Chapter 23: We go to a temple, then Camp
I ran down the street, following the signatures of Bast and the others, I followed it until I reached a Museum. I stumbled in as I tried to stay upright and followed the signatures, it took me a few minutes, but as the signals got stronger alarms went off, I sped up, I was worried about what that meant.
That's when I heard it, slivering sounds, hundreds of them. That sent me running ignoring my fatigue. A few seconds later I reached reached the others, standing there with them was an Arabic woman in blue robes. I ran up to them and made them get behind me, then I got out my new sword-spear.
"Alright bitch, stay back or else." I flipped the coin and it turned into a sword, I then pointed it at her. She looked at me and pulled out some sort of curved stick and pointed it at me.
"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead already." She said, waving her stick as my sword turned back into a coin.
I looked at the coin in shock. "What the shicst did you just do bitch?!" I growled as I whipped out my whip and cracked it. The room shook as the slithering sounds got louder.
She just looked at it. "Follow me if you wish to live." She said and gestured to the hall. I was about to rip this woman to ribbons but Reyna stopped me, shaking her head.
"I don't like it any more than you do, but we need to go." She told me. I looked at her and cursed under my breath. We followed the woman to a room where they had a reconstructed temple.
The woman directed the two kids, Carter and Sadie to put small statues in the compass directions of the room and then drew a circle around it. The circle glowed red and the woman turned a stick she turned a stick she had into a staff.
I slowly walked towards the woman and looked at her. "Who are you?" I asked.
"I am Zia, magician of the house of Life." She said. "Who are you?"
"Nigel Jager, Son of Tartarus." I told her. "So you're like, Egyptian?" She looked at me and nodded.
"And you three must be part of the Greek sect. Demigods...disgusting." She spat.
"Excuse me?" I snapped as I cracked my whip. "You got a lot of nerve saying that."
That's when the slithering sounds got louder, then the weird Scorpion lady came in, her creepy crawly auntaroge with her, the bugs made their way to the circle but sizzled and popped like sausage on the grill when they made contact. The Scorpions all gathered back around her and shrank away in fear.
Zia ran forward as she fired some sort of magic at the woman as some sort of portal opened in the gap of two pillars behind us. Carter drew a sword he had and attempted to attack the Scorpions, but Zia beat him to it and then tried to attack the woman with seven ribbons while speaking an incantation in Egyptian.
The ribbons seemed to burn the Scorpion woman because she wailed in pain as the ribbons wrapped around her. Zia walked up to her and pointed her staff at the bug lady's neck.
"Release your host." She told her. The woman spat and cursed in another language. The ribbons then wrapped around her entire body as black ooze drained out of her and the body of another woman was left behind.
Bast got up but stumbled back to her knees because of her injuries. "Look out!" She called to Zia. The black ooze started gathering into a giant black cloud as it took the shape of a giant Scorpion. Me, Reyna, and Nico stood ready to fight with Carter as Zia jumped back into the circle.
That's when a portal made of a giant sand storm opened, I turned to look at it, then at the others, if we didn't go now, we'd be dead. So I conjured up as much power as I could before forcing them back.
"Blackout!" I yelled as my darkness encased the giant bug and slowly started to crush it. "This won't hold long, we gotta move, NOW!" I yelled as I turned and started running to the portal, the others followed me as we dove head first into the portal.
(Reyna's POV)
After we had dove into the portal we all tumbled out the other end onto some sort of marble floor. My clothes were covered in sand and I could see that the others were too.
I got up as I helped Nigel and Nico up. Nigel could barely stand, his body was tense and trembling, it only got like this when…
"You used too much power again didn't you?" I questioned as I let him lean on me. He groaned in pain as he tried to stay up. I groaned, he knew I hated it when he did stuff like this.
The Arabic woman Zia got up as we all dusted ourselves off. Bast had somehow turned herself back into a Sphinx cat. I had Nico and Carter hold Nigel up as I stomped up the Zia and pulled out my knife, holding it to her neck. My two Automaton hounds coming to my side.
"Alright magician, you have exactly ten seconds to explain what the shisct is going on before I slit your throat right here." I told her, my dogs growling. "And Don't try lying, my dogs can smell lies."
