Bloody Lover | Piper McLean

CHAPTER 16 : Heart to Heart

EARLANA (& LEO)

Earlana's mind kept going back to her dreams. The prophecy, the curse, the goddess, the fall. But also the wolves and the brunt house. It didn't ease her mind at all. She was tense, so tense, that she could feel the concerned looks Piper was giving her from behind her. Speaking of which, Earlana had a strong feeling about the daughter of Aphrodite but she couldn't quite decide if it was a positive one or a negative one. Best to just listen to her head, and keep her heart out of this, no matter what the goddess from her dream said.

"Shut up, Leo !" the boy blurted out loudly.

"What ?" asked Piper.

"Dude, you're alright ?" Earlana added, a frown on her face.

"It's nothing," he said. "It's been a long night. I think I'm hallucinating a little. It's no problem." Leo, sitting in the lead, couldn't see the faces of his comrades, but judging by their silence, they weren't thrilled to have an insomniac, hallucination-prone dragon driver.

"I was just kidding," he added, before deliberately changing the subject. "So what's the plan, Jase, Lana ? You said something about catching wind, breaking wind, right ?"

As they flew over New England, Jason outlined his strategy: first, find a guy called Boreas and get some information out of him...

"His name is Boreas ?" joked Leo. "What is he ? The god of Boring ?"

"Shut up, Leo," Earlana whacked his shoulder.

Then, continued Jason, they'd have to track down the venti who had attacked them on the Grand Canyon bridge.

"Couldn't we call them storm spirits ?" interrupted Leo again, making the Latina roll her eyes. "Venti, that sounds like evil espresso drinks."

And lastly, Jason finished, they were going to have to find out who the storm spirits were working for, which would enable them to find Hera and rescue her.

"Do I get that right ?" summarized Leo, "You want us to go after Dylan, the ugly storm spirit. The very one who pushed me into the void and swept Mr. Hedge into the clouds."

"Basically, that's it. We may be dealing with a wolf, too. But I think she's friendly. She probably won't devour us, unless we show weakness."

Jason told them about his dream, the big, cruel mother wolf and the burnt house with its stone arrows shooting out of the pond. Earlana just nodded along, deep in thought, comparing their dreams.

"Hum...." quipped Leo. "But you don't know where this place is."

"No," admitted Jason.

"There are also giants," said Piper. "The prophecy spoke of the giants' vengeance."

"Just a second !" chimed in Leo. "Are you sure it's giants, plural ? Not giant, just one giant out for revenge ?"

"I don't think so. I remember in some old Greek myths, there's talk of an army of giants."

"Great," grumbled Leo. "Of course, with our luck, it had to be an army. Do you know anything else about these giants ? Didn't you do plenty of research on Greek mythology for your dad's movie ?"

"Your dad's an actor ?" asked Jason.

Leo laughed, and again Earlana hit his shoulder.

"I always forget your amnesia," he said. "Funny, forgetting amnesia. But yes, her father is Tristan McLean."

"Uh...sorry, what was he in ?" Thank you Jason for this valuable intervention !

"Never mind," Piper hastened to say, Earlana could pick up something off about how she changed subjects. "Giants... Actually, there were plenty of giants in Greek mythology. But if these are the ones I'm thinking of, it sucks. They were huge and almost impossible to kill. They could rip up and throw down mountains. I think they were related to the Titans. They came out of the ground when Cronos lost the war - I'm talking about the first Titan War, several thousand years ago - and tried to destroy Olympus. If these are the giants we're talking about..."