THE GOOD NEWS: THE left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. The bad news: it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred yards, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path. Behind them, the sounds of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor. Something—definitely not human—was on their tail.
"Tyson," Percy said, "can you—"
"Yes!" He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled from the stone ceiling.
"Hurry!" Grover said. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!"
The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise. Tyson pushed it into a small room and they dashed through behind it.
"Close the entrance!" Annabeth urged.
They all got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor.
"We trapped it," Percy said, a hint of relief coloring his voice.
"Or trapped ourselves," Grover countered.
Stella turned. Her gaze swept across the twenty-foot-square cement room, her heart sinking as she realized their predicament. The walls seemed to close in around them, suffocating in their solidity. And then her eyes landed on the opposite wall, covered with metal bars. They had tunneled straight into a cell.
"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars. They didn't budge.
Stella approached the bars, her fingers trailing along the cold metal as she peered through them. Rows of cells stretched out before them, circling a dark courtyard; there were at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.
"A prison," Percy gathered. "Maybe Tyson can break—"
"Shh," said Grover. "Listen."
Somewhere above them, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too—a raspy voice muttering something that Stella couldn't make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler.
"What's that language?" Stella whispered, her voice barely audible over the unsettling sounds surrounding them.
Percy's gaze flickered to hers, his expression unreadable. But instead of offering reassurance, his silence only added to the growing unease that gripped her.
Tyson's eye widened at the strange muttering. "Can't be."
"What?" She asked, her heart racing with a mix of fear and curiosity.
Tyson grabbed two bars of the cell door, his fingers curling around the metal before bending them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through.
"Wait!" Grover called.
But he wasn't about to wait. He took off, and they ran after him, their footsteps echoing in darkness as they hurried to keep up with him. Only a few dim fluorescent lights flickered above, casting eerie shadows that danced along the walls.
"I know this place," Annabeth informed them. "This is Alcatraz."
"You mean that island near San Francisco?" Percy questioned.
She nodded solemnly, her gaze distant as memories flooded back. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum."
The idea seemed almost surreal—that they could have popped out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country. Yet, Annabeth had been living in San Francisco all year, keeping a vigilant eye on Mount Tamalpais just across the bay. She probably knew what she was talking about.
"Freeze," Grover warned.
But Tyson kept going. Grover grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all his strength. "Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?"
Stella looked where he was pointing, and her stomach did a somersault. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything she had ever seen before.
It was sort of like a centaur, with a woman's body from the waist up. But instead of a horse's lower body, it had the body of a dragon—at least twenty feet long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail. Her legs looked like they were tangled in vines, but then Stella realized they were sprouting snakes, hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly looking for something to bite. The woman's hair was also made of snakes, like Medusa's.
Weirdest of all, around her waist, where the woman part met the dragon part, her skin bubbled and morphed, occasionally producing the heads of animals—a vicious wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she were wearing a belt of ever-changing creatures. Stella got the feeling she was looking at something half-formed, a monster so old it was from the beginning of time, before shapes had been fully defined.
"It's her," Tyson whimpered.
"Get down!" Grover said.
They crouched in the shadows, but the monster wasn't paying them any attention. It seemed to be talking to someone inside a cell on the second floor. That's where the sobbing was coming from. The dragon woman said something in her weird rumbling language.
"What's she saying?" Percy muttered. "What's that language?"
"The tongue of the old times." Tyson shivered. "What Mother Earth spoke to Titans and...her other children. Before the gods."
"You understand it?" Stella asked. "Can you translate?"
Tyson closed his eyes and began to speak in a horrible, raspy woman's voice. "You will work for the master or suffer."
Annabeth shuddered. "I hate it when he does that."
Like all Cyclopes, Tyson had superhuman hearing and an uncanny ability to mimic voices. It was almost like he entered a trance when he spoke in other voices.
"I will not serve," Tyson said in a deep, wounded voice.
He switched to the monster's voice: "Then I shall enjoy your pain, Briares." Tyson faltered when he said that name. Stella had never heard him break character when he was mimicking somebody, but he let out a strangled gulp. Then he continued in the monster's voice. "If you thought your first imprisonment was unbearable, you have yet to feel true torment. Think on this until I return."
The dragon lady tromped toward the stairwell, vipers hissing around her legs like grass skirts. She spread wings that Stella hadn't noticed before—huge bat wings she kept folded against her dragon back. She leaped off the catwalk and soared across the courtyard. They crouched lower in the shadows. A hot sulfurous wind blasted her face as the monster flew over. Then she disappeared around the corner.
"H-h-horrible," Grover said. "I've never smelled any monster that strong."
"Cyclopes' worst nightmare," Tyson murmured. "Kampê."
"Who?" Percy frowned.
