Hey, so I felt guilty about having a short chapter—I hate it when authors do that sometimes. So, I come bearing gifts—two updates in one day! Enjoy!
Liam
"Are you sure about this?" Beckendorf asked.
Liam nodded, wiping a bead of sweat off of his forehead. "Yeah. It's the only way."
Beckendorf looked over his shoulder and swallowed. "Silena's going to kill me if she finds out."
"Not if Lindsay kills you first."
"You know I don't like that kind of humor."
"Who said I was joking?" Liam walked past Beckendorf. "You coming or not?"
He heard Beckendorf sigh and follow him. Together, they walked into Starbucks.
The inside of the coffee shop was fairly standard: steel gray walls, a black tiled floor, and flies buzzing around near the ceiling. Lindsay was waiting for them by the window.
Liam hadn't seen the bounty hunter since the incident with Chelsea, but she looked just as he remembered her. Lindsay was a little taller now, but her red hair hadn't changed a bit, nor had her brown eyes. He half-expected her to be dressed in her old cheerleader garb, but she was dressed in simple jeans and a blouse.
"Hey, guys!" she said, a little too high-pitched for Liam's ears. "I haven't seen you in forever!"
There's a reason for that, Liam thought as Lindsay gave them each a hug. He had thought Lindsay was shallow before he knew she was a bounty hunter, and he hadn't trusted her after that.
Beckendorf and Liam sat on the other side of the table. Lindsay was drinking something that looked incredibly complicated to Liam.
He tried to be civil, he really did. But the words just slipped out.
"So you work for the Syndicate?" The words were harmless enough. But he couldn't help the disgust that snuck into his voice.
Lindsay's innocent demeanor dropped as she looked around the coffee shop in case someone was listening. "Yes," she said. "I work for them."
Liam had brought Alex's notes to Beckendorf the moment he had finished reading them. Beckendorf had considered taking the information to the others, but they both agreed that they needed proof first. So they had contacted Lindsay, and things had taken off from there.
"What does the Syndicate do?" Beckendorf said, stomping on Liam's foot under the table.
Lindsay shrugged. "Hunting monsters. Nothing too big."
"How much does that usually pay?" Liam asked, remembering how Lindsay had enrolled in Goode just to hunt Chelsea.
"More than you'd think," she replied. She narrowed her eyes at them. "Why?"
"Oh, um…" Liam started. Well, my dead girlfriend was looking into your organization and then they killed her. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
"We have a friend that's interested in joining up," Beckendorf said suddenly. "Uh...we just wanted to check it out first."
"We like to look out for our friends," Liam added.
Lindsay crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. For a moment, he could tell that she was analyzing their lie. All of their proof depended on her for a moment.
"Okay," she eventually said. "I can give you guys a tour of our facility here in New York if you want."
So Alex had been right. The Syndicate was in New York. Now they just needed to find evidence to back up their claims.
Beckendorf and Liam quickly agreed to follow Lindsay to the "facility" and waited outside Starbucks while she paid for her drink.
"We didn't plan for this," Beckendorf muttered, looking unhappy.
"It's the best chance we have to find evidence," Liam replied in a low voice. "Besides, if we get into trouble, you can use one of your awesome devices, and I can fly." That should be enough to get them out of trouble, right? Liam tried his best to keep his apprehension from his face. More than ever, he wished Alex was with them. If she couldn't talk her way out of the situation, she could definitely fight her way out of it. But he was just Liam.
"Alright," Lindsay said suddenly, making him jump. "It's just this way."
Beckendorf and Liam followed closely behind her. Liam was trying his best to look casual, but it wasn't very easy. He kept wondering if Lindsay was leading them into a trap. Every time somebody passed them on the street, he questioned if they were a monster in disguise.
Lindsay led them past a series of store fronts, eventually stopping in front of a classic style barber shop. It had a colorful column out front, with a big glass window that read MAMA MARTHA'S BARBER SHOP in big, cursive letters. Liam squinted at the sign for a moment, sorting out the letters in his head. His dyslexia wasn't as bad as some of the other demigods, but cursive lettering always made his brain ache.
