𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐇 [Jason Grace]

82

𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞'𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭. Panic seized him, and he took off. His only comfort was that his friends did, too— and they weren't the cowardly type. Mostly.

The four metal women swept behind them in a loose semicircle, herding them to the northeast. All the tourists had vanished. Perhaps they'd fled to the air-conditioned comfort of the museum, or maybe Nike had somehow forced them to leave.

The demigods ran, tripping over stones, leaping over crumbled walls, dodging around columns and informational placards. Behind them, Nike's chariot wheels rumbled and her horses whinnied.

Every time Dante thought about slowing down, the metal ladies screamed again— The Nikai— filling him with terror.

He hated being filled with terror. It was embarrassing.

He had seen the Primordial Tartarus for fucks sake, he'd befriended giants. This was nothing.

"There!" Dante sprinted towards a kind of trench between two earthen walls with a stone archway above. It reminded him of those tunnels that football teams run through when they enter the field. "That's the entrance to the old Olympic stadium. It's called the crypt!"

He was faster than the other three so he had to slow himself down to their pace so they were all running together.

"Not a good name!" Leo yelled.

"Why are we going there?" Percy gasped. "If that's where she wants us—"

The Nikai screamed again and all rational thought abandoned Dante. He ran for the tunnel.

When they reached the arch, Leo yelled, "Hold it!"

They stumbled to a stop. Dante doubled over, wheezing. He was still the fastest, but he got winded easily these days. Probably because of that nasty acid air he'd been forced to breathe in Tartarus.

Frank peered back the way they'd come. "I don't see them any more. They disappeared."

"Did they give up?" Percy asked hopefully.

Leo scanned the ruins. "Nah. They just herded us where they wanted us. What were those things, anyway? The Nikettes, I mean."

"Nikettes?" Frank scratched his head. "I think it was Nikai, plural, like victories."

"Yeah," Dante held onto the stone archway as he tried to catch his breath. "In some legends, Nike had an army of little victories she could send all over the world to do her bidding."

"Like Santa's elves," Percy said. "Except evil. And metal. And really loud."

Beyond the narrow tunnel, the earthen walls opened into a long field with gently rising slopes on either side, like seating for spectators.

Dante guessed it would have been an open-air stadium back in the day— big enough for discus-throwing, javelin-catching, naked shot-put, or whatever else those crazy Greeks used to do to win a bunch of leaves.

"Ghosts linger in this place," Frank murmured, looking deep in thought. "A lot of pain is embedded in losses"

"Please tell me you have a plan," Leo said. "Preferably one that doesn't involve embedding my pain in losses."

Frank's eyes were stormy and distant,

"This was the players' entrance" Dante said when it was becoming clearer that Frank wasn't going to offer up more information, "Nike said we have five minutes to prepare. Then she'll expect us to pass under this archway and begin the games. We won't be allowed to leave that field until three of us are dead."