LEO
Leo enjoyed the tour of the colony until he heard about the dragon.
The archer, Will Solace, was a pretty cool guy. Everything he was showing Leo was so awesome it should have been illegal. Real Greek warships anchored in front of the beach, where people were practicing combat with flaming arrows and explosives ? Very cool ! Craft classes where you could sculpt with chainsaws and flamethrowers ? Leo said yes right away, I'm signing up ! The woods were full of dangerous monsters and you weren't allowed to go in alone. Nice ! Add to that the fact that most of the girls at the camp were the cute ones. Leo didn't quite understand this story that they were all connected by their divine parent, but he hoped he wasn't related to all those gazelles. That would suck. He was going to go see the underwater beauties of the lake again -- they were worth risking drowning for their charm.
Will showed him the cabins, the dining hall, and the fencing arena.
"Am I getting a sword ?" asked Leo.
Will gave him a puzzled look, as if the idea seemed odd.
"You'll probably make your own sword," he said, "since you're from cabin Nine."
"Oh yeah, what's that all about ? Vulcan ?"
"We don't usually call the gods by their Roman names. The original names are Greek. Your father is Hephaestus."
"Festus ?" Leo had heard someone say that name before, but it remained vague in his mind. "It sounds like a cowboy name."
"Hephaestus," Will corrected, "the God of Fire and Blacksmiths."
Leo had heard that before, too, but he tried not to think about it. The God of Fire... No kidding ? Considering what had happened to his mother, Leo thought it was distasteful.
"So the flaming hammer above my head," he asked, "is that a good sign or a bad one ?"
Will didn't answer right away.
"You were claimed almost immediately," he finally said. "Usually that's good."
"But the guy with the rainbow there, Butch. He said something about a curse."
"Oh, look, it's nothing. Ever since the old head counselor at cabin Nine died..."
"How did he die ? Painfully ?"
"I'd better let your cabin mates tell you about that."
"Yeah, by the way, where are my buddies ? Shouldn't their counselor be rolling out the red carpet for me right now, giving me the V.I.P. tour ?"
"Uh... he can't. You'll see why."
Will pressed on without giving Leo time to ask any more questions.
"Deaths and curses," Leo grumbled. "It gets better and better."
In the middle of the center lawn, Leo spotted his old babysitter. And she was not at all the kind of person he would have expected to meet in a colony for demigods.
He cringed.
"What is it ?" asked Will.
Tia Callida - Auntie Callida. That was what she called herself back then, but Leo hadn't seen her since kindergarten. Standing in the shadow of a large white cabin at the end of the lawn, she watched him. She was wearing her long black widow's dress and a black shawl covered her hair. Her face had not changed: parchment-like skin, dark, piercing eyes. Her crumpled hands looked like birds' talons. She looked very old, but no older than Leo remembered.
"That old lady," he asked, "what's she doing here ?"
Will tried to follow the direction of her gaze.
"What old lady ?" he retorted.
"The old lady there, man. The old lady in black. How many do you see ?"
Will frowned.
"You've had a hard day, Leo. I think the Mist is playing tricks on you again. How about we go straight to your cabin now ?"
Leo wanted to protest, but when he glanced again toward the big white cabin, Tia Callida was gone. He was sure he had seen her, though, to think that thinking about his mother had brought Callida back from the depths of the past.
Which was no fun, because Tia Callida had tried to kill him.
"I was just messing with you, man."
Leo pulled a handful of levers and cogs from his pocket and began to fiddle with them to calm himself. He couldn't afford to look like a fool to everyone at the colony. At least, not crazier than he really was.
"Let's go to cabin Nine," he said. "I feel up to a good curse."
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From the outside, the Hephaestus cabin looked like a huge motor home with shiny metal walls and steel slat windows. The front door looked like a vault door, circular and over a meter thick. It opened by operating a bunch of brass gears and hydraulic pistons that spewed steam.
Leo whistled.
"There's a Jules Verne vibe going on here, huh?"
