Chapter 2: Man about town

I walked aimlessly not really knowing where to go. I couldn't go to Will's which was the place I usually went to in situations like this. For a second I thought about going to a doctor but I decided against it in the end. After all those guys were leeches. I didn't have the money to pay them myself and I didn't have any insurance. It was better to see what camp could do for me when I arrived there. I knew I would go there soon. Something important was coming up and I wouldn't miss it for the world. But that was a few weeks away. Now I had nothing to do. I had a few dollars

on me so I figured I'd do something I could always enjoy. Go down to the bar and play some pool. It was something I liked doing and I was actually pretty good at it. The bar I played in was called In Dubio. It was a simple bar. When you walked inside there was a small stage like place which was filled with chairs and tables. Walking to the left led you to the main room. The bar was against the wall and the middle of the bar was filled with more seats and tables. To the left was the pool table. Its cover was red and the sides of the table was black. It was a simple table but it did the trick. There was another room which had a slot machine, a pinball game and dart boards. It was an all right bar and I'd been going there for a while now.

"Hey Walter." I said to the barman. He was thirty years old (we celebrated his 30th birthday a week before) and was a bit over sized. He has crew cut black hair just like me. Although my hair was a bit darker than his. He was a nice guy. More importantly though, he was one hell of a pool player.

"Hey Mikey." He said. "You up for a game?" Walter and I always played. He was a lot better than I was but he taught me a lot and I was a pretty quick student. It was actually pretty cool that he even allowed me to be inside the bar. It was actually 18+ and I was still 16. I was coming up to 17 though. July 14th wasn't all that far away any more. 17 still wasn't 18 though. I was happy Walter was still willing to let me in. Playing pool at In Dubio was pretty much the only thing I did for fun. I was happy to have a place I could go to.

"Pass me a coke and I'm in." I couldn't drink obviously. I was under aged. So I had to stick with coke or sprite. I didn't really mind it all too much. I wasn't a real drinker. I did drink an occasional beer (although my last occasional beer was ages ago) but other than that I wasn't a real alcohol fan.

"Here you go." Walter passed me the coke I ordered and in return I gave him the money I owed him for the drink. I took a sip as Walter came from behind the bar with his keys. On the side of the table he opened the plastic glass board in front of the balls. Doing so made it possible to play without putting in money. Most of the time I paid for playing pool but some days he put the table on free so we could just play. "I'll rack you break." Walter said. I was pretty good at breaking. It was all power and I wasn't a weak guy. Once he had set up the balls I took my shot. With half my strength (all my strength didn't end well...trust me on that) I pushed the cue into the white ball. It crashed into the triangle which made the balls bounce all over the table. Nothing went down the pockets but the balls were well spread. "Not a bad break." Walter said. Not a bad break meant a better break than he had. It was the only thing I did better than he did. He started scouting the playing field to see which shot he was going to take. Both of us saw that spots were a lot easier than stripes at this point which is exactly why he went for stripes. He was better than I was we both knew that so he always made it tougher on him so that I stood a chance against him. And even though it was tougher on him, he still did it with ease. He potted one ball after another until he made a purposeful mistake so that I could get on the table. He had already potted three balls while I still had to pot all seven. One shot was easy. It was a straight shot in the middle pocket. I aimed and fired. Number three went down the pocket as expected. Now it was getting a little harder. I could barely see any of my balls except for the number five which rested against the cushion. I aimed for the balls side so that it would roll into the pocket and with little force I pushed the white towards number five. They lightly touched and number five rolled into the pocket. Two gone five to go. Now it was getting really tough. I had no easy shots left. I decided to go for number one which I would have to cut pretty badly. I aimed carefully and shot. The white hit number one but I cut it too wide. It rolled towards the pocket but missed it by inches. My turn was over. Walter continued where I left off and potted another two balls before missing again (this time not on purpose.) I was up again. Just like last time I was left with one easy shot. The ball I missed last turn was still near the pocket and from where I was I easily potted it. From there I potted two more balls with a bit of luck and I messed up at my third ball. I cut it perfectly and as I hoped the ball rolled into the pocket. But on the other side the white ball did exactly the same thing given Walter two visits (a.k.a two shots.) With those shots he cleared all his balls. All he had to do was the black. He missed his shot by inches. I wasn't sure this time if he did so on purpose or not. I had one chance to pot two balls and the black. The first one was a straight shot which was easily done. The second one was harder. It was pretty much against the cushion like others had been but this one wasn't near any pocket. The only way I was going to pot it was by using the cushion. I calculated the angle hoping I had it right and shot. The white knocked into number two and it flew into the cushion. It came back and landed right in the pocket. It hadn't been an easy shot but I made it. Now for the black. I lined up and aimed. It wasn't all to hard. Just had to cut it a bit. Of course thinking that way jinxed it. I hit the white and it rolled towards the black. Instead of cutting it I hit it straight on causing almost no movement but leaving an extremely easy shot for Walter. It was over. Walter potted the black and I had lost to him once again.

