Author's note: So, this was really hard to write and should have been out over a week ago. But it's longer than normal so please don't lynch me?
An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction
Oh hey.
Welcome back. Everything okay?
Alright.
So where was I?
Humans still had a lot of survival instincts leftover rattling around in our skulls somewhere.
If you fall down while sleeping, you wake up. The dark is scary. The instinctive repulsion from a person that doesn't look like they should, wrong proportions, too pale, moving too stiffly or too gracefully. A sudden change in temperature gives you goosebumps. The chill down your spine when you hear noises from something you can't see, from something that shouldn't be there or the way that you notice when all the ambient sound
disappears.
Hypnos wasn't here.
My body was in the back of a Jeep, probably leaning on Luke's shoulder, trying to catch some Zs. I was tired. I've been up at least twelve hours and all of that was bad news. Realizing what it meant to have to Quest during the Night. Luke's fate.
Mine. Being harassed for four hours into Texas, almost being killed twice, Artemis'...everything. I deserved a few winks. We were finally leaving Houston and under the harsh, watchful gaze of the Night Winds, that frying pan wasn't yet hot enough to sizzle.
My sleep felt empty. Restless. I was already regretting trying to nap, because not having my friend here felt
wrong. It felt like being back in the deep, dark ocean of the Dreamlands, hoping nothing noticed me.
'Yow! Percy, it's me!'
Clovis?
So I was totally going to blame that paranoia for why I almost cut Clovis' head off.
Or I guess, why I almost cut
one of Clovis' heads off.
Uh, I said dumbly, staring.
You look…like your dad, I finished lamely.
'Mhm,' the eight eyed shadow with three bull-like heads and a mess of a lower body reminding me of five octopus squished together hummed.
'I noticed.'
New thing?
'Very,' he said gravely and that jump started my brain. My logical mind was asleep, but that didn't mean alarm bells hadn't started ringing really loudly. Along with red flags, the mining canary started choking, the whole nine yards.
Wait, how the fuck are you here - didn't they ward Camp?
They better have, because if Olympus couldn't be bothered to even do
that much….
I was burning the whole thing down.
'They did.' The bull heads grinned and those teeth were definitely not for chewing cud.
'But I'm a demigod of Sleep. You can't chain me,
' he almost snarled and I backed up. He sounded like Ethan.
'Not like that anyway.'
Clovis was a chill dude. He's been that way since the day I met him, half-asleep and everything. Now he seemed too intense. I didn't want to put
Damocles away when he was acting so weird. Back at Camp, Clovis' Sleeping soul still looked like his mortal body. Kind of. He could change shape, just like a Dream spirit, but he's never looked like
this.
Ethan was more sensitive about it, but Clovis still cared that he wasn't human standard. He looked like his dad. That was the only thing that kept me from thinking this wasn't Clovis at all.
Little cousin, I tried. I made myself look smaller. I had the feeling spooking him would be a bad idea.
What happened?
'We went looking,' he admitted and I felt my stomach swoop back in my body.
You…went looking? In the Night? I took even more steps back so that I didn't lunge forward to shake him. He might eat me.
Argh, I told you - I ran a hand through my hair several times, frustrated. It wasn't like I saw the Night coming. I didn't tell them all the ways it could go wrong because that would take years. I thought they would be
safe as long as they took it slowly.
You can't take this stuff for granted -
'My father, Percy!' Clovis snapped at me and he sounded like
Ethan. It was his actual voice.
'No one told us anything - ' Annabeth.
'We needed answers - you don't know what it's like to find out you've been left in the dark your whole life.'
Castor and Pollux.
Clovis, I whispered, horrified.
He pulled himself back. His three heads swung around the same way a horse's or cow's would when they were strutting across a field.
'Sorry,' he whispered.
I almost didn't want to know, but this was my fault. Maybe without me, Clovis alone would go looking because his dad was already teaching him. But without me, no one else would have been at risk.
What happened?
'We went looking,' he repeated slowly.
'Grandmother was there instead.'
At this rate, my heart was going to be permanently lodged in my ass.
'She recognized us, Ethan and I.'
Her grandkids.
'We tried to tell Her what we were,' he said too calmly.
'That we couldn't go "home," but She didn't understand.'
Home, I said numbly. She grounded her children and
their children. That was why not even the Dream spirits remained behind. She didn't even need to mistake them for rogue Oneiroi. Not really. Erebus thought I would take him up on his offer to bunk over at The House of Night, but I was
mortal.
The House of Night drives mortals
insane.
He didn't understand.
Are the others still there? I asked him quickly.
I didn't know what I was going to do if the answer was yes. My first idea of telling Mom I threw out just as quickly. I didn't need to cause
more problems. Maybe Mr. D could fix them after? I don't know if asking Erebus would work. I spent two days sick as a dog from burnt mortality when he could have just given me a lift. None of Nyx's kids would go against their mother.
'We never made it.'
What?
'Percy, we're in the Dreamlands.'
I gaped at him.
That might actually be worse.
'Grandfather stepped in.' Clovis' form trembled.
'I don't know what happened. He said something. I could only understand a little and it hurt.
I think we were sent 'back' but I think - I think Annabeth confused Her.'
Wait, I said sharply.
What about Annabeth?
Clovis' baby blue eyes, all eight of them, blinked innocently at me.
'She doesn't - the Sleeping soul, she doesn't have one. Her soul doesn't split
like ours, it's one piece.'
I'm sure that meant something, but I couldn't really
think about it right now. My thoughts were a jumble of fragmented panic.
Are you telling me Annabeth's body is empty
right now? She's trapped there?
'She's not doing well,' Clovis whispered.
'We were too close, everyone's changed.'
Because that's what exposure to gods like the Night and my brother does to you.
Fuck!
'I tried to protect them.' Clovis shrunk back away from me. I forced myself to calm down and dimly noticed burning green eyes closing up on my form.
'Took them inside a bit. Castor is doing better than Pollux, but Ethan made me let him go and I've been trying to find help…'
Okay, okay. I tried to breathe before remembering that I was a Sleeping soul.
Think!
Should I wake up, think it through and then go back to sleep? Was that a bad idea? It felt like a bad idea. Should I get Luke? Clovis could probably find me again, but what if something happened? Erebus intervened (favorite sibling, hands down) and Nyx tossed my friends into the deep end. How long have they been there?
Days?
…I was in the Dreamlands. Erebus came to find me. My brother came to the Dreamlands.
My brain felt like it was made of mush, but I was on to something.
