Chapter Text
PIPER KNEW FEAR, BUT THIS WAS DIFFERENT.
Waves of terror crashed over her. Her joints turned to jelly. Her heart refused to beat.
Her worst memories crowded her mind—her father tied up and beaten on Mount Diablo; Percy and Jason fighting to the death in Kansas; the three of them and Magnus drowning in the nymphaeum in Rome; herself standing alone against Khione and the Boreads. Worst of all, she relived her conversation with her mother about what was to come.
Paralysed, she watched as the giant raised his sledgehammer to smash them flat. At the last moment, Magnus grabbed Piper’s wrist and dragged her to one side. Piper looked at Magnus to see that it wasn’t Magnus who threw them to the side, but Jack dragging Magnus dragging Piper.
The hammer cracked the floor, peppering Piper’s back with stone shrapnel.
The giant chuckled. “Oh, that wasn’t fair!” He hefted his sledgehammer again.
“Get up, get up!” Piper urged, helping Magnus to his feet. She pulled him towards the far end of the room.
“What—?” Magnus looked around wildly. “Oh my God.”
“You okay?” Piper asked him.
Magnus shook his head. “Um, no! What’s going on?”
“It’s amplifying our fears,” Piper said. “Personal fears.”
“Personal fears?” Magnus squeaked.
Piper tried to fill her voice with reassurance—hard when your own fears are pounding down on you. “We will get out of this.”
The giant laughed. “A child of Aphrodite and a Vanir spawn! How will you defeat me? With makeup and fashion tips? Holding hands and friendship bracelets?”
A few months ago that comment might’ve stung, but Piper was way past that.
“I’ve never made a friendship bracelet before, Tall, Dark, and Ugly,” Magnus said, sounding personally insulted.
The giant lumbered towards them. Fortunately, he was slow and carrying a heavy hammer.
“I go right, you go left, send Jack for help?” Magnus suggested weakly.
Piper gave him a look. “No. Follow me.”
The giant swung his hammer, but they dodged it easily. Piper leaped forward and slashed her sword across the back of the giant’s knee. As the giant bellowed in outrage, Piper pulled Magnus into the nearest tunnel. Immediately they were engulfed in total darkness.
“Fools!” the giant roared somewhere behind them. “That is the wrong way!”
“Keep moving.” Piper held tight to Magnus’s hand. “It’s fine. Come on.”
She couldn’t see anything. Even the glow of her sword was snuffed out. She barrelled ahead anyway, trusting her emotions. From the echo of their footfalls, the space around them must have been a vast cavern, but she couldn’t be sure. She simply went in the direction that made her fear the sharpest.
“Baby I'm preying on you tonight,” Jack hummed quietly. “Hunt you down eat you alive. Just like animals. Animals. Like animals-mals.”
Piper tried to block it out, but the sword’s nervous singing was way too appropriate for the situation.
“Maybe you think that you can hide. I can smell your scent for miles. Just like animals. Animals. Like animals-mals. Baby I'm—”
“Jack,” Magnus hissed. “Shut. Up.”
The sword fell silent.
The giant’s voice came from somewhere in front of them. “Lost forever. Swallowed by the darkness.”
“I really don’t like this,” Magnus murmured. “I really wish my cousin was here. She could have figured out a plan to get us out of here and defeat this guy. Memes?”
“Mimas,” Piper corrected absently. “But I don’t think we can defeat this place with reason. You can’t think your way out of your emotions.”
The giant’s laughter echoed like a detonating depth charge. “Despair, demigods! I am Mimas, born to slay Hephaestus. I am the breaker of plans, the destroyer of the well-oiled machines. Nothing goes right in my presence. Maps are misread. Devices break. Data is lost. The finest minds turn to mush!”
“Good thing we don’t have the finest minds,” Magnus said. “Nor do we have a map to misread or any devices to break because those attract monsters.”
“Oh, I see!” The giant sounded much closer now. “Are you not afraid?”
“I just said you can’t do anything to us, not that I wasn’t afraid! Phobia and Demon over there are really ramping up the fear.”
“Yeah, we’re terrified,” Piper said.
The air moved. Just in time, Piper pushed Magnus to one side.