"Again?" I asked after having a sip of my coke. I wasn't a sour loser. I knew I wasn't good enough to beat Walter but that didn't mean I didn't enjoy playing him. The tougher the opponent the more fun I had. I played Walter twice more and lost both those games but it was a game of experience. The more I played the better I became. So I played as much as I could to become as good as I could be. After I finished my drink I brought the empty glass to the bar and put my leather jacket back on. "It has been a pleasure as always. I'll be on my way now." I said. Walter nodded and waved as I walked out.

Something felt weird to me. It was a warm day but I felt shivers running across my spine. I felt as if something was around. Something other than the dozens of pedestrians surrounding me. Something was watching me. And when a demigod gets that kind of feeling then it's usually right. We get dreams and feeling that we can't explain but they mean something. They always do, although we rarely know what it means until it is too late. All it meant for me now was that I had to be on guard. There was something coming so I did the only logical thing a demigod could do. I walked into a little alley way where there was no one else and where normal people would get mugged or killed. It was a stupid thing to do as any monster could get to me here but that was exactly the plan. I couldn't fight in a crowd of pedestrians. Here I could kill or be killed in peace. But I didn't get that lucky.

"Hey Michael." I heard an almost emotionless voice. I recognized it. It was one of the few people I knew in Los Angeles. I turned around and there stood a kid who was about two years younger than me. He stood there in a thick coat and a hood over his head. He had blond hair and wasn't that tall. His big green eyes stared at the ground. I couldn't remember him ever looking anyone in the eyes. It was a part of his autism I believed. I had some conditions of my own (ADHD and dyslexia like most demigods) but not autism. It seemed like the toughest to deal with. He had dyslexia like I did though.

"Hey Seth." Seth Marston. A weird kid but he was a good one. He never looked you in the eye, he didn't really understand jokes and he really wasn't the light of a room but he was a genius. He had a photographic memory and he could figure things out I didn't even get close to figuring out. He was chess champion, undefeated at trivial pursuit and a natural talent for playing pool. I took him to In Dubio once and he whipped the floor with me. I was the only one that hung out with Seth. He was different and most people couldn't appreciate that. I knew that at his school no one liked him and his dad praised his younger brother into the heavens. Seth didn't have an easy life but I tried to make it more bearable even though I doubted I made a difference. "You doing all right?" I asked him. He didn't seem very interested in what I had to say. Instead he just started towards the space behind me.

"What are those things?" He asked me after completely ignoring my question. I turned around and there I saw three Dracanae. For those that do not know Dracanae are the chicks you don't walk up to in a bar. They are horrible ugly things...well waist down anyway. Their top half was...human so to speak. They always seemed snake like and their eyes were very strange, hypnotizing in a way. But from the waist down they became a bit uglier. Instead of legs they had snake trunks...two of them. I wasn't much of a dancer to begin with but I didn't want to imagine them as dance partners.

"Sssso..." The Dracanae pronounced the S weird, it sounded like a snake. "two demigodsss in one alley way. Isssn't that interesssting." The Dracanae spoke, and her words confused me. Two demigods? I was the only one there. I looked at the Dracanae and then at Seth. I looked back and forth between them a few times before I figured it out.

"No way..." Seth a demigod? I hadn't figured him for that. He had dislexia but what about the ADHD? I thought all demigods had to have that. He had autism not ADHD. I wasn't really all that hyper (which is why most doctors would probably diagnose me with ADD instead of ADHD) but I did have the condition. Seth was the calmest guy I ever met. Even now that he saw three monsters and he just got called a demigod he was just standing there eyes staring at the floor. I didn't have much more time to think about Seth being a demigod. I had to worry about keeping us alive. One of the Dracanae charged at me trying to kill me with a spear. Luckily I had been training since the year before. Spears weren't all that tough, all you had to do was get close. From close distance the weapons were pretty much useless (if you were all right with getting beaten with a wooden stick...) I dodged the tip of the spear which wasn't all that hard. Many of these Dracanae weren't very skilled. The only thing was that I was unarmed and they weren't. Shadow-edge was still safely in my pocket. Sadly safe meant that it was a lighter not a sword. I got it out of my pocket when a second Dracanae attacked. I turned the flint on the lighter. The tip of the spear came towards my chest. I raised the weapon I held in my hand and when the tip of the spear was inches from my chest my blade knocked the weapon into the air making it a lot less dangerous for now. Of course there was still the other one standing pretty much next to me. I looked to my right hoping Seth wasn't standing there any more. But he was, he was watching me fight with thrill in his eyes.

