Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Heroes

Chapter Ten-Destroy?

It didn't seem like Alex had been sleeping that long when Jason woke her up, but the daylight was fading revealing the moon over the horizon.

"We're here," he told her.

Alex was alert the moment she saw the moon. Just like back at camp, it seemed to energize her. Her eyes scanned the city below them. The city sat on a cliff overlooking a river. The plains around it were 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 Alex had seen before. In the center was an actual castle—at least Alex assumed it was a castle—with massive red brick walls and a square tower with a peaked, green gabled roof.

"Tell me that's Quebec and not Santa's workshop," Alex heard Leo joke from upfront.

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

"Yep. July 3rd, 1608," Alex told her quickly before her head started to pound.

"Your dad do a movie about that too?" Leo asked Piper.

"I read sometimes, okay? Just because Aphrodite claimed me, doesn't mean I have to be an airhead." Piper told him.

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

"A hotel, I think."

Leo laughed. "No way."

"She's right," Alex told him, not knowing how she knew that Piper was right.

"The North Wind is staying in a hotel?" Leo asked. "That can't be—"

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

Looking around everyone, Alex could see that rising from the top of the tower were two winged figures. They looked like very, very angry angels, with sharp nasty-looking swords.

Festus didn't like the angel guys, at least that's what Alex assumed. He swooped to a halt in midair, with his winds beating and talons bared. He was making a rumbling sound in his throat that Alex knew couldn't mean he was living up to his name.

"Steady, boy," Leo muttered to his very unhappy dragon.

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

"But look, they're much more solid than storm spirits," Alex told him as they got closer.

It was true. They looked like regular teenagers except for their icy white hair and feathery purple wings. Their bronze swords were jagged, much like icicles were. Their faces looked similar, enough so that they could be brothers, but there was no way they could've been twins.

One was built like a jock, he had a bulky build. He wore a bright red hockey jersey, baggy sweatpants, and black leather cleats. The guy clearly had been in too many fights, Alex could tell because both of his eyes were black, and when he bared his teeth at them, several of them were missing.

The sight of the other guy made Alex want to puke. It was like everything bad about the 1980s had exploded and he was the unfortunate one who got affected by the worst of it. He had his long and feathered ice-white hair styled in a mullet. He wore ridiculous pointy-toed leather shoes which couldn't have been comfortable, designer pants that were way too tight for anyone, and a gods-awful silk shirt with the top three buttons open revealing his bare chest. Maybe he thought he was some kind of groovy love god, but he wasn't fooling anyone, he couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds, and for someone trying to be groovy, he sure had a bad case of acne.