CRASH!
Suddenly they were back in the circular room, the dim light almost blinding now. The giant stood close by, trying to yank his hammer out of the floor where he’d embedded it. Piper lunged and drove her blade into the giant’s thigh.
“AROOO!” Mimas let go of the hammer and arched his back.
Piper and Magnus scrambled behind the chained statue of Ares, which still pulsed with a metallic heartbeat: thump, thump, thump.
The giant Mimas turned towards them. The wound on his leg was already closing.
“You cannot defeat me,” he growled. “In the last war, it took two gods to bring me down. I was born to kill Hephaestus, and would have done so if Ares hadn’t ganged up on me as well! You should have stayed paralysed in your fear. Your death would’ve been quicker.”
Days ago, when she faced Khione on the Argo II, Piper had started talking without thinking, following her heart no matter what her brain said. Now she did the same thing. She moved in front of the statue and faced the giant, though the rational part of her screamed, RUN, YOU IDIOT!
“This temple,” she said. “The Spartans didn’t chain Ares because they wanted his spirit to stay in their city.”
“You think not?” The giant’s eyes glittered with amusement. He wrapped his hands around his sledgehammer and pulled it from the floor.
“This is the temple of my brothers, Deimos and Phobos.” Piper’s voice shook, but she didn’t try to hide it. “The Spartans came here to prepare for battle, to face their fears. Ares was chained to remind them that war has consequences. His power—the spirits of battle, the makhai—should never be unleashed unless you understand how terrible they are, unless you’ve felt fear.”
Mimas laughed. “A child of the love goddess lectures me about war. What do you know of the makhai?”
“We’ll see.” Piper ran straight at the giant, unbalancing his stance. At the sight of her jagged blade coming at him, his eyes widened and he stumbled backwards, cracking his head against the wall. A jagged fissure snaked upward in the stones. Dust rained from the ceiling.
“All’s fair in love and war,” Magnus said.
Piper bit back a grin as she ran towards the rope, which dangled from the ceiling. She leapt as high as she could and cut it.
“Time out!” Magnus protested. “That is not fair. How are we supposed to get out?”
“Don’t think about escape,” Piper told him. She knew this was the only way to survive. She had to go against reason, follow emotion instead, keep the giant off balance.
“That hurt!” Mimas rubbed his head. “You realize you cannot kill me without the help of a god and Ares is not here! The next time I face that blustering idiot, I will smash him to bits. I wouldn’t have had to fight him in the first place if that cowardly fool Damasen had done his job—”
“Haven’t you heard?” Magnus asked. “Damasen—”
Piper cut him off with an elbow to the gut. If the giants didn’t know Damasen had escaped Tartarus and was quite possibly on his way to join the demigods in their fight in Athens, that was the way Piper wanted to keep it.
Piper lunged at Mimas, slashing her blade across the side of the giant’s face.
“GAHHH!” Mimas staggered.
A severed pile of dreadlocks fell to the floor along with something else—a large fleshy thing lying in a pool of golden ichor.
“Oh that is disgusting,” Magnus said.
“My ear!” Mimas wailed. Before he could recover his wits, Piper grabbed Magnus’s arm and together they plunged through the second doorway.
“I will bring down this chamber!” the giant thundered. “The Earth Mother shall deliver me, but you shall be crushed!”
The floor shook. The sound of breaking stone echoed all around them.
“What the Hel is going on?” Magnus complained.
“I told you, this temple is about fear,” Piper said. “You have to accept the fear, adapt to it, ride it like the rapids on a river.” She gave Magnus an appraising look. “Guess you already adapted to it.”
“Sarcasm is my natural response to… everything.”
“Well, don’t stop now.”
Somewhere nearby, a wall crumbled with a sound like an artillery blast.
“So… you cut the rope,” Magnus noted. “I’m not Alex or Frank. I can’t fly you out of here. I guess we could send Jack for them, but—”
“Dude, we aren’t leaving until this guy is dead,” Piper said. “Now. We’re going to run out there together, okay?”
“Not like I have a choice,” Magnus muttered. “Then what?”
“I have no idea.”
“I love it when we have no idea what to do.”
