The ended up making camp in what looked to be the ruins of an Ancient Greek tomb. There were gently glowing braziers all along the walls, which cast a warm glow on the rest of the marble. It was definitely one of the older parts of the labyrinth, which would be good if Annabeth's theory was correct. Mari laid out her sleeping bag and set her backpack on top of it, turning towards the others.
"We must be close to Daedalus's workshop," Annabeth said. "Get some rest, everybody. We'll keep going in the morning."
"How will we know if it's morning?" Grover asked.
"Just go to sleep," Annabeth told him.
"My Dad always wakes me at the break of dawn no matter what. I'll tell you all when it's morning," Mari promised him.
With that reassurance, it didn't take Grover long to fall asleep in a pile of straw he'd pulled from his backpack. Mari thought it made a very... interesting sleeping bag, but she wasn't going to judge. For her, sleep wasn't so easy. She curled and closed her eyes but nothing happened. Mari wondered if she was becoming too afraid of her dreams to sleep. Last time, she'd dreamt of Frankie Ray's final moments, and what horrible final moments they'd been...
"You alright?" Annabeth asked. "You're shaking."
Mari opened her eyes. Annabeth and Percy had agreed to take first watch, but the two weren't sitting together. Annabeth was slumped against the wall next to Mari, while Percy, further away, was talking quietly with Tyson.
"Yeah, fine..." Mari gulped. "It's just a lot. I never wanted to come back here. But if I have to, I'm glad you're the one leading this quest. If anybody can find a way around this place, it's you."
"That's technically your job, Mari," Annabeth told her.
"Oh, you know what I mean." Mari poked Annabeth's knee.
"You should get some sleep," Annabeth said. "Or at least try. You're not on watch so you can tell us when your father's chariot wakes you. If you're not asleep in the first place, it kind of defeats the point."
"Aren't you worried about the drawing?" Mari asked. "I know I am."
"That's why we got away from the Pit as quickly as we could. I don't want any of us falling down there. But worry isn't useful if all it's going to do is keep you up at night. You need to rest."
Annabeth had a point. Mari nodded and curled up again, rolling over so she was facing the wall. The torch above her provided warm light, which was good. The ground was hard, but she'd slept on worse before. When she'd still lived with Jean, Mari had spent nights on park benches all the time so she didn't have to answer questions about the snakes. She was good at falling asleep in uncomfortable places. Tyson's light snoring filled the passage. After a while, Annabeth and Percy started talking about something, their voices low. Mari sighed and closed her eyes. Even so, it was too hard for her to sleep immediately. It took an hour, but eventually the voices lulled her into an anxious sleep.
Frankie blinked into existence.
Blinked was accurate, because it didn't feel like waking up. She wasn't sleepy or delirious, and her memory of what happened was crystal clear, sharp as a hellhound's tooth. Frankie whimpered and wrapped a hand around her arm. It shouldn't be there - it had been torn off. Frankie knew it had been torn off. She'd felt the pain and that much pain couldn't have all been for nothing.
Was Masey okay? Was Mommy okay?
She couldn't ask because neither of them was there. Wherever 'there' was. Frankie looked around. She appeared to be sitting at the edge of a riverbank. She was wearing some kind of long white dress with pretty red-metal pins in the shoulders of the soft fabric. She was barefoot, the grass poking at her toes. But why was she here? The last thing she remembered was the monster, Masey had called it a hellhound, opening its wide, smelly jaws to bite her head off...
Frankie shuddered.
A hand rested on her head. "It's alright, little one."
Frankie shrieked and launched herself out of the way, towards the river in front of her. If she could swim away from whoever this was, then maybe-
A hand caught the back of her dress and held her in place. "None of that," the man said. "I do not particularly enjoy this part of the job either."
The man had dark ebony wings, curled around his shoulders. His feathers ruffled, and as the tips of his wings caught the dim light, they shone in every hue Frankie could imagine. In his free hand, he was holding a sleek dark Ipad, and he looked annoyed. Frankie turned around, towards the river she'd nearly fallen into. Now that she was looking at it more closely, it didn't look like a normal river. It was translucent, like the coconut milk Mommy used to drink, and it smelled like a warm pillow and fuzzy socks in the middle of winter. Frankie hadn't realised those things could smell, but it made her eyes droop...
