Alrighty, so here's Chapter 17! Sorry it's been, like, two weeks since I updated. . . was constantly battling writer's block all week, and it really threw a wrench in my progress! Anyway, I decided that we needed to learn a little bit more about Io Grates in this chap., since she is the only character right now that I can gaurantee you will live long enough to see the end of this story (along with Thalia. I haven't forgotten, I promise!). So, thank you to all my fantastic readers, and please review! Enjoy!

Ch. 17

By the time night has fallen, I am exhausted, soaking wet, and in a great deal of physical pain. By about midnight, I finally decide that I cannot take another step and collapse heavily into the shadows of an alley with a soft grunt.

I have no idea what I can do about the camp. I'm in no way powerful enough to get back into it by myself, especially in my present state, and I've seen no other Rebels all day. I'd spent the last five hours trying to find a break in the demigods' defenses, but with the delivery of my latest wound, it had been proven that infiltration was impossible. Once I had accepted the defeat and retreated back into Manhattan, I had decided that my next priority was to find something to eat so that I could keep my strength up. It was only after I had made a hasty, rather barbaric meal out of someone's pet cat that my injuries began to throb, and I found myself nearly passed out on the street.

Stretched out behind a dumpster, I lay in the darkness and watch the glimmer of passing headlights on the alley wall. It's raining again, which I find odd, since Ol' Zeus should be happy about his descendents' victory over the Rebel camp. The cold rain sprinkles lightly down, distorting the city lights and pooling in cracks in the pavement. The occasional late-night pedestrian scuttles by the brightly lit store windows, hoods pulled up and shoulders hunched as they hurry past me and disappear back into the rain.

After about of an hour of laying on the damp concrete and slipping in and out of painful consciousness, a set of footsteps different from those of the mortals comes to my attention. I immediately sense the presence of a creature with Greek blood in it's veins and hurriedly push myself up into sitting position, pressing myself further back into the shadows. However, the newcomer notices my presence.

"Christine Savage?"

I narrow my eyes, peeling myself wearily off the wall. "Silvamord?"

Predak's right-hand telekhine gives me a big grin, her eyes shining out from the gloom. "Christine! Thank the titans, you're the first Rebel I've seen since I got tossed out of the battle."

Silvamord looks as bad as I do, if not worse. She too has suffered from the Greek fire bomb, and supports an ugly pink burn on her sleek black side. She has a deep gash across the back of her head and a swollen eye. Her left flipper has been practically shredded, and she walks hunched over.

I wriggle out from behind the dumpster and peer down at her. "So what happened to you?"

She tries to shrug, but the action obviously pains her. "Same thing that happened to you, probably," she says. "A couple if those Hunter wolves got their teeth into me, drug me away from the battle. I managed to fight them off, but by then I was so far away from camp that I couldn't get back in. They've posted archers above every entrance to camp, you know. I spent all day trying to get back in, but all that got me was an arrow tip in my shoulder and six hours of my life wasted."

I nod. "I tried to get back in, too, but it's no use. They've got guards everywhere. So you say you haven't seen anyone else from the camp?"

The telekhine bites her lip. "Well, I heard some commotion up on Broadway around ten 'o clock, but I wasn't fast enough to get there in time. It might have been a Rebel, but I don't know. Other than that, you're the first person I've seen. . ." She scowls. "There has to be someone else, hasn't there? We probably just haven't run into them yet. The battle was only this morning, after all."

This shred of optimism isn't much, but at least it's something to cling to. "That's probably what's up," I agree. "Say," I ask, "you didn't happen to see Kodiak during the battle, did you?"

That's another thing that's been eating away at me since the battle. I was pretty confident that Damian, Mokkan, and Predak were alright; they had survived the Greek fire bomb. But I hadn't seen Kodiak, or Fiona for that matter, since right before the explosion when I hit the ground. Most likely I had no reason to worry, but it still nagged at me.

Silvamord shakes her head. "No, I didn't notice him. I saw Fiona though—she was taking taking a bite out of a satyr. If she made it through the explosion, I'm sure Kodiak wasn't too far away. They usually watch each others' backs in a fight."

I sigh. "You're right. I'm just a bit overloaded at the moment," I mutter, trying to stretch some of the stiffness out of my bones without upsetting my burnt leg.