Was it because of me?
Because I was there too?
Where are you?
'Some kind of safari,' Clovis offered.
'Mountains nearby.'
Can you see black towers or pyramids?
Don't say pyramids.
'The towers,' he said warily.
Oh, thank God.
Head right for them and then keep going past it, I said quickly.
Run away from everything until you see a village. It's the right one if there's a bunch of cats. They'll help.
Clovis side-eyed me with four eyes.
'When you said a week ago about getting me a cat…' he drawled, sounding more like himself and less like everyone he 'took inside.' I don't know what he meant by that, but I wasn't going to ask. He did what he had to. Have to respect that.
You thought I was kidding? I tried to make my smile not look as sick as I felt.
Just stay in Ulthar, and when Night's over, your dad will come get you guys.
This could be fixed. It had to be.
I wracked my brain for anything else that could help.
If you ask around about the Dreamer, Willie. He'll help too. He was mortal once.
Clovis' heads bobbed thoughtfully.
'Okay. Ulthar. Cats. Willie. Got it.'
I swallowed thickly.
I'm sorry.
'Not your fault,' my cousin said immediately.
'You couldn't have known. It was just…bad luck.'
I wanted to believe him. I couldn't. All of the sudden, Cliff's joking accusation that this wouldn't be happening if I hadn't been born wasn't funny.
Still sorry, I said.
Be careful!
'I will. We'll be different,' Clovis said as his body flickered like a bad channel on the TV.
'But maybe we'll be okay?'
Then I was alone again in the dark.
Almost.
I whirled around, Damocles already drawn -
And stopped.
"It is just me," the small, auburn rabbit whispered as she limped into view. "Just…me."
How long were you there?
"I heard very little," she assured me. "I…did not want to intrude."
The creature behind her dwarfed the both of us. It was smaller than Hypnos, but not by much. It was hunched over, curling over the rabbit like it was bracing its back for a blow. I couldn't see how tall it was without craning my neck. The right half looked like a person. A black haired girl with golden hued skin and wearing a drifting pale shroud. And it was a girl, she didn't look any older than maybe fifteen, with a small nose, mouth and an iris of molten silver with a black pupil. She had a despondent, thousand yard stare.
The left half looked like a nightmare.
This is your inheritance, isn't it? Mom didn't take it away, I asked. I lowered my sword slowly. These jump scares couldn't be good for my blood pressure. Maybe it said something about my life (or my brain) that this all made perfect sense and clearly checked out.
"Why am I
still surprised that you already know?" The rabbit honked softly. "What is left of my inheritance, yes." It looked up at the hulking form above her and introduced it like we were kindergarteners on a playground, "Perseus, this - this is Diana?"
The bunny blinked up at me. The creature seemed to breathe. The left side had her chest cavity flayed open. Hundreds of shattered ribs, bloodstained at the site of the breaks like they weren't ribs, but
teeth fluttered open and then closed again. Half of the spine was fully exposed in a bloody column of warped and pitted vertebrae. It looked like someone went through the trouble of field dressing a human, cutting away all the fat and meat and organs but were stopped halfway through. Most of its weight was on the right leg, the left was gnarled and lame, ending in a club foot with black talons.
The left side didn't have a face. It looked more like a mask. Its eye was the hungry void I recognized like an inverse of the right eye, a dot of silver light in the center like a pupil.
Hi, Diana, I said. That answered one question. When Artemis changed her eyes, she was shoving this Name further away. Further separate.
So this is where you keep her? In Sleep?
"Yes," the rabbit said eventually. "Manifesting her is not - it is better for her here. Selene has always had a way with Dreams…"
I got my hopes up.
Campers, I said abruptly.
Some Campers fell into the Dreamlands and one of them managed to find me for help.
The rabbit reared back, eyes wide. "Oh…"
Can - can you do anything?
"I - as I am?" She sounded incredulous. "Perseus, I know
of the Dream, we all do, but I have never been foolish enough to
go there." I don't know what expression I made, but she shrunk into a ball. Her voice became very small. "Selene brought it to
me. What little time I spent there was hunting and being hunted. I know nothing."
I should have known better. It wasn't really her fault this time, but I was getting a little used to feeling disappointed in her.
It's okay. I understand.
"We can still
help, Perseus," she murmured as she turned away. "We are not Hypnos, but we can watch over you here. And anyone that needs it." Her voice went quiet as Diana slowly hunched even further forward, towering over us.
I felt lost. There was nothing else I could do. Everyone else was busy with the Night and I didn't put good odds on Olympus dropping everything for some demigods either.
Get Luke in here, I muttered as I stomped away until just the flowing tendrils coming off Diana was above me. I was trying not to run away like an upset child, but my stomach boiled with helplessness.
He needs to sleep too.
Maybe this wasn't completely my fault, but I wasn't blameless either. Knowledge is dangerous. I knew that. I
know that. I was too busy running my mouth on a righteous crusade to think about the consequences if anyone actually
used what I told them at the wrong time, or to the wrong god.
The truth made the stakes so much higher.
So of course
, like an idiot, I continued to shove Luke off a pier into the deep ocean and hoped he swam.
It began the way it usually did: my dumb ass just not thinking anything through until the problem was staring me right in the face, shakily whispering,
'Perce…what is that?'
Because
duh.
Everything wrong with this situation was obvious.
Luke's Sleeping soul was a shadow, an impression of a person and more movement than substance. The dim light of his mortality glowed brightly in the dark in between our souls wander into.
Uh, I said stupidly as I turned back around.
That's…can't you tell? I tried to avoid saying it outright. I considered lying, but I wasn't going to do that to him.
It's…well, it's -
'Artemis?' Luke sounded horrified.
Kinda sorta. I pointed towards the rabbit.
That's Artemis. And that. I moved the pointing finger up.
That's Diana.
'Diana's Roman - ' Luke went rigid.
Then his form nearly exploded, all spines and mouths with long tongues.
'You're the same?'
Remember when I said that conversation about the Romans was going to suck?
Yeah.
My bad.
Long story short, Romans tried to conquer them and almost did. If you can't beat 'em, join em, I said quickly.
They aren't all
the same, because how would that even work? Kronos was in the Pit and Rhea would be Ops and Cybele at the same time which is kind of weird -
'Percy.' Luke said.
I shut up.
His form trembled once, then twice.
'There are Roman demigods,' he stated flatly. We were riding in a Jeep with one. Him and his dumbass hellhound puppy.
