A clanging sound from outside the door broke my sleep.
I was living alone, no one else occupied the apartment. Lots of monster activities and strange outcroppings made the gods extremely interested. Consequently, campers were sent out in droves to investigate this. Most reached us with samples. A few... from them, we lost all contact. There were no Iris-messages, no letters, no e-mails, nothing, nada. Not even bones were present, as we had suspected there would have been. The outcroppings had all disappeared. The samples that they had taken, had converted to gooish, jelly-like substance. Most of the demigods returning from the quests to find out about the ectoplasm had disappeared a few days after. The oracles had stopped working. We did not know what to do. Something was happening, and we had no idea what.
So we grouped together. We stayed inside the borders of Camp. Mr. D. and Chiron forbid us from going out, except in cases of emergencies. So everybody kept their heads down. It was as if a Mist was clouding the minds and the senses of the Campers with fear. Even Clarisse looked scared. "Clarisse" and "scared" does not belong on the same line, unless it is someone else being scared of Clarisse, but that is what it happened.
Our communications were down, but somebody had to search for demigods. The satyrs were well connected, but someone had to protect them from the monsters. The satyrs are pretty brave, but... No offense to them, but no other satyr was remotely as warlike as we would have liked them to be. Except for Gleeson Hedge. That old goat could have roundhouse-kicked Chuck Norris to death. So when signals came popping over from Manhattan, I jumped to the rescue.
Presently I was living alone. So I had the obligation to open to door to find out who was clanging at my door. Maybe even to bonk him on his head, to make him come to his senses.
I went to the door, stepping over and leaping small pieces of Celestial Bronze and human steel littering the apartment. Tyson had visited me the last night. He might have been a little too eager to craft weapons, especially since we had learned to mix Celestial Bronze and steel.
I said in the intercom, "Who is it?" The result was a mangled facsimile of my own voice which I could hear from the other side.
Somebody answered from out, the voice a similar garbled parody of itself, "This is Apollo".
It surprised me. We have not heard from the gods for almost two months. Apollo had disappeared even before that. I still held on a silver of hope that whoever was behind the door was not a god. But how many guys named Apollo are prancing about in America now?
"The god Apollo", the voice clarified, "Is Perseus home?"
Right. What was I expecting? An American-African boxer?
I opened the door, and asked, "Why?"
At first I did not nothing what I was looking at. The two humans looked nothing like what gods would have taken a form of.
The first on was a boy, who could hardly be older than sixteen. He had a big and pleased grin on his face, which was marred by acne and rashes. It highlighted a broken nose dripping with blood. He was covered in scratches and cuts all over his arms and was covered with a layer of grime.
I almost missed the girl in the back. She was small for her age. Too small, my mom would have said. But we will not talk about her anymore.
She was small, but it did not look like she was malnourished. Rhinestones glinted from her glasses and rings on her fingers shone in the early morning darkness. I kept them standing in front of the doorway.
"Percy Jackson", the boy who I was guessing was Apollo smiled, "A thousand blessings upon you. I am in need of your assistance."
Yep. He was Apollo alright.
I scanned him from top to bottom. I had trouble believing that Apollo would pick up a form so battered as this. Normally, he was so vain that picking a form that would help him in mixing with people would not have occurred to him. And now it seems that he come full circle and had taken a form too battered to successfully mix with people.
And it did not seem that he was faking the injuries either.
"Who is your friend?", I pointed at the girl accompanying him.
"This is Meg McCaffery", he said, "She rescued me from street thugs."
"Rescued you from street thugs", I said. "You mean this", I pointed at his face, "Isn't a disguise?"
"Sadly", Apollo nodded.
"You are a god, man", I said, "How can a couple of street thugs do this to you."
"I was a god", Apollo said, "I am no more."
"Dude", I spluttered, "How can you exactly turn a god into a human?"
