Page 36 of The Demigod Complex
He bellowed Kaios’s name again.
No answer amidst the harshness of screams and shrieks. At the side of the river, he found Calli curled into a ball with her hands clasped over her ears. Blood was oozing from her eyes, ears, and nose.
He grasped her by the shoulders, and she flinched, but otherwise didn’t respond. “Where is he?”
She couldn’t answer. The rasp of her lungs told him she might be inhaling blood as well.
“Calli? No!” Leia appeared at his side. He didn’t ask how she’d found him.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She needs water.” She pulled a bottle from her backpack. He hadn’t even realized she had it with her. She poured half the bottle over Calli’s face, then tipped it to her lips. The nymph gulped it down as fast as she could. The bleeding stopped and her breathing improved.
“How’d you know?”
She glanced at him. “It happened to me when I lost my spring. Nymphs are used to being in their element most of the time.”
“And yet, you manage.”
“I’ve gotten used to going without for long periods. I take lots of baths and carry water everywhere.”
“Help the others,” Calli choked.
“Is there any water left?”
Calli shook her head.
Leia turned to Castor, her face pale and pinched with fear. “I can’t help you.”
“What if I can get you water?”
Hope speared through Leia at his words. “Can you do that?”
Every protective instinct hammered him to fix this now. “Son of Zeus. Remember?”
She searched his face and he knew exactly what she was thinking. If he could bring down rain…
“Do it.”
Castor stood, his feet planted wide, his hands balled into fists at his side. Leia visibly shivered as a cold wind whipped through the trees. The previously fluffy white clouds above gathered, forming a massive thunderhead that grew black and heavy with rain.
Castor raised his hands, and lightning illuminated the sky. In a rush of sound, a deluge descended on them, and in seconds they were soaked to the skin.
In Leia’s arms, Calliadne sucked in a grateful breath and sat forward.
“We have to fight,” Leia told her. Her sister nodded.
Together they stood and clasped hands.
“Keep it coming,” she called to Castor. He didn’t break his concentration to acknowledge her words, just kept the rain coming, drawing it forth.
As he watched, Leia and Calli manipulated and directed the water. Raindrops banded together to coalesce into first a pool at their feet, then a raging river, and finally a wall of solid water.
“Hold on to something,” Leia warned Castor. He wrapped his arms around the trunk of a massive tree, his fingers digging in as though the thing were made of butter instead of hard pine.
Together, the two nymphs sent the wall of water crashing through the trees, taking out everything in its path. Nature in full force could be a real bitch. So could a pissed-off nymph or two.
With a roar to rival a tornado, the torrent slammed up against the mountainside as far as a mile away, frothing up the granite walls only to turn back on itself.
