Hey Guys!
Finally, they reach Oregon! But things are much worse than they realised...
The mysterious POV also reappears this chapter, so here's another hint.
This demigod is a descendant of Ares.
Altogether, this makes a demigod who's a descendant of Ares, and has some beef with Celestia...interesting...any guesses?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters/settings/events apart from the ones I have invented. They belong to Rick.
-25-
Celestia
We could sense the monsters as soon as we crossed the Oregon state border the next morning. About five minutes from the border, my compass went absolutely crazy, jolting itself off the dash and bouncing off Kenzie's knee onto the floor. All of us went silent as we watched it spinning wildly on the floor.
"What's that mean?" Nisha asked hesitantly.
"Monsters." I replied, picking up my compass and putting it in my pocket. "Lots of monsters."
All conversation stilled as we drove further. We were on edge, scouring the countryside for any malicious movements. But we saw none. In fact, we saw nothing at all.
The place was deserted.
Coming up on a little town named Vale, we decided to see what was going on.
"I got a bad feeling about this," Zack muttered as we came to the edge of the town, and Jack rolled his eyes.
"What part?" he asked dryly, "The monster-detecting compass going psycho, or the fact that we seem to be the only ones out here?"
Both were not good. I pulled over the car so it rested on the grass, turning and leaning across the plushy leather to face everyone.
"What are we doing? In? Out? Keep driving?"
"Well it's our quest to go in there, right?" Jack shrugged. "Let's go already."
"Jack, we wouldn't know what we were walking into," Nisha argued, think logically, the voice of reason as always, "This could be a trap, or an area we might not want to be sticking our noses into."
I saw Zack and Kenzie both take breaths, like they were going to argue their points, so I cut in.
"Look, yes, it's probably a trap, and it's definitely dangerous. But that's kind of a given on a quest, isn't it? So are we going, or not?"
"I still think no." Nisha's voice was firmer and stronger this time. "It's too much of a risk to just go rushing in there."
Glances were exchanged around the car.
"Let's just go," from Kenzie and Jack. Nisha pursed her lips.
"I still think we shouldn't."
"Well it's already three to two," Kenzie pointed out, "Celestia already said she wants to go."
Guess that settled it then. Nisha sat back against her seat, looking slightly pissed. Zack shut his mouth, realising that his vote really wouldn't change much. I pulled back into the road, raising my eyebrows at Kenzie, who shrugged in return. With five people, we were likely to have disagreements at some point. Hell, we'd already had a couple.
I glanced outside the window. The main street was back a couple yards, but looked desolate. The service station looked closed and the neon sign hanging outside was brown from dirt and gunk. It looked like no one had been around for ages. Or maybe they had been hit by a really intense dust storm. Who knows? All I knew, was that this town was as deserted as the main highway. We continued to roll through the main street anyway, speedometer only docking around five miles. My foot was twitching at the accelerator. Any funky business, and we were out of here.
But there was nothing. No noises, no movements. It was a ghost town, but thankfully without the ghosts. Although they probably could've helped us figure out where in Hades we were going. Suddenly, Zack leaped forward, sticking his arm out between Kenzie and I and making me jump.
"What?" I yelled as I swerved the car back onto the road, "What are you doing?"
"I saw someone. In that house back there. I swear I did."
With a quick look at everyone, I turned the car around, heading back the way we had came. I technically turned across a double line section, which was mildly illegal, but who was going to tell anyone?
"No...no...there! That one with the bushy thing!"
Every single house on the street had bushes. Nisha just rolled her eyes.
"That one. Number 1117," she smirked, leaning back to clean her fingernails.
Right. Didn't know how she got that, but okay. We pulled up across the street, eyeing the house warily. It reminded me of a drawing, the way it was completely still and wasn't moving at all. We all turned to Zack.
"Positive you saw something, Zack?" Kenzie asked, raising an eyebrow, "I mean, it could have just been the wind…"
"No, I saw something." He was adamant. "There was somethi-there! Right there! Someone just moved across the window."
We all gazed over where he was pointing, but the house was as unmoving as before.
"Zack, we ain't seeing it," I told him, but he shook his head.
"Well how many times can you expect someone to walk in front of a window? There's someone there, I swear."
And to prove his point, he opened one of the car's back doors and jogged over to the house.
...
"What in Hades is he doing!?"
