The nine traveled by foot south along the beach for hours. Percy walked in the water so he was bright and lively while all the others (except the Egyptians) were exhausted and dying of heat. They had long put away their weapons – for the mortals' and their muscles' sakes.
"Thalia?" Annabeth asked weakly. The daughter of Zeus turned wordlessly towards her, her eyebrows raised in question. "Can't you obscure the sun or something?"
"My powers can influence the sky, and I would probably be able to do it if I weren't so tired, but now . . ." She trailed off. Annabeth sighed in annoyance at the Hellish weather.
They continued in silence until noon, when they rested at the end of the chain of islands. They flopped down on the sand, exhausted, while Isabella and Matt purified saltwater for them to drink.
"Well," Percy muttered, sitting down next to Annabeth, "this is the end. So what's so amazing about this place?"
Ben shook his head as he smiled. "This is not the end. There is another island – Ocracoke – a while down there. It's slightly far away." He pointed south with a long, clawed finger.
"I don't see anything," Annabeth said, shielding her eyes from the sun.
"Like I said, far away," He turned away from the southern direction he was facing and looked up. "The sun is high; we should be able to make it there by dark."
"Where?" Thalia asked suspiciously.
"To the meeting place," Lauren answered, handing bottles of water to each of them. "We brought the bottles, don't worry. It's much easier to compact empty bottles with magic and fill them with your own purified water than to bring full water bottles along."
"So . . ." Thalia said, kicking sand into the ocean. "How will we get there?"
"By the easiest means of transportation, of course," Jason retorted with an edge in his voice. He motioned to where a boat was stationed at a dock. A man standing on the ship was yelling for everyong to have their tickets ready.
"We're taking mortal transportation?" Thalia almost laughed.
"What did you expect?" Alice, daughter of Hel, hissed. "Did you want us to ride a whale there?"
"Not a whale . . ." Thalia mumbled as they headed towards the barge, ". . . dragging a boat up from the ocean floor would do . . ."
They traveled by boat for an hour or two until they hit the island. It was unremarkable; unrecognizable. It was indistinguishable amidst the other islands and, if it weren't for it's blood history, it would've been completely boring.
But this was where the meeting place was.
Or so they said. Thalia was beginning to have doubts of the other camp members. They seemed to know too much, and in her book that was a bad thing. She did not trust Alice not Jason. Ben seemed reluctant to work with the other campers, but not malicious towards them and Lauren radiated power but seemed to direct it towards a higher purpose. Isabella and Matt too were powerful but aimed it at destroying a rising evil power, not each other. But she suspected Alice of having a hidden purpose to agreeing to go along with the meeting, and Jason looked like he would turn around and slice open their throats at any given moment.
She decided to avoid both of them.
They had now traveled off the paths and roads and now headed into deep jungle-like swamps. Bull sharks slid through the water and poisonous snakes hung from trees and twisted through the still waves. Rays and skates would rush away from the bottom of the water, churning up sand, obscuring their vision. Percy walked ahead with Ben, who had an internal navigational system that led him towards their destination. He would only tell them that it had a violent and powerful history and it had been visited by few mortals, and only one demigod, and it had been lost to the ages, forgotten for eternity. Until now, Annabeth thought, but kept that to herself.
"Are we close yet, Ben?" Lauren hissed, swatting at insects and trying her best to not walk in the water. She and Ben had assumed their animal-headed shapes, and Isabella had told them how she could grow wings connected to her arms, but she never showed them. "I hate it here! Hot, wet, and bug infested!" She scratched and clawed madly at her face, leaving long, white gashes along her face, neck, and arms.
"Soon . . ." He mumbled for the hundredth time, "soon . . ."
"Yeah, well, soon isn't soon enough," Lauren growled. "If you don't get us there soon, I will have Thalia here run you through with a lightning bolt." She looked at her and smiled. Thalia guessed she was trying to accomplish a friendship with her and Percy and Annabeth, unlike Jason and Alice, who kept to themselves. Ben was distracted by leading them and Isabella and Matt were sharing the "signs" they had both seen and was the reason for the conclave. Thalia fell back to Lauren's side, leaving Percy and Annabeth together.
