There's something off about these people.
The blonde one is fidgeting non stop, the girl's getting distracted by the table cloths pattern, and the black haired one is teething on the fork.
They also don't seem to be too nervous to talk after hearing me talk about the thief.
I think they might be those Demigods Lord Hades spoke of... they must have ran into the lightning thief! That explains it, they must be uncomfortable because that heretical abomination must've done something to them while on their way to that camp Mr Hades mentioned. Maybe if I help them get to camp, the people there will help me find the thief and Mr Hades will finally tell me where I can find Corax?
"Get Half-Blood?" I asked, taking out the paper map and iron knife Mr Hades had given me to mark the map for them.
Three demigods stared at me with a strange look. A look of tension as if they were getting ready for a fight.
"Sorry for taking so long you four, I was having some difficulties with my fryer."
My head spun around at the sudden voice. It was that weird lady who took me in, Aunty Em I think her name was. Is she what's putting the demigods in fight mode?
I turned back around to look at them. The blonde haired boy's eyes were firing back and forth between me, Aunty Em, and some of her statues.
Nervously, he broke the silence.
"So, you sell gnomes?"
"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said as she set down my food. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."
"A lot of business on this road?" The blonde asked Aunty Em, swirling a fry in his ketchup.
"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... Most cars do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."
I looked around at her handy work, hundreds of different statues. Some were civilians, others animals and the like, some even filthy mutants. They were all so diverse and beautifully detailed, having the same look of absolute horror as if they were being attacked.
I didn't really get it, but I have seen weirder artwork from my dad's friend Mr. Cal.
"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."
"You make statues...?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company."
The sadness in her voice was familiar, like those who had to deal with the loss of their families during invasions.
The girl had stopped eating. She sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"
"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman, was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."
That's weird. This sounds a lot like the story those weird snake ladies told me. Was Aunty Em related to them?
No, that can't be right. Their sister named Medusa, and they had snake hair— well, they did before I tore it off.
"Percy?" Annabeth was shaking the Blonde boy, trying to get his attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean, the ringmaster will be waiting."
She sounded tense. I wasn't sure why. The black haired boy was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, which I didn't know was edible. That would have been good information to know in my past life.
"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told Annabeth again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."
She reached out as if to stroke Annabeth's cheek, but Annabeth stood up abruptly.
"We really should go."
"Yes!" The black haired boy swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"
I didn't know who this ringmaster guy was, but if the demigods needed to see him, I should probably go with them. I got up from the table, Aunty Em was nice, but there was something off about her and the demigods didn't like it.
"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"
That sounds incredibly predatory ... is she a ped-
"A pose?" Annabeth asked warily, interrupting my thoughts.
"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."
Calm down now, you're starting to sound like those weirdos from the Death Specter chapter that tried kidnapping that Vilda girl.
Annabeth shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Percy—"
"Sure we can," Percy said, irritation prominent in his tone. "It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?"
"Yes, Annabeth," the woman purred. "No harm."
I could tell Annabeth didn't like it, but she allowed Aunty Em to lead them back out the front door, into the garden of statues. I followed after, unlatching my backpack just in case.
Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl and beautiful young man in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."
"Not much light for a photo," Percy remarked.
"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"
I planted my backpack onto the floor, narrowing my eyes at Aunty Em's stomach because her obsession with seeing us is absolutely hinting that she has sight based powers.
"Where's your camera?" The black haired boy asked.
Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"
"That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand." The black haired boy mumbled
What is an Uncle Ferdinand?
"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."
She still had no camera in her hands.
"Percy—" Annabeth said.
I gripped the handle of what was in my backpack, or at least tried as it was three times the size of my hand.
"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil...."
"Percy, something's wrong," Annabeth insisted.
"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"
"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.
"Look away from her!" Annabeth shouted. She whipped her Yankees cap onto her head and— OH SHIT SHE VANISHED.
Grover and Percy both fell off the bench, being pushed by an invisible force.
I wasted no time and ripped out my bolter, firing a . 75 cal bolt round into her. An explosion echoed throughout the room as her arm was eviscerated, or at least I think it was. It turns out shooting a 1.1 inch bullet out of an 8x10x2 ft hand held canon was not the best idea.
I launched back into the stone statue's behind me, my ribs shattering from the recoil. They should heal in a minute or two but dear emperor did they sting.
I heard a strange, rasping sound to the right of me. My eyes rose to see Aunty Em towering over the Percy boy with one left hand, gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails, half her body now gone, exposing her ribs and intestines as it dripped the same green blood as those snake women.
Percy began to look higher, but somewhere off in the distance Annabeth screamed, "No! Don't!"
"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!"
I began to stand up, shoving off my bolter and groaning in pain as I started running at Aunty Em.
"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she told Percy soothingly. "Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up."
"The Gray-Eyed One did this to m—"
Her voice halted as I barreled into her, tackling her to the ground. Aunty Em shrieked in pain as I jammed my arm into her open cavity.
"Run, Percy!" Annabeth's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary.
"Silence!" Aunty Em snarled. Her voice was strained, as if she was trying to sound like a loving grandmother, but it didn't really work as I ripped out her ribs individually. "You see— AGH! Why I must destroy the girl, Percy. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."