"I know how that feels," the telekhine says. "So, do you have any idea what we do now, since we can't get into the camp?"

I think for a moment. "Well, what we need right now is help," I say. I look at the telekhine. "Get my drift?"

Silvamord gives me a classic telekhine grin, shifty and sly, full of sharp little teeth and evil intentions. "I've got nothing better to do," she says. "If you're up for a stroll around town, then be my guest."

Now, generally a cruise through Manhattan at one in the morning isn't advised, but Silvamord and I had no other choice, really. There were only two of us, and there was no way we could get into the camp by ourselves. Plus, there's safety in numbers and more people on guard for trouble when you have a group.

We started to comb the city, spiraling out from the spot where we found each other, usually trying to keep to the shadows but occasionally having to reveal ourselves to the nighttime traffic. Luckily I was still in wolf form, so both Silvamord and I appeared as stray dogs beneath the protection of the Mist. Meanwhile, the rain slowly wanes from a gentle shower to only the occasional large raindrop, then ceases altogether.

For quite a while we find nothing to indicate any supernatural activity, which really didn't surprise either of us. We weave in and out of traffic, cutting through dark side streets and over sidewalks as we work our way from road to road, neither of us talking much. Finally—and weather it was by instinct or pure luck that we noticed it I'll never know—an unexpected flurry of movement and the sound of several trash cans tipping over catches our attention.

I exchange a swift glance with Silvamord before we both begin to make our way towards the alley, blending into the shadows to the best of our abilities. As we approach, it doesn't take us long to work our what has happened. I immediately recognize the voice of the Hunter girl that has Io and a small group of telekhine pups, including Ziral, backed up against an alley wall: Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus. She and another Hunter with their white timber wolf have maneuvered Io and her telekhines into a dark corner, trapped between a wall, a large dumpster, and their enemies. Io appears to be putting up a good fight; she has a sword that she must have borrowed from a demigod that had no use for it anymore and has pushed Ziral and the four other pups behind her, putting herself between them and the Hunters.

The Hunters, not expecting to be snuck up on, have their backs turned to us and are absorbed in trying to break Io's concentration. Thalia's white timber wolf is without a doubt the biggest one I've seen so far; he's even bigger than I am, with glittery, glossy white fur and long muscular legs. The other Hunter girl is younger, with bleached blond hair and big brown eyes. She doesn't appear to be much of a threat, but then again, Thalia Grace usually chooses her company wisely, so I suspect that this girl must have some hidden ability that comes in useful during battle.

Io bares her teeth and jabs her sword at the timber wolf as he inches forward, driving the snarling canine back several feet. The wolf makes a frustrated noise in the back of it's throat and paces back and forth between the Hunters and the Rebels, staying just out of range of Io's blade.

Thalia Grace holds out her hand, touching the wolf lightly on his shoulder. "Be still, Remus," she tells him firmly, stepping around him to stand in front of Io. For a moment the Hunter and the woman stare at each other, then Io breaks.

"What do you want?" she hisses at Grace, her voice cracked and harsh from fatigue and hatred.

The girl unslings her bow from her shoulder, leaning casually on it. "Lower your weapons," she says calmly. "Do not fight us, and we won't hurt you, nor your friends." She gives Ziral and the other telekhine pups cowering behind Io a distasteful look.

Io gives a brittle, humorless laugh. "Do you know how many times I've heard that phrase, girl? 'We won't hurt you,' eh? You're just like your father, Thalia Grace, hard-headed and ignorant, can't see past the end of your nose, exactly like Zeus."

Grace's eyes narrow. "What do you know of my father, traitor?"

"More than I want to," Io snarls. "I was nothing more than a mortal, a normal woman with a normal life, before your father strutted into my world and did this to me. I didn't want him, he wanted me, and I was the one who suffered. I was the one who was cursed for being drug unknowingly into this nightmare," she spits venomously, "I was the one who was condemned to spending the rest of my life looking like a monster, and I didn't even do anything! And you, his own daughter, have the gall to stand there in front of me and preach about 'not hurting?'"

Grace stands stock still, watching Io with weary eyes, taking in the dark horizontal scars across her face and the ram's horns sprouting from her skull amid her filthy, dark brown hair. "Queen Hera," the Hunter says, almost to herself.