All sorts of thoughts whirled around my head. If gods could be turned into humans, then... But why should gods be able to turn into a vanilla human? Even in human disguises, gods were still gods and were different from normal humans at a fundamental level. Every evidence points towards that. If gods were similar to humans then Celestial Bronze would have worked against humans as effectively as it works against gods and monsters.
"Oh in many ways", Apollo confided, "Why, I myself was turned into a human two times before this."
"Didn't you hear about the three strike rule?", I asked. I was more concerned that Apollo would have to live with us Campers forever if he became totally human.
"I had thought that the rule that Zeus had created for humans only applied to baseball", Apollo tried to argue.
"Nuh-huh", I said, "It applies to a whole lot of things. For example, prison sentences. Which, I am guessing, is your punishment. Zeus imprisoned you in a human body. Three-strike rule makes it difficult for former prisoners to receive a punishment other than life-sentences."
Apollo's eyes widened and he paled. But before he could say anything, Meg butted in, "Can we enter?", she said, "I am pretty sure that some evil spirits are chasing Apollo."
I gave him a glance. I said, "I am suddenly filled with a desire to surgically alter the shape of your nose with improperly applied extreme force using my metacarpals." And I was using medical lingo because of Apollo. Anything else and he would underestimate the power of my desire. In short, I wanted to punch him . In his nose.
Apollo must have understood what I was saying, because for once, he did not say anything and just went inside the apartment.
...
Apollo offered to burn offerings of medical supplies for me. I refused.
I had to make him clean everything up. The apartment was a temporary safe house. I needed to keep it clean so that other demigods could use it without the fear of getting infected. There was a first aid kit for errant demigods in the washroom. Apollo needed a lot more than that. As soon as I saw that his nose had started healing, I pulled and straightened it out for him. When he screamed and asked me what the fuck I was doing, I mumbled something about improperly formed bones.
I felt good after that.
The refrigerator was stacked with jars of peanut butter, jam and bread. Everything that a growing demigod needs.
I loaded the table with everything. Each one had to make his/ her own sandwich. I wasn't helping them do that.
It was pretty early in the morning, so I didn't have to worry about inquisitive neighbours while smuggling them out. And before I could smuggle them out I needed answers.
Meg wolfed down everything. In record time, Meg had finished off over half of what I had laid on the table. Apollo looked forlornly at his own piece of bread.
Meg said to Apollo, "Make me sandwiches". When Apollo inevitably started to protest, Meg said, "I command you".
Immediately Apollo's hands went to work, although his mouth was still running.
"So, how did you guys meet", I asked them.
"When I fell to earth as a human, I was accosted by a gang of desperate and dangerous street thugs. I defiantly protested against them, but they did not heed my warnings. As soon as possible, my young master came to rescue me from those dastardly foes."
"Just blew up some trash", I heard her mumble with mouth still full of carbs, "It's nothing".
"Wait, you said she was your master", I turned towards her, "So he will have to do whatever you tell him?"
Meg said, "We are just cooperating". She seemed to chew on and savour the last word.
"And you have the power to blow up trash". I wondered aloud, "Do you know who your godly parent is?"
Meg shook her head. She asked, "Is that even a power?"
"You could be one of the most powerful demigods alive", I said to her in a grave voice, "One of the best demigods got his big break by blowing up toilets".
Meg giggled. Apollo grumbled.
I got the feeling that he was not happy being left out of the centre of the conversation.
"Okay", I said to Apollo, "You have been punished by Zeus. But why?"
"Zeus punished me for causing a war between the Greeks and the Romans", Apollo explained, "He blamed me, for a descendant of mine, Octavian, to be egoistic and to cause the war between the two camps."
"Well it was your fault", I countered, "You gave him your blessings to lead the Roman Camp".
"But how could I know that he was going to cause a war?", Apollo whined pathetically.
That was no excuse... for a god. But I had more important things to ask him.
Apollo took a bite of the PB&J sandwich that he was holding. His eyes widened and he began to stuff himself.
'And this whole turning to mortal thing, you've done it twice before?"
