You'll Learn to Love Me

Chapter 47: Finding Nico

After barely surviving the nymphaeum, Laylana could tell that her brother wanted to go back to the surface, probably with Annabeth. She could agree to an extent, she would give anything to be sitting on the beach or the deck of the ship with Leo, watching the sunset. Frank, Hazel, and Leo were missing in action. And they still had to save Nico, assuming he wasn't dead. Then there was the whole instance of the giants possibly 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 them live their lives? Apparently not.

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, Laylana heard rumbling and creaking, like a huge machine needed oiling.  Several hundred feet later, they reached a turn in the tunnel. Laylana held up her hand, signaling Percy, Jason and Piper to wait. He peeked around the corner, Laylana following his gaze.

The corridor opened into a vast room with twenty-foot ceilings and rows of support columns. It looked like some sort parking-garage-type area 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. Laylana thought about her brother's hellhound, 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. 

Ancient-looking bronze and leather conveyor belts trundled along with stacks of weapons and armor, sort of like the Amazons' warehouse in Seattle, except this place was obviously much older and not as well organized. Leo would love it here. Laylana's heart twisted slightly in worry of her boyfriend not being here. Was he okay with Hazel and Frank right now?

"What is it?" Piper whispered. Percy and Laylana didn't answer. He gestured for them 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 hell?"

Laylana scanned the room. There were several thousand things to look at, most of them in motion. Laylana was thankful she knew somewhat about mechanics and shit like that thanks the Leo, and she was used to chaos anyway thanks to her ADHD. About a hundred yards away, there a raised dais with two empty oversized praetor chairs. Standing between them was a bronze jar big enough to hold a person.

"Look." Laylana pointed it out, her eyes looking at her friends in desperation. "That's the jar, isn't it?"

"That's too easy." Piper frowned. "We have to be careful, Lana." 

"I know, but we have no fucking choice." Laylana insisted.

"We've got to save Nico." Jason agreed. 

"Yeah." Laylana surged forward first, Percy hot on her trail. 

They picked their way around the  conveyor belts and moving platforms. The hellhounds in the hamster wheels paid them no attention. They were too busy running and panting, their red eyes glowing like headlights. The animals in the other cages gave them bored looks. She kept her eye out for traps, remembering the signs of them that Leo had warned her about, suddenly thankful of her boyfriend's ramblings. She remembered how many times she'd almost died in the labyrinth a few years ago with her brother and friends. Man, Leo would have been useful there.