Me: Hi everyone!
FF: **Mrs Weasley voice** Where have you been?
Me: Ummm…sorry?
Me: **dodges various thrown swords, javelins, daggers, wands, staffs, shabti and writing utensils**
Me: Here's a chapter… **runs and hides**
Whatever he did, it worked.
His boomerang smacked the crocodile square on its nose, making blue light flicker up and down its oversized body. The monster squirmed in obvious discomfort, but it didn't seem to do much else.
One thing it did do was switch the crocodile's focus from the kids, now diving for cover behind the cars again, to us.
I whistled, impressed. "Well you certainly got his attention."
"Yeah." Carter agreed, breathless.
I was still all for the good old-fashioned approach. "You sure we can't kill him?"
"Yeah." He sounded annoyed to repeating the same thing over and over, but resigned, like he did it a lot. "Even if you could destroy his body, he would just reappear somewhere nearby. That necklace? It's enchanted with the power of Sobek." He gestured to the monster's mayor chain. "To beat the monster, we have to get the necklace off. Then the petsuchos should shrink back into a regular crocodile."
"I hate the word should," I muttered. There'd been too much of that in my life already. "Fine. I'll get the necklace. You keep him occupied."
"Why do I get to keep him occupied?"
"Because you're more annoying." And apparently more appetizing. I tacked that on as an afterthought. "Just try not to get eaten again, okay?"
The crocodile roared and charged. I dived out of the way and ran towards its flank, hoping to somehow get a handhold and dive on. The kids had rejoined the battle, with their seemingly never-ending supply of water balloons. Carter was standing frozen, right before the crocodile. I was about to yell to him when he changed.
Blue energy crackled around him, enveloping him and forming the shape of a twenty-foot-tall bird-headed man. When he moved, the thing did as well.
I yelped. "Holy Hera! What in Hades is that?" Calling on my two least favorite Olympians always helps in times of trouble. Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't think Carter heard me as he was too busy grappling with a forty-foot-long crocodile inside his twenty-foot-tall bird man.
I had officially lost it.
Meanwhile, the crocodile picked up Carter like he was a toy and flung him straight into the roof of the nearest house.
Oops.
I really wondered what the mortals were making of this. Even a crazed truck driver couldn't explain away this amount of destruction.
Carter stood up and brushed himself off, completely fine. I felt the need to say something.
"What the creeping crud is that? You're inside a giant glowing chicken-man!"
"Hawk!" he shot back, bracing himself for another attack from the crocodile. "A little help here?"
Crap. I sprinted towards the monster, trying to work out a quick plan. As I did, Carter nailed it in the nose with a good solid, glowing, blue foot, making it sneeze.
I leapt for the creature's tail, praying to all the gods that I didn't slip or lose my footing. That would have been embarrassing. Somehow I stayed on, jumping up its back and working my way towards its neck. The water flowing from between its scales didn't bother me at all.
The crocodile caught Carter's giant sword in his mouth like a dog and began to play tug-of-war with it. Carter pulled back, but his warrior was flickering and he looked exhausted.
"Percy!" he called. "Any time now!"
I managed to grab the necklace and swung Riptide, but that did nothing. Maybe it was Imperial Gold? No, Carter insisted the monster was Egyptian. I hit the same spot over and over again, but nothing.
Carter's face was strained; he couldn't keep the bird-man-thing up for much longer. "Hurry!"
"Can't cut it!" I gasped.
"A clasp. There's gotta be one." The monster tried its level best to wrest the sword from his grasp. "There – on the bottom!"
I swung myself down, using the gold links as foot holds, trying to reach the clasp. Unfortunately, Carter's chicken warrior chose that moment to disappear, dumping a panting Carter in the middle of the street. The crocodile's new toy suddenly vanished as well, making him tumble head over heel backwards, rolling over a Honda and nearly flattening me.
Somehow I hung on, deactivating Riptide and stowing it away in my pocket. I reached the clasp, expecting it to just be a clip. Instead, it was an oval-shaped thing with Egyptian hieroglyphics. Something was definitely wrong here.
The crocodile still hadn't noticed me. Instead, he was fixed on Carter, a growling sound vibrating up from his stomach. Shit. I drew my sword and hacked at the chain again, but Riptide just glanced off each time. Water dripped from between its scales, splashing onto the road.
Carter was struggling to stay on his feet, frantically shaping something in his hands. I had to do something. The crocodile took a step towards him, snorting.
"Percy?" He sounded worried.
"I can't unlock the clasp!" I shouted back. I gave up with Riptide, stowing it away again, and thumped the symbols with my fist. "Some kind of magic?"
Carter's eyes rose to the skies, as if he was going to say 'no duh!' but at that moment the crocodile lurched forward. I was too taken aback to call out to him; all I could do was hold on to the necklace.
