An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction
It was the sound that got me.
There wasn't any.
The monster took another eerily silent step. A visible shiver ran down its back, like something was moving under its skin as it lazily extended tendrils in our direction. Luke stiffened, shifting into a fighting stance as he freed his lighter from his pocket while I - I did something I haven't done in
years.
I panicked.
I
froze.
It must have weighed a couple hundred pounds, but you couldn't hear anything. It dragged its knuckles on the ground. Its black claws on the hind legs crunched through the pavement as the shrunken heads flailed around, tugging at the main body. And it was completely silent. It was like it wasn't quite real. In between this reality and somewhere else where what
should happen...couldn't.
Luke was right there, Cliff was still saying something into my ears and I had never felt so alone. I couldn't think. I couldn't move. It was like I was drowning in molasses as I stared at the monster as my neck thrummed in tension, almost cramping. I was used to the warning coming in bursts, screaming for my attention, but this was a low, steady warning that just
being in this thing's presence was dangerous.
I have never seen this monster before. I didn't know what it was.
I knew my education was incomplete. I'm still only twelve. But these past few weeks, I've gotten used to being the guy who knew more than anyone else and now that I
wasn't - my tests sometimes throw curve balls but they never were - I still
knew.
I didn't know what to do.
"Mom?" I whispered as the monster slowly raised a hulking hand and then brought it down. Artemis' carrier crumpled. The hard plastic snapped under its weight, breaking off around the rivets. The little lattice door twisted off its hinges. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. I thought I could hear Luke's heartbeat. The carrier door clattered to the pavement in absolute silence.
Mom,
please.
"Perce," Luke whispered harshly and I blinked slowly. She wasn't answering. Why wasn't she answering?
"Percy."
I couldn't help my shuddering as I tried to swallow the wail threatening to come out of my mouth.
"Any ideas?" Luke asked. The monster had begun to move towards us with slow, pondering steps. It wasn't walking in a straight line. It would take a few steps to the left, then double back a step or two and start approaching from the right.
It felt like it was studying us.
I don't know what to do.
Mom, please, I screamed in my mind.
I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll let her -
I choked on 'die.'
Mom, please.
I don't even know why I was still asking. I don't know what I was hoping for.
Mom was Fate.
And everything comes to an end eventually.
"
Percy!"
"Yeah?" I croaked as I woodenly turned towards Luke. We should run was my dim thought as I looked up at Luke's frown and the sweat beading on his forehead. I felt numb. "Probably run."
Luke's blue eyes flickered down at me.
Neither of us moved.
It was like some small part of our hind brains was digging up every long forgotten prey instinct in the vague hopes of not dying.
Movement drew a predator's attention.
" - unstable." Cliff's voice came into focus. There was a lot of static in the background and whooshing noises, like he was in a wind tunnel but it was probably him moving around like a labrador puppy on caffeine and crack.
"It will spit you out somewhere random and probably blow up your phone, but it will work!"
What?
My phone.
My brain came back online.
Holy fuck, my
phone.
It will work!
"Thanks, Cliff." I hung up on him. He'd understand. "There is an obelisk on the other side of the river," I said quickly out of the corner of my mouth. "We need to grab Artemis - "
"Why?" He hissed.
"Because I will give you my boon from my mother if you help me with her. I swear on the River Styx." The rumbling from that ancient river sounded in the distance as Luke drew a sharp breath in through his nose. The thunder drew the monster's attention. It paused. The tendrils extending from the petals of its head shifted towards the west.
I was mostly thinking about how my father would probably ground me forever if he ever heard about my oath.
"Deal?"
Luke breathed out.
And the monster
moved.
It should have been a blur of red and black, like everything else that moved fast. Instead it was like a living slideshow. Like the world glitched. It kind of just...
blinked and
slid and
bent. One moment it was still in the middle of the wide highway. The next half of it was over the median, maybe three feet away leaving its legs behind and one of the shrunken heads hanging in mid air like a broken image and Luke cursed as Reclaim flashed from his lighter and then -
It was gone.
It -
What?
But -
Shit.
I whirled around just in time to see the back of it vanish into the small woods after Artemis.
