The Battle of the Labyrinth

and forth as the geysers sprayed them from all directions. Mountains of poop began to melt like ice.
    The tugging sensation became more intense, painful even, but there was something exhilarating about seeing all that salt water. I had made this. I had brought the ocean to this hillside.
    Stop, lord! a horse cried. Stop, please!
    Water was sloshing everywhere now. The horses were drenched, and some were panicking and slipping in the mud. The poop was completely gone, tons of it just dissolved into the earth, and the water was now starting to pool, trickling out of the stable, making a hundred little streams down toward the river.
    “Stop,” I told the water.
    Nothing happened. The pain in my gut was building. If I didn’t shut off the geysers soon, the salt water would run into the river and poison the fish and plants.
    “Stop!” I concentrated all my might on shutting off the force of the sea.
    Suddenly the geysers shut down. I collapsed to my knees, exhausted. In front of me was a shiny clean horse stable, a field of wet salty mud, and fifty horses that had been scoured so thoroughly their coats gleamed. Even the meat scraps between their teeth had been washed out.
    We won’t eat you! the horses wailed. Please, lord! No more salty baths!
    “On one condition,” I said. “You only eat the food your handlers give you from now on. Not people. Or I’ll be back with more seashells!”
    The horses whinnied and made me a whole lot of promises that they would be good flesh-eating horses from now on, but I didn’t stick around to chat. The sun was going down. I turned and ran full speed toward the ranch house.
    I smelled barbecue before I reached the house, and that made me madder than ever, because I really love barbecue.
    The deck was set up for a party. Streamers and balloons decorated the railing. Geryon was flipping burgers on a huge barbecue cooker made from an oil drum. Eurytion lounged at a picnic table, picking his fingernails with a knife. The two-headed dog sniffed the ribs and burgers that were frying on the grill. And then I saw my friends: Tyson, Grover, Annabeth, and Nico all tossed in a corner, tied up like rodeo animals, with their ankles and wrists roped together and their mouths gagged.
    “Let them go!” I yelled, still out of breath from running up the steps. “I cleaned the stables!”
    Geryon turned. He wore an apron on each chest, with one word on each, so together they spelled out: KISS— THE—CHEF. “Did you, now? How’d you manage it?”
    I was pretty impatient, but I told him.
    He nodded appreciatively. “Very ingenious. It would’ve been better if you’d poisoned that pesky naiad, but no matter.”
    “Let my friends go,” I said. “We had a deal.”
    “Ah, I’ve been thinking about that. The problem is, if I let them go, I don’t get paid.”
    “You promised!”
    Geryon made a tsk-tsk noise. “But did you make me swear on the River Styx? No you didn’t. So it’s not binding. When you’re conducting business, sonny, you should always get a binding oath.”
    I drew my sword. Orthus growled. One head leaned down next to Grover’s ear and bared its fangs.
    “Eurytion,” Geryon said, “the boy is starting to annoy me. Kill him.”
    Eurytion studied me. I didn’t like my odds against him and that huge club.
    “Kill him yourself,” Eurytion said.
    Geryon raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
    “You heard me,” Eurytion grumbled. “You keep sending me out to do your dirty work. You pick fights for no good reason, and I’m tired of dying for you. You want to fight the kid, do it yourself.”
    It was the most un-Areslike thing I’d ever heard a son of Ares say.
    Geryon threw down his spatula. “You dare defy me? I should fire you right now!”
    “And who’d take care of your cattle? Orthus, heel.”
    The dog immediately stopped growling at Grover and came to sit by the cowherd’s feet.
    “Fine!” Geryon snarled. “I’ll deal with you later, after the boy is dead!”
    He picked up two carving knives and threw them at me. I deflected one with my sword. The other impaled itself in the picnic table an inch from Eurytion’s hand.
    I went on the attack. Geryon parried my first strike with a pair of red-hot tongs and lunged at my face with a barbecue fork. I got inside his next thrust and stabbed him right through the middle chest.
    “Aghhh!” He crumpled to his knees. I waited for him to disintegrate, the way monsters usually do. But instead he just grimaced