Chapter 12
Piper once again had to use her charmspeak to get Air Traffic Control to let their unscheduled helicopter land at the Oakland airport. They unloaded on the tarmac, and everyone looked at Piper.
“What now?” Jason asked her.
Piper was uncomfortable with this situation. She’d only sent them to this particular place because she remembered that he’d flown into Oakland, which meant his private plane was still here. She was thinking of her dad and his condition… but they were all thinking about how today was the solstice. They had to save Hera. They had no idea where to go or if they were even too late.
“First thing,” she said. “I—I have to get my dad home. I’m sorry, guys.”
Their faces fell. They’d had hoped she had their next step, now she was trying to leave them. “Oh,” Leo said. “I mean, absolutely. He needs you right now. We can take it from here.”
“Pipes, no.” Her dad had been sitting in the helicopter doorway, a blanket around his shoulders. But he stumbled to his feet. “You have a mission. A quest. I can’t—”
“I’ll take care of him,” said Coach Hedge.
Piper stared at him. The satyr was the last person any of them expected to offer. “You?” she asked.
“I’m a protector,” Gleeson said. “That’s my job, not fighting.” He sounded a little crestfallen, He was still a little disappointed he’d gotten knocked out in the last battle. Hedge straightened, and set his jaw. “Of course, I’m good at fighting, too.” He glared at them all, daring them to argue.
“Yes,” Jason said.
“Terrifying,” Leo agreed.
The coach grunted. “But I’m a protector, and I can do this. Your dad’s right, Piper. You need to carry on with the quest.”
“But ...” Piper’s eyes stung, as if she were back in the forest fire. “Dad ...” He held out his arms, and she hugged him. He felt frail. He was trembling so much, it scared her.
“Let’s give them a minute,” Jason said, and they took the pilot a few yards down the tarmac. The McLeans didn’t need an audience for what came next.
The Father daughter pair argued on who failed the other more while coming to terms with their new realities that included understanding the other’s point of view and rationalizations. The vial from Aphrodite was both a relief and a disappointment for them both. It wasn’t quite time for Piper’s new reality to become her father’s. Someday they might share that world, even if Tristian McLean only ever saw the shiny edge of it. But now was not the time.
Tristian McLean took the vial.
“I love you, Pipes.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
He drank the pink liquid. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he slumped forward. Piper caught him, and the boys ran to help. “Got him,” Hedge said. The satyr stumbled, but he was strong enough to hold Tristan McLean upright. “I already asked our ranger friend to call up his plane. It’s on the way now. Home address?”
Piper was about to tell him, when a thought occurred to her. She checked her dad’s pocket, and his BlackBerry was still there. It seemed bizarre that he’d still have something so normal after all he’d been through, but she guessed Enceladus hadn’t seen any reason to take it. “Everything’s on here,” Piper said. “Address, his chauffeur’s number. Just watch out for Jane.”
Hedge’s eyes lit up, like he sensed a possible fight. “Who’s Jane?”
By the time Piper explained, her dad’s sleek white Gulf-stream had taxied next to the helicopter. Hedge and the flight attendant got Piper’s dad on board. Then Hedge came down one last time to say his good-byes. He gave Piper a hug and glared at Jason and Leo. Of course, the old satyr threatened the boys to protect Piper, they both agreed with him nodding at his threats, Piper got another hug and reassurance from their coach.
Everyone who needed to be was now on the plane. The remaining people watched the plane heading down the runaway, Piper started to cry. She’d been holding it in too long and she just couldn’t anymore. Before she knew it, Jason was hugging her, while Leo stood uncomfortably nearby, pulling Kleenex out of his tool belt.
“Your dad’s in good hands,” Jason said. “You did amazing.”
She sobbed into his shirt. She allowed herself to be held for six deep breaths. Seven. Then she couldn’t indulge herself anymore. They needed her. The helicopter pilot was already looking uncomfortable, like she was starting to wonder why she’d flown them here.
“Thank you, guys,” Piper said. “I—” She wanted to tell them how much they meant to her. They’d sacrificed everything, maybe even their quest, to help her. She couldn’t repay them, couldn’t even put her gratitude into words. She didn’t need to, they understood.