The hand pulled her away. "It's not time for that yet, Francesca. Do you know where you are?"
"Nuh-uh," Frankie said. "Who are you? Where's Mommy?"
"I am Thanatos, god of peaceful death. You are in the underworld. I am afraid that approximately..." The man frowned, checking his IPad. "Hm. You're a little late. Two hours ago, you died, Francesca Ray."
Oh. She'd died. She supposed that explained things. Maybe she should have been more upset about that, but she was distracted by the pretty water again.
"Why do you have a milk river?" Frankie asked.
The man sighed and shook his head. "It was the Ancient Egyptians who used to bathe in milk, girl. You are not Egyptian. You would not be here if you were. That is the River Lethe."
"The river... leafy?" Frankie asked.
"Lethe. A single sip will make the drinker forget themselves. Forget who they are, who they have been, and who they could possibly become."
"That's silly," Frankie said. "I have baths all da time, and I don't forget stuff. Why don't the people just remember?"
"You misunderstand, little Francesca. The river doesn't simply remove the memories, it erases them. You died too young, you see. We have principles in place for this, procedures. You will be reborn, and you will live again as someone wholly new. Live a new life, with a new family. Only your father will remain the same."
"No I won't." Frankie shook her head. "I'm just not gonna swim in da mean river."
"I'm afraid it is not up to you, little one," Thanatos said. "It is as I told you: we have these procedures for a reason. You are a demigoddess and you died too young. Therefore, you go to the Lethe. I am simply here to see that all goes as it should, and then I must depart. I have many people to see into the underworld, after all. We are on, what you mortals call a time crunch."
"I'm not gonna!" Frankie stomped her bare foot, but on the soft grass it didn't have the impact she'd hoped it would.
Thanatos rolled his eyes, and waved a hand at her. She felt a rush of wind, and then the ground under her feet disappeared. Frankie gasped. For a second, she thought Thanatos had flapped his giant wings and flown her over the river Lethe, but he was still standing on the bank with a very unimpressed expression.
"Like I said, we're on a tight schedule. There's just been a nasty accident concerning a group of Lord Ares's children and Medusa. I have places to be. Now - do you have a last request before you are reborn?"
"L-last rewest?" Frankie asked.
"Yes," Thanatos nodded. "This would be much more efficient had you let me explain earlier, but alas. It's customary for children in predicaments such as your own to be granted a request, nothing too extreme, but a small kindness in the next life to make up for what has been lost. I would advise you to refuse. It was the idea of Lord Hades, but those who take such an offer rarely see it end well. The smart ones have always refused."
"I can have anything?" Frankie asked.
Thanatos sighed. "Yes, within reason. Please, if I have to deal with another question about talking narwhals as pets, I am going to break this IPad, and Lord Hades will definitely take it out of my pay check."
"Can I see my bwother again?" Frankie asked. "I- I wanna see Masey again."
"Hm." Thanatos frowned. "I suppose that is simple enough. Though, I will warn you one last time: these kind of wishes rarely end well. Are you sure?"
"Uh-huh!" Frankie told him. "'M sure."
Thanatos shrugged. "Consider it done. It's your funeral. Literally. This is probably the closest you're going to get to a funeral. Sorry about that, by the way. You'll forget all about it in a second."
With that, Thanatos pressed a few buttons on his IPad, and Frankie fell.
Splish...
It was warm. That was the first thing Frankie felt. It was really warm, like when she was in bed, Frankie hadn't expected it to be so warm. No, no! This was the mean water that was going to take her memory away! She had to fight it. She'd learnt all about this in life skills lessons at school. She just had to keep her head above the water. If she could swim to the surface, then she could drag herself up to the shore and make her way out of the underworld, before anybody noticed. She could go home... wait, where was home again? She knew where home was, right? Home was a house, somewhere. Or was it an apartment? Why couldn't she remember which?
Frankie broke the surface, screeching. Thanatos was gone, and the current was pulling her downstream. "Masey!" she shrieked. "Masey, help m-" A gulp of water entered her throat. It tasted like coconut.
