Chapter 1: Angel of the city
A year, I couldn't believe that it had been a year. A year since I found myself without memories in a world I didn't understand. Now here I was, Los Angeles. I had been born there and spend the last year there. It had definitely been under the best conditions ever. I stayed in a two bedroom apartment with more space than I ever had. I had a half decent paying job and food on the table every day. I even made some friends in the city. Normal people I guess. At camp half-blood we called them mortals but I quickly found that I couldn't be the person I was at camp. I had to be different. For one I couldn't go around swinging my sword or using my powers. Well...I did use my powers. After all not many people noticed shadow travel. No mortals could understand how one moved into the shadows and came out somewhere completely different. And to me it seemed better that they didn't understand. Mortals wouldn't accept demigods in their lives. That was something I was sure of. Of course they didn't know about demigods (most of them didn't anyway) so we could still blend in pretty well. And that's what I had been doing. I worked at a small store which sold all kinds of stuff. CD's, DVD's, video games and stuff like that but also books and comics. It wasn't a big store but there was a lot of stuff you could find. I got paid quite a lot but in my opinion I deserved it. There was a lot to do around the store and I was the only employee. My boss was an older guy. Very smart and quite funny for an old timer. He could be quite racy sometimes though. It wasn't something I could always appreciate but given he was just joking around I usually just went with it. I worked five days a week and earned about 800 dollars a month. It was enough to earn my keep. Of course the apartment I stayed in wasn't just mine. I shared it with someone I never thought I would.
"Angel, could you pass me that plate please?" Sophie asked me. She was doing the dishes. We switched each time they needed to be done. It kept us from fighting...about the dishes anyway. Truth was, living with Sophie Brighton wasn't always fun. She was a daughter of Aphrodite, a real girly girl. I thought it was lucky enough she wasn't a hot pink kind of girl. Given I was the son of Erebus, god of darkness and shadows, I wouldn't be able to live in an apartment that was fully painted pink. Luckily nothing was pink, not even in Sophie's room. I hadn't been there in months but I knew nothing was pink because I was the one who painted it blue. Since we got the room ready I had only been there once or twice. Not because I was forbidden to enter, I just figured I shouldn't go in there unless she wanted me to. The same worked for my room. The last time Sophie had been in there was because I asked her to pass me my keys. My room was simple, I didn't really need it to be special. I had a pretty comfortable bed (given I was a insomniac it didn't get used that often) a build in closet which held my small collection of clothing. A desk, CD player and a small cupboard to but all the remaining stuff I owned in. I didn't own much, even now that I could afford to own stuff. Mostly I had CD's and I bought a mp3 player. Real music fan.
"Yeah sure." I walked to the small table that stood between the TV and the couch and picked up the dirty plate that was on it. This was obviously the plate I used. It was a giant mess with chunks of food (mostly vegetables) left on the plate. Sophie's plate was usually quite clean, obviously she was raised much better than I was. Of course there were very few people that were raised as poorly as I was. I walked to the open kitchen and gave Sophie the plate.
"Thanks." She said. I walked back to the other side of the room and sat down on the couch. The kitchen and living room were put into one in our humble apartment. When you entered the apartment you walked straight into the living room which had little other than a couch, a small table where we ate and the TV (a.k.a the one thing in the apartment that I had absolutely no control over. Sophie always held the remote control.) Walking farther into the room made you end up into the kitchen. There was no wall or door separating the living room and the kitchen, an open kitchen. Then there were our rooms and a bathroom. A small apartment but it did the trick. It was all two teenagers who never finished school could afford. I was actually quite happy that Sophie was able to get a job at star bucks. Given she was only fifteen getting a job was harder for her. I couldn't believe I was nearly seventeen. I was getting old. "Finally done. I hate doing the dishes." Sophie said as she dropped herself on the couch. It was a pretty good couch. When I went to look for one I already decided I'd rather have a good couch than a good bed. I didn't sleep a lot anyway but I wanted a good couch.
