Free The Heroes of Olympus: The Demigod Diaries by Rick Riordan

brick-paved streets, a glass hotel, and an elevated train track that had been turned into a park with trees and wildflowers. I remembered my mom and stepdad taking me there a few years ago when it first opened.
    “That’s the High Line park,” I said. “In the Meatpacking District.”
    “Yeah,” Annabeth agreed. “But where’s the giant?”
    She frowned in concentration. The shield zoomed in on an intersection blocked off with orange barricades and detour signs. Construction equipment sat idle in the shadow of the High Line. Chiseled in the street was a big square hole, cordoned off with yellow police tape. Steam billowed from the pit.
    I scratched my head. “Why would the police seal off a hole in the street?”
    “I remember this,” Annabeth said. “It was on the news yesterday.”
    “I don’t watch the news.”
    “A construction worker got hurt. Some freak accident way below the surface. They were digging a new service tunnel or something, and a fire broke out.”
    “A fire,” I said. “As in, maybe a fire-breathing giant?”
    “That would make sense,” she agreed. “The mortals wouldn’t understand what was happening. The Mist would obscure what they really saw. They’d think the giant was just like—I don’t know—a gas explosion or something.”
    “So let’s catch a cab.”
    Annabeth gazed wistfully across the Great Lawn. “First sunny day in weeks, and my boyfriend wants to take me to a dangerous cave to fight a fire-breathing giant.”
    “You’re awesome,” I said.
    “I know,” Annabeth said. “You’d better have something good planned for dinner.”

    The cab dropped us off on West 15th. The streets were bustling with a mix of sidewalk vendors, workers, shoppers, and tourists. Why a place called the Meatpacking District was suddenly a hot area to hang out, I wasn’t sure. But that’s the cool thing about New York. It’s always changing. Apparently even monsters wanted to stay here.
    We made our way to the construction site. Two police officers stood at the intersection, but they didn’t pay us any attention as we turned up the sidewalk and then doubled back, ducking behind the barricades.
    The hole in the street was about the size of a garage door. Pipe scaffolding hung over it with a sort of winch system, and metal climbing rungs had been fastened into the side of the pit, leading down.
    “Ideas?” I asked Annabeth.
    I figured I’d ask. Being the daughter of the goddess of wisdom and strategy, Annabeth likes making plans.
    “We climb down,” she said. “We find the giant. We get the caduceus.”
    “Wow,” I said. “Both wise and strategic.”
    “Shut up.”
    We climbed over the barricade, ducked under the police tape, and crept toward the hole. I kept a wary eye on the police, but they didn’t turn around. Sneaking into a dangerous steaming pit in the middle of a New York intersection proved disturbingly easy.
    We descended. And descended.
    The rungs seemed to go down forever. The square of daylight above us got smaller and smaller until it was the size of a postage stamp. I couldn’t hear the city traffic anymore, just the echo of trickling water. Every twenty feet or so, a dim light flickered next to the ladder, but the descent was still gloomy and creepy.
    I was vaguely aware that the tunnel was opening up behind me into a much larger space, but I stayed focused on the ladder, trying not to step on Annabeth’s hands as she climbed below me. I didn’t realize we’d reached the bottom until I heard Annabeth’s feet splash.
    “Holy Hephaestus,” she said. “Percy, look.”
    I dropped next to her in a shallow puddle of muck. I turned and found that we were standing in a factory-sized cavern. Our tunnel emptied into it like a narrow chimney. The rock walls bristled with old cables, pipe, and lines of brickwork—maybe the foundations of old buildings. Busted water pipes, possibly old sewer lines, sent a steady drizzle of water down the walls, turning the floor