"Yuh", he said with a mouth full of food, "Firth tine- Sorry, first time, there was a little rebellion on Mount Olympus. Naturally Zeus had to shift all the blame upon me. Oh, and Poseidon. We were sent to Troy to work for King Laomedon. He was harsh. He even refused to pay us for our work!"
Meg nearly choked. "I have to pay you?", she asked.
"No", Apollo assured her, "As long as you make it your foremost priority to go on a quest to help me achieve my godhood."
"So, you need to go on a quest to regain your godhood."
Apollo tried spreading his hands, but he accidentally bumped Meg. "I am sure there would be many opportunities to earn glory when you quest for me to get back my godhood."
"I can't get involved in another Great Prophecy or something. I have obligations."
Apollo frowned. "You mean you cannot offer me your undivided service to help me ascend to my throne?", he asked petulantly.
"No, I have a Camp to run and Campers to find. Many Campers have disappeared just after the gods had broken off all contacts. Do you have any idea what could have happened during the six months?", I asked him.
"Six months?", Apollo looked stunned. "And also the Oracle has stopped working", I informed him.
Apollo looked as if he was ready to fall over.
"So, yeah. We can't go on a quest. And I am pretty sure that you becoming mortal is tied up with the Oracles. So we have to work independently. But we have no idea of what is going on. Can you tell us what happened since August?"
"I- I can't remember. I think have some memory gaps."
I winced. Amnesia was no joke. When I had lost my memories, Gaia had been plotting to overthrow the gods and kill off humanity.
"Last time I lost my memories", I told them, "I had to drop a nasty old lady in a river to retrieve it."
"So what about you", I turned towards Meg, "Any family, or did you have to survive all alone?"
Meg became downcast. "Never knew them much", she muttered.
Many demigods have tragic pasts. Almost everyone I know does have. Surprisingly, the godly part of our body doesn't translate well to integrate into the human society.
Meg was just another one of them.
They had almost finished eating. Meg had eaten enough to nourish a small army. Between her and me, I believe that the food supply at Camp would be eternally dwindling.
I packed up all the Celestial Bronze weapons that I had brought. Mostly some daggers and a few javelin tips. I would not have needed it anymore. I even stored all the Celestial Bronze shavings that had littered the floor. Celestial Bronze was expensive. And rare. The Camp did not have enough to outfit everyone with proper weapons and armor. So, even the smallest piece of Celestial Bronze was important to demigods.
The signals were pointing to a demigod in Manhattan. Here was a demigod, and a god who had been turned into a human. He probably counted as a demigod. Obviously the signals were produced by them. I knew that something was missing, but I did not think of it any further.
I gave him an old fashioned shotgun. This shotgun I liberated from the Camp's armoury. Nobody used it, and it was in a sorry state. So I took it. It was fast, and it was easy to use. After a week of practice, even I could use the shotgun without anything happening to those behind me.
He looked at it quizzically. I said, "Won't hurt a monster, but will blow them away." He rose up with an indignant look. He started to say something, but I interrupted him. "Most likely, you would not need anything more than that. Even if you need it we have some Celestial Bronze rounds.", I said flippantly, not noticing exactly what I was saying, "At the very least, we might safely reach camp without anything untoward happening to us." My eyes widened as I realized the import of what I just said.
And then the front door exploded.
...
There are good days, there are bad days. And there are days when it is just not worth to get out of bed.
My body reacted on its own. Within a fraction of a second after the doors had burst through, Riptide was in my hand ready to be uncapped. A pipe from one of the walls had burst through and water gushed out furiously, collecting at my feet. But not now, I reminded my body. Not now.
Dust swirled all around the room. The doors, crafted by the Hephaestus kids, had went across the room, and had slammed into the opposite wall, where it had sank down into the stone. The stone along the doorway had practically disintegrated, and whatever was left had caved inside. Somebody had applied to the door an amount of force normally associated with a whole bunch of military-grade low explosives.
