MAIN TITLE: The Keeper of Fate
WARNINGS: See first chapter for warnings.
NOTES: Thanks to Fangisnotmyfirstname, FlamePumpkin32, Apollo06, Lilac Vision, angel2u, Princess Andromeda 3 and chaSing b0b for reviewing this chapter!
In response to Apollo06's review: Yes, Julie will show up eventually, though she'll be a minor character.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the PJO series. Rick Riordan does.
Chapter 22: Luke Gets Hit On By Donkey-Leg Girl
"Oh gods… Clarisse, come on, let's get out of here," I hiss, my voice panicked.
"No."
"No," I repeat. "No? Are you crazy? This must be some sort of lair for Kronos' army, for them to regroup and plan their next move and stuff. And you're telling me we should stay?"
Clarisse locks her jaw. "Yes, I am. I think you're right for once, Dess. This place is like…their Labyrinth base or something. So doesn't it make sense that the best place to look for info on what they're up to is here?"
Gods, I hate it when she's right. Even when she's acknowledging that I'm right.
"All right, we'll take a quick look at these papers," I say, as Clarisse rolls her eyes with an 'I-wasn't-asking-for-your-permission' look on her face, which I ignore. "But," I continue, "we're out of here the second it seems like someone's coming."
"Deal," Clarisse says, immediately turning back to the desk to go through the papers. I join her, scanning paper after paper, all the while inwardly cursing my dyslexia. It takes me like five minutes just to briefly look through one measly paper.
Anyways, most of these papers seem to be failed attempts at making a map of the Labyrinth. It's like they've got bits and pieces, but they just can't put them together. I chew my lip, wondering if I should bring them back to camp with me. Maybe Annabeth can figure all this out. The problem is that eventually someone's probably going to realize that there are papers missing, and then they might guess that Chiron's got people exploring this place, too.
And who am I kidding? No one could figure out the Labyrinth. Not even Annabeth. Maps aren't going to help us. The only thing that can help is Ariadne's string, and if we can't find it, then we'll just have to settle for making sure the enemy doesn't find it.
I gather all the maps I've found into a pile and hand them to Clarisse, who takes both my pile and her own and shoves them into a corner so they won't get in the way. Then we go back to searching, and this time we hit the jackpot. Well, sort of. It's like those contests where you win second place and you get some sort of coupon for Baskin Robbins, which is nice because you get free ice cream for like a year, but at the same time you really wanted the MacBook Pro or the latest iPhone or whatever the first place prize is.
Of course, we don't really find a coupon for Baskin Robbins. (Though I would kill for a scoop of Neopolitan Dynamite or Choco Latte Crunch right about now.) Instead we find status reports on demigods who are obviously part of Kronos' army. As we go through them, we notice that several demigods have "Exploring Labyrinth, whereabouts unknown" as their status.
I squint at Peter Walters' report. In the progress segment, it says "Entered Labyrinth in Sector D1, San Francisco, California. Surfaced four days later in Sector F3, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Claims to have only spent a few hours underground. Current knowledge of Labyrinth unable to account for SNik3's sudden appearance on the other side of the country." In the status segment, it says "Currently enrolled in Labyrinth Rehabilitation program. Condition stable. Mostly. Expected to be released ASAP. Will return for duty upon release."
My brain is now in a continuous loop of "WTF does this mean?" Okay. Okay, Dess, just take it one step at a time, I think to myself. Okay, so they've divided the country into sectors. That's obvious. And the Labyrinth Rehabilitation program must be for demigods who've made it out of the Labyrinth and needmental help or whatever.
I'm also getting the feeling that Kronos' army doesn't know too much more about the Labyrinth than we do. "Current knowledge of Labyrinth unable to account for SNi3's sudden appearance on the other side of the country…"
"Hey Clarisse," I ask suddenly, "do you know what state that Kraken-infested waterfront was in?"