Piper laughed. “There’s that sarcasm. Come on!”
They ran in no particular direction and found themselves back in the shrine room, right behind the giant Mimas. As they ran, Jack howled out more lyrics: “Ah-ah, ah! Ah-ah, ah!” They each slashed one of his legs and brought him to his knees.
The giant howled. More chunks of stone tumbled from the ceiling.
“Weak mortals!” Mimas struggled to stand. “No plan of yours can defeat me!”
“That’s good,” Piper said. “Because I don’t have a plan.” She ran towards the statue of Ares. “Magnus, keep our friend occupied!”
“Oh, he’s occupied!”
“We come from the land of the ice and snow,” Jack trilled as Magnus swung him at Mimas—or was Jack doing most of the work?
“GAHHHHH!” Mimas yelled.
“From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow,” Jack continued. “The hammer of the gods Will drive our ships to new lands To fight the horde, sing and cry Valhalla, I am coming.”
Piper stared at the cruel bronze face of the war god. The statue thrummed with a low metallic pulse. The spirits of battle, she thought. They’re inside, waiting to be freed.
But they weren’t hers to unleash—not until she’d proven herself.
The chamber shook again. More cracks appeared in the walls. Piper glanced at the stone carvings above the doorways: the scowling twin faces of Fear and Panic.
“My brothers,” Piper said, “sons of Aphrodite… I give you a sacrifice.”
At the feet of Ares, she set her cornucopia. The magic horn had become so attuned to her emotions it could amplify her anger, love or grief and spew forth its bounty accordingly. She hoped that would appeal to the gods of fear. Or maybe they would just appreciate some fresh fruits and vegetables in their diets.
“I’m terrified,” she confessed. “I hate doing this. But I accept that it’s necessary.”
She swung her blade and took off the bronze statue’s head.
“No!” Mimas yelled.
Flames roared up from the statue’s severed neck. They swirled around Piper, filling the room with a firestorm of emotions: hatred, bloodlust and fear, but also love—because no one could face battle without caring for something: comrades, family, home.
Piper held out her arms and the makhai made her the center of their whirlwind.
We will answer your call, they whispered in her mind. Once only, when you need us, destruction, waste, carnage shall answer. We shall complete your cure.
The flames vanished along with the cornucopia, and the chained statue of Ares crumbled into dust.
“Foolish girl!” Mimas charged her, Magnus at his heels. “The makhai have abandoned you!”
“Or maybe they’ve abandoned you,” Piper said.
Mimas raised his hammer, but he’d forgotten about Magnus. He jabbed him in the thigh and the giant staggered forward, off balance. Piper stepped in calmly and stabbed him in the gut. Mimas crashed face-first into the nearest doorway. He turned over just as the stone face of Panic cracked off the wall above him and toppled down for a one-ton kiss. The giant’s cry was cut short. His body went still. Then he disintegrated into a twenty-foot pile of ash.
Magnus stared at Piper. “What just happened?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Those fiery spirits? Those are the makhai?”
“I guess so,” Piper said.
“How does that help us find the cure we’re looking for?”
“I don’t know. They said I could summon them when the time comes. Maybe Artemis and Apollo can explain—”
A section of the wall calved like a glacier.
Magnus stumbled and almost slipped on the giant’s severed ear. “Oh, gross. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m working on it,” Piper said.
“What do we do with the ear?” Magnus asked. He attempted a grin. “Did you hear me?”
“That was horrible. Absolutely terrible.”
“It sounds like you’re jealous of my puns.”
“Shut up, Chase.” Piper stared at the second doorway, which still had the face of Fear above it.
“Thank you, brothers, for helping to kill the giant. I need one more favor—an escape. And, believe me, I am properly terrified. I offer you this, uh, lovely ear as a sacrifice.”
The stone face made no answer. Another section of the wall peeled away. A starburst of cracks appeared in the ceiling.
Piper grabbed Magnus’s hand. “We’re going through that doorway. If this works, we might find ourselves back on the surface.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Piper looked up at the face of Fear. “Let’s find out.”
“Yes, let’s,” Magnus grumbled.
The room collapsed around them as they plunged into the dark.