DISCLAIMERS: Rick Riordan still owns PJatO and HoO, guys. Big time. And we thought WE were mean to Nico…
REVIEW RESPONSES:
LoveUriah101 – Nyx: I responded via PM because it was a long reply. Thanks so much for your review.
Ihearthmalekith – Nyx: Thnx. And perhaps it's the avatar, but for some reason I can't place another other name to you but Karode.
Koryandrs – Nyx: First, sorry if I misspelled that, because I'm trying to memorize how and just tried it without cheating for the first time. And thnx.
oOo
There was not much discussion on our course of action.
Over breakfast – some granola bars and honey buns – Nico asked if we intended to stay out here. Hunter had refused to answer him as she answered, "We already talked to Granny. Best if we were out here doing something. And if you're going to get killed while we're gone, then we might as well be doing something here."
I'd jabbed her roughly in the side. She had waited until he wasn't looking, then sent me an angry look, as if she'd somehow been justified in the cruelness.
Which was odd. This was not the cruelness Hunter usually showed. And no matter what her quarrel was, it was extremely rare that she wouldn't be upfront about it. No, the cold tone and sudden lack of eye contact – like he wasn't worth her – was a game she didn't play.
Until now.
Brook also made a miscalculation in counting our food stores. If I had less respect for privacy or isolation, I'd have pressed the matter again.
"So," Hunter said once everything was packed. She slung two bags over her back and eyed Nico slyly. "Did you have a plan for searching this place, or should I figure something out?"
He scowled. "If you want to comb this place alley by alley, then that's how we'll do it. But we could narrow down the search if, say, there were someone in the city with the information we'd need. Someone who'd know of any mythological activity."
"And you know such a person?" she'd snarled.
"No. But I know how to get him to talk."
oOo
Dr. Chase was pretty nice, especially considering that just a few months ago I had been trying to murder his daughter.
The man who answered the door looked more like a child to me. He had the eccentric smile and wide eyes far too unbound to tell of many years on this earth. The aviator's goggles didn't help. At the sides of his head, the two ends to the helmet flopped back and forth.
"Hello!" he said happily. I could see blond hair trapped in the goggles above his brown eyes when he looked at me. "Are you delivering the WWII Belgian uniforms?"
"Yeah," came Hunter's immediate answer. She dug around in a bag for some paper and produced naught but a napkin and a marker. "Just sign here, please."
The man's smile began to fall like molasses down a tree. "…Where are they?"
"We're not," Nico said in that cold and unwavering tone he took with strangers, "delivering anything. We're looking for some help."
The smile was almost completely gone now. "You're all kids. Where are your parents?"
Nico must've found it amusing, because he flashed a Cheshire smile. "You know exactly where our parents are."
"Right." The man's lips had begun to frown as he shuffled nervously and looked down the street. "Look, I'd love to help out, but I can't just open this place up to every single demigod that walks down here – it's not Camp, and I can't – only if someone was, like, dying…"
As he rambled, he stepped back and began to close the door.
There was a sharp bang as the wood met Nico's palm. The door froze. Dr. Chase started at the strength of my brother's hold.
"Two years ago," Nico said calmly, "my older sister died on the quest sent to retrieve your daughter from Mount Tamalpias. If that's not enough, then I should inform you that Annabeth's sanity is on the line; I think it's in your best interests to hear us out."
Dr. Chase paled. "…Alright. Come on in."
oOo
"So, you're Annabeth's dad?" I asked as he led us through the house. It smelled of cinnamon. In the living room floor, two children were warring with LEGOS while an Asian woman – their mother – played ref with a warm smile. That smile vanished when she saw us.
"Yes," Dr. Chase answered. His own smile had returned, though. "These are my sons, Bobby and Mathew. And my wife."
The woman forced her own smile to life once more. "Hello. You're… friends of Annabeth?"
"Yes," Dr. Chase sighed. "Their names are… uh…"
"You forgot to ask their names?" Mrs. Chase sighed, as if they'd had this conversation before.
My eyes began to wander away from the awkward moment. On the walls were mirrors and little displays of motivational English sayings. There was a painting next to us – it was in warm yet muddy colors, like a forest trail in the fall.
"We're not friends, per say," Hunter explained. "We met her on Olympus in August. …She probably hasn't mentioned us much."
"She knows Nico," Brook pointed out.
Dr. and Mrs. Chase stared at him.
He cleared his throat. "If you don't mind, we don't have much time…"
"Yes! Of course," Dr. Chase said. The smile leapt back to life. "Let's go to my study." Up the stairs we went, highlighting the brothers' LEGO battle with the war drums of our feet on the steps.