'Do they have a Camp?'
Artemis' gaze drifted over to me. I don't know why. Maybe she was realizing that if
she didn't answer him, I
would. She looked down and away.
"Yes," Artemis said softly. "Camp Jupiter."
For a long moment, he didn't say anything, and I knew he was thinking about Quintus. An Olympic demigod old enough to start going gray.
He finally, painfully, muttered,
'Is it better?'
The bunny's ears drooped. "No."
I almost contradicted her. New Rome had the minor god of Borders, Terminus playing security guard since it was built. Lupa and her pack of wolves were around. The Little Tiber river was kind of useless as a boundary but at least it did
something and they didn't need to sacrifice a demigod of Zeus to get it. The 'camp' was an actual city, meant to be lived in.
The impulse to blab passed, and I remembered that all my modern Roman knowledge was from whatever Apollo let slip. The downsides I
didn't know about must be fucking terrible.
Why is it bad? I asked.
"...many reasons," Artemis admitted. "But the first and foremost reason is…it is not a good idea to rear children to believe in the Roman ideals of justice, responsibility, truthfulness and piety…"
Acta, non verba, Diana rasped.
Holy shit, it talks.
Luke's form rocked backwards and I knew he understood what it said.
"...if you do not intend to uphold your end of the bargain. Deeds, not words," Artemis said quietly.
Luke's shadow strobed quietly, mimicking someone taking deep breaths to calm down.
'I'm…relieved,' he croaked.
'How - how messed up is that?' He laughed and it sounded broken.
'I'm relieved
Olympus is equally unworthy for two
separate pantheons.'
Artemis flinched.
'Where is this other Camp?'
"Near San Francisco."
'San Fran - ' Luke strobed again.
'We were told
to avoid the city. That it was dangerous,' he said and I remembered that he was just there two years ago, on a Quest for a Golden Apple. '
Chiron knows.'
The bunny rabbit looked at us with sad, silver eyes.
'I could have gotten Brandon help - ' Luke hissed.
No more secrets, I said.
Not anymore. Not between us three.
Artemis lowered her head. Luke didn't say anything. He fluttered away. He looked almost like a dark, shifting bird as he paced back and forth. He came back spiny, like a pufferfish.
'How'd Olympus almost lose so bad?'
I blinked at the subject change, but Artemis seemed almost happy for the pivot, "We have physical forms," she said. "Give us a target to break and it
will break. That has limitations. The Romans were incorporeal. Pure divine energy."
So basically a pantheon of poltergeists with the powers of a god. Yikes. I can see why that'd be tough.
It made me feel a little better about not feeling any kind of way about how the Greeks won. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It was just like that one dude Mom convinced to commit suicide by cannibal. If I had a problem with it, I'd be a hypocrite.
'Can't beat them, join them?' Luke echoed.
"How did we win…" Artemis whispered softly, almost as if she was talking to herself. "Perseus taught you, did he not? Of what Divine Names are?"
Luke's form shimmered, shivering.
'They're…aspects,' he said warily.
'They can be Given through worship and Taken away?' Artemis nodded, so he kept going.
'They can be made into avatars, a focus for a god's divine nature, having more makes you stronger because they are a source of power - '
"Power, yes," she interrupted. I felt like she had been waiting for that particular word to come out. "Power that is used and replenished, much like energy."
Luke recoiled as he figured it out.
"And our enemies were
nothing but," Artemis finished.
'
You grafted
the Romans onto yourselves?'
"We had no choice!" The rabbit spit, but the anger faded just as quickly. "Nothing remained of Venus. We don't know
what Aphrodite did," Artemis continued, speaking faster. "She wouldn't say, so we had to use other methods and Athena's was
incomplete. Minerva almost took over and I - Selene, I - " she sputtered and stuttered to a stop.
Diana curled in, looming closer.
That's when you got adopted, I spoke up.
You went to her for protection and let her change you. You gave in.
"It was…not that simple," Artemis said in a small voice. She shuddered, curling into herself as Diana's massive hand came down to gently cup around her small body. "But I was
safe," Artemis said miserably. "Trivia, Luna, Egeria, Virbius - between her and the Three-Formed, there was nothing left. I was allowed to take the Name Diana for myself and - and the rest is history."
You turned on your adoptive parents then too, I pointed out.
Endymion and Selene.
"It was not that simple," Artemis repeated stubbornly.
My gut had been right.
Rhea
did have a sore spot about Selene's death and for good reason.
Luke sputtered, trying to say something before he gave up and just blew a loud, obnoxious raspberry.
'By the Styx, is there anyone you haven't
screwed over?' He asked.
That's what I said!
We spent the rest of our nap ribbing Artemis over and over for everything under the sun (she left Apollo holding the bag of cat shit more than once. Never forget). I don't know if it was just my subconscious mind spitting out a crazy idea, but by the time I woke up, I was sure of two things.
One. Elder Gods like Selene can't really
use Names. Which means Hecate, the Queen of those Below and the Three Formed gave up a Name for Artemis before and that bunny ain't dumb
enough to burn down all those bridges.
And Two.
There
was something I could still do for my friends.
I could end the Night.
"Uno," Artemis said quietly.
Quintus and I looked at her from over our cards. I grimaced as I leaned back against my backpack. Quintus smirked. The bunny's ears flattened as she narrowed her eyes at the Roman demigod sitting across from her. He mockingly narrowed his right back, grinning wider and Artemis began to look cornered. Her ears went straight up again in alarm as she shuffled protectively over her last card.
"Just one?" Artemis pleaded. "Can I win
once?"
"No," all three of us said and she immediately turned on Luke next to her, betrayed.
"You were supposed to be on
my side!" She protested. "I trusted your advice! Were you
trying to make me lose?"
Luke grinned sunnily back at her.
Quintus slapped a +4 card in her face. She gnashed her teeth as Luke snorted, leaning forward to draw the cards for her. The rabbit thumped her seat as she turned away from him, huddled into her annoyed loaf.
I reached over to play a card. The sarcophagus, weighed down by steel padlocks and chains, rattled menacingly at me.
Too bad, it's not like we have a card table in here.
Our truck roared over the highway towards San Antonio. It was black with dark red flame decals on the hood. We had to switch over from the Jeep due to some blown out tires. Running over monsters tends to void the warranty on those. A Nightspawn was driving us. The Ghost Rider volun
told him, all golden eyed glaring from the helmet when he tried to protest. From what little I could make of his whistling, I creeped him out.
