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“That part, the books got right,” she told us. “They have scaly skin that is near impossible to penetrate. They have enormous size and strength on their side. They’re the children of Uranus and Gaia. It’s said that as long as they maintain a connection with the earth, their mother, any hurt they sustain will be healed.”

Coco grimaced. “We need to sneak by him.”

“Wait. Didn’t Heracles defeat some of them?” I asked.

Stheno nodded. “It was foretold that only a mortal could kill a giant, not any of the gods. Heracles, as a hero, was mortal. He also had poison-tipped arrows he used to great effect. Zeus helped one time by sending a lightning bolt, but that just stunned the giant. Heracles had to come in with the arrow to finish him off.”

“We have an axe, two swords, a fireball, and a death ray,” I whispered. “No arrows. Are they like Cyclopes? Do they have bad eyesight?”

Stheno shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe. Their eyes are so high above whatever they’re looking at on the ground…maybe.”

“Unless, like this one,” Bracken interjected, “he’s already on the ground.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” I said. “Okay, back to Coco’s point. Let’s try to go past him as quietly as possible. If he wakes, Stheno goes for the high beam and Coco shoots fireballs at his face. Even if you don’t hit his eyes, it’s got to be distracting to take fire to the head. Bracken and I will hack at his ankles to see if we can sever his Achilles tendon to keep him from chasing us.”

“And then we all run like hell?” Coco asked.

I nodded. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

I patted Bracken’s arm. “Can you make our footsteps silent?”

He nodded, twitching his fingers in a spell.

I unsheathed my axe and took the lead, going back into the cavern. Bracken’s balls of light dimmed and hovered close to our feet. Basically, they helped us not trip. I was pretty sure, given where the snores seemed to emanate, that I was heading around his feet.

We were succeeding in being super sneaky until it all went south. We’d finally made it to his feet—which, let me just say, were hideously crusty, with long, cracked toenails—when we heard his snore cut short. He moved, rolling onto his side. When he did, one of his feet kicked out and came dangerously close to hitting Stheno. Her snakes reacted, many of them sinking their fangs into a toe.

His grunt was loud in the sudden silence, as was the groan as he heaved himself up to a sitting position.

“Run!” Coco whisper-screamed and we all took off running.

On a roar, the floor shook as the giant rolled to his hands and knees. A hairy hand the size of a Zamboni crashed down in front of Coco, who had the reflexes to jump out of the way while shooting a fireball at his wrist.

He dove at us and crashed onto the tiles, making the ground bounce again. Stheno lost her footing, but Bracken caught her and kept running with a hand on her elbow. She brushed him off and then swung around so she was right in front of the giant with her eye patch flipped up.

Eyes screwed shut, the giant balled a fist and brought it down right where she’d been standing before Bracken threw a spell, sliding her out of the way. Coco took advantage of his mouth being open on a roar to send a fireball down his throat.

He fell back choking, and we sprinted. Unfortunately, he recovered quickly—no doubt because all the broken tiles revealed his earth mother—and covered the length of the hall before we could get there.

Two massive tree trunks blocked the exit. A giant mitt of a hand swept down, knocking Bracken to the floor before snatching Coco up into the air. I raced toward his ankles and swung with all my might, trying to fell the tree. Bracken leapt up and did the same, hacking at his other ankle.

There was a burst of light from above and then a howl of pain. Bracken quickly threw a spell at the floor and then went back to hacking. I looked up to see Coco in her dragon scales, flying around the giant’s head and spitting fire.

The giant’s hands shot out, trying to catch Coco and squish her. Luckily, she was faster and her fire was hitting him square in the face. I’d expected him to shake off the injury, like he had the first time she hit him with fire, but he didn’t. Then I realized that whatever spell Bracken had thrown must have done something to the floors to separate the giant from the earth.

Blood spurted and my focus shifted from the air fight to Bracken. He’d finally cut through the Giant’s leathery, scaly skin. I was still chopping but hadn’t managed it yet. Stheno moved forward and held up a hand to Bracken.

Sweating, he dropped his arms and she moved closer, letting her snakes bite the torn flesh. When I cut through a minute later, she came to my side as well. Her snakes bit the ragged flesh again.

“I still have the Chimera’s venom coursing through me,” she said. “Now he has it poisoning him.”

“Kick ass!” I went back to trying to chop the giant down, while watching Coco dive and feint, breathing fire on our enemy. It was brilliant.

Finally, on a groan of pain, the giant dropped to his knees. His burned hand whipped behind him, trying to capture Bracken, but my great-uncle was able to duck out of the way, swinging his sword at the burned flesh of the giant’s hand.

The howl of pain echoing through the cavern made me feel guilty for half a second, but then his other hand came for me. I swung, burying my axe into his palm, but it didn’t stop his fingers from closing around me.

Coco was still flying around his head, but now she had to be careful of hitting me. I could feel his fingers trying to crush me, but the axe was still embedded in him, cutting muscles or tendons or something. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t able to sustain his squishes.