Zack pushed open the front door and slipped inside the house as, after an initial moment of shock, we all frantically scrambled out of the car after him. We were yelling his name, voices echoing down the empty street, but there was no response. Jack and I were the first to reach the property, sprinting over the grass. Nisha and Kenzie were close behind, and I could hear Nisha muttering under her breath. Something about Zack and his impulse control, I was sure. We were inches from stepping inside, when Zack gave a yell and came stumbling back out, nearly knocking over Jack.
"Holy crap!"
We all waited for an explanation, taking slightly defensive positions. But Zack didn't seem in too much of a hurry, catching his breath with his hands on his knees. After thirty seconds, we all lowered our hands, turning to him.
"Dude. What the hell?" Kenzie asked, "Bad guys or no bad guys? You kinda just ran out."
Zack sucked in a breath.
"Not bad guys. Body."
"Body as in dead body?" Jack asked hesitantly, and Zack nodded.
We all exchanged uneasy glances. I probably wasn't the only one who had been thinking that's what we would run into. This place was too deserted, and there were no indication of people leaving; cars were still in driveways, mailboxes weren't full. All signs pointed to everyone in the town...well you got the point. The question was, what now? I glanced around the group, and noticed Nisha's pondering look.
"Nisha, what do you think?"
Her face was pinched in worry of a sudden realisation.
"I think that something still moved in front of the window." She locked eyes with Zack. "Someone's still in there."
The temperature seemed to plummet as we turned to look at the front door Zack had left open. I saw him give an involuntary shudder out of the corner of my eye, rubbing his arms a little.
"Was the body..." I floundered for the right word, "Recent?"
Zack shrugged his shoulders, not moving his eyes from the door. Right. Helpful. Dread built up in my stomach as I thought of who, or what, could be inside. A servant of Chaos for sure. But I didn't know what exactly. It could be practically anything. And no one looked particularly eager to find out. Kenzie pushed me forward.
"You go check it out. You're the brave one."
Everyone nodded in agreement, shoving me forward lightly. I glared at all of them, but started walking forward. Thanks a lot guys. I reached the ajar wooden door, the morning sun glinting off the ceramic glass and hitting me in the eye. Squinting in annoyance, I nudged it open a little further with the toe of my sneaker. Everyone gave me thumbs up as I glanced back, so I stepped inside.
...
The first thing that hit me wasn't the smell. I wasn't that cliche. No, the wrinkled body was what caught my eye as I drew my swords. It was an older man dressed in his Sunday bests, propped up against the far wall of the entry hallway. Blood stained his front, running in lines long since dried down his button-down shirt. The source was the hollowed out eyes and deep, fragmented scratches lacing the man's sunspot-scarred face. His mouth was open in a soundless scream, and there was small cloth pouch perked between his blue lips. I gagged a little, before regaining my posture.
Then was the smell.
The man mustn't have been dead long, because he has a real fresh smell, like new roadkill. Without going into much more detail, he stunk. But I was more interested in the pouch in his mouth. It reminded me of something…
"Celestia!"
I jumped as Jack yelled behind me, stumbling through the door. He gave me a exasperated look.
"We called your name like six times. Don't do that."
His gaze drifted to the body behind me, and although his face paled slightly, he didn't blanch.
"That our guy?" He asked to Zack, who was standing in the doorway.
Zack nodded, not even bothering to drop a sarcastic comment. Kenzie peeked over his shoulders, making faces of disgust at the the body.
"Gross." she muttered.
Nisha's face was drawn, but she didn't seem all that disturbed.
I turned back to the man, still thinking about the pouch. What could it mean? I knew I had seen it somewhere...but where? I stepped forward to examine it closer, but Jack's hand shot out, clutching mine and keeping in me in place.
"What?" I asked, turning back to him.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking out the body. Duh."
"Celestia, he's dead. What else do you want from him?"
"I say let her," Zack interrupted, "You wanna go check out the creepy dead guy? Be my guest, but I wouldn't want to be poking it."
Raising my eyebrows at Jack, I slipped my hand from his grasp and crept closer, ignoring his protests. Coming to a stop in front of the body, I knelt down so I was level with him. Glassy eyes stared at me as I waved away the flies and inched my hand closer to the old man's mouth, and the ominous pouch inside. The cloth scratched my fingers as I nudged it gently out, the weight of the old man's limp lips making it hard. With a slight saliva trail, the pouch was in my grasp. Everyone crowded around my as I pulled the stiff drawstring loose, the cloth billowing open in my grasp. It revealed three small bones, yellow with age, a tuft of hair the colour of metal and a plucked flower I didn't recognise. Nisha sucked in a breath through her teeth, eyeing the contents.
