THERE WAS NO more talking as they followed the table tracks deeper into the woods. The birds were silent. No monsters growled. It was as if all the other living creatures in the woods had been smart enough to leave.

Finally they came to a clearing the size of a mall parking lot. The sky overhead was heavy and gray. The grass was dry yellow, and the ground was scarred with pits and trenches as if there had been explosions. In the center of the clearing stood a pile of boulders about thirty feet tall. Briar recognized this place.

"Oh," she said. "This isn't good."

"Why?" Leo asked.

"It's bad luck to be here," Jason said. "This is the battle site."

Leo scowled. "What battle?"

Briar raised her eyebrows. "How can you not know about it? The other campers talk about this place all the time."

"Been a little busy," Leo said.

"The Battle of the Labyrinth." Briar rolled her eyes, but she explained to Leo how the pile of rocks used to be called Zeus's Fist, back when it looked like something, not just a pile of rocks. There'd been an entrance to a magical labyrinth here, and a big army of monsters had come through it to invade camp. The campers won — obviously, since camp was still here — but it had been a hard battle. Several demigods had died. The clearing was still considered cursed.

"Great," Leo grumbled. "Buford has to run to the most dangerous part of the woods. He couldn't just, like, run to the beach or a burger shop."

"Speaking of which . . ." Jason studied the ground. "How are we going to track him? There's no trail here."

Briar casually strolled into the clearing. They searched for table tracks, but as they made their way to the pile of boulders they found nothing.

"If I had more time," Leo said, "I could make a tracking device, but—"

"Does Buford have a round tabletop?" Briar interrupted, spotting something in the distance. "With little steam vents sticking up on one side?"

Leo stared at her. "How did you know?"

"Because he's right over there." She pointed.

Buford was waddling toward the far end of the clearing, steam puffing from his vents. As they watched, he disappeared into the trees.

"That was easy." Jason started to follow, but Leo held him back.

The hairs on the back of Briar's neck stood up. She realized she could hear voices from the woods on their left.

"Someone's coming!" Leo warned.

He pulled her and Jason behind the boulders.

Jason whispered, "Leo—"

"Shh!"

A dozen barefoot girls skipped into the clearing. They were teenagers with tunic-style dresses of loose purple and red silk. Their hair was tangled with leaves, and most wore laurel wreaths. Some carried strange staffs that looked like torches. The girls laughed and swung each other around, tumbling in the grass and spinning like they were dizzy. They were all really gorgeous, but Briar wasn't tempted to flirt. She had a girlfriend.

She sighed. "They're just nymphs, Leo."

Leo gestured frantically at her to stay down. He whispered, "Crazy cousins!"

Her eyes widened. Right. How could she have been so dumb, even for a second?

As the nymphs got closer, Briar started to notice odd details about them. Their staffs weren't torches. They were twisted wooden branches, each topped with a giant pinecone, and some were wrapped with living snakes. The girls' laurel wreaths weren't wreaths, either. Their hair was braided with tiny vipers. The girls smiled and laughed and sang in Ancient Greek as they stumbled around the glade. They appeared to be having a great time, but their voices were tinged with a sort of wild ferocity. If the Aphrodite cabin could sing, Briar thought they would sound like this.

"Are they drunk?" Jason whispered.

The girls did act like that, but Briar thought there was something else going on. She was glad the nymphs hadn't seen them yet.

Then things got complicated. In the woods to their right, something roared. The trees rustled, and a drakon burst into the clearing, looking sleepy and irritated, as if the nymphs' singing had woken it up.

Briar had seen plenty of monsters in the woods. The camp intentionally stocked them as a challenge to campers. But this was bigger and scarier than most.

The drakon was about the size of a subway car. It had no wings, but its mouth bristled with daggerlike teeth. Flames curled from its nostrils. Silvery scales covered its body like polished chain mail. When the drakon saw the nymphs, it roared again and shot flames into the sky.

Briar had a flashback of a different drakon . . . Reyna tackling her to the ground . . . treating a bunch of burns . . . a messy kiss, with lips sliding against each other . . .

