Hey, guys, next chapter.
Leo
"How'd he die?" Leo asked as they trudged along. "Beckendorf, I mean."
"Explosion," Will said flatly. His relaxed demeanour had vanished the moment he had stepped into Cabin Nine – still polite, friendly, but distracted, sad. As if entering the cabin had brought back memories he'd rather not dwell on. Leo could relate. "Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn't make it out."
There was that name again – Percy Jackson. Annabeth's missing boyfriend.
Who was that guy? Leo thought. He must have been into everything around here.
"So Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Leo asked. "I mean...before he blew up?"
"He was awesome," Will confirmed. "He didn't talk much, but he was friendly, nice to everyone. If someone broke a sword or anything, he would fix it and make it better than it had been for them. It was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake became head counsellor in the middle of the war. Same as I did, actually. He tried his best, but he never wanted to be leader. He just likes building stuff.
"After the war, everything started to go wrong. Cabin Nine's chariots blew up. Their automatons started to malfunction. Nothing good ever happened, like a curse – people started to call it that. The Curse of Cabin Nine. Then Jake had his accident..."
"Something to do with the problem he mentioned?" Leo guessed.
"They're working on it," Will said. He didn't sound too optimistic. "Here we are."
The forge looked like a steam powered locomotive crossed with an ancient Greek temple. White marble columns – Doric, he could hear a voice telling him (probably a past history teacher) – lined soot stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborately carved gable. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. Leo could hear machinery grinding, hammers ringing against anvils.
When they stepped through the doorway, a dozen guys and girls who had been working on various projects froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the faintest clinking of gears and levers.
"Hey guys," Will said. "What's up? This is your new brother, Leo – um, what's your last name?"
"Valdez." Leo looked around at the campers. Was he really related to all of them? His cousins came from big families, but he had always just had his mom – until she died.
Kids came up and started shaking his hand, introducing themselves. Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley. Leo knew he would never keep them all straight. Too many of them. It was overwhelming.
None of them resembled any of the others. Different face types, skin tone, eye and hair colour, height. No one would ever look at them and think, Hey, there's the Hephaestus bunch. Leo would never have guessed they were related. He was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around the whole Greek gods and demigods thing. But everyone had powerful hands, rough with callouses and smeared with engine grease. Even Harley, who couldn't have been more than eight, looked like he could go a couple rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.
And all the kids shared a kind of sad solemnity. Their shoulders all slumped down like they were tired, like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Leo didn't like their defeatist attitude.
Several of them looked like life had done more than just beat them down – they looked physically beaten up. Leo counted two slings, a pair of crutches, six Ace bandages, and a few thousand Band-Aids.
"Well, all right!" Leo said. "I hear this is the party cabin!"
No one laughed. Not even the flicker of a smile. They all just stared at him.
Will patted Leo's shoulder. "Well, I'll leave you guys to get acquainted. Would someone show Leo to dinner when it's time?"
"I've got it," one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered.
She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her muscled arms, and a red bandana over dark hair. Aside from the smiley face bandana on her chin, she looked like an action hero, like she any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down aliens. But unlike any action hero Leo had ever seen, Nyssa looked weary and sad, as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders.
"Always wanted a sister who could beat me up," Leo grinned. Nyssa didn't smile.
"Come on, joker boy. I'll show you around."
Leo knew workshops well. He'd grown up with grease monkeys and power tools. His mother used to joke that his first pacifier had been a lug wrench. Cabin Nine, with all the tools and machine parts, had felt as familiar as a home. But he had never seen anything like the camp forge.
One guy was working on a battle axe. He kept testing the blade on a block of concrete. The blade cut into the block like it was warm cheese, but the guy still looked unsatisfied. He continued honing the edge.
"What's he planning to kill with that thing?" Leo muttered to Nyssa. "A battle ship?"
She actually smiled at that, a small, wry grin, but a smile all the same. "You never know. We always believe in being prepared. Even with celestial bronze – "
"That's the metal?"
Nyssa nodded. "Mined from Mount Olympus. Incredibly rare. It disintegrates most monsters on contact, but some are notorious for their tough hides. Drakons – "
"You mean dragons?" Leo interrupted.