Right next to Jason, the air began to shimmer. At first it was mistaken as thought it was heat off the tarmac, or maybe gas fumes from the helicopter. They were wrong. It was an Iris message. An image appeared in the air. Jason stumbled back in surprise. “Thalia!”
“Thank the gods,” said the Hunter. The scene behind her was hard to make out, but they heard yelling, metal clashing on metal, and explosions. They were obviously fighting.
“We’ve found her,” Thalia said. “Where are you?”
“Oakland,” he said. “Where are you?”
“The Wolf House! Oakland is good; you’re not too far. We’re holding off the giant’s minions, but we can’t hold them forever. Get here before sunset, or it’s all over.”
“Then it’s not too late?” Piper cried. Hope surged through her, but Thalia’s expression quickly dampened it.
“Not yet,” Thalia said. “But Jason—it’s worse than I realized. Porphyrion is rising. Hurry.”
“But where is the Wolf House?” he pleaded.
“Our last trip,” Thalia said, her image starting to flicker. “The park. Jack London. Remember?” This made no sense to Piper or Leo. Jason looked and felt like he’d been shot. He tottered, his face pale, and the Iris message disappeared.
“Bro, you all right?” Leo asked. “You know where she is?”
“Yes,” Jason said. “Sonoma Valley. Not far. Not by air.”
Piper turned to the ranger pilot, who’d been watching all this with an increasingly puzzled expression. “Ma’am,” Piper said with her best smile. “You don’t mind helping us one more time, do you?”
“I don’t mind,” the pilot agreed.
“We can’t take a mortal into battle. It’s too dangerous.” Jason turned to Leo. “Do you think you could fly this thing?”
“Um ...” Leo’s expression didn’t exactly reassure anyone. Until Leo put his hand on the side of the helicopter, concentrating hard, listening to the machine. “Bell 412HP utility helicopter,” Leo said with full confidence “Composite four-blade main rotor, cruising speed twenty-two knots, service ceiling twenty-thousand feet. The tank is near full. Sure, I can fly it.”
Piper smiled at the ranger again. “You don’t have a problem with an under-aged unlicensed kid borrowing your copter, do you? We’ll return it.”
“I—” The pilot nearly choked on the words, but she got them out: “I don’t have a problem with that.”
Leo grinned. “Hop in, kids. Uncle Leo’s gonna take you for a ride.” Leo had already done plenty of crazier things that week. Why not add one more?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sun was going down as they flew north over the Richmond Bridge. The day had gone so quickly, nothing like ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly. Leo was piloting the chopper going back and forth between confidence and panic. If Leo didn’t think about it, he found himself automatically flipping the right switches, checking the altimeter, easing back on the stick, and flying straight. If he allowed himself to consider what he was doing, he started freaking out. He imagined his Aunt Rosa yelling at him in Spanish, telling him he was a delinquent lunatic who was going to crash and burn. Part of him suspected she was right.
“Going okay?” Piper asked from the co-pilot’s seat. She sounded more nervous than he was.
Leo put on a brave face. “Aces,” he said. “So, what’s the Wolf House?”
Jason knelt between their seats. “An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it—Jack London.”
Leo couldn’t place the name. “He an actor?”
“Writer,” Piper said. “Adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “He was a Son of Mercury, I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion, the Wolf House.”
“Named that ’cause he wrote about wolves?” Leo guessed.
“Partially,” Jason said. “But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves. He was dropping hints about his personal experience. There’re a lot of holes in his life story. How he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much, stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod.”
The bay slipped behind them, and the helicopter continued north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as Leo could see. “So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood,” Leo guessed.
“No,” Jason said. “No, he didn’t.”
“Bro, you’re freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you remembering your past or not?”
“Pieces,” Jason said. “Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It’s where London started his journey as a child, where he found out he was a demigod. That’s why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn’t meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site.”
“So,” Piper said, “how do you know all this?”
A shadow crossed Jason’s face. Probably just a cloud, but Leo could swear the shape looked like an eagle. The worst part his mind wasn’t even playing tricks on him.
“I started my journey there too,” Jason said. “It’s a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion, that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully.”
