"…churlish, flea-bitten, earth-vexing, craven, hell-hated clotpole!"
One of the girls sighed. "English, Zoë. We speak English now."
"Besides," said a second, suppressing a smile. "I'm pretty sure he's a satyr, not a—what was it again?"
The first girl, the blonde one, thought about it. "Ah…a gorbellied, beetle-headed, fat-kidneyed-"
"You forgot beef-witted."
"Thanks, Di. A beetle-headed, beef-witted, fat-kidneyed-"
"Enough, Cynthia. You have made thy point."
"Technically, it was your point," said Cynthia calmly.
"Indeed," snapped Zoë. "And I believe I made it without thy help."
Bianca Di Angelo was beginning to seriously question the wisdom of this whole spending-eternity-with-the-Hunt arrangement.
Perhaps sensing this, another Hunter—a tiny, elfish-looking girl with clever blue eyes and red hair—bounced off her bed and put a comforting arm around the new recruit. "Don't worry about them," she said cheerfully. "I know, they're all crazy at first, 'specially Cynthia and Diana." She stuck her tongue out at a halfhearted protest from Cynthia. "But you'll see—we're family here. A seriously dysfunctional family, sure, but still family. Except Artemis hardly ever chains us to things to protest capitalism, and we take baths."
"Ari's from the 60's," Diana said in a deadpan that was only slightly ruined by her dry smirk at the brief look of horror on Bianca's face.
She suddenly seemed to realize something. "Hey! You haven't really met us at all, have you? C'mon, I'll introduce you while Zoë and Becky do the magic stuff."
"I'm a daughter of Hecate," explained the alarmingly pale girl Bianca assumed was Becky.
"I thought the camp already had protective enchantments," Bianca said, trying not to stare as Becky leaned against a bunk bed and absently brushed purple sparks off her parka.
"Camp Half-Blood," Zoë said with a long-suffering look, "has enchantments designed to keep out monsters."
Bianca glanced nervously at Becky, who yawned and turned her head irritably, flicking a bright-pink newt out from behind her ear. "Then what's she trying to keep out?" There couldn't be things worse than Thorn and his masters, could there? Was Becky powerful enough to hold evil gods at bay? Titans?
"Campers," Zoë said darkly.
"Dun dun dun." Ari popped up unexpectedly with a wide, sadistic grin right in front of Bianca, who yelped and tripped backward. "Whoops!" She reached down and hauled Bianca back onto her feet. "Right. Want me to introduce you to everyone now?"
"Perhaps you should give her back her watch first, Ariana," said Zoë drily.
Stunned, Bianca looked down to find that, sure enough, her wristwatch had disappeared.
The red-haired girl glared at Zoë. "It's Ari. I don't like Ariana. It sounds respectable. You're disrespecting my heritage!" she called at Zoë's back as the lieutenant spared her a fondly exasperated look and exited the cabin. Huffing, the redhead turned back to Bianca. Immediately, a dazzling smile appeared on her face. "Ari McMurphy," she said, giving a little bow. "Daughter of Hermes and the devil incarnate to boot."
Bianca began to edge toward the door.
The girl named Cynthia sighed. "Give her back her watch, Ari," she said, and the little girl produced the plain black band with no protests.
"I wasn't going to keep it, you know," she assured Bianca.
Cynthia rolled her eyes. "Sure you weren't," she said, but she was smiling. "If you want to steal something so badly, why don't you go see if the camp store still has those cherry gummy bears?"
Ari was out the door before Bianca realized she had moved.
"Sorry about her," said Cynthia. "She's actually quite nice when you get to know her, kind of like Zoë, but don't tell her I said that. Now. Let me show you around."
Cynthia was a mortal—or rather, she had been before she joined the Hunters. It came as a surprise to most campers; with her blonde hair and steel-blue eyes she was often taken for a daughter of Athena or Apollo. It was a source of unending exasperation for her and Diana, who actually was a child of Apollo but with nut-brown skin and black, frizzy hair was almost never recognized as one in the long lineup of honey-blondes. Then again, Bianca got the impression that most things were a source of unending exasperation for Diana.
