Bloodlines: Ichor || [2]

CXXI. Glass Hearts

DIVE-BOMBING A VOLCANO was not on Elizabeth's bucket list.

Her first view of southern Italy was from five thousand feet in the air. To the west, along the crescent of the Gulf of Naples, smoke covering the lights of cities in the predawn gloom. A thousand feet below her, a half-mile-wide caldera yawned at the top of a mountain, white steam pluming from the center.

Her disorientation took a moment to subside. Shadow-travel left her groggy and nauseous, as if she'd been dragged from Antarctica to Florida in the summertime.

Then she realized she was suspended in midair. Gravity took hold, and she began to fall.

"Nico!" she yelled.

"Pan's pipes!" cursed Gleeson Hedge.

"Gods!" Reyna screamed.

"Whaaaaa!" Nico flailed, almost slipping out of Elizabeth's grip. She held tight and 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!"

His 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!"

Elizabeth tried to swallow her terror. "Funny thing, Nico, I can't fly anymore!"

Coach Hedge bleated in agreement. "Zap us out of here or we're gonna get flattened into an Athena Parthenos omelet!"

"Nico, shadow-travel," Reyna ordered. "I'll lend you my strength."

He stared at her blankly. "How—"

"Do it!"

Elizabeth couldn't see what happened, but she heard Nico's gasp. 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. Elizabeth's insides felt like fruit in a blender. Then her vision cleared. Her feet rested on solid ground.

The eastern sky had begun to lighten. For a moment Elizabeth thought she was back in New Rome. Doric columns lined an atrium the size of a baseball diamond. In front of her, 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.

Elizabeth turned. Behind her, 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!" Elizabeth caught him before he hit the ground. She propped him against Athena's feet and loosened the harness that attached Nico to the statue. Coach Hedge rummaged through his camping supplies. She saw Reyna's knees buckle from the corner of her eyes. She wanted to help, but her immediate attention was focused on Nico, and she knew Reyna wouldn't appreciate being checked up on.