“Maybe you can use that Lighting bolt on her. The one you used to smite Enceladus.” Piper stated
“I didn’t do that. I think it was my father.” Jason answered. “I prayed to him shortly before it happened.”
“So are we ignoring that Zeus and Hera were dead.” Piper added “But then again, we are on a rescue mission for Hera… I hate this.”
“Umm… Normally I’d wait on this but have you guys noticed how they’ve been talking about the gods?” Leo kept his hand on the joystick, guiding the chopper at full speed, racing toward the north.
“What do you mean?” Jason asked
Leo was half focused on the weather ahead. A spot of darkness like a cloudbank or a storm, right where they were going. “They’re acting like there are two different situations going on. Like ours at Camp half-blood are being open, they care that we know what’s happening. Hades is the King and they recognize that. But the Moment they start calling Jason ‘Son of Jupiter’ they start acting like Zeus is alive and in charge. Like he never died. Worst that Olympus is closed off.”
Jason and Piper shared looks… “Is it possible for there to be a Greek and a Roman pantheon at the same time?” Piper asked looking at the others hoping they’d say no… Jason looked like he was half panicked and sort of shrugged like he wanted to say yes but he really didn’t know. Piper frowned “Wouldn’t other demi-gods have found them by now if there were.”
“Not if the Gods were hiding it.” Jason stated “all of the gods… It would explain what they’ve been dancing around.”
“Not just the Gods. I think Nico made an off-handed comment about it before we left when I was fixing Festus. He couldn’t explain. I think this is the secret.” Leo muttered. Jason looked at him startled, feeling this odd feeling almost like he was being left behind… but not jealousy.
“Wait… Jason knows this area, but Coach kept calling it Titan territory…” Piper muttered
Leo looked at her wide eyed. “Could that be how they’re separating us?” Leo asked
“A warning to keep the Greeks from wandering into the Romans... That does seem to fit the best. Greeks were more known to explore while Rome was more into conquering.” Piper muttered knowing more about this then the boys.
They all slipped into silence. Leo let his instincts take over, to just fly the helicopter. If he thought about the quest too much, or what might happen afterward, he’d panic. The trick was not to think. Just get through it. “Thirty minutes out,” he told his friends, though he wasn’t sure how he knew. “If you want to get some rest, now’s a good time.”
Jason strapped himself into the back of the helicopter and passed out almost immediately. Piper and Leo stayed wide-awake. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Leospoke up “Your dad’ll be fine, you know. Nobody’s gonna mess with him with that crazy goat around.”
Piper glanced over, and Leo was struck by how much she’d changed. Four days ago, Piper had been that kid trying not to be seen, hiding out in the back row of the classroom, to be as far as possible from the loud kids as she could. Now she was stronger, her presence was stronger. She seemed more here. She was now impossible to miss. It didn’t matter what she was wearing, you’d have to look at her.
“My dad,” she said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I know. I was thinking about Jason. I’m worried about him.”
Leo nodded. The closer they got to that bank of dark clouds, the more Leo worried, too. “He’s starting to remember. That’s got to make him a little edgy.”
“But what if ... what if he’s a different person?”
Leo had had the same thought. If the Mist could affect their memories, could Jason’s whole personality be an illusion, too? If their friend wasn’t their friend, and they were heading into a cursed mansion, dangerous to Demi-gods, what would happen if Jason’s full memory came back in the middle of a battle? He threw it all into the recycle bin. Nico wouldn’t care about Jason that much if this wasn’t his real personality. “Nah,” Leo decided. “After all we’ve been through? I can’t see it. We’re a team. Jason can handle it.”
Piper smoothed her dress, tattered and burned from their fight on Mount Diablo as it was. “I hope you’re right. I need to trust him...”
“I know,” Leo said. After seeing her dad break down, Leo understood Piper couldn’t afford to lose Jason as well. She’d just watched dad, reduced to near insanity. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she was now insecure about herself, too. If weakness was inherited, she’d be wondering, could she break down the same way her dad did? “Hey, don’t worry,” Leo said. “Piper, you’re the strongest, most powerful beauty queen I’ve ever met. You can trust yourself. For what it’s worth, you can trust me too.” The helicopter dipped in a wind shear, and Leo almost jumped out of his skin. He cursed and righted the chopper.