"Witchcraft."
We all looked to her, waiting for an explanation, but one didn't come. She was looking from the bag to the man and back again, brow furrowed.
"This is a spell for asphyxiation. Not madness," She muttered to herself, "I don't understand."
"Uh...guys."
We followed Kenzie's pointed finger to the door that had slowly swung open in silence while we examining the pouch. Zack shook his head, voice soft.
"Nuh uh. That's the window where something moved. I ain't going in there."
Jack rolled his eyes at his brother, stepping forward. I followed close behind. Both of us drew our weapons with a barely audible scratch of our blades as Jack reached the doorframe. He turned back to me and held up three fingers.
Three.
Two.
One.
"Zack, Kenz, Nisha. Get in here."
They stumbled in through the doorway, clearly waiting just outside for our call. Their mouths fell open a touch at the scene that awaited them.
"Well good news," I told them, stepping aside to let them walk in more, "The movement you saw, Zack? Just the curtain. But this, however…"
I didn't know how to continue, gesturing flimsily at the room. At the crude drawings, or maybe scrawlings was a more appropriate word, that covered the walls. Depictions of death, destruction and all of it overlooked by an ominous figure clad entirely in black armour, all written in terrifying black Sharpie.
"Chaos," Jack muttered.
We had all made this assumption, but the air seemed to grow colder at Jack's announcement.
"What does this mean?" I asked. "How did this random person see these things? Is he mortal? And what's with the witch's bag?"
"The witch's bag is all messed up." Nisha explained. "It doesn't make any sense."
"And where is Chaos?" Kenzie asked, "Was this a personal visit? Or is it a fallout zone? Is he near here?"
All great questions I wished I could answer. My legs starting pacing on their own accord and I started to drown out everyone else, their voices become low static. I had to figure out what this all meant. Jack shushed everyone as my feet began to tap and my tongue poked out the corner of my mouth. The connections began to come together.
We needed to find Chaos. Dead person, maybe a whole town. Witches bag.
"Cel?"
It was Kenzie over by the desk, shifting through a couple of sheets of paper. I padded over and she passed them to me.
"They look prophetic," she told me, pursing her lips, "Is it possible he knew about Chaos rising before we did? Is that how he died?"
The drawings on the paper were more legible than those layering the walls. Well, kinda. I mean, it was still black scribbles. But these ones were clearly in spirals, looking like a deepening black vortex. I shuffled through them. Most were the same but some depicted extremely graphic scenes of death and destruction. Clearly this man had some prophetic abilities and saw what was coming. But why had he died? And what was with the witches bag? Zack's voice called out from the kitchen. We raced over and all involuntarily took a step back at the scene that greeted us. There was a rat spread across the kitchen bench, entrails splayed and blood pooled and dried. It's rib cage was ripped open and on a plate seated to its right was a collection of small bones. Nisha sucked in a breath.
"He made the bag."
But that didn't make any sense. There were easier ways to end your life. And didn't Nisha say that the witches bag was incorrect anyway? Jack stepped into the room, bloody knife in hand.
"Heart attack," he told us, wiping his blade on a kitchen towel, "Not asphyxiation. You're sure that's what that bag does, Nisha?"
"Positive."
"Did you...uh?" Kenzie gestured to the stained towel, face tinged green, "You know...actually?"
Jack shook his head quickly, holding up his cut hand. "Just needed some blood to figure out how he died."
Kenzie and Nisha both frowned as Zack shook his head, turning away. Jack's face blanked as he realised he didn't have a good excuse apart from the whole 'descendant of Hades' thing. Luckily for him, I had just figured out our next destination.
"Salem." I interrupted before he could make matters worse, "We need to go to Salem."
...
"Uh, Celestia...Salem's near Boston. We're in Oregon..."
"Yeah, I thought Athena said Oregon. Generally when the goddess of wisdom tells you something, you listen."
I raised my hands and they shut up.
"Wrong Salem. I mean 'capital of Oregon' Salem."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Ok, I would clearly have to explain myself.
"Well, this dude was prophetic, right?" I started, "So he would have been seeing visions of Chaos. And sometimes when you have prophetic visions, the people in them can reach out and make contact with you. And if this guy made contact with Chaos, he would have been driven to insanity."
