Changing Fate (Book 2: We're The Same But Different)

1

WHEN OUR DRAGON declared war on Indiana, I knew it was going to be a bad day. We'd been traveling west for six weeks, and Festus had never shown such hostility toward a state. New Jersey he ignored. Pennsylvania he seemed to enjoy, despite our battle with the Cyclopes of Pittsburgh. Ohio he tolerated, even after our encounter with Potina, the Roman goddess of childhood drinks, who pursued us in the form of a giant red pitcher emblazoned with a smiley face. Yet for some reason, Festus decided he did not like Indiana. He landed on the cupola of the Indiana Statehouse, flapped his metallic wings, and blew a cone of fire that incinerated the state flag right off the flagpole. "Whoa, buddy!" Leo Valdez pulled the dragon's reins. "We've talked about this. No blowtorching public monuments!" Behind him on the dragon's spine, Emma gripped Festus's scales for balance. "Could we please get to the ground? Gently this time?" Emma was not a fan of flying on festus. Cold wind blew her dark brown hair into my face, making me blink and spit and causing her to laughed. That's right, dear reader. I, the most important passenger, the youth who had once been the glorious god Apollo, was forced to sit in the back of the dragon with holding on to Emma. Oh, the indignities I had suffered since Zeus stripped me of my divine powers! It wasn't enough that I was now a sixteen-year-old mortal with the ghastly alias Lester Papadopoulos. It wasn't enough that I had to toil upon the earth doing (ugh) heroic quests until I could find a way back into my father's good graces, or that I had a case of acne which simply would not respond to over-the-counter zit medicine. Despite my New York State junior driver's license, Leo Valdez didn't trust me to operate his aerial bronze steed! Festus's claws scrabbled for a hold on the green copper dome, which was much too small for a dragon his size. I had a flashback to the time I installed a life-size statue of the muse Calliope on my sun chariot and the extra weight of the hood ornament made me nosedive into China and create the Gobi Desert. Leo glanced back, his face streaked with soot. "Apollo, you sense anything?" "Why is it my job to sense things? Just because I used to be a god of prophecy—" "You're the one who's been having visions," Emma reminded me. "You said Meg would be here." Just hearing Meg's name gave me a twinge of pain. "That doesn't mean I can pinpoint her location with my mind! Zeus has revoked my access to GPS!" "GPS?" Emma asked. "Godly positioning systems." "That's not a real thing!" "Guys, cool it." Leo patted the dragon's neck. "Apollo, just try, will you? Does this look like the city you dreamed about or not?" I scanned the horizon. Indiana was flat country—highways crisscrossing scrubby brown plains, shadows of winter clouds floating above urban sprawl. Around us rose a meager cluster of downtown high-rises—stacks of stone and glass like layered wedges of black and white licorice. (Not the yummy kind of licorice, either; the nasty variety that sits for eons in your stepmother's candy bowl on the coffee table. And, no, Hera, why would I be talking about you?) After falling to earth in New York City, I found Indianapolis desolate and uninspiring, as if one proper New York neighborhood—Midtown, perhaps—had been stretched out to encompass the entire area of Manhattan, then relieved of two-thirds of its population and vigorously power-washed. I could think of no reason why an evil triumvirate of ancient Roman emperors would take interest in such a location. Nor could I imagine why Meg McCaffrey would be sent here to capture Emma and I. Yet my visions had been clear. I had seen this skyline. I had heard my old enemy Nero give orders to Meg: Go west. Capture Apollo and Emma before them can find the next Oracle. If you cannot bring them to me alive, kill them. The truly sad thing about this? Meg was one of my better friends. She also happened to be my demigod master and Emma's best friend, thanks to Zeus's twisted sense of humor. As long as I remained mortal, Meg could order me to do anything, even kill myself or....Emma....No. Better not to think of such possibilities. I shifted in my metal seat. After so many weeks of travel, I was tired and saddle sore. I wanted to find a safe place to rest. This was not such a city. Something about the landscape below made me as restless as Festus. Alas, I was sure this was where we were meant to be. Despite the danger, if I had a chance of seeing Meg McCaffrey again, of prying her away from her villainous stepfather's grasp, We had to try. "This is the spot," I said. "Before this dome collapses under us, I suggest we get to the ground." Emma grumbled in Ancient Greek, "I already said that." "Well, excuse me!" I replied in the same language. "Perhaps if you had helpful visions, I'd listen to you more often!" Emma called me a few names that reminded me how colorful the Ancient Greek language was. "Hey, you two," Leo said. "No ancient dialects. Spanish or English, please. Or Machine." Festus creaked in agreement. "It's okay, boy," Leo said. "I'm sure they didn't mean to exclude us. Now let's fly down to street level, huh?" Festus's ruby eyes glowed. His metal teeth spun like drill bits. I imagined him thinking, Illinois is sounding pretty good right about now. But he flapped his wings and leaped from the dome. We hurtled downward, landing in front of the statehouse with enough force to crack the sidewalk. My eyeballs jiggled like