Piper laughed nervously. “Trust you, huh?”
“Ah, shut up, already.” But he grinned at her, and for a second, it felt like he was just relaxing comfortably with a friend. Until they hit the storm clouds. Sleet was pelting the windshield like rocks. Frost was building up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blotted out his view.
“An ice storm?” Piper shouted over the engine and the wind. “Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?”
Leo wasn’t sure, but something about this storm seemed conscious, in a malevolent way. It was intentionally slamming them. Jason woke up quickly due to noise and chaos. He crawled forward, grabbing their seats for balance. “We’ve got to be getting close.”
Leo was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly it wasn’t so easy to drive the chopper. Its movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn’t been prepped for cold-weather flying, or not to this level of cold flying. The controls refused to respond, and they started to lose altitude. They all had flashbacks to Festus’s last flight.
Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops. “There!” Jason shouted. A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around them were flashes of light that reminded Leo of the tracer fire at Midas’s compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. The combat was everywhere.
Leo set them down on the icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. It was a miracle he’d managed to land at all. Leo heard what was coming first, then saw the dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist. “Out!” Leo screamed. They leapt from the helicopter barely cleared the rotors, when the world’s largest ball of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage completely flattening it. They all hit the snow knocking the wind out of them. They were all fine except for being speckled with snow and mud.
“You alright?” Jason ran up to Leo, Piper at his side.
“Yeah.” Leo shivered. “Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter.”
Piper pointed south. “Fighting’s over there.” Then she frowned. “No ... it’s all around us.” The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell, but there was a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.
Jack London’s dream home loomed behind them. It was a massive ruin of red and gray stones with rough-hewn timber beams. A combination of log cabin and castle was what it probably looked like before it turned into the burnt-out structure that actually stood there. In the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel. Leo could totally believe the ruins were cursed. Then considered that Nico could probably make them haunted too.
“Jason!” Thalia appeared from the fog; her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before one of the Earthborn bursts out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.
“Look out!” Leo yelled. They rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control.
Thalia launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay. Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the point had snapped off. “That was my last one.” She kicked the pile of clay resentfully. “Stupid ogre.”
“Nice shot, though,” Leo said.
Thalia ignored Leo, still annoyed that this was apparently her brother’s type. She hugged Jason and nodded to Piper. “Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we’ll be overrun any minute.”
“By Earthborn?” Jason asked.
“And wolves—Lycaon’s minions.” Thalia blew a fleck of ice off her nose. “Also storm spirits—”
“But we gave them to Aeolus!” Piper protested.
“Who tried to kill us,” Leo reminded her. “Maybe he’s helping Gaea again.”
“I don’t know,” Thalia said. “But the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we’re surrounded. I don’t know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera.”
“Where is she?” Jason asked.
“Inside,” Thalia said. “We tried to free her, but we can’t figure out how to break the cage. It’s only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that’s the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don’t free Hera soon…” She didn’t need to finish the thought.
Leo, Jason, and Piper followed Thalia into the ruined mansion. Jason stepped over the threshold and immediately collapsed. “Hey!” Leo caught him. “None of that, man. What’s wrong?”
“This place ...” Jason shook his head. “Sorry ... It came rushing back to me.”
“So you have been here,” Piper said.
“We both have,” Thalia said. Her expression was grim, like she was reliving someone’s death. “This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared.”
“She gave me to the wolves,” Jason murmured. “At Hera’s insistence. She gave me to Lupa.”
“That part I didn’t know.” Thalia frowned. “Who is Lupa?”
An explosion shook the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billowed up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat. “Maybe this isn’t the time for questions,” Leo suggested. “Show us the goddess.”
Once inside, Jason seemed to get his bearings. The house was built in a giant U, and Jason led them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation. One of the spires was much bigger, a solid dark mass about twenty feet high, almost like a stone body bag. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils, he could make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature was stuck waist deep in the earth. No, other way around, it was coming out of the ground.
On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire was smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril was as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that not even Leo could’ve gotten his arm through, but they could see through them. There she was, Hera. Dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes. She didn’t glow or radiate any sort of power. She looked like a regular mortal woman.
