Joining the Hunt (Briefly): A Percy Jackson story
Joining the Hunt (Briefly): A Percy Jackson story
My Cousin Stops By
Don't let anyone fool you. High school is not all it's cracked up to be, especially when you're a freshman. Lots of homework, bottom of the social food chain, etc., really wears you down. Which is why I was sitting in a classroom at Goode on a Friday afternoon, staring at the clock, counting down the last few seconds before the bell rang, setting me free for fall break. It wasn't summer, but I looked forward to it all the same. I needed a break from school; I had far more important things to worry about.
When the bell rang, I was the first one out the door, tearing down the hallway, almost knocking over a couple of football players. One of them sneered at me, "Whatsa matter, Jackson, gotta sore mommy needs to kiss?"
I wanted to reach into my pocket, pull out Riptide and give this punk a piece of my mind. Unfortunately, it couldn't harm mortals, though I doubt Captain Testosterone here would've noticed. I ignored him and kept on going. I heard him yell behind me, "Yeah, run on home momma's boy!"
Once I was outside, I hailed a cab and went straight to my mom's Manhattan apartment. It was nice to be able to come home after school instead of going off to dormitory after classes. As I entered I called out, "Hey, Mom, I'm home. Any messages from camp?"
"Ah, not exactly, sweetheart," her voice called back from the kitchen.
"Not exactly? Meaning what did something happen?" I asked worried. I had asked Chiron to send my updates about the status quo of Camp Half-Blood, the summer camp where demigods, like me, went to train every summer. Last time I'd been there, we'd been invaded by an army of monsters that had nearly overwhelmed us, the first open battle of the new Titan war. Given everything that happened, I didn't want Chiron to leave me out of the loop.
"Come on in and I'll explain," my mom answered. She sounded tense, which made me all the more nervous. I walked into the kitchen and saw why.
My mom was sitting at the kitchen table, holding an icepack over someone's eye. It was a girl about my age, wearing tattered jeans and a torn silver jacket, revealing her punk rock t-shirt. She had cuts all over her face and her arm was in a makeshift sling. She forced a weak smile when she saw me. "Hey, Percy, how's it going?"
"Thalia?" I stared at her. A million questions flooded into my mind, but the one that came out was, "What happened to you?"
Thalia continued to smile painfully. "Isn't obvious? I need your help."
I looked at her, trying to decide if this was really Thalia. "My help? Seriously?"
"Yeah."
I chuckled. Thalia frowned at me. "What?"
"Nothing. It's just you're a daughter of Zeus and you're a Hunter of Artemis, and you turn to me for help. You must really be desperate."
"You have no idea." Thalia stood up. She winced and hunched over like she was about to puke. I ran over to her. My mom stood up and together we helped steady her.
"I'm fine," she insisted.
"Coulda fooled me," I told her.
"I should be healed by tomorrow," she grunted. "Hunters recover quickly. If I last till then."
"Why? What happened? Where are the other Hunters?"
Thalia stared at me with a grim look in her eye. "Scattered…some are dead. I got separated from the others when he attacked."
"When who attacked?"
Thalia coughed. "Lycaon. He attacked the Hunters but I was his target."
"Who the Hades is Lycaon?" I asked feeling dumb and in the dark, as usual.
"He was a king in Ancient Greece. A stranger came to his house and Lycaon served him a disgusting meal."
"Okay, but what does…"
"Let me finish. The meal was a child, whom Lycaon had had killed and cooked. But the guest he offered the meat to turned out to be Zeus."
"Oh…bad move."
Thalia nodded. "Zeus was furious. He cursed Lycaon and turned him into a beast, a wolf."
I raised my eyebrows. "A were-wolf? Your dad made a were-wolf? Weird."
"Yes, well unfortunately, Lycaon is back. He ceased to be human and became one of the monsters. He re-forms quickly, since mortals are always telling stories about were-wolves."
"And now he's back and after you, because of what your dad did to him."
"Yep. Pretty much."
"But how did you end up here?" my mom asked. I looked at her, a little embarrassed since I'd almost forgotten she was there, I had been focusing on Thalia.
"We were on the outskirts of New York when Lycaon found us in the middle of the night. Between Artemis and the other Hunters, he should've been killed quickly, but he took us by surprise. He wounded and maimed several of the other Hunters before coming after me. I tried to shoot him with my arrows but he was too strong and too fast. So I…ran…" she admitted with difficulty.
I felt a cold chill run down my back. Thalia once stood her ground against the Furies and an army of hellhounds. Lycaon had to be pretty terrible in order for her to flee.
"And Artemis?" I asked nervously. "Why didn't she blast him to dust for hurting her Hunters?"
Thalia looked uncomfortable. "Lycaon attacked her first. He hit her with something, I don't know what, but the instant he touched her she fell down and didn't get up again."
I gulped. Taking down Artemis was no easy task. Atlas had done it last year in a bid to stall the Olympian council, but he was a Titan and had an army to help him. Lycaon had done it single-handedly.
"So, will you help?" Thalia's blue eyes looked at me with desperation and fear, I look I hardly ever saw on her face.
It took a while to find my voice but I managed to say, "Of course I will. Come on. Let's go wolf hunting."
