Chapter 25: I will walk
The room I woke up in was new to me. Waking up in strange rooms was something I had started to get used to though. This room was obviously a hotel room trying to create a fake feeling of home. The room was cosy I suppose. I had never really known cosy. My mother was more into the modern interior style. Cold steel instead of breathing wood. It was nice I guess but it wasn't cosy. The orphanage had been a cold cruel place, the people made that happen more than anything. Camp may have been cosy, but the Hermes cabin was too crowded to notice if it was cozy at all. This room was (in my opinion) cosy. The floor was carpeted red and the walls were wood brown. Beside the single sized bed I was in there was a night stand with a reading light and in the top right corner of the room there was a small TV with an antenna on top. The thing looked so old and beat up I wondered if it was a colour TV. The bed I was laying in was comfortable, of course imagining how many people had slept in this bed and how horrible you could imagine the washing machine in this place was comfort was hard to find. Of course every motel was like that, even in a five star you were sleeping in a bed that had been used a million times. I wondered how the neat freaks survived hotels.
Getting up was a pain. I was still fully dressed. I didn't remember how I got here, the last thing I remembered was passing out not long after trying shadow travel. I was still feeling the side effects of trying that little trick. I felt like I hadn't slept in days, my eyes lids found each other against my will. I had to get up, I had more important things to do than sleep. Standing weak on my knees I moved to the wooden door which was about 5 foot from the foot of the bed. It took me a while to stumble my way to the door, but I made it without crumbling down. The next room had the same walls and floor. The room had a bunk bed, room for three apparently. Of course if my memory served me right the third person had stabbed us in the back. I had hoped Luke would be in the room but there was no one there. There were two doors in this room. One I guessed led to the bathroom (always the same thing, a toilet, sink and shower in a room so small you couldn't move in inch without bumping into something) the other had a lock on it which made it obvious it was the door that led outside. I wondered where I was, how far was it to Los Angeles from here. I needed to find Luke and get moving. First I had to sit down. The room had started spinning and I felt like I was going to be sick. I walked to the overly small bathroom and splashed some water in my face. I looked worse every day. I was closer to a corpse than a person now. My face was getting slimmer everyday. I never thought I was very attractive but now I looked very very unattractive. Even standing on my feet with my face still drenched with water I nearly fell asleep on the spot. I was fighting to keep my knees from giving in when I heard the door. I turned around and stumbled a few steps when I saw Luke entering the room. He looked tired like me (but I always looked tired) and was carrying a white plastic bag.
"Angel you're up." He said. I tried to speak but I was too weak. I just wanted to lie down. I dropped myself on the bottom bed of the bunk bed and closed my eyes. "Not for long I see." Was the last thing I heard.
It was a dark room I was in. I was alone, or at least I thought so. Was I in the darkness again? I hoped not. If I went in there again I would probably never make it out. I doubted that I would last time. But I had and now I couldn't wake up, maybe I was dead. Was this my punishment? I doubted it. This didn't seem all that horrible. But given who I was Hades would probably want to give me the worst punishment he ever gave anyone. Or maybe I wasn't that special. I wasn't exactly sure. I don't know how long I spend in that darkness before the darkness started to colour up. Something was happening, the world around me was shaping itself, was this a dream? The world changed until it took a solid shape. I was standing in front of a sub urban house, two stories and an attic. The outside was white although inside there was not a single room painted white. The former inhabitants didn't like white. It wasn't homey for them. It was an empty colour. So inside there house, there was no white paint at all. The curtains were dark grey, so were the living room walls. I looked at the house, something was important in there, I just didn't know what. I walked up to the porch and towards the front door. I had to enter this house at all costs, but I couldn't be caught. I wore black gloves, I could feel a second fingerless glove on my right hand but I couldn't wear just that. I would still leave finger prints. The front door was locked obviously. I the had learned the art of picking locks a long time ago. I can't really explain how it works. It's something you try and succeed in. The door opened with a cracking noise. How long had this been closed? The hallway was dark and empty. There was a brown cupboard on the side and a stairs leading upwards on the left. What I needed was in the living room though. I walked past the cupboard and took the door on the left. The living room had two couches, a small table which the family probably used to eat dinner in front of the old TV that stood on a brown TV set with wheels underneath. There was no one there, at least I saw no one. When I looked closer, there was someone. There was a girl, no older than 10 hiding behind the couch. I smiled, I had found my target. She looked at me with terror in her eyes. Around her neck hang a silver pendant in the shape of an owl. That's what I was after, the girl was just a bonus. Given how scared she was she probably would have given me the pendant without a struggle, but I didn't give her that choice.
