Warriors || Leo Valdez [2]

16

In the morning Alex felt a kiss being pressed to her forehead and she smiled, but by the time she had gotten on deck, Leo, Frank and Jason had left already for the museum. According to Coach Hedge, they'd promised to be back by sunset.

She grumbled a quick 'morning' to everyone before snatching Annabeth's sandwich from her hands. 

Annabeth turned to Percy, who was leaning on the starboard rail, gazing over the bay.

Annabeth took his hand. "What are you going to do while we're gone?"

"Jump into the harbour," he said casually, like another kid might say, I'm going to get a snack. "I want to try communicating with the local Nereids. Maybe they can give me some advice about how to free those captives in Atlanta. Besides, I think the sea might be good for me. Being in that aquarium made me feel... unclean."

Annabeth kissed him. "Good luck, Seaweed Brain. Just come back to us, okay?"

"I will," he promised, then looking at Alex and Violet he added. "You three do the same."

Annabeth turned to the girls plus Violet, "Okay, ladies- and your majesty. Let's find the ghost of the Battery."

Violet grinned proudly at being called 'your majesty'. Huh, that really was gender neutral.

At first, they had a pretty good time walking along the Battery. According to the signs, the seaside park was called White Point Gardens. The ocean breeze swept away the muggy heat of the summer afternoon, and it was pleasantly cool under the shade of the palmetto trees. Lining the road were old Civil War cannons and bronze statues of historical figures.

Charleston Harbor glittered in the sun. To the north and south, strips of land stretched out like arms enclosing the bay, and sitting in the mouth of the harbor, about a mile out, was an island with a stone fort.

Alex really wanted to tell her friends about kissing Leo, but it didn't seem like a good time. They did talk though, and it felt good to be surrounded by them. 

The park wasn't crowded. Alex imagined that most of the locals had gone on summer vacation, or were holed up at home taking a siesta. They strolled along South Battery Street, which was lined with four-story Colonial mansions . The brick walls were blanketed with ivy, that seemed to cling to Violet as they walked by. The facades had soaring white columns like Roman temples. The front gardens were bursting with rosebushes, honeysuckle, and flowering bougainvillea. It looked like Demeter had set the timer on all the plants to grow several decades ago, then forgotten to come back and check on them.

"Kind of reminds me of New Rome," Hazel said. "All the big mansions and the gardens. The columns and arches."

"Gotta say, I love the plants" Violet mumbled.

The girls nodded, but didn't say much.

Piper kept looking around like she expected an ambush. She had said she'd seen this park in the blade of her knife, but she wouldn't elaborate. Alex guessed she was afraid to. After all, the last time Piper had tried to interpret a vision from her knife, she and Jason had almost killed each other in Kansas.

Hazel also seemed preoccupied. Maybe she was taking in their surroundings, or maybe she was worrying about her brother. In less than four days, unless they found him and freed him, Nico would be dead.

"There." Piper pointed across the harbour. A hundred yards out, a shimmering white figure floated on the water. At first, Alex thought it might be a buoy or a small boat reflecting the sunlight, but it was definitely glowing, and it was moving more smoothly than a boat, making a straight line toward them. As it got closer, they could tell it was the figure of a woman.

"The ghost," she said.

"That's not a ghost," Hazel said. "No kind of spirit glows that brightly."

Alex decided to take her word for it. She couldn't imagine being Hazel, dying at such a young age and coming back from the Underworld, knowing more about the dead than the living.

As if in a trance, Piper walked across the street toward the edge of the seawall, narrowly avoiding a horse-drawn carriage.

"Pipes!" Alex called.

"We'd better follow her," Hazel said

By the time Annabeth, Alex, Violet and Hazel caught up to her, the ghostly apparition was only a few yards away

Piper glared at it like the sight offended her.

"It is her," she grumbled.

Alex squinted at the ghost, but it blazed too brightly to make out details. Then the apparition floated up the seawall and stopped in front of them. The glow faded.

Alex gasped. The woman was breathtakingly beautiful and strangely familiar. Her face was hard to describe. Her features seemed to shift from those of one glamorous movie star to another. Her eyes sparkled playfully-sometimes green or blue or amber. Her hair changed from long, straight blond to dark chocolatey curls. For a second she looked like Khione, then Alex's first girl crush, and then a movie star Alex had always drooled over, then- you get the idea.

The woman was dressed like a Southern belle, just as Jason had described. Her gown had a low-cut bodice of pink silk and a three-tiered hoop skirt with white scalloped lace. She wore tall white silk gloves, and held a feathered pink-and-white fan to her chest. All thoughts of Leo were wiped from her mind as she stared at the woman.

"Aphrodite," Annabeth scowled.

"Venus?" Hazel asked in amazement.

"Wow" Alex muttered.

"Shit" Violet's mouth hung open too. "Hi again. Thanks for like saving me and stuff"

"Mom," Piper said, with no enthusiasm.

"Girls!" The goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug.

Alex started forward, but Piper pushed her back. 

"I will not have you drooling over my mom" She said, which made Alex somewhat regain her senses. 

"I'm so glad you're here," Aphrodite said. "War is coming. Bloodshed is inevitable. So there's really only one thing to do."

"Uh... and that is?" Annabeth ventured.

"Why, have tea and chat, obviously. Come with me!"