"Hmmm? Oh, that was in Louisiana. I saw it on the side of one of the warehouses." She doesn't even look up from her report.
Oh gods. We walked from New York to Louisiana in less than two weeks – and we've stopped to eat and sleep a lot, so we've been walking for even less time than that. How is that even possible? From New York to Louisiana must be like– okay, I have no idea how many miles that would be, but it must be a LOT.
I take a deep breath and decide to forget the metaphorical bombshell that Clarisse has just dropped on me. I can worry about it later. For now I return to Peter's report. I read through it again, trying to pick up anything I might've missed the first time around. I frown as my mind registers that "SNik3" isn't a word. "SNik3" is probably some sort of code for Peter, considering the context. But still, how the Hades does "SNik3" add up to Peter?
I read through some of the other reports, and I realize that all of the demigods have that code thing. Then I notice that every single code starts with either 'S' or 'D'. "SAph2", "DApo3", "DDio1"…
Wait…
Wait…
Wait…
Okay. I think I've got it. 'S' for son, 'D' for daughter. And then it would be the first three letters of that god or goddess' name, right? So "SNik3" is son of – I run through my internal list of Greek deities – Nike? Probably. That leaves the number three. Maybe there are three sons of Nike in Kronos' army?
So "SAph2" would be the second son of Aphrodite, and "DApo3" would be the third daughter of Apollo, and "DDio1" would be the first daughter of… of…
Oh gods. Oh gods. 'Dio'… Wouldn't that be Dionysus?
I can't remember there ever being a daughter of Dionysus at camp. In fact, there's a rumour that there haven't been any daughters of Dionysus in the last three hundred years. My eyes shoot up to the top of the paper, to the name that reads "Beaujolais Gillette". Half of me wonders who the hell would name their daughter 'Beaujolais'. The other half of me wonders where I've heard the last name 'Gillette' before.
"Hey, uh, Clarisse? Do you know anyone with the last name 'Gillette'?"
Clarisse tears her eyes away from the report she's reading and frowns at me. "Yes, I do. And so do you. Don't you remember Julie Gillette? From the Hermes cabin? I stuck her head in the toilet on her very first day," Clarisse says, grinning proudly before she continues, "because she laughed at me when I fell off the climbing wall. And then she never laughed at me again."
I roll my eyes at her, but already I'm picturing that French girl, Julie, always with her gaze turned skyward, waiting for a symbol to appear above her head and free her from the chaos and loneliness of cabin eleven, the cabin she knew she didn't belong to. And the whole time, her godly parent was right there.
You know, supposedly the reason the gods don't claim their kids is because they 'forget' about them. Now, I get why maybe Apollo or Aphrodite might forget; they have so many kids. But Dionysus? He just has Pollux and Castor. How could he not remember his only daughter, who ate dinner at the same pavilion as him everyday for two years? (And seriously, how could anyone forget they have a daughter named Beaujolais?) There's no way he forgot. He left her in cabin eleven on purpose.
Disgust and anger flow through me. In an attempt to distract myself, I snatch another report off the desk off the desk and skip right to the progress segment. As I read the words written there, the temperature in the room seems to drop rapidly. I read the words again and again and again, hoping I might've misunderstood, but I already know that I haven't. I look for the demigod's name, but suddenly Clarisse jerks on my arm.
"What, Clarisse?"
"I hear voices! Someone's coming!" She sounds so panicked that I don't even bother to question whether she's sure her hearing is working properly.
"–rather you kept your hands to yourself," says a voice from somewhere beyond the wall opposite the doorway we came in through. I didn't notice before, but there's a Greek delta on it. There must be a passageway into the mortal world there. The sound of footsteps accompanies the voice, and they sound like they're getting closer. What bothers me most, though, is that I recognize the voice.
"Clarisse, that's Luke's voice!" I hiss at her.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
"Am I– What kind of question is that? Of course I'm sure!" I snap back.
