWER THAT RIDDLE!" Canned applause blasted from the ceiling as if there were invisible loudspeakers. Spotlights swept across the room and reflected off the dais, throwing disco glitter over the skeletons on the floor. "Fabulous prizes!" the Sphinx said. "Pass the test, and you get to advance! Fail, and I get to eat you! Who will be our contestant?"

Annabeth stood between Percy and Cressida. "I've got this," she whispered. "I know what she's going to ask."

They weren't about to stop her. They didn't want her to get eaten but if there was any of them that had the best chance of answering the riddles, it was Annabeth. She wasn't the daughter of Athena for nothing.

She stepped forward to the contestant's podium, which had a skeleton in a school uniform hunched over it. She pushed the skeleton out of the way, and it clattered to the floor. "Sorry," Annabeth told it.

"Welcome, Annabeth Chase!" the monster cried, though Annabeth hadn't said her name. "Are you ready for your test?"

"Yes," she said. "Ask your riddle."