Daughter of Pluto | Wattys2017

XLII

AT FIRST, AIMEE THOUGHT ROCKS WERE pelting the windshield. Then she realized it was sleet. Frost built up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blotted out her view.

"An ice storm?" Piper shouted over the engine and the wind. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"

Aimee wasn't sure, but something about this storm seemed conscious, malevolent—like it was intentionally slamming them.

Jason woke up quickly. He crawled forward, grabbing the front seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close."

Leo was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly it wasn't so easy to drive the chopper. Its movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn't been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refused to respond, and they started to lose altitude.

Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.

"There!" Aimee shouted.

A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around them were flashes of light that reminded Aimee of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.

Leo set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. She heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.

"Out!" Leo screamed.

They leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Leo off his feet and splattering ice all over him.

Aimee got up shakily and saw that the world's largest snowball—a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage—had completely flattened the Bell 412.

"You all right?" Jason ran up to her,Leo and Piper at his side. They both looked fine except for being speckled with snow and mud.

"Yeah." Aimee looked at them all,they were all shivering but she was perfectly fine. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter."

Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there." Then she frowned. "No ... it's all around us."

She was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.

Behind them loomed Jack London's dream home—a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. Aimee could imagine how it had looked before it burned down—a combination log cabin and castle, like a billionaire lumberjack might build. But in the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel.

"Jason!Aimee!" a girl's voice called.

Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre—one of the Earthborn—burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.

"Look out!" Leo yelled. They rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.

Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the point had snapped off. "That was my last one." She kicked the pile of clay resentfully. "Stupid ogre."

"Nice shot, though," Leo said.

Thalia ignored him as usual. She hugged Jason and nodded to Piper,and again Aimee settled for a fist bump. "Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any minute."

"By Earthborn?" Jason asked.

"And wolves—Lycaon's minions." Thalia blew a fleck of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits—"

"But we gave them to Aeolus!" Piper protested.

"Who tried to kill us," Aimee reminded her. "Maybe he's helping Gaea again,I mean that sounds like a jerk thing that he would do."

"I don't know," Thalia said. "But the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we're surrounded. I don't know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera."

"Where is she?" Jason asked.

"Inside," Thalia said. "We tried to free her, but we can't figure out how to break the cage. It's only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that's the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don't free Hera soon—"

She didn't need to finish the thought.

Leo, Jason, and Piper followed her into the ruined mansion.Leo looked around when he realized that Aimee had disappeared