I gestured around me. Everyone nodded like they were following, but Nisha's eyebrows were drawn.
"How'd you get Salem out of that?"
"He was going out of his mind. Chaos was driving him literally mad. He needed to warn someone about what was happening. So...Salem...witchcraft...witches bag."
"That's a lot of assumptions," Nisha remarked, ever the critic.
"But she's right," Jack cut her off, "It makes sense. How far is Salem?"
"Six, six and half hours?" I estimated. "We should get going."
"Hold up, hold up," Zack interjected, "We are actually a team here. Shouldn't we at least discuss this?"
"I'm with them," Kenzie told him, brushing past and stepping out to the front of the house, "Let's go."
Leaving Zack mildly slack-mouthed, Jack and I followed Kenzie back to the car. She was sitting resolutely in the backseat when we jumped in, staring straight ahead.
"You alright, Kenz?" Jack asked, twisting around in his seat.
"We have ten days." She replied stiffly. "We need to move faster."
Nisha and Zack back in the car and Kenzie's remark in the back of my mind, I stepped on the accelerator.
...
The sign remarked 'Welcome to Salem!' in a cheerful mood that was completely unlike that in the car. We were all sullen, lost in our own thoughts. The six hour drive had felt like eternity, especially since every time someone tried to start a conversation everyone else shot them down. This whole 'end of the world' deadline was starting to get to us. There was a lot resting on our shoulders and if we failed a lot of innocent people would die.
"Ok, so now what?" Nisha asked, "We're here. I'm not exactly seeing a giant heart anywhere that we're supposed to grab."
She had a point. It was just house after house after-
"Pull over!"
I jerked the wheel to the left, narrowly avoiding a mailbox and sliding across a manicured lawn. Everyone moved their arms away from where they had braced themselves for impact. They all turned to Zack who had yelled.
"Get out of the car," he barked, "There's something up ahead. I don't know if it saw us."
Choosing to ignore the fact that Zack had just given me an order, I spilled out of the driver's side, swords manifesting. We converged in behind the car, crouching so we wouldn't be seen.
"What was it? A monster?" Jack muttered, questions aimed at Zack.
"Manticore." he answered, peeking around the edge of the car, "At the end of the street. Well, I'm pretty sure its a manticore. I mean it looked like someone had duct-taped a lion and a giant scorpion together, so..."
Oh fun. Just what we needed.
"Do we have to engage?" I asked the group, "I mean, couldn't we just duck through this house's backyard? Avoid a fight?"
The faces around me echoed their agreement. We didn't want to start a fight with a monster this deadly, not if we could avoid it. With Jack keeping an eye on the manticore's steady progress forward, we began to slip through the house's yard, having to vault over a pristine picket fence at one point. After our insistent gesturing, Jack scrambled over too, and we were safely out of the manticore's sight.
"Ok, now what? Do just do a block and come out behind it?" Nisha asked.
Kenzie shook her head in disagreement. "It was coming from that direction. Who knows what's that way."
"Wouldn't that be the way we'd want to go then?" Jack asked, "I mean, that would be where the heart is, in theory. The manticore's probably guarding it."
"Or it's on patrol," Zack added, "It could be leaving or going to the heart. We don't know."
They all had good points. But I still felt ill-at-ease. There was something off here. I hushed everyone as a thump shook the ground. We exchanged glances, moving to the edges of the house. My heart sank. That was definitely not good.
Hyperborean Giants. Two of them. This far south? Practically unheard of. But that was just the beginning. Other giants dotted the ranks behind their Hyperborean relatives, height difference making them easy to spot. Pitch-black hellhounds and empousai writhed around their feet, darting around as their footsteps shook the road. Between them were a select few lycanthrope, fur matted and ventus twirling menacingly. The five of us rushed back behind the cover of the house as a chimera roared, mane shaking. We had to shuffle further under the cover of the patio as Kenzie pointed out a group of harpies flying overhead, followed by a drakon whose close bellow make us flinch.
Glances of fear were exchanged between our group as we all came to the same realisation.
It wasn't just Chaos that was being raised.
It was an army.
...
"That's it. I'm out." We all watched silently as Zack paced on the grass, hands threaded tightly in his hair. "I'm done. This was supposed to be a...a...well a quest. How are we supposed to fight a goddamn army? I mean, Chaos? Fighting him would be intense enough. Did he have to call every monster in existence to the buffet?"
