A WOLF LAUNCHED ITSELF AT JASON. He stepped back and swung his scrap wood into the beast's snout with a satisfying crack. Maybe only silver could kill it, but a good old-fashioned board could still give it a Tylenol headache.
He turned toward the sound of hooves and saw a storm spirit horse bearing down on him. Jason concentrated and summoned the wind. Just before the spirit could trample him, Jason launched himself into the air, grabbed the horse's smoky neck, and pirouetted onto its back.
The storm spirit reared. It tried to shake Jason, then tried to dissolve into mist to lose him; but somehow Jason stayed on.Jason only had one spirit to master, and he had to win.
"You're mine now," Jason said.
The horse bucked, but Jason held fast. Its mane flickered as it circled around the empty pool, its hooves causing miniature thunderstorms—tempests—whenever they touched.
"Tempest?" Jason said. "Is that your name?"
The horse spirit shook its mane, evidently pleased to be recognized.
"Fine," Jason said. "Now, let's fight."
He charged into battle, swinging his icy piece of wood, knocking aside wolves and plunging straight through other venti. Tempest was a strong spirit, and every time he plowed through one of his brethren, he discharged so much electricity, the other spirit vaporized into a harmless cloud of mist.
Through the chaos, Jason caught glimpses of his friends. Piper was surrounded by Earthborn, but she seemed to be holding her own. She was so impressive-looking as she fought, almost glowing with beauty, that the Earthborn stared at her in awe, forgetting that they were supposed to kill her. They'd lower their clubs and watch dumbfounded as she smiled and charged them. They'd smile back—until she sliced them apart with her dagger, and they melted into mounds of mud.
Leo had taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should've been suicide, Leo was the right man for the job. She kept summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burned through all of it. His whole body flickered with red tongues of flame like he'd been doused with gasoline. He advanced on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-peen hammers to smash any monsters that got in his way.
Jason realized that Leo was the only reason they were still alive. His fiery aura was heating up the whole courtyard, countering Khione's winter magic. Without him, they would've been frozen like the Hunters long ago. Wherever Leo went, ice melted off the stones. Even Thalia started to defrost a little when Leo stepped near her.
Khione slowly backed away. Her expression went from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo got closer.
Jason looked to his other side and saw Aimee surrounded by wolves,but the wolves weren't attacking her--they were fighting with her.She looked at him waving a bit before slashing at an enemy wolf with a silver butterfly knife.
Jason was running out of enemies. Wolves lay in dazed heaps. Some slunk away into the ruins, yelping from their wounds. Piper stabbed the last Earthborn, who toppled to the ground in a pile of sludge. Jason rode Tempest through the last ventus, breaking it into vapor. Then he wheeled around and saw Leo bearing down on the goddess of snow.
"You're too late," Khione snarled. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us."
Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow—a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.
Piper was breathing hard, but she smiled up at Jason. "Nice horse."
Aimee walked over with her wolves,Jason smiled at her. "Nice wolves Aimee,how did you pull that off?"
"I have a weird connection with wolves,we understand one another,"Aimee said putting away her knife.
Tempest reared on his hind legs, arcing electricity across his hooves. A complete show-off.
Aimee reached up and Tempest brought his head down to her hand,letting her pet him.
Then Aimee heard a cracking sound behind her. The melting ice on Hera's cage sloughed off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess called, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"
Jason dismounted and told Tempest to stay put. The four demigods jumped into the pool and ran to the spire.
Leo frowned. "Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?"
"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"
As much as Aimee disliked her Aunt Hera, what she saw inside the cage alarmed her. Not only was Hera sinking, the ground was rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins. "The giant wakes!" Hera warned. "You only have seconds!"
"On it," Leo said. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."
"What?" she said.
"Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I—"
"Right!" Piper cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"
The more she talked, the more confident she sounded. Aimee felt her own eyes getting heavy, and she had to force herself not to focus on Piper's words. It seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little—becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt. How it fit in there, Jason had no idea. Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"
The spirit horse Tempest jumped into the pit and whinnied.
"Really?" Jason asked.
Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug, and a breeze whisked it into the horse's flank. Lighting sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life.
"Sweet!" Leo grinned. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"
Their good mood didn't last long. On the other side of the pool, the giant's spire crumbled with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Its outer sheath of tendrils exploded from the top down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shook himself free and climbed out of the earth.
Aimee hadn't thought anything could be scarier than Enceladus.
She was wrong.Very,very wrong.
