The Poseidon Girls

Chapter 12 ~ Katherine Hunter (CASS)

I really wished Festus hadn't landed on the toilets. Of all the places Leo's bronze dragon could choose to crash, a line of Porta-Potties wasn't the wisest choice. A dozen of the plastic blue boxes had been set up in the factory yard, and Festus had flattened every single one. Fortunately, they hadn't been used in a long time, and the fireball from the crash had incinerated most of the contents; but still, some pretty gross chemicals were leaking out of the wreckage. Leo and I had to pick our way through and try not to breathe through our noses. Heavy snow was pelting down, yet Festus's hide was still steaming hot, so I had to be careful about touching it.

After a few minutes of climbing over Festus's inanimate body, Leo started to get irritated. Festus must've looked perfectly fine to him, too. Even though he'd fallen out of the sky and landed in a fireball, there wasn't a single dent of the dragon. Apparently, the fireball had actually come from built up gasses inside the toilet units, not from Festus himself. His wings were intact. Nothing seemed broken. There seemed to be no reason why Festus had stopped working.
"Not my fault," Leo muttered. "Festus, you're making me look bad." Leo then proceeded to open up the control panel on his dragon's head. "Oh, Festus, what the heck?" I made my way over to see what had happened. It wasn't a good sight for inside a dragon head - the wiring was frozen over. Something had caused a flash freeze inside his skull, but what? It surely couldn't have been the time in Boreas's palace. I was sure that it could have been way too hot for ice to even form in there. The ice had apparently caused the wiring to overload, and char the control disk.
"Whoa, that doesn't look good."
"It's not."
"Can you fix this?"
"Well, I can replace the wires. But the control disk? I can't replace that, I'll have to do what I can to fix it up. I'm not walking from Detroit to Chicago, and I'm not going to be responsible for stranding you guys." Leo knelt down next to his dragon. "Right," he muttered. "Gimme a nylon bristle detail brush, some nitrile gloves, and maybe a can of that aerosol cleaning solvent." Leo reached into his tool belt, and, smiling, pulled out the exact supplies he asked for.

I watched as Leo cleaned the control disk. While he worked, snow would collect on the cooling dragon, so we had to get that off from time to time. Mostly, Leo seemed to be on autopilot as his hands worked to clean off the control disk.

After a while, Leo seemed to scold himself for something.

All of a sudden there was a voice inside my head.
You're wrong, Leo.
"Cass, did you say something?" Leo asked me.
"No. Did you?"
"Nope." Leo stood up, and looked towards the ground. I decided to do the same. The sight I saw amazed me. Snow and chemical sludge from the toilets, and even the asphalt itself, was moving as if it were a liquid.
"What the Hades?" I wondered.
Do not fear me, daughter of Poseidon.
There was that voice again. A ten foot wide area of the snow, sludge, and asphalt formed eyes, a nose, and a math - the face of a sleeping woman. She didn't exactly speak, though. Her lips never moved. But I could still hear her voice inside my head, as if the vibrations were coming through the ground, straight into my feet, and rocketing up my body.
They need you desperately, Leo. In some ways, you are the most important of the nine - like the control disk in the dragon's brain. Without you, the power of the others mean nothing. They will never reach me, never stop me. And I will fully wake.
"You," Leo was shaking uncontrollably. "You killed my mom." The lady's face shifted. Her mouth formed a sleepy smile, as if she was having a nice dream.
Ah, but Leo. I am your mother too - the First Mother. Do not oppose me. Walk away now. Let my son Porphyrion rise and become king, and I will ease the burdens of both of you. You will both tread lightly on the earth.
Leo grabbed hold of a Porta-Potty seat, and chucked it at the face.
"Leave me alone!" The toilet seat sank into the earth. Snow and sludge rippled, and the sleeping face dissolved. I stared at the ground, waiting for her face to reappear, but, thankfully, it never did. I wanted to think I'd imagined her. Then, from the direction of the factory, I heard a crash, like two metal doors slamming shut. Metal crumpled and groaned, the noise echoing across the yard. I had a feeling that the other three were in danger. "Not likely," Leo growled, probably at the lady's order to walk away. "Gimme the biggest hammer you got." He reached into his tool belt, and produced a three-pound club hammer with a huge double-faced head. Then he jumped off Festus's head, and ran toward the warehouse. I was hot on his heels.