From the darkness, a pair of glowing greenish orbs penetrated the dust cloud. A low growling came from the darkness, along with the sound of a tail being swished.
I took a small glance towards Apollo and Meg. They were mostly unhurt, but Apollo was in shock, and Meg had her swords at the ready.
Shit. The creature had definitely noticed her then.
As soon as I yelled out, "RUN", a huge lion had already jumped at a blinding speed, towards Meg. As fast I could, I jumped and tackled it mid-leap. Now, demigods are pretty dense, somewhat more than the average human, or else I would have just been a grease strain by now.
Apollo and Meg were still standing, probably in shock. I wheezed out, "The fire escape, right down the toilet". I couldn't see them gone or not, as I had to release his mane and jump back before I could get mauled by that thing's claws.
The floor was already wobbling, and it could break through any minute. The lion prepared itself to jump behind Apollo and Meg, but it got a mouthful of electrically charged ionized water in his face. "Hey kitty, kitty, kitty", I called out in a sing-song voice, "Want some catnip?"
The lions ears perked up and tried to face me. Well, I say tried, because the floor behind it began to fall down. It could scarcely pull itself out of the wreckage. And in doing so it got another blast of electrified water in its eyes.
It shrieked and jumped out of the crevase. It landed upon another piece of the floor, which unfortunately was both near to me, and also looked like it was about to break down.
Monsters naturally had a anti-gravity field to help them not sink in the earth itself. But this creature was so heavy that its anti-gravity did not do any good to it.
A hate-filled green eyed glare was directed to me. Seeing its golden fur, I suddenly remembered a different fight, one I had fought when I was still relatively young in this hero business, in a museum. It was to be expected since I was fighting the same monster.
The green eyes narrowed with recognition, and with hate. I had made things personal for it. And prevented it from going after Apollo. Apollo was the linchpin in the whole game that Zeus was playing with us.
"What happened you overgrown house cat?", I taunted, "Didn't like what daddy gave you for dinner last night? Well you won't like what I'm about to feed you now" It snarled and leapt at me, and in this process, excavated more of the room.
I dodged, and flung a glob of water into its snarling wide open mouth. It skidded at the doorway. It started convulsing and retched out its guts. Looks like drinking water wielded by a son of Poseidon is bad for your soul and body.
The water that I threw it into its mouth was no ordinary water. Well, it was ordinary water, but it was not your average water blast. I had used the water as a drill and the water molecules to erode away the internal parts of the invulnerable Nemean lion. I used it as a killing manoeuvre. So it was to my surprise and horror that it turned towards me, wounded and bleeding internally, but still very much alive. The whole situation could be described in a single word, "Shit". The lion growled in agreement.
It came towards me in a bone-rattling roar. I could not dodge it this time. It fell over me and I was pinned beneath its claws.
Rank breath and a steady drop of saliva assaulted me as it tried to maul my face. Intense points of pain appeared on my chest as it put all its weight upon my chest with its retractable claws.
I could feel my chest getting ripped apart as it tried to get closer to me to chomp off my head. Yet it kept getting resisted by a pair of human hands struggling to keep it at bay.
With my pen clenched in my jaw, my arms were free to hold on to the mandible of the animal. I strained against the strength in its jaws, as it constantly tried to bite into my hands. It reared up to free his mouth from my hands. It slammed down upon me. The floor rattled and groaned, almost ready to fall down. This was my chance.
A blast of water cut through the binding pieces of the floor and dropped us on the second floor. I disentangled from the freak before it could do anything further.
The water blast had already stopped the bleeding from my chest. The muscles weren't healing, but it wouldn't kill me. I took my pen off my mouth and limped over to one side. That freak had punched holes into my legs too, but I had not noticed them till now.
I limped over to the centre of the room. It was lying on its back, still dazed by all the water penetrating its eye.
I had to be careful for the next part of the fight. It was the most crucial.
