The Hidden Follower

29.

Delta quickly stood up and closed the door, going between Piper and Leo.

  "An ice storm?" Piper shouted over the engine and the wind. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"

  "I don't know but it seems controlled like it's trying to hit us," Delta yelled back.

Jason woke up. He crawled forward, grabbing Piper's seat for balance. "We've got to be getting close."

  Leo was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Its movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn't been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refused to respond, and they started to lose altitude.

  Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.

  "There!" Jason and Delta shouted.

  A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.

  Leo set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. Then a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.

  "Out!" Leo screamed.

  They leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Leo off his feet and splattering ice all over him.

  As Leo got up Delta looked toward the helicopter saw that the world's largest snowball—a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage—had completely flattened the Bell 412.

  "You all right?" Jason ran up to him, Piper at his side. They both looked fine except for being speckled with snow and mud.

  "Yeah. " Leo shivered. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter. "

  Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there." But then frowned.

"No, it's not, they're fighting all around us," Delta said.

  The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.

  Behind them loomed the house Delta was trained in—a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. In the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely and haunted feel that she remembered from when she was 12.

  "Jason!" a girl's voice called.

  Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre—one of the Earthborn—burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.

  "Look out!" Leo yelled. He, Jason, and Piper rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.

  Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the point had snapped off. "That was my last one. " She kicked the pile of clay resentfully. "Stupid ogre."

  "Nice shot, though," Leo said.

  Thalia ignored him as usual. She hugged Jason, shook Delta's hand, and nodded to Piper. "Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any minute."