ichor - jason grace

VIII

Nell must have been exhausted, she fell asleep almost as soon as they were in the air. She was hoping to get a decent sleep before they made it to Chicago, but, of course, that didn't happen. When Nell woke up, she was plummeting through the sky.

"Fuck!" she screamed, trying not to panic.

Far below she saw city lights glimmering in the early dawn, and several hundred yards away was the body of the bronze dragon spinning out of control, it's wings limp, fire flickering in his mouth like a badly wired lightbulb.

A body shot past her - Leo, screaming and frantically grabbing at the clouds. "Not coooooool!"

She tried to shout, but she couldn't form the words.

Somewhere above her, she heard Jason shouting, "Piper, Nell, level out! Extend your arms and legs!"

She listened to what he said. She could feel herself shaking, and not just due to the cold. She levelled out and felt Piper grip her hand tightly. It didn't take long before Jason had caught them, wrapping his arms around them both. Nell turned her head with a blush when she realised her face was right next to Jason's.

"We have to get Leo!" Piper shouted.

Their fall slowed as Jason controlled the winds, but they still lurched up and down like the winds didn't want to cooperate.

"Gonna get rough," Jason warned. "Hold on!"

Nell fisted her hand in the back of his shirt, and Jason shot towards the ground. Nell was sure she screamed, she just hoped it wasn't in Jason's ear.

And then thump! They slammed into another warm body - Leo, still wriggling and cursing.

"Stop fighting!" Jason said. "It's me!"

"My dragon!" Leo yelled. "You gotta save Festus!"

Jason was already struggling, and Nell knew he was barely hanging on as it is, never mind with a fifty-ton metal dragon on top of it. Before she could even try to point it out to Leo, there was an explosion below them. A fireball rolled into the sky from behind a warehouse complex, and Leo sobbed, "Festus!"

Jason's face reddened with strain as he tried to maintain an air cushion beneath them, but intermittent slowdowns were the best he could manage. Rather than free falling, it felt like they were bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time which made Nell's stomach do somersaults.

As they wobbled and zigzagged, Nell observed the factory below - warehouses, smokestacks, barbed-wire fences and parking lots lined with snow-covered vehicles. They were still high enough that hitting the ground would flatten them into pancakes when Jason groaned, "I can't "

And they dropped like stones.

They hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through into darkness. Nell tried to shift herself into the safest position, but she still ended up crumpling on to the metal flooring. She felt a white-hot pain shoot up her arm, so intense it knocked her breath away and felt the blood trickling down her arm. Nell must have sliced her arm on something when she fell. She was aware of Piper lying close by, clearly in a similar state by the sounds of it. Then she heard Jason's voice somewhere below, echoing through the building. "Nell, Piper? Where are they?"

"Ow, bro!" Leo groaned. "That's my back! I'm not a sofa! Guys, where'd you go?"

"Here," she heard Piper whimper.

There was some shuffling and grunting, then feet pounding on the metal steps.

Nell sat up and looked around. She was sat on a metal catwalk that ringed the interior of the warehouse. Leo and Jason must have landed on the lower level. Nell heard them coming up the stairs towards her and Piper. She looked at her arm and winced at the deep gash on her forearm. She looked away, from her arm to try and find something, anything, that she could use to mop up the blood still streaming from her arm.