"Please...don't kill me." The girl said. She was sobbing now. It disgusted me, she was so weak. Looking into the face of death most would be. Those people were weaklings who didn't deserve to live. Those that looked in deaths eyes and smiled, those earned their lives.
"Oh I'm not going to kill you." I said. "That wouldn't be half the fun." I smiled. The torture last for hours. I kept asking her about the pendant. How she got it, if there were more, if it was the original. She cried in pain and claimed she didn't know. I didn't believe her, and even if I did I enjoyed the torture too much to stop. Eventually her screams didn't satisfy me any more. So I took her pendant, slit her throat and left her to die. I remembered Samael, how he doubted for a second about killing that girl. He had grown so weak. Here I was working my ass off while he slacked around crying about it. Of course I wasn't much different. The real me. This wasn't the real me. This was Colt. Had he done this? Could this be stopped? Could I ever wake up again?
It would be fourteen hours before I woke up. This time I felt better, not a lot better, but better. Now it was like I had slept an hour or so and woke up to go to work or school. Of course that was still weird since I slept fourteen hours and a lot more before that. (Luke didn't bother checking the time when I passed out so I guess we'll never know.) I didn't feel so weak any more but I felt like I could have some more sleep with ease, if it wasn't for the dream. What I had dreamed about still haunted my thoughts. Had that happened or did it still have to happen? I hoped for the latter, maybe then it could be stopped. Of course if any of my dreams had taken place in the future I had been doing a horrible job changing it. Jake had always told me the future could be changed. I remember how he explained it.
"So how does this future seeing thing work?" I asked. I had been living with Jake for a few weeks. He had told me about it vaguely when I talked to him not long after Samael nearly killed me, but after that we never discussed it again.
"I don't know, I just see the future sometimes. I don't know if you've noticed but I don't always know what's going to happen. Just sometimes I know what's going to happen. I don't see it in a vision or whatever, I just know. Just as sure as I am that one times one is one, I'm sure about what's happening next. And that also means that I can change it. If I know I'm going to jump to the right and get killed by whatever is attacking me, I jump to the left." I still didn't really understand. Of course now I knew that he had been lying. That was how his abilities were before Hyperion, now he knew everything. And he had adapted. It made me wonder, why didn't he prevent his own death? Was it inevitable? Was there no way he could have avoided Phthonos killing him? I wasn't sure.
"So have you been able to change the future?" I was curious. Jake was so convinced that he could so it must have succeeded many times, if not every time. Jake's facial expression went sad though. He looked down and his smile turned into a frown. I wondered about the saying turning a frown upside down. Didn't a smile turn into a frown more often?
"Not always. There were some cases I did. When I was fighting this giant scorpion with a friend of mine I was able to save her." To this day I don't know if he meant Sophie, Ashlyn or someone completely different. Some days I wonder about that. "But when I fought Hyperion...I saw what happened to Dean, but I couldn't save him." Dean, a.k.a Darius Nikolas. Jake always beat himself up about not being able to save him. The fact that he knew it was going to happen made it even worse. But the blast of Hyperion had been so powerful that there was no way he could save his friend. I knew how it felt to be powerless. After all I had seen all of my friends die and I couldn't stop it. All I was good for was avenging them.
"I'm sorry about Dean." I said. At the time I didn't really care a lot. I thought Jake was all right but I wouldn't call him a friend. Jake looked at me and tried to fake a smile.
"Don't worry about it man, that was years ago. I can change the future, but sadly not the past."
