"After all those years on the streets, I finally feel like I'm home"
"You're lying" Leo didn't even have to look up, he knew her better than anyone.
"You're right, I was always at home with you"
In which there's an unlikely friendship (... and ma...
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Halfway up the mountain they had to get out of the cab and had to walk the rest of the way. Alex had grown panicked when she realised she was sinking in the mud and then realised that fighting the literal earth might be a stupid idea.
Alex started thinking about the roman camp when Jason seemed to recognise the place, especially the way he talked about San Francisco. She figured the camp had to be there, he had a strange homesick look but that was a problem for later.
"How do we know where the giant is?" Piper asked.
Jason pointed toward the peak. Drifting across the summit was a plume of smoke. From a distance it looked like a cloud, but it wasn't. Something was burning.
"Smoke equals fire," Jason said. "We'd better hurry."
When they reached the top, Jason and Alex crouched behind a wall of rock. They gestured for the others to do the same. Leo crawled up next to Alex. Piper had to pull Coach Hedge down.
"I don't want to get my outfit dirty!" Hedge complained.
"Shhh!" Piper said.
Reluctantly, the satyr knelt.
Just over the ridge where they were hiding, in the shadow of the mountain's final crest, was a forested depression about the size of a football field, where the giant Enceladus had set up camp.
Trees had been cut down to make a towering purple bonfire. The outer rim of the clearing was littered with extra logs and construction equipment-an earthmover; a big crane thing with rotating blades at the end like an electric shaver-must be a tree harvester, Alex thought-and a long metal column with an ax blade, like a sideways guillotine-a hydraulic ax.
Why a giant needed construction equipment, she wasn't sure. She didn't see how the creature in front of him could even fit in the driver's seat. The giant Enceladus was so large, so horrible, Alex didn't want to look at him.
But she forced herself to focus on the monster.
To start with, he was thirty feet tall-easily as tall as the treetops. Alex was sure the giant could've seen them behind their ridge, but he seemed intent on the weird purple bonfire, circling it and chanting under his breath. From the waist up, the giant appeared humanoid, his muscular chest clad in bronze armor, decorated with flame designs. His arms were completely ripped. Each of his biceps was bigger than Alex. His skin was bronze but sooty with ash. His face was crudely shaped, like a half-finished clay figure, but his eyes glowed white, and his hair was matted in shaggy dreadlocks down to his shoulders, braided with bones.
From the waist down, he was even more terrifying. His legs were scaly green, with claws instead of feet-like the forelegs of a dragon. In his hand, Enceladus held a spear the size of a flagpole. Every so often he dipped its tip in the fire, turning the metal molten red.
Piper choked back a sob. "Look."
Just visible on the other side of the bonfire was a man tied to a post. His head slumped like he was unconscious, so Alex couldn't make out his face, but Piper didn't seem to have any doubts.
"Dad," she said.
"There's four of us," Hedge whispered urgently. "And only one of him."
"Did you miss the fact that he's thirty feet tall?" Alex asked.
"Okay," Hedge said. "So you, me, Alex and Jason distract him. Piper sneaks around and frees her dad."
They all looked at Jason.
"What?" Jason asked. "I'm not the leader."
"Of course you are, Grace" Alex rolled her eyes playfully.
They'd never really talked about it, but no one disagreed, not even Hedge. Coming this far had been a team effort, but when it came to a life-and-death decision, Alex knew Jason was the one to ask . Even if he had no memory, Jason had a kind of balance to him. You could just tell he'd been in battles before, and he knew how to keep his cool. Alex knew, whatever happened, she trusted Jason with her life.
"I hate to say it," Jason sighed, "but Coach Hedge is right. A distraction is Piper's best chance."
Not a good chance, Alex thought. Not even a survivable chance. Just their best chance. They couldn't sit there all day and talk about it, though. It had to be close to noon-the giant's deadline-and the ground was still trying to pull them down. Alex's knees had already sunk two inches into the dirt.
Alex noticed Leo's eyes trailing to the construction equipment and realised he had another stupid plan. She sighed and shook her head while he gave her a mischievous grin.
"Let's boogie," he said. "Before I come to my senses."