"So you can transform any time you want?" Thalia asked.
"Yeah, but it burns up a lot of energy. We don't like to become animals that often if we can help it, too many fleas and no thumbs." Lauren winked and smiled at her. "Our human forms are only used when we're out in the mortal world. We like to use the forms of our parents as much as possible."
"Would you get seen by mortals if you went out in public in that form?"
Lauren shook her head. "The Mist obscures our image, but it only distorts us. More and more humans have become immune to the affects of the Mist, so we like to hide our true identities."
"The Mist!" Thalia shouted with glee. "You have it too?"
"Every camp does. It's a primal force, like Aether or Time, Earth or Sky. Beings from before – long before – the gods. The still walk and roam our world in different shapes and sizes, watching . . . waiting . . ." Her voice trailed off.
"Waiting for what?" Thalia asked.
"For the time when the humans are gone from this world, and the monsters pass away; and even when the gods are gone. Then they shall reclaim this world and restore it to the paradise it once was."
"Is that why we're here? Something to do with the primal beings?"
Lauren pursed her lips. "We think the most ancient of days, the most powerful being, has broken the Primordial Laws and is trying to . . ."
"We're here," Ben said, appearing in front of them, eyeing Lauren with a stern look. Thalia guessed she wasn't supposed to mention anything until they were inside the meeting place. She walked around the son of Horus and . . .
. . . gasped.
Shrouded among trees and vines – which dominated the ancient building – stood an immense structure, built entirely of square stones and resembled a castle, except smaller. There was a large wooden door which looked depilated and damaged, but neither Percy nor Annabeth could open it.
"This was the meeting place of the most fearsome of all pirates," Matt explained, "lead by Blackbeard himself. And for years after descendants of those pirates met here and drank a powerful alcohol from a silver-coated skull. Blackbeard's skull." He approached the door, ignoring everyone's wide-eyed stares. "But they no longer meet here. That tradition ended about fifty years ago, when tourism grew around the Outer Banks. But this is still here, and so now we use it."
"But it's just an old, worn-out castle!" Percy yelled, annoyed. He had been dragged from Long Island for this?
Isabella shook her head, coming up behind Matt. "Blackbeard, being a son of Ares, sensed the power in this building. They did not build it, they just used it. It is the most ancient structure in all of the continental U.S. and possibly North America, although history has no record of it." She touched the old wood, taking deep breaths of its earthy scent. "Those who used this fort could incorporate magic into it and changed the entry code; a special phrase must be spoken to enter. But that secret has been long lost, but the last password still lingers on, and we know it."
Everyone gathered close as Isabella and Matt spoke in unison, their voices like glass clinking together in the west wind: beautiful.
"Death to Spotswood!"
"Spotswood was all pirates most bitter enemy, and the killer of Blackbeard himself. He was a powerful pirate-hunter, and even the fearsome sea-dogs feared him. Naturally, they wanted him dead, ergo the password," Isabella explained, shrugging it off.
They all sat around a large, rectangular table. It had a beautiful scarlet cloth on it with golden embroidery that looked as if it had been made that very day. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling with lit candles (thanks to Ben) and luscious food and drinks covered the table.
"Magic," Percy had said when he saw it. Isabella and Matt – using their powers over magic – made sure it wasn't poisonous in any way, and purified it just in case. They all ate, but did not drink for they knew that within the goblets was something much stronger than Kool-aid.
Isabella, sitting at one end of the table, Matt at the other, called for silence. The small light let in through the shrouded and miniscule windows lent her face a skeletal look. When she spoke, her Egyptian accent was pronounced yet enthralling, and they all listened, except Matt, who already knew everything anyone was going to say before they said it.
"Let the first conclave of the Trinity – three different gods, three camps, and three demigods – begin."