Six: Aislin
The Griffin surprised me.
It was massive, and it had a boat tied to it. A boat. You'd think it would be more convenient to just ride between the shoulder blades, right in front of the wings, but nope. Egyptians and their boats.
"Are you kidding me?" I asked quietly. Nico grunted in agreement, and Mal sighed. "That thing has to be more dangerous than the flying chariots."
"A child of the sun god, afraid to fly?" It was one of said Egyptians speaking. I didn't grace the jab with turning around.
"It's called having the lord of the skies want you dead," I snapped. "Any more questions?" Sure, dad was doing a fine job protecting me while in the air, but it'd be comforting if I had more than just dad and uncle Hermes looking out for me. Carter walked up to the griffin, stroking its neck fur, and it leaned toward him, nipping at him in what was probably affection, but looked painful nonetheless. Kind of reminded me of Mrs. O'Leary when she first saw Percy after a long time, only a little less 'over- energetic- hellhound'.
'Little irritated?' Sadie asked me over the link. I let out a breath through my nose, fingering at my bracelet.
'Maybe a little,' I admitted grudgingly after a minute. 'Forgive me for not trusting the gods you worship.'
'Forgiven. I barely trust half of them.' That probably shouldn't have made me feel better, but it did, so I relaxed slightly and walked forward.
"So, Brooklyn?" I asked. "What made you decide to set up shop there?"
"Manhattan was taken," Sadie returned easily with a smirk. I chuckled, though I was still uneasy at the prospect of flying in a boat attached to an unsteady, flying monster. Sure, maybe it was a good monster, but a monster is a monster, and monsters will do what monsters do, when it comes down to it.
"Climb on," Carter invited, and I hate to say that I hesitated, but, well, I did hesitate. Mal slipped his hand into mine, warm and rough and comforting, and he pulled me forward.
"We're heading back to camp, to let them know what's happening and tell them you're safe," Will said, and Mal, Nico and I turned to face him. "IM us when you're done," He and Jake turned back into the forest with one last reassuring smile. Nico merely shrugged, as if he knew it was going to happen, and he and Mal both climbed into the boat, Mal pulling me down after him, so that I was half on his lap with one of his strong arms wrapped around my waist. It was comforting, so I sank into him, felt him tighten the hold fractionally and Nico next to us rolled his eyes. He always made fun of us 'cause he thought we were one of those PDA couples, but we rarely ever saw each other, so I think it should be allowed.
"I have a really bad feeling about this," Nico said in a hushed tone. I hummed in agreement, wincing at the first signs of a developing headache behind my eyes. I really hated being a Prophetess, I would be only too happy leaving the 'see into the future' bit to Rachel. The whole thing just really, really sucked.
Images flashed behind my eyes at lightning speed, I could barely catch a real glimpse. There were flashes of Carter and Sadie, Nico and Mal, and Horus. I shook my head as if to clear them. I was trying to trust the Egyptians here, and if I let my visions control my opinion, nothing good would come out of it.
"We should go," Sadie stated, her voice wavering slightly. Bast looked over to her sharply, nodding after a moment. I looked down at my hands, fingers twined against Mal's larger ones, fingers callused from archery.
"You ever get that feeling something awful is about to happen?" I asked quietly, voice low enough so only Mal and Nico could hear me. Nico gave a dry chuckle, but Mal tensed, his grip around me tightening again.
"No, but I've learned that the best thing to do when you have one of those feelings is to run like there's a hellhound on your back, or pull out some pointy things and get ready to attack," Mal answered. I smiled slightly.
"Do you have any pointy weapons with you?" I asked, squeezing his hand briefly.
"It just so happens that I do. So, what do you think is going to hap-"
An ear- piercing screech cut him off mid word. I dropped to a crouch, hands over my ears to stop some of the noise flowing in. "Dragons," I said, seeing them clearly within my mind. "Automatonic, bronze plating of the celestial variety. Ten feet long, wingspan twelve feet."
"Any weaknesses?" Carter called, surprising me temporarily. Grimly, I opened my bow.
"None that I can see. These are well built, if I didn't know any better, I'd say they were from Lord Hephaestus's forges."
