Daughter of Neptune, Book one

XXXIX

Leo's pov

Fly a helicopter? Sure, why not. I had done plenty of crazier things that week.

The sun was going down as we flew north over the Richmond Bridge, and I couldn't believe the day had gone quickly. Once again, nothing like ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly.

Piloting the chopper, I went back and forth between confidence and panic. If I didn't think about it, I found myself automatically flipping the right switches, checking the altimeter, easing back in the stick, and flying straight. If I allowed myself to consider what I was doing, I started freaking out. I tried to imagine my Aunt Rosa yelling at me in Spanish, telling me I was a delinquent lunatic who was going to crash and burn. Part of my suspected she was right.

"Going okay?" Piper asked me from the copilot's seat. She sounded more nervous than I was, so I put on a brave face.

"Aces," I said. "So what's the Wolf House?"

Jason knelt between our seats. "An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it—Jack London."

I couldn't place the name. "He an actor?"

"Writer," Piper said. "Adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?"

"Yeah," Tori said squeezing her way in between Piper's seat and Jason. "He was a son of Mercury—I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion—the Wolf House."

"Named that 'cause he wrote about wolves?" I guessed.

"Partially," Tori said. "But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves—he was dropping hits about his personal experience. There's a lot of holes in his life story—how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much—stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod."

The Bay slipped behind us, and the helicopter continued north. Ahead of us, yellow hills rolled out as far as I could see.

"So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood," I guessed.

"No," Jason said. "No, he didn't."

"Bro, you're freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you and Tori remembering your pasts or not?"

"Pieces," Tori said. "Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is sacred ground. It's where London started his journey as a child—where he found out he was a demigod. That's why he returned there. He though he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn't meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site."

"So," Piper said, "how do you know all this?"

A shadow crossed Jason and Tori's faces. Probably just a cloud, but I could swear the shape looked like an eagle.

"Tori and I started our journey there too," Jason said. "It's a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion—that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully."

I kept my hand on the joystick, guiding the chopper at full speed—racing toward the north. I could see some weather ahead—a spot of darkness like a cloudbank or a storm, right where we were going.

Piper's dad had called me a hero earlier. And I couldn't believe some of the things I'd done—smacking around Cyclopes, disarming exploding doorbells, battling six-armed ogres with construction equipment. They seemed like they happen to another person. I was just Leo Valdez, an orphaned kid from Houston. I'd spent my life running away, and part of me still wanted to run. What was I thinking, flying toward a cursed mansion to fight more evil monsters?

My mom's voice echoed in my head Nothing is unfixable.

Except the fact that you're gone forever, I thought.

Seeing Piper and her dad back together had really driven that home. Even if I survived this quest and saved Hera, I wouldn't have any happy reunion. I wouldn't be going back to a loving family. I wouldn't see my mom.

The helicopter shuddered. Metal creaked, and I could almost imagine the tapping was Morse code: Not the end. Not the end.

I leveled out the chopper, and the creaking stopped. I was just hearing things. I couldn't dwell on my mom, or the idea that kept bugging me—that Gaea was bringing souls back from the Underworld—so why couldn't I make some good come out of it? Thinking like that would drive me crazy. I had a job to do.

I let my instincts take over—just like flying the helicopter. If I though about the quest too much, or what might happen afterward, I'd panic. The trick was not to think—just get through it.

"Thirty minutes out," I told my friends, though I wasn't sure how I knew. "If you want to get some rest, now's a good time."

Jason and Tori strapped themselves into the back of the helicopter and passed out almost immediately (did you know that Tori looks so cute when she sleep?). Piper and I stayed wide-awake.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, I said, "Your dad'll be fine, you know. Nobody's gonna mess with him with that crazy goat around."

Piper glanced over, and I was struck by how much she'd changed. Not just physically. Her presence was stronger. She seemed more...here. At Wilderness School she'd spent the semester trying not to be seen, hiding out in the back row of the classroom, the back of the bus, the corner of the lunchroom as far as possible from the loud kids. Now she would be impossible to miss. It didn't matter what she was wearing—you'd have to look at her.

"My dad," she said thoughtfully. "Yeah, I know. I was thinking about Jason and Tori. I'm worried about them."

I nodded. The closer we got to that bank of dark clouds, the more I worried, too. "They're starting to remember. That's got to make them a little edgy."

"But what if...what if they're different people?"

I had the same thought. If the Mist could affect their memories, could Jason and Tori's personalities be an illusion, too? If our friends weren't our friends, and they were heading into a cursed mansion—a dangerous place for demigods—what would happen if their full memory came back in the middle of a battle?

"Nah," I decided. "After all we've been through? I can't see it. We're a team. Tori and Jason can handle it."

Piper smoothed her blue dress, which was tattered and burned from our fight on Mount Diablo. "I hope you're right. I need him..." She cleared her throat. "I mean I need to trust them..."

"I know," I said. After seeing her dad break down, I understood Piper couldn't afford to lose Jason as well. She'd just watch Tristan McLean, her cool suave movie star dad, reduced to near insanity. I could barely stand to watch that, but for Piper—Wow, I couldn't even imagine. I figured that would make her insecure about herself, too. If weakness was inherited, she'd be wondering, could break down the same way her dad did?

"Hey, don't worry," I said. "Piper, you're the strongest, most powerful beauty queen I've ever met. You can trust yourself. For what it's worth, you can trust me too."

The helicopter dipped in a wind shear, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I cursed and righted the chopper b

Piper laughed nervously. "Trust you, huh?"

"Ah, shut up, already." But I grinned at her, and for a second, it felt like I was just relaxing comfortably with a friend.

Then we hit the storm clouds.