Lindsay led them inside, which didn't seem right. Liam had expected a bunker in the woods, not a barber shop in the middle of the city. It seemed more like something a monster would operate in hopes of catching a demigod. Annabeth and Percy had even told him that Medusa had been running a gas station in New Jersey somewhere.
A bell chimed overhead as they walked in. The shop smelled like shaving cream and hairspray. In the corner, a series of swivel chairs were placed in front of a couple of mirrors. In the center of the room, an elderly woman in hawaiian print clothing stood at a counter, knitting a scarf.
"Martha," Lindsay said as they entered. "I've brought some guests."
The old woman looked up at them, and Liam had to resist the urge to wince. Her face was wrinkled so badly that she looked like a piece of leather. She also had a bad tan, with a circle of pale skin around her eyes, giving her the impression of a raccoon.
"Lindsay," the old woman croaked. "How's the weather?"
Lindsay rolled her eyes. "I had to leave my umbrella at home. Honestly, do you have to keep up with the code phrase? You know it's me."
Martha shrugged, and Liam could have sworn he heard one of the woman's bones crack. "You never know if it could be one of the juniors playing a trick. Right this way."
Liam didn't understand. How could someone play a trick? Unless they looked exactly like Lindsay, of course, but that was impossible. Nobody had that kind of magic.
Martha moved a bobblehead out of the way and pressed a red button underneath it. Instantly, the stone wall at the end of the store opened up to reveal a steel door.
"Come on," Lindsay told Beckendorf and Liam, stepping towards the door. "I'll introduce you to the boss."
Martha glared at them as they passed, and Liam couldn't help but wonder if this woman was some kind of monster. She was certainly scary enough on her own.
"What do you think?" Liam muttered to Beckendorf as they passed through the door and the wall closed up again behind them.
"I'm thinking that it uses some kind of tri-cylinder suspension on an axlerod—"
"I was talking about the woman out front, Beck."
"Oh. She sort of reminds me of my aunt."
That was easy for him to say. Everyone in Beckendorf's family was probably as buff or scary as he was. Liam, on the other hand, had earned his muscles the hard way.
The passageway that Lindsay led them through was dark and smelled strange. On one wall, Liam could have sworn he saw mushrooms and fungus growing, but when he blinked it was gone. They walked on for a while, and Liam noticed that the path angled slightly downwards. They were headed underground.
Liam had felt a little cramped before, but when he realized that his claustrophobia kicked in full force. He was used to the open sky and feeling the wind on his face—not being trapped underground in a cramped passageway where air was continuously recycled.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He wasn't sure how long he could be in here for. Every fiber of his being wanted to run back to the surface, but he reminded himself that he was doing this for Alex. If someone from the Syndicate really had killed her, they would have some sort of record of it here.
Suddenly the passageway opened up into a large cavern. Well, not really a cavern. It was more like a parking garage that had gotten buried underground. There was even a half-buried car.
Torches that didn't give off smoke hung on the cement walls. The cavern seemed to stretch for half a mile at the least, but Liam could also see little doorways leading off to different places. People milled about in the garage, running from place to place urgently. Many of them seemed to be demigods, with celestial bronze weapons hanging from their belts. There were even a few satyrs running about, though most of them had tin cans sticking out of their mouths.
Lindsay led them into a passageway leading from the main cavern. This one was only a little more spacious than the last, but with all the people rushing through it, it felt smaller.
"You're busy!" Beckendorf commented, almost shouting over the din of people.
"This is nothing!" Lindsay responded. "You should see us once school lets out for the summer!"
Finally, she stopped in front of a wooden door. It looked completely out of place in the underground complex—more like something at the front of a house than a front door for an office under the earth.
Lindsay knocked hard on the door. After a moment, a deep voice bellowed, "Come in!"
She opened the door and gestured for Liam and Beckendorf to enter. Hesitantly, they stepped inside. All Liam could think about was that if they were perceived as a threat, nobody would hear their screams from down there.