"Don't we all?" I said. I was pretty sure I had never heard someone say: 'I love doing the dishes!' without being sarcastic. I didn't mind the dishes as much as other work around the apartment though. I'd rather do the dishes and all the cleaning up if I never had to do the toilet again. I got up from the couch and walked towards my room. Everything I needed was in there. My keys, money, ID. And most important of all my black Zippo lighter which wasn't just a lighter. I picked it up and turned the flint. The lighter grew into a bronze, 4 foot long swords. On the side of the blade the words: Shadow-edge were inscribed. It was the sword I had for a while now. I got it from Darius Nikolas also known as Samael. I had taken it from him when I beat him in a fight. When I fought him that day I truly hated him. I hated him until he died. I hadn't thought about Dean for a while. I tried not to because there was no one I could talk to about it. Sophie and Dean were good friends before Dean changed his name to Samael and decided to help his dad destroy life. So I never told her what Dean became. It was better not to destroy the good memories she had of him. When I talked about Samael that's who I talked about. I had never even mentioned Dean in her presence. I knew it was wrong to keep the truth from her but she was doing exactly the same. In my mind I told the sword to go back to its lighter shape and it did. Shadow-edge was something completely different from any weapon I ever heard about. Most weapons that could change shape were changed with a button or something like that but Shadow-edge did it when my thoughts commanded it. That wasn't the only weird thing. Last year I pulled out a dagger out of its hilt. It seemed to come out of no where. I still didn't understand everything about this sword. Maybe I would find out someday.
"You leaving?" Sophie asked me as I walked back into the living room. I just nodded. I put on my black leather jacket while trying to get to the front door. I started work in 20 minutes and Los Angeles traffic was a bitch. Where I worked was pretty close but it was too far to go by foot. Because of traffic that would probably be faster though. "Okay, remember training at 8." Sophie said. I remembered. Training was the highlight of my week. We used to train every single day but as I improved and we both started to work we just didn't have time for that any more. Now we trained twice a week but training was far more intense then it used to be. Whenever I sparred with Sophie I was amazed. She was a great fighter. But that wasn't important at the time. Training was later, work was in 18 minutes.
"I'm off." I said as I walked out of the front door. We lived four high. Walking down the stairs would waste time. Instead I took a right straight into a wall. Of course my special abilities made sure I didn't walk into the walk, but walked into the shadows. I remembered when shadow travel scared me, that seemed so long ago. Now I shadow travelled whenever it was more profitable than walking. That was the case too many times though. If I wanted I could shadow travel to my work but that was risky. If someone saw me I would be screwed. It was better to be late than to be seen as different from everyone else. I left the shadow in the garage of the apartment building. It was dark there so enough shadows. I spotted my car immediately. A green Volvo. It wasn't much but it got me around. I knew it was outdated and I would have loved a nice sports car but you didn't get a sports car for 600 dollars. I entered the car and drove of. I didn't have much time left. 15 minutes now. I was lucky at the first traffic light. As soon as I drove up to it it turned green. I had three traffic lights left. The first cost me four minutes. 8 minutes left. The second turned green quickly. 6 minutes left. If the third traffic light was green I'd make it with time to spare. Of course, luck wasn't on my side. I pulled up to the traffic light just as it turned red. For a second I considered driving on but I was rather late than dead. I stopped and hoped the traffic light would turn green soon. Sadly this traffic light took ages sometimes. I wasn't going to make it. I could see the shop from where I stood but I couldn't get there. So close, yet so far away. I had 2 minutes left when the light finally turned green. I stepped on the gas and the car flew forward. In one fluid turn of the wheel I parked my car in an alley way next to the shop. I got out and locked off as quick as I could and got inside.
"Talking about perfect timing." My boss said. I didn't actually know his real name. Everyone just called him Will so that's what I did. He was an all right guy. He didn't like it when I was late though and this wasn't the first time I was there with seconds to spare.
"You know me, I'm always right on time." I said. That wasn't exactly true. I had been late quite a few times. Given I barely slept once the sun came up I started feeling really tired. There had been quite a few times that I fell asleep an hour before I had to work. Thank the gods for the girl I lived with who could scream so loud it would wake up the whole city. Her way of waking me up was yelling at me till I was deaf. One time I was in such deep sleep I got a glass of water thrown over my face. It wasn't always fun in the apartment.
"Yeah well there's stuff that needs to be done." Will said. There was always stuff to be done. The store was a mess. There was very little logic into the way everything was set up. The lucky thing was that I knew pretty much the entire stock from the top of my head. I had looked at everything we sold so many times I just remembered. Even though I had forgotten everything about me a year ago I had a pretty good memory. Of course that wasn't always a good thing.
