Dive-bombing a volcano was not on Leon's bucket list.
His first view of southern Italy was from five thousand feet in the air. To the west, along the crescent of the Gulf of Naples, the lights of sleeping cities glittered in the predawn gloom. A thousand feet below him, a half-mile-wide caldera yawned at the top of a mountain, white steam pluming from the centre.
Leon's disorientation took a moment to subside. Shadow-travel left him groggy and nauseous, as if he'd been dragged from the cold waters of the frigidarium into the sauna at a Roman bathhouse.
Then he realized she was suspended in midair. Gravity took hold, and he began to fall.
"Nico!" Reyna yelled.
"Pan's pipes!" cursed Coach Hedge.
"Whaaaaa!" Nico flailed, almost slipping out of Reyna's grip. She held tight and Leon grabbed Coach Hedge by the shirt collar as he started to tumble away. If they got separated now, they were dead. They plummeted towards the volcano as their largest piece of luggage – the forty-foot-tall Athena Parthenos – trailed after them, leashed to a harness on Nico's back like a very ineffective parachute.
"That's Vesuvius below us!" Reyna shouted over the wind.
"Nico, teleport us out of here!" Leon yelled.
Nico's eyes were wild and unfocused. His dark feathery hair whipped around his face like a raven shot out of the sky. "I – I can't! No strength!"
Coach Hedge bleated. "News flash, kid! Goats can't fly! Zap us out of here or we're gonna get flattened into an Athena Parthenos omelette!"
Leon tried to think. He could accept death if he had to, but if the Athena Parthenos was destroyed their quest would fail. He could not accept that.
"Nico, shadow-travel," he and Reyna ordered in unison.
"I'll lend you my strength," Reyna announced.
"I can — wait, what?" Leon yelled.
Nico stared at her blankly. "How – "
"Do it!" Reyna shouted.
She tightened her grip on his hand.
Nico gasped. Colour returned to his face. Just before they hit the volcano's steam plume, they slipped into shadows.
The air turned frigid. The sound of the wind was replaced by a cacophony of voices whispering in a thousand languages. Leon's insides felt like a block of ice.
Then his vision cleared. His feet rested on solid ground.
The eastern sky had begun to lighten. For a moment Leon thought he was back in New Rome. Doric columns lined an atrium the size of a baseball diamond. In front of him, a bronze faun stood in the middle of a sunken fountain decorated with mosaic tile. Crepe myrtles and rosebushes bloomed in a nearby garden. Palm trees and pines stretched skyward. Cobblestone paths led from the courtyard in several directions – straight, level roads of good Roman construction, edging low stone houses with colonnaded porches.
Leon turned. Behind him, the Athena Parthenos stood intact and upright, dominating the courtyard like a ridiculously oversized lawn ornament. The little bronze faun in the fountain had both his arms raised, facing Athena, so he seemed to be cowering in fear of the new arrival.
On the horizon, Mount Vesuvius loomed – a dark, humpbacked shape now several miles away. Thick pillars of steam curled from the crest.
"We're in Pompeii," Reyna realized.
"Oh, that's not good," Nico said, and he immediately collapsed.
"Whoa!" Coach Hedge caught him before he hit the ground. The satyr propped him against Athena's feet and loosened the harness that attached Nico to the statue.
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Death's Touch | Jason Grace
Fanfic[ON HOLD] Cary meant pure. Was that what she was? It didn't seem like it. Her own father said to always wear her bracelet unless she wanted to kill something. Well, she supposed that he just wanted to protect her. She didn't think she was pure...
