The Lost Hero

XXIV LEO

LEO STOPPED AT THE DOORS AND TRIED to control his breathing. The voice of the earth woman still rang in his ears, reminding him of his mother’s death. The last thing he wanted to do was plunge into another dark warehouse. Suddenly he felt eight years old again, alone and helpless as someone he cared about was trapped and in trouble.

Stop it, he told himself. That’s how she wants you to feel.

But that didn’t make him any less scared. He took a deep breath and peered inside. Nothing looked different. Gray morning light filtered through the hole in the roof. A few lightbulbs flickered, but most of the factory floor was still lost in shadows. He could make out the catwalk above, the dim shapes of heavy machinery along the assembly line, but no movement. No sign of his friends.

He almost called out, but something stopped him—a sense he couldn’t identify. Then he realized it was smell. Something smelled wrong—like burning motor oil and sour breath.

Something not human was inside the factory. Leo was certain. His body shifted into high gear, all his nerves tingling.

Somewhere on the factory floor, Piper’s voice cried out: “Leo, help!”

But Leo held his tongue. How could Piper have gotten offthe catwalk with her broken ankle?

He slipped inside and ducked behind a cargo container. Slowly, gripping his hammer, he worked his way toward the center of the room, hiding behind boxes and hollow truck chassis. Finally he reached the assembly line. He crouched behind the nearest piece of machinery—a crane with a robotic arm.

Piper’s voice called out again: “Leo?” Less certain this time, but very close.

Leo peeked around the machinery. Hanging directly above the assembly line, suspended by a chain from a crane on the opposite side, was a massive truck engine—just dangling thirty feet up, as if it had been left there when the factory was abandoned. Below it on the conveyor belt sat a truck chassis, and clustered around it were three dark shapes the size of forklifts. Nearby, dangling from chains on two other robotic arms, were two smaller shapes—maybe more engines, but one of them was twisting around as if it were alive.

Then one of the forklift shapes rose, and Leo realized it was a humanoid of massive size. “Told you it was nothing,” the thing rumbled. Its voice was too deep and feral to be human.

One of the other forklift-sized lumps shifted, and called out in Piper’s voice: “Leo, help me! Help—” Then the voice changed, becoming a masculine snarl. “Bah, there’s nobody out there. No demigod could be that quiet, eh?”

The first monster chuckled. “Probably ran away, if he knows what’s good for him. Or the girl was lying about a third demigod. Let’s get cooking.”

Snap. A bright orange light sizzled to life—an emergency flare—and Leo was temporarily blinded. He ducked behind the crane until the spots cleared from his eyes. Then he took another peep and saw a nightmare scene even Tía Callida couldn’t have dreamed up.

The two smaller things dangling from crane arms weren’t engines. They were Jason and Piper. Both hung upside down, tied by their ankles and cocooned with chains up to their necks. Piper was flailing around, trying to free herself. Her mouth was gagged, but at least she was alive. Jason didn’t look so good. He hung limply, his eyes rolled up in his head. A red welt the size of an apple had swollen over his left eyebrow.

On the conveyor belt, the bed of the unfinished pickup truck was being used as a fire pit. The emergency flare had ignited a mixture of tires and wood, which, from the smell of it, had been doused in kerosene. A big metal pole was suspended over the flames—a spit, Leo realized, which meant this was a cooking fire.

But most terrifying of all were the cooks.

Monocle Motors: that single red eye logo. Why hadn’t Leo realized?

Three massive humanoids gathered around the fire. Two were standing, stoking the flames. The largest one crouched with his back to Leo. The two facing him were each ten feet tall, with hairy muscular bodies and skin that glowed red in the firelight. One of the monsters wore a chain mail loincloth that looked really uncomfortable. The other wore a ragged fuzzy toga made of fiberglass insulation, which also would not have made Leo’s top ten wardrobe ideas. Other than that, the two monsters could’ve been twins. Each had a brutish face with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The cooks were Cyclopes.

Leo’s legs started quaking. He’d seen some weird things so far—storm spirits and winged gods and a metal dragon that liked Tabasco sauce. But this was different. These were actual, flesh-and-blood, ten-foot-tall living monsters who wanted to eat his friends for dinner.

He was so terrified he could hardly think. If only he had Festus. He could use a fire-breathing sixty-foot-long tank about now. But all he had was a tool belt and a backpack. His three-pound club hammer looked awfully small compared to those Cyclopes.

This is what the sleeping earth lady had been talking about. She wanted Leo to walk away and leave his friends to die.

That decided it. No way was Leo going to let that earth lady make him feel powerless—never again. Leo slipped offhis backpack and quietly started to unzip it.

The Cyclops in the chain mail loincloth walked over to Piper, who squirmed and tried to head-butt him in the eye. “Can I take her gag off now? I like it when they scream.”