Which means I have a new hypothesis! Very scientific like. That maybe - just maybe - Nemesis
didn't lie to me. Wait, wait. Just… hear me out, okay?
It wasn't Night when she said it.
Maybe I would be drowning in monsters right now, but I wasn't because Nyx's touch canceled it back down to
normal.
Don't ask me why Night's monster kids hate me so much.
It's probably Mom's fault. Rhea said Fate and Night weren't feuding, but for all I know she's using Olympus-logic. According to Olympus, sure, Poseidon will drown demigods of Zeus caught in the sea without an excuse and Zeus will blast demigods of Poseidon out of the sky if he could get away with it, but they're not really
feuding.
Inheriting bad blood was a thing, right? Just ask any spider about Athena.
…I
can't explain the hellhound puppy.
Clovis' uncle looked like the same kind of vaguely goat-like, six limbed twisted creature with eyes all over that I saw birthed from Night when she came to visit Hypnos. He just looked more stable. Not tearing himself apart, not eating his own face or anything like that. Instead, he was stuffed into a poorly fitting leather jacket and might need an inhaler. He was sucking at the air like he couldn't get enough through the slimy tubes he had for mouths.
Our 'escort' to California was a large group of motorcycles, trucks, Jeeps and monsters. There were humans too, but I wasn't confident if they were actually human or if they just looked like it. The inhuman, the old and powerful prowled the outskirts of the parade of vehicles. You could hear them jeering, whooping and hollering in the distance, praising the Night. Every so often, there were gleams of eyes, flashes of teeth, eerie calls from the darkness around us echoed back.
If it looked like an outlaw biker gang of monsters making a run, it was because it
was an outlaw biker gang of monsters making a run. That's how we were being escorted through the desert.
By being disguised as just another group of horrors. There were mortals on the road. I don't know where they were going or why they were leaving Houston behind.
Were mortals on the road.
Quintus blocked my line of sight every time, a look of resigned apology on his face. A screech of burning rubber, breaking windshields, doors torn off. Short, sudden screams. Then nothing.
We were the cargo. They weren't.
The back of my neck constantly hummed with a vague warning. I don't know if it was the ominous box we were playing cards on or just all of the barely restrained violence of the monsters around us.
Quintus' dog Mrs. O'Leary ran with them, coming back to the open door of our truck every so often to make sure her favorite human (that's still weird. His dog's
broken) was still okay. She showed off her trophy of my chewed off backpack strap still in her mouth every time.
Sam was right.
Dogs were
jerks.
Quintus slapped me with a +2 card.
This dog owner was a jerk too.
"I was doing you a favor!" Reverse cards suck. "You're going to pay for that, old man," I threatened as I drew my cards.
"You'll try," he said smugly, which was uncalled for, by the way. Out of seven games, I won two and he won five. I still
won a few though. He then did a double take as we all took our turns. "Wait,
old man?"
Luke snorted again. "He's twelve. What are you, forty five, fifty?"
"Forty eight," Quintus muttered.
"Practically geriatric then," Luke said indulgently as he settled back in his seat. It was the same tone of voice Mom had when she was trying to convince me that maybe your father
isn't being an idiot right now, humor him please.
Real 'the child is being adorable, play along' energy.
I could work with that if it kept the panic from Luke's eyes. If I acted like nothing was wrong, maybe I could convince my group nothing was wrong a little.
"Objectively true," I nodded sagely. "
Four times my age? Nutty. How are you not dead yet?"
"By being
clever." A quicksilver smile I could have sworn I've seen on someone else flashed over Quintus' face.
"Clever doesn't stop your hair from turning gray," I countered. "Or like, arthritis."
"Can't argue with that," he said with a huffed laugh. "But if I am geriatric, what does that make of your divine parents then?"
"Ancient," Luke said.
"Paleolithic," I said. "Actually older than dirt."
"Old enough to know better," Artemis mumbled and Quintus laughed at her.
"I'm afraid age does not automatically confer wisdom. If it did, we would not need a word for wisdom's lesser cousin, experience."
Huh.
Never heard it put like that before.
We played a few more rounds before Quintus said, "Uno."
Artemis' wide silver eyes swung over pleadingly at Luke. He grimaced at her cards, shaking his head.
"Enough!" She groaned out loud. "I surrender!"
"What?" I gasped. "You can't just give up." My cards were garbage. The best I could do was stall until something happened, but it was the principle of the thing! "Don't be a quitter."
The bunny glared at me.
"It is called 'cutting your losses,'" she said snootily.
"Just for that, we will play until you win," I sentenced her and the rabbit belly flopped onto her seat.
"Please, no. I hate card games."
"You hate
losing," Luke corrected her with a small cuff to the side of the head. "You'd love Uno otherwise, don't try to deny it."
Quintus watched us with a fond smile.
Turned out, Artemis was equally bad at Rummy, Oh Hell and Pinochle.
"Are you
cursed?" I asked as I gathered up the cards for another round. We were stopped, because those giant jellyfish weren't the only worrying creatures roaming the countryside at Night.
"No!" She gasped.
"Are…you sure?" I couldn't figure out what cursing Artemis' cards was going to do to her exactly, but I will never put any level of pettiness beyond a Greek. "Because Tyche cursed Apollo's dice and he didn't figure it out for like, a year, so maybe…"
"I am simply unused to it!"
"Card games have been around
forever?"
"Exactly!" She hissed under her breath. "I grew up knowing them only as something men do for betting and gambling."
Oh.
"Okay, first, if anyone's gambling money with Uno, they're dumb and second - "
The van door slid open.
"- be almost a day, so you are better off trying before we reach San Antonio," Quintus was saying. He glanced over us. "We'll get moving again soon. Road's almost clear - argh!" A happily woofing hellhound jumped on his back. "Mrs. O'Leary! Down!"
The dog chased him away from the van and Luke stepped up. He was wheeling a really gnarly looking motorcycle with him, painted blood red and gold with eerie blue lightning along the machinery.
"What's with the Iron Man Mobile?"
Luke shrugged. "Its owner is a pile of ash back in Houston, sooo mine now."
I didn't know what to say.
"I'll be riding, so you're gonna have to lose for her," he said and the bunny hissed at him. Luke smirked back at her as he swung himself into the seat.
"When'd you learn to ride?" I asked.
"The second I got on," he answered easily, fiddling with the dashboard. "Like the bulldozer," he clarified. "I'll give it back to Annabeth once the Quest is over."
Annabeth.
My stomach scrunched.