water balloons. Festus whipped his head from side to side, steam curling from his nostrils. I saw no immediate threats. Cars drove leisurely down West Washington Street. Pedestrians strolled by: a middle-aged woman in a flowery dress, a heavyset policeman carrying a paper coffee cup labeled CAFÉ PATACHOU, a clean-cut man in a blue seersucker suit. The man in blue waved politely as he passed. "Morning." "'Sup, dude," Leo called. Emma tilted her head. "Why was he so friendly? Does he not see that we're sitting atop a fifty-ton metal dragon?" Leo grinned. "It's the Mist, babe—messes with mortal eyes. Makes monsters look like stray dogs. Makes swords look like umbrellas. Makes me look even more handsome than usual!" Emma jabbed her thumbs into Leo's kidneys. "Ow!" he complained. "I know what the Mist is, Stupid—" "Hey, don't call me that." "—but the Mist must be very strong here if it can hide a monster of Festus's size at such close range. Apollo don't you find that a little odd?" I studied the passing pedestrians. True, I had seen places where the Mist was particularly heavy. At Troy, the sky above the battlefield had been so thick with gods you couldn't turn your chariot without running into another deity, yet the Trojans and Greeks saw only hints of our presence. At Three Mile Island in 1979, the mortals somehow failed to realize that their partial nuclear meltdown was caused by an epic chainsaw fight between Ares and Hephaestus. (As I recall, Hephaestus had insulted Ares's bell-bottom jeans.) Still, I did not think heavy Mist was the problem here. Something about these locals bothered me. Their faces were too placid. Their dazed smiles reminded me of ancient Athenians just before the Dionysus Festival—everyone in a good mood, distracted, thinking about the drunken riots and debauchery to come. "We should get out of the public eye," I suggested. "Agreed" Emma said "Perhaps—" Festus stumbled, shaking like a wet dog. From inside his chest came a noise like a loose bicycle chain. "Aw, not again," Leo said. "Everybody off!" Emma and I quickly dismounted. Leo ran in front of Festus and held out his arms in a classic dragon-wrangler's stance. "Hey, buddy, it's fine! I'm just going to switch you off for a while, okay? A little downtime to—" Festus projectile-vomited a column of flames that engulfed Leo. Fortunately, Valdez was fireproof. His clothes were not. From what Leo had told me, he could generally prevent his outfits from burning up simply by concentrating. If he were caught by surprise, however, it didn't always work. When the flames dissipated, Leo stood before us wearing nothing but his asbestos boxer shorts, his magical tool belt, and a pair of smoking, partially melted sneakers. "Dang it!" he complained. "Festus, it's cold out here!" The dragon stumbled. Leo lunged and flipped the lever behind the dragon's left foreleg. Festus began to collapse. His wings, limbs, neck, and tail contracted into his body, his bronze plates overlapping and folding inward. In a matter of seconds, our robotic friend had been reduced to a large bronze suitcase. That should have been physically impossible, of course, but like any decent god, demigod, or engineer, Leo Valdez refused to be stopped by the laws of physics. He scowled at his new piece of luggage. "Man...I thought I fixed his gyro-capacitor. Guess we're stuck here until I can find a machine shop." Emma grimaced. Her silver ski jacket glistened with condensation from our flight through the clouds. "And if we find such a shop, how long will it take to repair Festus?" Leo shrugged. "Twelve hours? Fifteen?" He pushed a button on the side of the suitcase. A handle popped up. "Also, if we see a men's clothing store, that might be good." I imagined walking into a T.J. Maxx, Leo in boxer shorts and melted sneakers, rolling a bronze suitcase behind him. I did not relish the idea. Then, from the direction of the sidewalk, a voice called, "Hello!" The woman in the flowery dress had returned.  Emma sniffed the air. "Guys, we should leave now." Emma said cautiously. "Emma she's normal, clam down." I told. Ever since we left Camp Half-Blood. We're discovered Emma's aura senses were also similar to monsters in since like she could tell if someone was a monster or not, but she isn't always right. Anyways at least she looked like the same woman. Either that or lots of ladies in Indianapolis wore purple-and-yellow honeysuckle-pattern dresses and had 1950s bouffant hairstyles. She smiled vacantly. "Beautiful morning!" It was in fact a miserable morning—cold and cloudy with a smell of impending snow—but I felt it would be rude to ignore her completely. I gave her a little parade wave—the sort of gesture I used to give my worshippers when they came to grovel at my altar. To me, the message was clear enough: I see you, puny mortal; now run along. The gods are talking. The woman did not take the hint. She strolled forward and planted herself in front of us. She wasn't particularly large, but something about her proportions seemed off. Her shoulders were too wide for her head. Her chest and belly protruded in a lumpy mass, as if she'd stuffed a sack of mangos down the front of her dress. With her spindly arms and legs, she reminded me of some sort of giant beetle. If she ever tipped over, I doubted she could easily get back up. "Oh, my!" She gripped her purse with both hands. "Aren't you children cute!" Her lipstick and eyeshadow were both a violent shade of purple. I wondered if she was getting enough oxygen to her brain.