Frankie went under again and felt her body flip. She screamed but that just made her gulp down more of the mean river. Her brain started to go fuzzy, like a statics cartoon, and her head breached the surface again. "Mas-sey..." she choked. "Ma..."
Wait, what was she saying? Who was Masey? She didn't know a Masey. The only person she knew was... why couldn't she think of anybody she knew? And what was her name again? What was-
A milky white light overtook Frankie's vision, and she knew no more.
Thousands of miles away, a newborn baby screeched.
Mari woke up to a pounding chest and shivering limbs. Even though in Frankie's memory, the river Lethe had been warm, she still felt as if she was covered in freezing cold water. But when she touched one shivering arm to her neck, she felt dry skin. Her cheeks were the exception; they were covered in damp trails. Mari shuddered.
"Up, everyone get up." Mari sat up in her sleeping bag and rubbed at her eyes, fingers chasing the tears away. "It's morning. I think."
The rest of them rose quickly, so Mari was guessing she wasn't the only one experiencing... issues with her dreams. Percy, for one, looked like he'd seen a ghost, which was ironic because even though Percy had told them all he'd had a dream about Nico Di Angelo possibly bopping about somewhere down here, none of them had actually seen the kid yet. They had a quick breakfast of trail mix, granola bars and juice boxes before they set off. The labyrinth, however, wasn't co-operating. Annabeth had theorised that the architecture would get older the closer they got to Daedalus, but that theory was looking weaker and weaker as the stone changed to sleek metallic beams. Mari wasn't sure what Annabeth's new plan was, but she seemed very flustered.
She didn't have to dwell on it for long, because they quickly hit another snag. At least this one wasn't indicative of mortal peril - yet.
They came to a cave with sharp, low-hanging rocks on the ceiling. Mari was pretty sure these rocks had some kind of fancy name. She'd heard a teacher say it at school. Stala-somethings. In the middle of the room, there was a small rectangular hole. It looked like someone had messily dug it into the dirt floor not too long ago.
"It smells like the underworld in here," Grover said.
Percy shone his flashlight down the hole, revealing a half-eaten cheeseburger, congealing in the dirt.
"Oh my gods, that's disgusting," Mari muttered.
"Nico left this here," Percy said. "He was summoning the dead again."
"How does a cheeseburger summon dead people?" Mari made a face.
"Ask Nico, he's the one who's a son of Hades. I just dreamed about him doing it." Percy said.
"Percy!" Grover bleated, glancing towards Mari. "You can't-"
"She already knows," Annabeth said.
Grover gave Percy an alarmed look. Percy, however, was staring at the cheeseburger with all the intensity of someone who definitely wasn't a vegan, so Mari decided to save him the trouble. "Yeah, turns out Percy is not the best at lying when it's not a life-or-death situation. He'd been carrying around that Mythomagic figurine that Nico threw at him. He dropped it, I put two and two together, end of story."
"You aren't going to..." Grover trailed off.
"Nah." Mari shook her head. "I already had a mild freak out about it, got that out of my system. And if I was going to snitch then Chiron would already know."
"We need to find him." Percy looked up from the cheeseburger, and before anyone could stop him, started sprinting down the corridor. The rest of them barely managed to catch up as Percy ducked around a tunnel, leading to a room with some kind of steel platform blocking their way. It looked like a toppled-over babygate.
"Where are we?" Percy asked.
"You answer that question." Mari narrowed her eyes at him. "You're the one who ran off on your own."
It wasn't Percy who ended up answering Mari. A bright red shape moved in front of the babygate, and released a curious mooooo, sounding kind of like Bessie the Ophiotaurus. It took Mari a second to realise that it was a cow. A very cute cow. Mari tried to reach out a hand to stroke it, but the cow was too far away, and wasn't coming any closer.
"It's a cattle grid," Grover said. "They put them at the gates of ranches so cows can't get out. They can't walk on them."
"How do you know that?" Percy asked.
"Believe me," Grover scoffed. "If you had hooves, you'd know about cattle grids. They're annoying!"
Mari personally thought Grover was being very overdramatic for someone fully capable of sticking his hooves in a pair of shoes, but whatever. Percy turned to Annabeth. "Didn't Hera say something about a ranch? We need to check it out. Nico might be up there."
