The gold wings were overkill
I could dig the chariot and the two white horses. I was okay with Nike's glittering sleeveless dress and Nike's piled-up braids of dark hair circled with a gilded laurel wreath.Her expression was wide-eyed and a little crazy, like she'd just had twenty espressos and ridden a roller coaster, but that didn't bother me. I could even deal with the gold-tipped spear pointed at my chest.
But those wings – they were polished gold, right down to the last feather. I could admire the intricate workmanship, but it was too much, too bright, too flashy. If her wings had been solar panels, Nike would've produced enough energy to power Miami.
"Lady," Leo said, "could you fold your flappers, please? You're giving me a sunburn."
"What?" Nike's head jerked towards him like a startled chicken's. "Oh ... my brilliant plumage. Very well. I suppose you can't die in glory if you are blinded and burned."
She tucked in her wings. The temperature dropped to a normal hundred-and-twenty-degree summer afternoon.
I glanced at my friends. Jasper stood still sizing up the goddess. He hadn't brought out his spear yet which probably meant he was too freaked out.
Hazel was having trouble with Arion. The roan stallion nickered and bucked, avoiding eye contact with the white horses pulling Nike's chariot. And Leo...he was being Leo.
I decided somebody had better say something before we all died in glory.
"So!" I pointed my index fingers at Nike. "I didn't get the briefing, and I'm pretty sure the information wasn't covered in Jasper's pamphlet. Could you tell me what's going on here?"Nike's wide-eyed stare unnerved me.
"We must have victory!" the goddess shrieked. "The contest must be decided! You have come here to determine the winner, yes?"
Jasper cleared his throat. "Are you Nike or Victoria?""Argghh!" The goddess clutched the side of her head. Her horses reared, causing Arion to do the same.
The goddess shuddered and split into two separate images, which reminded me – ridiculously – of when I used to lie on the floor in my house as a kid and play with the coiled doorstop on the skirting board. I would pull it back and let it fly: sproing! The stopper would shudder back and forth so fast it looked like it was splitting into two separate coils.
That's what Nike looked like: a divine doorstop, splitting in two.
On the left was the first version: glittery sleeveless dress, dark hair circled with laurels, golden wings folded behind her. On the right was a different version, dressed for war in a Roman breastplate and greaves. Short auburn hair peeked out from the rim of a tall helmet. Her wings were feathery white, her dress purple, and the shaft of her spear was fixed with a plate-sized Roman insignia – a golden SPQR in a laurel wreath.
"I am Nike!" cried the image on the left.
"I am Victoria!" cried the one on the right.
The goddess was literally saying two different things at once. She kept shuddering and splitting, making me dizzy.
"I am the decider of victory!" Nike screamed. "Once I stood here at the corner of Zeus's temple, venerated by all! I oversaw the games of Olympia. Offerings from every city-state were piled at my feet!"
"Games are irrelevant!" yelled Victoria. "I am the goddess of success in battle! Roman generals worshiped me! Augustus himself erected my altar in the Senate House!"
"Ahhhh!" both voices screamed in agony. "We must decide! We must have victory!"
Arion bucked so violently that Hazel had to slide off his back to avoid getting thrown. Before she could calm him down, the horse disappeared, leaving a vapor trail through the ruins.
"Nike," Hazel said, stepping forward slowly, "you're confused, like all the gods. The Greeks and Romans are on the verge of war. It's causing your two aspects to clash."
"I know that!" The goddess shook her spear, the tip rubber-banding into two points. "I cannot abide unresolved conflict! Who is stronger? Who is the winner?"
"Lady, nobody's the winner," Leo said. "If that war happens, everybody loses."
"No winner?" Nike looked so shocked,
"There is always a winner! One winner. Everyone else is a loser! Otherwise victory is meaningless. I suppose you want me to give certificates to all the contestants? Little plastic trophies to every single athlete or soldier for participation? Should we all line up and shake hands and tell each other, Good game? No! Victory must be real. It must be earned. That means it must be rare and difficult, against steep odds, and defeat must be the other possibility."
The goddess's two horses nipped at each other, as if getting into the spirit.
"Uh ... okay," Leo said. "I can tell you've got strong feelings about that. But the real war is against Gaia."
"He's right," Hazel said. "Nike, you were Zeus's charioteer in the last war with the giants, weren't you?"
"Of course!"
"Then you know Gaia is the real enemy. We need your help to defeat her. The war isn't between the Greeks and Romans."
Victoria roared, "The Greeks must perish!"
"Victory or death!" Nike wailed. "One side must prevail!"
"You sound so much like her it's unreal." Jasper muttered. I assumed he was talking about his sister.
