WORTH | jason grace¹

15

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15. Chicago

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"Cyclops!" Jason yelled.

"Whoa, sleepyhead." Lorna sat behind him on the bronze dragon, holding his waist to keep him balanced.

They flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had happened.

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

"How did you—the Cyclops—"

"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.

Lorna laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. You were awesome! Get over it."

Piper told Jason about how Leo and Lorna defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory.

Then Piper told him about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin.

"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."

"They got eaten by Cyclops." Lorna reminded him.

"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."

"I—I know ... but something Hera said. I was having a dream..."

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.

"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?"

"Maybe like secret santa or something." Lorna mumbled.

Jason shook his head. "But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"

"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy—that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."

Leo cleared his throat. "About that ... she kind of appeared to me and Lorna back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."

"Did you say ... Porta-Potty?" Jason asked.

Lorna told them about the big face in the factory yard.

"I don't know if she's completely unkillable," Leo said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"

"She's trying to divide us." Piper choked up.

"What's wrong?" Lorna asked.

"I just ... Why are they toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?"

"Enceladus?" Jason asked.

"I mean ..." Piper's voice quavered. "That's one of the giants. Just one of the names I could remember."

Lorna got the feeling there was a lot more bothering her, but she decided not to press her. She'd had a rough morning. Leo scratched his head. "Well, I dunno about Enchiladas—"

"Enceladus," Piper corrected.

"Whatever. But Old Potty Face mentioned another name. Porpoise Fear, or something?"

"Porphyrion?" Piper asked. "He was the giant king, I think."

"I'm going to take wild guess," Jason said. "In the old stories, Porphyrion kidnapped Hera. That was the first shot in the war between the giants and the gods."

"I think so," Lorna agreed. "But those myths are really garbled and conflicted. It's almost like nobody wanted that story to survive. I just remember there was a war, and the giants were almost impossible to kill."

"Heroes and gods had to work together," Jason said. "That's what Hera told me."

"Kind of hard to do," Leo grumbled, "if the gods won't even talk to us."

They flew west, and Lorna became lost in her thoughts —all of them bad. She wasn't sure how much time passed before the dragon dove through a break in the clouds, and below them, glittering in the winter sun, was a city at the edge of a massive lake. A crescent of skyscrapers lined the shore. Behind them, stretching out to the western horizon, was a vast grid of snow-covered neighborhoods and roads.

"Chicago," Jason said.

"One problem down," Leo said. "We got here alive. Now, how do we find the storm spirits?"

Lorna saw a flash of movement below them. At first she thought it was a small plane, but it was too small, too dark and fast. The thing spiraled toward the skyscrapers, weaving and changing shape—and, just for a moment it became the smoky figure of a horse.

"How about we follow that one," Lorna suggested, "and see where it goes?"