VODKA AND ORANGE EFFECT
" Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
- Mother Teresa
"One vodka and orange please," Annabeth said, leaning against the mini bar counter. The bartender gave her a nod and prepared her drink.
The temperature was freezing in the nightclub. Inside, dry ice smoke almost filled the club. Coloured lights played over the dance floor, turning the smoke into various colours. Annabeth took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of alcohol. People usually didn't like the odour of alcohol, calling it stench but she always enjoyed it. It made her ease up to some extent.
She always felt relaxed when she came to this place. Nobody disturbed her here and minded their business, leaving her for herself. After the constant bizarre events that took place in the recent days, she found this place best to relieve stress. The bartender placed her drink on the counter. Annabeth took the drink and turned around to look at the people.
The dance floor was crowded, mostly with teenagers. People grooved to the loud music making elegant moves. Girls tossed their hair and guys swung their leather clad hips, skin glittering with sweat in the column of smoke. Couples were passionately making out at the corners in the darkness. Annabeth could even recognize few teenagers from her high school, the kind of students she never tried to befriend. Some of the sluts and jocks of the school, she thought.
She squeezed her eyes shut and chugged in the vodka. The dry and burning sensation lingered in her throat for few minutes. She sat on the nearby stool and massaged her aching temples. Her eyes felt droopy. But she didn't want to go home. She wasn't able to sleep more than a few hours. She would always get nightmares. The dreams were so frightening that she would even hesitate to sleep. But unlike other dreams, they never faded away. Those vivid pieces were ingrained in her brain
She was interrupted in the midst of her thoughts when someone in the dancing crowd caught her attention. By looking through the packed crowd, all she could make out that the person was a girl. She was radiating an aura. Annabeth nearly felt the pulse of energy emitted by her. But she noticed the others in the crowd wasn't able to see what she saw. Why does this always happen only to me? She questioned herself inwardly.
Annabeth got a chance to look at her face when she broke away from the mass. The girl had spiky short and black leather jacket. She wore a silver circlet on her head which didn't match her skull earrings or her death to Barbie T-shirt showing a little Barbie doll with an arrow through its head.
For Annabeth, these features looked way too similar. She stood up to get a clear view of the girl. What she suspected turned out to be true when she saw the girl's electric blue eyes. That's Thalia, she thought, what the hell is she doing here?
In a blink of her eye, the aura surrounding Thalia disappeared. Usually, if someone saw something like this for the first time, he would either not believe what he saw or freak out. But Annabeth was used to seeing things like this. She pulled up her hood to conceal her face when Thalia passed her. She looked quite nervous. By keenly observing her movements, Annabeth realized that she was following another guy. Her eyes were frozen upon the person she was stalking. Silently slipping through the crowd, Annabeth started trailing her.
They soon exited the bar and were walking through the streets. Annabeth made no effort in hiding as it already filled with street side shops that bustled with shoppers. The man who was being followed cautiously looked behind. His face turned pale when he saw Thalia. Annabeth knew Thalia could be scary if she wanted but couldn't understand why someone would look so panicked at her sight.
The man quickly started running. As soon as he increased his speed, Thalia chased him. Annabeth tried to keep up with their pace but they seemed to be too fast. His path was obstructed by roadblocks so he was forced to take the nearest alleyway. Without thinking about it, Annabeth followed them.
She was instantly greeted by a strong and unpleasant smell when she entered inside. The thin alleyway looked old and dusty, filled with cobwebs. Garbage was littered around the whole place. Annabeth wrinkled her nose and moved forward. She could hear the faint echoes of their conversation. She went near them till their words became audible to her. She hid between the gap buildings and peeped out her head to see them.
"-golems have joined the demons. Even if the war starts now, the angels are to face defeat. It isn't too late to retreat. At least it won't cause bloodshed." He said. He was a skinny boy around her age with blonde hair, crazed blue eyes and skin as pale a ghost. He was wearing blue shirt and jeans and looked like any other ordinary boy. He had a tattoo of a lyre on his hand, which Annabeth recalled to be a rune. Annabeth found it weird for someone like him to wear a mythological symbol as a tattoo.
"I never asked you for your advice Octavian. Just tell me where the last runic volume is and I will spare your life." Thalia said. She sounded very angry. "Revenge and justice can never be the same. You need to understand that"
"Who said revenge and just are the same? You all deserve to feel the pain that we faced since centuries. Justice isn't the solution for every issue. But revenge can be."
"If not thousands, millions of lives will be destroyed. This won't solve the problem-"
"Yes, it will. And the creatures of heaven will think twice before taking a step."