"You are
using someone else's
divine gift?" Artemis hissed then, pointedly looking over with her ears to where Quintus was talking with the Dullahan. He had a hand in Mrs. O'Leary's eye-scorchingly pink collar as she play-wrestled with a painfully skinny white dog with red ears almost as big as she was.
Luke stiffened, glancing around before relaxing. Khione had hushed him about the fact that he could do that. Looking back, I guess Luke being able to use Athena's trademark instant skill mastery like he was one of her own demigods was a big deal?
"I'll give it back," he said quietly.
"I believe you," Artemis said just as quietly. "But…
careful."
Quintus came back to Luke giving me a heart attack popping wheelies. I know he's a demigod. Hermes Enagonios, of Athletes, was a Name I knew he inherited. I know he was using Annabeth's skill. He hasn't killed himself yet, but I was still a little concerned.
"I see why you wanted the bike," Quintus said.
"I prefer 'em. They're easier to hotwire than a car and you don't need driving lessons," Luke said with a sly smile. "It's just like being on a very fast bike and you never forget how to ride those."
I have no idea if he's telling the truth or not.
Once we got on the way again, Luke drove next to us. The highway was big enough for him to shout through one open door of the van while Mrs. O'Leary harassed her human from the other door whenever she came back from playing around.
Artemis suddenly had a whole seat to herself and she shuffled back and forth anxiously. "How long until we reach the Roman border?"
"Hours," Quintus admitted with a shrug as his smile faded. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Almost a day. We will be heading straight past San Antonio and across the US border into the desert - "
"What?" Artemis snapped.
"Into the desert," Quintus said calmly. "We have little choice.
None here would risk a wendigo sighting."
The rabbit cringed back.
…what's in the desert?
"That's the second time I've heard that," Luke observed loudly. "What's up with wendigos?"
I remembered that Khione said we didn't want to meet a wendigo.
That
she didn't want to meet one.
And this was a goddess that offered blood and snow to an old soul stealing tentacle murder dog like it was just a rowdy puppy that got out of its playpen.
Um.
…Okay, so - Olympus was shit to her, alright. She's still my second favorite goddess, but now that I've actually put into words her whole deal with the Amarok, I
could be
convinced that Khione might actually be a
little crazy.
"To lay eyes on What Walks on the Wind…" Quintus trailed off. As if summoned by his words, the Night Winds blew harshly, resting a whistling noise as we drove further and further away from the Houston metropolis. We would be running parallel to the sea for a while yet, but the lights of the city were long, long gone.
"...is a bad idea," Quintus finished.
"Thanks," Luke sighed, exasperated as he maneuvered around a pothole. A bit of his rough accent was back, making him sound just like any other annoyed teenager. "That explains everythin' and
totally isn't just as helpful as what I'd get from the gods."
Quintus' lips twisted unhappily at the comparison. "I apologize. You don't live as long as I have without being overly familiar with the bitter taste of secrets."
"No need for that," I said. "Whatever you were told, doesn't apply to me. I was personally trained by Apollo at the order of my mother." Quintus shot me a sharp look. "I'm teaching Luke too."
The Roman demigod looked over at Luke curiously, only to get a short nod back.
"It's been…enlightening," Luke said.
"Painful too, I bet," Quintus replied evenly.
Yeah, no kidding.
The Roman sucked in a harsh breath. "The wendigo is legion, yet singular. A hive mind. An eater and wearer of flesh. A being and an idea in one. Knowledge of that idea is restricted, because
knowing increases the risk of exposure."
"Oh, one of
those," I said. "Memetic hazard."
Like that book I told Athena Cabin about with all the Names of gods like the Night and Fate in it. I only knew two of my mother's Names, because some of them were too dangerous for me to even know.
"Yes," Quintus said with a wry smile.
"One of those." He crossed and uncrossed his arms. Then he was playing piano on his knees. "We'll be stopping again. I
do have to pull my weight." Quintus was still shifting in his seat, uncomfortable. "It was part of the deal. I know how to navigate - we have to pass through an Indus worm nest."
I blinked.
Shit.
"Those are nasty," my mouth said.
Think carnivorous pale worms big enough to swallow a car whole with giant naked mole rat teeth and venomous spit. Hard to kill, like miniature hydras. Just cutting one in half meant now you had two worms.
They also had a bad habit of hollowing out the planets they infested.
"Indus worms," Luke said blankly as Quintus raised disbelieving eyebrows at me. "Don't those live in the Indus river? In
India?" He glared at
me, for some reason. There was no universe where Indus worms existing was my fault. "And are
extinct?"
"Weelll," Quintus started to say.
"There are
two of you!" The roar of the motorcycle engine was almost loud enough to drown out Luke's cursing as he drove off.
Rude.
Artemis stared after him. Quintus' lips frowned, before he pursed his lips and let out a god awful high pitched whistle that assaulted my ear drums. Artemis winced bodily as Mrs. O'Leary happily ran over.
"Hey, girl," her master murmured as he reached out to rub at her ears. "You see that boy?" He pointed in the general direction after Luke. "The blond. Can you keep an eye on him for me? Can you do that?"
When she went to bark, Quintus snatched the backpack strap out of her mouth. He tossed it onto the floor of the van next to me as if I actually wanted it back.
"That's a good girl." He distracted her from her stolen trophy with a slap on her broad back and a tossed dog treat. "Off you go."
She booked it, barking.
"So he can handle Filipino vampires, Russian werewolves and the headless Celt, but Greco-Indo
worms are what gets him?" I asked no one. I faintly heard Luke's muffled screech as a hellhound puppy ran him down.
"Hmm. If I had to make a guess…" Quintus leaned back in his seat, hand on his bearded chin. "It's because other pantheons and their horrors are much easier to accept than yet
another lie from your own."
I heard the bitterness in his voice. 'Yet another.' I wondered what happened that taught him the truth. Did anyone tell him or did he have to wait until he grew up and realized the world outside didn't like staying in its little Roman box?
Or maybe the Roman box wasn't all that little.
Half of the Roman
pantheon came from somewhere else. It was like some kind of weird daisy chain. The monsters followed their original pantheon that were conquered by the Romans that were underneath the Greek.
I asked Apollo how they kept the secret once.
His guilty face said it all.
"It was not a lie," Artemis said quietly. "The native tribe
was extinct."
"They come from elsewhere," Quintus scoffed. "There is no such thing as a
native tribe of Indus worms. The invasion simply started becoming
manageable after the Hindus personally intervened
." Artemis' ears flicked back and forth, but she didn't say anything. He looked at me next. "Only gods would call a selective culling of their transient parasites to be
extinction."