Victoria glared down at him. "Jasper Herman! A child of Mars, aren't you? A praetor of Rome? No true Roman would spare the Greeks. I cannot abide to be split and confused – I cannot think straight! Kill them! Win! Show me the same desire to win as your mother did! Be more like Arabelle!"
"Not happening," Jasper said, though I noticed his right eye was twitching.
I was struggling, too. Nike was sending off waves of tension, setting my nerves on fire. I felt like I was crouched at the starting line, waiting for someone to yell "Go!"
"Look, Miss Victory ..." I tried for a smile. "We don't want to interrupt your crazy time. Maybe you can just finish this conversation with yourself and we'll come back later, with, um, some bigger weapons and possibly some sedatives."
The goddess brandished her spear. "You will determine the matter once and for all! Today, now,you will decide the victor! Four of you? Excellent! We will have teams. Perhaps girls versus boys!'
I said, "Uh ... no."
"Shirts versus skins!"
"Definitely no," said Hazel.
"Greeks versus Romans!" Nike cried. "Yes, of course! Two and two. The last demigod standing wins. The others will die gloriously."
A competitive urge pulsed through my body. It took all of my effort not to reach for my bow and shoot Hazel and Jasper in the head.
I forced my fists to unclench. "Look, lady, we're not going to go all Hunger Games on each other. Isn't going to happen."
"But you will win a fabulous honor!" Nike reached into a basket at her side and produced a wreath of thick green laurels. "This crown of leaves could be yours! You can wear it on your head! Think of the glory!"
"Eliana's right," Jasper said, though his eyes were fixed on the wreath. His expression was a little too greedy for my taste. "We don't fight each other. We fight the giants. You should help us."
"Very well!" The goddess raised the laurel wreath in one hand and her spear in the other.
Leo and I exchanged looks."Uh ... does that mean you'll join us?" I asked. "You'll help us fight the giants?"
"That will be part of the prize," Nike said. "Whoever wins, I will consider you an ally. We will fight the giants together, and I will bestow victory upon you. But there can only be one winner. The others must be defeated, killed, destroyed utterly. So what will it be, demigods? Will you succeed in your quest, or will you cling to your namby-pamby ideas of friendship and everybody wins participation awards?"
Leo pulled out a mallet, I was worried he might turn it on us. Nike's aura was that hard to resist.
Instead, he pointed it at Nike. "What if we fight you instead?"
"Ha!" Nike's eyes gleamed. "If you refuse to fight each other, you shall be persuaded!"
Nike spread her golden wings. Four metal feathers fluttered down, two on either side of the chariot. The feathers twirled like gymnasts, growing larger, sprouting arms and legs, until they touched the ground as four metallic, human-sized replicas of the goddess, each armed with a golden spear and a Celestial bronze laurel wreath that looked suspiciously like a barbed-wire Frisbee.
"To the stadium!" the goddess cried. "You have five minutes to prepare. Then blood shall be spilled!"
I was about to say, What if we refuse to go to the stadium?
I got my answer before asking the question.
"Run!" Nike bellowed. "To the stadium with you, or my Nikai will kill you where you stand!"
The metal ladies unhinged their jaws and blasted out a sound like a Super Bowl crowd mixed with feedback. They shook their spears and charged the demigods.
It wasn't my finest moment. Panic seized me, and I took off. My only comfort was that my friends did, too – and they weren't the cowardly type.
The four metal women swept behind us 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 us, Nike's chariot wheels rumbled and her horses whinnied.
Every time I thought about slowing down, the metal ladies screamed again – what had Nike called them? Nikai?
"There!" Jasper sprinted towards a kind of trench between two earthen walls with a stone archway above. It reminded me 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!"
"Not a good name!" Leo yelled.
"Why are we going there?" I asked. "If that's where she wants us –"
The Nikettes screamed again and all rational thought abandoned me. I ran for the tunnel. When we reached the arch, Hazel yelled, "Hold it!"
We stumbled to a stop.
Jasper peered back the way we'd come. "I don't see them any more. They disappeared."
"Did they give up?" I 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?" Jasper scratched his head. "I think it was Nikai, plural, like victories."
"Yes." Hazel looked deep in thought, running her hands along the stone archway. "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," I said. "Except evil. And metal. And really loud."
Hazel pressed her fingers against the arch, as if taking its pulse. Beyond the narrow tunnel, the earthen walls opened into a long field with gently rising slopes on either side, like seating for spectators.I 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," Hazel murmured. "A lot of pain is embedded in these stones."
"Please tell me you have a plan," Leo said. "Preferably one that doesn't involve embedding my pain in the stones."
Hazel's eyes were stormy and distant, the way they'd been in the House of Hades – like she was peering into a different layer of reality. "This was the players' entrance. 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."
"I'm pretty sure death matches weren't an Olympic sport." I said.
