WINGED ₁

55

THEY WOULD HAVE LOST THE SPIDER HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR TYSON. They were wandering blind until he heard a faint pinging sound. They made a few turns, backtracked a few times, and eventually found the spider slamming itself repeatedly against a metal door.

The door was an oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel in place of a doorknob. A big brass plaque, green with age and inscribed with the Greek Eta, sat at the center of the of it.

"Ready to meet Hephaestus?" Grover asked nervously.

"No," Percy said.

"Yes!" Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.

As soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson following close behind it. The rest of the group followed, not quite as anxious.

The room was very big, with resemblance to a mechanic's garage. It had several hydraulic lifts, some with cars on them, others with stranger things: a bronze decapitated hippalektryon with several wires hanging out of its rooster tail; a metal lion that looked to be hooked to a battery charger; and a Greek war chariot made entirely of living, moving flames.

Smaller projects cluttered dozens of worktables. Tools hung along the walls. Each had its own outline on a pegboard, but nothing seemed to be in its correct place. The hammer was over the screwdriver slot, and the staple gun hung in the hacksaw hole.

Under the closest hydraulic lift, which was holding a Toyota, a pair of legs stuck out. It was the lower half of a very large man in grubby gray pants, shoes bigger than Tyson's, and a metal brace.

The spider scuttled under the car, and the sounds of banging stopped.

"Well, well," a deep voice boomed from underneath the Toyota. "What have we here?"

The mechanic pushed out on his trolley and sat up. He wore a jumpsuit smeared with oil and grime, his name embroidered over the chest pocket. His leg creaked and clicked in its metal brace as he stood, and his left shoulder was slightly lower than his right, so he had the appearance of someone leaning even while he was standing straight. His head was misshapen and bulging, and he wore a permanent scowl. His tangled black beard emitted smoke, and small fires kept erupting in it. His hands were very large but very nimble, seen by the way he handled the spider. He disassembled it in seconds, then put it back together.

"There," he muttered to himself. "Much better."

The spider did a satisfied flip in his palm, shot a metallic web at the ceiling, and went swinging away.

Hephaestus glowered at Madeleine and her friends. "I didn't make you, did I?"

"Uh," Annabeth said, "no, sir."

He studied Annabeth, Percy, Ethan, and Madeleine, then grunted, "Half-bloods. Could be automatons, of course, but probably not."

"We've met, sir," Percy told him.

"Have we?" the god asked absently, sounding as if he didn't really care either way. "Well then, if I didn't smash you to a pulp the first time we met, I suppose I won't have to do it now."

He looked at Grover and frowned. "Satyr." Then he looked at Tyson, and his eyes twinkled. "Well, a Cyclops. Good, good. What are you doing traveling with this lot?"

"Uh..." said Tyson, staring in wonder at the god.

"Yes, well said," Hephaestus agreed. "So, there'd better be a good reason you're disturbing me. The suspension on this Corolla is no small matter, you know." 

"Surely not," Ethan mocked.

Annabeth glared at Ethan and cleared her throat hastily. "Sir, we're looking for Daedalus. We thought―"