Chapter four: Camp Half-Blood
Of course it wasn't a full out faint, but I did slump forward pretty badly. Before I knew what was happening, arms had grabbed my waist and pulled me back up, though it wasn't Ryan.
It was the surfer dude and yes, he still had way too many eyes in way too many places, and also yes, a couple of those eyes were touching me right now.
But he'd saved me from doing an involuntary face plant, so I managed not to shudder and mumbled a weak "thanks" instead.
He didn't answer, but winked with maybe half of his eyes which was super creepy but in the nicest possible way.
"This is Argos" a friendly voice told me, and I looked to my right to see a middle aged man sitting there in a wheelchair, smiling kindly at me. I stared.
"Where's the-" I began, but stopped myself, realising that 'where's the horse bottom" maybe wasn't the best way to speak to potentially helpful strangers.
The guy laughed however, as if he knew what I'd been about to ask. "My, my, you do see a lot, don't you?"
Not sure whether or not it was a question meant to be answered, I simply shrugged and mumbled "Not a lot that makes sense."
The man gave me a searching look, which lasted so long that I started feeling uncomfortable.
"My name is Chiron, Erin" he finally told me and I was about to reply that my name was Erin when I realised he'd already said it.
"How do you know my name?" I asked him, raising my right eyebrow. A snort came from behind me, and I turned to see Ryan, whom I hadn't even realised was still there.
"And what's your problem?" I snapped at him, getting really tired of his attitude.
"Nothing" he drawled and yes, the smirk was still on his face. I wondered if he was even capable of a different expression, or if he smirked so often that it simply remained etched on this face, no matter what he was feeling.
"Ryan" Chiron said, and there was a warning undertone to his voice. "Erin is new here, it's perfectly normal for her to be curious." He turned back to me. "Do you know why you're here, Erin?"
"No" I admitted, attempting to block Ryan's face from my vision.
Trying not to sound crazy (and terribly failing) I told Chiron what had happened to me, and how moments ago Ryan and I were still standing in an abandoned house in Kerritville.
Suddenly Chiron looked a little worried.
"What is it?" I asked, suspicious.
"Well, about being at home moments ago, that's not entirely true actually." he said, slowly.
I raised my eyebrows. Chiron threw a sideways glance at Ryan, who continued to look completely indifferent.
"I'm afraid Ryan used a little unorthodox method to get you here."
"Excuse me?"
"Erin, it's August twenty-fifth. You met Ryan three days ago."
For a second I thought he was kidding me. But then I saw the date on my watch and, well, I kinda freaked out. Completely.
"What the hell is this?!" I yelled, stepping back from Chiron. "Where am I, for heaven's sake?! This is KIDNAP, do you even REALISE that?"
Fury made my vision actually blur, and I saw Ryan fingering his sword, which of course made me even more angry.
"Erin, please," Chiron started, but I wouldn't listen. I'd stayed calm long enough. I had a high tolerance level for stuff that was out of the ordinary, I mean, I seriously almost never lost it, but this was too much.
"Who ARE you people?!" I demanded, my voice carrying probably all the way to China.
"How do you know who I am?! What do you WANT?!"
My vision blurred even more, and it gave me a headache. The chain around my arm was suddenly too tight, and I grabbed at it, trying to take it off, but it wouldn't open.
Taking a deep, deep breath, I held my arm up to the three of them and demanded through clenched teeth: "Why. Can't. I. Take. This. Off."
"Please, Erin, I will explain everything when you've calmed down."
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Then another. Then another.
After maybe two minutes my heartbeat had slowed down enough for me too think clearly and the burning fury lingered as a temporarily subdued anger in my gut.
"Okay" I said, slowly opening my eyes again. "Okay. Explain."
Chiron motioned to a chair which had appeared out of nowhere, and hesitantly, I sat down.
"Well" he started. "As you know, you, er, met Ryan in your home town which he visited while on a mission. Ryan messaged me shortly after meeting you and told me about your curious ability to tr- I mean, to appear out of thin air. I advised him to bring you here, so we could...help you."
He hesitated a little too long on the help me bit for my liking, but I didn't say anything.
"So, Ryan resorted to a method which is quite inadvisable" here Chiron shot a very meaningful look at Ryan, who shrugged.
"He used Arminus powder to subdue you, so you and he could travel without any unnecessary interruptions, I suppose. That was three days ago. In the mean time, the two of you have safely arrived here."
Chiron paused, seeming to wait for me to explode again. But I didn't, I was way too curious for that now.
"But where is here?"" I asked.
"This" Chiron said, and raised his arms as if appraising the sky itself "is Camp Half-Blood."
Huh. That didn't sound too good.
"Er, why is it called Half-Blood?" I asked, my mind already building scenarios in which I'd landed in some sort of psycho killer camp.
Chiron's mouth twitched a little, as if he was trying not to smile at my apprehensive expression. "Erin, you may not believe me now, but this camp is for children who have a godly parent, one of the Ancient Greek gods. Or Roman I suppose, but there are only few of those here. Those gods are real, Erin, and they are the actual rulers of this world, you could say. And when they have children with a mortal, that is to say, human, the children are called Half-Bloods, or demigods, who normally spend some of their life here, at camp."
Okay.