The question was directed at the third Cyclops, apparently the leader. The crouching figure grunted, and Loincloth ripped the gag off Piper’s mouth.

She didn’t scream. She took a shaky breath like she was trying to keep herself calm.

Meanwhile, Leo found what he wanted in the pack: a stack of tiny remote control units he’d picked up in Bunker 9. At least he hoped that’s what they were. The robotic crane’s maintenance panel was easy to find. He slipped a screwdriver from his tool belt and went to work, but he had to go slowly. The leader Cyclops was only twenty feet in front of him. The monsters obviously had excellent senses. Pulling off his plan without making noise seemed impossible, but he didn’t have much choice.

The Cyclops in the toga poked at the fire, which was now blazing away and billowing noxious black smoke toward the ceiling. His buddy Loincloth glowered at Piper, waiting for her to do something entertaining. “Scream, girl! I like funny screaming!”

When Piper finally spoke, her tone was calm and reasonable, like she was correcting a naughty puppy. “Oh, Mr. Cyclops, you don’t want to kill us. It would be much better if you let us go.”

Loincloth scratched his ugly head. He turned to his friend in the fiberglass toga. “She’s kind of pretty, Torque. Maybe I should let her go.”

Torque, the dude in the toga, growled. “I saw her first, Sump. I’ll let her go!” Sump and Torque started to argue, but the third Cyclops rose and shouted, “Fools!”

Leo almost dropped his screwdriver. The third Cyclops was a female. She was several feet taller than Torque or Sump, and even beefier. She wore a tent of chain mail cut like one of those sack dresses Leo’s mean Aunt Rosa used to wear. What’d they call that—a muumuu? Yeah, the Cyclops lady had a chain mail muumuu. Her greasy black hair was matted in pigtails, woven with copper wires and metal washers. Her nose and mouth were thick and smashed together, like she spent her free time ramming her face into walls; but her single red eye glittered with evil intelligence.

The woman Cyclops stalked over to Sump and pushed him aside, knocking him over the conveyor belt. Torque backed up quickly.

“The girl is Venus spawn,” the lady Cyclops snarled. “She’s using charmspeak on you.”

Piper started to say, “Please, ma’am—”

“Rarr!” The lady Cyclops grabbed Piper around the waist. “Don’t try your pretty talk on me, girl! I’m Ma Gasket! I’ve eaten heroes tougher than you for lunch!”

Leo feared Piper would get crushed, but Ma Gasket just dropped her and let her dangle from her chain. Then she started yelling at Sump about how stupid he was.

Leo’s hands worked furiously. He twisted wires and turned switches, hardly thinking about what he was doing. He finished attaching the remote. Then he crept over to the next robotic arm while the Cyclopes were talking.

“—eat her last, Ma?” Sump was saying.

“Idiot!” Ma Gasket yelled, and Leo realized Sump and Torque must be her sons. If so, ugly definitely ran in the family. “I should’ve thrown you out on the streets when you were babies, like proper Cyclops children. You might have learned some useful skills. Curse my soft heart that I kept you!”

“Soft heart?” Torque muttered.

“What was that, you ingrate?”

“Nothing, Ma. I said you got a soft heart. We get to work for you, feed you, file your toenails—”

“And you should be grateful!” Ma Gasket bellowed. “Now, stoke the fire, Torque! And Sump, you idiot, my case of salsa is in the other warehouse. Don’t tell me you expect me to eat these demigods without salsa!”

“Yes, Ma,” Sump said. “I mean no, Ma. I mean—”

“Go get it!” Ma Gasket picked up a nearby truck chassis and slammed it over Sump’s head. Sump crumpled to his knees. Leo was sure a hit like that would kill him, but Sump apparently got hit by trucks a lot. He managed to push the chassis off his head. Then he staggered to his feet and ran offto fetch the salsa.

Now’s the time, Leo thought. While they’re separated.

He finished wiring the second machine and moved toward a third. As he dashed between robotic arms, the Cyclopes didn’t see him, but Piper did. Her expression turned from terror to disbelief, and she gasped.

Ma Gasket turned to her. “What’s the matter, girl? So fragile I broke you?”

Thankfully, Piper was a quick thinker. She looked away from Leo and said, “I think it’s my ribs, ma’am. If I’m busted up inside, I’ll taste terrible.”

Ma Gasket bellowed with laughter. “Good one. The last hero we ate—remember him, Torque? Son of Mercury, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, Ma,” Torque said. “Tasty. Little bit stringy.”

“He tried a trick like that. Said he was on medication. But he tasted fine!”

“Tasted like mutton,” Torque recalled. “Purple shirt. Talked in Latin. Yes, a bit stringy, but good.”

Leo’s fingers froze on the maintenance panel. Apparently, Piper was having the same thought he was, because she asked, “Purple shirt? Latin?”

