madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-a boytoy distraught-

For a moment, the three of them and the weasel were a pile of sprawling bodies and flailing limbs. Hazel tried to draw her sword from its sheath, but Pasiphaë managed to extricate herself first. The sorceress backed away; her hairdo bent sideways like a collapsed wedding cake from Dakota's movie about red and white and fancy blue.

Her dress was smeared with grease stains from Leo's tool belt and there was a bite mark on her hand. She howled and stomped her foot. "You miserable wretches!"

The maze was gone. A few feet away, Clytius stood with his back to them, watching the Doors of Death. By Hazel's calculation, they had about a minute and a half until their friends arrived.

Hazel felt exhausted after her run through the maze while controlling the Mist around them, but she needed to pull off one more trick. She had successfully made Pasiphaë see what she most desired.

Now Hazel had to make the sorceress see what she most feared.

"You must really hate demigods," Hazel said, trying to mimic Pasiphaë's cruel smile. She felt more like she was posing for a photo she didn't want to be in. "We always get the best of you, don't we, Pasiphaë?"

"Nonsense!" screamed Pasiphaë. "I will tear you apart! I will—"

"We're always pulling the rug out from under your feet," Hazel sympathized. Somewhere behind her, Leo scrambled to his feet, coughing and spluttering.

She tilted her head. She'd seen Teqi do it a few times. It was pretty scary. "Your husband betrayed you. Theseus killed the Minotaur and stole your daughter Ariadne. Now two second-rate failures have turned your own maze against you. But you knew it would come to this, didn't you? You always fall in the end."

"I am immortal!" Pasiphaë wailed. She took a step back, fingering her necklace, and held her chin high. "You cannot stand against me!"

"You can't stand at all," Hazel said. "Look."

She pointed at the feet of the sorceress. A trapdoor opened underneath Pasiphaë. She fell, screaming, into a bottomless pit that didn't really exist. The floor solidified back into place a second later as Hazel swayed a little bit.

The sorceress was gone.

Leo stared at Hazel in amazement. "How did you—"

Clytius watched the green button flash from where he was. He blinked. Then he stepped back from the controls, with a blank face of power and evil and wrinkles.

When their friends came up in the elevator, they would be trapped inside.

Hazel felt like vomiting. Exhaustion washed over her in hot prickly waves, and her limbs were tingly with drained power. It was Leo's turn to keep the act of confidence up, thankfully, and he marched forwards.

He looked very small, standing in front of the Giant.

"Hey clit man! You've lost, so give it up!"

"Have I?"

Leo stumbled back like he'd been shot. Now Hazel understood why Clytius hadn't spoken. Hazel understood why he was so powerful.

He spoke in other's voices, and it just so happened that they hadn't heard their friends in a long time.

Leo whipped around, scanning the shadowy edges of the cavern they were in, but only skulls and glittering jewels and morbid paintings of dying people stared back. "Annabeth?"