Inside, the cabin seemed empty. Steel benches folded against the walls, offering a very modern version of the fold-out bed: each one was equipped with a digitized control panel with flashing LED lights, full of cogs and light inlays. Leo figured that each resident must have had his or her own combination to unfold the bed, and that there was probably an alcove behind it with storage, or even some traps to deter unwanted visitors. At least, that's how Leo would have designed his. A pole led down from the second floor, in case of fire, while from the outside the cabin appeared to be on one level. A spiral staircase led down to a basement. The walls were lined with every conceivable tool, as well as an impressive collection of swords, daggers and other deadly devices. There was a large workbench overflowing with scrap metal, spare parts and screws, nails, rivets and other bolts. Leo had to restrain himself from stuffing a few handfuls into his pockets. He loved this stuff, but he would have needed a hundred pockets to fit it all in.
The young boy looked around. He felt almost like he was being taken back to his mother's workshop. The weapons were gone, maybe, but everything else: the tools, the scrap metal, the smell of grease, hot engines and metal. She would have loved this place.
He pushed the thought away. He didn't like painful memories. Move on, that was his credo. Don't dwell on it. Don't stay in the same place too long. That was the only way to beat the sadness.
He unhooked an elongated tool from the wall.
"A weeder ? What use could the fire god have for a weeder ?"
"You have no idea !" said a voice from a dark corner.
At the back of the room, one of the benches was occupied. a sliding black camouflage curtain, allowing Leo to see the boy still hidden moments earlier. It was difficult to describe him because he was in a cast from head to toe. His head was wrapped in bandages that only revealed his face, red and bruised. He looked like a Michelin man who had been beaten up.
"My name is Jake Mason," he said. "I'd gladly shake your hand, but..."
The boy sketched a smile, then winced as if it hurt to move his face. Leo wondered what had happened to him, but he didn't dare ask the question.
"Welcome to the new cabin," he added. "It's been almost a year since we've had any new ones. I'm the head counselor for the time being."
"For the time being ?"
Will Solace cleared his throat.
"Where are the others, Jake ?" he asked.
"At the forge," the counselor replied with a hint of sadness. "They're working on...you know, that problem we're having."
"Ah." Will changed the subject. "Do you have a spare couch for Leo?"
Jake gauged the newcomer with his eyes.
"Do you believe in curses, Leo ?" he asked her. "Or ghosts ?"
I just saw my abominable babysitter Tia Callida, Leo thought. She's got to be dead, all this time. And not a day goes by that I don't think about my mother going up in flames in her workshop fire. So don't talk to me about ghosts.
But he answered:
"Ghosts ? Nah. No problem. A storm spirit threw me into the Grand Canyon this morning but hey, these things happen, right ?"
Jake nodded.
"Good for you. Because I'm going to give you the best bed in the cabin. Beckendorf's."
"Wow, Jake, are you sure ?" exclaimed Will.
Jake articulated in a loud voice:
"Bunk 1-A, please."
A rumble shook the cabin. A circular portion of the floor spiraled open, like the aperture of a lens, and a large bed emerged. The bronze frame included a game console built into the footboard, a stereo system at the head, a glassed-in refrigerator, and a whole bunch of controls on the sides.
Leo jumped on it and immediately lay down with his arms behind his head.
"It fits perfectly," he declared.
"It folds down to a private room in the basement," Jake explained.
"Great ! See you later, everyone. If anyone is looking for me, I'll be in Leo's Cave. Which button do I press ?"
"One second," Will Solace protested, "You guys have private rooms in the basement ?"
Jake would probably have smiled if it didn't hurt so much.
"We got plenty of secrets, Will. There's no reason why you Apollos should be the only ones having fun. Our pensioners have been searching the network of tunnels underneath the new cabin for a century. We still haven't seen the end of it. Anyway, Leo, if you don't mind sleeping in a dead man's bed, it's yours."
Suddenly, the young boy lost all desire for idleness. He straightened up, taking care not to touch any buttons.
"Was this the bed of the former counselor who died ?" he asked.
"Yes," said Jake, "Charles Beckendorf."
Leo imagined blades hidden in the mattress, or a grenade sewn into the pillow.
"He didn't die in that bed, did he ?"
"No. He died last summer, during the War of the Titans."
"The War of the Titans," Leo repeated. "No relation to this wonderful bed ?"
"The Titans," Jake repeated as if Leo were an idiot. "The big, powerful guys who ruled the world before the gods. They tried to take over from last summer. Their leader, Cronos, built a new palace on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies marched on New York and nearly razed Olympus. Many demigods died trying to stop them."