No one responded. Zack was echoing our thoughts exactly. I felt like a pit had opened up in my chest. An army. The five of us had to fight an entire army to stop Chaos, Chaos, from rising. Oh Gods. This would be impossible.
"I'm going home." That drew our attention. Zack's tone had become petulant, and he was looking up at the afternoon sky. "That's it. I'm going home. This is too much. We're fifteen for Gods' sake. Chiron can figure out some other way to defeat this. Send some more powerful and experienced demigods."
"Zack we have ten days," Kenzie replied, sounding exhausted, "You won't get back to camp in time to warn them, let alone to assemble a team and bring them back. Chaos will rise."
"But…" he gestured frantically with his hands, "We can't beat this, okay? We will die if we try. It's a kamikaze mission."
"Die for a good cause." Jack muttered beside me and I nodded. Trust Jack to be the one that understood. This was bigger than just us. This was everything.
"I agree with Zack," Nisha voiced to my surprise, "There is no way we can beat thi-"
"-Never thought you'd be one to back down from a fight."
Nisha glared at my remark. Her hand was on the dagger at her side, as if she was ready to gut me on her escape.
"I know when to come back to fight another day. Then again, a descendant of Athena should have some wisdom. Or at least, some common sense."
"I think you should just shove that dagger of your-"
"- Celestia, no. If Chaos rises, there won't be another day," Jack cut in, "He rises, it's over. We would have two, three days max before everyone was dead. We don't have time to go running for help with our tails between our legs."
Once again, it seemed the decision was down to Kenzie. We all turned to her, bombarding her with our sides of the argument.
"Certain death-"
"-Prophecy-"
"-die, do you want to die-"
"-the world, Kenzie."
"Shut up! Just shut up, all of you!"
Silence as Kenzie glared between us.
"I think we should go back to camp," Nisha muttered not very subtly, and Kenzie turned her fierce gaze her way.
"Then go. Celestia, Jack and I, the people who actually have some morality in our souls, will continue. You know, like we've been chosen to? You two tagalongs can run along home now. Besides, we would need someone to tell our story."
Everyone stared at her in shock as she stood, brushing a smidge of dust off her pants.
"Jack. Cel. Let's get going, shall we."
We followed her as if we were in a daze, still not quite processing that Kenzie had just snapped.
"Toodles!" She called over her shoulder as we rounded the corner and started walking in the direction the monsters had come from.
The last thing I saw over my shoulder was Zack and Nisha's flabbergasted faces.
...
"Kenz...do you...do you want to talk or anything?"
"No, not particularly."
I shrugged at Jack and he made a scolding face at me. We had a silent conversation, ultimately ending in me clearing my throat and matching my pace to Kenzie's so we were walking side by side.
"Are you sure? You kinda just snapped back there."
"We were the three chosen for this quest. We don't go home until it completed, or we die trying. They can't handle that, then they shouldn't have come along. Simple as that."
"Yeah but…" I looked at Jack for help and he mimed cutting off two of his fingers, "We did just reduce our numbers from five to three."
"Makes it easier to sneak into wherever the hell we're supposed to be sneaking into."
I mean, I guess she had a point? But clearly, she wasn't in the mood for talking about whatever was really bugging her, so I dropped back level with Jack and we continued our walk in silence.
The group had split, making our job twice as hard. I sent the majority of our team after our target, who had left with the demigods we had identified as Jack Herondale and Kenzie Lovelace, leaving the others, Zack Herondale and an unidentified female by the house. It was the girl they had left behind, however, who caught my attention. We had no records of her. No birth certificate. No anything. She was a ghost, and I didn't like that. So, while the rest of my team was keeping pace with our target, I dropped back. The whole situation intrigued me. Lovelace losing her cool was expected. But the girl seemed to be quite hot-headed, so why do what Lovelace said? I closed in on their position, and was surprised to find them in good spirits. Shouldn't they be disheartened?
"It worked!" Zack celebrated, high-fiving the girl.
"Not yet," she reprimanded, "And keep your voice down. They still have to make it out alive. Come on, let's get going."
They linked hands and were suddenly cloaked in shadow. When it cleared, they were gone.
Huh.
Looked like things were about to get interesting for our target.
Hope you enjoyed! If you have any requests/recommendations/issues/general comments, don't be afraid to chuck them in a review, as long as they're constructive criticism and not flames. Next chapter will be posted in 6 days, and if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.
Peace out - excusemewhileiasdfghjkl