I had been working all morning. Some shady looking guy decided to sell his entire collection of LP's (ancient but there's something about the way they sound that a CD just doesn't have) and I had to sort them all. It took me at least an hour and after I was done I had to price them and place them on alphabetic order of the band. That was actually my idea. Before I started working there it was on music genre but some bands were hard to place in one genre. So I figured we had to place it in alphabetic order. Will thought it was a good idea so I had to be the one that did it. Given it was my idea. Took me a full day worth of working. After that he wanted me to do that same thing with the CD's and the DVD's...after that I never had any 'ideas' to make the store better. The store itself wasn't really known by many and those that did didn't even know its name. I didn't even know its name. Everyone just called it Will's. It was so small it didn't even need a name. There were quite a few regulars that I knew pretty well. The cool thing was that I got to know the regulars so well that I ended up screwing around with them. That's what made it so cool. It was a small store and everyone who walked in we had a chat with. You didn't see that a lot any more.
"Could you unpack that third box Michael?" Will said. I still didn't like being called Michael but I could hardly go around calling myself Angel while my ID said my name was Michael. Mortals didn't get why I disliked the name Michael and if they did I'd go to jail for the rest of my life. I picked up the box and walked towards the corner of the shop that I always used for things like this. Pricing, packing things in or out you name it. It was my personal work bench. I was three steps away from putting the box down when I felt my head. It was a short attack this time, but it was bad. I didn't hear anything but this annoying peep like I had just been standing next to an explosion and my eye sight was blurry. My head was killing me. It hurt so bad I dropped the box filled with LP's in great condition. The records fell out of the box and landed all over the place. "What the fuck Michael!" Will said. "Get your ass out of here, go take a fucking break or something." I got why Will was pissed but I couldn't help it. I walked towards the side exit of the store and walked into the alley way where I parked my car. Most of the alley was lightened by the sun but there was some shadow, that's where I had to be. I sat down against the wall and tried to calm down. My head was killing me. It was a completely random attack. I sat there rubbing my temples trying to ease the pain. It faded after a while, that's when Will joined me in the alley.
"Hey son." He said. He usually called me that, it was an old gut thing I figured. Will sat down next to me. He took a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes out of his pocket and took one out. After that he held the pack in front of me. I just nodded and took out one of the cigarettes. Smoking, a bad habit I just couldn't get rid of. I hadn't smoked in a long time until I started working for Will. He offered me a cigarette and I just went with it. "Another migraine huh?" Will asked. I had been having them for months now. It started out with simple headaches but it had gotten worse and worse lately. This wasn't the first time I had them at work. As I took a pull from my cigarette I thought about the many times I had these headaches. I knew why I had them, I thought I knew anyway. "You should go see a doctor about those kid." Will said to me. "Those bad headaches aren't coming out of nowhere." Will was right about that but I doubted a mortal doctor could do anything for me. I doubted these headaches had anything to do with my physical health.
"I'll be fine Will." I said to me. I knew that there was something I had to do but a doctor wasn't what I needed. I didn't know what I could do though. There were the children of Apollo at camp half-blood that could possibly help. They were the doctor types around camp. Camp, I missed it. The mortal world wasn't anything like that place. There was no place like camp half-blood. I missed the people there more than anything. Maximus Meridius, Luke Ford, Maria Wilson and Grace Harper. The five of us had set up the quest to defeat Phthonos a year ago. Only Luke and Max joined me on the road (neither of them stuck around the full 100% but that was all water under the bridge) but in my opinion all of us helped out. Of course along the road others helped out. Not all of them made it to camp. Lucio died by Phthonos' hand and Samael chose our side in the end but his good deeds were paid with death.
"You might be but my stuff won't." Will said. I laughed a bit. He could be funny whenever he wanted to. "Look why don't you get an early weekend. Go home, get yourself to a doctor and come back relaxed Tuesday." Will said. Getting send home early wasn't a good thing but a extra day off sounded pretty good. My weekend was Sunday and Monday unlike weekend for most. Will didn't open Monday's but he did Saturday. It worked for the both of us and for me it meant that both Sophie and I had a full day alone. She didn't work Saturday's and I didn't work Monday's. It was pretty cool to have one day for yourself.
"You sure you don't need me around here?" Will would never admit it but handling the shop on his own got harder these days. He was getting older and the store needed more and more attention. I did most of the work while he did everything behind the counter. I was fine with that given he paid me pretty well. At least it was pretty well to me. I had never been paid in my life.
"You're doing more damage around here then you do good! Get out." He said. I chuckled and got up. If he wanted me to have an afternoon off I was fine with that. I would miss a few hours of pay but I was all right with that. I made enough money to be able to miss a few hours like that.
