Daughter of the Sea || HoO

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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

"Going okay?" Piper asked from the copilot's seat. She sounded more nervous than he was.

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

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

"He an actor?" Leo asked.

"Writer," Tori said from her seat in the back. " He wrote adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?"

Everyone, except Leo, looked back at her with surprise. 

"What?" Tori asked, "I know things."

"Yeah," Jason said. "He was a son of Mercury—I mean, Hermes."

"How did you know that little mermaid?" Leo asked her.

 Tori shrugged. "You pick up a few things when you're forced to hang out with the Athena cabin."

"Right anyway," Jason said, "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?" Leo guessed.

"Partially," Jason said. "But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves—he was dropping hints about his personal experience. There're 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 them, and the helicopter continued north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as Tori could see. 

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

"No," Both Tori and Jason said in unison.

"There's no medical record of him at camp,"  Tori explained, then looked at Jason, "how do you know that?"

"Yeah bro, you're freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you remembering your past or not?" Leo asked.

"Pieces," Jason said. "Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on 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 thought 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's face. Probably just a cloud, but Tori could swear the shape looked like an eagle.

"I started my 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."

"Of course, it had to be on sacred land " Tori said, "Why couldn't they try to raise  Porphyrion on like a McDonald's parking lot are someplace like that. At least then we could get food after."

"Yes because nothing says the end of the world like McDonalds," Leo said.

"You'd be surprise," Tori told him, "I've seen a happy meal raise the dead before."