“You may not,” the female dragon said. “But we do.” She put her fingers between her lips and whistled, and before I could blink, a golden chariot zoomed over the horizon and landed softly on the tarmac. “Helios’s golden chariot, at your service.” She dramatically motioned toward it as if she were the fairy godmother who’d transformed a pumpkin into a carriage so Cinderella could get to the ball. “It’s indestructible—not even the rays of the sun can melt it. And we will fly it for you, of course.”
“But can we all fit in it?” Chris asked. “It only looks large enough for one person.”
“The chariot will adjust in size to however many people it needs to carry,” she explained. “Step on board and see for yourself.”
Chris’s eyes bugged out—apparently he thought that was the coolest thing ever—and he rushed on board. Kate followed him, and just like the dragon promised, the chariot stretched and grew to accommodate her. It did the same when Danielle stepped on, too.
“How indestructible is this thing?” Danielle raised the Golden Sword, and before I could scream for her to stop, she swung it down onto the edge of the chariot. It clanged against the metal, and she pulled the sword back to her side, examining the damage on the chariot. “No dent,” she confirmed. “The chariot can’t be destroyed, even by the Golden Sword of Athena.”
“That’s the true Golden Sword of Athena?” the dragon leader stared at it, practically salivating at the sight.
“Don’t even think about it.” Danielle scowled and pulled the sword closer. “This sword is mine, and it’s staying that way.”
I smiled, glad that in this timeline, Danielle didn’t have to give up the sword to the dragons.
“After you?” Blake said, motioning for me to get on board the chariot next.
I hopped onto the platform, and he held my hand, helping me. The moment I stepped on, the floor stretched again, and there was enough room for me to stand on it along with the others. I ran my fingers over the golden ledge of the chariot, marveling in the details of the carving. The vehicle was truly exquisite. Blake jumped on to join us, and it stretched out again to accommodate him.
“With the dragons flying the chariot, I suppose you don't have any use for me now?” the helicopter pilot asked.
“I will create a portal home for you,” Hypatia said.
The portal appeared in front of him, and he stepped through it, disappearing from sight.
“You should go home as well,” I told her, trying one last time. “We have this covered—especially now that we have the dragons on our side.”
“Just because the mode of transportation has changed, it doesn’t mean my plan to accompany you has changed,” Hypatia said, joining us on board. “You’ll still need me to create the portal back home for you once Typhon is defeated.”
“We can fly them back to Kinsley in the chariot,” the dragon leader offered. “With our speed, the trip should only take a few hours.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” I said to Hypatia. “We can spare those few hours, and that way you won’t have to risk yourself.”
“You cannot spare those few hours,” she insisted. “What if something goes wrong? I hope it doesn’t, but we need to plan for the worst. I’m coming with you, and that’s the end of this discussion.” She raised her chin in the air, signaling that the conversation was over, and I conceded.
If she insisted on coming, we couldn’t stop her. And we didn’t have the time to convince her otherwise. Plus, she had a good point. Hypatia had guided us correctly so far—I knew better than to question her decisions now.
“The equinox is close,” the dragon leader warned us. “Typhon will rise soon. Prepare and brace yourselves, because we must fly to the mountain now.”
He and the others shifted into their dragon forms. They stepped in front of the chariot, and fire flew out from it, connecting like reins to their bodies. Then they spread their wings, and I held onto the ledge of the chariot as they launched into flight, pulling us up with them and straight toward the rumbling mountain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
We circled the sputtering mountain, waiting for the exact moment of the equinox. The dragons flew so smoothly that the floor of the chariot didn’t even feel like it was moving beneath our feet. We stood strong and steady, staring out at the crater of the steaming volcano, ready for Typhon to rise.
Kate had Medusa’s head out and ready. The gorgon’s eyes were closed—it was too risky to keep them open—but Kate would open them the moment Typhon was looking at it.
“Which way will Typhon be facing when he rises from the crater?” I turned to Hypatia, figuring she was most likely to know the answer.
“There’s no way to know,” she replied. “But once he rises, we have to get around to the correct side as fast as possible—hopefully before he’s aware that we’re here.” She glanced at her watch, the skin around her eyes creasing with worry. “One more minute until the equinox,” she announced, and my heart raced, panic flooding my veins.
I reached for my bow, stringing an arrow through it and aiming it at the volcano. The others readied their weapons as well, even though physical weapons weren’t their best method of defense—their elemental powers were.
Then the volcano exploded, booming so loudly that my head felt like it combusted right along with it. Smoke and ash rose from the crater, so thick that it blacked out my vision. My eyes burned, and I was forced to close them.
“I can’t see!” I yelled, but the moment I breathed in, my lungs filled with ash and smoke. I coughed and sputtered, holding my hands in front of my mouth, unable to breathe. The others coughed as well.
At least the chariot was still flying, so the dragons must not be affected. Which made sense, since they were fire breathers.
I heard a loud, monstrous roar, so loud that the chariot vibrated from the strength of it—a sound that I dreaded came from Typhon himself. I tried to open my eyes again, but it was hopeless. All I saw was burning black ash before having to snap them shut. My eyes watered from the pain, tears rolling down my cheeks. I was holding my breath, trying to avoid breathing in the soot, but it was impossible. My lungs begged for air. My head pounded, dizzy from the lack of oxygen, and soon enough I was forced to give in and open my mouth for a breath.
