Chapter Four: Burning Theory

Bodies littered the sidewalks as New York burned around me. Asphalt cracked and gravel scattered underfoot as each step brought me further into hell. Besides me, nothing moved. The entire city was as silent as a grave.

"Nice place," a voice behind me said. "I really like what you've done with it."

I tensed, turning to see a girl with short, spiky dark hair and electric blue eyes smirking at me.

"Hey, dream girl," I said.

"I have a name, you know."

"I know," I said, smirking as she let out an irritated huff.

"So, what's all this?" She asked, gesturing broadly.

"It was like this when I got here," I shrugged. "Nightmare, probably."

"Classy," she drawled. "No man-eating monsters or creepy serial killers?"

I opened my mouth to retort, when I was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I turned to see a thirty-foot tall blue giant with icy-gray hair dragging a broken telephone pole like a club. The ground beneath its feet was frozen.

"I blame you," I said, turning to see the other girl had already vanished.

I woke with a soft groan to the mournful tolling of bells followed by a creeping guitar lick and Phil Rudd's stalking kick drum and chilling cymbals. The music built with a steady, almost purposeful pace for nearly a minute and a half before the vocals finally cut in.

"I'm a rolling thunder, pouring rain. I'm coming on like a hurricane," sang the hard biting, raspy voice of Brian Johnson. "My lightning's flashing across the sky! You're only young, but you're gonna die..."

I slammed the off button on the alarm clock and sat up to stretch. It took me a moment to remember that I'd stayed over at Andromeda's grandparents' place the night before. Apparently her mom ran a sort of halfway house, and things were just a little 'too busy' for weekend company. Thankfully, Lydia and Jerry had agreed to host me and Percy along with Andromeda and her brother - Lydia having been the one to pick us up from school.

After the others had finished their homework, we all stayed up late watching movies. Sharkboy and Lava Girl was almost surreal, but not in a bad way. To be honest, it was almost like watching a live action cartoon. After that, the flood gates were opened. Andromeda had heard me mention not having seen very many movies, and apparently took it as a personal challenge to fix that oversight. By the time we got to bed, I was so tired that I was already unconscious before my head hit the pillow. Was it any wonder that I'd slept in?

Looking around now, I realized that I was in the same guest room that I'd slept in the night we'd returned the lightning bolt last Summer. The window drapes matched the bed linens, and the walls were a warm amber color that seemed to glow in the early rays of morning sunlight that filtered in through the drawn curtains. I had wanted to get an early morning run in to make up for the last week, but sadly that didn't seem to be in the cards now.

With a sigh, I got up and began rummaging through my backpack for my clothes so I could get dressed for the day. Once clothed, I stepped out into the hall just in time to bump - almost literally - right into Andromeda. If I felt tired, she looked exhausted. Her eyes were still mostly closed and her hair was a wild tangle that sat higher on her head than usual.

"Huh, wha-..?" She blinked at me in confusion before seeming to gather herself. "Oh, hey. Morning."

"Morning," I said. "Um... Do you need help with...?" I gestured to her hair (was that a pillow hiding in those curls?) as I trailed off.

"Don't do nothin' weird," she mumbled.

"Promise," I said, taking the chance to run my fingers across her scalp and inwardly thanking Aphrodite for the gift of hair magic. At my touch, her hair had fallen into it's customary ordered chaos. It was still very much a wild beast, but no longer on the verge of stalking and killing prey. Also. as it turned out, no, there wasn't a pillow stuck in there. But, her pillow must have been leaking feathers because damn! "Alright, you're good."

She made what I took to be a sound of gratitude (but could have just been a meaningless grunt) and started for the stairs. I let out another yawn and followed.

"Good morning," Andromeda's grandpa Jerry said as we walked down the stairs and into the dining room. His black hair was trimmed short with streaks of silver along his temples that belied his true age.

"Che cosa vuoi dire?" I retorted, slipping languages without realizing in my still groggy state. "Mi auguri un buon giorno o vuoi dire che è un buon giorno che mi piaccia o no? O forse vuoi dire che ti senti buono in questo particolare giorno? O affermi semplicemente che questo è un giorno in cui occorre essere buoni?"

"He means all of the above," Andromeda slurred, sitting down across from me and resting her head on the table. "Don't be a smart aleck."

"Right," Jerry said, slowly. "So, what do you kids have planned for today?"

"'unno," Andromeda shrugged. "Might watch more movies. Might not."

"I was thinking about going to the library," I said, a little sheepishly.

"The library?" Andromeda lifted her head up to squint at me.

"Yeah," I nodded. "I've kind of hit a little snag with an ongoing project, and I was going to check the library for any relevant material that could help before trying the book stores."

"Oh, that's..." Andromeda trailed off. "What project? I thought you don't do homework."

