The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(42)

‘Yeah, now if I only had more daggers. Guess I’m back to using blowpipe darts.’

Meg shook her head. ‘Against those dragons? Did you see their armoured hides? I’ll take them with my swords.’

In the distance, Medea continued yelling, trying to get her beasts under control. The harsh creak of wheels told me the chariot was turning for another pass.

‘Meg,’ I said, ‘it’ll only take Medea one charmspoken word to defeat you. If she says stumble at the right moment …’

Meg glowered at me, as if it were my fault the sorceress could charmspeak. ‘Can we shut up Magic Lady somehow?’

‘It would be easier to cover your ears,’ I suggested.

Meg retracted her blades. She rummaged through her supplies while the rumble of the chariot’s wheels got faster and closer.

‘Hurry,’ I said.

Meg ripped open a pack of seeds. She sprinkled some in each of her ear canals, then pinched her nose and exhaled. Tufts of bluebonnet flowers sprouted from her ears.

‘That’s interesting,’ Piper said.

‘WHAT?’ Meg shouted.

Piper shook her head. Never mind.

Meg offered us bluebonnet seeds. We both declined. Piper, I guessed, was naturally resistant to other charmspeakers. As for me, I did not intend to get close enough to be Medea’s primary target. Nor did I have Meg’s weakness – a conflicted desire, misguided but powerful, to please her stepfather and reclaim some semblance of home and family – which Medea could and would exploit. Besides, the idea of walking around with flowers sticking out of my ears made me queasy.

‘Get ready,’ I warned.

‘WHAT?’ Meg asked.

I pointed at Medea’s chariot, now charging towards us out of the gloom. I traced my finger across my throat, the universal sign for kill that sorceress and her dragons.

Meg summoned her swords.

She charged the sun dragons as if they were not ten times her size.

Medea yelled with what sounded like real concern, ‘Move, Meg!’

Meg charged on, her festive ear protection bouncing up and down like giant blue dragonfly wings. Just before a head-on collision, Piper shouted, ‘DRAGONS, HALT!’

Medea countered, ‘DRAGONS, GO!’

The result: chaos not seen since Plan Thermopylae.

The beasts lurched in their harnesses, Right Dragon charging forward, Left Dragon stopping completely. Right stumbled, pulling Left forward so the two dragons crashed together. The yoke twisted and the chariot toppled sideways, throwing Medea across the pavement like a cow from a catapult.

Before the dragons could recover, Meg plunged in with her double blades. She beheaded Left and Right, releasing from their bodies a blast of heat so intense my sinuses sizzled.

Piper ran forward and yanked her dagger from the dead dragon’s eye.

‘Good job,’ she told Meg.

‘WHAT?’ Meg asked.

I emerged from behind a cement column, where I had courageously taken cover, waiting in case my friends required backup.

Pools of dragon blood steamed at Meg’s feet. Her flower ear accessories smoked, and her cheeks were burned, but otherwise she looked unharmed. The heat radiating from the sun dragon bodies had already started to cool.

Thirty feet away, in a COMPACT CAR ONLY spot, Medea struggled to her feet. Her dark braided hairdo had come undone, spilling down one side of her face like oil from a punctured tanker. She staggered forward, baring her teeth.

I slung my bow from my shoulder and fired a shot. My aim was decent, but even for a mortal, my strength was feeble. Medea flicked her fingers. A gust of wind sent my arrow spinning into the dark.

‘You killed Phil and Don!’ snarled the sorceress. ‘They’ve been with me for millennia!’

‘WHAT?’ Meg asked.

With a wave of her hand, Medea summoned a stronger blast of air. Meg flew across the parking garage, crashed into the pillar, and crumpled, her swords clattering against the tarmac.

‘Meg!’ I tried to run to her, but more wind swirled around me, caging me in a vortex.

Medea laughed. ‘Stay right there, Apollo. I’ll get to you in a moment. Don’t worry about Meg. The descendants of Plemnaeus are of hardy stock. I won’t kill her unless I have to. Nero wants her alive.’

The descendants of Plemnaeus? I wasn’t sure what that meant, or how it applied to Meg, but the thought of her being returned to Nero made me struggle harder.

I threw myself against the miniature cyclone. The wind shoved me back. If you’ve ever held your hand out of the window of the sun Maserati as it speeds across the sky, and felt the force of a thousand-mile-an-hour wind shear threatening to rip your immortal fingers off, I’m sure you can relate.

‘As for you, Piper …’ Medea’s eyes glittered like black ice. ‘You remember my aerial servants, the venti? I could simply have one throw you against a wall and break every bone in your body, but what fun would that be?’ She paused and seemed to consider her words. ‘Actually, that would be a lot of fun!’

‘Too scared?’ Piper blurted out. ‘Of facing me yourself, woman to woman?’

Medea sneered. ‘Why do heroes always do that? Why do they try to taunt me into doing something foolish?’

‘Because it usually works,’ Piper said sweetly. She crouched with her blowpipe in one hand and her knife in the other, ready to lunge or dodge as needed. ‘You keep saying you’re going to kill me. You keep telling me how powerful you are. But I keep beating you. I don’t see a powerful sorceress. I see a lady with two dead dragons and a bad hairdo.’