The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)

‘I have zero godly fire up my sleeves!’

‘We stay,’ Grover decided. He tossed me his boat paddle. ‘Apollo, block those doors.’

‘But –’

‘Just keep Macro out!’ Grover must have been taking assertiveness lessons from Meg. I jumped to comply.

‘Coach,’ Grover continued, ‘can you play a song of opening for the loading-dock door?’

Hedge grunted. ‘Haven’t done one of those in years, but I’ll try. What’ll you be doing?’

Grover studied the dormant automatons. ‘Something my friend Annabeth taught me. Hurry!’

I slipped the paddle through the door handles, then lugged over a tetherball pole and braced it against the door. Hedge began to trill a tune on his coach’s whistle – ‘The Entertainer’ by Scott Joplin. I’d never thought of the whistle as a musical instrument. Coach Hedge’s performance did nothing to change my mind.

Meanwhile Grover ripped the plastic off the nearest automaton. He rapped his knuckles against its forehead, which made a hollow clang.

‘Celestial bronze, all right,’ Grover decided. ‘This might work!’

‘What are you going to do?’ I demanded. ‘Melt them down for weapons?’

‘No, activate them to work for us.’

‘They won’t help us! They belong to Macro!’

Speak of the praetor: Macro pushed against the doors, rattling the paddle and the tetherball-pole brace. ‘Oh, come on, Apollo! Stop being difficult!’

Grover pulled the bubble wrap off another automaton. ‘During the Battle of Manhattan,’ he said, ‘when we were fighting Kronos, Annabeth told us about an override command written into the firmware of automatons.’

‘That’s only for public statuary in Manhattan!’ I said. ‘Every god who’s any god knows that! You can’t expect these things to respond to “command sequence: Daedalus twenty-three”!’

Instantly, as in a scary episode of Doctor Who, the plastic-wrapped automatons snapped to attention and turned to face me.

‘Yes!’ Grover yelled gleefully.

I did not feel so gleeful. I’d just activated a room full of metal temp workers who were more likely to kill me than obey me. I had no idea how Annabeth Chase had figured out that the Daedalus command could be used on any automaton. Then again, she’d been able to redesign my palace on Mount Olympus with perfect acoustics and surround-sound speakers in the bathroom, so her cleverness shouldn’t have surprised me.

Coach Hedge kept trilling Scott Joplin. The loading-bay door didn’t move. Macro and his men banged against my makeshift barricade, nearly making me lose my grip on the tetherball pole.

‘Apollo, talk to the automatons!’ Grover said. ‘They’re waiting for your orders now. Tell them, Begin Plan Thermopylae!’

I didn’t like being reminded of Thermopylae. So many brave and attractive Spartans had died in that battle defending Greece from the Persians. But I did as I was told. ‘Begin Plan Thermopylae!’

At that moment, Macro and his twelve servants busted through the doors – snapping the paddle, knocking aside the tetherball pole and launching me into the midst of my new metal acquaintances.

Macro stumbled to a halt, six minions fanning out on either side. ‘What’s this? Apollo, you can’t activate my automatons! You haven’t paid for them! Military Madness team members, apprehend Apollo! Tear the satyrs apart! Stop that infernal whistling!’

Two things saved us from instant death. First, Macro had made the mistake of issuing too many orders at once. As any maestro can tell you, a conductor should never simultaneously order the violins to speed up, the timpani to soften, and the brass to crescendo. You will end up with a symphonic train wreck. Macro’s poor soldiers were left to decide for themselves whether they should first apprehend me, or tear apart the satyrs, or stop the whistling. (Personally, I would have gone after the whistler with extreme prejudice.)

The other thing that saved us? Rather than listening to Macro, our new temp-worker friends began executing Plan Thermopylae. They shuffled forward, linking their arms and surrounding Macro and his companions, who awkwardly tried to get around their robotic colleagues and bumped into each other in confusion. (The scene was reminding me more of a Hestia housewarming by the second.)

‘Stop this!’ Macro shrieked. ‘I order you to stop!’

This only added to the confusion. Macro’s faithful minions froze in their tracks, allowing our Daedalus-operated dudes to encircle Macro’s group.

‘No, not you!’ Macro yelled to his minions. ‘You all don’t stop! You keep fighting!’ Which did nothing to clarify the situation.

The Daedalus dudes encircled their comrades, squeezing them in a massive group hug. Despite Macro’s size and strength, he was trapped in the centre, squirming and shoving uselessly.

‘No! I can’t –!’ He spat bubble wrap from his mouth. ‘Help! The Horse can’t see me like this!’

From deep in their chests, the Daedalus dudes began to emit a hum, like engines stuck in the wrong gear. Steam rose from the seams of their necks.

I backed away, as one does when a group of robots starts to steam. ‘Grover, what exactly is Plan Thermopylae?’

The satyr gulped. ‘Er, they’re supposed to stand their ground so we can retreat.’

‘Then why are they steaming?’ I asked. ‘Also, why are they starting to glow red?’

‘Oh, dear.’ Grover chewed his lower lip. ‘They may have confused Plan Thermopylae with Plan Petersburg.’

‘Which means –?’

‘They may be about to sacrifice themselves in a fiery explosion.’

‘Coach!’ I yelled. ‘Whistle better!’

I threw myself at the loading-bay door, working my fingers under the bottom and lifting with all my pathetic mortal strength. I whistled along with Hedge’s frantic tune. I even tap-danced a little, since that is well-known to speed up musical spells.

Behind us, Macro shrieked, ‘Hot! Hot!’

My clothes felt uncomfortably warm, as if I were sitting at the edge of a bonfire. After our experience with the wall of flames in the Labyrinth, I did not want to take my chances with a group hug/explosion in this small room.

‘Lift!’ I yelled. ‘Whistle!’

Grover joined in our desperate Joplin performance. Finally, the loading-bay door began to budge, creaking in protest as we raised it a few inches off the floor.

Macro’s shrieking became unintelligible. The humming and heat reminded me of that moment just before my sun chariot would take off, blasting into the sky in a triumph of solar power.

‘Go!’ I yelled to the satyrs. ‘Both of you, roll under!’

I thought that was quite heroic of me – though, to be honest, I half expected them to insist, Oh, no, please! Gods first!

No such courtesy. The satyrs shimmied under the door, then held it from the other side while I tried to wriggle through the gap. Alas, I found myself stymied by my own accursed love handles. In short, I got stuck.

‘Apollo, come on!’ Grover yelled.

‘I’m trying!’

‘Suck it in, boy!’ screamed the coach.

I’d never had a personal trainer before. Gods simply don’t need someone yelling at them, shaming them into working harder. And, honestly, who would want that job, knowing you could get zapped by lightning the first time you chided your client into doing an extra five push-ups?

This time, however, I was glad to be yelled at. The coach’s exhortations gave me the extra burst of motivation I needed to squeeze my flabby mortal body through the gap.

No sooner had I got to my feet than Grover yelled, ‘Dive!’

We leaped off the edge of the loading dock as the steel door – which was apparently not bombproof – exploded behind us.





9


Collect call from Horse

Do you accept the charges?

Nay-ay-ay-ay-ay





Oh, villainy!