~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

The Chariot

   "Venti," he said. "Storm spirits."

   "Okay. You acted like... like you'd seen them before. Who are you?" asked Piper.

   Jason shook his head. "That's what I've been trying to tell you guys. I don't know. I don't remember anything."

   The storm dissipated. The other kids from the Wilderness School were staring out the glass doors in horror. Security guards were working on the locks now, but they didn't seem to be having any luck as the doors insşsted on staying closed.

   "Coach Hedge said he had to protect four people," Jason remembered. "I think he meant us." He turned and looked at Kiara, who was standing at one side of the skywalk, watching them with an envious look in her coal black eyes. Dark strands of hair were sticking out of her short braids.

   "And that thing Dylan turned into..." Piper shuddered. "God, I can't believe it was hitting on me. He called us... what, demigods?"

   Leo lay on his back, staring at the sky, his hair like a brown halo around his head. He didn't seem anxious to get up. "Don't know what demi means," he said. "But I'm not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?"

   There was a brittle sound like dry twigs snapping, and the cracks in the skywalk began to widen. Kiara backed away to the edge of the skywalk, towards the wall and glass doors. Behind the doors, everyone watched with an expression of horror as the cracks grew wider under the four teens.

   "We need to get off this thing," Jason said. "Maybe if we—"

   "Guys," Kiara interrupted. She was pointing to something in the sky, her rings shimmering blindingly in the sunlight.

   "Ohh-kay," Leo spoke up, looking at where Kiara was pointing. "Look up there and tell me if those are flying horses."

   "Pegasi," Kiara muttered in awe.

   At first Jason thought Leo and Kiara had gone crazy. Then he saw a dark shape descending from the east—too slow for a plane, too large for a bird. As it got closer he could see a pair of winged animals—gray, four-legged, exactly like horses—except each one had a twenty-foot wingspan. And they were pulling a brightly painted wooden box with two wheels: a chariot.

   "Reinforcements," he said. "Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us."

   "Extraction squad?" Leo struggled to his feet and hugged his elbows. "That sounds painful."

   "And where are they extracting us to?" Piper asked.

   "Coach had said something about a camp," Kiara recalled. She had made her way next to the trio without them noticing. Her face looked slightly paler than it had been this morning.

   Jason watched as the chariot landed on the far end of the skywalk. The flying horses tucked in their wings and cantered nervously across the glass, as if they sensed it was near breaking. Two teenagers stood in the chariot—a tall blond girl maybe a little older than Jason, and a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. They both wore jeans and orange T-shirts, with shields tossed over their backs.

   The girl leaped off before the chariot had even finished moving. She pulled a knife and ran toward Jason's group while the bulky dude was reigning in the horses.

   "Where is he?" the girl demanded. Her gray eyes were fierce and a little startling.

   "Where's who?" Jason asked, trying to keep his neck away from the blade of the dagger.

   She frowned like his answer was unacceptable. Then she turned to Leo and Piper, not realizing Kiara was there too, playing with her rings, but keeping her gaze on the people in front of her. Jason hadn't noticed before, but her sword was nowhere to be seen. "What about Gleeson? Where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?"

   The coach's first name was Gleeson? Jason might've laughed if the morning hadn't been quite so weird and scary. Gleeson Hedge: football coach, goat man, protector of demigods. Sure. Why not?

   Kiara spoke up, making her presence known to the blonde. "He got taken by some storm spirits." She pointed to the sky where the storm was a few minutes ago. "They took him into a storm and disappeared."

   "The venti took him," Jason clarified.

   The blond girl arched an eyebrow. "You mean anemoi thuellai? That's the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?"

   Jason did his best to explain, though it was hard to meet those intense gray eyes. About halfway through the story, the other guy from the chariot came over. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. He had a tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps, which seemed a little unusual.

   When Jason had finished his story, the blonde girl didn't look satisfied. She started pacing, her head in her hands, her curly blonde hair hiding her face. "No, no, no! She told me he would be here! She told me if I came here, I'd find the answer!"

   "Annabeth," the bald guy grunted. "Check it out." He pointed at Jason's feet.

   Jason hadn't thought much about it, but he was still missing his left shoe, which had been blown off by the lightning. His bare foot felt okay, but it looked like a lump of charcoal.

   "The guy with one shoe," said the bald dude. "He's the answer."

   "No, Butch," the girl insisted. "He can't be. I was tricked." She glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. "What the fuck do you want from me?!" she screamed, her eyes glossy and full of rage. "What have you done with him?!"

   The skywalk shuddered. The cracks widened even more and the horses whinnied urgently.

   "Annabeth," said the bald dude, Butch, "we gotta leave. Let's get these three to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back and I don't want to be here if they do."

   Annabeth fumed for a moment. "Fine." She fixed Jason with a resentful look. "We'll settle this later." She turned on her heel and marched toward the chariot.

   Piper shook her head. "What's her problem? What's going on?"

   "Seriously," Leo agreed.

   Kiara just stared after Annabeth, a look of awe and surprise on her face.

   "We have to get you out of here," Butch said. "I'll explain on the way."

   "I'm not going anywhere with her." Jason gestured toward the blonde. "She looks like she wants to kill me."

   Butch hesitated. "Annabeth's okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem."

   "What problem?" Piper asked.

   "She's been looking for one of our campers, who's been missing three days," Butch said. "Everyone has been looking for him. She's going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he'd be here."

   "Who?" Jason asked.

   "Her boyfriend," Butch said. "A guy named Percy Jackson."