Leo dropped into the pool and approached the cage. “Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?”
She crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. “Don’t inspect me like I’m one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!”
Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste… also more then a little at the goddess in it. There was a massive argument where Thalia admitted openly that she hated, resented and outright wanted to leave Hera right where she was. Hera being the arrogant Queen that she was, of course argued that it was well within her rights as a goddess to do what she did.
Only when Thalia was nearly in tears about the day she’d lost Jason, did her little brother encourage her to go help her hunters, not saying she was wrong to hate the goddess, only that it wasn’t the time for this. She left them to do that. Jason of course resented the Goddess just as much, snapping at her that he wasn’t her champion, even if he was gifted to her as such by his father. He wanted the rest of his memories, also the annoying goddess queen was still better then the giants… the king of which was in the second spire.
“Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again —my power. For months she cultivated my power before draining it. I’ve grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form.”
“So, you’re like a heat lamp,” Leo guessed. “Or fertilizer.” The goddess glared at him, but Leo didn’t care. This old lady had been making his life miserable since he was a baby. He totally had rights to rag on her. Jason had that same right along with Thalia.
“Joke all you wish,” Hera said in a clipped tone. “But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken.”
Leo frowned at the giant’s spire. “Can’t we blow it up or something?”
“Without me, you do not have the power,” Hera said. “You might as well try to destroy a mountain.”
“Done that once today,” Jason said.
“Just hurry up and let me out!” Hera demanded.
Jason scratched his head. “Leo, can you do it?”
“I don’t know.” Leo tried not to panic. “Besides, if she’s a goddess, why hasn’t she busted herself out?”
Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. “Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you’re intelligent. Once trapped, a god’s power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg—beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus.”
“Sounds fair,” Leo said.
Hera gave him the godly stink-eye. “I’ve watched you since you were a child, Son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you.”
“But it’s not a machine. It’s like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and ...” Leo felt dizzy. The line of their prophecy came back to him: The forge and dove shall break the cage. “Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I’m going to need your help. And we’re going to need time.”
Time wasn’t something they had as the air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, their lips cracked and their breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rushed in. Not like anything they’d seen before. These Venti were in the form of horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning. Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.
Piper drew her dagger. Jason did something he hadn’t expected out of pure habit, he flicked his wand into his hand. Leo reached into his tool belt, but he was so shaken up, all he produced was a tin of breath mints. He shoved them back in, hoping nobody had noticed, and drew a hammer instead.
One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for them to see. It was an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.
“Thalia!” Jason rushed forward, but Piper and Leo pulled him back. The ground around Thalia’s statue was already webbed with ice. they feared if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.
“Who did this?” Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity. “I’ll kill you myself!”
From behind the monsters, a girl’s clear and cold laughter rose. She stepped out of the mist the first woman they’d pissed off on their mission. The cold and beautiful problem that had haunted them since Quebec. Khione, the goddess of snow. She would not give them the time they needed to break the cage.
Jason was afraid and devastated in a way he had truly never felt before. His sister was frozen at his feet. He was surrounded by monsters. He’d broken his golden sword forgetting about the power at his hand for a moment. He had approximately five minutes until the king of the giants busted out and destroyed them. Jason had already pulled his biggest ace, calling down Jupiter’s lightning when he’d fought Enceladus, and he doubted he’d have the strength or the cooperation from above to do it again. Which meant his only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, a nervous Piper with a dagger, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness with breath mints, he missed the hammer that came next.
On top of all this, Jason’s worst memories were flooding back. He knew for certain he’d done many dangerous things in his life, but he’d never been closer to death than he was right now. Except maybe when Hari and Nico were involved, but that was their nature not because he was in danger of dying.
“What’ve you done?” Jason demanded if only to keep his sanity.
Khione smiled, her dark eyes glittering, as a dagger of ice grew in her hand. “Oh, so many things,” the snow goddess purred. “Your sister’s not dead, if that’s what you mean. She and her Hunters will make fine toys for our wolves. I thought we’d defrost them one at a time and hunt them down for amusement. Let them be the prey for once.” The wolves snarled appreciatively. “Yes, my dears.” Khione kept her eyes on Jason. “Your sister almost killed their king, you know. Lycaon’s off in a cave somewhere, no doubt licking his wounds, but his minions have joined us to take revenge for their master. And soon Porphyrion will arise, and we shall rule the world.”