"Madam," I said, "we are not children." "Yeah" Emma said. I could have also added that I was over four thousand years old, but I decided not to get into that. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a suitcase to repair and my friend is in dire need of a pair of pants." Emma and I tried to step around her. She blocked our path. "You can't go yet, dear! We haven't welcomed you to Indiana!" From her purse, she drew a smartphone. The screen glowed as if a call were already in progress. "It's them, all right," she said into the phone. "Everybody, come on over. Apollo and his girlfriend are here!" My lungs shriveled in my chest. In the old days, I would have expected to be recognized as soon as I arrived in a town. Of course the locals would rush to welcome me. They would sing and dance and throw flowers. They would immediately begin constructing a new temple. But as Lester Papadopoulos, I did not warrant such treatment. I looked nothing like my former glorious self. The idea that the Indianans might recognize me despite my tangled hair, acne, and flab was both insulting and terrifying. Also Emma was not girlfriend...yet. What if they erected a statue of me in my present form—a giant golden Lester in the center of their city? The other gods would never let me hear the end of it! "Madam," I said, "I'm afraid you have mistaken me and her—" "Don't be modest!" The woman tossed her phone and purse aside. She grabbed my forearm with the strength of a weightlifter. "Our master will be delighted to have you in custody. And please call me Nanette." Emma charged. Trying to save me. She punched the woman in the face. This by itself did surprise me. Being a Demititan, Emma was well trained. So far, she was great with swords, polearms, shurikens, whips, but failed improvisational comedy. (I sympathized with her frustration.) Today, she'd decided to use fisticuffs. What surprised me was the loud CRACK her fist made against Nanette's face—the sound of finger bones breaking. "Ow!" Emma stumbled away, clutching her hand. Nanette's head slid backward. She released me to try to grab her own face, but it was too late. Her head toppled off her shoulders. It clanged against the pavement and rolled sideways, the eyes still blinking, the purple lips twitching. Its base was smooth stainless steel. Attached to it were ragged strips of duct tape stuck with hair and bobby pins. "Told you!" Emma yelled. "Holy Hephaestus!" Leo ran to Emma's side. "Lady, you broke my friend's hand with your face. What are you, an automaton?" "No, dear," said decapitated Nanette. Her muffled voice didn't come from the stainless-steel head on the sidewalk. It emanated from somewhere inside her dress. Just above her collar, where her neck used to be, an outcropping of fine blond hair was tangled with bobby pins. "And I must say, hitting me wasn't very polite." Belatedly, I realized the metal head had been a disguise. Just as satyrs covered their hooves with human shoes, this creature passed for mortal by pretending to have a human face. Its voice came from its gut area, which meant... My knees trembled. "A blemmyae," I said as Emma grabbed her swords even tho her hand was broken. Nanette chuckled. Her bulging midsection writhed under the honeysuckle cloth. She ripped open her blouse—something a polite Midwesterner would never think of doing—and revealed her true face. Where a woman's brassiere would have been, two enormous bulging eyes blinked at me. From her sternum protruded a large shiny nose. Across her abdomen curled a hideous mouth—glistening orange lips, teeth like a spread of blank white playing cards. "Yes, dear," the face said. "And I'm arresting you and Emma in the name of the Triumvirate!" Up and down Washington Street, pleasant-looking pedestrians turned and began marching in our direction.