CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THREE

Reunions, Part 2

The Argo VII charged toward the Nemean Lion, who, by some lucky coincidence or act of the gods, failed to notice the bus’s approach. The great beast seemed far too focused on its intended prey—the hero watching with wide-eyed disbelief at the situation transpiring below him.

“I bet Ashley’s behind the wheel again,” Sam guessed.

Chiron chuckled. “You’d think a seer would be a little less reckless.”

Sam had to agree with his master’s comment. He wasn’t exactly sure who would win in a high-speed collision between beast and machine as they were both pretty much the same size.

“Aw crap, they’ve lost the element of surprise,” Chiron noted.

The centaur’s commentary was spot on. The Nemean Lion finally noticed the school bus bowling toward it. It mattered little though. The Argo VII was far too close now for this great beast to get out of its way.

“What the…” Sam couldn’t believe his eyes, “…is that a battering ram?”

The Argo VII’s front bumper had transformed itself into two metallic ram’s horns that nearly covered the entire front of the school bus.

“It’s a little too literal, don’t you think?” Chiron commented.

Seeing the large threat speeding for it, the Nemean Lion was quick to switch targets. It veered to the left at around the same time as the Argo VII was about to smash into it.

“Yeah, it’s definitely Ashley behind the wheel,” Sam confirmed. “Thunder and Jack wouldn’t have been so…gung-ho.”

The Nemean Lion pounced on the school bus with sword-sized claws outstretched. At the same time, a burst of flames exploded out of the Argo VII’s muffler, pushing it to accelerate through the bit of distance between them. Then came the sound of a hammer striking hard against an anvil as machine and beast collided. Metal shrieked and wheels groaned while the Nemean Lion let out a bone-chilling roar.

“Hephaestus’ flaming balls!” Sam gasped, to which Chiron added, “I wish we had popcorn!”

Although the Nemean Lion managed to rake its claws against the Argo VII’s bulletproof window, the battering ram also smashed against the great beast’s underside, which Sam knew from its mythology was the only part of the Nemean Lion’s body that wasn’t completely protected by its invincible fur coat. The result was a critical hit that sent the great beast crashing into the grass a good twenty yards away.

Expressions of surprise, disbelief, and then wonder flashed across Sam’s face before finally settling into admiration for Farsight’s daring. “That was…awesome!”

“You’re ride’s here.” Chiron’s palm pressed against Sam’s back. “So get going already!”

He shoved Sam forward and sent him over the tower’s edge.

“Chiron, you ass!” Sam screamed as he fell.

He raised his arm and fired his grappling hook at the tower’s wall. Luckily, its hook latched onto one of the grips Sam had used for the climb, allowing him to swing down to the ground without having to break his bones.

“Lesson number five, kid!” A grinning Chiron waved goodbye. “Don’t lose your focus no matter what!”

“Why?” Sam yelled. Although he was more focused on landing somewhere that wasn’t the icy pool surrounding the tower’s base. “What’s so important about Pandora?”

Chiron did have a reply, but his voice was so weak now that Sam couldn’t quite hear it. And, as he swung around the tower like a Greek hero version of Tarzan, whatever Chiron was trying to tell him about Pandora the 8th was lost to the winds.

Don’t think about it now. Focus on surviving this stunt first, his brain insisted.

The Argo VII pulled to a stop beside the tower just as Sam’s momentum swung him over to it. They must have heard Sam’s feet landing on the roof because the bus’s doors swung open to meet him after he dropped to the grass. Thunder was standing just inside of it, and seeing her there in the flesh made Sam’s chest throb—and not in a bad way.

She jumped out and wrapped her arms around his neck while he wrapped his arms around her waist. No words passed between them. They simply held each other for the few seconds they were allowed to. Just a few seconds of sweet bliss where Sam breathed in the scent of rainfall and lavender in her hair.

“Alright, put a pin on it, love birds!” Farsight yelled at them from inside the bus. “We have to go…now!”

The warning in her voice drove Sam to look over his shoulder, which was just in time to watch the Nemean Lion get back on its feet. Its cats’ slit eyes stared daggers at Sam from across the stretch of distance lying between them.