Tyson swallowed. "Every Cyclops knows about her. Stories about her scare us when we're babies. She was our jailer in the bad years."
Annabeth nodded. "I remember now. When the Titans ruled, they imprisoned Gaea and Ouranos's earlier children— the Cyclopes and the Hekatonkheires."
"The Heka-what?" Percy asked.
"The Hundred-Handed Ones," Stella explained. "They called them that because... well, they had a hundred hands. They were elder brothers of the Cyclopes."
"Very powerful," Tyson said. "Wonderful! As tall as the sky. So strong they could break mountains!"
"Cool," Percy said. "Unless you're a mountain."
Stella had to stifle her laugh.
"Kampê was the jailer," Tyson continued. "She worked for Kronos. She kept our brothers locked up in Tartarus, tortured them always, until Zeus came. He killed Kampê and freed Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones to help fight against the Titans in the big war."
"And now Kampê is back," Percy said.
"Bad," Tyson summed up.
"So who's in that cell?" Stella's curiosity was piqued. "You said a name—"
"Briares!" Tyson perked up. "He is a Hundred-Handed One. They are as tall as the sky and—"
"Yeah," Percy interjected. "They break mountains."
Stella looked up at the cells above them. She wondered how something as tall as the sky could fit in a tiny cell, and why he was crying.
"I guess we should check it out," Annabeth suggested, her voice tinged with urgency. "Before Kampê comes back."
As they approached the cell, the weeping got louder.
When Stella first saw the creature inside, she wasn't sure what she was looking at. He was human-size and his skin was very pale, the color of milk. He wore a loincloth like a big diaper. His feet seemed too big for his body, with cracked dirty toenails, and eight toes on each foot. But the top half of his body was the weird part. He made Janus look downright normal. His chest sprouted more arms than she could count, in rows, all around his body. The arms looked like normal arms, but there were so many of them, all tangled together, that his chest looked kind of like a forkful of spaghetti somebody had twirled together. Several of his hands were covering his face as he sobbed.
"Either the sky isn't as tall as it used to be," Percy muttered, "or he's short."
Although his jokes never failed to put a smile on Stella's face, it truly was not the time. Giving him a gentle nudge in the ribs, she tried to convey the seriousness of the situation.
"Ouch!" Percy exclaimed, though his exaggerated reaction only elicited a chuckle from Stella.
Tyson didn't pay any attention. He fell to his knees. "Briares!" he called.
The sobbing stopped.
"Great Hundred-Handed One!" Tyson said. "Help us!"
Briares looked up. His face was long and sad, with a crooked nose and bad teeth. He had deep brown eyes—completely brown with no whites or black pupils, like eyes formed out of clay.
"Run while you can, Cyclops," Briares said miserably. "I cannot even help myself."
"You are a Hundred-Handed One!" Tyson insisted. "You can do anything!"
Briares wiped his nose with five or six hands. Several others were fidgeting with little pieces of metal and wood from a broken bed, the way Tyson always played with spare parts. It was amazing to watch. The hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They built a toy boat out of wood and then disassembled it just as fast. Other hands were scratching at the cement floor for no apparent reason. Others were playing rock, paper, scissors. A few others were making ducky and doggie shadow puppets against the wall.
"I cannot," Briares moaned. "Kampê is back! The Titans will rise and throw us back into Tartarus."
"Put on your brave face!" Tyson said.
Immediately Briares's face morphed into something else. Same brown eyes, but otherwise totally different features. He had an upturned nose, arched eyebrows, and a weird smile, like he was trying to act brave. But then his face turned back to what it had been before.
"No good," he said. "My scared face keeps coming back."
"How did you do that?" Percy asked.
Annabeth elbowed him. "Don't be rude. The Hundred-Handed Ones have fifty different faces."
"Must make it hard to get a yearbook picture," He said.
Stella rolled her eyes, "I doubt you've ever had a good yearbook picture."
Percy's narrowed gaze softened with a hint of amusement, his lips betraying the struggle to suppress a smile.
Tyson was still entranced. "It will be okay, Briares! We will help you! Can I have your autograph?"
Briares sniffled. "Do you have one hundred pens?"
"Guys," Grover interrupted. "We have to get out of here. Kampê will be back. She'll sense us sooner or later."
"Break the bars," Annabeth said.
"Yes!" Tyson said, smiling proudly. "Briares can do it. He is very strong. Stronger than Cyclopes, even! Watch!"
Briares whimpered. A dozen of his hands started playing patty-cake, but none of them made any attempt to break the bars.
"If he's so strong," Percy said, "why is he stuck in jail?"
Stella had to nudge Percy once again. "He's terrified," she whispered. "Kampê imprisoned him in Tartarus for thousands of years. How would you feel?"
The Hundred-Handed One covered his face again.
"Briares?" Tyson asked. "What...what is wrong? Show us your great strength!"
