Finally, my hands couldn’t take any more. “Stop.”

Don and I managed to set down Jason’s coffin a moment before I would’ve dropped it. Deep red gouges marred my fingers. Blisters were beginning to form on my palms. I felt like I’d just played a nine-hour set of dueling jazz guitar with Pat Metheny, using a six-hundred-pound iron Fender Stratocaster.

“Ow,” I muttered, because I was once the god of poetry and have great descriptive powers.

“We can’t rest long,” Lavinia warned. “My sentry shift must have ended by now. My partner’s probably wondering where I am.”

I almost wanted to laugh. I’d forgotten we were supposed to be worried about Lavinia playing hooky along with all our other problems. “Will your partner report you?”

Lavinia stared into the dark. “Not unless she has to. She’s my centurion, but she’s cool.”

“Your centurion gave you permission to sneak off?” I asked.

“Not exactly.” Lavinia tugged at her Star of David pendant. “She just kinda turned a blind eye, you know? She gets it.”

Don chuckled. “You mean having a crush on someone?”

“No!” Lavinia said. “Like, just standing on guard duty for five hours straight. Ugh. I can’t do it! Especially after all that’s happened recently.”

I considered the way Lavinia fiddled with her necklace, viciously chewed her bubble gum, wobbled constantly about on her gangly legs. Most demigods have some form of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. They are hardwired to be in constant movement, jumping from battle to battle. But Lavinia definitely put the H in ADHD.

“When you say ‘all that’s happened recently…’” I prompted, but before I could finish the question, Don’s posture stiffened. His nose and goatee quivered. I’d spent enough time in the Labyrinth with Grover Underwood to know what that meant.

“What do you smell?” I demanded.

“Not sure…” He sniffed. “It’s close. And funky.”

“Oh.” I blushed. “I did shower this morning, but when I exert myself, this mortal body sweats—”

“It’s not that. Listen!”

Meg faced the direction we’d come. She raised her swords and waited. Lavinia unslung her manubalista and peered into the shadows ahead of us.

Finally, over the pounding of my own heartbeat, I heard the clink of metal and the echo of footsteps on stone. Someone was running toward us.

“They’re coming,” Meg said.

“No, wait,” said Lavinia. “It’s her!”

I got the feeling Meg and Lavinia were talking about two different things, and I wasn’t sure I liked either one.

“Her who?” I demanded.

“Them where?” Don squeaked.

Lavinia raised her hand and shouted, “I’m here!”

“Shhhh!” Meg said, still facing the way we’d come. “Lavinia, what are you doing?”

Then, from the direction of Camp Jupiter, a young woman jogged into our circle of light.

She was about Lavinia’s age, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with dark skin and amber eyes. Curly brown hair fell around her shoulders. Her legionnaire greaves and breastplate glinted over jeans and a purple T-shirt. Affixed to her breastplate was the insignia of a centurion, and strapped to her side was a spatha—a cavalry sword. Ah, yes…I recognized her from the crew of the Argo II.

“Hazel Levesque,” I said. “Thank the gods.”

Hazel stopped in her tracks, no doubt wondering who I was, how I knew her, and why I was grinning like a fool. She glanced at Don, then Meg, then the coffin. “Lavinia, what’s going on?”

“Guys,” Meg interrupted. “We have company.”

She did not mean Hazel. Behind us, at the edge of the light from Meg’s swords, a dark form prowled, its blue-black skin glistening, its teeth dripping saliva. Then another, identical ghoul emerged from the gloom behind it.

Just our luck. The eurynomoi were having a kill one, get two free special.

Ukulele song?

No need to remove my guts

A simple “no” works

“OH,” DON SAID IN a small voice. “That’s what smells.”

“I thought you said they travel in pairs,” I complained.

“Or threes,” the faun whimpered. “Sometimes in threes.”

The eurynomoi snarled, crouching just out of reach of Meg’s blades. Behind me, Lavinia hand-cranked her manubalista—click, click, click—but the weapon was so slow to prime, she wouldn’t be ready to fire until sometime next Thursday. Hazel’s spatha rasped as she slid the blade from its scabbard. That, too, wasn’t a great weapon for fighting in close quarters.

Meg seemed unsure whether she should charge, stand her ground, or drop from exhaustion. Bless her stubborn little heart, she still had Jason’s diorama wedged under her arm, which would not help her in battle.

I fumbled for a weapon and came up with my ukulele. Why not? It was only slightly more ridiculous than a spatha or a manubalista.

My nose might have been busted from the hearse’s air bag, but my sense of smell was sadly unaffected. The combination of ghoul stench with the scent of bubble gum made my nostrils burn and my eyes water.

“FOOD,” said the first ghoul.

“FOOD!” agreed the second.

They sounded delighted, as if we were favorite meals they hadn’t been served in ages.

Hazel spoke, calm and steady. “Guys, we fought these things in the battle. Don’t let them scratch you.”

The way she said the battle made it sound like there could only be one horrible event to which she might be referring. I flashed back to what Leo Valdez had told us in Los Angeles—that Camp Jupiter had suffered major damage, lost good people in their last fight. I was beginning to appreciate how bad it must have been.

“No scratches,” I agreed. “Meg, hold them at bay. I’m going to try a song.”

My idea was simple: strum a sleepy tune, lull the creatures into a stupor, then kill them in a leisurely, civilized fashion.

I underestimated the eurynomoi’s hatred of ukuleles. As soon as I announced my intentions, they howled and charged.

I shuffled backward, sitting down hard on Jason’s coffin. Don shrieked and cowered. Lavinia kept cranking her manubalista. Hazel yelled, “Make a hole!” Which in the moment made no sense to me.

Meg burst into action, slicing an arm off one ghoul, swiping at the legs of the other, but her movements were sluggish, and with the diorama under one arm, she could only use a single sword effectively. If the ghouls had been interested in killing her, she would’ve been overwhelmed. Instead, they shoved past her, intent on stopping me before I could strum a chord.

Everyone is a music critic.

“FOOD!” screamed the one-armed ghoul, lunging at me with its five remaining claws.

I tried to suck in my gut. I really did.

But, oh, cursed flab! If I had been in my godly form, the ghoul’s claws never would have connected. My hammered-bronze abs would have scoffed at the monster’s attempt to reach them. Alas, Lester’s body failed me yet again.

The eurynomos raked its hand across my midsection, just below my ukulele. The tip of its middle finger—barely, just barely—found flesh. Its claw sliced through my shirt and across my belly like a dull razor.