His face froze in shock, but he ducked out of the way and threw something small towards the crocodile's nostrils. It shook its head violently, hissing, finally shaking me loose. I rolled away from the monster's feet, jumping up just in time to yank Carter out of the way of its rampage.
We somehow ended up at the opposite end of the cul-de-sac, surrounded by the mortal kids, some of whom still brandished Super Soakers.
"You okay?" I asked Carter. He was sweating and looked absolutely shattered. Meanwhile the crocodile stampeded through yet another house.
He managed to nod, waving away one of the kids when he tried to offer him a water pistol. Speaking of the children…
"You guys," I told them. "You hear those sirens? You've got to run down the road and stop the police." I had no idea how they were going to do that. "Tell them it's too dangerous up here. Stall them!"
They raced off, arguing about what they were going to tell the police. Beside me, Carter swallowed weakly. "Good call."
I nodded, only half listening. The crocodile was still trampling houses and cars, concentrating on whatever Carter had sent up its nostril.
"You've got some moves, Carter," I admitted grudgingly. "Anything else in your bag of tricks?"
"Nothing," he panted. "I'm running on empty. But if I can get to that clasp I think I can open it."
I understood that. This wasn't my monster. It never had been. It didn't come from my world; it wasn't mine to kill. Carter had the power, whatever that may be, to defeat it, whereas I didn't.
The crocodile appeared to be recovering, its yellow eyes slowly focusing on the two of us. Any minute it would gather itself and attack. Dark water still trickled down its body. Water…
The sirens were coming closer all the time. Unless I wanted to be all over the new yet again, we had to move fast. "Guess it's my turn to distract the croc. Get ready to run for the necklace."
His eyes boggled. "You don't even have your sword. You'll die!"
If only he knew. "Just run in there as soon as it starts."
"As soon as what starts?"
The monster sniffed and sneezed, shooting some little thing out of his nostril and over the houses. He turned to us, eyes glowing, and roared.
I stepped forward, raising my arms, fixing the crocodile with a glare. I hadn't done this for ages, but it couldn't be that bad, could it?
The crocodile cocked its head, as if it was trying to work out what exactly I was doing. It soon decided on human offering itself as tasty snack. I closed my eyes and called to the water, expecting at any moment to become lunch.
The brackish water responded to me, swirling around faster and faster, whipping up into a huge spiral that covered the entire road. The monster wasn't able to reach me. It was all it could do to keep its footing.
I cracked my left eye open to check on Carter. Somewhere to the side of me, I saw his form shimmer and change, collapsing in on himself this time. A hawk soared into the air from where he'd been standing.
Now I'd really seen it all. He must know Frank.
The water was becoming heavier and heavier, resisting me more. I gritted my teeth and concentrated on keeping it moving. "Any time now." I gasped, not expecting him to hear me.
It was harder to keep up the hurricane now. The crocodile took a step towards me, fighting against the flow. I spotted a now-human Carter swinging from the necklace, and yelled in frustration. This monster would not get the better of me.
Carter punched the clasp, but nothing happened. The monster turned towards me, growling. My hurricane began to slow, and I fell to my knees, blinking sweat out of my eyes. My head began to throb, and there was a crippling pain in my stomach. Doing this for much longer could be incredibly dangerous.
I dropped to the pavement, gasping. My storm ended, black water slopping back onto the road or blowing out into the swamp. The crocodile roared and crouched, ready to charge. I couldn't do a thing to stop it.
A long CLANG worked its way past my daze. I looked up to see Carter being flattened by a necklace, which was shrinking even as I watched. A few feet away, a baby crocodile squeaked in confusion.
I staggered over to Carter. His karate pyjamas were torn and stained with mud and water. His hair was flattened on one side of his head and, for some strange reason, he was covered in feathers. To be fair, I probably didn't look much better.
"Nice work," I grinned. "Get the necklace."
"The necklace?" He looked as tired as I felt, but he groped around on the pavement and brought up a smaller gold chain that could now only just about fit a normal crocodile. "The – the monster. Where-?"
I gestured to the baby croc, now looking as if it was wondering how on earth it had got there.
Not for the first time, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. "You can't be serious."
"Maybe somebody's abandoned pet?" I suggested. "You hear about them on the news sometimes." I honestly could not think of another reason for the crocodile to be there.
The sirens stopped, like someone had killed the engines on the police cars, and we could hear the kids shouting, "Up here! There's these two guys!" The Mist had apparently made them decide that it was us who trashed their quiet lane and not a lunatic delivery man.
I grunted, picking up the mini croc and holding its mouth shut in case it remembered how tasty we'd looked five minutes ago. "We have to go. You coming?"
We leaped over the garden fence and jogged back down to the swamp.
Once again, sorry it took so long! My computer was kind of confiscated. But thank you all for being so patient and for your amazing reviews.
Enjoy!
-Ciara
