A Very Merry Christmas

Valentina Diaz was not having a good day.

It had started with a Mall Santa who had popped up in front of every shop she entered. She hadn't paid attention to him at first, but there was something odd about him. An uneasy feeling had crept unto her, leading to her decision to leave early. But when she was waiting at the bus stop, carrying two bags of purchases, he had walked into the street and quickly jumped behind a tree when he saw her.

Now something was starting to feel very wrong. She checked her watch. The bus wouldn't be there for another ten minutes, if it would come at all; a lot of buses weren't riding because of the snow.

She decided to start walking. Maybe the Mall Santa had to take the bus too. Maybe he had jumped behind that tree because he'd seen something. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

But when she walked two streets, she saw him in the reflection of a shop window when she pretended to check her makeup. He was definitely following her. And he wasn't someone she knew. That meant there were two possibilities: either he wanted to rob her, or he was a monster. Neither of the two options were very pleasant to think about.

Valentina started walking faster, not daring to look at the possible monster, fearing he would attack her. She fiddled with the small bottle of perfume in her pocket; it was charmed so that when she used it around monsters or other enemies, they'd get hit with a sudden wave of happiness that was so strong it'd make them forget what they were doing. She'd only used it once, and it had caused an empousa to sit dazzled at the side of the playground where she'd attacked her, plucking daisies out of the grass.

She didn't have much, though, and she wanted to save what she did have as long as possible. Times were unsure. Percy Jackson had disappeared, and she didn't want to take any risks, not while she didn't know what was going on. Unfortunately, demigods' lives were always risky.

She reached a busy intersection and had to wait for a traffic light.

Just when she felt it was safe to cross the street, a hand was placed on her shoulder.

She spun around and looked straight in the eye of the Mall Santa.

The eye.

He only had one.

Valentina dropped her bags and ran for it, bolting down the street, running as fast as she could through the thick pack of slow, not caring if she might slip. The heavy footsteps of the cyclops behind her, his breath in her neck.

Suddenly, she hung a left, causing him to slam into a streetlight. She kept running while she heard him stumble and curse behind her.

Finally, she reached the train station, where she jumped on the first bus she saw just before it closed its doors and drove off.

She exhaled. Here she was safe.

'Valentina?'

She whipped around, her hand on the perfume in her pocket, but there was no monster there; only Joey Heart, her brother. He was a son of Aphrodite, like her, and not a year-rounder, so she only saw him during summer.

'Joey! Gods, I'm so happy to see you.' She sat down next to him, still trying to catch her breath.

'What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at camp?'

'Yeah, but I wanted to go home for Christmas, to visit my aunt and uncle and celebrate Christmas with my family. I- I was being chased by a cyclops pretending to be a Mall Santa.'

Anyone else would be confused by this story, but Joey only nodded. They were demigods, and stuff like this happened daily.

'So what are you going to do now?'

'I don't know. I don't even know where this bus is going.'

'You could come with me. By the time you can get on a bus home, it'll be late in the evening. But my dad won't mind, you're my sister! We'll bring you home tomorrow morning, as early as we can.'

'That would be great, Joey, thank you,' Valentina said, not attempting to hide the relief and gratefulness in her voice.

It didn't quite work out that way, though. A few stops before they had to get off, two Mall Santas entered the bus. Joey didn't look up, but Valentina did. And immediately saw that they only had one eye each.

'Joey!' She whispered while the two Santas made their way to the back of the bus, where they sat. 'Cyclopes! We have to get off!'

'It'll only be a few more stops. They won't attack us in a bus full of mortals, will they? But get ready to fight.'

The cyclopes sat down in the seats in front of them and turned around so they could look at them.

'Look, Susan, I told you! A beautiful demigod, and strong, too, just smell!' one of them said, like Joey and Valentina weren't right there.

'You're right, and there are two of them! Who's your parent, kids?' the other Santa said, the one named Susan. She played with her beard.

'Leave us alone,' Valentina said.

'But it's Christmas! Don't we deserve a nice Christmas dinner, too? A demigod each, as a nice present, and maybe a Satyr for dessert? But if you come with us peacefully, we promise we'll make your death painless,' Susan said.

The first cyclops nodded and showed his yellow teeth. 'We'll even share our pudding with you!'

'Thanks, but no thanks,' Joey said. 'I'm sorry, but we have to get off here. It was a pleasure talking to you.' Valentina could see he was panicking now. They weren't there yet, there were still four stops left.

She started to take the perfume out of her pocket, but before she managed to, Susan cried: 'No! You can't go! You're our dinner!'

She suddenly dived over the seat and grabbed Valentina's throat, squeezing it way too tightly. Joey screamed in fury and started pushing the cyclops, hitting her on her back and head, trying to shove her off his sister. Valentina managed to get a hand free and poked the cyclops in her eye, causing her to scream and let go. While she stumbled backwards and Valentina touched her sore throat and tried to catch her breath, the other cyclops attacked, swinging his fists at Joey's head to avenge his friend. Joey ducked and tried to block the hits while Valentina pulled a hairpin out and threw it in the air. It was a magic sword; she'd borrowed it from her sister, for if something like this would happen while she visited her family.

Unfortunately, the pin just landed on the floor and rolled away under a seat.

'That's the wrong one!' Joey said while trying to keep the cyclops from beheading him.

'Yeah, I noticed!' Valentina shouted while she tried another pin.

The bus had stopped and the driver was coming to the back. He tried to stand between Joey and the cyclopes. 'Please, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the bus. Fighting is not allowed.'