I yelled out, "Did you enjoy your sojourn to Poseidon's palace, ya mutt? Did grandpa Poseidon kiss you?" Judging by its growl, it did not think much of Poseidon's ministrations. It moved up and turned its head all over, trying to get a lock on me.
I obliged for him. "Cats these days, so soft and so ungrateful!"
Roaring it appeared on the top of my head.
Immediately the ground gave away and we fell in a pool of water.
Four bonds of water, surface tension increased so that each was stronger than steel bands, bounded the paws of the Nemean lion. Another two bonds kept the mouth opened. Its useless eyes turned over and over in panic. From its mouth, a low pitched whine erupted. It was pathetic; immobile, blind and helpless.
So I did what I could, I put it out of its misery.
No, that sounds like a merciful deed. What I did was not merciful. I uncapped Riptide at the last second, when it was nothing but helpless, and pushed my sword into its mouth inch-by-inch, drawing out its pain, till it reached its brain. It was long dead before my sword reached its brain.
In my defense, it was exactly what it had planned out for us.
...
I rushed down the broken and battered building, leaving behind nothing but battered and broken stone in my wake.
Although that might have been an exaggeration. Technically, it was all the fault of the Nemean lion that had attacked me, but the authorities are not going to understand between a mythological creature and another mythological creature.
Look man, whoever is reading this, please be a witness at my testimonial.
A lot of damage had been wrecked by the water as well. Most of, if not all, supernatural, otherworldly, yada yada, incidents have been described as been caused by a gas leak, and therefore the consequent explosion and property damage. They'll have to classify this as an water leak.
As I came out through the side of a large piece of stone blocking the door, I could feel sounds of fighting, the clashing of swords and the roaring of guns splitting the air.
Meg and Apollo. I was so busy in killing the lion that I forgot that the main objective was to take them to camp, and the lion had attacked because of them.
I ran and turned the corner of the building... and saw that I didn't really need to aid them.
Meg twin swords were making short work of the fighters that were foolish enough to attack her. And the wiser ones, who had the mental capacity to understand that they were outmatched in a straight-up melee, and were using the superior reach granted by the spears to try to harass them.
The key word was try. Apollo, bless him (is it applicable to a god? I guess that it is, since he is a former god now), had somehow found the Celestial Bronze slugs that I had hidden deep, deep inside the backpack and was picking them off one by one.
I was still dragging the Nemean lion pelt and bones which I had got as a trophy of battle earlier. Curiously enough, it did not turn into a duster like the last time. The muscles had been ripped apart by the water earlier, and had started to smell, so I had cleaned it out using water. It was heavy as shit. I would amount to little more than dead-weight if I tried to help them.
However an additional pair of capable hands would not have hindered them. So I dropped the load and charged at the enemy.
I struck before they could even have comprehend that somebody had attacked them. I cleaved all the way through one's neck, disembowelled the other and lopped off the right hand of the third. He tried to unsheathe and stab me with his sword, which was strapped to his side, but before he could do so, I rammed Anaklusmos through his chest. With a gurgling sound of blood in his throat, he turned to dust.
Apollo was hard pressed to avoid shooting at me. He shouted at me, "DUCK", and it almost got me killed.
When I had turned towards him, a hirsute beast had charged me. The time it needed me to duck, he was upon me, and a sword ran through the air where, just a moment before, my head had been present.
Fortunately, his head exploded and he went out of commission. I looked up and saw a smoking barrel, with Apollo's grinning face overshadowed by it.
I gave him a nod of thanks, and then quickly moved away as Meg ran through and stabbed another of them behind me.
There were nothing but stragglers now. Apollo shot them one by one, as Meg and I provided him protection from those who were trying to attack him. Soon it was all over, and Apollo stood over a pile of half-formed bodies and golden dust and let out a terrifying scream and then a horrendous laugh.
Suddenly, I did not want to help him to use the training facilities at Camp. Or take him to camp, for that matter. If he was megalomaniac now, then after training, he would positively devolve into a full blown, hammy, comic-book supervillain.
