The dragons lunged. Leo and Jason charged to intercept. I was amazed how fearlessly the boys attacked—working like a team who had trained together for years, considering they were about to kill each other two minutes ago.
Medea was almost to the second floor, where she'd be able to choose from a wide assortment of deadly appliances.
"Oh, no, you don't," I growled, and took off after her.
When Medea spotted me, she started climbing in earnest. She was pretty damn quick for a three-thousand-year-old lady. I climbed at top speed, taking the steps three at a time, but still I couldn't catch her. Medea didn't stop at floor two. She hopped the next escalator and continued to ascend.
The potions, I thought. Finally, my brain had decided to wake up and sort of try and help me out when my life was in danger. Of course that's what she would go for. She was famous for potions.
Down below, I heard the battle raging. Leo was blowing his safety whistle, and Jason was yelling to keep the dragons' attention. I didn't dare look—not while I was running with a sword in my hand. I could just see myself tripping and stabbing myself in the nose. Oh yeah. That would be a super heroic way to go.
I grabbed a shield from an armored manikin on floor three and continued to climb. I imagined the nymphs in foot racing yelling in the back of my mind, just like back in running class at Camp Half-blood. Or the more bossy ones anyway: Move it, Maxwell! You call that escalator-climbing?
I reached the top floor, breathing hard, but I was way too late. Medea had reached the potions counter.
The sorceress grabbed a swan-shaped vial—the blue one that caused painful death—and I did the only thing that my helpful brain came up with. I threw the shield.
Medea turned triumphantly just in time to get hit in the chest by a fifty-pound metal Frisbee. She stumbled backward, crashing over the counter, breaking vials and knocking down shelves. When the sorceress stood from the wreckage, her dress was stained a dozen different colors. Many of the stains were smoldering and glowing.
"Fool!" Medea wailed. "Do you have any idea what so many potions will do when mixed?"
"Kill you?" I said hopefully.
The carpet began to steam around Medea's feet. She coughed, and her face contorted in pain—or was she faking? The grip around my sword tightened.
Below, Leo called, "Jason, help!"
I risked a quick look, and almost sobbed in despair. One of the dragons had Leo pinned to the floor. It was baring its fangs, ready to snap. Jason was all the way across the room battling the other dragon, much too far away to assist. Piper was helping Jason, but she couldn't leave her post without ending Jason's life.
"You've doomed us all!" Medea screamed. Smoke was rolling across the carpet as the stain spread, throwing sparks and setting fires in the clothing racks. "You have only seconds before this concoction consumes everything and destroys the building. There's no time—"
CRASH! The stained glass ceiling splintered in a rain of multicolored shards, and Festus the bronze dragon dropped into the department store.
He hurtled into the fray, snatching up a sun dragon in each claw. Only now did I really appreciate just how big and strong our metal friend was.
"That's my boy!" Leo yelled. I grinned. Looks like this wasn't it.
Festus flew halfway up the atrium, then hurled the sun dragons into the pits they'd come from. Leo raced to the fountain and pressed the marble tile, closing the sundials. They shuddered as the dragons banged against them, trying to get out, but for the moment they were contained.
Medea cursed in some ancient language. The whole fourth floor was on fire now. The air filled with noxious gas. Even with the roof open, I could feel the heat intensifying. I backed up to the edge of the railing, keeping my sword pointed toward Medea.
"I will not be abandoned again!" The sorceress knelt and snatched up the red healing potion, which had somehow survived the crash. "You want to find your friend alive? Take me with you!"
I glanced behind me. Leo, Jason and Piper were on board Festus's back, beckoning for me to come. The bronze dragon flapped his mighty wings, snatched the two cages with the satyr and the storm spirits in his claws, and began to ascend.
The building rumbled. Fire and the smoke curled up the walls, melting the railings, turning the air to acid.
"You'll never survive your quest without me!" Medea growled. "You will never see your friend, dead or alive, and my patron will rise! Take me with you!"
For one heartbeat, I was tempted. The three of us back together again, laughing at Percy's dorkiness. Then I saw Medea's grim smile. The sorceress was confident in her powers of persuasion, confident that she could always make a deal, always escape and win in the end.
"Not today, witch. " I jumped over the side. I plummeted for only a second before Festus caught me, hauling me aboard its back.
I heard Medea screaming in rage as we soared through the broken roof and over downtown Chicago. Then the department store exploded behind us.
Leo kept looking back, for some reason. Maybe he expected to see those nasty sun dragons toting a flying chariot with a screaming magical saleswoman throwing potions, and I couldn't blame him, but nothing followed us.
He steered the dragon toward the southwest. Eventually, the smoke from the burning department store faded in the distance, but Leo's shoulders didn't relax until the suburbs of Chicago gave way to snowy fields, and the sun began to set.
"Good job, Festus. " He patted the dragon's metal hide. "You did awesome. "
The dragon shuddered. Gears popped and clicked in his neck.