"Tyson," Annabeth stated, "I think you'd better break the bars."
Tyson's smile melted slowly.
"I will break the bars," he repeated. He grabbed the cell door and ripped it off its hinges like it was made of wet clay.
"Come on, Briares," Annabeth said. "Let's get you out of here."
The daughter of Athena held out her hand. For a second, Briares's face morphed to a hopeful expression. Several of his arms reached out, but twice as many slapped them away.
"I cannot," he said. "She will punish me."
"It's all right," Stella promised, joining Annabeth's side. "You fought the Titans before, and you won, remember?"
"I remember the war." Briares's face morphed again—furrowed brow and a pouting mouth; his brooding face. "Lightning shook the world. We threw many rocks. The Titans and the monsters almost won. Now they are getting strong again. Kampê said so."
"Don't listen to her," Percy exclaimed. "Come on!"
He didn't move. Stella knew Grover was right. They didn't have much time before Kampê returned. But they couldn't just leave him here.
"One game of rock, paper, scissors," Percy blurted out. "If I win, you come with us. If I lose, we'll leave you in jail."
Stella knit her brows and turned to him with confusion written all over her face. What the fuck was he planning?
Briares's face morphed to doubtful. "I always win rock, paper, scissors."
"Then let's do it!" Percy pounded his fist in his palm three times.
Briares did the same with all one hundred hands, which sounded like an army marching three steps forward. He came up with a whole avalanche of rocks, a classroom set of scissors, and enough paper to make a fleet of airplanes.
"I told you," he said sadly. "I always—" His face morphed to confusion. "What is that you made?"
"A gun," Percy told him, showing him his finger gun. "A gun beats anything."
Stella let out a laugh of disbelief. He had used his brain for once...and it worked.
"That's not fair."
"I didn't say anything about fair. Kampê's not going to be fair if we hang around. She's going to blame you for ripping off the bars. Now come on!"
Briares sniffled. "Demigods are cheaters." But he slowly rose to his feet and followed them out of the cell.
Stella started to feel hopeful. All they had to do was get downstairs and find the Labyrinth entrance. But then Tyson froze.
On the ground floor right below, Kampê was snarling at them.
"The other way," Stella rushed out.
They bolted down the catwalk. This time Briares was happy to follow them. In fact, he sprinted out front, a hundred arms waving in panic.
Behind them, Stella heard the sound of giant wings as Kampê took to the air. She hissed and growled in her ancient language, but no translation was needed to know she was planning to kill them.
They scrambled down the stairs, through a corridor, and past a guard's station—out into another block of prison cells.
"Left," Annabeth said. "I remember this from the tour."
They burst outside and found themselves in the prison yard, ringed by security towers and barbed wire. After being inside so long, the daylight felt indescribable on her skin. Stella closed her eyes, basking in the warmth of the sun's embrace. It was as if each ray infused her with newfound energy, revitalizing her spirit and fueling her determination to figure out the Labyrinth.
Her amber eyes opened to see tourists milling around, taking pictures. The wind whipped cold off the bay. In the south, San Francisco gleamed all white and beautiful, but in the north, over Mount Tamalpais, huge storm clouds swirled. The whole sky seemed like a black top spinning from the mountain where Atlas was imprisoned, and where the Titan palace of Mount Othrys was rising anew. It was hard to believe the tourists couldn't see the supernatural storm brewing, but they didn't give any hint that anything was wrong.
"It's even worse," Annabeth said, gazing to the north. "The storms have been bad all year, but that—"
"Keep moving," Briares wailed. "She is behind us!"
They ran to the far end of the yard, as far from the cell block as possible.
"Kampê's too big to get through the doors," Percy said hopefully.
Then the wall exploded. Of fucking course.
Tourists screamed as Kampê appeared from the dust and rubble, her wings spread out as wide as the yard. She was holding two swords—long bronze scimitars that glowed with a weird greenish aura, boiling wisps of vapor that smelled sour and hot even across the yard. Stella knew immediately what it was.
"Poison!" Grover yelped. "Don't let those things touch you or..."
"Or we'll die?" Percy guessed.
"Depending on the poison, I could either heal you from it or...you could also shrivel to dust and die," Stella mused.
"Let's avoid the swords," Percy decided.
"Briares, fight!" Tyson urged. "Grow to full size!"
Instead, Briares looked like he was trying to shrink even smaller. He appeared to be wearing his absolutely terrified face.
Kampê thundered toward them on her dragon legs, hundreds of snakes slithering around her body. For a second, Stella thought about drawing Iliaktída and facing her, but her heart crawled into her throat. Then Annabeth said what she was thinking: "Run."
That was the end of the debate. There was no fighting this thing. They ran through the jail yard and out the gates of the prison, the monster right behind them. Mortals screamed and ran. Emergency sirens began to blare.