"I guess we didn't hear about that on the news," Leo said.
The question seemed legitimate, yet Jake shook his head, looking stunned.
"Haven't you heard about the eruption of Mount St. Helens ? Or the tornadoes that ravaged the country ? The skyscraper that collapsed in St. Louis ?"
Leo shrugged. Last summer, he'd run away from yet another foster home. A police officer had nabbed him in New Mexico and the court had sent him to the nearest reformatory: the Wilderness School.
"Guess I was busy," he replied.
"No big deal," Jake said, "Good for you, by the way, it was horrible. The thing is, Beckendorf was one of the first victims, and since his death..."
"Your cabin is cursed," Leo guessed.
Jake didn't answer. That said, he was in a cast from head to toe, which was an answer in itself. Leo began to notice details he had missed: an explosion mark on a wall, a stain on the floor that looked like gasoline... or blood. Broken swords, broken machines, thrown into the corners of the room, perhaps out of spite. The place did indeed seem to have a jinx.
Jake sighed.
"Well, I need to get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Leo. It was really nice, you know... before."
He closed his eyes and the camouflage curtain unfurled in front of the bed.
"Come on, Leo," Will said, "I'll take you to the forge."
At the doorway, Leo turned around. He could almost mentally see the silhouette of the dead counselor sitting on his new bed -- another ghost that wouldn't let him go.
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"How did he die ?" asked Leo. "Beckendorf, I mean."
Will Solace strode forward in long strides.
"In an explosion. Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up an ocean liner full of monsters. Beckendorf did not survive."
There's that name again: Percy Jackson, Annabeth's missing boyfriend. This guy had to be on every move, at the colony.
"Beckendorf was popular? Before he blew up, I mean."
"Oh yeah, he was a great guy," Will nodded. "It was really hard on everyone at the colony when he died. Jake became chief counselor during the war. So did I, for that matter. He does his best, but command is not his thing. He likes to tinker and build things. Then after the war, trouble started. Without anyone knowing why, the tanks in the new cabin started to explode. Their robots went out of control. Their invention didn't work anymore. It felt like a curse, and that's what we ended up calling it: the Curse of cabin Nine. And then Jake had his accident..."
"Related to the problem he alluded to," Leo slipped in.
"They're trying to fix it," Will said half-heartedly. "We're here."
It was as if a steam locomotive had collided with the Parthenon in Athens, and the two had merged to form this unlikely place: the forge. White marble columns lined up against the black walls in a row. The chimneys spat out their plumes of smoke above a roof decorated with sculptures of monsters and gods. The Forge was situated on the banks of a river, and several water wheels powered a series of notched gables. From inside came the roar of engines, the crackle of flames and the pounding of hammers.
They entered and the dozen or so boys and girls busily engaged in various projects immediately came to a halt. The commotion ceased and all that could be heard was the click-click of cogs and levers and the rumbling of the forge.
"Hey guys," Will called out, "This is your new brother, Leo. Uh, what's your last name ?"
"Valdez."
Leo swept his eyes over the group gathered in the forge. Was he really related to all these people? Some of his cousins belonged to large families, but he had only ever had his mother -- until she died.
One by one, the young people approached and introduced themselves by shaking his hand. Their names quickly blended in Leo's mind: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (like the motorcycle, yes). He knew he could never remember them. There were too many, he would inevitably get confused.
There was no resemblance: there were all sizes, all shapes of face and skin color and hair in the group. It was impossible to say to yourself when you saw them: Well, here are the children of Hephaestus ! But they all had strong, calloused hands, stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn't have been more than eight years old, looked as if she could handle a few rounds of boxing with ease.
They all had a certain sadness in common. Their shoulders slumped, as if life had given them a few too many blows. Some looked like they had suffered in their bodies, too: Leo counted two arms in a sling, a pair of crutches, six Velpeau bandages, and about seven thousand small adhesive bandages.
"Well," he exclaimed. "I see it's a permanent party here!"
No one laughed. Everyone glared at him in silence.
Will Solace patted Leo on the shoulder.
"I'll let you two get acquainted. Can someone take Leo to the Dining Hall tonight ?"
"I'll do it," one of the girls offered.
