The New Trinity -- Percy Jackson Batman Crossover -- The Olympian Heroes Book 4

23. Percy

I thought we’d lost the spider until Tyson heard a faint pinging sound. We made a few turns, backtracked a few times, and eventually found the spider banging its tiny head on a metal door. After freaky experience with the Sphinx, when Annabeth almost killed us because she thought the questions being asked were too easy.
The door looked like one of those old-fashioned submarine hatches—oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the portal should’ve been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a Greek Ȇta inscribed in the middle.
We all looked at each other.
“Ready to meet Hephaestus?” Grover said nervously.
“No,” I admitted.
“Yes!” Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.
As soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson right
behind it. The rest of us followed, not quite as anxious.
The room was enormous. It looked like a mechanic’s garage, with several hydraulic lifts. Some had cars on them, but others had stranger things: a bronze Hippalektryon with its horse head off and a bunch of wires hanging out its rooster tail, a metal lion that seemed to be hooked up to a battery charger, and a Greek war chariot made entirely of flames.
Smaller projects cluttered a dozen worktables. Tools hung along the walls.
Each had its own outline on a Peg-Board, but nothing seemed to be in the right place. The hammer was over the screwdriver place. The staple gun was where the hacksaw was supposed to go.
Under the nearest hydraulic lift, which was holding a ’98 Toyota Corolla, a pair of legs stuck out—the lower half of a huge man in grubby gray pants and shoes even bigger than Tyson’s. one leg was in a metal brace.
The spider scuttled straight under the car, and the sounds of banging
stopped.
“Well, well,” a deep voice boomed from under the Corolla. “What have
we here?”
The mechanic pushed out on a back trolley and sat up. I’d seen Hephaestus once before, briefly on Olympus, so I thought I was prepared,  but his appearance made me gulp.
I guess he’d cleaned up when I saw him on Olympus, or used magic to
make his form seem a little less hideous. Here in his own workshop, he apparently didn’t care how he looked. He work a jumpsuit smeared with oil and grime. Hephaestus, was embroidered over the chest pocket. His leg creaked and clicked in its metal brace as he stood, and his left shoulder was lower than his right, so he seemed to be leaning even when he was standing up straight. His head was misshapen and bulging. He wore a permanent scowl. His black beard smoked and hissed. Every once in a while a small wildfire would erupt in his whiskers then die out. His hands were the size of catcher’s mitts, but he handled the spider with amazing skill. He disassembled it in two seconds, then put it back together.
“There,” he muttered to himself. “Much better.”
The spider did a happy flip in his palm, shot a metallic web at the ceiling, and went swinging away.
Hephaestus glowered up at us. “I didn’t make you, did I?”
“Uh,” Annabeth said, “no, sir.”
“Good,” the god grumbled. “Shoddy workmanship.”
He studied Annabeth and me. “Half-bloods,” he grunted. “Could be
automatons, of course, but probably not.”
“We’ve met, sir,” I told him.
“Have we?” the god asked absently. I got the feeling he didn’t care one
way or the other. he was just trying to figure out how my jaw worked,
whether it was a hinge or a lever or what. “Well then, if I didn’t smash you to a pulp the first time we met, I suppose I won’t have to do it now.”
He looked at Grover and frowned. “Satyr.” Then he looked at Tyson, and his eyes twinkled. “Well, a Cyclops. Good, good. What are you doing
traveling with this lot?”
“Uh…” said Tyson, staring in wonder at the god.
“Yes, well said,” Hephaestus agreed. “So, there’d better be a good reason
you’re disturbing me. The suspension on this Corolla is no small matter, you know.”
“Sir,” Annabeth said hesitantly, “we’re looking for Daedalus. We
thought-”
“Daedalus?” the god roared. “You want that old scoundrel? You dare to
seek him out!”
His beard burst into flames and his black eyes glowed.
“Uh, yes, sir, please,” Annabeth said.
“Humph. You’re wasting your time.” He frowned at something on his
worktable and limped over to it. He picked up a lump of springs and metal
plates and tinkered with them. In a few seconds he was holding a bronze and silver falcon. It spread its metal wings, blinked its obsidian eyes, and flew around the room.
Tyson laughed and clapped his hands. The bird landed on Tyson’s
shoulder and nipped his ear affectionately.
Hephaestus regarded him. The god’s scowl didn’t change, but I thought I
saw a kinder twinkle in his eyes. “I sense you have something to tell me,
Cyclops.”
Tyson’s smile faded. “Y-yes, lord. We met a Hundred-Handed One.”
Hephaestus nodded, looking unsurprised. “Briares?”
“Yes. He-he was scared. He would not help us.”
“And that bothered you.”
“Yes!” Tyson’s voice wavered. “Briares should be strong! He is older and
greater than Cyclopes. But he ran away.”
