A firestorm erupted around him. When Leo opened his eyes he was bathed in flames swirling twenty feet into the air.
Ma Gasket shrieked with delight, but Leo didn’t offer the fire any good fuel. The kerosene burned off, dying down to small fiery patches on the floor.
Piper gasped. “Leo?”
Ma Gasket looked astonished. “You live?” Then she took that extra step forward, which put her right where Leo wanted. “What are you?”
“The son of Hephaestus,” Leo said. “And I warned you I’d destroy you with fire. ”
He pointed one finger in the air and summoned all his will. He’d never tried to do anything so focused and intense—but he shot a bolt of white-hot flames at the chain suspending the engine block above the Cyclops’s head—aiming for the link that looked weaker than rest.
The flames died. Nothing happened. Ma Gasket laughed. “An impressive try, son of Hephaestus. It’s been many centuries since I saw a fire user. You’ll make a spicy appetizer!”
The chain snapped—that single link heated beyond its tolerance point—and the engine block fell, deadly and silent.
“I don’t think so,” Leo said.
Ma Gasket didn’t even have time to look up.
Smash! No more Cyclops—just a pile of dust under a five-ton engine block.
“Not immune to engines, huh?” Leo said. “Boo-yah!”
Then he fell to his knees, his head buzzing. After a few minutes he realized Piper was calling his name.
“Leo! Are you all right? Can you move?”
He stumbled to his feet. He’d never tried to summon such an intense fire before, and it had left him completely drained.
It took him a long time to get Piper down from her chains. Then
together they lowered Jason, who was still unconscious. Piper managed to trickle a little nectar into his mouth, and he groaned. The welt on his head started to shrink. His color came back a little.
“Yeah, he’s got a nice thick skull,” Leo said. “I think he’s gonna be fine. ”
“Thank god,” Piper sighed. Then she looked at Leo with something like fear. “How did you—the fire—have you always … ?”
Leo looked down. “Always,” he said. “I’m a freaking menace. Sorry, I should’ve told you guys sooner but—”
“Sorry?” Piper punched his arm. When he looked up, she was grinning. “That was amazing, Valdez! You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?”
Leo blinked. He started to smile, but his sense of relief was ruined when he noticed something next to Piper’s foot.
Yellow dust—the powdered remains of one of the Cyclopes, maybe Torque—was shifting across the floor like an invisible wind was pushing it back together.
“They’re forming again,” Leo said. “Look. ”
Piper stepped away from the dust. “That’s not possible. Annabeth told me monsters dissipate when they’re killed. They go back to Tartarus and can’t return for a long time. ”
“Well, nobody told the dust that. ” Leo watched as it collected into a pile, then very slowly spread out, forming a shape with arms and legs.
“Oh, god. ” Piper turned pale. “Boreas said something about this—the earth yielding up horrors. ‘When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades. ’ How long do you think we have?”
Leo thought about the face that had formed in the ground outside—the sleeping woman who was definitely a horror from the earth.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But we need to get out of here. ”
JASON DREAMED HE WAS WRAPPED in chains, hanging upside down like a hunk of meat. Everything hurt—his arms, his legs, his chest, his head. Especially his head. It felt like an overinflated water balloon.
“If I’m dead,” he murmured, “why does it hurt so much?”
“You’re not dead, my hero,” said a woman’s voice. “It is not your time. Come, speak with me. ”
Jason’s thoughts floated away from his body. He heard monsters yelling, his friends screaming, fiery explosions, but it all seemed to be happening on another plane of existence —getting farther and farther away.
He found himself standing in an earthen cage. Tendrils of tree roots and stone whirled together, confining him. Outside the bars, he could see the floor of a dry reflecting pool, another earthen spire growing at the far end, and above them, the ruined red stones of a burned-out house.
Next to him in the cage, a woman sat cross-legged in black robes, her head covered by a shroud. She pushed aside her veil, revealing a face that was proud and beautiful—but also hardened with suffering.
“Hera,” Jason said.
“Welcome to my prison,” said the goddess. “You will not die today, Jason. Your friends will see you through—for now. ”