madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-who airdropped the cleaner?-

Percy could quite clearly recall how dangerous Kelli had been the last time they'd fought in the Labyrinth. Despite those mismatched legs, she could move fast when she wanted to. Maybe she should swap her cheerleading outfit for a track uniform.

Now she had four friends with her.

"And your friends are with you!" Kelli hissed with laughter. "Oh, yeah, I totally remember Annabeth."

Kelli touched her own sternum, where the tip of Annabeth's gold knife had exited when Annabeth stabbed her in the back to stop Percy's face from being eaten cleanly off his skull. "What's the matter, daughter of Athena? Don't have your weapon? Bummer. I'd use it to kill you."

"And who's the other girl?" Keli cooed, cocking her head and waving with her fingers at Teqi, who squinted vaguely, her purple eye still glowing. "Percy you sly dog!"

Percy tried to think, ignoring the looks the demons were giving him. He and Annabeth stood shoulder to shoulder as they had many times before, ready to fight. Teqi was pushed behind the pair, vines growing up her like the girl was a wooden trellis, but she blinked in surprise at the monsters, like she didn't know what was happening. None of them were in shape for a battle. Annabeth was empty-handed, Teqi was swaying where she stood, and they were hopelessly outnumbered. There was nowhere to run. No help coming.

Briefly Percy considered calling for Mrs. O'Leary, his hellhound friend who could shadow-travel. Even if she heard him, could she make it into Tartarus? This was where monsters went when they died. Calling her here might kill her, or maybe turn her back to her natural state as a fierce monster. He couldn't do that to his dog.

That left Annabeth's favourite tactics: trickery, talk, delay.

"So..." he started, "I guess you're wondering what we're doing in Tartarus."

Kelli snickered. "Not really. I just want to kill you."

That would've been it, but Annabeth chimed in. "Too bad," she said casually. "Because you have no idea what's going on in the mortal world."

The other empousai circled, watching Kelli for a cue to attack; but the ex- cheerleader only snarled, crouching out of reach of Percy's sword. "We know enough," Kelli said, her lip curling. "Gaea has spoken."

"You're heading toward a major defeat." Annabeth sounded so confident, even Percy was impressed. She glanced at the other empousai, one by one, then pointed accusingly at Kelli. "This one claims she's leading you to a victory. She's lying. The last time she was in the mortal world, Kelli was in charge of keeping my friend Luke Castellan faithful to Kronos. In the end, Luke rejected him. He gave his life to expel Kronos. The Titans lost because Kelli failed. Now Kelli wants to lead you to another disaster."

The other empousai muttered and shifted uneasily, like a mutiny wasn't the worst idea in Tartarus.

"Enough!" Kelli's painted fingernails grew into long black talons, with pink sparkled on the tips, the only remnants of her normal hands. She glared at Annabeth as if imagining her sliced into small pieces.

Percy was pretty sure Kelli had had a thing for Luke Castellan. Luke had that effect on girls—even donkey-legged vampires—and Percy wasn't sure bringing up his name was such a good idea. "The girl lies," Kelli said. "So the Titans lost. Fine! That was part of the plan to wake Gaea! Now the Earth Mother and her giants will destroy the mortal world, and we will totally feast on demigods!"

The other vampires gnashed their teeth in a frenzy of excitement. Percy had been in the middle of a school of sharks when the water was full of blood. That wasn't nearly as scary as empousai ready to feed.