"No," I heard Percy mutter.
"Percy!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a small cockatrice in a nosedive.
Grover yelled, "Duck!"
I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with a pair of winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side.
"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"
Deciding that I didn't want to get hit, I picked up Aunty Em by her upper body and held her in place for Grover.
Thwack!
"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"
Aren't Satyr's goat people?
"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.
Percy scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.
Ker-whack!
"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spitting. I tightened my grip onto her lower half, beginning to pull at her opposite ends.
"You Galli fuck! I should have killed you where you stood for daring to lay a single hand on— AGH!!" Medusa cried.
(A/N: In ancient Rome, the galli (galloi in Greek, Latin singular gallus), translated as both "cocks" and "Galatians," were castrated priests of Cybele, the Asian Mother Goddess, and of the Syrian goddess Atagartis. They were named after the river Gallus, whose waters supposedly drove people crazy but also helped purge them.)
Right next to me, Annabeth's voice said, "Percy!"
"Jeez! Don't do that!" Shouted Percy.
Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. "You have to cut her head off."
"What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here." Percy said with incredulous fever.
"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but..." Annabeth swallowed, as if she were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got the better weapon. Besides, Angros is currently busy holding her in place. If I got too close she might get so enraged she'd slice him and I to bits because of my mother. You—you've got a chance."
Something weird began to happen, as I pulled at Medusa's injured body, I could see her visibly regenerating, just like those other monsters after I tore them apart. Is that what that Annabeth girl meant by Percy having a better weapon? Could mine not permanently kill these people?
"What? I can't—" Percy stuttered.
"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"
I heard her grab something heavy.
"A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distor-tion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of—"
"Would you speak English?" Percy asked in frustration.
"I am, Just look at her in the glass. Never look at her directly."
"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"
"Roooaaarrr!"
"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.
"Hurry," Annabeth told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash, and if I know our luck, it's gonna be into shark boy over there."'
Grover came in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"
Medusa was about to attack me when I heard Percy yell, "Hey!"
"Percy, help me! These horrible men are brutalizing this old woman," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't let them do this."
How is she talking this well? I literally have her L4 vertebrae halfway out her body.
From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"
Medusa cackled. "Too late."
She dug her talons into my shoulder blade, forcing me to stumble and begin falling back, but when I hit the floor, I was holding nothing, a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern.
Something fell to the ground next to my foot. I was too busy cringing in discomfort from the five new holes in my shoulder not to look. I could feel warm blood soaking into my hoodie, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.
"Oh, yuck," Grover said. I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."
Annabeth came up next to my head, her head pointing at the sky. She was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't move."
Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.
"Are you okay?" she asked someone, her voice trembling.
"I feel like... shish kebab," I murmured.
"Yeah," Percy said, sounding like he was going to throw up hus double cheeseburger. "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"
"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," she said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."
I moaned as I sat up from the now blood soaked floor. Grover had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from a little goat horn, and his feet had been replaced with hooves.
Winged magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.
"... what the-" I tried to say, only coughing up blood instead.
"The Red Baron," Percy said. "Good job, man."
I looked grover over, it was weird seeing another abhuman.
He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting her with a stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."
He snatched his shoes out of the air. Percy put a pen cap onto his sword, somehow turning it into a pen. Then, the three of them turned to me.
"What do we do with him?" Percy asked. "He did help us, and we are looking for the same person...."
I looked at them confused, holding my ribs as I felt them heal. Were they looking for the thief as well?
"He also threatened the camp with a knife," Annabeth inquired.
I looked at them in utter confusion, "no?" I said.
It was their turn to be confused.
"Uh, yeah you did?" Percy said, "you took out a map and stabbed it with a knife."
I shook my head no, "directions. For you."
"Who stabs a map when giving someone directions?" Annabeth asked.
"Marker."
The three looked at me, exhausted. Somehow, they agreed to take me with them, walking back to the Warehouse Aunty Em owned.
We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head.
We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.
"So we have Athena to thank for this monster?" Percy asked.
Annabeth flashed him an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girl-friend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."
Percy's face was red. "Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."
Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, she said: "'It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?'"
"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."
"You're insufferable."
"You're—"
"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even get migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"
I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!
Perct got up. "I'll be back."
"Percy," Annabeth called after me. "What are you—"
As Percy left, Grover turned to me.
"So, who exactly are you?"
"Meaning?" I asked, scratching my now healed shoulder.
"You walk around with this giant gun cannon that blows apart monsters, dressed up in a shark hoodie, looking as though you were blessed by Eros and Aphrodite respectively. You smell like a monster, but also a demigod, and for some reason a cat."
Annabeth side eyed Grover, "a... cat?"
"Ohhh," I said, realizing what he meant. "I'm not sure what you mean by the other stuff, but I can introduce myself?"
"You can speak in full sentences— I mean please do," Annabeth said in surprise.
I smiled at the two as I began to rehearse the introduction my dad gave me.
"My name is Angros, son of Atropos."
————————————————————————————————————————
Author's Note: I beg you all to be extremely critical of this, I wrote this as I was applying for college so I don't think I put my all into it.
Word Count: 3049