Wildfire (Leo Valdez x OC) (1)

Evil espressos have too much caffeine (according to Leo)

Jason seemed afraid of losing the storm spirit. "Speed up!" he urged.

"Bro," Leo said. "If I get any closer, he'll spot us. Bronze dragon ain't exactly a stealth plane."

"Slow down!" Piper yelped.

The storm spirit dove into the grid of 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," I suggested. "Try use the clouds as cover, we can track him from above."

"You want to drive this thing?" Leo grumbled, but he did what we asked.

After a few minutes we spotted the storm spirit again. It was zipping through the streets with no apparent purpose – blowing over pedestrians, ruffling flags, making cars swerve.

"Oh great," Piper said. "There's two."

She was right. A second storm spirit blasted around a corner 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 towards the streets.

"Those guys do not need any more caffeine," Leo said.

"I guess Chicago's a good place to hang out," Piper said. "Nobody's going to question a couple more evil winds."

"More than a couple," Jason said. "Look."

The dragon circled over a wide avenue next to a lakeside park. Storm spirits were converging – at least a dozen of them, whirling around a public art installation.

"Which one do you think is Dylan?" Leo asked. "I wanna throw something at him."

I snorted. "Who is Dylan?"

"One of the storm spirits that attacked us at the Grand Canyon." Piper said.

"Oh... oh yeah, he kidnapped my bestie, feel free to throw something at him." I said. Leo snorted.

I focused on the art installation. The closer we got to it, the faster my heart beat. It looked eerily like the pool Jason had described in his dream. Two five-storey monoliths rose from either end 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 I watched, the image on the screens changed to a woman's face with her eyes closed.

"Leo..." Jason said nervously.

"I see her," Leo said. "I don't like her, but I see her."

Then the screens went dark. The storm spirits swirled together into a massive funnel cloud and skittered across the fountain, kicking up a waterspout almost as high as the monoliths. They got to its centre, 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 serious bad vibes. And aren't we supposed to like beware the Earth?"

Jason stared at the fountain for a few seconds longer, his brows furrowed. "Put us down in that park," he suggested. "We'll check it out on foot."

Festus landed in an open area between the lake and the skyline. The signs said Grant Park, and I imagined it would've been nicer in the summer, but now it was a field of ice, snow and salted walkways, which only reminded her of their run in with the Boreads.

The dragon's hot metal feet hissed as they touched the ground. Festus flapped his wings unhappily and shot fire into the sky, but there was no one around to notice. The wind coming off the lake was bitterly cold. Anyone with sense would be inside. My eyes stung so badly I could barely see.