Reconnected [Book 3]

22 - Sleeping God

Percy was tired of water.

If he said that aloud, he would probably get kicked out of Poseidon's Junior Sea Scouts, but he didn't care.

After Adelia and him barely surviving the nymphaeum, he wanted to go back to the surface. He wanted to be dry and sit in the warm sunshine for a long time—preferably with Adelia.

Frank, Hazel, and Leo were missing in action. He still had to save Nico di Angelo, assuming the guy wasn't already dead. And there was that little matter of the giants destroying Rome, waking Gaea, and taking over the world.

Seriously, these monsters and gods were thousands of years old. Couldn't they take a few decades off and let Percy live his life? Apparently not. For Hades sake he hasn't even had his one year anniversary with his girlfriend!

Percy took the lead as they crawled down the drainage pipe. After thirty feet, it opened into a wider tunnel. To their left, somewhere in the distance, Percy heard rumbling and creaking, like a huge machine needed oiling. He had absolutely no desire to find out what was making that sound, so he figured that must be the way to go. Adelia obviously had the same idea and led the way forward, she still looked unsteady on her feet and Percy was ready to catch her if she fainted but his girlfriend was stubborn and refused to rest.

Several hundred feet later, they reached a turn in the tunnel. Percy held up his hand, signaling Jason, Adelia and Piper to wait. He peeked around the corner, one arm keeping Adelia sheltered behind him. He could hear her huffs of frustration but frankly, he didn't care, as long as she was safe and sound.

The corridor opened into a vast room with twenty-foot ceilings and rows of support columns. It looked like the same parking-garage-type area Percy had seen in his dreams, but now much more crowded with stuff.

The creaking and rumbling came from huge gears and pulley systems that raised and lowered sections of the floor for no apparent reason. Water flowed through open trenches (oh, great, more water), powering waterwheels that turned some of the machines. Other machines were connected to huge hamster wheels with hellhounds inside. Percy couldn't help thinking of Mrs. O'Leary, and how much she would hate being trapped inside one of those.

Suspended from the ceiling were cages of live animals—a lion, several zebras, a whole pack of hyenas, and even an eight-headed hydra. When Adelia spotted them Percy felt her anger radiating off her, since she could summon animals, he understood her connection to them and he felt anger for her.

Ancient-looking bronze and leather conveyor belts trundled along with stacks of weapons and armor, were everywhere, sort of like the Amazons' warehouse in Seattle, except this place was obviously much older and not as well organized.

Leo would love it, Percy thought. The whole room was like one massive, scary, unreliable machine.

"What is it?" Piper whispered.

Adelia muttered, "It's sick and fucking twisted."

Percy wasn't even sure how to answer. He didn't see the giants, so he gestured for his friends to come forward and take a look.

About twenty feet inside the doorway, a life-size wooden cutout of a gladiator popped up from the floor. It clicked and whirred along a conveyor belt, got hooked on a rope, and ascended through a slot in the roof.

Jason murmured, "What the heck?"

They stepped inside. Percy scanned the room. There were several thousand things to look at, most of them in motion, but one good aspect of being an ADHD demigod was that Percy was comfortable with chaos. About a hundred yards away, he spotted a raised dais with two empty oversized praetor chairs. Standing between them was a bronze jar big enough to hold a person.