"Alright." Annabeth nodded. "But how do we get out?"
"I can bash the grate," Tyson offered. Without waiting for an answer, he crashed his hands into the metal, sending it flying through the air and out of sight. In the distance, there was a CRASH and a bunch of moooooos. Mari cringed. If anybody owned this place, then destruction of property definitely wasn't the best first impression. Not to mention that if Nico Di Angelo was nearby, then Percy had just broadcast his location to said vengeful preteen. Oh, well. At least none of them had shouted or anything. For all Nico knew, that cow had just bumped into a tree or something, no reason to-
"Sorry, cow!" Tyson yelled.
Mari facepalmed.
Tyson gave them all a boost out of the tunnel, and Mari was finally able to get a clear view of where they were. Grover had been right. This was some kind of ranch. Hills of sun-bleached green stretched as far as the eye could see, the view only broken by the occasional tree. There were even a few cacti. The labyrinth seemed to have spat them out into a pen of some kind, with a barbed wire fence running through the entire place.
Mooooooo!
Mari jumped as a cow came up behind her, gently pressing its wet nose into her shoulder. "Hello there..." Mari ran a hand along the cow's head, which it seemed to appreciate. It was actually... really cute. One of its ears had a little bit missing and it had these big innocent eyes. Sure, it smelled like shit but Mari still wanted to give the thing a hug. She named it Janina in her head.
"I think it likes you, Mari." Grover nodded approvingly.
"That makes sense," Annabeth agreed. "These are red cattle - the cattle of the sun."
The second Annabeth's words clicked in Mari's head, she was kicking herself for not putting two and two together sooner. She knew about these - they were sacred to her father. So much so that in Ancient times, when Hermes had stolen then, Apollo had marched up to the cave his brother was hiding in and brought in Zeus himself to referee the dispute. The whole crisis had only been averted by the invention of another one of her father's sacred items: the lyre. But that begged the question, if they were so special, then what were they doing here?
"Holy cows?" Percy asked.
"My Dad's holy cows," Mari said. "But why would they be-"
"Wait!" Grover whispered. "Listen."
In the distance, there was a bark. Then another, and another. Louder and louder until a dog broke through. A dog with two heads. Mari's first thought was that Hades was definitely going to make someone suffer for beheading his dog (and this time it might actually be justified, wow) but then she remembered that there was no way in... well, in Hades that Kerberos would ever leave the underworld. So this was probably a different dog. Just as scary, though. The two heads were barking and spitting at Mari and the others like they'd snapped its favourite chasing stick in two, slobber flying everywhere.
"Bad dog!" Tyson stumbled back.
Before any of them could formulate a plan other than run and hope the dog was slower than average to compensate for the balance issues caused by having two heads, another figure came lumbering from behind a tree.
He had a straw cowboy hat covering white hair, like a tropical Santa Claus. He was wearing scuffed jeans, and a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off - right out of the Clarisse La Rue fashion catalogue. Mari would have laughed if it hadn't been for the massive wooden club in his left hand. Janina whimpered in fear, and Mari petted her neck a little to try and calm her down.
"Heel, Orthus," the cowboy said.
The dog growled again before obeying its owner's command. The man glared at them, club still raised. "What've we got here?" he asked. "Cattle rustlers?"
"Just travellers," Annabeth said. "We're on a quest."
"Half-bloods, eh?"
Mari frowned at his voice. He had the same accent as Naomi and Will, but sounded a lot meaner.
"How did you know we were half-bloods?" Annabeth asked. "I'm Annabeth, daughter of Athena. That's Percy, son of Poseidon, and Mari, daughter of Apollo. Grover the Satyr, Tyson the-"
"Cyclops," the man interrupted. "Yes, I can see that. And I know you're half-bloods because I am one, sonny. I'm Eurytion, the cowherd for this here ranch. Son of Ares. You came through the Labyrinth like the other one, I reckon."
"The other one?" Percy asked. "You mean Nico Di Angelo?"
"We get a lost of visitors from the labyrinth." Eurytion's voice went all menacing, like an evil Clarisse. "Not many ever leave."
Janina made a sad moooooo, as if she were agreeing with Eurytion about the demigod mortality rate. It didn't make Mari feel better about any of this.