Zia seemed to regard me with a mixture of surprise, disgust and impressment. She took a deep breath and said. "Not here. Too many eyes and ears."
I looked around and saw that there were people around. I put away my knife quickly, luckily my dogs had disguised themselves as well. I noticed that we were in an airport, more specifically the Cairo airport.
Zia led us through the airport and then somewhere underground. Explaining as we went along, about nomes (Egyptian districts and how the world was part of them) and the role of the House of Life. Nigel had scoffed when she mentioned that magicians were trained to fight gods, stating that he was created to kill godsthis was true of course but it was still a facetious comment, so I slugged him in the shoulder.
I also took the time to explain our situation as well, Zia seemed to be apathetic towards that, saying that what the Greek Gods did was not a concern of hers, but Carter and Sadie seemed worried, even terrified when I mentioned that Jason and the others were investigating Phoenix. This put a very sour taste in my mouth, mainly because this woman reminded me of someone, myself or at least how I was before the end of the giant war, and I hated how similar we were.
Ten minutes and an odd encounter with a human headed turkey later, we were lead into a hallway, one that stretched on for seemingly miles, we walked into several different sections, each a different color. They showed odd videos which, Zia explained, were the memories of the Egyptian gods from the beginning to the present. I was both confused and intrigued, Magic was never really something I understood, so this was entirely foreign to me.
The hall continued until we came to an odd throne room of some sort. An old man, who looked to be ancient, was sitting at the foot of the throne. Another man entered as he questioned Zia about who we were. He spoke with a French accent and his face seemed to contort in disgust when Zia mentioned we were Demigods.
"Greeks and their gods, mating with humans? How revolting!" He shuddered, I was about to knife the fool when the old man spoke in perfect Greek.
"Do not antagonize them." He said.
The man backed off. "Masters Iskandar ...of course, I'm sorry." as he backed away, the old man came up to us and stood in front of us.
"Please Excuse my disciples rudeness." He said. "You must have come a long way. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have, if you would be willing to tell me what you are doing here."
I was about to speak up when the other guy interrupted. "I do not see why we should explain anything to them master, the Greek gods and they're horrid offspring have no business being here." The man snapped.
That's when a black claw swiped at him making him jump back. The claw retracted back to its source, which was a shaking and still weak Nigel.
"It became our business when the Egyptian gods decided to stir up trouble in our territory asshole!" He growled as he fell to his knees. I ran up to him and he collapsed onto my lap. I tried to get him to rest as I explained to Iskandar the situation, which was then followed up by Carter and Sadie, as well as Zia.
Iskandar seemed concerned about something for a second or two before before speaking. "This is very grave indeed, Zia, we must have these children trained as soon as possible." He then gave her a serious look. "I am leaving them in your care."
"Yes master, I will do my best." Zia nodded.
Then the old man turned to me. "As for you and your friends, please tell the Olympians that we are grateful for their assistance in this grave matter." He then added. "And we will also be willing to help in any way we can."
I nodded at him. "Thank you sir." I then turned to Carter and Sadie. "If you two ever need us-" I tossed Carter one of the compasses Leo had made to help us get back to Camp. "Use that, it'll lead you right back to us."
"Where?" Sadie asked.
I smiled as I looked down as Nigel's sleeping face. "Where all demigods call home, Camp Half Blood."
(Elsewhere in Phoenix Arizona,Jason's POV)
I ran down the dusty roads of Arizona with Piper and Leo right behind me, we were chasing Lazarus, Nigel's jerk of a brother, who had somehow gotten some sort of power boost from stealing a fraction of the power of an Egyptian god.
The guy ran at unbelievable speeds as he tried to throw us off course as he threw caltrops made of Tartarus silver at our feet and made them bigger, I was barely able to fly us over them as he stopped running and turned to face us.
"Finally, you're all right where I want you." He said as he unsheathed a Stygian iron sword.
"What are you talking about?" I asked. Five seconds later I got my answer as the ground shook and a fiery form of a man with an odd animal head appeared in front of us.
"You thief." The man said, pointing at Lazarus. "You dare steal power from the great Set?"
Lazarus smirked as he brandished several of his Tartarus silver nails. "Oh I'll be taking more than just a small bit of power Set." He then lunged at the god as it did the same, and we realized we were right in the middle.