The two of them, as well as a shy, timid little girl named Alene who looked younger than Ari, formed a trio that referred to themselves as the "originals" and everyone else called the "old-timers" and Ari respectfully referred to as the "crumblies."
"We've been here for millennia," explained Cynthia. "Diana and I had both been with the Hunt for close on a hundred years when Zoë joined, if you can imagine that. We have less trouble with modern English, though."
"Thank the gods for that," muttered a muscular girl with short black hair. "I mean, Zoë's great, but one of her is enough, thanks."
"Bianca, this is Phoebe," said Cynthia without missing a beat. "She's our resident daughter of Ares."
Phoebe grinned. "Hey, squirt. Zoë already fix you up with a weapon?"
Bianca summoned her bow by way of answer. It surprised her how instinctive the action was. Zoë hadn't shown her that yet. Nobody had, actually. It was just... there. She thought she could probably get used to that kind of certainty.
Phoebe didn't seem satisfied. "Nah. Proper save-your life weapon, I mean." She shook her head. "Archery's your greatest strength, but you have to have some sort of melee defense, especially here. We're right next to the Aphrodite cabin, see, and there have been some nasty incidents…"
"Diana burned their cabin down last time we were here," began Cynthia.
"By accident!"
"You shot a flaming arrow through an inch-wide opening in the window!"
Phoebe chuckled as Diana continued to protest her innocence. "Those two love each other to death, but you'd never guess it to look at them. Here, have a knife," she added, passing Bianca a long hunting knife and a silver sheath.
"So…" Bianca cast around for a conversation topic. "How long have you been a Hunter?" She hoped it wasn't an indelicate question, but it had been how all the others introduced themselves.
Phoebe shrugged. "Oh, about... fifty years? The oldest one here—not counting the old-timers, of course—would probably be...Tori, I guess. Victoria." She indicated a slim, dark girl who was curled up in a lower bunk at the far end of the cabin, reading a book. She looked very calm and collected, but Bianca recognized her as the girl who had been muttering frantically in Spanish during the entire ride on Apollo's sun bus. "She's been with the Hunt a little over three hundred years, but she's probably a lot older than that, as she's a tree nymph."
"Cuercus suber dryad," Tori said evenly, turning the page. "Andalusian cork oak. My home forests are an essential part of the local ecosystem. We regenerate quickly after fires or damage and help to protect the most endangered species of feline in the world." Finally, she looked up. "Tree nymph indeed."
"Sorry?" Bianca squeaked. Tori smiled and winked a chlorophyll-colored eye before returning to her book. Bianca decided it would be rude to ask if a dryad reading paper would be like her reading a book written on human skin. She wasn't certain where that thought had come from.
"So..." she cast around for conversation topics. "Is it unusual at all for a daughter of Ares to be a Hunter?"
Phoebe laughed out loud. "You want unusual? C'mon, you've gotta meet Kim."
Kim was lying down on the bunk across from Tori, and like Tori was reading a book. Bianca glanced at the cover and did a double-take before blushing profusely. Years of looking after Nico had honed her ability to recognize trashy romance novels from a mile away; but figuring out the subject of a cheap paperback with a title written in some gold font so curly she couldn't even read it, featuring a ludicrously-muscled rugged-looking man covered in more oil than the inside of a popcorn bag, wasn't actually that difficult.
Phoebe sighed. "Kim, didn't Zoë say you weren't allowed to read those anymore?"
Kim scowled and turned to Phoebe, letting the book fall open on her lap. Bianca's first impression of the girl was simple: Gorgeous. She looked a bit like Cynthia, in that she was blonde with blue eyes; but Kim was just pretty, naturally and intrinsically so. Without any sense of artificiality or effort her hair was a little more luxurious than Cynthia's straight ponytail, had just the faintest hint of red; her eyes sparkled, her cheekbones were more delicate... she had the wrong feel to be a model; Bianca thought she looked like she could have inspired one of the marble statues decorating the Big House.
"You honestly think I would be reading it if she had?" Kim demanded angrily; she sounded hurt. "All she said was that Artemis might not like it. She told Zoë it was in my blood, and that she didn't have a problem with it as long as I kept it away from the kids. After all she's done for me, you think I would go behind her back like that?"