The study was similarly childish. From the ceiling hung all sorts of old-fashioned plane models on strings. About five different tables stood in the large space, each depicting a different battle scene. I mean, this guy could really get his nerd on – toy soldiers, all precise down to the uniforms and weapons, fake trees, rivers, tanks, flags, all nine yards. The closest ones depicted Nazis retreating from some ferocious-looking Soviet soldiers.
"Nice nerd cave," was Hunter's first remark. The lack of censoring was, of course, her trademark.
Dr. Chase just beamed. "I know, right? I've just started my World War II work. The Great War just took forever, and this one – look, here's a scene from D-Day-"
"Dr. Chase," Nico sighed.
"Right. Sorry." He sat down in a chair and motioned for us to take places on a nearby bench. The structures lined the walls, and were all different shapes and sizes. Collectables, perhaps? The walls themselves were hidden beneath withering propaganda posters that were waged in a violent war of their own. On his desk, the computer's screensaver was a timeline depicting soldiers and guns and more flags.
There was a moment of awkward silence before he said, "I'm… sorry, Nico. About your sister."
Nico pretended he hadn't spoken.
"What… Who are the rest of you?"
Hunter straightened. "I'm Hunter, Daughter of Kronos. This is Brook, Daughter of Artemis, and Bree, Daughter of Hades."
That lie came easily to us all now.
Dr. Chase stared at us with an uncharacteristically grim face. "You're the three rebels. From Olympus."
"That we are," Hunter admitted with a ghastly grin. "But don't worry. We don't bite."
Nico, seeing her act as representative, was happy to stand down.
We talked for a minute on context – Percy being kidnapped, The Patron rising, the scuffle with Orpheus – before getting down to the heart of the matter. "Nico here," Hunter said, "was sent on a lead to Mount Tam. But that place is deserted. So we're going to scout out this city before heading out in search of another hint. We were wondering if you'd noticed anything… mysterious going on."
Dr. Chase glanced from her to Nico. "Is that true?"
"It is," Nico sighed. "Annabeth herself sent me. We'd have contacted her since, but she's been busy looking for Percy. And I think she mentioned something about saving a few newbies from the Grand Canyon area."
"She's doing alright?"
"Fine. Considering the situation," Nico said dryly.
Dr. Chase returned to Hunter. "So all you need is advice on where to look? No weapons, no shelter, no war uniforms?"
"None," she agreed. "Just advice."
He pursed his lips. "Hm. I don't think…"
"There was a strand of gruesome murders in LA," Brook remembered. "Like when a demon known as Jack the Ripper tore through London. Or there was one time I saw an article in the news about a boy falling from the St. Louis Arch – Percy, we later found out. It could literally be anything. Dead pets, odd smells, a haunted house, UFO sighting…"
"We had one of those," Dr. Chase admitted. "Though it was during a snowstorm, and the kid who reported it was high."
Nico snorted. "I noticed. Is there usually snow here this early?"
"Not this early, no. And not this much. I've heard that snowstorms are crazy this winter all over the place."
"Anything else?" Hunter prompted.
"Um… No. I'm sorry, but not that I can recall. You could ask some of my neighbors, though. Say you're kids doing a statistics study on which news articles are read the most often. You're bound to find something-"
"Snacks!" someone announced from outside. Dr. Chase fell silent. A moment later, the door floated open, revealing his wife standing there with a plateful of cheese and crackers. "I thought you might like something."
"Ah. Thank you," Dr. Chase said, leaning forward eagerly.
"I was talking to the children," Mrs. Chase scolded. Her husband began to pout.
She handed the plate to us, though, with a cold glare. And there she stayed still for a long while.
"…Honey," Dr. Chase began. "They don't need but information. Have you seen anything odd on the news recently?"
"No," she said simply. Her eyes locked on Hunter. "You're the Titan's daughter, aren't you?"
Hunter smiled and offered what could've been a large and slow nod or a small bow. "The Daughter of Time, in the flesh."
"They let the children of demons run quests now?"
Eyes landed on Hunter, including mine. Fear and tension began to bubble up from the floor. Yet she was Hunter; true to her parentage, she wouldn't let the slightest crack appear in her rock. "Titans," she corrected politely. "Titans were sometimes classified as a species of monster, yes, that were oddly god-like. But all in all their own thing. Nobody really has a name for what their children are, because the children don't act like them, yet they're not something the world has owned up to before."
Mrs. Chase narrowed her eyes further and left.
Nico sighed and shook his head. "We should be leaving, anyway. Let's go."
"Don't," Dr. Chase said. "She's just… She knew what she was going into when she joined this family. She prepared to face it, even as much as it scared her. She's learned to love Annabeth and respect your cause. But the terror never left. She's just… nervous… to see Kronos's child here."