Io's right eye twitches dangerously as she stares down Thalia Grace. "Yes, Hera, Queen of Heaven," she snarls. "She did this to me, for what her husband did. For something I had no say in, no idea whatsoever what I was getting myself into. And now I'm stuck here, in this pathetic excuse for a life, eating out of garbage cans and associating with the darkest, evilest bastards ever to roam Manhattan at night."

Silvamord and I are entranced from where we are concealed in the shadows. I've never head Io say so much in one breath, let alone so much about her past. I'd known that Zeus had fallen in love with her, and that Hera had punished her by inflicting the scars and horns, but everyone knew that. I'd never heard Io rant about it like this, and it seemed rather ironic that she finally unwound in the middle of a Manhattan alley at two in the morning, screaming at the daughter of Zeus herself, freaking out in front of two Hunters, a pack of telekhine pups, and Silvamord and me.

"Put down your weapons and come with us, and you won't have to live like that," Thalia says quietly. "We're not like you Rebels. We don't double-cross each other, or do horrible things to our enemies. You don't have to eat off the streets, or associate with the crowd you do."

Io cackles madly. "See the lies your family feeds you, girl? The gods have bickered for millions and millions of years, taking out their angers on the children of their brothers and sisters, cursing and waging war on each other, playing with the lives of us mortals just to satisfy their whims. They don't care Thalia Grace, don't you see? You demigods call us heartless, and maybe we are, but we aren't the only ones. I'll be no better off on your side of the tracks than mine; either way I'm doomed. I might as well have my fun before Hades gets me, mightn't I?"

Grace holds her bow in both hands, her eyes suddenly hard and cold. "That's a no to the offer to stand down then, is it?"

Io smirks nastily. "Just figured it out, did you?"

"Fine then, if that's how you want it." Fast as thought, Grace has an arrow strung on her bow and the string pulled as taunt as it will go, the missile aimed between Io's eyes. Behind Io, one of the telekhine pups whimpers fearfully.

I snap into action, Silvamord following me as I slip from the shadows and stand directly behind the Hunters and their timber wolf. It takes less than a second for Io and the pups to spot us over Grace's shoulder, and a big relieved grin breaks out on Ziral's doberman puppy features.

The Hunters whirl around, their bows strung taunt and ready to be fired. "You!" Thalia Grace exclaims, her eyes widening as she immediately recognizes me as the escaped prisoner, the one who delivered the body of Annabeth Chase to Camp Half-Blood.

"Surprise," I snarl, launching myself at her knees before she can gather her wits. I ram into her legs, and she fires an arrow from her bow before she hits the ground. I duck my head just in time, and the arrow hisses past over my ears and ricochets off the dumpster with a bang like a gunshot, leaving a dent in the thing the size of a wide screen television.

Beside me, Silvamord has taken on the timber wolf and Io is battling the other Hunter girl one-on-one. Ziral, taking over the role as leader of the telekhine pups, is ushering his friends behind another dumpster. I can see them out of the corner of my eye as they stick their heads out from around it, watching the fight eagerly.

I'm having my own problems at the moment though. Thalia Grace is strong, stronger than me, and just as fast. I've managed to wrench her bow from her grasp and toss it off into the gloom of the alley, but she doesn't need it anyway. She draws a long skinning knife from absolutely nowhere and rolls me over onto my back, pinning me to the ground with her hands and knees, holding the knife in her teeth. I kick out with my back legs, unsuccessfully at first, but then my claws land on her hip, slicing it deftly open and splashing the girl's red blood onto the concrete. She grunts with pain, and is distracted just enough for me to lurch to one side, throwing her off me.

She rolls swiftly back onto her feet and kneels down low to the ground, the knife in one hand, the other thrown out to her side for balance. I leap to my feet and dart forward, snapping at her heels as she flips backward out of my reach and my jaws come down on empty air. Grace takes advantage of my momentary surprise and comes in with her knife. I manage to avoid the worst of the damage, but the long blade still cuts a nice slice in my forearm, adding another wound to my steadily growing collection.

"Yo Io, heads up!" Silvamord calls out unexpectedly, her voice cracked as she pants heavily.