I was still in the lower bed of the bunk beds. The lights were off and there seemed to be no light coming from behind the curtains. I had woken up in the middle of the night, of course. With some effort I got myself out of bed. Obviously I was still weak, partially because I hadn't eaten in at least a full day. Luckily Luke had left something to munch on. There was some bread and peanut butter. Of course there were also some Reese's around, same old Luke. I ate two sandwiches and had a zip of water. For a moment I thought about laying back in the bed but I decided against it. I had enough sleep. I unlocked the door, took the key card which was on the windowsill and walked out. The fresh air felt pretty good. Looking up into the darkness of the sky I felt better than before. Strength was returning to me. I could walk normally and I could keep my eyes open with ease. The night never seemed to have a tiring effect on me. It was kind of chilly outside (especially since I was walking around in a t-shirt) but that didn't bother me. I walked around aimlessly around the motel. The motel was a simple building. There was a middle building which had the lobby and then two more sides which came forwards making it shaped like a mansion in a way. But this building looked like it should be thoroughly inspected...of course most motels did. Around the building there were mostly grass fields. On the east side of the building there was some kind of machine that reminded me of a generator but I doubted a small time motel like this had it's own generator. Maybe I was wrong about what it was. After all I wasn't even sure if it was even a generator, it was just what I thought a generator looked like. I went about three laps around the building, mostly because I was happy to be out of my seemingly endless slumber. Being able to walk around again felt weird, the cold breeze felt weird. I wondered if this was how a coma patient waking up felt. It probably did. Even though I hadn't been out for that long to me it seemed like ages. The truth was I doubted I would ever wake up, I nearly started wondering if I was already dead. But I had woken up. Here I was walking around in the real world outside the dreams I had. Eventually though I did return to my bed. Mostly because I knew that the next morning I would just wake up to continue our travel.
I was right, the next morning I woke up normally. Luke was surprised that I woke up if nothing had happened. I told him about the night before. How I had woken up and went for a walk. He seemed slightly pissed that I hadn't woken him, but I figured he needed the sleep. It was true that now he looked a lot more fit and focused than he had before. None of us had gotten much sleep over the course of our travel. I wondered if Maximus had trouble sleeping. After how he betrayed us, he should. Luke and I packed up and left. Luke told me he found out that I had shadow travelled us miles ahead. We were about 60 miles away from Amarillo, Texas. The next city on route 66. We were about 3 miles away from Howardwick, a small town. Apparently I had brought us to a road side plate. It had been sprayed on with red graffiti paint. There was a line from a movie I saw ages ago, full metal jacket. It said: 'Only steers and queers come from Texas, Private Cowboy. And you don't look much like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down' Whoever wrote that obviously didn't like Texas all that much even though he had left out the final part of the quote. Probably because who ever wrote it knew it would be painted over immediately. In the movie the gunnery sergeant said that to one of his new recruits. He was a bastard but his recruits became pretty good soldiers. One didn't...but instead of making me explain that, go watch the bloody movie. The reason I knew the place was because I had been there before. Martin wasn't the best guide...he strayed from the right path quite a few times. When we did we ended up in Howardwick. The town wasn't all that special, but I remembered the plate very well. I laughed about it at the time. Of course after that we went to Detroit (like I said, major detours.) Luke had dragged my pretty much lifeless body to a near motel and checked in. I pretty much knew the story from there. The day and a half we were there he mostly stocked up on supplies and he had talked to Maria a lot.
"Hey Angel..." Luke said as we marched forwards. There seemed to be doubt in his voice. I wondered what he had to say. We had been walking about an hour now. After he told me what happened we both had been quiet. Quiet seemed to happen a lot lately.
"What's on your mind mate?" I asked casually. I wondered what he was going to say. I hoped it wasn't about Max. I really didn't feel like talking about that. I had started to see Max as a friend and he betrayed us. Talking about that wasn't going to help at all so I would rather we not talk about it. I knew Luke had told Maria. He didn't have to tell me that in order for me to know.
"Something Maria said." Luke still sounded doubtful. Then he stopped walking. I took a few more steps before I noticed. When Luke wasn't walking beside me any more I stopped and turned my head. Luke was just standing there, eyes pointed to the ground. "She thinks we should go back." Luke said. I was hardly shocked. I understood Maria, but I didn't agree. But Luke doubted, I got that more than anything. We had just passed half way and we had lost one ally to the enemy, had been shows that we were merely being toyed with and found out that we barely understood the point of this quest. Truth was, we stood no chance.
"Do you agree?" I asked. That was much more important than what Maria thought. If he wanted to go back I was screwed. Because there was no way I was going to go back. I was going to continue until I dropped dead. And without Luke I wouldn't last very long. It reminded me of the prophecy. I would face the lord of the dead alone. Was this how I ended up being alone? Was Luke going home?
"I don't know man. We can't win this. If we continue there's not going to be a happy ending." Luke said. I saw the fear in his eyes. I think both of us had tried not to be afraid, but because he had something to lose, that was extremely hard. "But we can't turn back either. We've past the point of no return. If we don't do anything Phthonos is going to turn Samael or Max into a murdering machine and then we're all going to die." Luke was right about that. Of course there were other heroes. But I doubted that whoever got Hyperion's power would be beaten by a simple hero.
