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MONOCLE MOTORS
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LAVIANA DIDN'T RELAX UNTIL THE GLOW OF Quebec City faded behind them.
"You were amazing," Jason told Piper.
She said something in French.
"What'd you say?" Jason asked.
"I said I only talked to Boreas. It wasn't so amazing."
Laviana pursed her lips. "Are you sure about that, Piper?"
"Yes," she snapped, with more insensitivity than Laviana thought necessary.
Laviana shrugged, though she still felt a little unsettled. She was keeping that piece of information for later on. "Whatever you say, beauty queen."
"Don't call me that."
"What? It's a compliment."
Leo passed them some sandwiches from his pack. He'd been quiet ever since they'd told him what happened in the throne room. "I still can't believe Khione," he said. "She looked so nice."
"Trust me, man," Jason said. "Snow may be pretty, but up close it's cold and nasty. We'll find you a better prom date."
Leo didn't look pleased. He hadn't said much about his time in the palace, or why the Boreads had singled him out for smelling like fire. It was obvious he had some secret he was hiding about fire, but Laviana had no idea what.
Whatever it was, his mood seemed to be affecting Festus, who grumbled and steamed as he tried to keep himself warm in the cold Canadian air. Happy the Dragon was not so happy.
They ate their sandwiches as they flew. Laviana had no idea how Leo had stocked up on supplies, but he'd even remembered to bring veggie rations for Piper.
Nobody talked. Whatever they might find in Chicago, they all knew Boreas had only let them go because he figured they were already on a suicide mission.
The moon rose and stars turned overhead. Laviana's eyes started to feel heavy. Now that she had a full stomach, her adrenaline was fading.
"Jason," she said. "I'm taking a nap. Mind if I use your back for a headrest?"
"Go ahead," he offered.
She laid her head on Jason's shoulder and drifted off to sleep.
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Laviana had come to the conclusion that demigod dreams suck.
She was pretty sure that was obvious and she had probably said it many times, but she felt the need to point it out again.
She was sitting on a fluffy white cloud, which somehow supported her weight, looking down on New York City. The city didn't look well. For one, fires trailed up and out of buildings, as if people hadn't been able to turn their stove off. There were sounds of battle throughout and the horrid shapes monsters could be seen. The place was in chaos.
Then it happened.
A guttural scream cut through the city. Laviana could see the ground tremble. The seas churned and swirled without stop. Like a god was losing their temper.
Oh, my dear, a soft feminine voice purred. This was not the work of a god.
Laviana flinched, turning towards the source, but she couldn't pin it down. She could feel the cloud become heavier under her weight.
"Who are you?" She demanded. "What do you want?"
What do I want? The voice gave a soft laugh. I only want your loyalty.
"Fat chance!" Laviana shouted.
Are you sure? It's a much better deal then what Hera wants from you. She wants you to shut up and be silent until she calls for your services, a nice little pawn. But then how much are you worth to her, really, if she let you die?
"Hera doesn't think anyone is 'worth' anything besides herself," Laviana argued. "Only if they give her something."
That's true enough, but still, Hera doesn't value you as she should. With you and your cousin involved, it's a dangerous game. That miserable goddess was a fool to not realize it sooner.
You Laviana James, have potential. And I can help you reach it.
Laviana didn't want to believe her, really she didn't...but she wasn't lying.
Then suddenly the cloud broke, and Laviana woke, free falling through the air.
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Laviana tumbled though the sky. Far below she saw city lights glimmering in the early dawn, and several hundred yards away the body of the bronze dragon spinning out of control, its wings limp, fire flickering in its mouth like a badly wired lightbulb.
A body shot past her—Leo, screaming and frantically grabbing at the clouds. "Not coooooool!"
She tried to call to him, but he was already too far below.
Somewhere above her, Jason yelled, "Level out! Extend your arms and legs!"
It was hard to control her fear, but Laviana did what he said and regained some balance. She fell spread-eagle like a skydiver, the wind underneath her like a solid block of ice. Out of the copier of her eye, Laviana could see Piper doing the same.
