° ~ •. ♆ chapter nineteen ♆ .• ~ °
"the gang finally eats real food and mari has a nightmare"
Mari was afraid they'd lose their target. The storm spirit moved like... well, like the wind.
"Speed up!" Jason urged.
"Bro," Leo said. "if I get any closer, he'll spot us. Bronze dragons aren't exactly stealth planes."
"Slow down!" Mari yelped, holding onto Leo again.
The storm spirit dove into the grid of downtown streets. Festus tried to follow, but his wingspan was way too wide. His left wing clipped the edge of a building, slicing off a stone gargoyle before Leo pulled up.
"Get above the buildings," Jason suggested. "We'll track him from there."
"You want to drive this thing?" Leo grumbled, but he did what Jason asked.
After a few minutes, Mari spotted the spirits again, zipping through the streets with no apparent purpose— blowing over pedestrians, ruffling flags, making cars swerve.
"Oh great," Piper said. "There're two."
She was right. A second ventus had blasted around the corner of the Renaissance Hotel and linked up with the first. They wove together in a chaotic dance, shooting to the top of a skyscraper, bending a radio tower, and diving back down toward the street.
"Those guys do not need any more caffeine." Leo said.
"I guess Chicago's a good place to hang out." Mari said. "Nobody's going to question just how fucking windy it is."
"I don't know about that." Piper said. "Look."
The dragon circled over a wide avenue next to a lake-side park. Storm spirits were converging— at least a dozen of them, whirling around a big public art installation.
"Which one do you think is Dylan?" Leo asked. "I wanna throw something at him."
"Maybe the one with the dumb hairstyle." Mari said.
"Ugh, but that's all of them." Leo said.
They flew towards the art installation, a public fountain with two five-story monoliths on both ends of a long granite reflecting pool. The monoliths seemed to be built of video screens, flashing the combined image of a giant face that spewed water into the pool. As Mari watched, the image on the screens changed to a familiar woman's face with her eyes closed.
Mari paled. "Leo..."
"I see her." Leo said. "I don't like her, but I see her."
Then the screens went dark. The venti swirled together into a single funnel cloud and skittered across the fountain, kicking up a waterspout almost as high as the monoliths. They got to its center, popped off a drain cover, and disappeared underground.
"Did they just go down a drain?" Piper asked. "How are we supposed to follow them?"
"Maybe we shouldn't." Leo said. "That fountain thing is giving me seriously bad vibes. And aren't we supposed to like, beware the earth?"
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misplaced || l. valdez
Fanfictionshe shouldn't be here. she really, really shouldn't be here. but when a goddess saves your life and asks for something in return, you can't really deny her, can you? DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters or the story, all rights reserved t...