Phoebe held up her hands. "All right, all right. Sorry, hon. None of my business."
"Too right," Kim muttered, but she bumped her foot against Phoebe's leg in forgiveness.
"In your blood?" asked Bianca, thoroughly confused.
Kim smiled grimly. "My mother is Aphrodite. Three guesses why... well." She waved a hand vaguely between her face and the open pages of her book.
At first, Bianca thought the pages were blank; with a jolt, she looked again and realized that it was covered in a pattern of small bumps—written in Braille. And then the way she hadn't really looked directly at Phoebe but rather in the general direction of her voice...
Bianca blanched. "Your mother blinded you? For…"
"…for joining the Hunters, yes." Kim stretched and carefully dog-eared her page. "She was…not exactly happy with me."
"To put it lightly," Phoebe growled.
"Like it was any of her business," Tori said from across the aisle. There was a snap in her voice like a dry twig.
"But how can you hunt—I mean, if you can't see?"
Kim sighed. "No doubt that's exactly what she was thinking. Hoping to have me kicked out, left with nothing. But—and I have no doubt it was Lady Artemis' doing—when I lost my sight, I gained something else, a sort of sixth sense. If I really concentrate, I can sort of dimly sense my target, even though I can't see it."
"I keep telling you," Tori said, glancing over with an air of fond patience. "All Hunters have that. You're just more in-tune with it because you have to be. Or maybe Artemis strengthened it for you a bit. But you're good on your own. You've just practiced more than any of us."
"She's pretty damn good," admitted Phoebe ruefully. "Outshoots me and Tori at least half the time. It's a bit humiliating to have a blind girl be a better shot than you, but we can't resent her for it, because we love her too much!"
Kim grinned. "I'm the daughter of the Goddess of Love, remember? You don't have a choice."
Phoebe chuckled and punched her lightly on the shoulder. "So where's Owen, anyway? Owen's her…seeing-eye wolf, I guess," she added as an aside to Bianca. "A gift from Artemis when Aphrodite disinherited her. Fetches her things and keeps her from running into trees."
"He went with Zoë, to protect her while Becky's doing her freaky hocus-pocus."
"I heard that," said an irritated voice from outside the open window.
"I'm not going anywhere," Kim continued, ignoring the magician. "And the Aphrodite kids…" she laughed. "I mean, the other Aphrodite kids will be less likely to bug her if he's around."
At that moment, a familiar voice exclaimed, "What in the name of—oof."
Turning around, Bianca's jaw dropped. While they had been talking, a full-scale pillow war had broken out, with Cynthia and Diana as the generals. Bianca had never actually seen a pillow fight that involved Judo throws before. Ari, she noticed, was perched safely on an upper bunk, eating cherry gummy bears and cheerfully observing the carnage.
Zoë had left a cabin of Hunters and returned to a war zone.
At the sight of her, the Hunters froze for a moment, and then burst out laughing. Their lieutenant opened her mouth as if to ask something, then seemed to decide she didn't want to know. Shaking her head and almost smiling, she handed Cynthia her pillow back, then turned to the single bed near the door and dropped her pack in the center. The small gray wolf at her side trotted over to Kim's bed, jumped up onto the mattress, and lay down beside her, resting his heavy head on her lap. "Hey, Owen," she murmured, winding her fingers into his thick mane.
Phoebe sighed. "Let's help the others get this place set up again, squirt, and then I'm going to teach you how to arm-wrestle."
"Don't I have a say in that?"
"Nope." Phoebe grinned and ruffled Bianca's hair, snatching her hat away to do it and then replacing it before she nudged Bianca toward Zoë to help the others get the cabin into a slightly acceptable condition. Diana and Cynthia had dropped their bickering with almost alarming ease, and were replacing pillows and blankets in god cheer with the assistance of quiet little Alene. Kim and Tori were gathering up loose feathers in an effective tag team, with Kim dusting them off furniture and Tori sweeping them into a neat pile. It would have gone much more smoothly if Ari had stopped bustling about looking busy, so as to get in prime position for flicking red gummy bears at everyone with uncanny aim.
Bianca was absolutely positive that spending the rest of her life with them was going to be the best decision she had ever made.