So, here's chapter 10! Sorry it's been like, a week since my last update, but school's started and I'm probably only going to have time to publish things on the weekend, unless I manage to type my chapters fast during the week. So, as always, thank you sooooo much to all my awesome reviewers and the people who add my story to their favorites! It really helps, you guys. But we didn't come here to read sappy stuff like that now did we? Do continue, please!

Ch. 10

As I had expected, Zane wanted to see this second son of the sea god for himself as soon as possible. We sent word on ahead with a runner, and Zane showed up the next day at our little rooftop camp, accompanied by none other than Hawkeye.

Fiona was on portal guard, and the rest of us are sprawled lazily out on the rooftop soaking up the much appreciated sun when they arrive. I hear their footsteps from across the rooftop, and heave an exaggerated sigh upon their approach. "Well, high and mighty King of the Rebels seems to have stooped to mingle with the commoners. What an honor," I drone sarcastically, not bothering to open my eyes or move from my nice warm spot in the sun beside Kodiak. I also--wisely--don't specify weather I'm talking to Zane or Hawkeye.

Zane snorts. "Well, you're certainly the lively lot today. I thought you were my best portal guard, not a bunch of lay-about amateurs."

"Amateurs?" I demand, still none of us so much as bothering to sit up. "I haven't seen precious Prince Hawkeye the Professional out here flaunting his experienced professionalism to us by catching demigods with us inexperienced little amateurs lately, have you?" I ask, and Kodiak chuckles.

Hawkeye makes an exasperated noise in his throat, and Zane sighs. "At least he has an excuse. When was the last time you got buried under a brick wall, Christine?"

I cackle. "Not recently, thank the Titans, but I am the one who dug Prince Hawkeye the Professional out from under the wall, aren't I? And besides, if all you need is a serious injury in order to have an excuse, we should have been pulled out days ago. Batman over here is the only one who hasn't spent his time knocked out cold yet," I say, elbowing Kodiak in the ribs.

"Well, you--never mind. I'm not going to argue about this. So, where's this demigod we're supposed to be checking out?" Zane asks, cutting the fun short.

I sigh. "Alright, troops, let's get the show on the road. Xelta, go warn Fiona we've got company; make sure she has all her clothes on or whatever. I have no idea what that kid does when there's nobody around. Kodiak and Katrina, you guys go get our demigod. I'll play hostess to Prince Hawkeye the Professional, I suppose."

Before I have even finished speaking, there is a flurry of activity around me. When I open my eyes less than three seconds later, I am alone on the rooftop with Zane and Hawkeye.

"Now that's efficiency for--" I catch sight of Hawkeye for the first time, and sit up, my eyes widening. "What inHades happened to you? I thought you were supposed to be looking better, not like you recently stepped on a land mine," I comment.

Hawkeye scowls, which really doesn't help his appearance. He's lost a ton of weight since I've seen him last, and has developed dark circles around his mismatched eyes. His black hair is overgrown and falls across his face, gaunt and paled from stress and pain. He walks with his shoulders hunched, taking a good four inches off his height, and there's something about his eyes, other than the circles, that bothers me. He looks. . . haunted.

"What?" he growls, sounding exhausted, ticked off, and not the least bit happy to be here.

I shake my head. "Nothing. Love your raccoon eyes, by the way. Ever considered signing up for rehab?" I suggest helpfully.

Hawkeye's silver eye twitches dangerously (another odd little habit he's picked up since our days under Kronos) and he tenses up. "Christine Savage, you are such a--"

I snigger and wink mischievously at him, tying my red hair up into a ponytail. "Nothing I can do about that, sorry. It's natural. Anyway, c'mon." I lead him and Zane across the rooftops to the portal, where everyone else is already waiting for us. Katrina and Kodiak have the carcass laid out on the rooftop above the portal, with Xelta berating them about disrespect and Fiona picking her nose with enthusiasm. We had to find somewhere to put the body where it wouldn't begin to decay, preferably somewhere cold, until we were ready to dispose of it. I'm not going to tell you where we stored it, because it's pretty gross, even by my standards, and also because we'd probably get arrested if word ever got around. But anyway, we did find somewhere to put it, and it was in good condition.