Porphyrion was even taller, and even more ripped. He didn't radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there was something more terrible about him—a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field.
Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon's legs; but his skin was the color of lima beans. His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons—daggers, axes, and full-size swords, some of them bent and bloody—maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.
"Alive!" he bellowed. "Praise to Gaea!"
Aimee made a heroic little whimpering sound she hoped her friends couldn't hear. She was very sure no demigod could solo this guy. Porphyrion could lift mountains. He could crush her and Jason with one finger.
"Leo," Jason said.
"Huh?" Leo's mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed.
"You guys keep working," Jason said. "Get Hera free!"
"What are you two going to do?" Piper asked. "You can't seriously—"
"Entertain a giant?" Jason said. "We've got no choice."
"Excellent!" the giant roared as Jason approached. "An appetizer! Who are you two—Hermes? Ares?"
Jason thought about going with that idea, but something told him not to.
"I'm Jason Grace," he said. "Son of Jupiter."
"Aimee Di Angelo,"Aimee said confidently stepping next to her best friend."Daughter of Pluto."
Those white eyes bored into them. Behind them, Leo's circular saw whirred, and Piper talked to the cage in soothing tones, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
Porphyrion threw back his head and laughed. "Outstanding!" He looked up at the cloudy night sky. "So, Zeus, you sacrifice a son and a niece to me? The gesture is appreciated, but it will not save you."
The sky didn't even rumble. No help from above. Jason was on his own,he looked at Aimee who had her eyes closed.She opened her eyes and gave him a smirk,well at least she had her father on her side.
Jason dropped his makeshift club. His hands were covered in splinters, but that didn't matter now. Him and Aimee had to buy Leo and Piper some time, and he couldn't do that without a proper weapon. Aimee summoned her sword,Jason glared at her because she was basically teasing him with a weapon.
It was time to act a whole lot more confident than they felt.
"If you knew who we were ," Jason yelled up at the giant, "you'd be worried about me, not my father. I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because I'm going to send you right back to Tartarus."
The giant's eyes narrowed. He planted one foot outside the pool and crouched to get a better look at his opponent. "So ... we'll start by boasting, will we? Just like old times! Very well, demigod. I am Porphryion, king of the giants, son of Gaea. In olden times, I rose from Tatarus, the abyss of my father, to challenge the gods. To start the war, I stole Zeus's queen." He grinned at the goddess's cage. "Hello, Hera."
"My husband destroyed you once, monster!" Hera said. "He'll do it again!"
"But he didn't, my dear! Zeus wasn't powerful enough to kill me. He had to rely on a puny demigod to help, and even then, we almost won. This time, we will complete what we started. Gaea is waking. She has provisioned us with many fine servants. Our armies will shake the earth—and we will destroy you at the roots."
"You wouldn't dare," Hera said, but she was weakening. Aimee could hear it in her voice. Piper kept whispering to the cage, and Leo kept sawing, but the earth was still rising inside Hera's prison, covering her up to her waist.
"Oh, yes," the giant said. "The Titans sought to attack your new home in New York. Bold, but ineffective. Gaea is wiser and more patient. And we, her greatest children, are much, much stronger than Kronos. We know how to kill you Olympians once and for all. You must be dug up completely like rotten trees—your eldest roots torn out and burned."
The giant frowned at Piper and Leo, as if he'd just noticed them working at the cage. Aimee stepped forward and yelled to get back Porphyrion's attention.
"You said a demigod killed you," she shouted. "How, if we're so puny?"
"Ha! You think I would explain it to you? I was created to be Zeus's replacement, born to destroy the lord of the sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his wife—or, if she will not have me, I will let the earth consume her life force. What you see before you, child, is only my weakened form. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But I am already quite capable of smashing you to a grease spot!"
He rose to his full height and held out his hand. A twenty-foot spear shot from the earth. He grasped it, then stomped the ground with his dragon's feet. The ruins shook. All around the courtyard, monsters started to regather—storm spirits, wolves, and Earthborn, all answering the giant king's call.
"Great," Leo muttered. "We needed more enemies."
"Hurry," Hera said.
"I know!" Leo snapped.
"Go to sleep, cage," Piper said. "Nice, sleepy cage. Yes, I'm talking to a bunch of earthen tendrils. This isn't weird at all."
Porphyrion raked his spear across the top of the ruins, destroying a chimney and spraying wood and stone across the courtyard. "So, child of Hades and child of Zeus! I have finished my boasting. Now it's your turn. What were you saying about destroying me?"
