"Is that you reading my emotions or can satyrs read minds too?" Andromeda asked with a sarcastic edge.
"Your emotions. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?" Repeated Grover, with Andromeda nodding in response.
"Your mom married Gabe for you. You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura…yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for nearly two weeks." Grover explained, much to Andromeda's disgust.
"Thanks. Where's the nearest shower?" Said Andromeda, not wanting any of Gabe's smell on her.
"You should be grateful, Andie. Your stepdad smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff of his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mother stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy-if that makes you feel any better."
Andromeda just continued looking into the distance, thinking on what Grover said. Jakob put his hand on her shoulder. "A mother will do anything to protect their child, Andie." He told him knowingly "Be proud of that. We'll get her back."
Andromeda nodded, looking sad and determined at the same time.
The rain kept coming down.
They got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable. She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. Andromeda wasn't too bad herself. Jakob just stood back and watched, shaking his head in amusement.
At some point, someone at the bus stop questioned why Jakob had a head hanging from his belt on the back of his waist and if it was real. Jakob's response?
"Halloween decoration. It'll be on the shelves before October."
Finally the bus came. As they stood in line to board, Grover started to look around, sniffing like a bloodhound.
"What is it?" Andromeda asked.
"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."
"Never dismiss such feelings as nothing." Jakob advised.
Finding seats in the back, they stored their backpacks in the overhead racks, with Andromeda seeing Annabeth nervously slapping her Yankees cap against her thigh. While Jakob just looked calm and collected.
"Andie." Annabeth suddenly said, just as the last passenger got on the bus, making them look to the front.
It was an old lady who climbed onto the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless, orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. Though when she looked up, showing her black eyes, Andromeda paled at recognizing her. Recognizing her as Mrs. Dodds, looking older and more withered, but with the same evil face.
With her were two other old ladies, all of them looking identical, aside from the hats, with Mrs. Dods wearing an orange hat, while the other two were wearing green and purple. All three sat at the very front right behind the driver, two sitting in the aisle and crossing their legs over it.
"She didn't stay dead long. I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime." Andromeda said, trying to keep the quiver from her voice, since if Mrs. Dodds was a Fury and she was two other old ladies, then she really wasn't liking their odds.
"I said if you're lucky, you're obviously not." Retorted Annabeth while trying to think of any plan to get them out of this.
"All three of them, Di Immortales!" Grover said, freaking out that all three Furies were here.
"It's okay. The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows." Annabeth stated, believing they'll be able to get out of this.
"They don't open and we're currently moving." Said Andromeda as they were heading towards Lincoln Tunnel, making the Daughter of Athena mentally curse.
"We aren't running." Jakob said, causing them to look at him only to see the Son of Thor with his eyes on the Furies. "To run is the coward's way."
"But we can't take on the Kindly Ones!" Annabeth hissed at him.
Jakob gave her a look. "I can."
"Jakob's faced off against creatures that proved more of a challenge than Hades' chief torturers, this should be no problem for him." Mimir said confidently as Jakob gripped the Leviathan Axe. "Just follow his lead and trust him."
The three shared looks before nodding as Jakob kept his eyes on the approaching Furies, tapping a finger patiently against the blade of the axe.
As soon as the Furies were close, they shed their disguises and revealed their true forms. The old ladies weren't old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same-guess they couldn't get any uglier-but their bodies shrivelled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat wings and hands like gargoyles. Their handbags turned to fiery whips.
Jakob burst from his seat and shoulder-bashed the middle Fury in the stomach, then clobbered the second in the face before spinning and sliced his Axe across the neck of the third one, taking her out instantly and she dissolved into golden dust.
The bus driver was trying to look in the rear view mirror to see what was going on while the people on the bus screamed. Who knows what the Mist was showing them?
The Fury knows as Mrs. Dodds, though Jakob knew that wasn't her name, hissed at the Son of Thor. "Where is it?! Where?!"
Jakob narrowed his eyes at that. "Whatever it is you seek, we do not have it."
The Fury growled and swung her whip, but Jakob caught it and pulled her in for a spinning kick to the face.
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