She didn't even notice what was happening until Jason elbowed her. She shook off her deja vu and saw a nymph in a blood-red dress do a cartwheel and land in front of the drakon. "Are you Dionysus?" she asked hopefully.

It seemed like a stupid question. True, Briar had never met Dionysus — at least she didn't think so — but she was pretty sure the god of wine wasn't a fire-breathing drakon.

The monster blasted fire at the girl's feet. She simply danced out of the kill zone. The drakon lunged and caught her arm in its jaws. Briar winced, sure the nymph's limb would be torn apart right before her eyes, but she yanked it free, along with several broken drakon teeth. Her arm was perfectly fine. The drakon made a sound somewhere between a growl and a whimper.

"Naughty!" the girl scolded. She turned to her cheerful friends. "Not Dionysus! He must join our party!"

A dozen nymphs squealed in delight and surrounded the monster.

Briar squinted, because she had no clue what she was looking at. "What are they — holy shit!"

She didn't usually feel sorry for monsters, but what happened next was truly horrifying. The girls threw themselves at the drakon. Their cheerful laughter turned into vicious snarling. They attacked with their pinecone staffs, with fingernails that turned into long white talons, with teeth that elongated into wolfish fangs.

The monster blew fire and stumbled, trying to get away, but the teenage girls were too much for him. The nymphs ripped and tore until the drakon slowly crumbled into powder, its spirit returning to Tartarus.

Jason made a gulping sound. Briar had seen her best friend in all sorts of dangerous situations, but she'd rarely seen him look quite so pale. The last time she thought she'd seen him like that was when he'd accidentally walked in on Piper changing. That was awhile ago.

Briar looked down, trying not to throw up. She remembered killing the drakon she'd seen in her memory but not without much trouble, which included a panic attack after seeing Reyna's blood. After seeing that, with the blood-red dress and the ichor coming out from the drakon . . . she wouldn't blame herself if she threw up right there.

Leo's voice trembled slightly. "I read about these nymphs. They're followers of Dionysus. I forget what they're called—"

"Maenads." Briar shivered. "I've heard of them. I thought they only existed in ancient times. They attended Bac — sorry, Dionysus's parties. When they got too excited . . ."

She pointed toward the clearing. She didn't need to say more. Brooke the naiad had warned them. Her crazy cousins ripped their victims to pieces.

"We have to get out of here," Jason said.

"But they're between us and Buford!" Leo whispered. "And we've only got—" He checked his watch. "Thirty minutes to get the syncopator installed!"

"Maybe I can fly us over to Buford." Jason shut his eyes tight.

Briar knew Jason had controlled the wind before — just one of the advantages of being the most amazing son of Zeus — but this time, nothing happened.

Jason shook his head. "I don't know . . . the air feels agitated. Maybe those nymphs are messing things up. Even the wind spirits are too nervous to get close."

The air feels agitated? Briar mouthed to Leo. Can the air feel feelings?

He promptly ignored her, glancing back the way they'd come. "We'll have to retreat to the woods. If we can skirt around the Maenads—"

"Guys," Briar squeaked in alarm.

The Maenads were approaching, climbing the rocks with absolute silence even creepier than their laughter. They peered down from the tops of the boulders, smiling prettily, their fingernails and teeth back to normal. Vipers coiled through their hair.

"Hello!" The girl in the blood-red dress beamed at Leo. "Are you Dionysus?"

"Yes!" Leo yelped. "Absolutely. I am Dionysus."

Oh, lord.

The nymph clapped her hands in delight. "Wonderful! My lord Dionysus? Really?"

Jason and Briar rose, weapons ready, but she hoped it didn't come to a fight. She'd seen how fast these nymphs could move, no matter how much she didn't. If they decided to go into food-processor mode, she doubted she and her boys would stand a chance.

The Maenads giggled and danced and pushed each other around. Several fell off the rocks and landed hard on the ground. That didn't seem to bother them. They just got up and kept frolicking.