Io leaps to the side on instinct as the white timber wolf, which Silvamord had been fighting, staggers by and smashes head-on into the other Hunter girl, taking them both out for a moment. The timber wolf has taken on some serious facial rearrangement from Silvamord; his ears are ripped to ribbons and I can see flashes of white skull beneath the flaps of skin on his head that Silvamord has torn up. One of his eyes is gone completely, as are his lips, and the other eye is blinded by blood. His nose is twisted off to an unnatural angle, and his jaw hangs down limply, revealing many lost and broken teeth. No other part of his body carries so much as a scratch, but Silvamord has done more than enough to his once-pretty face with her pointy little teeth.

Thalia Grace pauses, torn between helping her friends and finishing our battle. I don't give her time to make a decision. "Get the pups!" I call, dashing over to the dumpster and picking the smallest of the telekhine pups up in my teeth. Io and Silvamord follow, each grabbing one of the weaker pups, leaping up onto the dumpster, and hauling themselves up onto the rooftops from there. Ziral and the remaining pup follow them, and I bring up the rear. Within ten seconds, we're out of the alley and bounding off across the top of the city, cackling at our lucky escape.

We've been running across the rooftops for about twenty minutes when Silvamord finally drops her pup and slumps down, gasping for breath. "That's it," she groans. "I'm not. . . going. . . any further."

I set my pup down. "This is as good a place to camp out as any," I say, sniffing around the empty rooftop. "I reckon we're pretty far from anybody who'd be out looking for us."

Io wipes the back of her hand across her forehead, counting up the telekhine pups. "Thanks for stepping in back there," she says to Silvamord and me, sprawling out on the roof, completely exhausted. "You guys are the first Rebels I've seen since—"

"Since the battle, yeah," I finish. "You'd think there would be more of us out here, but I guess the demigods did a pretty good job bottling everybody up."

Io nods. "I barely made it out, too," she says. "It was after that cyclops got a hold of you, Christine. Kodiak had gotten the—"

"Kodiak's alive?" I ask. "You saw him?"

"Yeah, I saw him. He had gotten Ziral and the pups out of camp, trying to get them away from the fighting. He found me pretty soon, asking if I knew if you'd survived the explosion. I told him that you'd been dragged off by the cyclops, and he managed to tell me that he'd sent the pups off in the direction of Broadway before that stupid Hades boy, Di Angelo, started blowing things up again and I lost track of him. It was right about then that I figured out what the demigods were up to, and decided that my best bet was to get out of camp. Well after I managed that I headed off too Broadway, hoping I'd manage to find the pups."

She stops talking long enough to look at the telekhines. They're all curled up around Ziral, who seems to have appointed himself leader, and rightfully so. Silvamord is asleep already, her eyelids twitching, still oozing blood from her numerous wounds.

"Say," I tell Io, "why don't you get to sleep. I'll be able to stay awake for another couple of hours, and I think we're pretty safe here. I'll wake you when something happens."

Io nods thankfully, brushing hair out of her eyes and laying out on the rooftop, still damp from the rain. Withing seconds, her breathing slows and her battered body relaxes as she drifts off.

I morph stiffly into human form, biting back a growl as my burnt leg screams in protest to the change. I limp over to one side of the roof and slump heavily down, letting my feet dangle off the edge of the building. I wonder how much more of this I can take. Silvamord, while still in fighting condition, is just as beat up as me, and Io is exhausted and emotionally stressed out. I can tell that her outburst about her past had really drained her, probably bringing back all sorts of old memories she didn't want to think about. That left me and a bunch of baby telekhines for protection if anything attacked. Not a very comforting thought.

I haven't been sitting guard for too long when I hear a sudden stirring behind me. Ziral extracts himself roughly from his friends and waddles in my direction. I can hear the urgency in his voice as he scrambles eagerly over to me. "Christine, Christine, Christine, Christine—"

I sigh. "Not now, Ziral. Go back to sleep."

"But, but, Christine—"

"Go to sleep, Ziral. You're going to need it."

"Oooh, but Christine, I—"

I flash him a warning look and he pauses briefly, but then plows on.

"Christine, I figured our a way that we can get more Rebels to help us fight!"

"What would that be?" I ask skeptically, not really expecting anything that might work.

"The portal guards."