Zane kneels down beside the carcass, his eyes narrowed, and the rest of us back off respectfully while he examines it. Hawkeye determinedly doesn't look at me, so I constantly glance his way, just to annoy him. Kodiak and Katrina notice, and grin at me.

Hawkeye glowers. "Well?" he asks Zane before too long. "Is he really a son of Poseidon?"

Zane doesn't answer for a moment, then nods slowly, not looking up from the body. "I believe so. He's the spitting image of Jackson, when he was younger, and Jackson looks very much like his father. But. . ." He looks up a me. "You say there was only one satyr, Christine?"

"Yeah. We can go dig what's left of him out of the dumpster up the road, if you want to see."

"That won't be necessary, thank you. But it bothers me that there's only one. Usually children of the Big Three have more than one satyr, because they can't risk being killed. If they haven't been associated with a Big Three god yet, like in Jackson's case, that may not be true, but this boy is very obviously a child of Poseidon. There's no way any satyr could miss it." He frowns.

"What about that Hades girl that got through Portal One with Di Angelo?" I ask. "Charlie never mentioned her having more than one satyr."

"She didn't," Zane says, standing up. "Di Angelo was the only one who knew she was a child of Hades--he kept it a secret from the others. Her satyr suspected, of course, but the girl was never declared a child of the Big Three. That's how Di Angelo got to the portal so fast when she was attacked: he was watching out for her."

"So what do you want us to do with this kid?" I ask, nodding at the body.

"Get rid of it," Zane tells us. "Hopefully, the demigods will never find out he was a Big Three child. There's been a lot of activity around here in the last couple of days or so though. The Bronx especially has been practically crawling with godlings, and some of our runners have been captured up in that area; haven't seen any them since they tried to get through to Portal Six over there."

He looks over at us, and something shines in his eyes, just for a second. It looks suspiciously like pride, and I raise my eyebrows at him. "Be careful out here," Zane tells us, now returned to his usual growling, scowling self. "Hawkeye and I have to go check up on Portal Four, out in the suburbs. There's been a lot of pet dogs going missing in that area in the last week, and you know how telekhines will eat anything."

I cock my head to one side. "And what's wrong with dog meat, may I ask? You gotta eat what you gotta eat when you live on the streets."

Xelta sneers. "And here I thought Fiona was the cannibal," she mutters.

Zane gives her a hard look as he struts over to the edge of the roof, Hawkeye in his wake. "As I was saying, the demigods are bound to make the connection with the missing dogs if we let it go too long, so we should go interfere. I'll send another runner tomorrow night, at the latest," he says, giving us a stiff nod. "Good luck."

With that, he leaps fearlessly off the roof, disappearing from my sight.

"Don't you get rid of those coon eyes now, Hawkeye. They're really classy," I call out to Hawkeye as he makes to follow Zane. Hawkeye flips me the bird over his shoulder, looking murderous, and vanishes from the rooftop.

I chuckle to myself. I never get tired of having Hawkeye around.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Right from the beginning, we were doomed to lose the battle.

On the second night after Zane's visit, there was no warning, not even the slightest indication that the demigods had found us. But find us they did.

At four in the morning, with Xelta on portal duty and Kodiak guarding the tent, there was nothing more than a loud warning shout from Kodiak before the battle began. Katrina, Fiona, and I are instantly awoken by his cry and out of the tent in moments. I burst through the tent flap in full wolf form and smash head-log into a demigod, neither of us having time to react to the sudden attack as we tumble sideways.

I instinctively slam the demigod girl down into the rooftop. She digs a knee into my gut from beneath me, winding me, but I lash out with my front claws and drag them across her face. She howls and flails around, and I hold her down and embed my claws as deep into her neck as they will go, inflicting a deep, fatal wound before Mrs. O'Leary the hellhound rams me in the side, knocking me off the dying demigod and sending me staggering.