Thalia removed a dagger from the sheath strapped to her thigh. It didn't look like an ordinary dagger. Having designs of vines sculpted on the blade, it gave an illumination to Thalia face who was holding it. In a swift movement, Thalia pinned Octavian against the wall and placed the tip of the dagger under his chin. "This never was and will be about right and wrong. The Romans started this and the Romans were supposed to end it. But all you want is war, revenge and bloodshed. The burden is now on the Greek tribe to solve the dispute." Thalia let out an exasperated sigh. "Just tell me where it is"
"You are never going to find it," Octavian said. "It was burned into ashes decades ago."
"You are lying. If you don't tell me now, you will regret this moment throughout your lifetime." She threatened."
"Try me." He whispered.
Thalia tightened the grip around the hilt of the dagger and stabbed it in his stomach. He groaned in pain and kicked her on the shim. Thalia staggered backwards. Surprisingly the wound quickly healed itself and his skin soaked in all of his leaked blood.
Octavian laughed. "The blood of a heavenly immortal run in my veins. Killing me is near to impossible." He shoved his hand inside his pocked threw out a stone from it on her.
Now it was Thalia's turn to laugh. "Is throwing pebbles the best a descendant of a heavenly immortal does?"
A wry smirk spread over his face. He closed his eyes and cast out a spell: "Advocabit Golemo"
The fallen pebble shook rapidly and levitated in the air. Slowly, it started to increase their size till it reached up to the height of about ten feet. Rocks procured from its sides forming limbs and a head. Bright rubies penetrated from its head creating its eyes and a crack formed below it which Annabeth guessed to be the mouth.
The giant created from the pebble moved forward to Thalia. From the shining dagger in her hand, she drew a rune in the air that formed a fiery outline of electric blue flames resembling the colour of her eyes. Instantly, the surroundings started to become dark. Annabeth glanced up to see the clear night sky above her gradually starting to fill with lumps of iron-grey clouds. Droplets of water aggressively rained on them along with strong winds. The rain was quickly transforming into a tempest.
Annabeth held the corners of the wall tightly, not wanting to leave the fight she was witnessing. Thalia was only who could answer the unexplainable dreams she was having and the strange creatures she was seeing.
The rock-giant's head was inflexible and hence couldn't turn around. Thalia took it to her advantage and climbed on its back. She stabbed the blade on its rocky dorsal and carved another rune on it. The runic sculpt shone bright red like its eyes. Subsequently, lightning struck on the rock-giant. It let out a loud cry of agony.
Thalia shouted out another spell: "ab inspiratione fulgur"
Another blast of lightning struck it, exploding the giant creature into pieces of rocks and pebbles. Though Thalia too received the attack, she looked completely unharmed. "Don't forget Octavian, the blood of heavenly immortals run in my veins too." She said. "Where the heck is the book?"
"You have stepped into the war zone long ago Thalia. Just remember this, not the strongest, but only the smartest survive." Octavian said. After saying this, he muttered a spell under his breath engulfed in the darkness.
Thalia stared at the empty wall for few seconds. The rain stopped immediately and the sky cleared up. The alleyway was completely puddled with murky water. The scent of fresh and wet sand replaced the foul smell of alley. Annabeth tried to check the time but was disappointed with the condition of the watch which had a crack on its crystal and was filled with water inside its case.
Throughout the fight, Annabeth could feel the rush of Adrenaline in her. She could even hear the sound of her heart drumming against her chest that was now slowing down. She ran her hand through her blonde curls. Wiping a trickle of sweat from her forehead, Annabeth came out of the corner.
"It was a hell of a fight, wasn't it, Annabeth?" Thalia said.
Annabeth's eyes widened in shock. Her body stiffened and chills ran down her spine. Swallowing the lump formed in her throat, she asked, "You knew I was there all along?"
"Yeah. Kind of." Thalia said.
"I think we need to talk," Annabeth said.
"We certainly need to."
. . . . .
Annabeth sat gingerly on the soft brown couch at Thalia's house. Her house nowhere near what she thought it to be like. It was a small and single room with clean white walls on which only a few pictures were hung. It had a single bed with only one window beside it and a sliding closet to its opposite. The one window wasn't enough to illuminate the small room as its view was blocked by another building.
Annabeth raised an eyebrow when to see a rack of wooden bookshelf attached to the wall. The book's titles on its spine were written in another language. It's written in Greek, She thought. She didn't know how she could identify the language, but she did. She tried to read the words written on their spines- Magical arts, Elemental spells, Herbs and medicines, History of Angels and demons, the fourth d-
"What are you doing?" Thalia asked, bring two cups of hot coffee with her. Its earthen and nutty smell was captivating. Annabeth wrapped her fingers around the warm cup once Thalia handed it to her. She slouched on the couch, closed her eyes and took a sip of it.
"I didn't know you even read books," Annabeth said.
