- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
- All the Possibilities
- Next
- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
The Demigod DiariesPage 11
“Stupid snakes!” Cacus shook the cell phone violently. Eek! Martha said. Help—me! George’s voice quivered. Must—obey—red—bathrobe! The phone grew back into a staff. “Now, behave!” Cacus warned the snakes. “Or I’ll turn you two into a fake Gucci handbag!” Annabeth ran to my side. Together we backed up until we were next to the ladder. “Our tag game strategy isn’t working so well,” she noticed. She was breathing heavily. The left sleeve of her T-shirt was smoldering, but otherwise she looked okay. “Any suggestions?” My ears were ringing. Her voice still sounded like she was underwater. Wait…under water. I looked up the tunnel—all those broken pipes embedded in the rock: waterlines, sewer ducts. Being the son of the sea god, I could sometimes control water. I wondered… “I don’t like you!” Cacus yelled. He stalked toward us, smoke pouring from his nostrils. “It’s time to end this.” “Hold on,” I told Annabeth. I wrapped my free hand around her waist. I concentrated on finding water above us. It wasn’t hard. I felt a dangerous amount of pressure in the city’s waterlines, and I summoned it all into the broken pipes. Cacus towered over us, his mouth glowing like a furnace. “Any last words, demigod?” “Look up,” I told him. He did. Note to self: When causing the sewer system of Manhattan to explode, do not stand underneath it. The whole cavern rumbled as a thousand water pipes burst overhead. A not-so-clean waterfall slammed Cacus in the face. I yanked Annabeth out the way, then leaped back into the edge of the torrent, carrying Annabeth with me. “What are you—?” She made a strangling sound. “Ahhh!” I’d never attempted this before, but I willed myself to travel upstream like a salmon, jumping from current to current as the water gushed into the cavern. If you’ve ever tried running up a wet slide, it was kind of like that, except at a ninety-degree angle and with no slide—just water. Far below I heard Cacus bellowing as millions, maybe even thousands of filthy gallons of water slammed into him. Meanwhile Annabeth alternately shouted, gagged, hit me, called me endearing pet names like “Idiot! Stupid—dirty—moron—” and topped it all off with “Kill you!” Finally we shot out of the ground atop a disgusting geyser and landed safely on the pavement. Pedestrians and cops backed away, yelling in alarm at our sewage version of Old Faithful. Brakes screeched and cars rear-ended each other as drivers stopped to watch the chaos. I willed myself dry—a handy trick—but I still smelled pretty bad. Annabeth had old cotton balls stuck in her hair and a wet candy wrapper plastered to her face. “That,” she said, “was horrible!” “On the bright side,” I said, “we’re alive.” “Without the caduceus!” I grimaced. Yeah…minor detail. Maybe the giant would drown. Then he’d dissolve and return to Tartarus the way most defeated monsters do, and we could go collect the caduceus. That sounded reasonable enough. The geyser receded, followed by the horrendous sound of water draining down the tunnel, like somebody up on Olympus had flushed the godly toilet. Then a distant snaky voice spoke in my mind. Gag me, said George. Even for me that was disgusting, and I eat rats. Incoming! Martha warned. Oh, no! I think the giant has figured out— An explosion shook the street. A beam of blue light shot out of the tunnel, carving a trench up the side of a glass office building, melting windows and vaporizing concrete. The giant climbed from the pit, his velour housecoat steaming, and his face spattered with slime. He did not look happy. In his hands, the caduceus now resembled a bazooka with snakes wrapped around the barrel and a glowing blue muzzle. “Okay,” Annabeth said faintly. “Um, what is that?” “That,” I guessed, “would be laser mode.” To all of you who live in the Meatpacking District, I apologize. Because of the smoke, debris, and chaos, you probably just call it the Packing District now, since so many of you had to move out. Still, the real surprise is that we didn’t do more damage. Annabeth and I fled as another laser bolt gouged a ditch through the street to our left. Chunks of asphalt rained down like confetti. Behind us, Cacus yelled, “You ruined my fake Rolexes! They aren’t waterproof, you know! For that, you die!” We kept running. My hope was to get this monster away from innocent mortals, but that’s kind of hard to do in the middle of New York. Traffic clogged the streets. Pedestrians screamed and ran in every direction. The two police officers I’d seen earlier were nowhere in sight, maybe swept away by the mob. “The park!” Annabeth pointed to the elevated tracks of the High Line. “If we can get him off street level—” BOOM! The laser cut through a nearby food truck. The vendor dove out his service window with a fistful of shish kebabs. Annabeth and I sprinted for the park stairs. Sirens screamed in the distance, but I didn’t want more police involved. Mortal law enforcement would only make things more complicated, and through the Mist, the police might even think Annabeth and I were the problem. You just never knew. We climbed up to the park. I tried to get my bearings. Under different circumstances, I would’ve enjoyed the view of the glittering Hudson River and the rooftops of the surrounding neighborhood. The weather was nice. The park’s flower beds were bursting with color. |
- The Loners
- The Saints
- Switched
- Fangtastic!
- Re-Vamped!
- Vampalicious!
- Tome of the Undergates
- Black Halo
- The Skybound Sea
- If You Stay
- If You Leave
- Until We Burn
- Before We Fall
- Every Last Kiss
- Fated
- Suspiciously Obedient
- Random Acts of Crazy
- Random Acts of Trust
- Her First Billionaire
- Her Second Billionaire
- Her Two Billionaires
- Her Two Billionaires and a Baby
- His Majesty's Dragon
- Throne of Jade
- Black Powder War
- Victory of Eagles
- Tongues of Serpents
- Empire of Ivory
- Crucible of Gold
- Delirium