"Deal?" I turned on Luke.
The older boy stared at me with his lips pressed together so hard they were white. He was thinking it through hard.
"
Fine," he said slowly, almost snarling. "Deal."
I'll be honest, as soon as he said 'fine' I was already running after the monster. As the small branches slapped at my face and arms, the Styx's gaze fell on me for a moment. An ice cold shiver, a slight burn of what felt a little like acid crept along my skin.
Choice and consequence, son of Fate, the ancient river reminded me before her attention faded away.
Yeah,
I know.
Luke caught up to me in a heartbeat with his son of Hermes-ness.
"Follow," he barked.
He sped up in front of me and then something weird happened? It was like I could feel my stride changing. Wait - I
could feel my stride changing. We were running and then as his red vest flapped between the brush in front of me, our footfalls were off beat and then that beat got closer and closer until I was almost stepping into his footprints. Luke was way faster than me, I knew that from experience on the track at Camp but somehow I was keeping up. He was letting me keep up?
He was
making me keep up.
Hermes Enagonios, I thought just to keep my mind off the ball of ice sitting in my stomach.
Hermes of the Games, patron of athletes.
I followed Luke when he made a sharp left and we spilled out into an abandoned downtown section of Plattsburgh, New York. It probably wasn't actually abandoned, but it looked like it was at this time of night with flickering lamp lights, dark windows and half the road dug up with construction efforts complete with a bulldozer and trucks filled with gravel.
My heart fell as I took in where we were.
There was a river cutting through the town. You could follow it to where it spilled in Lake Cheliak separating this part of New York from Vermont. There was a bridge to cross, but that meant a wide open four lane road and one way to go.
We weren't anywhere near the bridge. We were further from the obelisk than when we started. I wanted to think Luke had tricked me into running away from her and I just needed to turn around, scoop her up and get out.
I just needed -
Please.
My gut told me we were right where we wanted to be.
Artemis was alone and a rabbit. The former goddess of the Hunt. She would try to stay in a comfortable environment where she knew where she was at all times, where nothing would dare hurt her. The one place she would instinctively feel safe.
Her Domain.
But she didn't have that anymore.
The woods led away from the highway in a circular curve and abruptly cut off here.
In the opposite direction of where she needed to go.
As soon as I thought that the old gas station to the right of the road blew up.
Shards and slabs of the wall and roof just exploded out, pieces flying anywhere as an auburn blur ran for the car garage next door. I saw what might have been an old freezer bounce in the parking lot as glass scattered all over, catching lamplight to sparkle like diamonds on the pavement as the side of the roof collapsed in.
Without a single sound.
I yanked Damocles off my necklace. I've never seen this monster before. Doesn't mean it can't die.
"Artemis!"
What I got back was a shrieking, piercing wail. The rabbit bolted for the small opening under the car garage's door as the monster glitched behind her, raising a lazy hand and I
needed to be there. I tried to push more speed out of my legs, knowing that it wasn't going to be enough - I
had to be
-
Then I was there, at least fifteen feet from where I should have been, my spidey sense screaming, kicking Artemis under the door as I raised Damocles just in time to deflect the hit.
Tried to deflect it.
It felt like being hit by a speeding ice cream truck. The pavement, or maybe it was my ankle, cracked underneath me. Damocles sung as my arms immediately went dead. My right shoulder wrenched out of its socket as I spun with the blow, crashing back into the garage door so hard I could hear the metal hinges
squeal as it buckled.
Damocles tugged at my arm and I swung with it, hearing some kind of whale song from the bone blade as it hit something.
I only knew I hit it because I felt the impact echo back down my arm.
It was still completely silent.
The screaming warning at the back of my neck fell back into the low thrum of tension. When my everything stopped ringing, I was able to see the damage.
The monster had backed off. Its head was tilted almost curiously and on its arm was a thin line bleeding a luminescent gold.
My heart fell again.
Monsters - true monsters - don't bleed the blood of Phanes, the Light-Bringer. It was the color Apollo bled. That Athena, Kronos, Zeus and the various immortal nymphs and spirits of Ananke's pantheon bled.
This wasn't a monster.
It can't die.
