~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

Sewers

{Jason}

Jason was afraid they'd lose their target. The ventus moved like... well, like the wind.

   "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!" Kiara yelped.

   The storm spirit dove into the grid of downtown 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," Jason suggested. "We'll track him from there."

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

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

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

   She was right. A second ventus blasted around the corner of the Renaissance Hotel 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 toward the street.

   "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 lake-side park. Storm spirits were converging—at least a dozen of them, whirling around a big public art installation.

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

   "Leo!" Kiara chided. "Not now. You'll do that later."

   But Jason focused on the art installation. The closer they got to it, the faster his heart beat. It was just a public fountain, but it was unpleasantly familiar. Two five-story 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.

   Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it looked like a high-tech, super-size version of that ruined reflecting pool he'd seen in his dreams, with those two dark masses jutting from either end. As Jason watched, the image on the screens changed to a woman's face with her eyes closed.

   "Leo..." he said nervously.

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

   Then the screens went dark. The venti swirled together into a single funnel cloud and skittered across the fountain, kicking up a waterspout almost as high as the monoliths. They got to its center, popped off a drain cover, and disappeared underground.

   "Did they just go down a drain?" Kiara asked. "How are we supposed to follow them?"

   "Maybe we shouldn't," Leo said. "That fountain thing is giving me seriously bad vibes. And aren't we supposed to, like, beware the earth?"

   Jason felt the same way, but they had to follow. It was their only way forward. They had to find Hera, and they now had only two days until the solstice.

   "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 Jason imagined it would've been a nice place in the summer; but now it was a field of ice, snow, and salted walkways. The dragon's hot metal feet hissed as they touched down. 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 bitter cold. Anyone with sense would be inside. Jason's eyes stung so badly, he could barely see.