"Huh," Hunter mused. "Funny. When I get nervous, I like to eat children."
"For all she knows, that's not very sarcastic."
"Then teach her better. I would've happily given my life putting that bullet through my father's head. Others have. And for all I know, all four of us will in a few minutes." She stood and stretched. "Come on, guys. We should bail before I get hungry. The two boys downstairs looked delicious."
We didn't question her.
On our way out, she halted and turned. "Thanks for the help, Dr. Chase. I'll tell Annabeth you said hi. If you want, we could also IM you if we find anything on Percy."
"Thanks." The smile rested on something about as sturdy as an earthquake as he stood and offered his hand. "We'll… do the same. If we find anything mysterious going on around here."
Then a stern looked crossed his face and he wagged a finger at us. "And stop eating my neighbors! I know you're responsible for the Belgian uniforms delivery man!"
Hunter offered her own grin and shook that hand happily. "I apologize. I'll try to refrain from now on. Have a nice day."
"You, too. And stay safe."
oOo
Most people would know better than to say those two last words to us. But he was a parent; what else could he have possibly offered? Could we ask him to hope for less?
So off we went. We walked up and down the streets in an odd fashion that I'd have gotten lost in if Hunter weren't there to guide me. Slowly, step by step, we made our way closer to the city's towering center. Off to our right, the wide blue expanse of the bay peeked through buildings. The bridge resembled a long arm stretched across it. The farther in we got, the more it seemed like a true city to me; the skyscrapers closed in, the streets became too uniform, the crowd thickened, the smells clogged my nose and made me want to gag. The place struck me as an odd sort of apparatus – a machine with its whirring, indecipherable parts working all around us. It certainly made noise worthy of that.
We made our way through some of the smaller cogs, the ones that swarmed the place and made it dirty but also made it tick, to a clearing. In its center was a statue of machine parts thrown into a heap. Grappling with it were the carved shapes of five near-naked men; it seemed that, to them, the parts had a purpose and the lever needed to be pulled.
Hunter turned away from the sculpture to face us. "Alright. We'll start from here."
"How'd you find this place?" I asked.
"I followed the tourists. That statue, over there? Made by a famous deaf man. It was a sign of inspiration after the fires that happened here a while ago. Ask me to head anywhere else, and I'm lost."
Nico, who was ignoring us, grunted as he shuffled through his bag.
"So," Hunter went on, "our first goal is to find a map. I've time-warped us so far, but we'll have to split up if we're to have hope of covering half this place, and that means we'll all be responsible for our own sections. Go through fast. This'll be our meeting point when we're done." She looked up at the sky. The sun had just begun to set, staining the previously blue bay a startling red-orange, as if the blood of the grand machine had been set aflame.
Nico surfaced from his bag with a map. "Here. I think this is San Francisco…"
Hunter sighed and walked over to stand behind his shoulder. "It's upside-down, idiot. Give here."
He gave her a mockingly hurt look and turned the map over.
She scowled and yanked it from his hands fast enough to make me jump. Behind her, something she didn't see, Nico glared murderous daggers.
The new rift between them was like the earth rippling beneath my feet. Feeling slightly ill, I looked away until Hunter said my name and gave me my section of the city.
With the marker she had offered to Dr. Chase, she drew a circle around the place designated for the statue, then used Anonymous to slice the map into our different pieces. As she handed them out she warned, "Be efficient but thorough. No time nor lives to waste. Do what you can and meet back here an hour before sunrise; we'll discuss where to go from there. Chances are we'll have to spend another day or so here, so don't stress. If something goes wrong or you get lost, retreat back here until someone else shows up. No running off into somebody else's section. That way, we'll know where to search for you if you go missing. Am I clear?"
We all nodded, even Nico, who did it grudgingly.
She turned to examine the statue once more. This special, prize gear had been cleared of snow and gleamed in the moonlight. The light just shot off it at different angles and then would calm at the slightest tilt of my head. That thing had been polished an cherished for some time now, apparently.
"Splitting smart?" Moon asked quietly.
"For now," Hunter decided. "Let's head out."
She, of course, didn't demand we 'stay safe'.
oOo
The night was too peaceful. It scared me.
Every little sound, every beat to the machine's strange tunes, every side conversation, every elevated cry, each little outburst, the last little slight of foot on the icy sidewalk, every car's rumble, each honk, all the angry yells and surprised pops and distant siren – great gods of Olympus, if this was considered the norm, I'd hate to see what a 'real' riot would look like.
Over all, we'd managed to cover about half of the city. Between some gentle time warp, shadow and undead help, and the pack, progress was a tad faster than predicted.
