I woke up thinking rocks were smacking against the windshield. Then I realised it was just sleet. Frost built up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blotted out the view.
"An ice storm?" Piper yelled over the noise of the engine and the wind. "Is it meant to be this cold in Sonoma?"
I didn't think so, but something about this storm seemed malevolent - like it was intentionally hitting us.
Jason woke up quickly. He crawled forward, grabbing the seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close."
Leo was too busy wrestling with a stick to reply.
Below us, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of us and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.
"There!" Jason shouted.
A small valley opened up before us, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around us there were flashes of light that reminded me of the tracer fire at Midas' compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes were moving through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.
Leo set the helicopter down in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. I nearly relaxed, and then I heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling towards us out of the mist.
"Get out!" I screamed.
We leaped from the helicopter and barley cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Leo off his feet and splattering ice all over him.
I gripped his arm and helped him get up shakily and I saw a chunk of snow, ice and dirt the size of a garage had completely flattened the helicopter.
"You all right?" Jason ran up to him, Piper and I at his side. We were speckled with snow and mud.
"Yeah," Leo shivered. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter."
"I got it covered." I said and grabbed a permanent marker from my pocket. "What make was it, Leo?"
Piper raised an eyebrow. "We're about to go into battle and that's what you want to write down?"
"Yes, Piper." I rolled my eyes. "Leo?"
"A Bell 412."
I scribbled it on my hand. "Thanks,"
Jason pointed south. "Fighting's over there." Then he frowned. "No .... it's all around us."
He was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure. but there seemed to be a circle of fighting around the Wolf House.
Behind us stood what was left of Jack London's dream home - a massive ruin of red and grey stones and rough-hewn timber beams. I could imagine how it'd looked before it burned down - a combination of a log cabin and a castle, like a billionaire lumberjack might build. But, in the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel. I could totally believe that the ruins were cursed.
"Jason!" A girl's voice called.
Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked in snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran towards us, but made it only a few steps before and Earthborn burst out of the storm behind her, a club held in each of it's six hands.
"Look out!" Leo yelled. We rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She 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 to a pile of clay. Damn, I need to learn that one.
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."
I closed my eyes and blocked out all the noise and action surrounding me as I concentrated on creating some arrows from silver. It took a little while but eventually I felt a weight in my hands and when I opened my eyes there were enough arrows to keep Thalia going for a little bit longer.
"This enough for you, Thalia?" I reached out and handed her my arrows.
She raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Thanks, Neo." She took the arrows from my hand. "My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any moment."
"By Earthborn?" Jason asked.
"And wolves - Lycaon's minions."
I growled.
Thalia blew a flake of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits - "
"But we gave them to Aeolus!" Piper protested.
"Who dropped us down a mountain," I reminded her. "Maybe he's helping Gaia 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 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.
The four of us 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 just 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 our mom took us when we were kids. She left Jason here, and 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?"
"Wolf goddess," I waved her off. "Tell you 'bout it later."
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 us between the two wings to outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rocks and root tendrils had cracked through the fountain.
One of the spires was much bigger than the other - a solid dark mass about twenty feet high. To me it seemed like a giant stone body bag. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils I could make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like it was stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck - rising.
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 I doubted I could get me arm through. Still, I could see inside. And in the centre of the cage stood a woman with dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow and a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes. Hera.
She didn't glow or radiate any kind of power. She looked like a regular mortal woman.
Leo dropped into the pool and approached the cage. "Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?"
The goddess crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I am one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!"
I gave her a look. "Charming."
Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste - or maybe she was looking at the goddess. "We tried everything we could think of, Leo, but maybe my heart wasn't in it. If it were up to me, I'd just leave her in there."
"Ohh, Thalia Grace," the goddess said. "When I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born."
"Save it!" Thalia snapped. "You've been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for years. You sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth - "
"She was disrespectful!"
"You dropped a statue on my legs."
"It was an accident!"
"And you took my brother!" Thalia's voice cracked with emotion. "Here - on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaia!"
"Hey," Jason intervened. "Thalia - sis - I know. But this isn't the time. You should help your Hunters."
Thalia clenched her jaw. "Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn't worth it."
Thalia turned, leaped out of the pool and stormed from the building.
Leo turned to Hera with grudging respect. "Intestinally challenged cows?"
"Focus on the cage, Leo," she grumbled. "And, Jason - you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well."
"Oh, I'm not your champion, lady," Jason said. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what's going on with that?"