I swallowed hard.
"You're, uh, you aren't one of my cousins, are you?" I ventured cautiously and watched it tilt its main head the other way as the twin bobble heads attached to its left side and right chest spasmed wildly. "Uh, sorry?" And then because I'm stupid, I continued, "I gotta admit, I do
not see the resemblance - "
Its face unfurled, like a long petaled poisonous flower from the deep jungle. In the center, a round mouth opened, filled with rows of hooked needle-like teeth similar to a lamprey. Its throat pushed out of its mouth, stretching a pink membrane as it snapped at the air a few times.
Then came the sound.
It felt like taking the razor edge of a hollow echo filled with black noise right to the brain. Pain is too simple a word to describe it.
It felt like being ground out of existence.
Every single nerve lit on fire. This sick, oily pain sliced underneath my skin, a nauseating discordant note stabbed at my eyeballs and eardrums. It was hard to think. To move. To breathe.
"Stop it," I whispered, hands pressed against my ears, but it didn't help. Hot bile was crawling up my throat. I was going to throw up. My stomach was twisting and churning as I tried to crack it open. I searched for the power I knew was there, but it didn't come. "Stop - !"
I vomited and from the iron taste, it was all blood. My heart was pumping too fast, a pain in my chest was growing as my temples throbbed. There was this sick fluttering feeling at the base of my throat and at some point I had fallen to my knees.
It had to stop. I was going to - I had to make it stop.
I don't have - I had dropped Damocles.
Where?
I could barely open my eyes.
I had to -
Stop it.
I opened my mouth and the burning tug in my gut pulled. I dug into it, deep.
More.
STOP IT I yelled, but what came out wasn't in words.
It was this roaring, whooshing, echoing sound that drowned everything out. So loud, I thought maybe it wasn't really coming from my mouth, but my stomach too. That floating feeling was back. A strange happiness was bubbling up. I was vaguely aware of Artemis dashing out of the garage into my large, winged shadow. And I -
And I was full of
eyes -
With a very different kind of roar, a John Deere bulldozer came out of nowhere, plowing the
thing into the side of the car garage building. My stomach snapped shut so hard I almost barfed again. My head spun as I watched Luke back up his bulldozer and ram it right back into the building.
I -
I didn't know what to think.
"Hey!" I heard an unfamiliar voice shout from the direction of the road. "Hey you thieving
fucks!" I turned, wiping my mouth and saw an old off white Volvo with a dumb looking dog peering out one window and an angry black man shaking a cell phone. "I called the fucking police you - "
I saw the mortal's eyes go wide.
I glanced back over my shoulder.
The thing was reaching towards me with broken limbs, towards Artemis. The light from the street lamps caught on the scraps of silver cloth clinging to its form.
Then it spoke in this sickening, cruel sounding croon.
Never...safe...my….lady….
Something stabbed me in the chest and
twisted.
Luke backed up calmly, adjusting this lever that dropped the shovel in the front, and then surged forward with a machine roar. With a loud cracking, crash sound the brick wall broke. The slab of brick, wood and a couple of metal beams fell forward onto the creature and the flat nose of the bulldozer.
Luke kicked open the battered door covered in brick dust and squeezed out.
"That boon," he growled as he stomped up to me. "Better be
fucking worth it."
I could see why he would say that.
Blood was streaking down the side of his face from his ears. Similar trails came from his nose. There were bright red splotches of burst blood vessels in his eyes and his bottom lip was torn open so badly, I could see flashes of his blood stained teeth behind it. The wound was crescent shaped like he was bit by a clam or -
He bit through his lip.
I could barely move and he - he bit through his lip and drove a bulldozer into the thing.
I want to be Luke when I grow up.
"It's not dead," I said quickly. "It can't - "
The brick pile rumbled and we all jumped.
"Get the fuck in!" The mortal called out. I didn't question the complete 180 and neither did Artemis, the auburn fur ball making a beeline for the Volvo. Not even the dumb looking terrier in the window barking at her scared her away.
Not that I was surprised.
"Shut
up, Bradley," the man hissed as we got in the backseat of his car. He didn't even wait for the door to finish closing before he stepped on the gas.