"All right then Will. I'll see you Tuesday." I said. I walked back into the store and got my leather jacket. My car keys were still in them and everything else I had was in my pockets. I didn't have a uniform or anything like that. All I had to do was leave. I walked back into the alley. Will was still sitting there. His head was red as if he had put a lot of effort into something. I walked over and offered him my hand. I shook his head and tried to push himself up from the ground but he wasn't strong enough. He was only hurting himself. "Let me help you." I said. Again he shook his head.
"I'm not an old fart who can't cross the fucking street on his own!" He wasn't trying to cross the street now but it was a good metaphor. Truth was Will hated growing old. He was a hands on guy. Something needed to be done he did it himself but these days he was physically incapable of doing so. His muscles were growing weak and too much effort made his muscles ache for days. His body was weak and frail but his mind was strong as a horse. He couldn't deal with the fact that he was wearing down. I was still trying to get up himself but eventually I couldn't take it any more. I knew he couldn't do it and I couldn't just let him sit there. I pulled him up and when his feet hit the ground and he was stable he pushed me away. "You don't help me kid! I can do everything myself. Now get the fuck out of here!" I nodded and got in my car. I understood why he was pissed but what was I supposed to do? I felt bad driving back home. Should I have just left him there? No that wasn't something I could have done. Another thing that was bothering was the future of my career. Would he still want me to work when I showed up Tuesday? I didn't know what he was thinking. I wanted to know if he was mad at me, or himself.
As I parked my car back into the garage I wondered how Sophie would react to the fact that I possibly lost my job. She probably wasn't going to like it very much. After all it wouldn't be the first job I lost. I had three other jobs before I started working at Will's. I started out in this little superstore which was all right. It was a nice place, pretty good pay and I was quite liked. Of course a Cyclops had to mess all of that up. He came into the store for some salt and pepper (I don't even want to know what he was going to spice up) and as soon as he saw me he attacked. He threw me through the racks and against a few costumers before I blinded him by throwing a can of Coca Cola into his eye and cut him down with Shadow-edge. Of course after that my boss didn't really like me so much. After that I worked at a butcher but the guy didn't like me so much. After he found out I was better with a knife than he was he wanted me out. The third shop was as a cleaner. Getting fired there was completely my own fault. Truth is I'm quite a slacker when it comes to cleaning up and as soon as my boss noticed that I was out. But now I worked at Will's and it was the best job I ever had. Losing it would seriously suck. Of course Sophie would kill me as soon as I told her. She had kept the star bucks job ever since she was hired. Getting a job was tougher for her but she was a lot better at keeping a job than I was. I walked up the stairs of the building holding my head low. I didn't really feel good at that time. It was possible that I lost another job. Not a good feeling. I didn't feel like looking for another job and more importantly I didn't feel like Sophie nagging at me for losing a job. She would be shoving it in my face constantly or talk about it on the net. Unlike me Sophie had made quite a few friends around town. She could be on Facebook for hours talking about a load of bollocks. Of course I could only guess what it was and my final conclusion was that it had to be bollocks. I was happy enough she couldn't call all that much because we were demigods. Using cell phones was a flare into the sky if you were a demigod. Every monster in a ten mile radius would know exactly where you are. There were very few cases when you could take that risk. Calling one of your friends for gossip wasn't a valid reason.
What I heard when I moved closer to the door was unexpected though. I heard music, and music that I actually liked. Usually Sophie chose to play music I really couldn't stand. But now I heard the voices of Freddy Mercury and Brian May. Queen...what a band. The song I heard was called 'Who Wants to Live Forever?' one of the many greats. The weird thing was that this really wasn't the kind of song Sophie would listen to. She was more into the happy music. 'Who Wants to Live Forever' was a sad song even for my standards. I opened the door and walked inside to find Sophie sitting on the couch listening with tears rolling over her cheeks. She spazzed when she saw me, I had obviously startled her. She jumped up and wiped away the tears.
"Are you all right?" I asked. I had seen Sophie like this before. Broken and crying. It was a rare thing as far as I knew. She always seemed so strong, tough and it seemed as if she had an ego that could be compared to a god. But when she thought you weren't looking she changed. Her look was sad and her ego seemed gone. I figured there was something eating at her...I just didn't know what it was. Truth was I didn't know Sophie that well. We never really talked a lot about our past. All we talked about was training and how we were going to pay our bills. We didn't really talk. We lived in the same place more than we lived together. I think the fact that we didn't talk was a reason why we got fed up with each other sometimes.
