Rick Riordan
The Battle of the Labyrinth - 04
I didn’t’ feel like we were hostages or anything. Eurytion walked alongside us with his club
across his shoulder. Orthus the two-headed dog growled a lot and sniffed at Grover’s legs and shot
into the bushes once in a while to chase animals, but Eurytion kept him more or less under control.
We walked down a dirt path that seemed to go on forever. It must’ve been close to a
hundred degrees, which was a shock after San Francisco. Heat shimmered off the ground. Insects
buzzed in the trees. Before we’d gone very far, i was sweating like crazy. Flies swarmed us. Every
so often we’d see a pen full of red cows or even stranger animals. Once we passed a corral where
the fence was coated in asbestos. Inside, a herd of fire-breathing horses milled around. The hay in
their feeding trough was on fire. The ground smoked around their feet, but the horses seemed tame
enough. One big stallion looked at me and whinnied, columns of red flame billowing out his nostrils.
I wondered if it hurt his sinuses.
“What are they for?” I asked.
Eurytion scowled. “We raise animals for lots of clients. Apollo, Diomedes, and…others.”
“Like who?”
“No more questions.”
Finally we came out of the woods. Perched on a hill above us was a big ranch house—all
white stone and wood and big windows.
“It looks like a Frank Lloyd Wright!” Annabeth said.
I guess she was talking about some architectural thing. To me it just looked like the kind of
place where a few demigods could get into serious trouble. We hiked up the hill.
“Don’t break the rules,” Eurytion warned as we walked up the steps to the front porch. “No
fighting. No drawing weapons. And don’t make any comments about the boss’s appearance.”
“Why?” I asked. “What does he look like?”
Before Eurytion could reply, a new voice said, “Welcome to the Triple G Ranch.”
The man on the porch had a normal head, which was a relief. His face was weathered and
brown from years in the sun. He had a slick black hair and a black pencil moustache like villains
have in old movies. He smiled at us, but the smile wasn’t friendly; more amused, like Oh boy, more
people to torture!
I didn’t ponder that very long, though, because then I noticed his body…or bodies. He had
three of them. Now you’d think I would’ve gotten used to weird anatomy after Janus and Briares, but
this guy was three complete people. His neck connected to the middle chest like normal, but he had
two more chests, one to either side, connected at the shoulders, with a few inches between. His left
arm grew out of his left chest, and the same on the right, so he had two arms, but four armpits, if
that makes any sense. The chests all connected into one enormous torso, with two regular but very
beefy legs, and he wore the most oversized pair of Levis I’d ever seen. His chests each wore a
different color Western shirt—green, yellow, red, like a stoplight. I wondered how he dressed the
middle chest, since it had no arms.
The cowherd Eurytion nudged me. “Say Hello to Mr. Geryon.”
“Hi,” I said. “Nice chests—uh, ranch! Nice ranch you have.”
Before the three-bodied man could respond, Nico di Angelo came out of the glass doors onto
the porch. “Geryon, I won’t wait for—”
He froze when he saw us. Then he drew his sword. The blade was just like I’d seen in my
dream; short, sharp, and dark as midnight.
Geryon snarled when he saw it. “Put that away, Mr. di Angelo. I ain’t gonna have my guests
killin’ each other.”
“But that’s—”
“Percy Jackson,” Geryon supplied. “Annabeth Chase. And a couple of their monster friends.
Yes, I know.”
“Monster friends?” Grover said indignantly.
“That man is wearing three shirts,” Tyson said, like he was just realizing this.
“They let my sister die!” Nico’s voice trembled with rage. “They’re here to kill me!”
“Nico, we’re not here to kill you.” I raised my hands. “What happened to Bianca was—”
“Don’t speak her name! You’re not worthy to even talk about her!”
“Wait a minute,” Annabeth pointed at Geryon. “How do you know our names?”
The three-bodied man winked. “I make it my business to keep informed, darlin’. Everybody
50