The room they had entered was classier than Liam had expected for a bounty hunter organization that had literally been forced underground. It sort of looked like the New York Library, just smaller. The floor was made of smooth wooden planks that looked like they had just been polished. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled to the brim with books titled in Greek. A large mahogany desk sat in the center of the room, where a large man sat.
The man was even larger than Beckendorf—which was saying something. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall, with enough muscles to put a cyclops to shame. His hair was black, but it was beginning to turn gray. He was wearing a black leather jacket and brown cargo pants. A sword almost as tall as Liam rested next to the man on the desk. His blue eyes glared at them as they entered the room, but the most off-putting detail about this man was the three scars running diagonally across his face, like something huge had attempted to slice him to bits.
"Sir," Lindsay said to the man. "I've brought some guests."
There was that word again. Guests. The way that she said it, it didn't sound like it actually meant guests. Maybe prisoners or slaves, but not guests.
"Excellent!" the intimidating man exclaimed in a deep voice. He stood from his seat behind the desk and offered a hand for Beckendorf and Liam to shake.
After a moment, Liam shook the man's hand. The stranger's fingers were rough and calloused, but for some reason there was a quality to them that Liam didn't like. They felt...dishonest. His mother had told him you could always tell the quality of a person by their handshake. What Liam saw in this "boss" and his handshake unsettled him.
"I'm Barbarous," the man said, releasing Liam's hand and shaking Beckendorf's. Barbarous flashed a smile their way, which only served to solidify Liam's initial assumption. "Have you two fellows come here to sign up?"
"No," Liam said, trying hard not to laugh. "One of our friends is, though. We're just scoping the place out for them."
Barbarous's eyes narrowed at them for just a second, and Liam knew that the large man didn't believe the lie. But Barbarous didn't say anything. He just sat back down at his desk and crossed his arms.
"What can I do for you two, then? I'm a busy man."
Yeah, Liam thought. Busy murdering other demigods.
"We just have some questions," Beckendorf replied, crossing his arms as well.
"Yeah," Liam said. "Like...where's the bathroom?"
Beckendorf shot him a glare, but Liam ignored him. He had seen something on the way in that might be able to help them.
Barbarous's eye twitched. Clearly, he had not been expecting that as a question. "Daniel, why don't you escort this young man to the...er, facilities?"
A guard appeared in the doorway. He looked to be in his early twenties, with a military-style haircut and dyed green hair. A bronze mace hung on his belt. He wore dark leather armor. "Yes, sir."
Liam stood and followed Daniel, who had already started moving down the hallway. Liam had to dodge several messengers in red coats as they ran, nearly crushed against the wall at one point.
"Here," Daniel gruffly said, gesturing to a steel door in the hallway. "Make it quick." Clearly, the guard was not thrilled to be assigned to potty-watch duty.
Liam nodded at the guard in thanks and entered the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him. The bathroom itself wasn't really that special; just a small toilet in the corner with a sink next to it. But Liam was more interested in the vent above that.
It was small, only a little wider than the width of Liam's shoulders. If this was going to work, it would be a tight fit.
Liam took a screwdriver from his pocket that Beckendorf had handed to him when nobody was looking. Quietly floating himself up to the vent, he set to work on unscrewing the bolts that kept it in place. This would have to be fast.
When it was done, Liam set the metal vent cover on the floor. Then, saying a quick prayer to whoever was listening, Liam climbed inside the vent.
If he thought the hallway was cramped, the air duct made it seem like Central Park. Liam crawled forward and his hands and knees, pressed flat against the duct. It was hard to move forward, and after a moment he realized all the noise he was making.
Then an idea struck. Concentrating, Liam floated himself an inch or so above the bottom of the metal duct, allowing him to travel much faster—and more importantly, quietly. With all the noise in the Syndicate base, it was unlikely that anyone would hear him, but it never hurt to be careful.
Soon he could hear all the bustle of the hallway beneath him, which meant that the room he was headed for was...that way. As soon as Liam reached a crossroads in the air duct, he turned left.