I -
I had to just breathe for a moment.
I just -
Fuck.
"You alright, kid?" I looked up to see the mortal peering at me through the reflection of the rearview mirror. His car smelled like mint and potato chips. The passenger side was occupied by the lopsided eared dog, a suitcase and a pillow.
"Yeah," I said.
I brushed my hand under my nose and then checked my ears. It came back clean. All I had was a lingering headache and a slight upset feeling in my stomach. Beside me, Artemis whimpered, with blood matted fur around her ears and tears still spilling from her eyes. Luke was digging into his fanny pack, pulling out a Ziploc bag with the golden blocks of ambrosia as his bottom lip pulled and bled all over his chin and dripped onto his shirt.
Yeah, I was just
fine.
I felt my fists clench in my lap.
"Right," the mortal sighed. "What
was that?"
"Bear," Luke said the same time I said "Mountain lion."
Luke gave me the evil eye.
"Monster," the mortal said, thumping the heel of his palm on the steering wheel. "God fucking damn."
"You saw it?" Luke asked in surprise around a cube of god food.
"Yeah, I fucking saw it!" Our driver hissed. "I wish I fucking didn't!"
Same.
"Who the fuck are you, the Illuminati?"
I think he meant it as some kind of strange joke, since he looked like he was really hoping the answer was no.
He was in luck!
"We're demigods," I said with false cheer as we sped down towards the highway at 80 MPH. "And
you're clear-sighted."
The mortal squinted at me in the mirror. "You said that like it means something."
"It means you can see the world as it truly is," Luke answered before I could. He had put on that soothing tone of voice again. "The masquerade is real. It's called the Mist and it helps make sure most people live normal lives."
"And what about
that?" The mortal said a bit hysterically. "Did it just fucking
break?"
Luke opened his mouth and then paused. He glanced at me. "There's like one to two percent of people in the world that can see through the Mist." More like three percent. "Because…" Luke trailed off leadingly, glancing at me again.
"Because you're a demi-alien." I said simply.
Luke turned to stare at me in disbelief.
"The fuck?" His dog sniffed around the dashboard. "You're fucking with me. I know who my parents are, kid, and none of them got butt probed by a Martian."
"I'm not," I sighed. "You got it from Selene."
"The - the Roma - Greek? The moon goddess?" He scoffed. "Are you seriously telling me pagan gods are real?"
I shrugged. "My mom is
pretty real."
She didn't answer me.
"So is my father," Luke deadpanned. "Demigods, remember?"
The mortal stared hard at us, looking for the lie that wasn't there. His eyes dropped back to the road as his right hand came off the wheel to absently scratch behind his dog's ears.
"Fuck."
"Alien?" Luke asked under his breath. "Not demigod?"
"She was adopted," I told him. "She came from the stars. A few galaxies over."
"Huh," Luke murmured with his eyes wide. The whites of his eyes were almost entirely bloody red. "The more you know…"
You might be going, wait a minute. Isn't
everyone an alien? And...you'd be right, I guess. If you saw things from a cat's point of view. Humans aren't natives and I guess technically, mom is an alien too. When I say alien, I mean everyone who came in after everything was settled, and humanity won the Earth for themselves. The stragglers and unaffiliated. Not all of them came from another galaxy either!
I was pretty sure Aphrodite's great-granddad still lived on top of his space elevator in Kadath, of the Dreamlands.
Some aliens were friends and some were foes. Most ended up attached to one pantheon or another. The Egyptians have been dealing with Apophis for
ages.
Selene had been our adoptee.
Her and Pontus.
"Fuck!" Our driver repeated himself.
"Sorry," I said dully. My chest was still aching as I ignored the rabbit between us. "Don't go looking for monsters. Try not to see too much."
That got me a narrow eyed look in the rear view mirror. "Why…?"
"You'll start growing extra eyes," I said and Luke jerked in his seat. "On the inside. And if it gets really bad, you kind of tend to go rabid."
Hunting down the feral descendents of her predecessor would have been the job of a certain rabbit.
"You'll grow out of it eventually," I tried to reassure our Good Samaritan. "There's just this transformation window...
thing."
