𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲.

Rock, Paper, Scissors...SHOOT

The good news: the left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. The bad news; it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred yards, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path. Behind them, the sounds of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor. Something definitely not human—was on their tail.

"Tyson," Percy said, "can you—" he gestured towards the rock.

"Yes!" He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled from the stone ceiling.

"Hurry!" Grover said. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!" The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise. Tyson pushed it into a small room and they dashed through behind it.

"Close the entrance!" Annabeth said.

They all got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into placed and sealed the corridor.

"We trapped it," Grover said.

"Or trapped ourselves," Lilia looked around nervously.

➳

They were in a twenty-foot-square cement room and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They'd tunneled straight into a cell.

"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars. They didn't budge.

Through the bars we could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.

"A prison," Percy said. "Maybe Tyson can break—"
"Shh," said Grover. "Listen."

Somewhere above them, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too a raspy voice muttering something that Lilia couldn't make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler.

"what's that language?" Lilia whispered.

Tyson's eye widened. "Can't be."

"What?" Percy asked.

He grabbed two bars on the cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through.

"Wait!" Grover called.

But Tyson wasn't about to wait. They ran after him. The prison was dark, only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above.

"I know this place," Annabeth told me. "This is Alcatraz."

"You mean that island near San Francisco?" Percy looked around puzzled. It was hard to imagine they'd gone all that way.

Annabeth nodded. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum."

They all peered around, unsure what to do when Grover tensed. "Freeze." He warned in a low voice.

But Tyson kept going. Grover grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all his strength. "Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?" Lilia looked where he was pointing and her stomach dropped. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything ever seen before.

It was sort of like a centaur, with a woman's body from the waist up. But instead of a horse's lower body, it had the body of a dragon at least twenty feet long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail. Her legs looked like they were tangled in vines, but then Lilia realized they were sprouting snakes, hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly looking for something to bite. The woman's hair was also made of snakes, like Medusa's. weirdest of all, around her waist, where the woman part met the dragon part, her skin bubbled and morphed, occasionally producing the heads of animals—a vicious wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she were wearing a belt of ever-changing creatures.