Nyssa shook her head. "Similar, but no. You'll learn the difference in monster fighting class."
"Oh, yeah, monster fighting class. Got my black belt in that years ago."
Nyssa didn't seem amused. Leo really hoped she wasn't always that serious. His dad's family had to have some sense of humour, right?
They passed a couple of guys working on what resembled nothing more than a bronze wind up toy. It was a six inch tall centaur, armed with a miniature bow.
One of the guys cranked the centaur's tail, and it whirred to life. It galloped across the table, shouting, "Die, mosquito, die!" and shooting everything in sight.
Apparently this was a regular occurrence, because everyone knew to hit the ground except for Leo. Six needle sized arrows pierced his shirt before someone grabbed a hammer and smashed the centaur to bits.
"Stupid curse." The camper brandished his hammer, frustrated. "All I want is a magical bug killer!"
"Ouch," Leo said. Nyssa stood up and pulled the arrows from his shirt.
"Ah, you're fine. Let's just move on before they rebuild it."
Leo rubbed his chest as they walked and jerked his thumb over at the campers already working on the centaur again. "That...does that happen often?"
Nyssa sighed, closing her eyes briefly. "You wouldn't know it now, but six months ago, we were the best of the best, when it came to building things. Jake and I, we used to have a competition over who could build the best swords. Beckendorf never participated – everyone knew his were better than either of ours. He judged the contests for us. Basically, if someone came to us with an idea for anything, magic items, swords, shields, spears, knives...we could make it. Lately, though, everything we build turns to junk."
"That curse?"
Nyssa frowned, troubled. "I don't believe in curses. But something is wrong. And if we don't figure out that dragon problem soon, it's only gonna get worse. I don't want to say this, but I'm starting to think that Hephaestus took away his blessing. Maybe without that, none of us can build anything worth a damn."
"Dragon problem?" Leo repeated. He hoped she was talking about a miniature dragon, like the centaur. Maybe one that killed cockroaches. But he wasn't going to be that lucky.
Nyssa led him over to a big map on the wall that a couple girls were studying – a map of the camp, a semicircle of land with Long Island Sound to the north, the woods on the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.
"It's got to be in the hills," one of the girls said.
"We looked in the hills," the second girl argued. "The woods are a better hiding place."
"But we set traps – "
"Hold up," Leo said. "You guys lost a dragon? A life-sized dragon?"
"It's a bronze dragon," Nyssa corrected him. "But yes, a full sized automaton. The Hephaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers ago. Beckendorf found it in pieces and rebuilt it. It's been helping protect camp, but for the past few months, it's been a little, um, unpredictable."
"Unpredictable," Leo said. Nyssa and the other two girls exchanged glances. Nyssa answered the unspoken question quietly, almost hesitantly.
"It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, sets people on fire, tries to eat the satyrs."
"That's pretty unpredictable."
Nyssa nodded. "Beckendorf was the only one who could really control it. It loved him. Then when he died, the dragon just got worse and worse. Finally it went berserk and ran off. Occasionally, it shows up, demolishes something, and runs away again. Everyone expects us to find it and destroy it—"
"Destroy it?" Leo was appalled. His mom had once told him, Never just give up on a project, Leo. Don't scrap it and give it up for a lost cause. If you lose interest in your project, stop, but never think finishing is impossible. Even if they weren't talking about a bronze dragon, he would be horrified at the prospect of destroying a piece of art like that. It was something that must have taken an insane amount of time. "You've got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?"
"It breathes fire," Nyssa explained. "It's deadly and out of control. It's dangerous. We don't have a choice."
"But it's a dragon! Dude, that's so awesome. Can't you try talking to it, controlling it?"
"We tried. Jake Mason tried. You saw how well that worked." Nyssa's voice was a growl, but Leo didn't really think she was angry – frustrated, tired, and stressed out, but not angry.
Leo thought about Jake, wrapped in a body cast, lying alone on his bunk. "Still —"
"There's no other option." Nyssa turned to the other girls. "Let's try more traps in the woods—here, here, and here. Bait them with thirty-weight motor oil."
"The dragon drinks that?" Leo asked.