"Wow," Percy said. "I feel welcome."
Eurytion looked backwards over his shoulder. For a second, Mari couldn't shake the horrible feeling that they were all being watched. Eurytion turned towards them again, eyes narrowed. "I'm only going to say this once, demigods. Get back in the maze now. Before it's too late."
"Can I bring Janina?" Mari asked.
"Janina?" Eurytion frowned.
"I named the cow Janina. We're best friends now," Mari explained. Janina moooooed in approval.
"No, you can't bring... Janina, little miss." Eurytion shook his head. "She's property of the Triple A Ranch. And you kids need to leave now."
"We're not leaving." Annabeth crossed her arms. "Not until we see this other demigod. Please."
Eurytion grunted. "Then you leave me no choice, Missy. I've got to take you to see the boss."
Eurytion led them away from the cattle pen, which sucked because Mari wasn't allowed to take Janina with them. "I'll be back for you," she whispered to the sad-looking cow. "Don't worry."
They walked down a long dirt path, sweating in the heat. After living with Will and Naomi for so many months, Mari found that the weather was actually pretty familiar. The others weren't doing too good, though. Grover was trying to fan his face with his reed pipes, which didn't seem to be very effective. Mari was distracted from Grover's suffering by a a nearby pen. At first, she thought it was full of normal horses, but then the one closest to her took a deep breath, and released a column of fire. Mari jumped back and Annabeth had to catch her. Just how much of this violated environmental safety regulations?
"What are they for?" Percy asked.
"We raise animals for lots of clients," Eurytion explained. "Apollo, Diomedes, and... others."
"Like who?" Annabeth frowned.
"No more questions." Eurytion finally led them to the bottom of a hill. At the very top, looking over the rest of the ranch, was a huge house with bay windows and flowerbeds. It actually looked very safe, even for a demigod. Which meant that it was almost certainly anything but. Eurytion turned to them as they trudged up the hill, walking backwards as he talked.
"Don't break the rules. No fighting. No drawing weapons. And don't make any comments about the boss's appearance."
"Why?" asked Percy, as they finally got to the top of the hill. "What does he look like?"
Eurytion opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a voice booming over the premises. "Welcome to the Triple A ranch."
From the neck up, the guy who spoke looked like any regular person. He had a tan and dark hair, slicked back into a ponytail with way too much hair gel. His grin was creepy, the type that monsters tended to display when stumbling onto a defenceless demigod - not a good sign. Never mind all that, though, because below the neck was where all the craziness began. This guy had three chests, each one connecting at the shoulders and merging back into a single pair of very big legs at the hips. He only had two arms, one on the right chest and one on the left. Shopping for clothes must have been a bloody nightmare.
"Well." Eurytion fixed them all with a look. "Say hello to Mr. Geryon."
"Hello," Annabeth said.
"Hello to Mr. Geryon," Mari said. Eurytion gave her an annoyed look.
Tyson waved. Poor Grover barely managed a confused bleat. Percy, however, absolutely fumbled it. "Hi," he said. "Nice chests- uh, ranch! Nice ranch you have!"
Before Geryon could respond by attempting to annihilate Percy somehow, another guy stepped out of the house. "Geryon, I won't wait for-"
The kid took one look at Percy, and drew his sword, glaring. Even though Mari wasn't the one in danger (probably), she took an automatic step back at the sight of the blade. It was black like a colour vacuum, as if someone had condensed the night sky and shoved it into a sword. Something about it sent Mari's instincts spiralling. She didn't know what that sword was, but it certainly wasn't made of celestial bronze, and she did not want to touch it. Something clicked in her brain, and she realised who this was - Nico Di Angelo, the son of Hades.
He looked different. A lot less friendly, for one. Last time Mari had seen Nico he'd been wearing a standard camp half-blood shirt, but that had been replaced by a crumpled-looking aviator's jacket. The new outfit definitely went well with the dark circles under his eyes, if he was going for the whole 'goth assassin' vibe, but he seemed like he'd make a very sad assassin.
"Put that away, Mr Di Angelo," Geryon snarled. "I ain't gonna have my guests killin' each other."
"But that's-"
"Percy Jackson." Geryon looked incredibly unimpressed. "Annabeth Chase. Marion Carter. And a couple of their monster friends. Yes, I know."
"Monster friends?!" Grover was indignant. Tyson frowned next to him, staring at Geryon. "That man is wearing three shirts," he said.
"They let my sister die!" Nico's voice shook with undiluted anger. "They're here to kill me!"
"No, Nico, we're not here to kill you." Percy raised his hands above his head as if held at gunpoint. "What happened to Bianca was-"
"Don't speak her name!" Nico's hands shook around his sword. "You're not worthy to even talk about her!"
"Wait a minute." Annabeth narrowed her eyes at Geryon. "How do you know our names?"
That was a good point, actually. How did Geryon know their names? Annabeth had told Eurytion, not him. Geryon got a nasty look on his face, like he had just stolen someone's winning lottery ticket. "I make it my business to keep informed, darlin'. Everybody pops into the ranch from time to time. Everyone needs something from ole Geryon. Now, Mr Di Angelo, put that ugly sword away before I have Eurytion take it from you."
Nico hesitated, but reluctantly lowered his sword. "If you come near me, Percy," he said. "I'll summon help. You don't want to meet my helpers, I promise."
"I believe you." Percy nodded.
"There, we've all made nice." Geryon patted Nico's shoulder. "Now come along, folks. I want to give you a tour of the ranch."
He led them over to a huge, gaudy golf cart, with cow-print paint and fake horns on the front. It had four separate carts, each with two seats, upholstered with yet more cow print. It was actually starting to make Mari's eyes hurt. Geryon took the driver's seat. Eurytion hopped in next to him and pulled his cowboy hat down to take a nap with Orthus settled on his knees. Mari envied him. Annabeth and Percy claimed the seats behind them, hands on their weapons. Tyson and Grover sat in the next row. Nico stalked to the cart at the very back and got in, hunched in on himself and glaring at them all. Mari shrugged and made her way to the only seat left.
"'Sup." She nodded to Nico. "You're not going to, like, stab me with that sword if I sit here, right? I have, uh... five pieces of dried strawberry. You can have them all if you don't stab me."
"No, I'm not going to stab you." Nico gave her a flat look. "But I want the strawberries."
Mari decided that his answer would have to be good enough, and clambered into the seat next to him, forking over the trail mix. Geryon pulled a lever in the front and the cart lurched forward, bumping along on the pebbled ground. "We have a huge operation!" he bragged. The cart rolled over the hill, giving them a picturesque view of the ranch. "Horses and cattle mostly, but all sorts of exotic varieties, too."
"Hippalek-tryons?" Annabeth gasped. "I thought they were extinct!"
Mari followed Annabeth's gaze to a pen at the bottom of the hill, and thought that maybe they should be. They were like horses, but the their bottom halves were ginormous roosters. They had huge, red, feathery wings and wicked-sharp talons. Mari wondered if she should Iris Message the cleaning harpies at camp, to tell them that their cousins had gotten lost in a murder-ranch and needed picking up.
"Rooster-ponies." Tyson reached out as if he wanted to chase after one, and Percy had to lean over the carts to hold his brother back. "Do they lay eggs?"
"Tyson, you can't adopt a Franken-rooster, there isn't any room at camp," Mari told him. Besides, if anybody was taking an animal back, it would be Mari herself. Janina was still waiting.
"Once a year!" Geryon grinned. "Very much in demand for omelettes."
Wait, what?!
"That's horrible!" Annabeth frowned. "They must be an endangered species!"
"Gold is gold, darlin'." Geryon waved Annabeth off. "And you haven't tasted the omelettes."
"That's not right." Grover shook his head at Geryon, but the farmer ignored him, too.
"Now, over here," he said, "we have our fire-breathing horses, which you may have seen on your way in. They're bred for war, naturally."
"What war?" Percy narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, whichever one comes along." Geryon had avoided the question, and Mari opened her mouth to say something, but was distracted by Geryon's next words. "Over yonder, of course, are our prized red cows." He pointed to the pen they'd left the labyrinth through, and Mari scanned the cattle. Sure enough, a familiar cow with a chunk of its ear missing was grazing in the corner. "Janina!" Mari waved. The cow looked up and gave her a Moooooo, which Mari took to mean 'Get me out of here, it smells like the dark void where Geryon's armpits should be'.
"There are so many," Grover said.
"Aren't they cool?" Mari grinned at him.
"Yes, well, Apollo is too busy to see them," Geryon explained, and Mari's heart sank. "So he subcontracts to us. We breed them vigorously because there's so much demand."
Mari frowned. He couldn't be saying what she thought he was saying. Surely. Her Dad might have been a little... disappointing but surely he wouldn't let his sacred cattle be-
"For what?" asked Percy.
"Meat, of course!" Geryon grinned. "Steaks, hamburgers, you name it. Armies have to eat."
Mari froze. Then she stared.
"I'm sorry." Her voice was deadly quiet. "Did you just say that you sell the sacred cattle of my father for hamburger meat?!"
"Yeah. And we make mince, too." Geryon smirked. "Sells for good money. You got a problem with that, little girl?"
"Of course she has a problem with it, and so do I!" Grover protested. "It's against the ancient laws!"
"Oh, don't get so worked up, Satyr." Geryon had the sheer audacity to laugh. "They're just animals."
Janina's adorable face flashed through Mari's mind. Her stomach churned. How could her Dad let this happen? She knew he didn't really care about her, but didn't he at least care about the animals that were sacred to him? She knew that he used to. He was furious when Hermes stole them thousands of years ago. Where had that gone? Was he really so far removed from reality?
"I'm going to tell my Dad all about this, you prick!" Mari shot up in the cart, making the carriages around her sway dangerously. It was an empty threat. Her Dad hadn't sought out contact with her since she'd met him for the first time last winter, and she had no idea how to reach out herself. But Geryon didn't have to know about that.
"You won't do a thing, Miss Carter!" Geryon snarled. "Not if you wanna see your 'precious Janina' alive and not grillin' on a grate."
Mari reached for her sword. From the corner of her eye, she saw Grover reaching for his reed pipes. The cart stopped going, and Geryon didn't stand, but he did tense, like a predator getting ready to attack. It set Mari even more on edge. Mari's instincts were set alight, and she knew without a doubt that Geryon was planning to attack.
"I don't care about any of this, Geryon." Nico chose that moment to speak up. "We had business to discuss, and this wasn't it!"
"All in good time, Mr Di Angelo." Geryon's attention was diverted, and the cart began rolling again. "Look over here: some of my exotic game."
The wheels tumbled over a stray rock, and Mari fell back into her seat, frowning. Geryon continued his 'tour', seeming completely oblivious about Mari's building rage. There were giant scorpions, just like the ones Drew had told her about. What were apparently flesh-eating horses were milling about in stables full of pure filth - poop, poop, and yet more poop. But the biggest pile of stinking crap was coming right out of Geryon's mouth, because according to him, the horses actually liked these conditions. Mari seethed.
"I'm going to try and attack him again," she whispered.
"Are you trying to bait him into killing you?" Nico pulled her back.
"Weren't you just trying to kill us all two minutes ago?" Mari frowned.
"I was trying to kill Percy," Nico told her. "I don't have anything against you."
"That's not reassuring the way you probably think it is."
"Y'all are gettin' on my nerves," Geryon snapped. "My clients pay well for flesh-eatin' horses. Great for garbage disposal, or for terrifying your enemies. I don't judge."
"These clients you keep talking about," Annabeth said. "You work for Kronos, don't you? You're supplying his armies with horses, food, and whatever else they need."
Geryon shrugged. With his three sets of shoulders, it looked like he was doing some kind of slo-motion dance routine. "I work for anyone with gold, young lady. I'm a businessman. And I sell them anything I have to offer."
Geryon stopped the cowshit express and and hopped out, seemingly without a care in the world. Grover turned in his cart, facing Mari with a steely determination. "We need to find a way to unlock all the cages," he said. "Let the animals chase Geryon and Eurytion out. Maybe, if the wild can be allowed to overrun this place, Pan will see it as a sign and he'll send me another message."
"That won't work." Mari shook her head. "If this is all here, then Geryon and Eurytion will just come back. We need to let the animals out, then burn the whole place to the ground. Do you think Pan would be able to rewild a wasteland? He is a god, right?"