Just then, Luke's companion speaks up and proves me right. "You know you like it. Really, Luke, there's no need to pretend.…"
Clarisse swears under her breath, at the same time working frantically to put everything back to the way it was. She practically rips the report from my hand and shoves into the mess of papers. Damn it. I planned to take that one with me. No time to worry about that now, though.
"I'm not pretending, Kelli," Luke says. "I know what you're offering, and I'm not interested. But enough about that. I want to hear the information you've gathered on the string before I start reading those status reports."
Clarisse locks eyes with me. This is probably the only chance we're going to get to learn what they're planning. We could hide in the wardrobe and eavesdrop, but if they find us… Luke's a really good fighter. Even if we could somehow fight him off, there's no guarantee that he and this Kelli girl aren't accompanied by guards or whoever.
All in all, I'm thinking that running for all we're worth is a pretty good idea, but Clarisse makes the decision for me. She grabs my arm and the next second she's yanking me into the wardrobe after her. She pulls on the door, leaving it ever so slightly ajar because, as Lucy Pevensie once said, shutting yourself into a wardrobe is a really stupid thing to do. Or at least, I think that's what she said. I don't remember too much about that book. I think I read until Edmund met the White Witch and then I got bored. (And frustrated, because it took me forever just to get that far. Damn dyslexia.)
Before I can even get angry at Clarisse for putting us in danger, there's the sound of a door sliding open and two people stepping into the room we were just in.
"As you wish, my lord," Kelli says, her voice sweet like honey. I instantly decide that I hate her. "The research team gave a report yesterday, and from what they've said it seems the most likely place to find Ariadne's string would be Daedalus' workshop."
Clarisse and I exchange a startled glance. Daedalus' workshop? Does that place even exist anymore? But it makes sense. Ariadne has no use for the string anymore, and Daedalus is the one who built the Labyrinth. Of course he would have a guaranteed way to navigate it, and where else would he put it but in his workshop?
"His workshop? And does the research team know where that is?" Luke asks.
"They're fairly certain that his workshop is somewhere in the Labyrinth, or at least directly connected to it."
"But they don't know how to get there." Luke's voice is calm and smooth, yet Clarisse shivers beside me. I feel sorry for the people on that research team. I wouldn't want to be them.
Even Kelli sounds intimidated. "Not yet, no," she admits. "But they're working on it."
"I see," Luke says coolly. "Is that all you have to tell me, demon?"
"Well, there is one other thing..." Kelli hesitates.
"Tell me," Luke orders, his voice low and dangerous.
"They suspect– They think that it's possible that–that Daedalus is still alive."
For a long moment, everything is completely still. There's no movement, no noise, except for Kelli's words reverberating again and again in my head.
"Still alive? That's impossible," Luke scoffs, breaking the drawn-out silence. "He'd be thousands of years old."
"I know it sounds crazy, but the fact that the Labyrinth is still expanding…it makes them uneasy. They think that maybe Daedalus is still out there somewhere, adding to his creation."
"Very well. It makes no difference, in the end. We'll keep on exploring the Labyrinth, and if we happen to run into Daedalus then we'll…persuade him to tell us everything he knows about the string." Luke's tone makes it clear that he thinks it's more likely that they'll run into leprechauns and dinosaurs than into Daedalus. And what's this 'we' stuff? I bet this is the first time he's ever stepped into the Labyrinth before. He probably makes the other demigods do all the dirty work for him. After all, they're expendable.
While I stand there seething in anger and bitterness, Kelli seems to regain her former confidence. "You always know just how to handle these things. But you know, Luke, you seem a little – stressed. And I know how to handle stress." Her voice drops to a seductive whisper. "Come on, Luke. Just have a little fun… It's just one night…" she practically purrs.