"Well, they are today," Hazel warned. "But I might be able to give us an edge. When we pass through, I could raise some obstacles on the field – hiding places to buy us some time."
Jasper frowned. "You mean like on the Field of Mars – trenches, tunnels, that kind of thing? You can do that with the Mist?"
"I think so," Hazel said. "Nike would probably like to see an obstacle course. I can play her expectations against her. But it would be more than that. I can use any subterranean gateway – even this arch – to access the Labyrinth. I can raise part of the Labyrinth to the surface."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." I made a time-out sign. "The Labyrinth is bad. We've discussed this."
"Hazel, she's right." Leo spoke up. "I mean, I know you're good with magic. But we've already got four screaming Nikettes to worry about –"
"You'll have to trust me," she said. "We've only got a couple of minutes now. When we pass through the arch, I can at least manipulate the playing field to our advantage."
"I've been forced to fight in one stadium already. I hate playing games for people's amusement. I don't want to do it again." I said.
"We all do," Hazel said. "But we have to put Nike off guard. We'll pretend to fight until we can neutralize those Nikettes – ugh, that's an awful name. Then we subdue Nike, like Juno said."
"Makes sense," Jasper agreed. "You felt how powerful Nike was, trying to put us at each other's throats. If she's sending out those vibes to all the Greeks and Romans, there's no way we'll be able to prevent a war. We've got to get her under control."
"And how do we do that?" I asked. "Bonk her on the head and stuff her in a sack?"
"Actually," Leo said, "you're not far off. Uncle Leo brought some toys for all you good little demigods."
Two minutes wasn't nearly enough time. Leo had rushed to give us all different gadgets and explained what the buttons did.
While Leo was lecturing Jasper and me on Archimedean mechanics, Hazel stared at the stone archway and muttered under her breath.
Nothing seemed to change in the big grassy field beyond, but I was sure Hazel had some Mistalicious tricks up her sleeve.
Leo was just explaining to Jasper how to avoid getting decapitated by his own Archimedes sphere when the sound of trumpets echoed through the stadium. Nike's chariot appeared on the field, the Nikettes arrayed in front of her with their spears and laurels raised.
"Begin!" the goddess bellowed.
Leo and I sprinted through the archway. Immediately, the field shimmered and became a maze of brick walls and trenches. They ducked behind the nearest wall and ran to the left. Back at the archway, Jasper yelled, "Uh, die, Graecus scum!" A poorly aimed throwing knife sailed over Leo's head.
"More vicious!" Nike yelled. "Kill like you mean it!"
Leo glanced at me. "Ready?"
I hefted a bronze grenade. "I hope you labelled these right." I yelled, "Die, Romans!" and lobbed the grenade over the wall.
BOOM! I couldn't see the explosion, but the smell of buttery popcorn filled the air.
"Oh, no!" Hazel wailed. "Popcorn! Our fatal weakness!"
I shot an arrow over Jasper's head. Leo and I scrambled to the left, ducking through a maze of walls that seemed to shift and turn on their own. I could still see open sky above me, but claustrophobia started to set in for Leo.
Somewhere behind us, Nike yelled, "Try harder! That popcorn was not fatal!"
From the rumble of her chariot wheels, I guessed she was circling the perimeter of the field – Victory taking a victory lap.
Another grenade exploded over Leo and I's heads. We dived into a trench as the green starburst of Greek fire singed Leo's hair. Fortunately, Jasper had aimed high enough that the blast only looked impressive.
"Better," Nike called out, "but where is your aim? Don't you want this circlet of leaves?"
"I wish she was closer," I muttered. "I want to shut down her nervous system and watch her body system fail and the light leaves her eyes."
"Be patient sunshine girl"
"Don't call me sunshine girl."
Leo pointed across the field. The walls had shifted, revealing one of the Nikettes about thirty yards away, standing with her back to them. Hazel must be doing her thing – manipulating the maze to isolate their targets.
"I distract"' Leo said, "you attack. Ready?"
I nodded. "Go."
I dashed to the left as Leo pulled a ball-peen hammer from his tool belt and yelled, "Hey, Bronze Butt!"
The Nikette turned as Leo threw. His hammer clanged harmlessly off the metal lady's chest, but she must have been annoyed. She marched towards him, raising her barbed-wire laurel wreath.
"Oops." Leo ducked as the metal circlet spun over his head. The wreath hit a wall behind him, punching a hole straight through the bricks, then arced backwards through the air like a boomerang.
As the Nikette raised her hand to catch it, I emerged from the trench behind her and slashed with my dagger, cutting the Nikette in half at the waist. The metal wreath shot past me and embedded in a marble column.
"Foul"' the victory goddess cried. The walls shifted and me saw her barreling towards us in her chariot. "You don't attack the Nikai unless you wish to die!'A trench appeared in the goddess's path, causing her horses to balk. Leo and I ran for cover.Out of the corner of my eye, maybe fifty feet away, I saw Jasper jump from the top of a wall and flatten another Nikette. Two down, two more to go.