Nyssa, Leo remembered. She was wearing trellis pants, a tank top that showed off her muscular arms, and a red bandanna that held back her brown hair. Except for the floral plaster on her chin, she looked like an action game heroine; Leo could picture her grabbing a machine gun to take down a bunch of alien enemies.
"Cool," he said. "I've always dreamed of having a sister who could kick my ass."
Nyssa didn't deign to smile.
"Come on, comic. I'll give you a tour."
Leo was used to workshops. He had grown up surrounded by mechanics and power tools. His mother used to joke that his first teat was a wrench. Still, he had never seen a place like it.
One boy was working on a battle axe. He was testing the blade on a concrete block. Each time he brought the axe down, it would sink like a note of melted cheese, but he always seemed displeased and went back to sharpening the blade.
"What does he intend to kill with his axe ? A battleship ?" asked Leo of Nyssa.
"You never know. Even the celestial bronze..."
"Is it the metal ?"
Nyssa nodded.
"It comes from the mine on Mount Olympus and is extremely rare. Normally, its touch alone is enough to disintegrate monsters, but there are some, among the most powerful, that have particularly hard shells. The drakons, for example..."
"You mean dragons ?"
"A related species. You'll learn the difference in a monster fighting class."
"A monster fighting class. Yeah, I'm already a black belt in that discipline."
The quip did not wring a smile from Nyssa. As long as she wasn't so serious all the time, Leo thought. One had to have a sense of humor, on the father's side, after all, didn't one ?
They passed two guys who were making a mechanical toy out of bronze. At least it looked like one: it was a twenty centimeter high centaur -- half man, half horse -- armed with a miniature bow. One of the residents turned the Centaur's tail, and it came to life with a hum. It galloped across the table shouting, "Die, mosquito, die !" and began riddling everything in sight with arrows.
It was not a first, apparently, because everyone was thinking of throwing themselves to the ground, except Leo. The tank a resident grabs a hammer and crushes the automaton, six arrows as big as needles were planted in his shirt.
"Damn curse !" The boy waved the hammer in exasperation. "I just want a magical bug killer, is that too much to ask ?"
"Ouch," quipped Leo.
"But no, you've got nothing," Nyssa said as she pulled the needles out. "Come on, let's get moving before they rebuild it."
Leo rubbed his chest as he walked.
"Does this kind of thing happen often ?" he asked.
"Lately," said Nyssa, "All the gear we make screws up."
"Because of the curse ?"
Nyssa frowned.
"I don't believe in curses. Still, there's something wrong. And if we can't solve the dragon problem, it's going to get worse."
"The dragon problem ?"
Leo hoped she was talking about a miniature dragon, a roach-exterminating dragon, for example, but he didn't think so.
Nissa led him to a large map that took up an entire wall. Two girls were studying it. It showed the colony: a semicircle of land bordered by Long Island Sound on the north shore, woods on the west, the cabins on the east, and a row of hills on the south.
"It's got to be in the hills," said one of the girls. "Has to be."
"We've already looked there," objected the other. "The woods are a better hiding place."
"But we've set traps..."
"Wait a second," Leo interjected. "You lost a dragon ? A life-size dragon ?"
"It's a bronze dragon," Nyssa explained. "But yes, it's a life-size automaton. Hephaestus built it many years ago. Then it got lost in the woods two or three summers ago, and Beckendorf found it in pieces and rebuilt it. It serves to protect the colony, but it's become a little, uh, unpredictable."
"Unpredictable ?" repeated Leo.
"It goes haywire and tears down cabins, burns people, tries to eat satyrs, that sort of thing."
"Unpredictable, indeed."
Nyssa nodded.
"Only Beckendorf was able to control it. Since his death, the dragon's condition has worsened terribly. He finally went completely haywire and ran away. Every once in a while, he makes an appearance at the camp, smashes something up and runs away again. Everyone's waiting for us to capture him and destroy him."
"Destroy him ?" Leo was consternated. "You have a life-size dragon and you want to destroy it ?"
"It spits fire," said Nyssa. "It's become an uncontrollable killer."
"But it's a dragon! You don't realize, it's giant. Can't you try to talk to it, to re-train it ?"
"We've tried. Jake Mason tried. You saw what happened."
Leo thought back to Jake, all alone on his bench, plastered from head to toe.
"Still..."