His authority was so clear that the cyclopes didn't even protest, they just walked outside while grumbling that you couldn't do anything fun anymore. Joey and Valentina stared at each other, unable to believe they got off that easy. Thank the gods for bus drivers!

But when they wanted to sit back down, the bus driver shook his head. 'No, you two have to leave too. Fighting is not allowed and you're disrupting the other passengers' journey.'

'But... But they attacked us!' Joey said. 'You can't send us outside with them, it's not safe!'

'I didn't see who started. To me, this looks like two teenagers who attacked Mall Santas to get the money they collected for charity. You should be grateful I won't call the police on you, because it's Christmas, but get out of my bus this instant or I'll change my mind.'

They had no choice. Joey grabbed his bag and they got off the bus. It drove away as soon as they got out.

Before the cyclopes could attack them again, though, Valentina used their perfume and they started coughing and fell down. There, they lay peacefully in the snow, making snow angels, their targets completely forgotten.

'That works,' Joey said.

'Where are we?'

They were standing at the side of a road. There was a big forest behind them, and some houses on the other side of the road.

'Oh, I know!' Joey said, sounding relieved. 'I used to walk here a lot with my dad. We could cut through the forest to get to the city, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. It's getting kind of dark, especially with all the snow. Maybe we should just wait for the next bus.'

'Sounds good, yeah,' Valentina said, even though she would much rather walk. That way, she'd at least get warm; the icy wind was already piercing through her clothes and skin. But she knew going through the forest was a bad idea. She didn't want to be attacked by any more Mall Santas.

Well, at least the next monster wasn't a Mall Santa.

Instead, it was a hellhound suddenly running towards them from between the houses, its eyes glowing in the dark.

'Oh, c'mon,' Valentina yelled.

Joey grabbed her arm. 'No time. Run!'

They ran. Through the forest, ducking and jumping to avoid tree branches, their eyes narrowed in an attempt to keep out the snow. Valentina had no idea where they were going and she had a feeling Joey didn't know, either. Maybe they should have stayed there and taken a stand, but she didn't think of that. The hellhound was big and scary, and she just wanted to get to a safe, warm place to stay.

Eventually, though, they had no choice; they'd reached the end of the forest and found a mountain in front of them. It stretched out left and right of them, back into the forest, so they'd have to go back in order to get around the mountain. And that's where the hellhound was, so that wasn't an option.

They turned around. Valentina took the pin out of her hair – the right one, this time – and Joey grabbed a dagger that had been strapped to the side of his backpack.

The hellhound ran out of the forest, its teeth bared, and bolted straight at Valentina. She slung her sword at it but missed because it suddenly jumped, over her weapon, and knocked her to the ground. She screamed and rolled away, hiding behind a rock. She ducked and the monster closed its jaws just above her head. Joey threw his knife and hit the monster in the back, but it didn't have any effect. Valentina covered her head with her arms and ducked behind the rock, trying to avoid the monster's jaws while it tried to climb over the rock to get to her.

Joey looked around, trying to find a weapon. 'Help!' Valentina screamed at him. He finally found a rock, ran towards the monster and started hitting it. It was almost sad.

Suddenly, a silver arrow hit the monster in its neck.

Joey held out his hand and helped her get up. They didn't watch how the monster dissolved, but instead turned to the direction the arrow had come from, ready to defend themselves once again. That was something all demigods learned early on; never assume you're safe, because most of the time, you aren't.

'Don't worry, we come in peace!' a young voice yelled. Now Valentina saw two girls at the side of the mountain, holding bows. She exchanged a look with Joey. Why would two teenagers be outside in this kind of weather, in the middle of the wilderness? Maybe they were monsters in disguise, pretending to help them so that they could kill them later on.

'Are you demigods?' one of the girls asked. She was the smallest of the two.

'Yes, we are,' Valentina said. If they were monsters, after all, they would know already, because of their smell. 'And you?'

'I am,' the tallest girl, the one who'd shot the arrow, said. 'Rosie here is a mortal. We're Hunters of Artemis.'

Valentina rolled her eyes. 'Oh, great.' For a moment she thought that maybe she preferred the hellhound.

'Valentina, they just saved our lives,' Joey said. Be careful, his eyes said.

'That counts for something, yeah, I guess,' she sighed. 'Do you know what way we should walk to get back to the city? We didn't really look where we were going while we were running from that hellhound.' Valentina did not look forward to walking all the way back through the forest at all. It was still snowing and she was afraid her nose would freeze off.

The oldest girl seemed to think for a moment and then said: 'We can't let you go through the forest now, not this late in the evening, in the middle of a snowstorm. You should seek shelter with us, spend the night here and wait until the weather gets better.'

Valentina looked at Joey. She did not feel like spending the night with two Hunters of Artemis at all; there was an old rivalry between the Hunters and the daughters of Aphrodite. And she knew it would be even worse for Joey, because he was a boy, so they wouldn't even let him near them. But they didn't have another choice, not really. Joey sighed almost unnoticeably and then shrugged.

Valentina sighed, too. 'Well, we'll take your offer, as we don't want to die just yet. Thank you, I guess.'

They followed the girls to a cave in the side of the mountain. They took off their wet jackets and accepted the warm sweaters the two girls offered them. They were sitting on the other side of the fire, as far away from Joey as possible. He rolled his eyes and turned to Valentina, while the Hunters started talking about their quest and a lot of stuff Valentina didn't understand.

'So, I guess this is Christmas,' he said.

'Yep. Merry Christmas, Joey.'

'Merry Christmas, Valentina.'