A satyr jumps me from behind, and I hit the ground snarling as a long, slender knife blade sinks deep into my side between my ribs, near my spine. I flip myself onto my back, crushing the satyr with my weight, and he releases me but leaves the hilt of the knife sticking gruesomely out of my flesh. I whirl on him as he tries to scramble to his hooves and leap onto him, sinking my yellow fangs deep into his collar and literally beginning to rip him apart, bit by bit.

The freezing cold hands of Nico Di Angelo grasp my neck and drag me back off my victim with amazing strength, completely unexpected, throwing me into Mrs. O'Leary once again. I wrestle myself out from her jaws and launch an attack of my own, snapping my fangs at her as we circle each other, blood and gristle and spit dripping off my lips. I lunge forward and clamp my jaw around her forepaw while she shakes me viciously back and forth, ripping at my shoulder blades with her fangs.

Mrs. O'Leary shakes me off, flinging me a good twenty feet across the roof, through the battle. I haul myself back to my feet, now on the other side of the fight, and try to get my bearings while no one's trying to kill me. Kodiak is holding his own against Di Angelo and two other demigods I don't recognize in the darkness, and Katrina has taken my spot battling Mrs. O'Leary. Fiona is engaged in a wrestling match to the death with a demigod about three times her size, struggling to get a good grip on his neck with her filed teeth. Off on another roof, near where she was guarding the portal, Xelta is occupying at least four other demigods and satyrs, hacking off limbs and goat tails with her giant sword as they try to get past her guard. Three demigods and a satyr lay dead on the ground, and two demigods are approaching me.

Without hesitation, I step forward to meet their attack, knocking the smaller of the two demigods, the girl, to the side as I leap onto the chest of the other one, slamming him backward with all the force I can muster. He tightens his grip on his sword and tries to maneuver it so that it can be used against me, but it is impossible to do so at such a close range, as I am pressed up right against him. Unfortunately for me, he has nothing to worry about.

The smaller girl demigod steps in from the side, her long, slender sword held in front of her, and lands me the biggest wound I've had in years.

She stabs her blade down into my chest, just to the side of my shoulder, and rips down for all she's worth. The sword blade slices down the side of my chest, it's razor sharp edge easily parting my flesh and leaving deep gashes in my ribs, cutting into the bone. The girls drags the blade across my ribs and then embeds it sideways into my body below the ribcage, so that it sinks a good four inches into me, still continuing to push it down.

I fall backwards off the other demigod, a sword shoved deep into my side and the girl still attached to it's handle. I collapse sideways, away from the girl, sliding off the slick blade and crashing to the ground, blood pooling around me, pain exploding in my brain, wiping out my thoughts, laboring my breath. Probably thinking me a definite goner, the girl helps the other demigod to his feet, and the two of them turn away from me to gang up on Katrina, who is still fighting Mrs. O'Leary.

I am far too weak now to even attempt to stand up, my heartbeat echoing in my ears, my fur sticky with blood and my senses fading, so I can do nothing but to watch out of the corner of my eye as Xelta loses her battle. A demigod, faster than the rest, slips beneath her sword with his celestial bronze knife and stabs it deep into her chest, dead center, and flashes back out of reach just as quickly. Xelta freezes on the spot, her sword slipping from her grasp as she falls, her black eyes misting over. She hits the rooftop heavily, her chest weakly heaves once, and she dies.

Above my head I hear Kodiak's voice, but I can't process the words. My vision is blacking out and my senses are failing, indescribable pain crashing in on my brain. My heart does gravity's work, pumping my blood out of my body, killing me. I have no idea what has happened to Kodiak, Katrina, and Fiona, and I'm in to much pain to care.

To my right, I barely notice a commotion, and the sound of the battle gets slightly louder, or so I believe, as if more people have joined the fight. But then my consciousness fades, and I get one more look at the Manhattan rooftop, bathed in moonlight and blood and memories, before everything sinks into cool, merciful darkness.