"Alien puberty," the mortal muttered. He looked a little lost. "This is fucking
insane."
He has no idea.
We rumbled across the bridge linking one side of Plattsburgh to the other and I pointed it out. "You can drop us off at the obelisk."
The man glanced out his right side window. "Macdonough? You sure?" He worried at his lip. "I mean, I'm already taking a long trip. I don't mind taking you a bit further away from that - that - whatever that was."
Well, if he was offering…
"Where are you headed?"
The man flashed a shaky grin. "Montreal, actually."
Luke and I looked at each other.
What were the
fucking odds?
That empty feeling in my stomach settled and I felt like I could breathe again. So that was how it was going to be.
Still.
Thanks, Mom.
"I was just here visiting my girlfriend," he said with an awkward shrug. "Heading back home, so... I can give you a ride."
Wow.
I have got to tell Apollo.
He was wrong!
The mysterious Canadian boyfriend
does exist!
"We're headed for Quebec City," Luke volunteered. "Just getting us over the border would be a big help."
"Corey," our driver introduced himself. "And this - " he rubbed his sleeping dog's head. "This is Bradley."
"Percy."
"Luke - " He was cut off by his own yawn. The scabbing on his lip cracked and blood bubbled up again. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Corey brushed off. "It's four in the morning and it's already been one hell of a day." He snorted to himself. "
Actual monsters. Christ."
Yeah.
That revelation was going to take him a while.
"So Luke, question." I began nonchalantly.
"Hm?"
"Bulldozer?" I deadpanned. He had to cross an entire gravely field of construction work first to even get near me. "I didn't hear a
thing."
Luke smiled sleepily as he clumsily held a finger up in front of his mouth. "I was
sneaking."
Oh.
So that's what happens when Hermes bothers to train one of his kids. They figure out how to turn a John Deere bulldozer into a magic weapon with sneak attack dice.
"I will
pay for you to join my D&D campaign," I said very seriously and Corey snorted. "When did you learn how to operate one?"
Luke shrugged with one arm, his eyes already closing. "Didn't," he slurred. "I just stole it from Annabeth."
What?
"Annabeth is on the other side of New York," I said slowly.
"Nah," he murmured faintly. "Lil' sis is always with me."
That was not how it works.
Was it?
Maybe it made me a bit of a creep staring at Luke as he fell asleep, but his entire existence had stopped making any sense whatsoever. Hermes threw him away.
And yet…
From what I could tell, Luke was up to four different Names in his inheritance. That was one more than Ethan. Hermes Promachus, the Champion was where he got his skill with the sword from. Hermes Enagonios, of the Games turned him into a casual Olympic sprinter. Hermes Hermêneutês, the Translator, helped him with his dyslexia and Hermes Pheletes, the Thief made him damn good at sleight of hand.
Mom let me inherit from all her Names, because she
wanted me. She loved my father.
Nemesis let Ethan inherit a lot from her on purpose.
If Hermes didn't care about Luke…
Was this another Nemesis situation? Was Luke made for something?
But
what?
I frowned as I rolled my shoulder, wincing as it ground and popped.
I glanced at the rabbit.
She was an auburn ball of fur, tightly curled up between us on the floor with her little red sweater on.
"Artemis."
She looked up.
"That thing…" I didn't want to say it. I had to. "Did you do that to her?"
The rabbit flinched and silently turned away.
Right.
Okay.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. For a moment I wanted to just - just
wring her little neck myself.
I should have listened to Luke. Nemesis had even made a point of needling Artemis over getting what she deserved. Artemis had been scared before the goddess of Retribution had even said anything. She knew what had been coming.
Choice and consequence.
I had the feeling we were all on the hit list now.
I feel like an absolute
moron.
I moved over to huddle by my window, as far away from her as I could get. I watched the New York countryside go by as Corey took us onto the greater highway expanding from 4 to 8 lanes across. He turned on the radio, flicking through the channels until he came across some late night ghost hunters.
He paused.
"What do you think, Brad?" The dog shifted in its sleep, snorting wetly. "Yeah, why the
fuck not. Jesus."
At some point I fell asleep.
I didn't feel like Dreaming.