"And how do you know they aren't?" Bast demanded.
"There's no Godly trace about them," I shouted, exasperated. "No God or demigod created these, I'm sure."
"Titans?" Nico asked, unsheathing his dark sword. I shuddered and looked away from it.
"I don't know. I've never fought Titans, I was in South America during the war, remember?"
"You are of no help," he muttered.
"Look for a weak spot," Mal encouraged me. "Just focus, we'll keep them off of you for as long as we can."
"Right," I nodded and sat cross- legged in a position where I wasn't too far in the way. I took a few slow, measured breaths, and focused my attention on the dragons. I could feel them more clearly now, coming fast from the east. There were only three, but they were extremely well crafted, and I hissed, shaking my head.
"See anything?" Sadie called.
"You'll be the first to know!" I snapped back. "They must be heavily enchanted, they're too heavy to fly without it, so if we can take out the enchanting on them, they should break."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Nico demanded, gripping his sword tightly.
"Sit back and leave that to us, demigod," Sadie smirked back at him. "Magic is our specialty."
"She did not just tell me to stay out of a fight," the son of Hades narrowed his eyes. I chuckled.
"You won't have to," I assured him. "The three of us can keep them distracted for long enough to have the magicians destroy the enchanting."
"How long do we have before they attack?" one of the Egyptians, the pretty girl with dark hair and amber eyes - Zia, if I remembered correctly - asked, extending her staff.
"No time at all," I replied as three shadows took form in the air above us.
"We never get any preparation time," Mal shook his head, pulling a sword from his belt and leaping onto the nearest dragon as they dropped. I followed his lead quickly, swinging onto the neck plating of the next dragon, and I could see Nico do the same, stygian iron sword held in an unshakeable grip in one hand. The dragon I held onto swerved through the air, trying to shake me off, and as I tightened my grip, I could feel a pattern of indentations in the metal, and cautiously peered down. It was like a fusion of the Ancient Greek word and the hieroglyph for the same word: obey. It occurred to me then, that these machines might have been created in a godly forge, and then the magic surrounding them masked their natural feel. No wonder they seemed so wrong to me.
I slid the dagger clutched tightly in my one hand through the inscription, the stygian iron cutting through bronze like a hot knife through butter, just as Sadie shouted an unfamiliar word. "Ha-di!"
The dragon I was riding fell to pieces, bronze plates and gears tumbling through the air, just as I was, before a hand caught my wrist. "You okay?" The darker- skinned boy - Walt, if memory served right - looked down in concern. Dangling out over open air with fire roaring around and the heavy smell of machine oil in the air, I could only nod, lost for words. The boy yanked me up, pulling me back into the boat, and I wiped a layer of sweat from my face before grabbing my bow. Zia was in a very literal firefight with one of the dragons, her staff summoning up magical flames to counter the automaton, and Felix appeared to be shooting penguins at the other remaining dragon. Sadie had slumped over, looking extremely tired, and I made my way over to her as the others fought around us.
"You okay?" I asked.
"The divine words take a lot of energy out of me, but I'll be fine," she replied. Jaz hovered over her as well, fretting, and I saw Walt stop Felix's penguin parade by throwing what appeared to be an amulet at the dragon Nico was attacking, which turned it into a very startled, very real camel, and caused it to start falling rapidly. I almost felt bad for it.
Nico joined us in the boat a moment later, looking regularly grumpy and only nodding his thanks at the magician as he sheathed his weapon.
Mal appeared to be having a time of it with his own dragon, which was bucking and weaving furiously, which almost made it seem as though he was riding one of those fake bulls they had in some bars - not that I knew from personal experience, of course - as it dodged Zia's assault. Finally, it seemed as though the heat began to melt the armor, and Mal stabbed his sword deep through the automaton. The lively eyes of the machine started to dim, and then it started to fall, with Malcolm still seated firmly on it's back.
"Mal!"
A/N: I really have no excuse, it's been over four months since I updated this, and I was honestly planning to after father's day, but my computer stopped charging, and I just got it back from being worked on, so, yay, update!