The Forbidden Daughter | PJO Book One

seven

PERCY OS THE ROCK, PAPER, SCISSOR CHAMPION

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 metres, 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 trail.

"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." Percy said.

"Or trapped ourselves." Grover said.

Ariana turned. They were in a six-metre-square cement room, and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They'd tunnelled straight into a cell.

'"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars.

They didnt 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." Ariana 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 Ariana couldn't make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler.

"What's that language?" She 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. 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?" Percy said.

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. Grover grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all his strength.

"Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?"

She looked where he was pointing, and her stomach did a somersault. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything she'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 seven metres long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail.