The Mark of Athena

“Hmm.” Ephialtes fiddled with a button on his Hawaiian shirt. “No. It’s really too late to change the choreography. But never fear. The circuses will be marvelous! Ah…not the modern sort of circus, mind you. That would require clowns, and I hate clowns.”

“Everyone hates clowns,” Otis said. “Even other clowns hate clowns.”

“Exactly,” his brother agreed. “But we have much better entertainment planned! The three of you will die in agony, up above, where all the gods and mortals can watch. But that’s just the opening ceremony! In the old days, games went on for days or weeks. Our spectacle—the destruction of Rome—will go on for one full month until Gaea awakens.”

“Wait,” Jason said. “One month, and Gaea wakes up?”

Ephialtes waved away the question. “Yes, yes. Something about August First being the best date to destroy all humanity. Not important! In her infinite wisdom, the Earth Mother has agreed that Rome can be destroyed first, slowly and spectacularly. It’s only fitting!”

“So…” Percy couldn’t believe he was talking about the end of the world with a loaf of Wonder bread in his hand. “You’re Gaea’s warm-up act.”

Ephialtes’s face darkened. “This is no warm-up, demigod! We’ll release wild animals and monsters into the streets. Our special effects department will produce fires and earthquakes. Sinkholes and volcanoes will appear randomly out of nowhere! Ghosts will run rampant.”

“The ghost thing won’t work,” Otis said. “Our focus groups say it won’t pull ratings.”

“Doubters!” Ephialtes said. “This hypogeum can make anything work!”

Ephialtes stormed over to a big table covered with a sheet. He pulled the sheet away, revealing a collection of levers and knobs almost as complicated-looking as Leo’s control panel on the Argo II.

“This button?” Ephialtes said. “This one will eject a dozen rabid wolves into the Forum. And this one will summon automaton gladiators to battle tourists at the Trevi Fountain. This one will cause the Tiber to flood its banks so we can reenact a naval battle right in the Piazza Navona! Percy Jackson, you should appreciate that, as a son of Poseidon!”

“Uh…I still think the letting us go idea is better,” Percy said.

“He’s right,” Piper tried again. “Otherwise we get into this whole confrontation thing. We fight you. You fight us. We wreck your plans. You know, we’ve defeated a lot of giants lately. I’d hate for things to get out of control.”

Ephialtes nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right.”

Piper blinked. “I am?”

“We can’t let things get out of control,” the giant agreed. “Everything has to be timed perfectly. But don’t worry. I’ve choreographed your deaths. You’ll love it.”

Nico started to crawl away, groaning. Percy wanted him to move faster and to groan less. He considered throwing his Wonder bread at him.

Jason switched his sword hand. “And if we refuse to cooperate with your spectacle?”

“Well, you can’t kill us.” Ephialtes laughed, as if the idea was ridiculous. “You have no gods with you, and that’s the only way you could hope to triumph. So really, it would be much more sensible to die painfully. Sorry, but the show must go on.”

This giant was even worse than that sea god Phorcys back in Atlanta, Percy realized. Ephialtes wasn’t so much the anti-Dionysus. He was Dionysus gone crazy on steroids. Sure, Dionysus was the god of revelry and out-of- control parties. But Ephialtes was all about riot and ruin for pleasure.

Percy looked at his friends. “I’m getting tired of this guy’s shirt.”

“Combat time?” Piper grabbed her horn of plenty.

“I hate Wonder bread,” Jason said.

Together, they charged.

THINGS WENT WRONG IMMEDIATELY.The giants vanished in twin puffs of smoke. They reappeared halfway across the room, each in a different spot. Percy sprinted toward Ephialtes, but slots in the floor opened under his feet, and metal walls shot up on either side, separating him from his friends.

The walls started closing in on him like the sides of a vise grip. Percy jumped up and grabbed the bottom of the hydra’s cage. He caught a brief glimpse of Piper leaping across a hopscotch pattern of fiery pits, making her way toward Nico, who was dazed and weaponless and being stalked by a pair of leopards.

Meanwhile Jason charged at Otis, who pulled his spear and heaved a great sigh, as if he would much rather dance Swan Lake than kill another demigod.

Percy registered all this in a split second, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The hydra snapped at his hands. He swung and dropped, landing in a grove of painted plywood trees that sprang up from nowhere. The trees changed positions as he tried to run through them, so he slashed down the whole forest with Riptide.

“Wonderful!” Ephialtes cried. He stood at his control panel about sixty feet to Percy’s left. “We’ll consider this a dress rehearsal. Shall I unleash the hydra onto the Spanish Steps now?”

He pulled a lever, and Percy glanced behind him. The cage he had just been hanging from was now rising toward a hatch in the ceiling. In three seconds it would be gone. If Percy attacked the giant, the hydra would ravage the city.

Cursing, he threw Riptide like a boomerang. The sword wasn’t designed for that, but the Celestial bronze blade sliced through the chains suspending the hydra. The cage tumbled sideways. The door broke open, and the monster spilled out—right in front of Percy.