“Traitor!” Hera shouted. “You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren’t worthy to pour my wine, much less rule the world.”
Khione sighed. “Tiresome as ever, Queen Hera. I’ve been wanting to shut you up for millennia.” Khione waved her hand, and ice encased the prison, sealing in the spaces between the earthen tendrils. “That’s better,” the snow goddess said. “Now, demigods, about your death—”
“You’re the one who tricked Hera into coming here,” Jason said. “You gave Jupiter the idea of closing Olympus.” At this point, he wasn’t sure it mattered which name he used.
The wolves snarled, and the storm spirits whinnied, ready to attack, but Khione held up her hand. “Patience, my loves. If he wants to talk, what matter? The sun is setting, and time is on our side. Of course, Jason Grace. Like snow, my voice is quiet and gentle, and very cold. It’s easy for me to whisper to the other gods, especially when I am only confirming their own deepest fears. I also whispered in Aeolus’s ear that he should issue an order to kill demigods. It is a small service for Gaea, but I’m sure I will be well rewarded when her sons the giants come to power.”
“You could’ve killed us in Quebec,” Jason said. “Why let us live?”
Khione wrinkled her nose. “Messy business, killing you in my father’s house, especially when he insists on meeting all visitors. I did try, you remember. It would’ve been lovely if he’d agreed to turn you to ice. But once he’d given you guarantee of safe passage, I couldn’t openly disobey him. My father is an old fool. He lives in fear of Zeus and Aeolus, but he’s still powerful. Soon enough, when my new masters have awakened, I will depose Boreas and take the throne of the North Wind, but not just yet. Besides, my father did have a point. Your quest was suicidal. I fully expected you to fail.”
“And to help us with that,” Leo said, “you knocked our dragon out of the sky over Detroit. Those frozen wires in his head, that was your fault. You’re gonna pay for that.”
“You’re also the one who kept Enceladus informed about us,” Piper added. “We’ve been plagued by snowstorms the whole trip.”
“Yes, I feel so close to all of you now!” Khione said. “Once you made it past Omaha, I decided to asked Lycaon to track you down so Jason could die here, at the Wolf House.” Khione smiled at him. “You see, Jason, your blood spilled on this sacred ground will taint it for generations. Your demigod brethren will be outraged, especially when they find the bodies of these two from Camp Half-Blood. They’ll believe the Greeks have conspired with giants. It will be ... delicious.”
Piper and Leo didn’t seem to understand what she was saying, but they were getting the pieces quickly enough. Jason knew. His memories were returning enough for him to realize how dangerously effective Khione’s plan could be. Nico wouldn’t even be able to keep this from blowing up. “You’ll set demigods against demigods,” he said.
“It’s so easy!” said Khione. “As I told you, I only encourage what you would do anyway.”
“But why?” Piper spread her hands. “Khione, you’ll tear the world apart. The giants will destroy everything. You don’t want that. Call off your monsters.”
Khione hesitated, then laughed. “Your persuasive powers are improving, girl. But I am a goddess. You can’t charmspeak me. We wind gods are creatures of chaos! I’ll overthrow Aeolus and let the storms run free. If we destroy the mortal world, all the better! They never honored me, even in Greek times. Humans and their talk of global warming. Pah! I’ll cool them down quickly enough. When we retake the ancient places, I will cover the Acropolis in snow.”
“The ancient places.” Leo’s eyes widened. “That’s what Enceladus meant about destroy the roots of the gods. He meant Greece.” He’d figured something out that the others weren’t even considering or remembered.
“You could join me, son of Hephaestus,” Khione said. “I know you find me beautiful. It would be enough for my plan if these other two were to die. Reject that ridiculous destiny the Fates have given you. Live and be my champion, instead. Your skills would be quite useful.”
Leo looked stunned. He glanced behind him, like Khione might be talking to somebody else. For a second Jason was worried. He figured Leo didn’t have beautiful goddesses make him offers like this every day. Even if all he wanted to do was launch her across the area just to keep her away from Leo… He wanted Leo to stay beside him.
