Daughter of Neptune, Book one

XI

Leo pov

It seemed I slept only for seconds, but when Tori shook me awake, the daylight was fading.

"We're here," she said.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Below us, a city sat on a cliff overlooking a river. The plain around it was 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 I had ever seen before. In the center was an actual castle--at least I assumed it was a castle--massive red brick walls and a square tower with a peaked, green gabled roof.

"Tell me that's Quebec and not Santa's workshop," I said.

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

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

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

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

"A hotel, I think.".

I laughed. "No way."

But as we got closer, I 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 at a hotel?"I said. "That can't be--"

"Heads up, guys," Jason interrupted. "We got company!"

I looked below and saw what Jason meant. Rising from the top of tower were two winged figured--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 I recognized. He was getting ready to blow fire.

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

"I don't like this," Tori said. "They look like storm spirits."

At first I thought she was right, but as the angels got closer, he could see they were 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 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 black, and when he bared his teeth, several of them were missing.

The other guy looked like he'd just stepped off one of my mom's 1980s rock album covers--Journey, maybe, or Hall & Oates, or something ever 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.

The angels pulled up in front of the dragon and hovered there, swords at the ready.

The hockey ox grunted. "No clearance."

"'Scuse me?" I said.

"You have no flight plan on file," explained the groovy love god. On top of his other problems, he had a French accent so bad I was sure it was fake. "This is restricted airspace."