"Only some gods," I said. When my mother says something is extinct, she
means it.
Quintus conceded that, nodding. "That's right, you said you were trained by the god of Truth and the restrictions didn't matter." He scratched at his beard. "How long was your apprenticeship?"
"Uh, seven years?"
I redid the math as Quintus' eyes grew huge. Left unsaid was that most of the 'training' was Apollo's desperate flailing trying to figure out what kind of demigod I was, tiptoeing around the Celtic Name and then shitting his pants when he figured the Mórrígan out
, realizing he didn't know half as much as he should and wondering what Ananke wanted from him. He tried his best, but I'm not sure he ever figured that last one out.
I haven't either, but I wasn't about to complain about it. I couldn't blame Mom's scheming for just the bad things in my life. I got a big brother out of it.
"Almost eight, why?"
"What'd you mean,
why?" He gasped. "I was expecting a
year at
most -
eight years? That's unheard of - the god practically
raised you?"
My mother raised me.
I…wasn't going to say that though. It was bad enough with Luke. I didn't need to brag to someone else, who already grew up and had been on his own for decades, how much of an outlier I was in my own pantheon.
"Mom wanted him to? He's the god of Prophecy. Sometimes gods raise kids." I said eventually. I tried not to sound defensive. I don't know if I managed it. "And they choose champions and stuff. It happens."
"From the
primogenitors?" Quintus was incredulous. "The gods that never even
acknowledge the mortal realm?"
"They have!" I protested. I knew that Latin word. You didn't think I made up the term 'Elder God' did you? That's the English translation.
Primogenitor had the same meaning as
protogenoi did in Greek:
The Original Ancestors. The Firstborn. The Eldest.
Yeah, I know.
'A half-blood child of the
eldest gods.'
And Olympus thought it meant the youngest children of Kronos and Rhea for …reasons? Even Athena put her money on Demeter being the one. Maybe because she was the only one of the Elder Olympians connected to an Elder God?
I was hoping the goddess of Wisdom was just
praying the protogenoi were never going to get involved in anything ever, because I'm not gonna lie.
She done goofed.
"The Night and the Pit each had a demigod once," I continued.
Quintus blinked, taken aback. Some expression flashed over his face before he frowned. "I see."
Telling him that was thousands of years ago would defeat the point. I also didn't volunteer that the demigods of the Night and Pit were monsters. I knew the gods of Olympus put down the daughter of the Pit, but I didn't know what happened to the Night's son. I am not sure I wanted to know.
"Mom's never been good at doing what you expect her to," I said instead.
Quintus snorted softly. "I suppose that is one way of looking at Fate."
"Yeah," I said weakly. I just realized that quirk of hers might be Mom going out of her way to test the limits of her chains, desperate for any kind of freedom. It was why she had
me in the
first place. "One way of looking at it."
I felt sick.
"Let's play something else."
Artemis moaned, burrowing her face underneath her paws.
"Don't be like that." I nudged her. "Mythomagic?"
Quintus perked up. "I have not heard of that one. Is it new?"
"Ever heard of Magic: The Gathering?" I asked as I dug my card tin out from my still damp, slobbered on canvas backpack with a missing strap. I could only hope Mom would fix it once this was over. My bag and my shirt.
"Vaguely."
"It's the same kind of game, came out about six years ago. It's based on our pantheon."
Quintus curiously drew a card from the deck I held out towards him.
I saw the blood drain from his face. Then he turned away from us to try to hide it, coughing. "Based on our pantheon, right."
I took the card from him.
"Not this one," I said, holding the card up before I put it to the side. You could tell by the gold band along the edges and the shiny, holographic background that this was a mythic card. The rarest of the rare. Reflecting light that didn't exist back at us from the seat of the van was the hybrid trap and spell card:
The Labyrinth.
"It was banned in tournaments five minutes after it came out," I offered as Artemis looked the card over, her little nose wiggling furiously. "And for good reason."
A defense
or offense card that allowed you to draw 2 extra cards and 'lost' the opponent's highest attack card in a maze for three turns?
Busted.
The only way to counter it was with the rare String of Ariadne card so you only lost 1 turn and could draw a card too. I've been trying to get my hands on this card for my collection for
two years.
It was just like the Oracle of Trophonius rare card. The one I
knew I didn't have in my deck before I drew it for our Quest Prophecy. And afterwards? I couldn't find it again, no matter how many times I checked. I put it out of my mind, forgetting about it, until three weeks later when I woke up to the crack of angry thunder with that Prophecy tugging at my mind. The weird thing is, I've been badgering my parents to take me to the store to buy booster packs just to make my readings easier. They only used the cards I
actually had before.
I don't
feel possessed by an Oracle spirit? Apollo said I wasn't.
I shuffled the deck again. Artemis cast suspicious looks between the two of us. Out of the corner of my eye, Quintus' ghost ground down to a halt, the gears seizing with a relieved smile and crumbled to ash.
"You're not going to ask?" Quintus said quietly.
"Ask what?" I shrugged. "I don't care."
"But - " Artemis started.
"He's doing us a
big favor," I pointed out. "He can keep a few secrets, right?"
And I would be a hypocrite if I wanted to know his life story, while not telling him we were being hunted because of our rabbit's life story.
Maybe I should tell him. Do you think he deserved to know? It's not like Aura is breathing down our necks right this minute or anything. We still have to get to California. What if he changed his mind about helping us because of Artemis?
I should probably tell him.
Just…not right now. Maybe we can hoof it once we get to Arizona or something. I was fine being the flashy, distracting puzzle for a son of Intellect for a bit.
"There's no way he could turn out to be any worse than the vampire," I reasoned out loud. "Because that one might
really bite us in the ass eventually."
"And whose fault is
that?" Artemis said.
"Uh, excuse
you." I scowled at her.
She was stealing phrases from
Luke to use on
me and I did not appreciate it.
Storm gray eyes searched my face. I don't know what he was looking for. His shoulders slumped and for a moment he looked like he was far away, but then he looked down as I split the cards into seven groups and then gathered them up again. I split the deck in half. It wasn't going to be perfect, but Quintus seemed like the type of guy that would enjoy a challenge.
"So the rules. We both start with five cards - Arty, you're with me…"
We were halfway through the new game when Luke came back. "New game?"