Aimee looked at the ring of monsters, waiting impatiently for their master's order to tear them to shreds. Leo's circular saw kept whirring, and Piper kept talking, but it seemed hopeless. Hera's cage was almost completely filled with earth.
"I'm the son of Jupiter!" Jason shouted, and just for effect, he summoned the winds, rising a few feet off the ground. "I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion." Jason didn't know quite what he was saying, but he rattled off the words like he'd said them many times before. He held out his arms, showing the tattoo of the eagle and SPQR, and to his surprise the giant seemed to recognize it.
For a moment, Porphyrion actually looked uneasy.
"I slew the Trojan sea monster," Jason continued. "I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed the Titan Krios with my own hands. And now I'm going to destroy you, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves."
"Wow, dude," Leo muttered. "You been eating red meat?"
Jason launched himself at the giant, determined to tear him apart.
The idea of fighting a forty-foot-tall immortal barehanded was so ridiculous, even the giant seemed surprised. Half flying, half leaping, Jason landed on the giant's scaly reptilian knee and climbed up the giant's arm before Porphyrion even realized what had happened.
"You dare?" the giant bellowed.
Jason reached his shoulders and ripped a sword out of the giant's weapon-filled braids. He yelled, "For Rome!" and drove the sword into the nearest convenient target—the giant's massive ear.
Lightning streaked out of the sky and blasted the sword, throwing Jason free. Jason rolled when he hit the ground,landing next to Aimee. When he looked up, the giant was staggering. His hair was on fire, and the side of his face was blackened from lightning. The sword had splintered in his ear. Golden ichor ran down his jaw. The other weapons were sparking and smoldering in his braids.
Porphyrion almost fell. The circle of monsters let out a collective growl and moved forward—wolves and ogres fixing their eyes on Jason and Aimee.
Aimee cleared her throat leaning toward Jason,muttering. "Nice going Sparky."
"No!" Porphyrion yelled. He regained his balance and glared at the demigod. "I will kill them myself."
The giant raised his spear and it began to glow. "You want to play with lightning, boy? You forget. I am the bane of Zeus. I was created to destroy your father, which means I know exactly what will kill you."
Something in Porphyrion's voice told Jason he wasn't bluffing.
Aimee knelt down quickly setting her hand on the ground.
Jason heard her muttering. "Pater, ego non multum rogavi vos. Placet hanc opem."
Jason and his friends had had a good run. The three of them had done amazing things. Yeah, even heroic things. But as the giant raised his spear, Jason knew there was no way he could deflect this strike or that Aimee could figure something out in time.
This was the end.
"Got it!" Leo yelled.
"Sleep!" Piper said, so forcefully, the nearest wolves fell to the ground and began snoring.
The stone and wood cage crumbled. Leo had sawed through the base of the thickest tendril and apparently cut off the cage's connection to Gaea. The tendrils turned to dust. The mud around Hera disintegrated. The goddess grew in size, glowing with power.
"Yes!" the goddess said. She threw off her black robes to reveal a white gown, her arms bedecked with golden jewelry. Her face was both terrible and beautiful, and a golden crown glowed in her long black hair. "Now I shall have my revenge!"
The giant Porphyrion backed away. He said nothing, but he gave Jason and Aimee one last look of hatred. His message was clear: Another time. Then he slammed his spear against the earth, but before the giant could disappear into the ground Aimee threw something she had picked up from the ground at him.Whatever the thing was,it attached itself to the giant's hair then he disappeared.
Around the courtyard, monsters began to panic and retreat, but there was no escape for them.
Hera glowed brighter. She shouted, "Cover your eyes, my heroes!"
But Jason and Aimee were in too much in shock. They understood too late.
They watched as Hera turned into a supernova, exploding in a ring of force that vaporized every monster instantly. Jason fell with Aimee landing right next to him, light searing into their minds, and their last thoughts were that their bodies were burning.
"JASON!AIMEE!"
Piper kept calling their names as she held Jason, though she'd almost lost hope. They'd been unconscious for two minutes now. Their bodies were steaming, their eyes rolled back in their heads. She couldn't tell if they were even breathing.
"It's no use, child." Hera stood over them in her simple black robes and shawl.She leaned down to Aimee setting her hand on the girl's forehead.
Piper hadn't seen the goddess go nuclear. Thankfully she'd closed her eyes, but she could see the aftereffects. Every vestige of winter was gone from the valley. No signs of battle, either. The monsters had been vaporized. The ruins had been restored to what they were before—still ruins, but with no evidence that they'd been overrun by a horde of wolves, storm spirits, and six-armed ogres.