He was very aware that if he was caught, the various bounty hunters that called this place home would kill him, and Beckendorf as well. If they had indeed killed Alex, then they knew their relationship with her. No doubt they were already suspicious.
Suddenly the sounds from the hallway faded, and Liam found himself floating over another small duct. This one seemed to be placed in the ceiling of the next room, and he peered through the cracks to make sure the room was clear. He smiled grimly when he realized that he had reached his target.
Below him was a room full of gray file cabinets, dimly lit by a couple of lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. The floors were made of cement, as were the walls. Liam waited for a minute or two, then decided that the inside of the room was unguarded.
He went to work on unscrewing the vent, but it was a lot harder from the inside. He recognized that he had already been "in the bathroom" for a long time. Soon, people would get suspicious, if they weren't already. He didn't have time for this.
Liam snapped his finger, sending a small bolt of lightning into the vent cover. It snapped open a little louder than he would have cared for, but nobody came running, even when the vent cover hit the cement floor. Whoever was guarding this room must have been on a coffee break. Perfect.
Liam silently floated himself into the room, slowing himself so that he landed on the floor without a sound. He only had a few minutes. Time to find something incriminating.
It was harder than it sounded. There were dozens of file cabinets to sort through, and Liam wasn't even sure where to start. He opened one at random—wincing at the sound it made—and peered inside. There were a couple files on people, all of them having a last name that started with N. He closed that cabinet and opened another one. L and K. Liam moved a couple cabinets down and opened another one. Bingo—last names starting with B and C.
He flipped through a couple files until his eyes landed on a thick file. CLAYTON, ALEXANDRA, it read. Heart thumping, he grabbed the file out of the cabinet and began to read.
ALEXANDRA CLAYTON
HERITAGE: Artemis (mother) and Athena (father is a half-blood)
STATUS: Eliminated
RECENT REPORTS: 48
Liam gulped and turned the page in the file, reading the first thing on the next page.
Clayton has been looking into our work. She has been seen at several libraries gathering information about the roots of our organization. At first, we thought she wanted to join up, but we quickly realized that she was looking for the hunter that had attacked her at Christmas. Phoebe must have revealed something before her demise; it is the only explanation. We planned to capture and interrogate her to find out what she knows, but all of the monsters that have been sent after her have not returned. Unfortunately, the mission became one of elimination. She was taken out by the operative—
The name of the "operative" was blacked out with a thick marker, making it unreadable.
Liam felt electricity begin to crackle on his body as his vision turned red. The Syndicate had had Alex assassinated. They were responsible for taking her away from him. He was suddenly overcome with such overwhelming hatred for the organization he was standing in the middle of that he couldn't help the wave of lightning that burst forth from his fingertips, scorching the cement floor with a loud ZAP!
"What was that?" a voice from outside the room said.
"Styx," Liam muttered as footsteps began to approach.
Quickly, he stuffed the file on Alex in the inside pocket of his jacket, hoping that it didn't look too obvious. He went to close the cabinet door, but another file caught his eye.
BENTLEY, WILLIAM
It was his. Why did they have a file on him?
The footsteps were closer now. In a moment, they would be in the room with him.
Liam couldn't afford to fit another file into his jacket. Even if he could, it would be a dead giveaway that he was the one who had stolen them. But he had to know what they had on him.
Quickly, Liam opened the file, but he could only catch a couple of words.
WILLIAM BENTLEY
HERITAGE: Zeus
STATUS: Possible threat or recruit (undetermined)
RECENT REPORTS: 24
Bentley was romantically involved with Alexandra Clayton before her elimination. Considering his attachment to her, he could be a possible threat if he finds out who was responsible for it. But if we could turn him against his friends—
Liam slammed the cabinet door shut, grabbed the vent cover, and shot back into the air duct just as the door to the file room opened.
He didn't even dare to breathe as he held the vent cover in place. Below him, a guard in dark armor like Daniel's approached the scorch mark on the floor.
"What is it?" another guard asked.