Thunder grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him back into the Argo VII before she yelled, “Go, Ash, go!”

Farsight, sitting snugly inside the Argo VII’s state-of-the-art cockpit, put the pedal to the metal, causing the tires underneath them to screech in protest as the Argo VII’s engine drummed to life.

“Hold on to something,” she ordered.

Sam reached out for Thunder once more so that they kept each other on their feet while Farsight drove across the open field like a maniac to avoid the great beast bounding toward the Argo VII.

“I thought we lost you, lame-brain,” Thunder whispered into Sam’s ear.

“I thought I lost me too,” he whispered back.

Thunder’s lips formed a warm, welcome smile. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

Their heartfelt moment—eyes completely glued to each other—was interrupted by two people clearing their throats.

“We missed you too, mate,” came Jackboot’s voice.

He glanced over Thunder’s shoulder and saw Jackboot and Dr. Hearthstone standing by the entrance to the Argo VII’s living compartment. The sheepish grins plastered on their faces suggested to Sam that they heard everything.

“Um, hey,” Sam moved over to give Jackboot, and then Dr. Hearthstone a high-five, “you decided to join the crew?”

“I felt partly responsible for your…” Dr. Hearthstone stopped himself from saying a word Sam guessed might have been ‘death’. “And I guess I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go on this grand adventure with everyone.”

“Stick with us long enough and you may live to regret it, Doc,” Thunder joked.

“Doubly agree on that,” Jackboot added, a wry smile forming on his face.

Sam was about to agree as well, but Farsight cut him off with, “Why can’t this guy take a godsdamn hint?”

The teenage seer was giving the rear-view monitor above her cockpit the stink eye. Sam guessed it was because the Nemean Lion was still chasing after them.

“You know…” Sam hesitated, “I had this crazy idea about that thing being Apex…”

“It’s him,” the other four heroes replied in unison.

“The annoying git’s been hounding us since we left Kansas City,” Jackboot reported.

“We watched him morph into the Nemean Lion on the road to Oregon,” Thunder added.

“We thought we’d shaken it off, but it looks like the villain just beat us here to you,” Dr. Hearthstone chimed in.

Sam raised an eyebrow at the rearview camera’s screen. “And we’re not surprised Apex can turn into a freaking giant lion?!”

“It has to be a function of his relic,” Thunder guessed.

Jackboot zipped by Sam so he could sit in the navigator’s chair behind Farsight’s cockpit. He pressed a button on its console and brought up the map on the screen.

“We could lose him in the trees,” Jackboot reported. Then he added, “if you’re up for a little risk?”

“How risky?” Farsight asked, sounding quite annoyed. “Things are moving so fast I can’t lock in on any goddamn probabilities that’ll ensure our escape!”

Jackboot’s gaze stayed glued to the map for a few more seconds before he replied. “Very risky…we’re headed past the safe zone Thunder’s contact told us to take and moving straight into the minefield we were warned not to pass through.”

Hearing Jackboot talk about Thunder’s contact reminded Sam that they’d left Chiron stuck at the top of the tower.

“We have to turn back,” he insisted. “We can’t leave Chiron alone with Apex.”

“I would have already turned us around if I thought we could,” Farsight replied darkly.

“But Chiron—”

“Apex won’t hurt Chiron. He’ll be too busy chasing after us.” Thunder’s fingers tightened around his, and the warmth of her hand calmed him down somewhat. “Ash… what kind of odds are we dealing with here?”

After sparing a few seconds of screening probabilities in her brain, Farsight replied, “It’s pretty much a coin toss.”

“I’m okay with those odds,” Dr. Hearthstone said.

Jackboot let out a heavy sigh. “It wasn’t like things were ever going to be easy for us…”

Sam nodded in agreement as well. The alternative—taking on the villain who frightened him even more than Medea’s dragons ever could—wasn’t an option he wanted to consider.

“Then strap in your seatbelts, boys and girl,” Farsight ordered. “The ride’s about to get bumpy…”

With that ominous proclamation, she drove her foot down on the pedal and sent the Argo VII speeding into the forest full of landmines.