Thalia let out an airy laugh. "Yes, sometimes."
"You couldn't even score a couple of marks in our French examinations but are reading fat books written in Greek." Annabeth mused.
"How do you know it's written in Greek?" Thalia asked though she didn't seem to be curious. Annabeth felt she knew her answer, but was just asking for the sake of it.
"I just know it. Don't ask me how." She said.
There was a pregnant pause in the conversation. Annabeth desperately wanted answers, but she waited for Thalia to begin because she herself didn't have an idea of where to start. Thalia never liked silence, and just always, she was the one to break the awkward silence.
"Was this the first time," Thalia said, "I mean, seeing things like what you just saw?"
"I don't just see them, Thalia, I-I get haunted by them. I can't remember the last time I slept peacefully. They never leave me. When I am awake, I see bizarre creatures that no one can, and-and in the night, they again haunt in the form of nightmares. And what makes the matter worse is I can't share it with anyone. It's taking a toll on me. I can't bear it…" She trailed off. Her voice emerged, cracked, with throat tight with dread.
Thalia gently squeezed her hand, whispering comforting words to her. But it didn't matter of Annabeth. Tears brimmed in her eyes, her vision became blurry. She squeezed her eyelids shut and the teardrops poured down. She wiped them from her cheekbones and looked at Thalia. "I don't need comfort Thalia, I need answers."
"I knew you could see past the mist from the very first time I met you."
"Mist?"
"Yeah, Mist. You can call it a kind of supernatural force, which twists mortal's sight from seeing things like magic and magical creatures and supernatural occurrences by replacing them with things mortal minds know and can comprehend. In other words, for the mortals, the mist will make a dragon look like a pigeon."
"So there are dragons too?"
"Yeah, there are. Can't be tamed easily. Can be pesky sometimes."
"How did you know I could see through it? Whatever the thing is."
"Do you remember, the other day, we were stuck in the traffic on Newbury Street? When we both decided to go to the mall in evening."
Annabeth knew what Thalia was talking about. The piece of memory was still vivid.
Drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, Annabeth was unconsciously producing rhythm, each beat rushing one after another, pressing and hastening. Staring at the completely packed road of Newbury streets which didn't even leave an inch of space, she could not help but sigh. The red colour of the tail lights of the hundred or so cars struck up in a single street strained her eyes
"I hate traffic," Thalia said.
"At least we both share something in common," Annabeth said.
The traffic snaked up till the horizon. The blaring horns of the automobiles irritated Annabeth. She could see the vague layer of putrid fumes left out by the vehicles through the car's windshield. Thalia was on her own, playing another uninteresting game on her phone. Annabeth rolled her eyes at her and looked around to distract herself.
They were late for home and she knew she was going to get grounded for a week. Most of the shops were already closed leaving the streetlamps as the only source of illumination. From the corner of her eye, Annabeth saw the flickering of light in the dark street. She looked to her right and saw a pair of glaring yellow eyes with thin vertical pupils. A chill ran down her spine when she saw it. She could see the borders of its silhouette in the dim beam of light from a broken streetlamp.
The owner of the eyes came out of the darkness. It turned out to be a werewolf. Standing on its hind legs, the furry creature retracted its claws. An old man walking on the pavement with a three-year-old boy passed it normally not noticing it.
"Annabeth, are you okay. You look quite pale." Thalia said, shifting her view from the phone screen.
"Can't you see it? That's standing beside our car." Annabeth said.
"See what Anny?" She said.
Annabeth turned to point it out but it vanished without making a faintest of sound. "Nothing, it was….. just trick of the light. Nothing else."
"You knew I could see the werewolf that night," Annabeth said.
"You are the first mortal I have met who can see through-"
Thalia's statement was cut off by an overwhelming blast of fire that exploded from the room's door. The impact was powerful enough to slam Annabeth against the concrete wall beside her. Her head hit the edge of the wooden bookshelf causing a tremendous throb of pain.
For a moment, the whole room was filled with smoke and dust. The bitter charcoal taste stayed at her tongue. Her eyes burned as if someone poured dry sand into it. A large centipede-like creature which was the size of Thalia's bed came out of the dust. It had a pinkish outer surface that spiralled over like that of a worm. It neither had any eyes or any mouth.
A single large hole at its start that had four black stingers around it tried to stab Annabeth. She quickly rolled over, avoiding it. Slithering, the worm came to her rapidly. She caught hold of a broken piece of wood from the bookshelf which fell on the floor and shoved it into her mouth.
The creature easily swallowed it. It thrust its stinger into Annabeth's leg which penetrated into it and came out from the other side. Though she didn't feel any pain, her whole nervous system started to feel numb. Her body froze in its place and before she knew, the poison injected into her knocked her unconscious.