Then Jason was there, wrapping his arms around Piper's waist, stopping their fall.
"We have to get Leo and Laviana!" Piper shouted.
All of a sudden, they slammed into her in midair, Piper and Jason wrapping their arms around her. They continued falling until they crashed into another warm body—Leo, still wriggling and cursing.
"Stop fighting!" Jason said. "It's me!"
"My dragon!" Leo yelled. "You gotta save Festus!"
Jason was already struggling to keep the four of them aloft, and Laviana knew there was no way he could help a fifty-ton metal dragon. But before she could try to reason with Leo, she heard an explosion below them. A fireball rolled into the sky from behind a warehouse complex, and Leo sobbed, "Festus!"
Jason's face reddened with strain as he tried to maintain an air cushion beneath them, but intermittent slow-downs were the best he could manage. Rather than free-falling, it felt like they were bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time, which wasn't doing Laviana's stomach any favors.
As they wobbled and zigzagged, Laviana could make out details of the factory complex below—warehouses, smokestacks, barbed-wire fences, and parking lots lined with snow-covered vehicles. They were still high enough so that hitting the ground would flatten them into roadkill—or skykill —when Jason groaned, "I can't—"
And they dropped like stones.
The wand, Laviana, a female voice urged, this one different from the one in her dream. The wand! Use it!
She hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through into darkness.
Her hand moved on its own. She pulled her wand out of her pocket as well as she could, and drew an R with the tip, whispering, "Raido."
She didn't recognize her own voice as she said it, but immediately her fall slowed. She stopped at a halt, hovering slightly over the ground, right before dropping the rest of the way.
Laviana groaned and turned, only for her eyes to widen. Piper had landed next to her. It looked like she had tried to land on her feet, but that was a very bad decision. She crumpled on the catwalk, her ankle dislocated.
Then Laviana heard Jason's voice somewhere below, echoing through the building. "Laviana! Piper! Where are they?"
"Ow, bro!" Leo groaned. "That's my back! I'm not a sofa! Piper, Vin, where'd you go?"
"Here," Laviana said, "up on the catwalk."
She heard shuffling and grunting, then feet pounding on metal steps.
The hole they'd made in the roof was a ragged starburst twenty feet above. How the others had even survived that drop, she had no idea. Hanging from the ceiling, a few electric bulbs flickered dimly, but they didn't do much to light the enormous space. Next to Piper, the corrugated metal wall was emblazoned with a company logo, but it was almost completely spray-painted over with graffiti. Down in the shadowy warehouse, she could make out huge machines, robotic arms, half-finished trucks on an assembly line. The place looked like it had been abandoned for years.
Jason and Leo reached them.
Leo started to ask, "You okay ... ?" Then he saw Piper's foot. "Oh no, you're not."
"Thanks for the reassurance," Piper groaned.
"You'll be fine," Jason said, though Laviana could hear the worry in his voice. "Leo, you got any first aid supplies?"
"Yeah—yeah, sure." He dug around in his tool belt and pulled out a wad of gauze and a roll of duct tape—both of which seemed too big for the belt's pockets. Laviana had noticed the tool belt yesterday morning, but she hadn't thought to ask Leo about it. It didn't look like anything special—just one of those wraparound leather aprons with a bunch of pockets, like a blacksmith or a carpenter might wear. And it seemed to be empty.
"How did you—" Piper tried to sit up, and winced. "How did pull that stuff from an empty belt?"
"Magic," Leo said. "Haven't figure it out completely, but I can summon just about any regular tool out of the pockets, plus some other helpful stuff."
He reached into another pocket and pulled out a little tin box. "Breath mint?"
Jason snatched away the mints. "That's great, Leo. Now, can you fix her foot?"
"I'm a mechanic, man. Maybe if she was a car ..." He snapped his fingers. "Wait, what was that godly healing stuffthey fed you at camp—Rambo food?"
"Ambrosia," Laviana corrected, slinging off her bag. "I have some here."
