Three: Sadie

There was no slipping into Aislin's head that night, for the fifth time in a row and I wasn't sure whether I was thankful, or disappointed that I was no closer to figuring anything out.

I got up at my normal time and went downstairs, and to my surprise, I was the last one up. Everybody was at the breakfast table, and even Khufu looked worried. I grabbed some food and tea and sat down in the empty seat next to Carter. "What's going on?"

"Horus sent me a message last night," Carter informed me. Apparently the others already knew. "He wants us to go kidnap some girl in South Carolina."

"Horus wants us to kidnap someone?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. "Who? Some servant of chaos or something?"

"I don't know her name, but I know what she looks like. He said he gave her a warning last night, but he knew she wouldn't listen, so he wanted us to go get her within the next five days. Preferably as soon as possible, though."

"So are we going today?" I asked.

"I want to give her a chance to make up her mind to do whatever it was that Horus asked of her, so no." Carter answered. "I'm thinking tomorrow."

"Do you have any idea why Horus wants her?" Walt asked, an adorable, confused- puppy expression on his face.

"Not the slightest, but there was no arguing with him," Carter answered, slumping in his seat and rubbing his eyes. "Whatever it is, it's obviously either bad or important."

Getting a rather unattractive idea, I glanced at Carter. "What did she look like?"

"Kind of short, blonde hair, blue eyes, tan skin," he said and while I knew there were probably a lot of people who looked like that in the world, I groaned.

"I know her, sort of," I informed them. "Her name's Aislin, she's a prophetess-"

"You mean a diviner?" Zia asked.

"No, I mean a prophetess," I replied. "Her father's a Greek god. Lately I've been able to slip into her head when she's having these visions, but for the past five or so days, either she hasn't been sleeping or something's been blocking me."

"Greeks?" Bast hissed. "They control Manhattan. We try to avoid them."

"Wait, that's why we aren't allowed in Manhattan?" Felix asked. "What if they're friendly?"

"The Greeks lived in Egypt for a long time. They moved in on our territory," Bast replied. "We never got along with their gods."

"So, why does Horus want her?" Carter asked. "I mean, Sadie must be mistaken, because gods don't have kids, but-"

"The Greek gods did, quite often actually," Amos informed us. "They're quite famous for having children with mortals and abandoning them to become heroes. These children were half mortal, half god, called demigods." Bast nodded.

"If she's a prophetess, then she's likely a daughter of Apollo," the goddess added. "He's the god of Prophecy, among other things."

"That still doesn't help us understand what our gods want with her," Cleo pointed out.

"Her mother was a magician," I said. "That's what her father told her, last time I was there."

"Wait, the Greek gods don't have contact with their children," Bast said. "They've forbidden it, I heard. There's no way her father actually spoke to her."

"He did," I insisted. "I was there. It was the first time I was still inside her body after the visions ended."

"Sadie, I want you to try and make contact with Aislin," Amos told me. "It might help. At the very least find out what she's doing. You can go track her down tomorrow. For now, we should research more on the Greek gods. It may help."

We all nodded, rising from the table. I hadn't eaten a thing, but my stomach was in knots. I felt like I had betrayed some part of myself telling everybody about the dreams, but it had to be done. I headed straight back to my room and rested on the bed, unsure of what I was supposed to do.

"Can I offer a suggestion?" I looked up to see Walt standing in the doorway. I hadn't realized it was still ajar.

"Sure," I said, managing not to stutter, and sat up some. Walt was holding a pendant, and he sat next to me, fastening it around my neck.

"It was supposed to help anchor your ba," he told me, "because I know the, uh, godly pillow doesn't work for you and Carter, but I made a few tweaks."

"Thank you," I told him, smiling. He grinned back before standing, his warm hands leaving the back of my neck far sooner than I'd have liked.

"Good luck, Sadie," He said, giving me one last, lingering smile before walking out the door.