I imagine a tall, scantily clad young woman with an hourglass figure lean in towards Luke and rest a hand lightly on his arm, and my blood boils. I have no idea who she is, I've never seen her before in my life, but there's a very vivid image in my mind of her oh-so beautiful head being torn off. "Demon", Luke called her. What a perfect word for her.
"I told you no, okay?" Luke says harshly, and I don't even want to think about why that fills me with smugness. "Like I said before – like I've said a million times – I'm not interested."
"Sweetie, of course you are. You're a man. And I'm a very attractive woman."
"One of your legs is made of metal. And the other one is a donkey leg."
Okay, "demon" is definitely an appropriate word to use to describe her. I glance at Clarisse who mouths 'Empousai' to me.
"Why does everyone always bring up the legs?" Kelli complains. "And don't change the subject. This is about that girl, isn't it?" She says 'girl' the way I might say 'book'.
Luke doesn't respond.
In a triumphant voice, Kelli continues, "Oh, don't look so surprised. I know all about her. You say her name in your sleep, did you know that? It's not a very common name, either, so when I saw it on the list of demigods attending Camp Half-Blood, I knew it was her."
"That's not– " For the first time, Luke sounds nervous. "There is no girl. She's a character from this book series I'm reading, The Midnighters. That's all."
"And you dream about fictional characters, do you?" Kelli asks slyly, and I imagine ruby red lips curved into a satisfied smirk.
"Sometimes I fall asleep while I'm reading the books," Luke replies a little too quickly.
"Her name is the only one you've ever mentioned," the empousai counters.
"She's my favourite character. You must've misread the list of demigods," Luke says frigidly. "There's no one at camp with that name. I've never met anyone with the name Dess."
I can't help it. I gasp. Loudly. Clarisse claps a hand over my mouth.
Oh, shit.
"What was that?" Luke asks sharply.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. We're so dead.
Fortunately, Kelli is dumber than I thought. "Don't try to distract me. I didn't misread that list, Luke. In fact, I asked our spy about her. He told me some very interesting stories about you and her." There's the sound of footsteps, like she's circling Luke. "He said it was disgusting how in love you two were. I was very disappointed in you, Luke. But then I thought to myself, would Luke really be foolish enough to fall for one of Chiron's brats? A daughter of Hephaestus, no less?"
The footsteps stop. There's a long pause.
"Don't be ridiculous," Luke says at last. "I– I did date a girl named Dess. But I know my duty is to Kronos, and Dess was loyal to Chiron. Of course I wouldn't fall for the enemy."
I suddenly feel the way I did when I was eleven years old, riding my bike home from school, but I was distracted by that billboard with the double cheeseburger on it and I forgot to turn at the corner, so I rode straight into a brick wall. I remember the shock (from the impact with the wall) and the pain (from my broken wrist) very clearly, and yet this is so much worse.
"She means nothing to you?"
"That's right," Luke replies without hesitation.
"Then why do you dream of her?" Kelli says the words softly, yet I picture her eyes gleaming like a hungry predator that's cornered its prey.
"I–" Luke almost sounds like he's choking on the words he wants to say. "I don't know," he whispers.
"Well I sincerely hope you find a way to get over this unhealthy…fixation. We wouldn't want Lord Kronos to find out, now would we?"
"You wouldn't dare," Luke snarls.
"Maybe I would," Kelli says, laughter bubbling up in her voice, "and maybe I wouldn't."
"How do you even know that I talk in my sleep?" Luke demands. "You're not allowed in my private chambers, I specifically told the guards to keep you away at all costs–"
"And why did you tell them that?" Kelli asks, still sounding amused. "Are you afraid you would not be able to resist temptation if we were alone together in your chambers?"
"Hardly," Luke says, his voice icy. "I just don't want you harassing me all the time. And you're avoiding my question! What were you doing in my private chambers?"
"Oh, I've never been in your chambers. But the maids have, and they do love to gossip."