So I get run over, knocked out, kind of kidnapped and then somebody who only minutes before was half a horse tells me that the old gods exist. And that these gods have children, who all live happily together in one place, in which I am currently sitting.
Okay.
The story was so ridiculous, it had to be true, I decided. I'm weird that way, I guess. Sometimes I get really suspicious, but then sometimes I simply accept what I'm seeing because there is no way my brain could be imagining it.
"Right." I said, only because the silence was stretching so long I was afraid it would snap and hit me in the face. "So you're saying the Greek gods, the ones I learnt about in school, actually exist."
"Yes" Chiron answered, looking completely serious. "Yes, they do exist and always have. And their kids, like Ryan here for example, come to live at this camp, which is one of the few safe places for children like him."
I looked at Ryan, raising my eyebrows. "What god's your parent then? The god of sarcasm?"
Ryan rolled his eyes at me, moved a little out of the shadows and then lifted his shirt sleeve to reveal an odd tattoo: It was a bow and notched arrow with Greek letters underneath them, but the ink was bronze not black, and so the tattooed skin looked like it was glowing when it caught the light.
"Apollo." he said shortly, pulling his sleeve back down again.
Huh. Was I really this calm now or was I in shock? Perhaps my outburst from earlier had exhausted my adrenaline levels, but all I had now was a slight headache.
I nodded, while looking at the boy and the man in front of me. Argos had left at some point, but I hadn't noticed.
"Okay." I said, and I felt indescribably tired all of a sudden. Being mad (angry that is, though maybe I was a bit of the other mad, too) always wears me out.
"If what you're saying is true, could you prove it please."
I thought Chiron was going to say no, but instead he did something entirely unexpected: He stood up.
Now, normally you wouldn't expect a person sitting in a wheelchair to stand up. And normally you also wouldn't expect them to lift an entire horse body out of their chair, and then stand before you in full centaur form. But I guess there you go.
To me, that more or less proved the matter. Unless of course I'd hit my head so badly before and was now actually lying in a coma in a hospital and this whole situation was a dream my malfunctioning mind had concocted, I could only assume that Ryan and Chiron the not-so-disabled middle aged guy were telling the truth.
"I...believe you." I told them slowly and thought I briefly saw surprise flit over both of their faces, though Ryan's became indifferent again immediately.
"Good." Chiron smiled at me, and stayed in his half man, half horse form. I stood up because I didn't like being that much lower than the two of them height-wise.
Now that the question of where I was had been more or less sorted, I needed to get back to other important matters.
"Chiron, if this really is some kind of godly camp, you have to help me. But first, could I call my parents?" I asked the centaur, who nodded reluctantly.
"We don't normally allow demigods and electronic stuff like phones to mix as it attracts too many monsters, but I guess we can make an exception."
He showed me inside to the telephone and I passed the next ten minutes getting shouted at by my mother, who had apparently (and quite understandably) gone insane with worry.
I told her that I was fine but that I couldn't say where I was exactly (as I still didn't really know the geographical location of this place, and I could hardly tell her what Chiron had told me) and that I would be home soon, after I'd sorted some things out.
"Sorted things out!" My mother screamed. "Erin Margaret Carraway, you'd better tell me where you are right now or I swear to god I will call the police and have you dragged home!"
"I'm sorry Mum" I said, my voice shaking slightly. I didn't want my parents to be this upset, but at the moment things couldn't be helped. "I'm really sorry. But I'm safe and I promise you I'll be home as soon as possible. Tell dad I love him, okay?"
And with that I hung up. Yes I know, you shouldn't hang up on your mother but this was an emergency and she would never have shut up anyway.
When I returned outside, Ryan had gone. I didn't want to seem interested in where he was so I didn't ask, but Chiron, who was back in his wheelchair, must have seen my look and said "Ryan has gone to fetch the Council, or at least those members who are here at the moment."
"Which council?" I asked nervously, not liking the formal sound of that word at all.
"The council of Little Athens, ahem, that is of the city you may have seen from the top of the hill, the one which is being built at the borders of the camp."
I sighed. All I wanted was to have my questions answered and then go back home, but apparently Chiron had other plans. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, while looking me intently in the eye: "I know you have a lot of things to ask me, Erin. And I do want to help you, please believe that. But I think it is best if we inform the Council first and then we will be able to judge what the best course of action might be."
"Okay" I said, rubbing my forehead. My head was starting to hurt worse.
A few minutes later, I could see four people approaching the big house: A smaller, dark skinned girl with curly cinnamon coloured hair, a tall shaggy-blonde haired guy walking next to a beautiful girl with long brown hair and caramel skin and another tall guy but this one with jet black hair and slightly more tanned skin than the other. All of them looked like they were in their mid to late twenties.
The nearer they got, the more nervous I became. What if they didn't like me? None of them looked particularly scary or anything, but somehow I got the hunch that these weren't people to mess with.
When the four young adults had arrived on the porch and said hello to Chiron, they turned to look at me.
"This is Erin Carraway, everyone." Chiron said, putting his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly way.
"Erin, these are four members of the Council of Little Athens: Hazel Levesque, Piper McLean, Jason Grace and Percy Jackson."
There you go, a longer chapter! Now that Erin's in the know and is about to meet our favourite heroes, who knows what will happen! ;)
Also, me no own any of Rick's characters.
Reviews are very much appreciated! xxx