Leo surprised them all when he laughed so hard, he doubled over. “Yeah, join you. Right. Until you get bored of me and turn me into a Leosicle? Lady, nobody messes with my dragon and gets away with it. I can’t believe I almost thought you were hot.”
Khione’s face turned red. “Hot? You dare insult me? I am cold, Leo Valdez. Very, very cold.” She shot a blast of wintry sleet at the demigods, but Leo held up his hand. A wall of fire roared to life in front of them, and the snow dissolved in a steamy cloud. Anger had a way of pulling power from the best of people. Leo grinned. “See, lady, that’s what happens to snow in Texas. It—freaking—melts.”
Khione hissed. “Enough of this. Hera is failing. Porphyrion is rising. Kill the demigods. Let them be our king’s first meal!”
The monsters charged. The wolf that launched itself at him was in for a very nasty surprise as Jason shouted “Bombarda!” The things head actually crumpled and exploded making it disintegrate into dust.
Jason turned toward the sound of hooves and saw a storm spirit horse bearing down on him. This wasn’t going to be the same, he needed movement. Jason concentrated and summoned the wind. Just before the spirit could trample him, Jason launched himself into the air, grabbed the horse’s smoky neck, and pirouetted onto its back.
The storm spirit reared. It tried to shake Jason, then tried to dissolve into mist to lose him; but somehow Jason stayed on. He willed the horse to remain in solid form, and the horse seemed unable to refuse. Jason could feel it fighting against him. He could sense its raging thoughts full of complete chaos straining to break free. It took all Jason’s willpower to impose his own wishes and bring the horse under control. He thought about Aeolus, overseeing thousands and thousands of spirits like this, some much worse. No wonder the Master of the Winds had gone a little mad after centuries of that pressure. But Jason had only one spirit to master, and he had to win.
“You’re mine now,” Jason said.
The horse bucked, but Jason held fast. Its mane flickered as it circled around the empty pool, its hooves causing miniature thunderstorms —tempests—whenever they touched. “Tempest?” Jason said. “Is that your name?” The horse spirit shook its mane, evidently pleased to be recognized accepting Jason as it’s rider. “Fine,” Jason said. “Now, let’s fight.”
He charged into battle, flicking his wand in a way that would make Hari proud, wolves crumpled and were launched into the air while plunging straight through other venti. Tempest was a strong spirit, and every time he plowed through one of his brethren, he discharged so much electricity, the other spirit vaporized into a harmless cloud of mist.
Through the chaos, Jason caught glimpses of his friends. Piper was surrounded by Earthborn; she was holding her own with great skill. She was so impressive-looking as she fought, actually glowing with beauty, that the Earthborn stared at her in awe, forgetting that they were supposed to kill her. They’d lower their clubs and watch dumbfounded as she smiled and charged them. They’d smile back, until she sliced them apart with her dagger, and they melted into mounds of mud.
Leo had taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should’ve been suicide, Leo was the right man for the job. She kept summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burned through all of it. His whole body flickered with red tongues of flame like he’d been doused with gasoline. He advanced on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-peen hammers to smash any monsters that got in his way.
Jason realized that Leo was the only reason they were still alive. His fiery aura was heating up the whole courtyard, countering Khione’s winter magic. Without him, they would’ve been frozen like the Hunters long ago. Wherever Leo went, ice melted off the stones. Even Thalia started to defrost a little when Leo stepped near her. It only made Leo all the more impressive to Jason.
Khione slowly backed away. Her expression went from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo got closer. Jason was running out of enemies. Wolves lay in dazed heaps if they weren’t just dust. Some slunk away into the ruins, yelping from their wounds. Piper stabbed the last Earthborn, who toppled to the ground in a pile of sludge. Jason rode Tempest through the last ventus, breaking it into vapor. Then he wheeled around and saw Leo bearing down on the goddess of snow.
“You’re too late,” Khione snarled. “He’s awake! And don’t think you’ve won anything here, demigods. Hera’s plan will never work. You’ll be at each other’s throats before you can ever stop us.” Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow—a white powdery image of herself. Leo’s hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.