Chapter 10
Disclaimer: I do not own the PJ or HoO series by Rick Riodan.
"Ooooh. It's so pretty!" I say.
"Come on, Kyra. Can we please hurry up? I don't want to be spending my whole day shopping." Nico sighs.
Thankfully, Nico had actually gotten out of bed after I had gotten dressed. Then we had gone to eat breakfast. We were currently in "The Limited" at Arundel Mills, one of the malls in Baltimore.
I had found the cutest dress. It was a strapless, black silk dress with little slashes of red at the bottom. It sort of bubbled out and waved when you spun around in it, sort of looking like a jellyfish when it's bobbing up and down under the water.
Now, usually I don't wear dresses. I actually despise wearing them. But, we had prom coming up at my school this Tuesday night and I was going to see if I could try and talk Nico into taking me.
"Okay, here's the deal." I say, coming out of the dressing room and looking at myself in the three-way mirror.
Nico was sitting in one of the over-stuffed chairs behind me. He had his head tilted to the side and resting into the palm of his hand, obviously bored.
"Yea?" he asks.
"You see, prom is coming up on Tuesday and-" I start.
"No." he interrupts.
"What?" I ask, turning around to look at him and tilting my head to the side.
"No. I don't mean to sound rude, but I'm not taking you to prom." he says.
"Why not?" I ask, placing my hand on my hip.
"Let's just say I didn't have the best experience at a dance." he says, shifting uncomfortably in the chair.
"Pleeeeese! Come on, Nico! It won't be that bad! I promise, if the dance blows, we can ditch and go somewhere else." I say.
"And, you'll get to see me in this." I say, spinning around, making the dress whirl around me.
"Well, you do look pretty good in that dress." he says.
"So, will you take me?" I ask.
"Fine. I'll take you." he sighs.
"Yes!" I whoop.
I hug him and then turn back to the mirror. I look at the reflection of myself and then something catches my eye. Behind me, standing outside the store by the windows, was a man.
He was very tall and muscular from what I could tell. He was wearing a black business suit. Straight hair, black as night, fell down to his shoulders. His skin was white and looked sort of luminous. But that could have just been my imagination.
The weird thing was, he kept glancing at me. Or at least it looked like he kept glancing at me. I get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Let me change and then go pay for this and then we can go to Old Navy. I should be done after that." I say, quickly heading back into the dressing room.
"Finally." Nico says, leaning his head back and looking up, as if thanking the gods.
Nico and I had been at Old Navy for about thirty minutes. When I had come out of the dressing room at "The Limited", there had been no sign of the strange man.
I was looking at a blue and white striped vintage tee when there's an ear-shattering scream. I drop the shirt back onto the display table and grab the several shopping bags I had and my backpack.
We start running towards the entrance. I throw my bags behind a vacant cashier's counter and then catch up with Nico.
Ahead of us, there were people running away from where the food court was. We push past screaming mall-goers and towards the chaos. People passing us probably thought we were out of our minds.
We finally elbowed past a couple more mortals and saw what all the commotion was about. What I saw was probably fifty times worse than what they were seeing.
Standing on a table, eating what appeared to be an old woman, was a creature I had never encountered or read about before.
It looked sort of human, with an exception for it's skin and teeth. It's skin was a metallic looking blackish blue and it's teeth were sharp, covered in the flesh and blood of the old woman it was feasting on.
I quickly touch the pendant strung onto my leather camp necklace. Nico had already gotten his Stygian Iron sword out.
"Nico." I hiss.
"What?" he asks.
"What in Hades is that thing?" I ask.
"That's Eurynomus. He's a demon from the Underworld. He used to live in Delphi and feed off of rotting corpses, leaving nothing but bones." he says, crouching behind a table that had been flipped onto it's side.
"How do you propose we kill it?" I ask.
He peeks over the table and looks at the demon.
"Follow my lead." he says.
"But-" before I can say anything else, he darts out from behind the table.
"Hey!" Nico shouts, waving his sword in the air.
Eurynomus looks up and at Nico. His eyes were glowing red and he had blood all over his face.
He jumps down from the table and starts stalking over towards Nico. I was so petrified with fear that I could barely breathe, much less move.