Aislin wasn't asleep when I found her. She was taking drawings off the walls and shoving them into a duffel bag along with clothes, journals and a quiver full of arrows.

"Will, Jake and Mal are going to meet us in Manhattan tomorrow," a male's voice said from behind her. She turned to look at him, and for the first few seconds, I thought it was Anubis. The boy was tall, with messy black hair and dark brown eyes, pale skin, wearing a skull- and- crossbones t- shirt and leather jacket over a pair of dark jeans. "We should reach the Empire State building by midnight."

"Empire State building?" Aislin asked, zipping the bag closed and turning to face him. "Nico?"

"We're bringing you to Olympus," He told her. "So that your father can keep you safe."

"No way," she shook her head. "Most of those gods have tried to kill me! Besides, my dad's too busy driving the sun chariot across the sky to worry about taking care of me."

I filed away that bit of information for further questioning. Sun chariot?

"That god basically told you that if you didn't cease contact with us, he was going to start a war. What right does he have?" Nico asked. "No, we're moving you. Olympus. Camp isn't safe."

"Camp is very safe! I am going to camp!"

"It'll take us longer to get to camp," Nico pointed out, grabbing her duffel.

"I don't care, less campers have made attempts to kill me than gods!" She yelped as Nico slung an arm around her waist and started pulling her along. They left the hotel immediately, and Nico shoved her in the direction of a black Ferrari. How could he afford a car like that? I wondered. Aislin sighed and sat down in the passenger seat.

"I'd really love to just shadow travel," Nico said, "but it's too dangerous right now. I can't take you by boat, or by plane, so we have to drive to freaking New York."

"Not my fault the gods all hate me," Aislin told him. "Come on, let's just get moving. Did you say Mal was waiting for us?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't he off in university somewhere?" Aislin asked, turning to the boy in the drivers seat.

"This is Mal. He may be a child of Athena, he loves his school and stuff, but you two have been 'unofficially dating' for like two years now. Of course he's waiting." I couldn't see her face, but I could definitely feel Aislin's blush at that. They fell silent for a while, so I concentrated on returning to my own body.

When I woke up, my first order of business was to find Carter, who was in the library, along with almost everybody, save Bast, Amos and Walt. They all looked up upon my entrance. "Hey," I gave a quick wave.

"What did you find out?" Carter asked.

"The Greeks are aware of Horus' warning to her. They're bringing her to Olympus, which is apparently the Empire State building. She's traveling with another boy, not sure if he's a demigod, and they'll be in Manhattan by midnight tomorrow, to meet with more people."

"It's good that they'll be here at night, it'll be easier to kidnap her then," Jaz informed me. "Apollo's the god of the sun in Greece. She'll be weaker at night than in the day."

"The thing is, though, she was arguing with him. Her dad drives the sun chariot across the sky every day, so she said he wouldn't be able to protect her. She wanted to go to a place called Camp, but I don't know where that is." I added. "So we'll have to get to her before they meet up with their reinforcements, I guess."

"I feel like this is kind of wrong," Felix said, walking up to us. "I mean, what has she done that we need to kidnap her?"

"We can't just ignore Horus," Carter sighed. "Even if it feels wrong."

"Agh!" Khufu grunted, which I assumed was an agreement with Carter.

"Khufu's right," Bast said. "If she's innocent of whatever Horus is angry with her about, we can let her go. She already knows anyway."

"For now, though, the plan hasn't changed," I agreed. "We'll try to intercept Aislin and Nico before they reach wherever they want to go."

"I think you should go and eat something, put down the research for now," Amos said, appearing in the doorway. "We have most of the information we need, and have access to."

We filed out of the library solemnly, and I could tell we were all wondering the same thing. What did Horus want with this girl?


A/N: Welp, this doesn't seem very popular... I'm being stubborn though. My main focus, since it's more well-liked, will be 'Unusual Disagreements' for which next update is a week from today. So, yeah. Updates for this one, since it's so much less popular, may be few and far between, like a little side project...