Over uneven rocks, I sprint the length of the cave, waves crashing into my thighs and stumbling me back every few feet as I circle around to the end closest to Isabel and Zai. There’s no way I’m going to outswim those beasts. But at least they can’t come up onto the ledge—
“Get back!” someone yells.
The largest of the monsters surges almost all the way out of the water and onto the rocks, just missing Jackie and Amir, Aphrodite and Hera’s champions, respectively. With a hiss, the creature slips backward into the water again. Damn. The other large one is still circling Isabel and Zai, which means these things are hatching and growing fast. And as soon as they get a little bigger, they can reach us up here, too. We’re not safe for much longer.
We need to find a way to kill them. Would my axe even work? How would I get close enough, and where would I hack at a monster like this to stop it?
“Fuck me,” I mutter. Because I have an idea, but it sucks to have to use it so soon.
Samuel makes his way to where I’m standing, which is a good thing. I’m going to need him if my plan will work.
“Get ready to pull me out fast,” I tell him. He’s saved me once already, so I’m going to trust him. I move to the very edge of the rocks, crouching with my knees to my chest.
“What are you doing?” Isabel yells.
If I can, I’m going to slide into the water without those things noticing. “I have a gift that can help us, but I need dirt!”
“Dirt?” she squeaks.
Farther down the ledge, Trinica flaps her arms to catch my attention. “I can see them from here,” she calls. “Go on my count.”
So instead of looking down, I look at Trinica as she studies the water, expression intent. She’s old enough to be my parent, with a cool head under pressure to show for it. She holds up a hand, head swiveling as she tracks the three creatures. “Go!”
I slide in as gently and soundlessly as I can without a splash, then duck underneath and swim for the bottom fast. I feel along the rock wall, pressure pressing in on my ears painfully, but I keep going until—thank the gods—I hit a patch of sand. Unzipping the compartment where I stored them, I pull out a few of Boone’s dragon teeth.
I think I hear Hades’ voice in my head shouting, Faster, Lyra.
I shove three teeth into the sand and bury them, then swim up, gasping for air when I hit the surface. No time to figure out if I’m hallucinating. That will have to come later.
“When you see bones, jump into the water and swim for Samuel, and he’ll pull you out,” I yell up at Zai and Isabel.
“Bones? There’s something wrong with her,” Zai says to Isabel.
“You can tell her after we all get out of this alive,” Isabel snaps. “Get back on the rocks,” she yells at me.
Keeping my head out of the water so I can hear any shouted warnings, I get moving. Any second now, my bone soldiers should sprout. Any second now.
I’m reaching for Samuel’s hand when Meike yells, “Behind you!”
I don’t know if she’s yelling at me or the others, but all it takes is a look over my shoulder to find out. A black-and-red kelp-leafed ridge protrudes from the water, winding back and forth like a serpent, swimming straight at me.
Spinning away from Samuel, I drop under the water, ignoring the stinging of my eyes as I search, weapon ready. I am not going to be eaten today, damn it. Not in my first Labor.
The monster zeroes in on me, cutting through the water wicked fast. I desperately search for its weak point, a place to cleave its slender body with all those leaflike appendages. If I do this wrong, I’m just going to piss it off.
With my luck…
As it shoots forward, jaws wide, I lunge to the side and see a different way. In a snap decision, instead of chopping at the monster, I wrap my arms around its slender, slick body, riding it like a bucking bronco.
The thing goes wild in my grasp, thrashing and flipping. It tries to leap out of the water, and I get one breath of air as I breach the surface. When the monster and I come back down, instead of trying to get out of my grasp, it turns on me, not to bite me but to wrap its kelpy body around me like a constrictor, so fast that it almost pins my arms, but I manage to get one out.
The thing is crushing me as it drags me deeper into the water, squeezing tighter and tighter and tighter. If it doesn’t drown me first, it’s going to pulverize me. I stab and stab at the trunk of its body, but it’s not working. I’m not hitting anything vital enough to stop it.
Out of nowhere, a white blade slices through the water, coming straight down into the top of the monster’s head. Immediately, it goes limp.
29
Dragon Teeth
I stare at a skeleton soldier, shield and sword and everything, all made of bleached-white bone, but instead of legs, it has a tail like a mermaid. Adapted for the environment it was born into? That’s a bonus.
By the time I manage to wriggle out of the sea monster’s coils, made extra difficult by all its leafy parts, my lungs are near to bursting. I shove off the rocks to try to get up to the surface as quickly as possible. My body screams, desperate for a breath, but I haven’t reached the surface. I can’t. I suck in salt water just as Samuel grabs my hand and drags me out.
I land on my stomach, coughing and spluttering. It takes way too long to rid my body of the water in my lungs. Every inhale is so painful I expect to start coughing blood.
“What are those?” someone at the other end shouts. I know exactly what they’re looking at. Three of them. That’s how many dragon teeth I used.
“Kill the sea monsters!” I order the soldiers made of bones.
The water erupts in a battle of creature against creature as we all watch in horror. “Isabel, Zai, swim!” Samuel yells.
They both jump off the post and make it to us, where Samuel hauls them out one at a time. Isabel lands on the rocks beside me.
“You’re bleeding.” I sit up for a closer look at her leg. Two rows of jagged cuts seeping blood line her calf. The sea monster must’ve gotten a bite in while she was on the post.
Isabel whips her shirt over her head, leaving her in a sports bra, and ties it around the wound.