She rummaged through the supplies the Hermes kids had packed for her, and found a Ziploc full of smashed pastry squares like lemon bars. She broke off a piece and fed it to Piper.
"More," she said.
A memory almost came back to her, but it was gone and Laviana cursed. She shook her head and relayed the basic information. "Too much of this will eat up your insides and burn you to a crisp. We should try and set your foot."
"Have any of you done that before?" Piper asked.
"Yeah ... I think so," Jason said.
Laviana found an old piece of wood and broke it in half for a splint. Then Leo got the gauze and duct tape ready.
"Hold her leg still," Jason said. "Piper, this is going to hurt."
When Jason set the foot, Piper flinched so hard she punched Leo in the arm, and he yelled almost as much as she did. But at least her foot was pointing the right way, her ankle splinted with plywood, gauze, and duct tape.
"Ow," she said.
"Jeez, beauty queen!" Leo rubbed his arm. "Glad my face wasn't there."
"Sorry," she said. "And don't call me 'beauty queen,' or I'll punch you again."
"You both did great." Jason found a canteen in Piper's pack and gave her some water.
Laviana could hear the wind howling outside. Snowflakes fluttered through the hole in the roof, and after their meeting with Khione, snow was the last thing she wanted to see.
"What happened to the dragon?" Piper asked. "Where are we?"
Leo's expression turned sullen. "I don't know with Festus. He just jerked sideways like he hit an invisible wall and started to fall."
Leo pointed to the logo on the wall. "As far as where we are ..." It was hard to see through the graffiti, but Laviana could make out a large red eye with the stenciled words: monocle motors, assembly plant 1.
"Closed car plant," Leo said. "I'm guessing we crash- landed in Detroit."
Laviana had heard about closed car plants in Detroit, so that made sense. But it seemed like a pretty depressing place to land. "How far is that from Chicago?"
Jason handed Piper the canteen. "Maybe three-fourths of the way from Quebec? The thing is, without the dragon, we're stuck traveling overland."
"No way," Leo said. "It isn't safe."
Laviana thought about what King Boreas had said about the earth yielding up more horrors.
But suddenly her head ached, pounding in her skull.
Piper nodded. "He's right. Besides, I don't know if I can walk. And four people—Jason, you can't fly that many across country by yourself."
"No way," Jason said. "Leo, are you sure the dragon didn't malfunction? I mean, Festus is old, and—"
"And I might not have repaired him right?"
"I didn't say that," Jason protested. "It's just—maybe you could fix it."
"I don't know." Leo sounded crestfallen. He pulled a few screws out of his pockets and started fiddling with them. "I'd have to find where he landed, if he's even in one piece."
"It was my fault." Piper said suddenly.
"Piper," Jason said gently, "you were asleep when Festus conked out. It couldn't be your fault."
"Yeah, you're just shaken up," Leo agreed. He didn't even try to make a joke at her expense. "You're in pain. Just rest."
Laviana said nothing. It had been bothering her ever since the French comment. Piper had a secret, she decided, and it could get them killed.
But before she could interrogate the girl, Leo stood.
"Look, um, Jason, Vin, why don't you stay with her? I'll scout around for Festus. I think he fell outside the warehouse somewhere. If I can find him, maybe I can figure out what happened and fix him."
"It's too dangerous," Jason said. "You shouldn't go by yourself."
"Ah, I got duct tape and breath mints. I'll be fine," Leo said, a little too quickly, and Laviana realized he was a lot more shaken up than he was letting on. "You guys just don't run off without me."
Laviana didn't have a good feeling about this, her sudden headache wasn't helping either, and she stood. "I'll go with you."
Leo frowned. "Vin-"
"It makes sense," she said. "There could be some monster hanging around. You'd need cover while you fix Festus."
"Fine," Leo conceded. "Come on."
He reached into his magic tool belt, pulled out a flashlight, and he and Laviana headed down the stairs.
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Leo groaned. "Come on, Festus."
Laviana shook her head. "Of all the fucking places to crash, it just had to be the toilets."