He nodded at the other spire - the king-sized granite body bag. Am I imagining it, or has it grown since we'd got there?
"That, Jason," Hera said. "is the king of the giants being reborn."
"Gross," Piper said.
"Indeed," Hera said. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaia needed a great deal of power to raise him again - my power. For weeks 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 fertiliser."
The goddess glared at him, but Leo didn't seem to care. This old lady had made his life miserable ever since he was a baby. He totally had rights to rag her.
"Joke all you wish," Hera said in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant king will wake. 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, Gaia will wake."
I frowned at the giant's spire. "Can't we blow it up or something?"
"Without me, you do not have that kind of power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."
"Done that already today," I said.
"Just hurry up and get me out!" Hera demanded.
Jason scratched his head. "Leo, can you do that?"
"I don't know." Leo said. "Besides, if she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?"
Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in what I can only assume was 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 in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg - beg him for my freedom and apologise for throwing him off Olympus."
"And you were surprised?" I asked.
Hera gave me the godly stink-eye and turned to face Leo. "I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me in this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you."
"But it's not a machine. It's like Gaia thrust her hand out of the ground and .... " Leo swayed on his feet a little. I steadied him. "Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I'm going to need your help. And we're going to need time."
The air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, my lips cracked and my breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Thuellai rushed in - but instead of winged men, these were shaped like 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 grabbed and ice-covered plank off the pool floor, while I created the biggest silver blade I could to fight the wolves. It was barely the length of my forearm but my eyelids were drooping from exhaustion. Leo reached into his toolbelt and produced a tin of breath mints. He shoved them back in, and drew a hammer instead.
One of the wolves padded forward, wary of me.
It was dragging a human-sized statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for us to see - 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, Leo and I pulled him back. The ground around Thalia's statue was already webbed with ice. I was scared that if Jason touched her, he would freeze too.
"Who did this?" Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity that sent shocks up my arms and forced the three of us to let go of him. "I'll kill you myself!"
From somewhere behind the monsters, I heard a girl's laughter, clear and cold. She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regarded us with her deep brown eyes.
"Bonsoir, mes amis," said Khione, the goddess of snow. She gave Leo a frosty smile. "Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time? I'm afraid time is one tool you do not have."
-Ω-
After the fight with Enceladus, I didn't think I could get more afraid or tired.
Now Thalia was frozen at our feet, we were surrounded by monsters and we had approximately five minutes until the king of the giants busted out and killed us. I'd already pulled my biggest ace, creating a huge bolt of silver to distract and burn Enceladus, and I doubted I had the strength to do it again and fight. Which meant my only assets were one whiny, imprisoned goddess, Piper, armed with only a dagger, Jason armed with just a plank of wood, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the army in front of us with breath mints.
I'd done quite a few dangerous things in my life, but I'd never been closer to death than I was right now.
Khione smiled, her dark eyes glittering as a dagger of ice grew in her hand.
"What have you done?" Jason demanded.
"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, and I snarled right back.
"Yes, my dears." Khione kept her eyes on Jason. "Your friend 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."
I tilted my head to the side. "Is he scared of little old me?"
"He should be." Leo muttered.
I grinned. "And they're not his minions. They're mine."
Khione looked down on me. "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 deaths - "
"You're the one who tricked Hera into coming here," Jason said. "You gave Zeus the idea of closing Olympus."
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' ear that he should issue the order to kill demigods. It is a small service for Gaia, 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.
I nodded. "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 ask 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 three from Camp Half-Blood. They'll believe the Greeks have conspired with the giants. It will be .... delicious."
Piper and Leo didn't seem to understand what she was saying. But Jason seemed to be recovering his memories, and my father had told me about Camp Jupiter. I realised how effective Khione's plan was.
"You'll set demigods against demigods," I 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 giant's 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 honoured 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 destroying the roots of the gods. He meant Greece."
"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 three were to die. Reject that ridiculous destiny that 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. I wasn't worried for even a second, though I figured Leo didn't have goddesses make him offers like this everyday.
The Leo 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 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 wintery sleet at us, but Leo had it covered. He held up his hand and a wall of fire roared to life in front of us, and the now melted into a steamy cloud. Oh my gods, that is incredible!
Leo grinned. "See, lady, that's what happens to snow in Texas. It - fucking - melts."
Khione hissed. "Enough of this. Hera is failing. Porphyrion is rising. Kill the demigods. Let them be our king's first meal!"
I lifted my blade and the monsters charged.
-Ω-
Hey, guys!
Not much to say about this chapter to be honest.
Anyway, Enjoy!