"Yeah." Nyssa sighed regretfully. She lowered her voice, a wistful note entering it. "He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. We've got a lot of traps in the woods already. If he springs one, we can come in with acid sprayers—should melt through his hide. Then we get metal cutters and…and finish the job."
They all looked sad, like they had to put down a pet dog. Leo realized they didn't want to kill the dragon any more than he did. It wasn't just a dragon to them – it was almost a pet. With a jolt, another realization hit him – the dragon was another reminder of Beckendorf.
"Guys," Leo said. "There has to be another way."
Nyssa looked skeptical, but a few other campers stopped what they were working on and drifted over to hear the conversation.
"Like what?" one asked. "The thing breathes fire. We can't even get close."
Fire, Leo thought. Oh, man, the things he could tel them about fire… But he had to be careful, even if these were his brothers and sisters. Especially if he had to live with them.
"Well…" He hesitated. "Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So don't any of you have like fire resistance or something?"
Nobody acted as if it was a crazy question, which was a relief, but Nyssa shook her head gravely, finally dropping her gaze. She stared down at her feet, as if she wished she could say yes, wished she could find some other way to control the dragon.
"That's a Cyclops ability, Leo. Demigod children of Hephaestus…we're just good with our hands. We're builders, craftsmen, weapon-smiths—stuff like that."
Leo's shoulders slumped. "Oh."
A guy in back said, "Well, a long time ago—"
"Yeah, okay," Nyssa conceded. "A long time ago, some children of Hephaestus were born with power over fire. But that ability was very, very rare. And always dangerous. No demigod like that has been born in centuries. The last one …"
She looked at one of the other kids for help.
"A guy naed Thomas Faynor," a girl offered. "In sixteen sixty six. He started the Great Fire of London."
"Right," Nyssa said. "When a child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we don't need any more catastrophes."
Leo tried to keep his face clear of emotion, which wasn't his strong suit. He wasn't Reyna. He was just him, just Leo. "Fair point. Too bad, though. If you could resist flames, you could get close to the dragon."
"Then it would kill you with its claws and fangs," Nyssa said. "Or simply step on you. No, we've got to destroy it. Even if we were immune, this thing is uncontrollable. And the rest of the camp would be very susceptible. Trust me, if anyone could figure out another answer …"
She didn't finish, but Leo got the message. This was the cabin's big test. If they could do something only Beckendorf could do, if they could subdue the dragon without killing it, then maybe their curse would be lifted. But they were stumped for ideas. Any camper who figured out how would be a hero.
A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting up their tools and projects. Leo hadn't realized it was getting so late, but he looked through the windows and saw the sun going down. His ADHD did that to him sometimes. If he was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If he was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and bam— the day was over.
"Dinner," Nyssa said. "Come on, Leo."
"Up at the pavilion, right?" he asked.
She nodded.
"You guys go ahead," Leo said. "Can you…give me a second? I'll catch up."
Nyssa hesitated, evidently unsure about leaving a new kid alone in the forge. Then her expression softened into an unexpected expression – understanding. "Sure. It's a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you're ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost every project in here can kill you if you're not careful. And that's on a good day. I don't even want to think about what they could do now."
"No touching," Leo promised.
His cabin-mates filed out of the forge. Soon Leo was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels, small machines clicking and whirring, and his thoughts, louder than all the other noises.
He stared at the map of camp—the locations where his newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon. It was wrong. Plain wrong. He couldn't stomach the thought.
Very rare, he thought. And always dangerous.
He held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not calloused like the other Hephaestus campers'. The fingers of a pianist, not a builder. He had always resembled his mom, in that regard – smaller than most of the other mechanics, but clever, good at what she did.
Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He'd survived in tough neighbourhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using his wits.
He was the class clown, the court jester. He had learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren't scared, you usually didn't get beat up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humour was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn't work, there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over.
There was a Plan C, but he'd promised himself never to use it again.
He felt an urge to try it now—something he hadn't done since the accident, since his mom's death. He shouldn't do it. It was dangerous. He knew it. But instinct took over, instinct and a burning longing, so strong, it scared him.
He extended his fingers and felt them tingle, like they were waking up—pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm.
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