“Good eating,” Ma Gasket said fondly. “Point is, girl, we’re not as dumb as people think! We’re not falling for those stupid tricks and riddles, not us northern Cyclopes.”

Leo forced himself back to work, but his mind was racing. A kid who spoke Latin had been caught here—in a purple shirt like Jason’s? He didn’t know what that meant, but he had to leave the interrogation to Piper. If he was going to have any chance of defeating these monsters, he had to move fast before Sump came back with the salsa.

He looked up at the engine block suspended right above the Cyclopes’ campsite. He wished he could use that—it would make a great weapon. But the crane holding it was on the opposite side of the conveyor belt. There was no way Leo could get over there without being seen, and besides, he was running short on time.

The last part of his plan was the trickiest. From his tool belt he summoned some wires, a radio adapter, and a smaller screwdriver and started to build a universal remote. For the first time, he said a silent thank-you to his dad—Hephaestus—for the magic tool belt. Get me out of here, he prayed, and maybe you’re not such a jerk.

Piper kept talking, laying on the praise. “Oh, I’ve heard about the northern Cyclopes!” Which Leo figured was bull, but she sounded convincing. “I never knew you were so big and clever!”

“Flattery won’t work either,” Ma Gasket said, though she sounded pleased. “It’s true, you’ll be breakfast for the best Cyclopes around.”

“But aren’t Cyclopes good?” Piper asked. “I thought you made weapons for the gods.”

“Bah! I’m very good. Good at eating people. Good at smashing. And good at building things, yes, but not for the gods. Our cousins, the elder Cyclopes, they do this, yes. Thinking they’re so high and mighty ’cause they’re a few thousand years older. Then there’s our southern cousins, living on islands and tending sheep. Morons! But we Hyperborean Cyclopes, the northern clan, we’re the best! Founded Monocle Motors in this old factory—the best weapons, armor, chariots, fuel-efficient SUVs! And yet—bah! Forced to shut down. Laid off most of our tribe. The war was too quick. Titans lost. No good! No more need for Cyclops weapons.”

“Oh, no,” Piper sympathized. “I’m sure you made some amazing weapons.”

Torque grinned. “Squeaky war hammer!” He picked up a large pole with an accordion-looking metal box on the end.

He slammed it against the floor and the cement cracked, but there was also a sound like the world’s largest rubber ducky getting stomped.

“Terrifying,” Piper said.

Torque looked pleased. “Not as good as the exploding ax, but this one can be used more than once.”

“Can I see it?” Piper asked. “If you could just free my hands—”

Torque stepped forward eagerly, but Ma Gasket said, “Stupid! She’s tricking you again. Enough talk! Slay the boy first before he dies on his own. I like my meat fresh.”

No! Leo’s fingers flew, connecting the wires for the remote. Just a few more minutes!

“Hey, wait,” Piper said, trying to get the Cyclopes’ attention. “Hey, can I just ask—”

The wires sparked in Leo’s hand. The Cyclopes froze and turned in his direction. Then Torque picked up a truck and threw it at him.

Leo rolled as the truck steamrolled over the machinery. If he’d been a half-second slower, he would’ve been smashed.

He got to his feet, and Ma Gasket spotted him. She yelled, “Torque, you pathetic excuse for a Cyclops, get him!”

Torque barreled toward him. Leo frantically gunned the toggle on his makeshift remote.

Torque was fifty feet away. Twenty feet.

Then the first robotic arm whirred to life. A three-ton yellow metal claw slammed the Cyclops in the back so hard, he landed flat on his face. Before Torque could recover, the robotic hand grabbed him by one leg and hurled him straight up.

“AHHHHH!” Torque rocketed into the gloom. The ceiling was too dark and too high up to see exactly what happened, but judging from the harsh metal clang, Leo guessed the Cyclops had hit one of the support girders.

Torque never came down. Instead, yellow dust rained to the floor. Torque had disintegrated.

Ma Gasket stared at Leo in shock. “My son … You … You …”

As if on cue, Sump lumbered into the firelight with a case of salsa. “Ma, I got the extra-spicy—”

He never finished his sentence. Leo spun the remote’s toggle, and the second robotic arm whacked Sump in the chest. The salsa case exploded like a piñata and Sump flew backward, right into the base of Leo’s third machine. Sump may have been immune to getting hit with truck chasses, but he wasn’t immune to robotic arms that could deliver ten thousand pounds of force. The third crane arm slammed him against the floor so hard, he exploded into dust like a broken flour sack.

Two Cyclopes down. Leo was beginning to feel like Commander Tool Belt when Ma Gasket locked her eye on him. She grabbed the nearest crane arm and ripped it off its pedestal with a savage roar. “You busted my boys! Only I get to bust my boys!”