"Are we going to sleep indoors tonight?" Brook asked casually as we took a new route to the city's outskirts.
Hunter shook her head. "No. One, I'm not going to risk being discovered by people and monsters. Two, our emergency money isn't enough to be taking hotel rooms each night. Three, when we're found, we don't need to bring that down on the clueless people in the other rooms. Maybe we'll look for an abandoned house."
"We should set up a watch," Nico muttered.
"No dur," she sighed heavily. "How about you take the middle one?"
Then she caught my gaze. I glared with all I had; I wanted to know why she was doing this, what he'd done to her, how to help-
"Or, you know. A more pleasant shift," she offered. I nodded and decided the rest could wait.
"I'm fine with middle shift. I can spend one sleep period sleeping and the other trying to reach the dead in my dreams," Nico suggested. "There's bound to be something around here."
I turned to stare. "You can reach the dead through dreams?"
"Yeah. Long-distance training technique."
Eventually, we discovered a shady-looking neighborhood at an okay distance from the other houses; not too close as to endanger them, and not too far as to lengthen our return trip endlessly. As we walked, the snow began to drift down again.
Snow is painfully blank-looking.
We made our way down the street as it came down in white flurries. Like mobile blind spots. They fell down on the hard road to make it soft and untrustworthy, sent the few fearful locals running inside to locked doors, took away the grass' many shades and shapes, and sure enough was back in the clearing taking the lustrous shine off that statue.
It grew thicker as we went. We huddled closer together as the cold fell with it; Moon seemed to be the least troubled by this. She weaved her way among our feet and panted happily, sending white puffs of her breath into the air. Nico shuffled nervously and kept his eyes constantly moving. Hunter just trudged on. I did what I always did – I followed her.
A strange gravity settled over me, though. The unnatural silence of a frozen machine once so loud normally wouldn't have been so bothersome. But in it I nearly asked aloud what was bothering Brook. Where Shay had been taken. What had Nico so on edge, so defensive. Why Hunter was in a bad mood. I had myself familiarized with her particular female-born mood swings, both by day and by the look in her eyes, and I knew this wasn't it.
There was something wrong with everyone now.
The fact was painful. The last of last night's resolve melted away and crumbled into ashes at its feet. The lack of sleep decided to join the party, too, and scattered the dying embers into the wind. The snow put them out for good.
Some things, I decided, were just too quiet.
I glanced down at my iPod. Misery Loves My Company was still on pause. I was ready to put my ear buds in when Hunter spoke.
"This one."
I looked up. Before us, drowning in the snow, was a white structure leaning dangerously to one side. It reminded me of a drunk man. The windows were gone and the front door ripped off its hinges so hard, the door frame was hanging at an odd angle.
"There's no insulation in this," Brook noted. "It's older than our house in Oswego."
"It'll work," Hunter sighed. Her voice had that dragged-in-mud tone that comes with tiredness. On we treaded, up the stairs and into the small but empty living room. Dust was everywhere. A few large spiders scrambled in panic up the walls when they saw us. Moon gave them a warning growl. After a quick check of the rest of the house, Hunter gave us the signal to set up camp in that small living room.
"There's no room upstairs for a good defensive position, and downstairs this is the farthest place from the wind," she reasoned. Here, the broken windows had been boarded. The concrete floor and cracked, aged walls were gentle but strange to me. Like those times that make you feel bad, because you see an old man, and he waves to you, and as you wave back you doubt his motives and mentally write him off as creepy and perverted. These walls were like that man. I knew I shouldn't think so badly of people when I first see them, nor of these structures, but it's instinct. Instinct that's saved my life. The smell of dust and smoke still hung heavily here, and those weren't always pleasant reminders.
We set up our sleeping bags – Hunter, at least, had known what to pack. She'd even brought a spare for Nico. We bundled them up together, us three sisters, on the far side of the room in a corner where we felt was the warmest. In preparation for the cold night, we didn't leave much space between us. Moon closed the rest of it by curling up in the last little uncovered piece of floor. Nico, who favored closeness and physical contact much less, settled down farther along the wall.
Night strode into the room seemingly from nowhere. He sat in the middle with ears erect, and his tail still.
"Wolves take first shift," Brook mumbled sleepily around a yawn.
I smiled at her voice and curled up tighter in the soft silk of the bag, enjoying the warmth. It turned cold when I felt her hand shaking next to mine, though.
"Report any dreams you have in the evening," Hunter sighed. "Nico, wake me for third shift later."
"Hm," he replied.
And so, as the sun traveled slowly overhead and the snow rusted up the giant machine, we slept.
oOo
Nyx: Not really the chapter to say this, but I like Redeemable a lot better than Rejects. Faster-paced.
Nic: That it is…