Briar nudged Leo in the ribs. "Um, Lord Dionysus, what are you doing?"

"Everything's cool." Leo looked at them like, Everything's really, really not cool. "The Maenads are my attendants. I love these guys."

The Maenads cheered and twirled around him. Several produced goblets from thin air and began to chug . . . whatever was inside.

The girl in red looked uncertainly at Briar and Jason. "Lord Dionysus, are these two sacrifices for the party? Should we rip them to pieces?"

"No, no!" Leo said. "Great offer, but, um, you know, maybe we should start small. With, like, introductions."

The girl narrowed her eyes. "Surely you remember me, my lord. I am Babette."

"Um, right!" Leo said. "Babette! Of course."

"And these are Buffy, Muffy, Bambi, Candy—" Babette rattled off a bunch more names that all kind of blended together. Briar looked over at Leo, wanting to ask him why he'd gotten them into this mess. But he looked like he was trying not to scream. That might've been because two of the Maenads were running their hands over Jason's shoulders and giggling.

Babette stepped closer to Leo. She smelled like pine needles. Her curly dark hair spilled over her shoulders and freckles splashed across her nose. A wreath of coral snakes writhed across her forehead.

Nature spirits usually had a greenish tinge to their skin from chlorophyll, but these Maenads looked like their blood was cherry Kool-Aid. Their eyes were severely bloodshot. Their lips were redder than normal. Their skin was webbed with bright capillaries. Briar was literally about to throw up.

"An interesting form you've chosen, my lord." Babette inspected Leo's face and hair. "Youthful. Cute, I suppose. Yet . . . somewhat scrawny and short."

"Scrawny and short?" Leo repeated, and Briar would've snickered if not for the bile in her throat. "Well, you know. I was going for cute, mostly."

The other Maenads circled Leo, smiling and humming. Briar felt bad, but at least she wasn't him.

"So, my lord." Babette ran her fingers down Leo's arm. "Where have you been? We've searched for so long!"

"Where have I—?" Leo frowned. "Oh, you know. I've been doing, um, wine stuff. Yeah. Red wine. White wine. All those other kinds of wine. Love that wine. I've been so busy working—"

"Work!" Muffy the Maenad shrieked, pressing her hands over her ears.

"Work!" Buffy wiped her tongue as if trying to scrub away the horrible word.

The other Maenads dropped their goblets and ran in circles, yelling, "Work! Sacrilege! Kill work!" Some began to grow long claws. Other slammed their heads against the boulders, which seemed to hurt the boulders more than their heads.

"He means partying!" Briar shouted, getting her wits about her. "Partying! Lord Dionysus has been busy partying all over the world."

Slowly, the Maenads began to calm down.

"Party?" Bambi asked cautiously.

"Party!" Candy sighed with relief.

"Yeah!" Leo shot Briar a grateful look. She rolled her eyes. Why is she the one who has to bail them out of these situations? "Ha-ha. Partying. Right. I've been so busy partying."

Babette kept smiling, but not in such a friendly way. She fixed her gaze on Briar. "Who is this one, my lord? A recruit for the Maenads, perhaps?"

"Oh," Leo said. "She's my, uh, party planner."

I'm gonna plan your death out if you don't get us out of this situation, Briar thought, but she bit her lip so she wouldn't say anything stupid.

"Party!" yelled another Maenad, possibly Trixie.

"What a shame." Babette's fingernails began to grow. "We can't allow mortals to witness our sacred revels."

"But I could be a recruit!" Briar said quickly. "Do you guys have a website? Or a list of requirements? Er, do you have to be drunk all the time?"

"Drunk!" Babette said. "Don't be silly. We're underage Maenads. We haven't graduated to wine yet. What would our parents think?"

"You have parents?" Jason shrugged the Maenads' hands off his shoulders.

"Not drunk!" Candy yelled. She turned in a dizzy circle and fell down, spilling white frothy liquid from her goblet.