The first guard scuffed the floor with his boot, rubbing away the scorch mark. "Nothing. Probably just another loose wire."
Liam breathed a sigh of relief as the guards left the room. With a little more maneuvering, he was able to fix the vent cover in place despite the fact that he had broken it.
When he opened the bathroom door, Daniel had his mace drawn and looked like he had been ready to bust it down.
"Sorry," Liam said, smiling innocently. "Stomach issues."
x x x
"You did what?" Annabeth demanded.
Liam shrunk back, his hand brushing Alex's file on the desk as he did.
Liam and Beckendorf had given a believable excuse for not touring the Syndicate's facility and immediately called all of their friends to the school with a hasty series of Iris Messages. Chiron couldn't be there—he had some kind of important business on Mount Olympus—but Annabeth was fulfilling the role of disapproving adult just fine.
"We grabbed Alex's file from the Syndicate," Beckendorf said, unbothered by Annabeth's hostility.
"You stole from them?"
"Um...yeah," Liam said.
"I don't see the problem, Annabeth," Thalia said, crossing her arms as she sat on a desk. They had decided to meet in Chiron's classroom, like old times. One of the desks sat empty, and Liam purposefully avoided looking at it. It used to be Alex's. "They figured out who was involved in our friend's death and found proof."
"But it's not like we can take it to the police," Grover said. In the past two years, his horns had grown, peeking out over his curls. His satyr legs were exposed, and he chewed on a tin can in between sentences. "Who are we supposed to take this to?"
"Chiron!" Liam exclaimed. "Besides, you haven't even read the files yet."
"Exactly," Beckendorf said. "Read it first, and when you're done you can yell at us."
Liam could tell than Annabeth wasn't happy, but eventually she nodded.
He hadn't realized just how much the Syndicate had on Alex. He knew that the file was thick and heavy—it was a wonder he had managed to sneak it out at all—but there were enough files there to make his head spin.
They passed the files around like candy, reading as many as they could as fast as they could. Liam was disturbed by the amount of details in the report—he had to hide a few of the files from his friends because they described a few of his dates with her. Worse, they even detailed her life before she came to Goode.
"Look at this," Thalia said, waving Liam over.
She was holding a file with a picture of a seven-year-old Alex. She had been an adorable little girl; she even had pigtails. Liam smiled when he saw the picture, but that faded when he heard Thalia's words.
"Listen," she said. "This file says 'Frederick was more effective than we anticipated as a trader, but when it came to breaking Clayton's will his methods were subpar.' Fred was one of theirs."
Liam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Not only had the Syndicate been responsible for Alex's death, but they had also tortured her for years.
Those bastards were going down.
"Liam," Percy said, warning creeping into his voice. "You're crackling."
Liam opened his eyes, willing the electricity on his skin to go away. "I need you guys to do me a favor."
"Another one?" Grover asked, though he had chewed through his supply of tin cans some time ago and had been bleating nervously for quite some time.
"Just trust me," Liam said. "Meet me at the Clayton's in an hour. And bring everything that used to be hers."
x x x
Lawrence was very confused when they all appeared at his house holding cardboard boxes.
"What is this?" he asked. Liam couldn't help but noticing the bags under the detective's eyes and the untidiness of his hair. That wasn't like Lawrence. Then again, it had only been a little over a week since she…since the incident.
"Lawrence," Liam said. He hadn't really thought this part through (although if he was being honest, he hadn't really thought any of this through). "Um…we need to see Alex's room again. I swear it's for a good reason."
Lawrence blinked. Then he stepped aside without any more dialogue. Liam frowned as the group passed him. That really wasn't like Lawrence. Like the rest of them, Alex's father was taking her death hard—perhaps even harder than the rest of them.
It was a good thing Bobby didn't appear to be home—Liam didn't know if he had it in him to explain what exactly they were doing again. He knew it made him sound a little crazy and abnormal. But like Alex always said: Normal is boring anyway.
Her room hadn't changed at all since they had left it just a few days earlier. It seemed strangely empty without all of her things in it. Luckily, the group set out to fix that.