"We have no choice." Nyssa turned to the other two girls. "Let's try setting new traps in the woods, here, here, and here. Bait it with 30W motor oil."
"The dragon drinks motor oil ?" asked Leo.
"Yeah." Nyssa let out a regret-laden sigh. "He liked it at night before bed, with a little tabasco. If he gets caught in a trap, we can come in with some acid spray. That should allow us to melt his shell. After that, we go in with the metal tongs and...finish the job."
The three of them looked sad. Leo realized they didn't want to destroy the dragon any more than he did.
"Look," he said, "there's got to be another way."
Nyssa seemed skeptical, but a few of the other boarders looked up from their work and came over to join the conversation.
"Like what ?" asked one. "It spits fire, that dragon. You can't even get close to it."
Fire, Leo mused. He would have a lot to tell them about fire... But he had to be careful, even if they were his siblings. Especially if he had to live with them.
"But... Hephaestus is the god of Fire, right ? So how come none of you have any resistance to fire ?"
No one seemed to find the question absurd, which was a relief to Leo, but Nyssa nodded gravely.
"That's a skill the Cyclops have, Leo. We demigods, children of Hephaestus, are just good with our hands. We build, we make, we forge... all that, you know."
"Ah."
Leo's shoulders slumped.
A guy at the back of the room, said:
"Well, a long time ago..."
"Okay," Nyssa conceded. "A long time ago, some of the children of Hephaestus were born with the power of fire. But it was a very, very rare ability. And always dangerous. No demigod has been born with it for centuries. The last one, it goes back to..."
She questioned another resident with her eyes.
"1666," this one continued. "A certain Thomas Faynor. He was the one who started the great fire of London, which almost completely destroyed the city."
"Right," said Nyssa. "When a child of Hephaestus has this gift, it's a sign, usually, that a catastrophe is going to happen. and we don't need any more catastrophes."
Leo tried to keep his face blank of emotion, which was not his forte.
"I understand the problem," he said. "But it's a shame. If you could withstand the flames, you could get close to the dragon."
"So what ? He would kill us with his claws and fangs," Nyssa retorted. "Or crush us. No, we have to destroy it. Believe me, if anyone could think of another way..."
Nyssa left her sentence hanging, but Leo got the message. This was the big test their cabin was facing. If they could do something that only Beckendorf had ever been able to do, if they could subdue the dragon without killing it, then maybe their curse would be broken. But they were running out of ideas. The boarder who found the solution would be a hero.
The sound of a conch shell echoed in the distance. The Hephaestus began to put away their projects and tools. Leo didn't realize how late it was, but when he looked out the window he saw that the sun was setting. It was a trick his ADHD, his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, sometimes played on him. If he was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If he was interested in what he was doing, visiting a colony for demigods, for example, the hours flew by like minutes.
"Come on, Leo," said Nyssa. "Let's go to dinner."
"At the Refectory Pavilion ?" he asked.
She nodded.
"You guys go ahead," said Leo. "You... will you give me a second ?"
Nyssa hesitated, then her expression softened.
"No problem. That's a lot for you to digest. I remember my first day. Join us when you feel ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost any project we work on can kill you, if you're not careful."
"I won't touch anything," Leo promised.
His cabin mates exited the forge and he found himself alone amid the noise of bellows, water wheels and various small machines.
He scanned the map of the colony, examining the locations where his newly acquired siblings planned to set traps to capture the dragon. This wasn't right. It just wasn't.
Very rare, Leo thought. And always dangerous.
He held out his hand and looked at his fingers. They were long, thin, and callous-free, unlike those of the other Hephaestus. Leo had never been the biggest or strongest in his class. He had survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools and tough homes, using his wits and his wit. He was the class clown, the king's jester. He had learned at a young age that if you threw a lot of jokes and pretended not to be afraid, you didn't usually get beaten up. Even the most hardened kingpins would tolerate you and keep you around because they'll find it funny. Besides, humor was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn't work, there was always plan B. Run away. Again and again.
There was a plan C, but he swore he would never use it again.
Leo now felt the overwhelming need to test it -- something he hadn't done since the accident that had taken his mother's life.
He reached out and felt his fingertips tingle -- as if he had ants. Suddenly, little red flames shot up and danced in the palm of his hand.