Daughter of Pluto | Wattys2017

XI

IT SEEMED LEO SLEPT ONLY FOR SECONDS, but when Aimee shook him awake, the daylight was fading.

"We're here," she said ruffling his already messy hair a bit.

Leo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Below them, a city sat on a cliff overlooking a river. The plains around it were dusted with snow, but the city itself glowed warmly in the winter sunset. Buildings crowded together inside high walls like a medieval town, way older than any place Leo had seen before. In the center was an actual castle—at least Aimee had assumed it was a castle—with massive red brick walls and a square tower with a peaked, green gabled roof.

"Tell me that's Quebec and not Santa's workshop," Leo said.Aimee rolled her eyes smiling down at the city,she felt that she had been here before...a long,long time ago.

"Yeah, Quebec City," Piper confirmed. "One of the oldest cities in North America. Founded around sixteen hundred or so?"

Leo raised an eyebrow. "Your dad do a movie about that too?"

Piper made a face at him, which Leo was used to, but it didn't quite work with her new glamorous makeup. "I read sometimes, okay? Just because Aphrodite claimed me, doesn't mean I have to be an airhead."

"Feisty!" Leo said. "So you know so much, what's that castle?"

"A hotel, I think."

Piper looked at Aimee who had answered for her.That was what she was about to say.

Leo laughed at Aimee's answer. "No way."

But as they got closer,he saw she was right. The grand entrance was bustling with doormen, valets, and porters taking bags. Sleek black luxury cars idled in the drive. People in elegant suits and winter cloaks hurried to get out of the cold.

"The North Wind is staying in a hotel?" Leo said. "That can't be—"

"Heads up, guys," Jason interrupted getting Aimee's attention off the city. "We got company!"

Aimee looked below and saw what Jason meant. Rising from the top of the tower were two winged figures—angry angels, with nasty-looking swords.

Festus didn't like the angel guys. He swooped to a halt in midair, wings beating and talons bared, and made a rumbling sound in his throat that Leo recognized. He was getting ready to blow fire.

"Steady, boy," Leo muttered. Something told him the angels would not take kindly to getting torched.

"I don't like this," Aimee whispered too quietly,only Leo heard her. "They look like storm spirits."

At first Leo thought she was right, but as the angels got closer, he could see they were much more solid than venti. They looked like regular teenagers except for their icy white hair and feathery purple wings. Their bronze swords were jagged, like icicles. Their faces looked similar enough that they might've been brothers, but they definitely weren't twins.

One was the size of an ox, with a bright red hockey jersey, baggy sweatpants, and black leather cleats. The guy clearly had been in too many fights, because both his eyes were black, and when he bared his teeth, several of them were missing.

The other guy looked like he'd just stepped off one of Leo's mom's 1980s rock album covers—Journey, maybe, or Hall & Oates, or something even lamer. His ice-white hair was long and feathered into a mullet. He wore pointy-toed leather shoes, designer pants that were way too tight, and a god-awful silk shirt with the top three buttons open. Maybe he thought he looked like a groovy love god, but the guy couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds, and he had a bad case of acne.