I frowned. Those clicks didn't sound too good. If the corroded control disk was failing again—No, Leo spent ages repairing that. This would be a minor problem. Something Leo could fix. Leo looked around and gave me a worried look. He seemed to be having the same thoughts as me.
"I'll give you a tune-up next time we land," Leo promised. "You've earned some motor oil and Tabasco sauce. "
Festus whirled his teeth, but even that sounded weak. He flew at a steady pace, his great wings angling to catch the wind, but he was carrying a heavy load. Two cages in his claws plus four people on his back—the more I thought about it, the more worried I got. Even metal dragons had limits.
"Leo. " I patted his shoulder. "You feeling okay?"
"Yeah … not bad for a brainwashed zombie. " His dark skin showed a tinge of pink. "Thanks for saving us back there, beauty queen, Doc. If you hadn't talked us out of that spell, and If you hadn't chased after her-"
"Don't worry about it," Piper said. I nodded to show I was in full agreement with that.
Leo tried for a grin, but even that was failing. I knew he felt terrible about how easily Medea had set him against his best friend. And those feelings hadn't come from nowhere—his resentment of the way Jason always got the spotlight and didn't really seem to need him. I didn't know what to say to him, really.
She helped kill his mom. I could only tell a little about how that was for him. Part of me wondered-Did she have something to do with my mom's death, too? Was that accidental spark not a coincidence?
When they had left Medea in that exploding store, I had felt a little too good. I hoped she wouldn't make it out, and would go right back to the Fields of Punishment, where she belonged. Those feelings didn't make me proud, really.
And if souls were coming back from the Underworld …was it possible my mom could be brought back?
I tried to put the idea aside. That was Frankenstein thinking. It wasn't natural. It wasn't right. Medea might've been brought back to life, but she hadn't seemed quite human, with the hissing nails and the glowing head and whatnot.
No, my mom had passed on. Thinking any other way would just drive me bananas. Still, the thought kept poking at me, like an echo of Medea's voice.
"We're going to have to put down soon," Leo warned us. "Couple more hours, maybe, to make sure Medea's not following us. I don't think Festus can fly much longer than that. "
"Yeah," Piper agreed. "Coach Hedge probably wants to get out of his canary cage, too. Question is—where are we going?"
"The Bay Area," I guessed. I seemed to remember her Highness saying something like that. "Didn't Medea say something about Oakland?"
Piper didn't respond for so long, I wondered if he'd said something wrong.
"Piper's dad," Jason put in. "Something's happened to your dad, right? He got lured into some kind of trap. "
Piper let out a shaky breath. "Look, Medea said all three of you would die in the Bay Area. And besides … even if we went there, the Bay Area is huge! First we need to find Aeolus and drop off the storm spirits. Boreas said Aeolus was the only one who could tell us exactly where to go. "
Leo grunted. "So how do we find Aeolus?"
Jason leaned forward. "You mean you don't see it?" He pointed ahead of us, but I didn't see anything except clouds and the lights of a few towns glowing in the dusk.
"What?" Leo asked.
"That … whatever it is," Jason said. "In the air. "
I glanced back. Piper looked just as confused as I was.
"Right," Leo said. "Could you be more specific on the 'whatever-it-is' part?"
"Like a vapor trail," Jason said. "Except it's glowing. Really faint, but it's definitely there. We've been following it since Chicago, so I figured you saw it. "
Leo shook his head. "Maybe Festus can sense it. You think Aeolus made it?"
"Well, it's a magic trail in the wind," Jason said. "Aeolus is the wind god. I think he knows we've got prisoners for him. He's telling us where to fly. "
"Or it's another trap," Piper said.
"Great way to be optimistic..." I rolled my eyes.
But in reality, her tone worried me. She didn't just sound nervous. She sounded broken with despair, like they'd already sealed their fate, and like it was her fault.
"Pipes, you all right?" Leo asked.
"Don't call me that. "
"Okay, fine. You don't like any of the names I make up for you. But if your dad's in trouble and we can help—"
"You can't," she said, her voice getting shakier. "Look, I'm tired. If you don't mind …"
She leaned back against Jason and closed her eyes.
All right, I thought—pretty clear signal she didn't want to talk.
We flew in silence for a while. Festus seemed to know where he was going. He kept his course, gently curving toward the southwest and hopefully Aeolus's fortress. Another wind god to visit, a whole new flavor of crazy—Oh, boy, I really couldn't wait.
Leo looked beat out tired. His shoulders slumped, and his fingers were weak on the dragon's scales.
"Catch a few Z's," Jason said. "It's cool. Hand me the reins. "
"Nah, I'm okay—"
"Leo," I interjected, "you're not a machine. Besides, Jason's the only one who can see the vapor trail. He'll make sure we stay on course. " I then glared at him. "He'd better make sure we stay on course."
Jason gulped.
Leo's eyes started to close on their own. "All right. Maybe just …"
He didn't finish the sentence before slumping forward against the dragon's neck.
Am I going to jinx it if I say-I have high hopes for this story. Thanks for reading, and please leave reveiws!
Yours,
MilkandCheez
