~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

Fire Boy

   Coals sparked. Leo closed his eyes, and Piper screamed, "No!"

   A firestorm erupted around him. When Leo opened his eyes he was bathed in flames swirling twenty feet into the air.

   Ma Gasket shrieked with delight, but Leo didn't offer the fire any good fuel. The kerosene burned off, dying down to small fiery patches on the floor.

   Piper gasped. "Leo?"

   Kiara was at a loss for words. She wasn't sure if she had imagined what had just happened. "How—"

   Ma Gasket looked astonished. "You live?" Then she took that extra step forward, which put her right where Leo wanted. "What are you?"

   "The son of Hephaestus," Leo said. "And I warned you I'd destroy you with fire." He pointed one finger in the air and shot a bolt of white-hot flames at the chain suspending the engine block above the Cyclops's head—aiming for the link that looked weaker than rest.

   The flames died. Nothing happened. Ma Gasket laughed. "An impressive try, son of Hephaestus. It's been many centuries since I saw a fire user. You'll make a spicy appetizer!"

   The chain snapped—that single link heated beyond its tolerance point—and the engine block fell, deadly and silent.

   "I don't think so," Leo said.

   Ma Gasket didn't even have time to look up.

   Smash! No more Cyclops—just a pile of dust under a five-ton engine block.

   "Not immune to engines, huh?" Leo said. "Boo-yah!" Then he fell to his knees, his head buzzing. After a few minutes he realized Piper was calling his name.

   "Leo! Are you alright? Can you move?"

   He stumbled to his feet. He'd never tried to summon such an intense fire before, and it had left him completely drained.

   It took him a long time to get Piper down from her chains. Then together they lowered Kiara, who helped them lower Jason, who was still unconscious. Piper managed to trickle a little nectar into his mouth, and he groaned. The welt on his head started to shrink. His color came back a little.

   "Yeah, he's got a nice thick skull," Leo said. "I think he's gonna be fine."

   "Thank gods," Piper sighed. Then she looked at Leo with something like fear. "How did you—the fire—have you always... ?"

   Leo looked down. "Always," he said. "I'm a freaking menace. Sorry, I should've told you guys sooner but—"

   "Sorry?" Kiara ran to him and hugged him tightly—so tightly that he thought his ribs would break. When she let go, Leo looked up and saw her eyes were still teary, but her voice was steady. "That was amazing, Valdez! You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?"

    Leo blinked. He started to smile, but his sense of relief was ruined when he noticed something next to Piper's foot. Yellow dust—the powdered remains of one of the Cyclopes, maybe Torque—was shifting across the floor like an invisible wind was pushing it back together.

   "They're forming again," Leo said. "Look."

   Piper stepped away from the dust. "That's not possible. Annabeth told me monsters dissipate when they're killed. They go back to Tartarus and can't return for a long time."

   "Well, nobody told the dust that." Kiara watched as it collected into a pile, then very slowly spread out, forming a shape with arms and legs. She approached it and kicked it, scattering the sand.

   "Oh, gods." Piper turned pale. "Boreas said something about this—the earth yielding up horrors. 'When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades.' How long do you think we have?"

   Leo thought about the face that had formed in the ground outside—the sleeping woman who was definitely a horror from the earth. "I don't know," he said. "But we need to get out of here."

   "Leo, help me carry Jason," Kiara ordered.

   Leo nodded and together, they lifted Jason, Kiara holding his feet as much as she could with one broken arm, while Leo held him from his armpits.

   "Gods, he's heavy," Leo groaned as they carried him out of the warehouse, marching as fast as they could, Piper leading the way.

   "Well, he is a 6 feet tall, muscled demigod," Kiara said through heavy breaths. "What did you expect?"

   "For him to not be this heavy," Leo replied.

They finally arrived at Festus's side—who had unfortunately fallen in a Porta-Potty sludge so the whole place smelled intoxicated.

   Piper climbed and sat on the saddle, and Leo and Kiara handed Jason—with great difficulty—to her. She placed Jason in front of her, wrapping her hands around him so that he wouldn't fall off.

   Kiara felt a tinge of jealousy when Piper wrapped her hands around Jason, but she pushed the feeling away and climbed on Festus right after Leo did, and sat behind him. She saw him lean over Festus's head and tug at the multiple colorful wires in the control panel.

   "Need a hand?" Kiara asked him.

   Leo turned around to look at her. "Do you know anything about mechanics?"

   "Uh, no." She hesitated. "Thank you for saving our asses back there. I— I had started to lose hope and I think I—"

   Leo put a hand on Kiara's shoulder. "Hey, we're friends. That's what friends do. We save each other's asses." He grinned and Kiara laughed.

   "Back there, when Ma Gasket mentioned the son of Mercury—"

   Kiara looked away. Tears were starting to sting her eyes again. "I don't want to talk about it."

   "Sorry," Leo said. "But you remembered something, didn't you?"

   Kiara paused and watched the snow fall softly on the mud below. "I did. Look, I don't want to talk about it right now." She hoped Leo got the memo that she, in fact, didn't ever want to talk about it.

   Apparently, Leo did get the memo. He turned back and continued tugging at the wires, occasionally summoning little flames in his palm.

   There was a roar in the distance and Piper spoke, "Uh, guys, I think the Cyclopes have reformed."

   Kiara looked back. The doors of the warehouse flew open and three very angry-looking Cyclopes ran out of it. For ten feet tall bulky giants, the Cyclopes were pretty fast. "Leo, hurry up!"

   "I just need a minute," Leo said.

   "We don't have a minute!" Piper shouted. "They are getting closer!"

   "Done!" Leo announced. As if his proclamation triggered Festus, the bronze dragon whirred to life and they took off.

   They had just gone up a hundred feet when Ma-Gasket grabbed a car and threw it at them, but thankfully they were high enough that the car missed them and fell down, on top of Torque, who disintegrated under the weight of the automobile.

They flew in silence for a while.

   "Kiara," Leo said, just loud enough for the dark haired girl to hear, "I understand if you don't want to talk about it—and I don't want to push—but I'm really curious about—"

   "He was my best friend," Kiara said, so silently that Leo had to lean back to hear what she said. "He went on a quest. He told me he would be back, but never returned. I don't know what happened to the other two people who went with him, but I think they survived."

   Leo was silent for a while. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "What was his name?"

   A tear left Kiara's eye at the thought of her best friend she couldn't really remember. She felt guilty for forgetting him. She made a mental note to talk to Hera about why the hell she would steal her memories of her best friend. "Jeremy. Jeremy Walker."