"I'm fine!" She snapped. Obviously I wasn't meant to see that. I understood that, I didn't like anyone seeing me at my weak moments either. I had many of those although they had been less regular lately. Truth was...I was done being sad. I had seen a lot of bad things and done a lot of bad things but there was no point in feeling guilty or pitying myself forever. I had done bad things but I had done some good. I felt that I should move on instead of linger in the past. "So what are you doing here?" Sophie asked still sounding a bit snappish. She put off the music that came from her computer.
"Will sent me home. I had another one of those migraines." I said. I decided not to tell her about the fight I had at Will's. I would just go back Tuesday and if he decided to send me back home I could probably tell Sophie that it was because of the migraines. She could hardly blame me for having head splitting migraines. But it would be a valid reason for Will to fire me. If Will cooled down there was no harm done and if Sophie bought the story the nagging wouldn't be as bad as it was the times before. Either way it seemed better than telling her anything now.
"You still have those huh?" Sophie's tone seemed kinder now. She had seen me while having those. Even a blind man would know that those migraines seriously hurt. "You think it's Colt don't you?" Colt...my former alter ego. When I got my memories back the shock it created became Colt. A side of me that had no conscience what so ever. He did some horrible things last year, eventually I faced him in a deep sleep caused by Lucio Fortis the son of Hypnos (god of sleep.) I defeated him then and he hadn't shown a sign of still being alive. But I knew that part of him was still there. Maybe it wasn't really him but the darkness he represented would never leave me. In my dreams I destroyed him. What I had been through was medically unexplainable. Of course I was a demigod, much about me was scientifically unexplainable. But I could imagine that what happened to me left some damage. Maybe these migraines were the result of it. Maybe it was something completely different. But if I had to give any explanation...it would have to be Colt.
"Yeah...what else could it be?" I said. I hated to think about what it could be. Could the headaches mean we was gaining strength? Was he coming back? If he did...it would mean the end of all the things I had. I didn't believe I could function in the mortal world with Colt inside my head. He could cause too much damage in the mortal world. No mortal could defeat him in a fight and no prison could hold him. At camp there were quite a few people that could kick his ass and make sure he wouldn't escape them.
"There are others, I'm sure of that." Sophie said. Sophie hadn't met Colt but whenever he popped up in our conversation she seemed to shut down a bit. She really didn't want to meet him if I was a half decent judge of character. I just nodded hoping she was right. I would rather find out that I had an inoperable brain tumour than Colt coming back.
"So what was that all about?" A asked nodding my head towards the laptop. She never listened to songs like that, and crying wasn't very usual for her either. I knew that I should have left it alone. It's what I would want if I was in her shoes. But I wanted to ask at least. Maybe someone to talk to was exactly what she needed right now.
"It's nothing..." She said at first. I knew she was lying but there was no point in pushing her. I just nodded and walked towards my room. She was a talkative person but in my opinion she wasn't a very open person. She never really said what was on her mind. I opened the door to my room and as I walked in she spoke up. "Stop." She said. I turned around and smiled at her. I figured she was finally ready to talk. "That song, Jake used to play it a lot. I found him Angel. Ashlyn was there seconds later but I saw his body first. I saw him and the only thing I could think about was that song." She said. Jake...the greatest guy anyone ever knew. He was the guy everyone liked. He was a friend, teacher and hero. No one deserved a better life but he ended up getting killed by Phthonos, god of malice, jealousy and ill-will. Truth was that the fact that Phthonos killed Jake was one of the main reasons why I joined the quest to stop him. A lot of my great heroic deed was fuelled with revenge. "We all had our reasons to care about Jake and I think we all agree that he saved our lives one way or another." Sophie said. She was right. He saved us all. Whether that meant that he saved you by defeating the titan Hyperion three years ago or if he helped you personally. He helped everyone find their way.
"So how did he help you?" I was pushing it I knew that but I had to know. I knew exactly what Jake did for me. He helped me find my way when I was lost. And I was lost badly. I was messed up and I didn't know who I was any more. When I met Jake he helped me out. He trained me and showed me how to be a better person. I was who I was because of him.
"That's none of your business Angel." She didn't say it at a mean tone. She said is with sadness in her voice. Obviously Jake was on her mind. I knew she was right. It wasn't any of my business. I shouldn't have asked in the first place. "Do you mind leaving me alone for a bit? We're still up for training tonight but I really need to be alone right now." I nodded. I still had everything I wanted on me. I never got the chance to take off my coat. So I just left. I hoped Sophie would find peace with her thoughts. I realized then she had been through a lot more than I thought she had.