They hit the wharf just as a tour boat was unloading. The new group of visitors froze as they saw the quest group charging toward them, followed by a mob of frightened tourists, followed by...she didn't know what they saw through the Mist, but it could not have been good.
"The boat?" Grover asked.
"Too slow," Tyson said. "Back into the maze. Only chance."
"We need a diversion," Annabeth said.
Tyson ripped a metal lamppost out of the ground. "I will distract Kampê. You run ahead."
"I'll help you," Percy said.
Stella felt her heart lurch in her chest. She knew she swore to Travis and Lee that she wouldn't make stupid decisions, but how was she supposed to keep that promise when Percy said shit like that?
"Not without me you won't," Stella interjected, her gaze locking with Percy's. "We'll both help you distract."
Tyson shook his head firmly. "No. Both of you go. Poison will hurt Cyclopes. A lot of pain. But it won't kill."
Percy's brows furrowed in concern as he turned to Tyson. "Are you sure?"
"Go, brother. I will meet you inside."
Stella hated the idea. Percy probably hated it even more. He had almost lost Tyson once before, and she knew he would never want to risk that again. But there was no time to argue, and Stella had no better idea.
Annabeth, Grover, Stella, and Percy each took one of Briares's hands and dragged him toward the concession stands while Tyson bellowed, lowered his pole, and charged Kampê like a jousting knight.
She'd been glaring at Briares, but Tyson got her attention as soon as he nailed her in the chest with the pole, pushing her back into the wall. She shrieked and slashed with her swords, slicing the pole to shreds. Poison dripped in pools all around her, sizzling into the cement.
Tyson jumped back as Kampê's hair lashed and hissed, and the vipers around her legs darted their tongues in every direction. A lion popped out of the weird half-formed faces around her waist and roared.
As they sprinted for the cellblocks, the last thing Stella saw was Tyson picking up a Dippin' Dots stand and throwing it at Kampê. Ice cream and poison exploded everywhere, all the little snakes in Kampê's hair dotted with tutti-frutti.
They dashed back into the jail yard.
"Can't make it," Briares huffed.
"Tyson is risking his life to help you!" Percy yelled at him. "You will make it."
As they reached the door of the cellblock, they heard an angry roar. Stella glanced back and saw Tyson running toward them at full speed, Kampê right behind him. She was plastered in ice cream and T-shirts. One of the bear heads on her waist was now wearing a pair of crooked plastic Alcatraz sunglasses.
"Hurry!" Annabeth said, like any of them needed to be told that.
They finally found the cell where they had come in, but the back wall was completely smooth—no sign of a boulder or anything.
"Look for the mark!" Annabeth exclaimed.
"There!" Grover touched a tiny scratch, and it became a Greek L. The mark of Daedalus glowed blue, and the stone wall grinded open.
Too slowly. Tyson was coming through the cellblock, Kampê's swords lashing out behind him, slicing indiscriminately through cell bars and stone walls.
Percy pushed Briares inside the maze, then Annabeth and Grover.
Stella could vividly feel her heart pounding in her chest. How was she supposed to just stand by and watch? As Percy attempted to push her towards the maze entrance, she resisted, her determination flaring.
"You can do it!" Percy told Tyson as he glanced wearily at the daughter of Apollo.
But immediately Stella knew he couldn't. Kampê was gaining. She raised her swords. He needed a distraction—something big.
No. She refused to let Tyson become another ghost in the gallery of lost friends—another haunting memory of a quest gone wrong.
Her body felt like it was on fire.
It was nothing like the burning sensation she felt as she searched hopelessly for Bianca or the searing pain she had felt trying to heal Zoë. Instead, it was an intense clarity, a sense of purpose that flooded her veins with a potent energy. In that moment, everything aligned.
As she focused on the swirling emotions inside her, a flicker of light sparked to life around her fingertips, dancing in the air like tiny fireflies.
With a sharp intake of breath, she thrust her hands forward, unleashing a blinding burst of light directly into Kampê's eyes. It illuminated the dim confines of the cellblock with an intensity that rivaled the sun itself.
Kampê was caught off guard, her monstrous form recoiling instinctively as she roared in agony, momentarily blinded by the sudden brilliance.
"Tyson, now!" Stella shouted, her voice cutting through the chaos.
Seizing the opportunity, Tyson lunged forward, darting past Kampê and into the opening of the maze. Stella didn't hesitate to follow, her heart pounding with adrenaline as she raced after him, Percy hot on her heels.
Kampê charged, but she was too late. The stone door closed and its magic sealed them in. Stella could feel the whole tunnel shake as Kampê pounded against it, roaring furiously. They didn't stick around to play knock, knock with her, though.
They raced into the darkness, and for the first time (and the last) she was glad to be back in the Labyrinth.