"Yeah," I said as I placed down The Cydonian Cincture as a face down trap card on the coffin. The sarcophagus rattled its chains, protesting, but nobody cared. Artemis inspected the remaining cards in my hand from my lap. "Mythomagic."
"Huh." Luke glanced over the cards, lingering on Tisiphone, the Punishment and The Minotaur cards facing off against each other on the field. He looked fine. He leaned into his motorcycle's handlebar. "How's she doing?"
"Arty's been cursed to be bad at card games," I admitted. "All of them."
The rabbit squeaked in protest. "You cannot tell me my boar would
ever lose to
- "
"What about 'card game
based on our pantheon' do you
not understand?" I asked her. "Honest question."
Artemis tried to blame me for it (my instructions were fine!) and Luke smiled.
I think we're okay.
In about another fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, the convoy of monster bikers went off road away from the city of San Antonio. Quintus was all business, staring out into the darkness with pupils that were shaped like squares, gray eyes gleaming like they were lit from within. Artemis huddled on my lap as I shuffled my Mythomagic deck over and over again.
I breathed out. Then I let my mind drift a little. I didn't try to focus or force anything. I watched Mrs. O'Leary bound up happily for an ear rub from a resigned Luke before she took off again. I flipped a card. I was hoping for a sign. An Indus worm nest was one hell of a rough patch on a road trip.
Chiron, the Trainer of Heroes.
Again.
Mom? I prayed.
What are you trying to tell me?
Instead of a clue, or a nugget of wisdom or some help, there was a strange electronic beeping sound ringing out in my head.
What the -
Is that -
Is that a fucking
busy signal?
Mom? What is this? What's happening? I have never felt her respond like this before. I then had a sudden realization.
Are you still mad?
The beeping continued.
Mom - Mom, you know this one is on you, right?
The beeping got louder.
Literally an Elder God - have you tried not having shit powers?
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
I take back every good thing I've said about my mother.
She's the worst.
Our van rumbled to a stop. Quintus was out of his seat immediately. I watched his hand drift to his dagger, but he didn't draw it. His expression was tight.
"Take a bit of a walk," he told me, making the effort to relax his face. "Stretch your legs. Gotta protect those young knees of yours."
I snorted, but got out with our rabbit clutched to my chest. "Whatever, old man."
That earned me a light cuff on the head.
"Brat." The Roman smiled.
I turned to Luke. "Coming with?"
He hesitated. I saw his cloudy blue eyes dart around.
The monster bikers were setting up some kind of perimeter, all their wheels in a circle, facing outwards. One of the tall, hulking 'distractions' had started prowling around like it was hunting everyone in the center, restless.
It was dressed like it was from the Middle Ages in a rusted plate of armor. It still had spear handles, arrow shafts and a few broken swords sticking out of it as it dragged something behind it in a massive claw. I couldn't see what it was clearly through the brush grass, but it was either a mannequin or a corpse. It was a
vrykolakas, a kind of revenant. It was just enough ghost to make its form indistinct, and just enough beast to hunt the living.
Never heard of them?
I guess they were originally Slavic monsters, but Macedonia shared a border. They're Greek too now. You could tell. It was staring at Luke and I, thin nostrils flaring.
Luke smiled weakly at me as he sank into the open seat in the van as Quintus vanished into the darkness with Mrs. O'Leary at his heels. "I'll…stay here. You can go on, if you want."
I swallowed the flash of unease I felt. Were we okay? "Alright."
I ended up standing guard for Artemis as she went to the bathroom behind a tree. This part of Texas was really forestry with short, tough grass and gravelly soil. The rabbit was embarrassed, but at least it wasn't the utter disaster of last time.
"I do not trust Quintus," Artemis said quietly. She was cradled in my arms, ears alert. "He smells like machine oil and sulfur."
"Is smelling like a mechanic a crime now?" I asked, shrugging. I didn't make a habit of telling other people how someone died. That seemed personal. "He seems nice."
"Your judgment is the very definition of suspect," she said bluntly.
"...that's…fair," I said thickly, stung.
I wanted to snap back that she was right, because I thought
she was great once, but I couldn't. She was hardly the only person I've misjudged. She wasn't even the latest. My mother had that spot.
I wanted to blame the ADHD, but maybe I was just stupid.
Artemis wriggled in my grip.
"I…am sorry," she said softly. "I did not mean it that way - "
"I get it," I said tightly. "You don't have to explain. He's playing nice with the son of Fate, like
everyone else."
The rabbit stiffened in my arms. For a second, I thought (I hoped) she was going to explain anyway. To tell me what was wrong with Quintus or tell me
I was wrong, but she didn't. (She
won't, just like with Khione) My heartbeat pulsed in my ears.
Take away her power, her privilege and what was even
left?
Right now, it was looking like the only parent she hasn't backstabbed was Leto, and that's because the woman was three-quarters dead. Rhea called her out as a problem child. Artemis wasn't a wolf, she was a rabid dog.
Or maybe a vulture.
For the first time since Rhea told me what it meant, I truly saw what Mom's punishment was. Like Narcissus as a flower staring into its own watery reflection, or the wind nymph Echo forced to repeat the words of everyone she heard as an eternal gossip.
A cruel echo of the victim's true nature.
Ananke cursed Artemis and it was so very
classically Greek.
I started walking. Just so that I was moving, just so that I was going somewhere and not waiting around. I was trying to keep the black feeling in my stomach (my friends are trapped in the Dreamlands. The Night. Luke doesn't know anything. Have to get the Bolt, if it's not in California, what do I
do?) from eating me alive.
The rabbit was silent.
I walked in a circle, making my way back to the Jeep where I dumped the rabbit back on Luke. He said he'd handle her, so let him. I had to keep walking, because then I started to wonder why we were all staying here if Quintus was supposed to navigate us
through an Indus worm nest and then I was thinking that maybe it was less like having a map and more like being the first soldier through a field of landmines.
That didn't give me good feelings about all this.
It was in the middle of my second rotation when one of the monsters called out to me. My head jerked in their direction automatically, my ears ringing with
I understood that and
I shouldn't understand that. It wasn't in Greek and it wasn't English either.
The back of my neck prickled with warning as I realized that I had wandered way too close to Ghost Rider and the group of monsters that surrounded him.
Thin, hungry faces eyed me.
"I…understood those words separately," I admitted. I shifted from one foot to the other, resisting the urge to draw my sword or run.
