The Lost Hero

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Goodbye Festus

THEY SPIRALED THROUGH THE DARK in a free fall, still on the dragon's back, but Festus's hide was cold. His ruby eyes were dim.

"Not again!" Leo yelled. "You can't fall again!"

He could barely hold on. The wind stung his eyes, but he managed to pull open the panel on the dragon's neck. He toggled the switches. He tugged the wires. The dragon's wings flapped once, but Leo caught a whiff of burning bronze. The drive system was overloaded. Festus didn't have the strength to keep flying, and Leo couldn't get to the main control panel on the dragon's head—not in midair. He saw the lights of a city below them—just flashes in the dark as they plummeted in circles. They had only seconds before they crashed.

"Jason!" he screamed. "Take Piper and Vivian and fly out of here!"

"What?"

"We need to lighten the load! I might be able to reboot Festus, but he's carrying too much weight!"

"WHAT! LEO ARE YOU CRAZY?" Vivian screached. "What about you? What if you can't rebook Festus? I can help!"

"No! It's too dangerous! I'll be fine," Leo yelled. "Just follow me to the ground. Go!"

Jason grabbed Piper and Vivian around the waist. They unbuckled their harnesses, and in a flash they were gone —shooting into the air.

They fell and Vivian felt that something wrong was going to happen. And something wrong did happen. Jason saw the lawn of a mansion and they planned to land there. Then everything went wrong. Vivian heard the sound of lasers. She couldn't see them but she knew they were there. Before Piper of Jason got hurt Vivian did something amazon;y stupid. She shape-shifted into a dragon. Her wings covered Jason and Piper. Then BANG! One of the lasers got Vivian's leg. As soon as they landed Vivian turned back into human.

"Water," Vivian winced. "I need water, it'll help."

Piper looked inside her backpack and pulled out a canteen of water.

Vivian bended the water and made it spin, making it glow. She put the healing water on her leg and the pain went away, but there was still a scar on her left leg.

Piper and Jason helped Vivian stand.

"How did you do that?" Piper asked.

"Apollo," Vivian said.

Then BOOM!

The three looked at each other then sprinted to the noise. What they saw broke Vivian's heart. There was Festus, broken into pieces. And Leo was knocked out cold.

When Leo came to his senses, Jason, Vivian and Piper were leaning over him. He was lying in the snow, covered in mud and grease. He spit a clump of frozen grass out of his mouth.

"Where—" Leo started.

"Lie still." Vivian had tears in her eyes. "You rolled pretty hard when—when Festus—"

"Where is he?" Leo sat up, but his head felt like it was floating.

"Seriously, Leo," Jason said. "You could be hurt. You shouldn't—"

Leo pushed himself to his feet. Then he saw the wreckage. Festus must have dropped the big canary cages as he came over the fence, because they'd rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly undamaged.

Festus hadn't been so lucky.

The dragon had disintegrated. His limbs were scattered across the lawn. His tail hung on the fence. The main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion's yard before breaking apart. What remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. Only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rose bushes like a pillow.

"No," Leo sobbed. He ran to the dragon's head and stroked its snout. The dragon's eyes flickered weakly. Oil leaked out of his ear

"You can't go," Leo pleaded. "You're the best thing I ever fixed."

The dragon's head whirred its gears, as if it were purring. Jason, Vivian and Piper stood next to him, but Leo kept his eyes fixed on the dragon.

Vivian remembered what her dad had said: That isn't your fault, Vivi. Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines.

Hephaestus probably warned my dad and told him to warn me. Vivian thought.

"It's not fair," he said.

The dragon clicked. Long creak. Two short clicks. Creak. Creak. Almost like a pattern ... triggering an old memory in Leo's mind. Leo realized Festus was trying to say something.

It was morse code. Vivian had no clue how to understand morse code, but it looks like Leo does.

"Yeah," Leo said. "I understand. I will. I promise."

The dragon's eyes went dark. Festus was gone.

Leo cried. He wasn't even embarrassed. His friends stood on either side, patting his shoulders, saying comforting things, Vivian was hugging him; but the buzzing in Leo's ears drowned out their words.

Finally Vivian said, "I'm so sorry. What did you promise Festus?"

Leo sniffled. He opened the dragon's head panel, just to be sure, but the control disk was cracked and burned beyond repair.

"The control disk," Vivian breathed out. Even if Festus was not cut into pieces, without the control disk, Festus wouldn't work.

"Something my dad told me," Leo said. "Everything can be-."

"Reused?" Vivian said. Leo nodded. "My dad told me too, Hephaestus probably told my dad to say that."

"Your dads talked to you?" Jason asked. "When was this?"

Leo and Vivian didn't answer. Leo worked at the dragon's neck hinges until the head was detached. It weighed about a hundred pounds, but Leo managed to hold it in his arms. He looked up at the starry sky and said, "Take him back to the bunker, Dad. Please, until I can reuse him. I've never asked you for anything. "

The wind picked up, and the dragon's head floated out of Leo's arms like it weighed nothing. It flew into the sky and disappeared.

Piper looked at him in amazement. "He answered you?"

"I had a dream," Leo managed. "Tell you later."

"So did I," Vivian said.

She looked around. The large white mansion glowed in the center of the grounds. Tall brick walls with lights and security cameras surrounded the perimeter, but now Vivian and Leo could see—or rather sense—just how well those walls were defended.

"Where are we?" Leo asked. "I mean, what city?"

"Omaha, Nebraska," Piper said. "I saw a billboard as we flew in. But I don't know what this mansion is. We came in right behind you, but as you were landing, Leo. Vivian got hit with something, but was able to heal herself. I swear it looked like —I don't know—"

"Lasers," Leo said. He picked up a piece of dragon wreckage and threw it toward the top of the fence. Immediately a turret popped up from the brick wall and a beam of pure heat incinerated the bronze plating to ashes.

Jason whistled. "Some defense system. How are you even alive? V turned into a dragon and saved us."

"Festus," Leo said miserably. "He took the fire. The lasers sliced him to bits as he came in. I led him into a death trap."

"Leo you couldn't have known. It's not your fault!" Vivian said.

"But what now?" Jason said. "The main gates are locked, and I'm guessing I can't fly us out of here without getting shot down."

Leo looked up the walkway at the big white mansion. "Since we can't go out, we'll have to go in."