My Boyfriend is a Dead Roman Hero | Jason Grace

I Sacrifice My Purple Backpack

It is so like a nymph to open a magic portal that just leads straight into a drainage pipe.

Is that insensitive? Sorry, if it is, Julie's feeling a little combative right now. Almost being murdered tends to put her in a grouchy mood.

She leads the way down the damp stone chute, following its twists and turns with an urgency that seems to be exhausting her friends behind her. Juliette ignores their suggestions that she take a breather. Yes, Piper, Julie knows she "Just nearly drowned to death," thanks for reminding her. Now, they'd better pick up the pace, or Juliette will leave them all behind.

When the chute opens up into a larger corridor, she hops out of it to the ground below and starts off at a jog without even pausing. She hears the group hiss their annoyance behind her, but doesn't slow down, darting down the hallway towards the vague clanking sounds that are coming from beyond the next bend in the wall.

Gods, she's so close. He must be in just the next room over. Nico, please be alive. Please still be hanging in there. She's going to get there in time.

Just as she's about to round the corner, Percy finally catches up and snatches her arm, pulling her back roughly with a glare. "Hey, Quicksilver, maybe slow down so you don't get us immediately caught," He hisses quietly. Juliette opens her mouth to retort, but he shushes her and peeks his head around the bend in the corridor. Julie watches his eyebrows shoot up in bewilderment. "What the...?"

Piper steps up behind them to look too. "What is it?"

Intrigued, Jason crowds up to them to peak around as well. His jaw drops. "What the heck?"

Inside the vast parking garage-looking area are countless whirring machines of celestial bronze. Their large gears clank and shoot steam, raising up crudely painted lifesized cutouts of gladiators, monsters, and gods through the ceiling above. Stacked in cages all around the perimeter of the space, various exotic animals lay about sadly. Zebras stand staring out at nothing through the bars, lions pace back and forth and paw uselessly at the locks on the gates. Juliette's heart bleeds for them, but her attention is pulled to the center of the space almost immediately.

On a dais at the other end of the room, nestled between two oversized, gaudy thrones, is an enormous bronze jar.

Juliette knows a trap when she sees one. That doesn't always stop her, though. With a strangled cry, Juliette leaps out from the corridor and takes to the air. She makes it about halfway to the jar before a platform lowers in her path, and she's forced to dodge the sweeping of a stop sign sized club.

She beats her wings furiously to screech to a stop and finds herself hovering before what's actually the smallest giant she's seen thus far, with purple braids decorated with silver and gold coins. Granted, it's hard to be impressive when the first one Julie ever saw was the "King of Giants," but still. Although, Julie knows better than to underestimate someone just cause they're short. She bares her teeth and hisses, talons raised for combat as the giant's eyes sparkle at her in awe.

"A cordolium! Gaea wasn't kidding! Otis, come see this!" The giant, Ephialtes apparently, calls out.

Julie senses her friends stepping up to join her in this face off. She keeps her eyes locked onto the enemy as a panel in the floor a couple yards away slides open, and a slightly larger giant climbs out. She does a double take. He's maybe 20 feet tall and wearing a ballerina tutu and tiara.

Juliette does not have the energy to be confused. She just hisses at him too.

"Gods and Titans!" Ephialtes yelps. "What are you wearing?"