"I know how you feel man. And if you want to go back...I get it." 'You'll also be sending me to certain death but let's not take that in consideration.' I thought to myself "But I'm going on. I can't stop. This task was given to me so I have to see it through till the end." I turned my back on Luke. Every step I hoped to hear another set of footsteps. But I didn't. The further I walked, the more I started to realize. Luke had turned back.
I walked alone. One friend had betrayed me, the other had left me. I was walking down this road alone. I knew that I stood no chance now. How could I beat Phthonos alone? I had nearly died more than once, Luke and Max had patched me up those times. How could I survive if I was alone? I would be dead before reaching Amarillo. 'Alone the lord of the dead he shall face' the line echoed in my head. What Rachel had said had come true. I wondered if alone I could survive. The prophecy never mentioned my death but it never mentioned I would come out alive either. The rest of the prophecy made little sense to me. Maybe none of those lines involved me, even though the prophecy was meant for me. I wasn't exactly sure. I wasn't sure about anything any more. I walked for hours trying to figure things out. After hours I still didn't know a thing. My feet hurt and I was tired of walking. The sun started to go down, it was later than I thought. I figured I was about half way towards Amarillo. I wasn't going to make it in one go. I had to rest. I collected some branches and other dry wood and Luke had bought me some lighter fluid when I was doing my 24 hour long nap. I threw some of the fluid on the wood and filled Shadow-edge in it's lighter form up. I didn't exactly know how this was supposed to work. The same flint was turned to turn the lighter into a sword that was usually used to make a small flame. In my head I was praying for a flame and when I turned the flint that's what happened. A small flame appeared on the lighter. I lit the branches and a small fire started. I closed the lighter which immediately killed the flame. Now it was like a normal lighter. That's when thought popped into my head. What if I want my sword? I opened the lighter and turned the flint again. Now the lighter turned into my weapon of choice. The lighter seemed to react to my thoughts. How connected was this thing to me? I inspected the sword. It looked exactly the way it did before Erebus touched it. A celestial bronze sword with the name Shadow-edge carved into it. In the moon light the blade seemed darker than normally. It seemed to have some sort of dark shade. Maybe it was just me. That's when I heard a noise. Leaves rustling and feet moving. Something was closing in on me. I got up and pointed my sword towards what seemed to be the source of the sound. A group of bushes, thorn bushes with flowers. That's when I heard voices.
"Ow, there's a thorn in my arm."
"You're standing on my foot."
"I have a thorn in my arm!" There were two different voices. Two people. I could guess who they were. I wasn't very happy about it.
"Come out you two!" I said with my sword still pointing in their direction. That's when they popped up. "Alex Jones and Hectar Garner, what are you two doing here?" I was surprised to see them. How did they get here? Other than a few scratches (probably from the thorns) and some dirt on their faces they seemed unharmed. Hectar opened his mouth to speak but Jones jumped ahead and spoke (something he seemed to enjoy very much.)
"We're doing what we were meant to do. We're detectives. Here to find you three missing demigods and bring you back." Jones said. He looked around the fire, I think that's only when he realized that I was alone. "So where are the others?"
"They left." I wasn't going to tell them what happened exactly. Especially not that Maximus betrayed us and that Luke had abandoned the quest. Better to tell them as little as possible. "So how did you end up here?" Again Hectar tried to speak but Jones was faster.
"Easy, we followed you."
"What road are we following?"
"Well uhm..." He had no idea. That they were in pursuit of me I could hardly believe. But they hadn't purposely found me. That must have been luck. I had seen their 'detective' skills. They sucked. I should probably have advised them to find a new hobby. But they annoyed me too much to even try and talk some sense into them.
"So you didn't follow us. Again, how did you get here?" I was already getting annoyed by them. They were so foolish.
"Well it was noticed pretty soon that Luke, Maximus and you were gone. Chiron was furious. So we took the task of hunting you down and bringing you back."
"How did you know where we went?" Now Hectar got a moment.
"We overheard a Iris message between Maria and Luke. We heard him say he was in Pittsburgh and that you were headed for Los Angeles. So we went after you." Hectar said. "By the way do you have any cheese?" I ignored that.
"Did you get permission?" Their faces answered my question. "Please tell me you didn't turn three campers leaving without permission into five." I knew that that's what they did.
"We figured that when we brought you back Chiron wouldn't mind." Jones said.
"Do you have any cheese?"
"So then what? You left for LA, how did you get here."