"See now", Apollo hissed loudly, "See now, Monsters. Witness the power of Apollo!"
Yep, the god of doctors and therapists really needed a therapist now.
"Hey, Lester", Meg yelled at him, "Come down. We haven't got all day, and you promised me that we would get hotdogs at Camp!"
Very reluctantly, Apollo, who was probably named Lester, stepped away from the pile of corpses, which was beginning to smoke. I looked at one and picked up a head which was rapidly forming into golden monster-dust. It looked shockingly like a human.
"If they were human", I wondered aloud, "Then why would they turn into dust? So what are they?"
"Germani", I heard Apollo say. I turned towards him. He still sported that disturbing grin on his face. Being ordered by someone else didn't do much to spoil his mood. "Their frequent attacks had plagued Rome since the Middle Ages."
"So you had fun, using that shotgun", I tried some small-talk while we were walking away. I had an inkling of where this would go, but did not pay any attention to it.
"It was not as satisfying as a plague", Apollo confessed, "But it was adequate."
Apollo suddenly frowned. "How did you guys create bullets out of Celestial Bronze", he suddenly demanded, shifting from a formal pattern of speech to a more informal one in an instant, "It should eat deeply into the resources of Mount Olympus!"
"Well, we did not figure it out after the Giant war", I admitted, "It was only after seeing Sciron in action that Leo had the idea to use extremely large calibre round bullets, which would be enchanted to return to the gun after it had hit the target". I picked up the pelt, with the skeleton inside it. "It took the efforts of the whole Hecate and Hephaestus cabin to refine everything and to make it usable."
Lester started to say something, but precisely at that moment, the ground started to rumble.
Everyone became tensed. Meg, was walking before us, stopped and turned. Apollo and I slunk away in the shadows, preparing for another fight. Meg backtracked, readying her swords for action.
As randomly and rapidly the rumble had started, it stopped. Meg exhaled, and turned her swords back into rings. Likewise, I turned my sword back into a pen, and Apollo put the shotgun back in its holster in the backpack. We had relaxed, thinking that it was a false alarm.
We gave each other nervous smiles, and continued to move forward. And at that moment, the ground in front of us collapsed to reveal a huge tunnel, ancient or recent only its makers could tell. Brilliant red light from the tunnel painted the buildings a rosy, bloody colour. A giant, rocky being stepped out from inside the tunnel, all the while before hidden from our vision. A thousand of it pale, rocky minions stepped out from beneath, the tunnels lower layers.
And then I knew that we were fucked. And also that I had to take out The Car. Fast.
...
The Car was one of the things that Tyson had had to craft on one of our misadventures. It was a massive steely-grey coloured thing that looked like a van on monster wheels. And as with everything that General Tyson had crafted without a commission or pay or even without any persuasion by others, I was now its caretaker. It was also the first thing that Tyson had created (or in this case, modified) without using Celestial Bronze. It was the thing that had paved the way for the use of steel and titanium by demigods.
For most people, it might have been a memory, an ancient relic, without use and stranded in a museum, on the edge of their memory. For me, it was a lifesaver.
Before this, we were walking towards the garage where The Car was kept. This time we ran towards it, adrenaline making our bodies seem faster. We reached it before the rock giant could step out of the cavernous hole made in the middle of the block.
Opening up the garage, at the sight of the car, Apollo started to complain.
"A car not made out of Celestial Bronze would never take us to anywhere! It would be flattened by the Elemental giants. Have you no-"
"Oh ye of little faith", I grinned, getting into the Car, and firing up the ignition. Green light emitted by the flames of the car flooded the garage. Apollo's eyes widened in exclamation. Or horror. I couldn't really place it. He started to sputter, but with a command from Meg he had to jump in the Car.
The rock elemental, or whatever Apollo called it, had definitely noticed us, and with one almighty step, placed its foot in the front of the entrance, to prevent us from leaving.
Moments later, the Car had ran through its knee and we were speeding away towards the Harlem river, with its cries of shrieking behind us.