Ghost Rider's head was perched on top of his bike as his body turned towards me. His motorcycle was all black with a grinning skull decorating the front suspension. It was big enough, cracked and stained enough to be real. The handlebars were long and curved, looking just like what you would expect out of a classic motorcycle club or something you'd see from the Grease movie, just built for a giant.
The one who called out to me had an outfit that looked like it was made out of belts with silver buckles, a featureless helmet on her head. Her bike looked like she fused a three headed deer with sapphire eyes to an engine and two white tires and the animal was
still alive.
"But you
did understand," the woman said. She was tall, but not as tall as Ghost Rider.
"Mac Morrigu," the Ghost Rider rumbled in his deep, dark voice. "Tuigeann sé ar ndóigh."
Son of the Morrigan, I heard.
Of course he understands.
Yeah, right.
Obviously.
Like any of Mom's kids
wouldn't understand Gaelic - who do you think you are? Get the fuck out.
I tried not to stare at the lady monster's ghost. Under her helmet, she was
pretty the same way Hiraya was. Recognizably something like a human, but clearly not. When she took off the helmet, it was even worse. I looked at her and sometimes I saw a woman that could be related to Luke with her sharp features and pale hair. Then I blinked and I saw greedy shadows and smoke and
fire licking at her skin from the inside. Her eyes burned like stars and she flashed me a grin with sharp translucent teeth like icicles in the sun.
So, that's an elf, my brain went stupid at her pointed ears.
Fuck.
"Um, hi," I said, like a dumbass.
"Your need must be great, to risk the Romans," she said in a dialect that didn't sound like modern Irish at all. I had to focus on it to be sure of what she was even saying.
"Like, are they just really grumpy right now, or…"
That got me a bright flash of her star-like eyes and I had the feeling that the shadow and smoke lurking in her skin was amused. I bit down on my lip. Don't expect straight answers from elves, right.
She wouldn't say anything if it was just the normal risk of coming across a Roman right now. So that must mean it was the
fuck you in particular risk. Which was.
Not great.
We were planning to break into Ares' temple while in their territory and hopefully get away with our lives. That would be hard enough without anyone having it out for me.
I didn't even do anything!
For fuck's sake, Mom!
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
I wanted to scream, but that wouldn't help anything.
The monsters around drifted closer only to scatter when Ghost Rider's golden eyed gaze opened.
"Be sure to defend your mother's honor, Kieran," the elf told me.
"An mhi-onόir?" I blurted out. I ignored the name (but real talk, what
is it with old monsters calling me some variation of 'dark boy?').
The elf (what is she, Norse ljósálfar? Welsh Tylwyth Teg?) had a sharp, eagerly malicious grin.
"Do not die too quickly. It would be disappointing."
"Disappointing, right," I said. "Sure you don't mean
embarrassing? For her, not me. Because I'll be dead." What was I
doing? Shut up! "But thanks, anyway. For the vote of confidence."
I beat a hasty tactical retreat.
I was too busy wondering who Mom pissed off (and who was going to be pissed at
me in response) to realize I
hadn't taught myself how to ask about 'dishonor' yet.
I hadn't learned…
I stopped dead in the middle of the clearing. The circle of monsters were penning me under the empty sky. I felt trapped suddenly, almost claustrophobic. Did you think it was weird that Mom raised me, but I didn't
know if she had blessed me with Greek fluency when Castor and Pollux asked? It's okay if you don't remember that. It was a while ago.
Apollo was the one who figured out I could understand the Greek dialect he had been born knowing.
I could understand Coptic Egyptian, you know.
Cliff figured that one out. We both thought it was because Coptic Egyptian was written with mostly Greek letters. Ptolemy, you know? The Greeks, Romans and Egyptians had all been one backstabby family ruled by Serapis back then.
Cliff called it a 'pantheon bleedthrough.' When the pantheon that laid claim wasn't the only claim. It was a monster thing. The elves could be both Old Germanic or Gaelic. The
vrykolakas could be both Slavic and Greek. Cliff's Cynocephali Mom was all Egyptian, but my best friend was Greek and Roman too. I'm not a monster, but we thought that maybe it happened to demigods as well.
I
highly doubted my pants shitting Prophecy scare would have been in Egyptian, but I didn't rule it out then either. Not likely doesn't mean impossible.
Mom has an Egyptian Name, you know.
The Black Pharaoh.
Mom said she let me inherit from
all of her Names because she wanted me. Because she
chose me.
But Mom
can't lie, not
won't. My whole life up to this point was shaped by everything she let me assume was the truth. By everything she
didn't say.
The god within Fate was there when I was born to Ananke. She's an Elder God. They are
always there.
I don't like thinking about this.
I took one shuddering breath and then another before I almost ran back to the van.
"You alright?" Luke gave me a look. He was brushing Artemis again, but this time she seemed 100% with the program, huddled on the seat as if she was trying to disappear.
"We might want to avoid running into any Roman gods," I muttered.
Luke snorted. "Yeah?"
"I mean, we
really might want to avoid any Romans." I chewed on my bottom lip. "Or I really want to avoid - look, if you have any ideas for how we're going to handle
after we break into that temple - "
A loud
'bwaooooh' howl of a big dog shattered the quiet.
We all sat, tense as everyone around us sprung into movement. The 'distractions' vanishing from sight into the darkness and engines starting with throaty grumbles. There was talking, but the only one I could make out was Ghost Rider's deep voice.
Mrs. O'Leary was still barking her head off somewhere along with her friend.
Something in the dark screamed. It almost sounded like a person being tortured to death, but it was too guttural and hoarse for the sound to have come from a human throat. I wish I didn't know enough to say that.
Artemis went still.
"Oh,
no," she moaned as she pressed herself back into her seat. "No no
no no no."
"Arty?" I asked as Luke hauled his motorcycle into the back of the van, like it didn't weigh over 300 pounds. "You know what that is - what's coming after us
now?"
"An béar! An béar! An béar!" went up as a cry of warning.
The bear.
The rabbit was shaking violently. "Please, no, Nemesis
please - "
"Arty!"
Quintus swept by us. "Keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle," he said quickly. "We're heading into the mountains. Things might get a little strange outside, that's normal, don't stare too long."
"Wait - "
He was gone. Our van started up.
I stuck my head outside anyway, looking back as our tires literally burnt rubber. Luke hauled me back inside as the desert mountains rose up on either side of us, but not before I got a glimpse of the problem.
A flash of teeth and the gleam of silver cloth.
Another of Artemis' former Hunters. The ones she transformed into monsters.
The bear.
Kallisto.