When I did, the air was clear. I was still coughing, and each breath still hurt, but I could breathe again. I opened my eyes, rubbing away the soot to I could see. The ash around the chariot was gone—a bubble of clean air surrounded us. I couldn’t see further since the area outside the bubble was pitch black with ash, as if we were inside looking out from inside a snow globe.
“What happened?” I tried to ask, but it came out as a croak, followed by another coughing fit. I called upon white energy, using it to heal myself from the smoke inhalation. Then I rested my hands on each of the others, healing them as well.
“What happened?” I asked again, speaking clearly this time.
“Ash and soot are part of the Earth,” Kate explained. “I’m able to control it with my power. I’m going to have to clear it from around Typhon for us to be able to fight him. The moment I do, he’ll know that we’re here.”
“We have no other choice,” Blake said, standing strong and looking out in the direction of the volcano. “Do it.”
She raised her arms, and the bubble pushed away the ash as it expanded, slowly revealing the gigantic monster. He was taller than a skyscraper, and he stood in the crater, his waist at its brim. Lava poured out of the volcano, traveling down the mountain and burning everything in its path.
I knew Typhon would be huge—larger than the monsters Scylla and Charybdis that we’d fought in Greece—but it still took all of my effort not to cower in fear, even though his back was toward us. He was covered in soot, but judging by his growls, he wasn’t affected by it. Wings spanned from his shoulders—reminding me of the wings of a dragon—and snakes hissed and slithered around them. I shuddered as I realized that the snakes were part o
f him—they grew out of his scaly skin.
But I had no time to think, because the snakes shot fire at us—there must have been more than twenty of them in all. Blake raised his hands, blocking the flames. But he didn’t just block the flames—he turned them around and boomeranged them back to where they came, burning away Typhon’s wings.
Typhon roared, the sound nearly as loud as when the volcano erupted, throwing his hands down and arching his back in pain.
Danielle used the opportunity to gather water from the air and shoot it toward the snakes, drenching them and stopping them from shooting any more fire at us. They hissed and shot something else from their mouths—a thick, black gooey substance.
A glob of it landed on my arm, and I shrieked from the burning pain. I looked down and saw it burning its way through my skin. Poison. I ducked down so the walls of the chariot could shield me from more of the poison, and the others did the same.
Danielle must have seen the poison burning its way through my skin, because she aimed water toward it, washing away the black goo. Once it was gone, I healed my arm, letting out a long breath when the pain dissipated.
“Was anyone else hit?” I asked. Both Chris and Hypatia answered that they had been, and Danielle and I worked together to heal them as well.
But as we were working, the floor of the chariot started to tilt, and we slid toward the other side, balancing ourselves against its wall to keep ourselves from tumbling out over the edge.
Something must have happened to the dragons. They’d been immune to the flames… but they must not be immune to the poison. And they were too far away for me to reach out and heal them.
Perhaps their hides were strong enough to withstand it. But they shrieked from the pain, and then I heard a thud from below. It was followed by another thud, and then another.
I sneaked a peak over the edge of the chariot. Sure enough, only three dragons remained. The others had fallen into the lava, broken and motionless. Fire shot up around their charred bodies. Despite being creatures of fire, there was no way they could have survived that.
I averted my gaze and huddled back down, shaking at the sight of the death and devastation below. The remaining dragons had widened our circle, but the poison still shot around us. The snakes were stronger than I would have thought possible.
“We’re coming around to the front of Typhon,” Blake said, turning to Kate. “Use Medusa’s head now!”
“I can’t while the snakes are shooting their poison!” she said. “If the poison destroys her eyes before Typhon looks into them… she’ll be useless.”
“Then we have to kill the snakes.” I got my bow ready and took a deep breath to prepare for the onslaught. Then I stood up, clearing my mind of all else but shooting the snakes in quick succession. They shot poison at me, but even though my body felt like it was on fire, I gritted through the pain. I just had to remind myself that each snake down was another step closer to defeating Typhon.
Danielle joined me, using her power to throw ice daggers at them. Chris also stood and used his power to throw knives at them, and Blake, Kate, and Hypatia shot them down with guns.
Typhon grunted as each snake died. He tried to swat at our chariot, but he was still stuck inside the crater of the volcano, and we remained out of his reach.
All the snakes were nearly gone. We were almost there. Just a few more…
But then another dragon went down. He hit the lava, and fire exploded around him. We only had two dragons left, and a quick glance over at them showed me that the poison was burning its way through their wings. They were flying slower… they weren’t going to last much longer.
I shot more arrows—moving faster than humanly possible—letting them loose one after another until the final snake was dead. Once verifying that they were all gone, I ducked down again to huddle in the chariot, scrunching my eyes from the pain of the poison burning its way through my skin.
Danielle created a shower of rain above us to wash off the poison, the burning ceasing as it slid off my skin. Once it had all been washed away, I used my power to heal us.