Eurynomus reaches Nico and stares at him, inches apart from his face. He could easily kill Nico, yet he doesn't. He just stands there, staring at him, his eyes burning.
"What are you doing here, Eury?" Nico asks.
"You have no right to call me that." Eurynomus spits, his voice as sharp as a knife.
"Well, let's see. Who here is the one holding the sword?" Nico asks, raising an eyebrow and showing his sword to the demon.
"Why, you little-" Eurynomus says, snarling at Nico.
He looked as if he was about to loose his temper with Nico. I see Nico's left hand twitch slightly. It looked as if he was motioning for me to come out from behind the table.
I stand up and pull out an arrow. Eurynomus didn't even see me. He was too focused on Nico. I pull back the string and aim.
"You know, I don't really fancy the taste of demigods. I prefer mortals. But I think I could make an exception for you. Or, you could just leave and forget all about this." Eurynomus says.
"I'm aware I could do that…But I choose not to." Nico says, his voice hardening.
That's when he sees me. His eyes grow slightly wider, then he looks at Nico, his eyes blazing with fury. He growls and then tackles Nico to the ground. Nico was so startled that he dropped his sword.
Eurynomus bites down hard on Nico's right shoulder and starts eating the flesh away. Nico howls in pain, throwing his head back and trying to kick the demon off of him. They roll around on the floor and the monster bites down on Nico's leg as well. I fire my arrow but it misses and hits the bell on the Taco Bell sign.
I fumble with another arrow, trying to pull it out of the quiver and notch it, all the while watching the horrific scene playing before my eyes. I finally manage to notch it. I take a deep breath then aim. I fire and it hits it's target.
Eurynomus screeches in pain, looking at the arrow sticking out of his shoulder. His head snaps up and looks at me. I pull out another arrow and aim it. It lodges itself into Eurynomus' forehead.
He stumbles to his feet and struggles to pull the arrow out. He can't though. It's a forking arrow. I could see the glint of the hair-thin wires already lacing around his body. He collapses to the ground, trying with all his strength to break the wires.
I run over to Nico and lean over him. He had his eyes closed and his hand was clutching his wounded shoulder. Blood was gushing all over the floor from it and also from his leg, making a rather large pool around him.
I hear one more howl of pain from Eurynomus and then there's silence.
"Nico." I whisper, patting his cheek.
He opens his eyes slightly and smiles up at me.
"You did it." he says, his voice weak and full of agony.
"Come on. We need to get you some nectar." I say, starting to pull him up.
"No. I can't move. You go back and get everything. I'll be fine." he says, grunting and grinding his teeth as he sits up and leans against a trash can.
"But-" I say.
"It will be fine, Ky. I've had much worse than this. If you recall, I was swallowed whole by that snake a few years ago." he says, smirking at me.
I look at him then sigh. He was right. He had gone through much worse than this.
I bolt out of the food court and back towards Old Navy as fast as I can. It takes me maybe two minutes since the whole mall was deserted now. I head straight to the counter I had thrown everything behind.
Thankfully, it was all still there and no one had stolen anything. I guess everyone was too panicked to even think of stealing some abandoned shopping bags and a backpack.
I grab all the bags then start running back towards the food court. I reach Nico to see the pool of blood has gotten progressively bigger.
I drop the shopping bags and my backpack to the ground, then rip open my bag and hastily pull out the water bottle that was full of nectar.
I pop it open and then pour some over Nico's shoulder and his leg. They instantly start closing up. I hand the bottle to him and he takes a small swig of the godly drink.
"Hey, Ky?" Nico says.
"Yea?" I ask, putting the bottle back into my pack.
"You might want to call Lucas." he says.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because I don't think I have enough energy to shadow travel us back to the condo." he says.
"Alright." I say, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
A/N:
Okay, I was just too excited for you guys to read this chapter to wait till Saturday to upload it! Also, I'm in a fairly good mood today! :)
So, what did you guys think about Eurynomus? Pretty freaky, right? And who do you think that man was that kept looking at Kyra? So many questions! They will all be answered in time, trust me! I actually think this is my favorite chapter that I've written so far...
XOXO,
Mrs-diAngelo25