"Okay, arson aside." Annabeth gave Mari a pointed look. "We have bigger problems."
"Don't see how," Grover muttered. Before he could say anything else, though, a commotion from the other side of the cart caught all of their attention. Nico Di Angelo had stormed out and over to Geryon, sword in hand.
"I came here for business, Geryon," he said. "And you haven't answered me."
"Mmm." Geryon examined a cactus, clearly only pretending to think about it to agitate Nico. "Yes, you'll get a deal, all right."
"My ghost said you can help," Nico said. "He said you could guide us to the soul we need."
"Nico has a pet ghost?" Mari asked. "That's so cool! Can I see the pet ghost?"
"No," Percy said. "Shut up."
Mari deflated.
"Wait a minute," Percy said. "I thought I was the soul you wanted."
"You?" Nico looked horrified at the thought. "Why would I want you? Bianca's soul is worth a thousand of yours! Now, can you help me, or not, Geryon?"
"Oh, I imagine I could. Your ghost friend, by the way - where is he? Not hiding, surely? I know Minos likes to disappear when things get... difficult."
Minos? Mari wasn't so sure she wanted to meet Nico's pet ghost anymore. Minos was the king of Crete. He was Ariadne's father, but from what Mari knew of him, you'd never know it. In the Ancient stories, he'd been manipulative, vengeful and sadistic. He forced young Athenians to go into the Labyrinth as sacrifices to the Minotaur. The best thing about the guy was that he was very, very dead, but apparently he hadn't felt like staying there. If he was influencing Nico...
"Minos?" Percy turned towards Nico, horrified. "You mean that evil king? That's the ghost who's been giving you advice?!"
"It's none of your business, Percy!" Nico snarled. "And what do you mean about things getting difficult?"
"Well you see, Nico." Geryon smiled. "Can I call you Nico?"
"No."
Mari snickered. Geryon shot her a nasty look, before continuing. "You see, Nico, Luke Castellan is offering very good money for half-bloods. Especially powerful half-bloods. And I'm sure when he learns your little secret, who you really are, he'll pay very, very well indeed."
Oh, shit.
Nico drew his sword. Eurytion knocked it out of his hand. Percy reached for riptide, but Eurytion jerked his head towards Orthus, who tackled Percy down out of the cart and onto the ground. "I would stay in the car, all of you!" Geryon shouted. "Or Orthus will tear Mr Jackson's throat out! Now, Eurytion, if you would be so kind, secure Nico."
"Do I have to?" Eurytion asked.
"No!" Mari told him.
"Yes, you fool!" Geryon spat. Eurytion didn't look too pleased about it, but his apparent dissatisfaction did not stop him from wrenching Nico up off the ground. Mari didn't want to hurt a dog, even if that dog was absolutely vicious, so she shot her hand out, sending a blade of mist towards Eurytion's left eye instead. Eurytion dodged, and before Mari could even blink, her hand was blaring in pain. She looked down and her guts flip-flopped.
An old, rusty leaf rake had pinned her hand to the metal of the cart. One spike was embedded in her pinkie finger, the other had impaled the back of her palm. Geryon was holding the handle, giving her a nasty smile. "None of that, please, Miss Carter."
"Ow, ow, ow!" Mari gasped. "Did you seriously just stab my hand with a rusty rake? I could get blood poisoning, you absolute doorknob! Do you even know what Septicaemia is?!"
"No, and I don't care," Geryon told her, before turning to Eurytion. "Pick up the sword, too," he said. "There's nothing I hate worse than Stygian Iron."
Mari could actually think of a few things this guy probably hated more than Stygian Iron, whatever that was. Like disinfecting his farming equipment, and the RSPCA. Wait, did they have the RSPCA in America? Eurytion picked up the sword, holding it far away from himself and a struggling Nico Di Angelo. Geryon let go of the rake and Mari only just managed to grab it and hold it in place with her free hand. Blood poisoning or not, pulling it out might make the wound worse and she didn't want to risk it.
"Now!" Geryon clapped his hands together like a giddy child. "We've had the tour. Let's go back to the lodge, have some lunch, and send an Iris-Message to our friends in the Titan army."