Even the Hunters had been revived. Most waited at a respectful distance in the meadow, but Thalia knelt by Piper's side, her hand on Jason's forehead just like how Hera was doing to Aimee.
Thalia glared up at the goddess. "This is your fault. Do something!"
"Do not address me that way, girl. I am the queen—"
"Fix them!"
Hera's eyes flickered with power. "I did warn them. I would never intentionally hurt them. He was to be my champion and she was my only warrior that I truly liked. I told them to close their eyes before I revealed my true form."
"Um ..." Leo frowned. "True form is bad, right? So why did you do it?"
"I unleashed my power to help you, fool!" Hera cried. "I became pure energy so I could disintegrate the monsters, restore this place, and even save these miserable Hunters from the ice."
"But mortals can't look upon you in that form!" Thalia shouted. "You've killed them!"
Leo shook his head in dismay. "That's what our prophecy meant. Death unleash, through Hera's rage. Come on, lady. You're a goddess. Do some voodoo magic on them! Bring them back."
Piper half heard their conversation, but mostly she was focused on Jason's face. "He's breathing!" she announced.Leo knelt next to Aimee,he saw her chest slowly rising and falling.
"Aimee's breathing too!"
"Impossible," Hera said. "I wish it were true, child, but no mortal has ever—"
"Jason," Piper called, putting every bit of her willpower into his name. She could not lose him. "Listen to me. You can do this. Come back. You're going to be fine."
Nothing happened. Had her and Leo imagined their breaths stirring?
"Healing is not a power of Aphrodite," Hera said regretfully. "Even I cannot fix this, girl. Their mortal spirits—"
"Jason," Piper said again, and she imagined her voice resonating through the earth, all the way down to the Underworld. "Wake up."
He gasped, and his eyes flew open. For a moment they were full of light—glowing pure gold. Then the light faded and his eyes were normal again. "What—what happened?"
"Impossible!" Hera said.
Piper wrapped him in a hug until he groaned, "Crushing me."
"Sorry," she said, so relieved, she laughed while wiping a tear from her eye.
Thalia gripped her brother's hand. "How do you feel?"
"Hot," he muttered. "Mouth is dry. And I saw something... really terrible."
"That was Hera," Thalia grumbled. "Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon."
"That's it, Thalia Grace," said the goddess. "I will turn you into an aardvark, so help me—"
"Stop it, you two," Piper said. Amazingly, they both shut up.
Piper helped Jason to his feet and gave him the some of the last of the nectar from their supplies.
Jason knelt next to Aimee lifting her head a bit,pouring the rest of the nectar into her mouth.
"Come on Aimee,wake up,"He said looking at her.Like Jason,Aimee gasped and her eyes flew open. For a moment they were full of light—glowing pure silver. Then the light
faded and her eyes were normal again.
She leaned on Jason,he could feel her shaking.He guessed that she had a conversation with her father,only that would shake her up this much.Piper patted the girl's head obviously happy to see her alive.
"Now ..." Piper faced Thalia and Hera. "Hera—Your Majesty—we couldn't have rescued you without the Hunters. And Thalia, you never would've seen Jason again—I wouldn't have met him—if it weren't for Hera. You two make nice, because we've got bigger problems."
They both glared at her, and for three long seconds, Piper wasn't sure which one of them was going to kill her first.
Finally Thalia grunted. "You've got spirit, Piper." She pulled a silver card from her parka and tucked it into the pocket of Piper's snowboarding jacket. "You ever want to be a Hunter, call me. We could use you."
Hera crossed her arms. "Fortunately for this Hunter, you have a point, daughter of Aphrodite." She assessed Piper, as if seeing her clearly for the time. "You wondered, Piper, why I chose you for this quest, why I didn't reveal your secret in the beginning, even when I knew Enceladus was using you. I must admit, until this moment I was not sure. Something told me you would be vital to the quest. Now I see I was right. You're even stronger than I realized. And you are correct about the dangers to come. We must work together."
Piper's face felt warm. She wasn't sure how to respond to Hera's compliment, but Leo stepped in leaving Aimee's side.
"Yeah," he said, "I don't suppose that Porphyrion guy just melted and died, huh?"
"No," Hera agreed. "By saving me, and saving this place, you prevented Gaea from waking. You have bought us some time. But Porphyrion has risen. He simply knew better than to stay here, especially since he has not yet regained his full power. Giants can only be killed by a combination of god and demigod, working together. Once you freed me—"
"He ran away," Jason said. "But to where?"