"No!" Nike screamed in outrage. "No, no, no! Your lives are forfeit! Nikai, attack!"
Leo and I leaped behind a wall. We lay there for a second, trying to catch our breath.I had trouble getting his bearings, but he guessed that was part of Hazel's plan. She was causing the terrain to shift around us – opening new trenches, changing the slope of the land, throwing up new walls and columns. With luck, she would make it harder for the Nikettes to find us. Travelling just twenty feet might take us several minutes.
"Hey," Leo said, "if we don't make it out of this –"
"Shut up. We're going to make it."
"If we don't-"
"We will. You're going to go rescue Calypso, remember? You're not dying on me today." I said.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You're right. Sorry about that. Let's kick some Bronze butt!"
The ground rumbled as another grenade exploded, sending spirals of whipped cream into the sky.
"That's Hazel's signal," Leo said. "They've taken down another Nikette."
I peeked around the corner of the wall.
"One Nikette left," I said. 'I wonder –"
Somewhere close by, Hazel cried out in pain.
Instantly, Leo was on his feet.
"Wait!" I called, but Leo plunged through the maze.
The walls fell away on either side. I found myself in an open stretch of field. Jasper stood at the far end of the stadium, as the goddess bellowed insults and tried to find a path to him across the shifting network of trenches.
Hazel was closer – maybe sixty feet away. The fourth Nikette had obviously sneaked up on her.Hazel was limping away from her attacker, her jeans ripped, her left leg bleeding. She parried the metal lady's spear with her huge cavalry sword, but she was about to be overpowered. All around her, the Mist flickered like a dying strobe light. She was losing control of the magic maze.
"I'll help her," Leo said. "You stick to the plan. Get Nike's chariot.'
"But the plan was to eliminate all four Nikettes first!"
"So change the plan and then stick to it!"
"That doesn't even make sense, but go! Help her!"
Leo rushed to Hazel's defense. I darted towards Nike, yelling, "Hey! I want a participation award!"
"Gah!" The goddess pulled the reins and turned her chariot in my direction. "I will destroy you!"
"Good!" I yelled. "Losing is way better than winning!"
"WHAT?" Nike threw her mighty spear, but her aim was off with the rocking of the chariot. Her weapon skittered into the grass. Sadly, a new one appeared in her hands.She urged her horses to a full gallop. The trenches disappeared, leaving an open field, perfect for running down small Latino demigods.
"Hey!" Jasper yelled from across the stadium. "I want a participation award, too! Everybody wins!"
I shot a well-aimed arrow that landed in the back of Nike's chariot and began to burn. Nike ignored it. Her eyes were fixed on me.
"Leo..?"
I pulled out the Archimedes sphere and set the concentric circles to arm the device.Leo was still sparring with the last metal lady. I couldn't wait.I threw the sphere in the chariot's path. It hit the ground and burrowed in, but I needed Leo to spring the trap. If Nike sensed any threat, she apparently didn't think much of it. She kept charging at me.
The chariot was twenty feet from the grenade. Fifteen feet.
"Leo!" I yelled. "I need you now!"
Unfortunately, Leo was a little busy getting smacked around. The Nikette thumped him backwards with the butt of her spear. . The metallic lady moved in for the kill.
I howled. I knew the distance was too far. I knew that if I didn't jump out of the way nowNike would run me over. But that didn't matter. My friends were about to be skewered. I thrust out my hand and shot a hot bolt of light straight at the Nikette.
It literally melted her face. The Nikette staggered, her spear still raised. Before she could regain her balance, Hazel thrust her spatha and impaled the metal lady through the chest. The Nikette crashed into the grass.
Leo turned towards the victory goddess's chariot. Just as those huge white horses were about to turn me into roadkill, the carriage passed over my sunken grenade, which exploded in a high-pressure geyser. Water blasted upward, flipping the chariot – horses, carriage, goddess and all.
It was the worst sound I had ever heard. Celestial bronze crumpling, wood splintering, stallions screaming and a goddess wailing in two distinct voices, both of them very surprised.
Hazel collapsed. Leo caught her. Jasper ran towards them from across the field.
I was on his own as the goddess Nike disentangled herself from the wreckage and rose to face me. Her braided hairdo now resembled a stepped-on cow pat. A laurel wreath was stuck around her left ankle. Her horses got to their hooves and galloped away in a panic, dragging the soaked, half- burning wreckage of the chariot behind them.
"YOU!" Nike glared at me, her eyes hotter and brighter than her metal wings. "You dare?"
I forced a smile. "I know, right? I'm awesome! Do I win now?"
"You will die!"