They emptied their boxes onto the floor, creating a large mess that would have made Alex blow a gasket if she had seen it in her bedroom. It was havoc: there was a thick carpet of papers on the floor covered in various random objects: arrows, wood carvings, shoes, books, hunting trophies, picures, and, strangely, even a thick scroll of enchilada recipes (Grover explained that Jasper, his girlfriend, had given it to Alex so that she could make more enchiladas for Grover. Among her other skills, she had also been an excellent cook).
"Spread out," Liam said, trying to ignore the painful twinge in his heart when he saw all of her things out like that. "She might have left other clues behind."
The others looked doubtful, but they began the search all the same. Liam sat cross-legged on the floor between Percy and Thalia, looking through a big pile of papers. Most of them were old grades (she had passed English with a 112%, but nearly failed math—at least, according to her homework grades), but some of them were old notes that she had taken. None of them contained any brilliant insights.
"Did you know she was this…meticulous?" Thalia asked Liam.
He shrugged. "I knew she liked keeping notes, but I never dreamed she kept this many."
Percy held up one of the sheets of paper up to the light, squinting at it. "How can anyone read this?"
Liam snatched the piece of paper away when he caught a couple words, namely Liam, date, and interesting. Giving the paper a once-over, he realized that Alex's handwriting had been particularly sloppy here, but it didn't contain any ground-breaking revelations: it just detailed how one of their dates had turned into a monster-hunting adventure.
He smiled to himself. That had been really fun. No wonder Alex had written it down: not only had they had the time of their lives, but they also saw several interesting monsters.
It felt like they searched through her things for hours, but nobody came across any clues. At one point, they had thought she had carved something into one of her old pairs of shoes, but then they realized that it was just a scar from a monster attack.
Liam sat back on her bed and sighed hopelessly. He had been sure that she would have hidden something else in her things. If Alex had thought somebody was after her, she would have taken precautions, not trusting anybody. In some ways, that hurt, but he also knew that she had done it to protect her friends.
He sighed again and flipped through an old calendar absently, feeling the thin pages ruffle under his fingers.
Liam paused. Why did he feel a little bump in the paper?
He looked down. He had flipped to the month June, on the 14th. It had been Xed out just like all the other days, but there was a strange marking in the corner: a little dot in black sharpie. Frowning, Liam turned to July only to find two similar markings. Two dots on July 6th and one on the 18th.
"Annabeth," Liam said, trying to mask the excitement in his voice, "you should come take a look at this."
Annabeth walked over, in the middle of examining a book called Metamorphosis. "What is—" She cut herself off when she saw the markings on the calendar, dropping the book in her hands. "Interesting."
Liam quickly moved out of the way so that she could investigate the calendar. He had learned the hard way that if you got in the way of Annabeth and knowledge, you had best be prepared for her bronze dagger. Percy had done that once or twice as well, and he still complained about it.
The group huddled around the bed as Annabeth chewed on the end of a pencil, flipping through the calendar. Liam had to brush aluminum shavings off the bed covers as Grover munched nervously on one.
"How many calories does a tin can have?" Thalia asked Grover. "How do you satyrs eat so many of those?"
Grover shrugged. "I work it off."
"Yeah, by eating enchiladas," Percy commented.
Liam chuckled, but almost immediately stopped. It felt wrong to laugh without Alex.
Annabeth suddenly snapped her fingers, and her boyfriend understood faster than the rest of them did. Percy ripped a blank page out of one of the notebooks and handed it to her. Instantly she began scribbling on the paper, looking back at the marked calendar every now and then. It took Liam a moment to realize that she was writing in Greek characters, but by the time his brain had sorted out the translation Annabeth was already saying it aloud.
"'Find the real Barbarous,"' she read.
Liam frowned. "Oh, Styx."
I hope this chapter made sense—I was looking forward to writing it.
So since I wrote two chapters, that means I get two reviews today, right guys? Right? It's fine—just one will do.
What did the fish say when he ran into the wall?
Dam.