"It's not homework," I said, shaking my head. "You remember Waterland?" She shuddered. "Well, one of the spiders followed me home. It's almost totally busted, so I've been working on putting it back together. I've got a good idea about how the mechanical parts work, but I'm hitting a snag with some of the more technical aspects of the enchantment, and Jo's reference notes are a little more advanced than I'm currently familiar with. Hence the library. I want to see if there's any kind of Physics 101 books available to reference for a refresher."

"A... Refresher...?"

"Um..." I felt my cheeks heat up. "Yeah?"

"Why the hel...ck... are you even taking Bailey's math class?" Andromeda asked, her voice breaking slightly. "Much less Carter's class?"

"Probably the same reason you're taking history with Mrs. Cooper," I said. "Or close to it."

"What do you mean?"

"You said that you've been bounced around a lot of different schools?"

"Not a lot..." she grumbled as her grandfather snorted amusedly.

"Well," I pressed on. "Your transcripts are probably not that great because of that. Meanwhile, since this is my first time in an actual school, I don't really have reliable transcripts to go off of. You can imagine the look on the admin's faces when I said I know calculus during the entrance interview."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah," I shrugged. "It was part of my magic studies with Jo and Britt."

"How...? But... That doesn't..." Andromeda sputtered. "What?"

"Apparently magic works different for everyone," I said. "Some people are more... Mystically inclined? Like through prayer and invocation. While others use rituals."

"Right..." Andromeda said, following along.

"Well, I find that I get better results by applying a scientific and mathematical process to help understand how things work. Take, for example, my pyrokinesis," I said, holding up my hand and lighting my fingertips like candles.

"Whoa, hold on, there," Jerry said, speaking up. "I'm sure you've got really good control, but I'd really prefer you didn't set any fires inside the house. Please."

"Oh," I blushed, self extinguishing. "Right. Sorry."

"It's okay," Jerry said, kindly. "Just keep it in mind for the future, yeah?"

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Okay. So, you were saying?" He said, grinning at my bewildered look. "It's interesting."

"Oh, um... Right," I gathered my thoughts. "My fire. I can call it up pretty much instinctively at this point, but for greater control - like my aborted demonstration - it takes a bit more focus. Having a better understanding of the process of ignition and combustion helps me to produce better control and greater effects. It can make the difference between simple total self immolation to lighting just my fingertips like a candle, or even throwing literal fireballs from the palms of my hands.

"Um..." I paused, trying to figure out how best to explain it. "Oh! Picture a propane stove. You turn the knob to release the gas and ignite the flame. Then you can control how big or small the flame is by whichever direction you turn the knob. It's a similar process I use with my magic to create and control my flames."

"I noticed a lack of smoke," Jerry said. "Is that because you're not actually burning?"

"Nah," I shook my head. "It's actually more like a stoichiometric combustion where the total mass of the reactants is the same as the total mass of the product resulting in a complete lack of residual oxidants."

"It is way too early for this," Andromeda groused. "We haven't even had breakfast yet."

"Okay, okay" Jerry said, chuckling. "This old man can take a hint. How's an omelette and toast sound?"

"Sounds wonderful," Andromeda said.

"Yeah," I nodded, my stomach growling. "Thanks."

"Think nothing of it," he said, getting up and going to the fridge to begin pulling out ingredients. I moved to help, but he just shook his head; "Sit back down, young lady. You're a guest, and I wont be having you work."

"Oh, right," I said, chuckling in embarrassment. "Sorry, forced habit."

"Think nothing of it," he smiled, then turned to start cooking.

A few minutes later, the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs announced the arrival of our brothers.

"Hey, you two," I said, greeting them.

"Ugh, she's a morning person," Andros grumbled.

"You get used to it," Percy said, stifling a yawn.

"Why do I feel like I'm being insulted?" I said.

"You'll get used to it," Percy grinned.

"Oi!"

"So, what's cooking?" Andros asked, sitting next to his sister.

"Omelettes," Andromeda mumbled as she finally sat upright.

"Smells good," Andros nodded, leaning back slightly and closing his eyes.

"So what's the plan for today?" Percy asked, taking the seat next to me with a yawn.

"I was going to head to the library," I said. "Probably for an hour or two, depending on foot traffic."

"What's at the library?" Percy frowned. "Besides books."

I closed my mouth as my first reply was cut off before I could make it.

"She apparently needs a refresher book on physics ," Andromeda said.

"Physics?" Percy blinked.

"And calculus," Andromeda smirked.

"It's really very interesting stuff," I said, a little defensively. "Plus it's for learning magic. Not my fault Bailey's droning voice only serves to push the information out of my brain."

"You're such a nerd," Andros quipped.

"Yeah, and I'm proud of it," I glowered.

"So, which library?" Jerry asked, bringing the conversation back around.

"Forty-second street," I said. "I like the lions."

"I like them too," Lydia said, walking into the room. If you were to tell someone off the street that she was somebody's grandmother, they'd look at you like you were crazy. She looked like she could pass for Desi's older sister. The grey in her otherwise dark brown hair looked like sun bleaching more than any effect of aging, and the only wrinkles on her face were laugh lines. "Why don't we all make it a day and go see them together?"