Hera didn't answer, but a sense of dread washed over Piper. She remembered what Porphyrion had said about killing the Olympians by pulling up their roots. Greece. She looked at Thalia's grim expression, and guessed the Hunter had come to the same conclusion.
"I need to find Annabeth," Thalia said. "She has to know what's happened here."
"Thalia ..." Jason gripped her hand. "We never got to talk about this place, or—"
"I know." Her expression softened. "I lost you here once. I don't want to leave you again. But we'll meet soon. I'll rendezvous with you back at Camp Half-Blood." She glanced at Hera. "You'll see them there safely? It's the least you can do."
"It's not your place to tell me—"
"Aunt Hera," Aimee interceded finally standing up,her hands still shaking.
The goddess sighed. "Fine. Yes. Just off with you, Hunter!"
Thalia gave Jason a hug and said her good-byes. When the Hunters were gone, the courtyard seemed strangely quiet. The dry reflecting pool showed no sign of the earthen tendrils that had brought back the giant king or imprisoned Hera. The night sky was clear and starry. The wind rustled in the redwoods.
"Jason, what happened to you here?" she asked. "I mean—I know your mom abandoned you here. But you said it was sacred ground for demigods. Why? What happened after you were on your own?"
Jason shook his head uneasily,Aimee set a shaking hand on his shoulder. "It's still murky. The wolves ..."
"You were given a destiny," Hera said. "You were given into my service."
Jason scowled. "Because you forced my mom to do that. You couldn't stand knowing Zeus had two children with my mom. Knowing that he'd fallen for her twice. I was the price you demanded for leaving the rest of my family alone. "
"It was the right choice for you as well, Jason," Hera insisted. "The second time your mother managed to snare Zeus's affections, it was because she imagined him in a different aspect—the aspect of Jupiter. Never before had this happened—two children, Greek and Roman, born into the same family. You had to be separated from Thalia. This is where all demigods of your kind start their journey."
"Of his kind?" Piper asked.
"She means Roman," Aimee said. "Demigods are left here. We meet the she-wolf goddess, Lupa, the same immortal wolf that raised Romulus and Remus."
Hera nodded. "And if you are strong enough, you live."
"But ..." Leo looked mystified. "What happened after that? I mean, Jason never made it to camp."
"Not to Camp Half-Blood, no," Hera agreed.
Piper felt as if the sky were spiraling above her, making her dizzy. "You went somewhere else. That's where you've been all these years. Somewhere else for demigods—but where?"
Jason turned to the goddess. "The memories are coming back, but not the location. You're not going to tell me or Aimee, are you?"
"No," Hera said. "That is part of your destinies, Jason. You both must find your own way back. But when you do ... you will unite two great powers. You will give us hope against the giants, and more importantly—against Gaea herself."
"You want us to help you," Aimee said glaring at Here, "but you're holding back information."
"Giving you answers would make those answers invalid," Hera said. "That is the way of the Fates. You must forge your own path for it to mean anything. Already, you four have surprised me. I would not have thought it possible ..."
The goddess shook her head. "Suffice to say, you have performed well, demigods. But this is only the beginning. Now you must return to Camp Half-Blood, where you will begin planning for the next phase."
"Which you won't tell us about," Jason grumped. "And I suppose you destroyed my nice storm spirit horse, so we'll have to walk home?"
Hera waved aside the question. "Storm spirits are creatures of chaos. I did not destroy that one, though I have no idea where he went, or whether you'll see him again. But there is an easier way home for you. As you have done me a great service, so I can help you—at least this once. Farewell, demigods, for now."
The world turned upside down, and Aimee almost blacked out again.When she could see straight again, she was back at camp, in the dining pavilion, in the middle of dinner. They were standing on the Aphrodite cabin's table, and Piper had one foot in Drew's pizza.
Sixty campers rose at once, gawking at them in astonishment.Whatever Hera had done to shoot them across the country, it wasn't good for Aimee's stomach. She could barely control her nausea. Leo wasn't so lucky. He jumped off the table, ran to the nearest bronze brazier, and threw up in it—which was probably not a great burnt offering for the gods.
"Jason?Aimee?" Chiron trotted forward. No doubt the old centaur had seen thousands of years' worth of weird stuff, but even he looked totally flabbergasted. "What—How—?"
The Aphrodite campers stared up at Piper with their mouths open.
"Hi," Aimee said, as casually as she could with a small wave. "We're back."