Hephaestus grunted. “There was a time I admired the Hundred-Handed Ones. Back in the days of the first war. But people, monsters, even gods
change, young Cyclops. You can’t trust ’em. Look at my loving mother,
Hera. You met her, didn’t you? She’ll smile to your face and talk about how important family is, eh? Didn’t stop her from pitching me off Mount
Olympus when she saw my ugly face.”
“But I thought Zeus did that to you,” I said.
Hephaestus cleared his throat and spat into a bronze spittoon. He snapped his fingers, and the robotic falcon flew back to the worktable.
“Mother likes telling that version of the story,” he grumbled. “Makes her
seem more likeable, doesn’t it? Blaming it all on my dad. The truth is, my mother likes families, but she likes a certain kind of family. Perfect families. She took one look at me and…well, I don’t fit the image, do I?”
He pulled a feather from the falcon’s back, and the whole automaton fell
apart.
“Believe me, young Cyclops,” Hephaestus said, “you can’t trust others. All you can trust is the work of your own hands.”
It seemed like a pretty lonely way to live. Plus, I didn’t exactly trust the
work of Hephaestus. One time in Denver, his mechanical spiders had almost killed Annabeth and me. And last year, it had been a defective Talos statue that cost Bianca her life, another one of Hephaestus’s little projects.
He focused on me and narrowed his eyes, as if he were reading my
thoughts. “Oh, this one doesn’t like me,” he mused. “No worries, I’m used to that. What would you ask of me, little demigod?”
“We told you,” I said. “We need to find Daedalus. There’s this guy, Luke,
and he’s working for Kronos. He’s trying to find a way to navigate the
Labyrinth so he can invade our camp. If we don’t get to Daedalus first-”
“And I told you, boy. Looking for Daedalus is a waste of time. He won’t help you.”
“Why not?”
Hephaestus shrugged. “Some of us get thrown off mountainsides. Some
of us…the way we learn not to trust people is more painful. Ask me for gold. Or a flaming sword. Or a magical steed. These I can grant you easily. But a way to Daedalus? That’s an expensive favor.”
“You know where he is, then,” Annabeth pressed.
“It isn’t wise to go looking, girl.”
“My mother says looking is the nature of wisdom.”
Hephaestus narrowed his eyes. “Who’s your mother, then?”
“Athena.”
“Figures.” He sighed. “Fine goddess, Athena. A shame she pledged never
to marry. All right, half-blood. I can tell you what you want to know. But
there is a price. I need a favor done."
“Name it,” Annabeth said.
Hephaestus actually laughed, a booming sound like a huge bellows
stoking a fire. “You heroes,” he said, “always making rash promises. How
refreshing!”
He pressed a button on his workbench, and metal shutters opened along the wall. It was either a huge window or a big-screen TV, I couldn’t tell which. We were looking at a gray mountain ringed in forests. It must’ve been a volcano, because smoke rose from its crest.
“One of my forges,” Hephaestus said. “I have many, but that used to be
my favorite.”
“That’s Mount St. Helens,” Grover said. “Great forests around there.”
“You’ve been there?” I asked.
“Looking for…you know, Pan.”
“Wait,” Annabeth said, looking at Hephaestus. “You said it used to be
your favorite. What happened?”
Hephaestus scratched his smoldering beard. “Well, that’s where the
monster Typhon is trapped, you know. Used to be under Mount Etna, but when we moved to America, his force got pinned under Mount St. Helens instead. Great source of fire, but a bit dangerous. There’s always a chance he will escape. Lots of eruptions these days, smoldering all the time. He’s restless with the Titan rebellion.”
“What do you want us to do?” I said, “Fight him?”
Hephaestus snorted. “That would be suicide. The gods themselves ran
from Typhon when he was free. No, pray you never have to see him, much less fight him. But lately I have sensed intruders in my mountain. Someone
or something is using my forges. When I go there, it is empty, but I can tell it is being used. They sense me coming, and they disappear. I send my automatons to investigate, but they do not return. Something…ancient is there. Evil. I want to know who dates invade my territory, and if they mean to loose Typhon.”
“You want us to find out who it is,” I said.
“Aye,” Hephaestus said. “Go there. They may not sense you coming. You are not gods.”
“Glad you noticed,” I muttered.
“Go and find out what you can,” Hephaestus said. “Report back to me, and I will tell you what you need to know about Daedalus.”
“All right,” Annabeth said. “How do we get there?”
Hephaestus clapped his hands. The spider came swinging down from the rafters. Annabeth flinched when it landed at her feet.
“My creation will show you the way,” Hephaestus said. “It is not far
through the Labyrinth. And try to stay alive, will you? Humans are much
more fragile than automatons.”