Luke exhales loudly. "I should've known. Perhaps they need another lecture about not spreading unfounded rumours unless they want to be fed to the drakon. As for you, demon, you will not discuss my personal life with anyone ever again, understood? You are to make no more inquiries about Dess to anyone. And if you breathe a word of this to Lord Kronos–"
"Then I'll be the one being fed to the drakon," Kelli finishes for him. "I'll keep that in mind. Perhaps now you should gather those status reports so we can return to the surface? I sense that you're rather uncomfortable down here."
"It's nice to know you aren't completely incompetent."
Kelli ignores this. "One day, Luke, you're going to change your mind about all this. Call me when you get over that tramp. Honestly Luke, a daughter of Hephaestus? How disfigured was she?"
"She was beautiful, actually," Luke says coldly. "More beautiful than you'll ever be."
There's the sound of footsteps again, this time moving away from us, but Clarisse and I stay hidden in the wardrobe until Kelli's shrieks of laughter have entirely faded away.
Hours later, when we're safely away from Luke and Kelli, or any of Kronos' minions, I ask Clarisse if she found anything useful. For the next ten minutes she blathers on about all the kick-ass weapons (which I didn't even notice) that she found in the back of the wardrobe (which was apparently an armory). She then tells me that she mostly found standard reports. Then, after a minute's hesitation, she pulls a piece of paper out of her jacket pocket and hands it to me, but I don't even glance at it.
"Clarisse, what have you done? What if they notice this one is missing?" I demand, though the ration part of me (which still exists, as impossible as that may seem) knows that this piece of paper must be very important if Clarisse was willing to risk our mission – and our lives – to get it.
Clarisse brushes my concerns aside with a wave of her hand. "They won't. And I just…I had to take that one. I had to." Her voice wobbles a little, which worries me.
I take a moment to decipher the name. Oh. That explains it. I read through the rest of the report, and when I'm finished I look up and meet Clarisse's slightly pained gaze with my sympathetic one.
"Clarisse, there's no way they'll find him. He's safe at camp," I say, trying to soothe her.
She glares at the ground. "I know that. But I've been thinking – even if we can somehow get Mr. D to cure him, what happens to him after? You read that report, Dess. They think he's gone back to our side. They'll kill him if he goes back. But he might not want to stay at camp, and if he does stay, you know the other kids won't accept him."
I shrug my shoulders helplessly. "I don't know what to tell you, Clarisse. I guess for now we should just worry about helping Chris regain his sanity. It won't matter whose side he's on if he's dead. …Oh, sorry, that was really insensitive, wasn't it? I swear, sometimes I just open my mouth and garbage comes out…"
Clarisse tries to smile at me, but it comes out more like a grimace. I scan the report again, hoping to find something useful that will make up for my tactlessness.
"Wait, why are there question marks in his code name?"
"His code name?" Clarisse asks, her expression clueless.
Quickly, I explain to her how the demigods in Kronos' army are assigned code names according to their gender and their godly parent, using Peter's as an example.
"Oh." She frowns at the report. "You're right, Chris does have question marks in his code name… S?8… I guess they don't know his godly parent, either."
"There are a lot of undetermined demigods in Kronos' army," I notice. "It says eight, but there are probably more… So even Kronos doesn't know everything… But how did he know that Julie was Dionysus' daughter?"
"Dionysus' WHAT?" Clarisse splutters.
I tell her all about Julie, and after she's stopped laughing uproariously at the fact that Julie's real name is Beaujolais, she says thoughtfully, "You know, it couldn't have been that hard to get her to betray Camp. I mean, once Kronos or Luke or whoever told her who her father was, she must've been angry. Because it's not like with the other gods, who never see their children and forget about even having them. Dionysus saw her everyday and he still didn't claim her. That must've made her really bitter."
I let out a heavy sigh. "I know. I don't like the fact that she switched sides, and I still think it's wrong, but…I do understand."
"Well," Clarisse says, perking up slightly, "on the plus side, we could probably use this info to blackmail Mr. D into healing Chris."