Leo punched a button, and the two remaining arms swung into action. Ma Gasket caught the first one and tore it in half. The second arm smacked her in the head, but that only seemed to make her mad. She grabbed it by the clamps, ripped it free, and swung it like a baseball bat. It missed Piper and Jason by an inch. Then Ma Gasket let it go—spinning it toward Leo. He yelped and rolled to one side as it demolished the machine next to him.

Leo started to realize that an angry Cyclops mother was not something you wanted to fight with a universal remote and a screwdriver. The future for Commander Tool Belt was not looking so hot.

She stood about twenty feet from him now, next to the cooking fire. Her fists were clenched, her teeth bared. She looked ridiculous in her chain mail muumuu and her greasy pigtails—but given the murderous glare in her huge red eye and the fact that she was twelve feet tall, Leo wasn’t laughing.

“Any more tricks, demigod?” Ma Gasket demanded.

Leo glanced up. The engine block suspended on the chain—if only he’d had time to rig it. If only he could get Ma Gasket to take one step forward. The chain itself … that one link … Leo shouldn’t have been able to see it, especially from so far down, but his senses told him there was metal fatigue.

“Heck, yeah, I got tricks!” Leo raised his remote control. “Take one more step, and I’ll destroy you with fire!”

Ma Gasket laughed. “Would you? Cyclopes are immune to fire, you idiot. But if you wish to play with flames, let me help!”

She scooped red-hot coals into her bare hands and flung them at Leo. They landed all around his feet.

“You missed,” he said incredulously. Then Ma Gasket grinned and picked up a barrel next to the truck. Leo just had time to read the stenciled word on the side—kerosene —before Ma Gasket threw it. The barrel split on the floor in front of him, spilling lighter fluid everywhere.

Coals sparked. Leo closed his eyes, and Piper screamed, “No!”

A firestorm erupted around him. When Leo opened his eyes he was bathed in flames swirling twenty feet into the air.

Ma Gasket shrieked with delight, but Leo didn’t offer the fire any good fuel. The kerosene burned off, dying down to small fiery patches on the floor.

Piper gasped. “Leo?”

Ma Gasket looked astonished. “You live?” Then she took that extra step forward, which put her right where Leo wanted. “What are you?”

“The son of Hephaestus,” Leo said. “And I warned you I’d destroy you with fire.”

He pointed one finger in the air and summoned all his will. He’d never tried to do anything so focused and intense—but he shot a bolt of white-hot flames at the chain suspending the engine block above the Cyclops’s head—aiming for the link that looked weaker than rest.

The flames died. Nothing happened. Ma Gasket laughed. “An impressive try, son of Hephaestus. It’s been many centuries since I saw a fire user. You’ll make a spicy appetizer!”

The chain snapped—that single link heated beyond its tolerance point—and the engine block fell, deadly and silent.

“I don’t think so,” Leo said.

Ma Gasket didn’t even have time to look up.

Smash! No more Cyclops—just a pile of dust under a five-ton engine block.

“Not immune to engines, huh?” Leo said. “Boo-yah!”

Then he fell to his knees, his head buzzing. After a few minutes he realized Piper was calling his name.

“Leo! Are you all right? Can you move?”

He stumbled to his feet. He’d never tried to summon such an intense fire before, and it had left him completely drained.

It took him a long time to get Piper down from her chains. Then together they lowered Jason, who was still unconscious. Piper managed to trickle a little nectar into his mouth, and he groaned. The welt on his head started to shrink. His color came back a little.

“Yeah, he’s got a nice thick skull,” Leo said. “I think he’s gonna be fine.”

“Thank god,” Piper sighed. Then she looked at Leo with something like fear. “How did you—the fire—have you always … ?”

Leo looked down. “Always,” he said. “I’m a freaking menace. Sorry, I should’ve told you guys sooner but—”

“Sorry?” Piper punched his arm. When he looked up, she was grinning. “That was amazing, Valdez! You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?”

Leo blinked. He started to smile, but his sense of relief was ruined when he noticed something next to Piper’s foot.

Yellow dust—the powdered remains of one of the Cyclopes, maybe Torque—was shifting across the floor like an invisible wind was pushing it back together.

“They’re forming again,” Leo said. “Look.”

Piper stepped away from the dust. “That’s not possible. Annabeth told me monsters dissipate when they’re killed. They go back to Tartarus and can’t return for a long time.”

“Well, nobody told the dust that.” Leo watched as it collected into a pile, then very slowly spread out, forming a shape with arms and legs.

“Oh, god.” Piper turned pale. “Boreas said something about this—the earth yielding up horrors. ‘When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades.’ How long do you think we have?”

Leo thought about the face that had formed in the ground outside—the sleeping woman who was definitely a horror from the earth.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But we need to get out of here.”