A dozen of the blue plastic boxes had been set up in the factory yard, and Festus had flattened them all. Fortunately, they hadn't been used in a long time, and the fireball from the crash incinerated most of the contents; but still, there were some pretty gross chemicals leaking out of the wreckage.
Laviana and Leo had to pick their way through and try not to breathe through their noses. Heavy snow was coming down, but the dragon's hide was still steaming hot. For some reason, that didn't bother Laviana.
After a few minutes climbing over Festus's inanimate body, Laviana started to get irritated. The dragon looked perfectly fine. Yes, it had fallen out of the sky and landed with a big ka-boom, but its body wasn't even dented. The fireball had apparently come from built up gasses inside the toilet units, not from the dragon itself. Festus's wings were intact. Nothing seemed broken. There was no reason it should have stopped.
"Not my fault," Leo muttered. "Festus, you're making me look bad."
"Don't beat yourself up!" Laviana said. "No one blames you."
"Uh-huh."
Leo opened the control panel on the dragon's head, and Laviana's heart sank.
"Oh, Festus, what the hell?" Leo asked.
The wiring had frozen over. It had to have been fine yesterday, Leo wouldn't have let them fly otherwise. Something had caused a flash freeze inside the dragon's skull, where it should've been too hot for ice to form. The ice had caused the wiring to overload and char the control disk.
Laviana couldn't see any reason that would've happened. Sure, the dragon was old, but still, it didn't make sense.
Leo could probably replace the wires, but that wasn't the problem. The charred control disk was not good. The Greek letters and pictures carved around the edges, which held all kinds of magic, were blurred and blackened.
"Right," Leo muttered, brushing the snow off his shoulders. "Gimme a nylon bristle detail brush, some nitrile gloves, and maybe a can of that aerosol cleaning solvent."
For a moment, Laviana thought he was talking to her, but he pulled those very things out of his tool belt. As he worked, Leo absentmindedly explained how it functioned.
The belt's pockets did have limits. They wouldn't give him anything magic, like Jason's sword, or anything huge, like a chain saw. He'd tried asking for both. And if he asked for too many things at once, the belt needed a cooldown time before it could work again. The more complicated the request, the longer the cooldown. But anything small and simple like you might find around a workshop—all Leo had to do was ask. Pretty damn cool, if Laviana did say so herself.
He began cleaning off the control disk. While he worked, snow collected on the cooling dragon.
Leo bit his lip and glanced back at Laviana. "Okay," he said. "Please, don't flip."
He held his hand up and a small ball of flame burst to life, dancing across his palm.
Laviana's eyes widened. "You're a fire bender? That's so cool! Why am I just hearing about this now? Does anyone else know?"
Leo sighed. "No. I just...didn't want to look like a freak."
"A freak?" Laviana asked incredulously. "Leo, you couldn't possibly be a freak. Do you seriously think anyone would call you that?"
For a moment, he was silent. "Please," he begged. "Just don't tell the others. I don't want them to know."
Laviana didn't know why Leo was being so secretive. Being a fire bender? Dream come true. But the fact that he wasn't joking, that he was looking absolutely serious, told Laviana something had definitely happened to him that had to deal with his fire.
"Fine," she agreed. "I won't tell the others. But know that no one is going to judge you."
He was quiet the rest of the time, working on his own, but eventually Laviana blinked and Leo was suddenly standing and a toilet bowl had been thrown.
"Leave me alone!" He yelled.
Laviana frowned. "Excuse me?"
He spun and his eyes widened. "Did you not just see that?"
"No," she said carefully. "What was it?"
Then from the direction of the factory, she heard a crash —like two dump trucks slamming together. Metal crumpled and groaned, and the noise echoed across the yard. Instantly she knew that Jason and Piper were in trouble.
"We'll deal with that later," Leo said. "Gimme the biggest hammer you got."
He reached into his tool belt and pulled out a three-pound club hammer with a double-faced head the size of a baked potato. Laviana flipped her key. Then they jumped off the dragon's back and ran toward the warehouse.