I roll my eyes at her, and then I ask her if she knows how we got from New York to Louisiana after walking for only a few days' time.
She just shrugs carelessly and says, "Think about it, Dess. We thought we'd only been in the Labyrinth for a few days, but when we got out more than a month had passed. If the Labyrinth can screw up time that much, why wouldn't it be able to mess with space, too?"
Oh gods. She's getting smarter by the day. This is so weird.
"All right, then. One last thing." I take a deep breath. "We have a spy at camp. Possibly more than one."
"Yeah, I know that," Clarisse replies, her tone slightly impatient. "That empousai mentioned him."
"Well yeah, but…I think I sort of…read–his–report." I rush through the last three words.
"You did? Who was it?" Clarisse asks eagerly. "Oh, when we get back to Camp he is so–"
"I don't know," I interrupt her. "I skipped straight to the status segment. It said–" Gods, she's going to kill me just for saying this. "It said 'Infiltration successful. SAre1 remains undetected. Continues to gather information from Camp Half-Blood.'"
"SAre1… That would be–" Her expression freezes as she realizes who the spy's godly parent is. "No way. No way! How dare you accuse– None of my brothers would ever–" She stops short, and an ugly look steals over her face. "Sherman."
"I don't know for sure," I say quietly. "But I would guess."
"How can you not know for sure?" she demands. "Didn't you look at the name?"
"I was about to," I snap back, "but then Luke and Kelli showed up, and you ripped the paper from my hands before I could read the name."
"Oh." Clarisse seems to deflate for a moment, but then all her anger comes back. "Well it doesn't matter if you didn't see the name! None of my other brothers would join Kronos. It has to be Sherman! We'll I-M Chiron and tell him about Sherman, and when I get back that punk is so–"
I cut her off before she can threaten to skin him alive or decapitate him or run him through with her spear, or whatever other means of violent torture she has in mind. "Clarisse, it does matter! We have to be one hundred sure about it! If it's not him, than the real spy will realize that we're on to him!"
"But it is him," Clarisse gripes. "You know it is."
"I think it is," I correct her. "But it could be anyone. You're right, though. We should send Chiron an Iris-message. We'll warn him that there's a spy in the Ares cabin, and we'll tell him all that stuff we heard about the string most likely being in Daedalus' workshop and about how Daedalus is possibly still alive."
"Well if you really want to be logical," Clarisse grumbles under her breath. "Fine. But I don't have any drachmas, and I don't see how we could possibly make a rainbow. Too bad you don't still have that Hello Kitty tattoo on your face. That thing looked like it barfed up rainbows and shit out unicorns."
"Very funny," I sneer at her. "Whatever. We'll just look for Daedalus' mark again, and then we'll find a way to contact Chiron. And you know," I continue, my voice enthusiastic for once, "I bet Chiron will tell us that our quest is done! I mean, he just wanted us to explore for a bit and to try to find out where the string is, right? So now that we know, maybe he'll have us come back to Camp and he'll send someone else to actually get the string!"
"And then we'll never have to go back into the Labyrinth ever again," Clarisse concludes, a genuine smile lighting up her normally angry features.
I'm so caught up in this wondrous possibility that I don't even spare a thought to Luke's words from before – until I wake up the next morning, a note from Apollo clutched in my left hand with another horrible haiku.
Strike two, hurry up;
You are almost out of time.
Last chance, don't blow it.
Author's Note: And yes, Neopolitan Dynamite and Choco Latte Crunch are actual ice cream flavours, according to the Baskin Robbins Canada website. I've never tried either of them, though, so I have no idea if they taste good or not.
If there's anyone out there with the name Beaujolais (however unlikely that may be), I'm sorry if I offended you. I've just never heard of anyone with that name before, and neither has Dess, and she's the type of person that laughs when she hears names that she thinks are strange.
Reviews are appreciated.