Once finished, I glanced around at the others. Our clothes were wet and covered in soot, and we all looked like we had been to the Underworld and back, but we were alive. My energy level was lowering from having to use so much of it, but at least we were all okay. We just needed to get back around to the front of Typhon, and then we would use Medusa’s head to do what we’d came here to do.
But the chariot jerked again, and when I looked ahead, only one dragon remained. He was flying more slowly than ever. It was the biggest dragon—the pack leader. Danielle had washed the poison off of him as well, but his hide was red and raw, his wings damaged and thin. Some parts were so thin that I could see straight through them. Every flap looked painful, as if his wings were about to rip apart.
I doubted he had much longer. And without a dragon left to fly the chariot, we would fall into the churning lava below. Despite our powers, I wasn’t sure how we would survive that. We needed the dragon to live.
“Chris,” I said, looking over at him. “Fly me out to the dragon so I can heal him.”
“Good idea.” He stood up and raised his hands in preparation to use his power. “Get ready.”
Air billowed beneath my feet, lifting me up so I hovered over the floor of the chariot. I floated up higher, over the edge—and then I accidentally looked down at the hissing, flaming lava flow below. My stomach flipped at how high up I was, and I had to swallow down a wave of nausea. I couldn’t even see any remnants of the fallen dragons. They must have been burned to ash and swallowed up by the lava.
“Keep flying!” I called out to the lone dragon, hoping the words of encouragement would help him to push on. “I’m coming over to heal you.”
He twisted his head to look at me, his eyes dim with pain and defeat. But the movement must have been too much for him, because his wing split at its thinnest point, straight down the center, and his features contorted in pain.
“No!” I screamed, reaching forward to try to touch him. Only a few more feet. If he could hold on for a few seconds, I would be close enough to heal him.
But he let out a long breath, his eyes rolling back into his head, and tumbled down to the lava below.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I screamed, watching the dragon fall down and thump into the lava. Flames engulfed his body, and once they died out, all that remained was an unrecognizable lump where he’d landed. Then the lump disappeared, and the dragon was gone.
But even though the dragon had fallen, I remained floating where I was. I turned around and saw Chris standing on the chariot with his hands up in the air, his face scrunched in concentration. The chariot had dropped a few feet, but he seemed to be using his power to hold it—and me—steady. Everyone else on the chariot looked perfectly fine, and relieved to still be alive. Typhon still roared in the distance, trapped in the center of the crater, but for now, we were safe.
Chris flew me back to join them, and I took one final glance down at where the dragon had fallen. I hadn’t even known his name. Both times I’d made deals with him and his pack, I’d been too focused on getting what I wanted from him to complete our mission to bother to ask for their names.
And now, I would probably never find out.
I floated onto the floor of the chariot, and Blake rushed toward me, wrapping me in his arms. “Thank god you’re safe,” he said, pushing my hair off my face and studying me as if making sure I was really here. “When that dragon went down…” He shook his head, his eyes darkening. “I thought you would fall with him.”
“I thought we all would fall.” Danielle stood and attempted to brush the soot off her jeans, even though it was hopeless. “Chris—how long can you keep the chariot flying?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, each word forced and strained. As he spoke, the chariot dropped a few inches.
“Don’t waste your energy talking,” I told him. “Bring us around to the front
of Typhon so we can show him Medusa’s head and end him once and for all.”
I tried to sound confident, but truthfully, I was worried. Chris had lifted up the yacht on his own and flown it over Charybdis, but that was only because Zeus had given him the mint that had provided him with endless energy. The most he’d ever flown on his own was the five of us when we jumped from the tower of Chione’s ice palace—and that flight had only lasted for a few seconds. Keeping the chariot afloat was using up more of his energy than I thought possible. How much longer would he be able to keep this up?
“We have to help him,” I told the others. “Let’s let him channel some of our energy too.”
After healing the others and myself so many times, I was already getting depleted of my own energy, and I imagined that the others were running low as well. But we had to do everything we could do to help Chris. If that meant channeling him our energy until we were about to pass out, then so be it.
We all reached forward to touch Chris—everyone but Kate.
“Aren’t you going to help?” Danielle asked her.
“I can’t,” Kate said, her voice sad. “I’m not mortal anymore. Now that I’m a goddess, the way that I access energy is different. Chris and I tried last week after we finished training. We thought that I could give him endless energy—like he had with Zeus’s mint—but it didn’t work. The fastest way to explain is that the energy that I access now is on a different wavelength—a wavelength you can’t access. I can’t access energy on your wavelength, either. But with the four of you helping him, it’ll be enough. It has to be enough.”
I nodded and focused on calling forth energy to channel it into Chris. From the ways the others were concentrating, I could tell they were doing the same. Our energy must have helped him, because the chariot flew around to face Typhon.
Typhon’s head was ugly and enormous—larger than a house. He growled and raged, the ground shaking with his anger, the volcano flowing with more lava by the second and rumbling like it was about to burst. Luckily we were still far enough away that he couldn’t reach us from where he was rooted in the center of the crater. But he wouldn’t be stuck there forever. We needed to act fast.
Elementals 5: The Hands of Time Page 8