Jace Irons: The Shard of Chaos

Chapter Twenty-One: The Reunion

I came to lying on my back. I turned my head to the side and saw that I was lying on a cot with my head on a pillow. This was not where I had gotten clonked on the head by a falling rock. I sat up and checked my surroundings. It looked like I was in a workshop of some sort. Everything was made of wood or metal, save the flat concrete floor. Work benches and toolboxes lay strewn all over the place, overflowing with machines, tools, and contraptions of all shapes and sizes. They all looked incredible and I wanted to tinker with all of them to see how they worked. In the corner, suspended from the ceiling by a couple chains was a solid gold, V-12 car engine, like the kinds they put in supercars. To my right, up against the wall was a fireplace that contained a roaring blaze. Metal tubes stretched out from the top of the fireplace like an old pipe organ. The pipes ran all over the walls and ceiling, carrying the fire with it to carry the flames to all different sorts of places in the room. One led to an old gas lamp, helping to light up the room. Another led to a stove burner with a crucible full of molten metal in it. A third ran under the floor, and stuck up into a wire mesh trash can and made the bottom of it burn. I saw a piece of paper with drawings and designs scribbled all over it flutter into it, incinerating as soon as it touched the bottom. Another one fluttered in.

"Nope, not that one." I heard a gruff voice say.

My heart froze. It was the same gruff voice I had heard in my dreams.

I looked to the other side of the room. There was a man sitting on a stool in front of a workbench. He had his back to me, so I couldn't see his face. He was wearing blue coveralls, scuffed-up brown work boots, and had long-ish, scraggly brown hair. I couldn't tell what it was exactly, but he looked somewhat misshapen, like one of his shoulders rose up higher than the other. It looked like he was writing something on a piece of paper, muttering something I couldn't hear. I looked around the room for my friends, but they were nowhere to be found. Just the guy at the workbench.

I swung my legs over the side of the cot and sat on the edge, looking at the floor. I didn't know who the other guy was, but I guessed he wasn't hostile considering he hadn't killed me yet. I stood up and cleared my throat to get the other guy's attention. No answer.

I took a step forward. "Hello?" I said.

"Whar, hmm?" said the guy in coveralls, turning around. "Oh good, you're up."

He had a scraggly brown beard with matching eyebrows. He was big and burly, and I was pretty sure his neck was bigger around than his head. He got up off the stool and looked at me. He couldn't have been taller than 5'9'', but he radiated toughness, somehow.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He gave me a sour look. "Well, I figured my rugged good looks would make that obvious."

Silence.

"I'm your dad, kid."

He pointed to his nametag. Stitched into the left breast pocket on his coveralls was a white patch with the name Hephaestus embroidered in red cursive. I read it three or four times before looking at him again. There was no way that this burly greasemonkey was supposed to be my dad.

I stammered "Wha...who...?"

"Oh relax, kid." he said in his gruff voice. "I am your dad."

A million thoughts ran through my head, blood roared in my ears. I was so angry at Hephaestus. I wanted to shout at him for not ever being there for me or my mother, even when I was forced to grow up in near-poverty, or when my mother had died. Every one of my cells burned with the urge to punch this deadbeat god in the jaw, but I managed to keep my cool and focus. When I had looked around the room earlier, Phillip, David and Reyna were nowhere to be found. I looked up at my Hephaestus.