Jason cleared his throat. "So . . . what are you guys drinking if it isn't wine?"

Babette laughed. "The beverage of the season! Behold the power of the thyrsus rod!"

She slammed her pinecone staff against the ground and a white geyser bubbled up. "Eggnog!"

Maenads rushed forward to fill their goblets.

"Merry Christmas!" one yelled.

"Party!" another said.

"Kill everything!" said a third.

"You're . . . drunk on eggnog?" Briar asked. "Christmas was two months ago!"

"Whee!" Buffy sloshed her eggnog and gave Leo a frothy grin. "Kill things! With a sprinkle of nutmeg!"

Briar decided never to drink eggnog again.

"But enough talk, my lord," Babette said. "You've been naughty, keeping yourself hidden! You changed your e-mail and phone number. One might think the great Dionysus was trying to avoid his Maenads!"

Jason removed another girl's hands from his shoulders. "Can't imagine why the great Dionysus would do that."

Babette sized up Jason. "This one is a sacrifice, obviously. We should start the festivities by ripping him apart. The party planner girl can prove herself by helping us!"

"Or," Leo said, "we could start with some appetizers. Crispy Cheese 'n' Wieners. Taquitos. Maybe some chips and queso. And . . . wait, I know! We need a table to put them on."

Babette's smile wavered. The snakes hissed around her pinecone staff. "A table?"

"Cheese 'n' Wieners?" Trixie added hopefully.

"Yeah, a table!" Leo snapped his fingers and pointed toward the end of the clearing. "You know what — I think I saw one walking that way. Why don't you guys wait here, and drink some eggnog or whatever, and my friends and I will go get the table. We'll be right back!"

He started to leave, but two of the Maenads pushed him back. The push didn't seem exactly playful.

Babette's eyes turned an even deeper red. "Why is my lord Dionysus so interested in furniture? Where is your leopard? And your wine cup?"

Leo gulped. "Yeah. Wine cup. Silly me." He reached into his tool bag. He pulled out a wrench.

"Hey, look at that," he said weakly. "There's some godly magic right there, huh? What's a party without . . . a lug wrench?"

The Maenads stared at him. Some frowned. Others were cross-eyed from the eggnog.

Jason stepped to his side. "Hey, um, Dionysus . . . maybe we should talk. Like, in private. You know . . . about party stuff."

"We'll be right back!" Briar announced. "Just wait here, you guys. Okay?"

The Maenads didn't appear moved. Of course they could resist charmspeak. Even hers.

"No, you will stay." Babette's eyes bored into Leo's. "You do not act like Dionysus. Those who fail to honor the god, those who dare to work instead of partying — they must be ripped apart. And anyone who dares to impersonate the god, he must die even more painfully."

"Wine!" Leo yelped. "Did I mention how much I love wine?"

Babette didn't look convinced. "If you are the god of parties, you will know the order of our revelries. Prove it! Lead us!"

"Sure!" Leo's voice squeaked. "Revelries. So we start with the Hokey Pokey—"

Trixie snarled. "No, my lord. The Hokey Pokey is second."

"Right," Leo said. "First is the limbo contest, then the Hokey Pokey. Then, um, pin the tail on the donkey—"

"Wrong!" Babette's eyes turned completely red. The Kool-Aid darkened in her veins, making a web of red lines like ivy under her skin. Briar hated the look of it. "Last chance, and I'll even give you a hint. We begin by singing the Bacchanalian Jingle. You do remember it, don't you?"

Briar put her hand on his arm. "Of course he remembers it." Run, she practically told them.

Jason's knuckles turned white on the hilt of his sword.

Leo cleared his throat and started singing something that was awful. Briar could've sang them the Baby Shark song and it would've been better.

After a few lines, Candy hissed. "That is not the Bacchanalian Jingle! That is the theme song for Psych!"

"Kill the unbelievers!" Babette screamed.

in which i don't get rick riordan's timing in the demigod diaries for this side story. seriously, they save hera on december 21st, then two months later it's christmas.

<3 maybel