Eye of Hecate

Jason

A wolf launches itself at me. I step back and swing my scrap wood into the beast's snout with a satisfying crack. Maybe only silver can kill it, but a good old-fashioned board can still give it a Tylenol headache.

I turn toward the sound of hooves and see a storm spirit horse bearing down on me. I concentrate and summon the wind. Just before the spirit can trample me, I launch myself into the air, grab the horse's smoky neck, and pirouette onto its back.

The storm spirit rears. It tries to shake me, then tries to dissolve into mist to lose me; but somehow I stay on. I will the horse to remain in solid form, and the horse seems unable to refuse. I can feel it fighting against me. I can sense its raging thoughts—complete chaos straining to break free. It takes all my willpower to impose my own wishes and bring the horse under control. I think about Aeolus, overseeing thousands and thousands of spirits like this, some much worse. No wonder the Master of the Winds went a little mad after centuries of that pressure. But I have only one spirit to master, and I have to win.

"You're mine now," I say.

The horse bucks, but I hold fast. Its mane flickers as it circles around the empty pool, its hooves causing miniature thunderstorms—tempests—whenever they touch.

"Tempest?" I say. "Is that your name?"

The horse spirit shakes its mane, evidently pleased to be recognized.

"Fine," I say. "Now, let's fight."

I charge into battle, swinging my icy piece of wood, knocking aside wolves and plunging straight through other venti. Tempest is a strong spirit, and every time he plows through one of his brethren, he discharges so much electricity, the other spirit vaporizes into a harmless cloud of mist.

Through the chaos, I catch glimpses of my friends. Piper is surrounded by Earthborn, but she seems to be holding her own. She's so impressive-looking as she fights, almost glowing with beauty, that the Earthborn stare at her in awe, forgetting that they're supposed to kill her. They'll lower their clubs and watch dumbfounded as she smiles and charges them. They'll smile back—until she slices them apart with her dagger, and they melt into mounds of mud.

Ozzy is dealing with the wolves. While silver is their big weakness, clearly they're not immune to magic. Hieroglyphic spells float in the air around her as she moves through the army, some of them looking like they're simply appearing out of her. Her blue circle reminds me of a character marker in a video game, following her every step. Wolves fly through the air, stop and retch, or shrink down into tiny stone statues. Some of them simply just dissolve into golden dust or burst into flames in her presence.

Leo has taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should be suicide, Leo is the right man for the job. She keeps summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burns through all of it. His whole body flickers with red tongues of flame like he's been doused with gasoline. He advances on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-peen hammers to smash any monsters that get in his way.

I realize that Leo is the only reason we're still alive. His fiery aura is heating up the whole courtyard, countering Khione's winter magic. Without him, we would've been frozen like the Hunters long ago. Wherever Leo goes, ice melts off the stones. Even Thalia starts to defrost a little when Leo steps near her.

Khione slowly backs away. Her expression goes from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo gets closer.

I'm running out of enemies. The wolves around me lay in dazed heaps. Some slink away into the ruins, yelping from their wounds. Piper stabs the last Earthborn, who topples to the ground in a pile of sludge. Ozzy touches the last wolf near her with the tip of her staff, and it transforms into a puppy. I ride Tempest through the last ventus, breaking it into vapor. Then I wheel around and see Leo bearing down on the goddess of snow.

"You're too late," Khione snarls. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us."

Leo sets his hammers ablaze and throws them at the goddess, but she turns into snow—a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slam into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.

Piper is breathing hard, but she smiles up at me. "Nice horse."

Tempest rears on his hind legs, arcing electricity across his hooves. A complete show-off.

Ozzy throws her arms around Leo, muttering something in his ear that makes him blush.

Then I hear a cracking sound behind me. The melting ice on Hera's cage sloughs off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess calls, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"

I dismount and tell Tempest to stay put. The four of us jump into the pool and run to the spire.

Leo frowns. "Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?"

"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

As much as I dislike Hera, what I see inside the cage alarms me. Not only is Hera sinking, the ground is rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock has already covered her shins. "The giant wakes!" Hera warns. "You only have seconds!"

"On it," Leo says. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."

"What?" she says.

"Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I—"

"Right!" Piper clears her throat and says, "Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"

The more she talks, the more confident she sounds. I feel my own eyes getting heavy, and I have to force myself not to focus on her words. It seems to have some effect on the cage. The mud is rising more slowly. The tendrils seem to soften just a little—becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulls a circular saw out of his tool belt. How it fit in there, I have no idea. Then Leo looks at the cord and grunts in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"

The spirit horse Tempest jumps into the pit and whinnies.

"Really?" I ask.

Tempest dips his head and trots over to Leo. Leo looks dubious, but he holds up the plug, and a breeze whisks it into the horse's flank. Lightning sparks, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirs to life.

"Sweet!" Leo grins. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"

Our good mood doesn't last long. On the other side of the pool, the giant's spire crumbles with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Its outer sheath of tendrils explodes from the top down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shakes himself free and climbs out of the earth.

I didn't think anything could be scarier than Enceladus.

I was wrong.

Porphyrion is even taller, and even more ripped. He doesn't radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there's something more terrible about him—a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant is so huge and dense he has his own gravitational field.

Like Enceladus, the giant king is humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he has scaly dragon's legs; but his skin is the color of lima beans. His hair is green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons—daggers, axes, and full-size swords, some of them bent and bloody—maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opens his eyes, they're blank white, like polished marble. He takes a deep breath.

"Alive!" he bellows. "Praise to Gaea!"

I make a heroic little whimpering sound I hope my friends can't hear. I'm very sure no demigod can solo this guy. Porphyrion can lift mountains. He could crush me with one finger. On top of that, he seems to radiate something that makes my knees feel weak and my head feel dizzy. I suddenly feel like I need a full meal and a good night's rest. It's like his aura weakens me. 

"Leo," I say.

"Huh?" Leo's mouth is wide open. Even Piper seems dazed.

"You guys keep working," Ozzy says. "Get Hera free!"

"What are you going to do?" Piper asks. "You can't seriously—"

"Entertain a giant?" I say. "I've got no choice."

"We've got no choice." Ozzy gives me a reassuring nod. She doesn't look like she feels weaker in the giant's presence, but she does look afraid.

"Stay with Leo and Piper," I tell her. "See if you can help. Keep them safe."

Ozzy frowns. "Jason, are you sure? You don't look too—"