"Well we took the train from New York to Chicago. We figured we were only one train behind you." I knew that they had taken the train Luke, Max and I couldn't wait for. They weren't far behind us. They probably caught up to me when I was knocked out in that motel. "Then we hitch-hiked from there. And met some rather creepy people." Hectar elbowed Jones in the stomach.
"Let's not talk about that." I didn't even want to know...
"Anyway..." Jones continued. "We ended up being left on the road side not too far from here when we saw this flame. We were actually just hoping to get something to eat but we found our target at last." Pure luck.
"And what made you idiots decide to do this!" Alex obviously didn't expect this sudden outburst.
"We'll be heroes." He said weakly.
"Heroes! Is that why you're doing this! People die trying to save everyone but you just want to be heroes! Get the fuck out of here!" I raised Shadow-edge, if I had to I would beat them up till they left. I would stake my life on it that I had faced tougher challenges than them. The pulled out two simple bronze swords. Were they really going to try and fight me? It seemed like it. That's when I heard something. More rustles in the leaves. More than before. Things were moving in the bushes. And these things were big. When the first of the hell hounds came out of the bushes I knew we were screwed. The hell hound looked even worse than the one I encountered at camp half-blood. It was bigger and it's head looked angrier. It's teeth were sharp as nails and it's eyes black as night. Of course it wasn't the only one. Alex, Hectar and I had encountered a pack. Not long after the first one came out of the bushes eight more followed. We ran as fast as we could. We actually ran the right way over the road. We didn't really have to be afraid of cars, it was nearly midnight after all. Not much traffic in those parts at that time. The hell hounds were right on our heels. I ran behind Alex and Hectar. They were faster than me for one and staying behind was the best idea. I didn't like these guys but I didn't really want them to get hurt. A hell hound caught up to me pretty quickly. It ran beside me for a while. I Still had shadow-edge in my hand. For some reason it seemed to have grown even lighter and slightly shorter. Without notice the hell hound lunged for my heel. If he got me to the ground I was dead meat. Just before it's teeth grabbed hold of me my blade connected with it's neck. Before I could blink the monster had disintegrated into dust. One down, eight to go. I started slowing down slightly. For one my stamina didn't allow me to run at that speed for a long time and secondly I wanted more hell hounds to catch up. I didn't think I could get them all in that way but I had to try. To this day I think I did quite well. I took down two more in the same way before one got the best of me. It's teeth sunk deep into the back of my leg. The pain was horrible. Still, I had worse over the trip. I remembered how the Leukrokottas had nearly cut my eyes out. That hurt a lot more. Still the pain was worse enough to make me collapse. In my fall I managed to cut the hell hound pretty badly. It didn't die just yet but it wasn't able to keep it's teeth in my leg. As soon as I landed on the concrete I turned around facing the hell hound. There were six left. One was badly wounded though. The other five were still heading towards me. Behind me Alex and Hectar had noticed that I had fallen. What they did surprised me a great deal. They turned around, they were running towards me and the hell hounds. Maybe they were braver than I thought. The first hell hound that got to me lunged at me trying to bite me in the neck. I cut it down before it reached me. Fighting these things while on the ground wasn't all too bad. Alex and Hectar were each fighting a hell hound. The others were coming towards me. I didn't think I could take them both out before one got me. If they attacked simultaneously it would be the end of me.
That's when I saw a car near us. A white van if I could believe my eyes. I wondered what mortal would see. Three teenagers slaughtering some helpless dogs? Probably, teenagers were bad news in any adult mind. The hell hounds coming towards me seemed to be distracted by the headlights of the car. The hell hounds fighting Alex and Hectar seemed much less interested. The van was going too fast for my liking. No one went that fast when he saw dogs and teenagers. The hell hound in the car's direct line noticed that too. He jumped to the right when the van came too close but the driver swerved into the hell hound. It squealed as it got knocked away at least 20 feet. The driver punched the brakes just before running into me. Who was this driver? He had just hit a hell hound on purpose and stopped now. This was no hit and run. That's when the window of the car started coming down. Behind it appeared blonde hair, a teenagers face and a cheeky smile.
"Missed me?" Luke was back. I wondered how he got the car but I could pretty much figure it out. "Come on get in." Luke opened the door from the inside, it nearly hit me in the face but that didn't bother me. I pulled myself up and sat down in the passengers seat. Luke put his foot on the gas, stopped to let Alex and Hectar in through the back (who had killed their hell hounds by now.) and he drove off.