"Seth get out of here!" All he did in response was take a few steps back. I was happy two of the Dracanae were after me. The third stood in the back holding two crooked scimitar swords. It was definitely the toughest one and the leader of this merry bunch. I just hoped she wasn't going after Seth. The Dracanae were trying to attack me simultaneously and after each other. One tried to stab my leg the other my face. Nothing worked. I dodged blocked and parried without much trouble. Truth was I had improved a lot when it came to fighting. I had spend all year training as much as I could and now that I was in an actual fight I could see the fruits of my training. I didn't even have to try it was all just automatic. My senses and reflexes did all the work for me. The only bother was that I couldn't get closed to them. The two of them attacking me didn't give me a chance to get offensive. And unlike them, I was getting tired. I needed a stroke of luck or another weapon, as usually Shadow-edge provided. Out of my blade I pulled another identical sword. I didn't know how I did it and it didn't really matter. Two swords, two enemies, seemed possible. Now that I had a second weapon the fight was over in no time. I caught one of the spears with my right hand weapon and I cut its weapon with my left hand blade. Now the second Dracanae was trying to kill me. I crossed my weapons and caught the monster's weapon on the meeting point of the blades. With a scissor movement I broke its weapon just like the last one. Now that they were both defenceless I stabbed the pair of them and moved my weapons towards each other fitting them back into one original weapon.

"Impresssive." The third Dracanae said. She raised her scimitars, she was ready to attack. I had a disadvantage because I only had one weapon now but I figured I could fix that if I chose to. Of course now that the Dracanae charged Shadow-edge didn't listen to what I wanted. I barely had time to block the incoming attack, and I didn't have time to block the second one. With one strong swing Shadow-edge got knocked out of my hand. I backed away hoping to extend my death a bit longer. I was unarmed against a Dracanae. Dracanae weren't all that important but not having a weapon when fighting them was ill advised. I was done for, I knew that much. Mostly I hoped Seth could get away but when I looked around to see if he was safe he wasn't there any more. Hopefully he ran away. There wasn't a corpse so he wasn't dead. There would be a corpse in the alley soon enough though. The Dracanae was close now, the end was near. Just before the monster was close enough to bring down the scimitar she stopped. Her face changed from a sadistic grin to a face of pain. That's when I saw it, something had pierced the monster. A bronze blade had been stabbed in her back and came out of her stomach. A second later the monster disintegrated into dust. There stood Seth with Shadow-edge in his hand. He had killed it, I owed this guy my life. I owed quite a few people my life but I never thought Seth would be one of them.

"Are you okay Michael?" Seth asked. I was wondering the same about him. I had been through stuff like this a few times but he hadn't. But he didn't look scared at all. I couldn't read his expression perfectly because he didn't look at me for a second. At first he stared at the pile of dust on the floor and after that he just looked around at everything but me.

"Yeah I'm fine. Come on let's get out of here." So we left the three piles of dust in the alley and we left. I looked around checking if anything was still around, I saw nothing. Of course I didn't know it then but on top of the roof stood a seemingly young man. He was hooded in a black and red coat and was just waiting, watching.

"So you really are as good as they say." The man said more to himself than anyone else. His voice sounded more ancient than his face did. He sounded calm just like he looked. It wasn't a voice that fitted his looks. "We'll meet soon Angelus. I hope you're prepared." A smile formed on his lips before he disappeared. I didn't see him at the time but as I walked I was certain someone was watching me, I was proven right.. I walked with Seth towards the house of his dad in the suburbs outside of town. Seth always said that his mom ran out on them right after he was born making it more likely that Seth was in fact a demigod like I was. For a second I doubted of walking up to Mr. Marston and just ask but I chose not to. I saw him though, his look was one of appreciation. He nodded towards me as he held his son in his arms. I nodded back and turned around. I figured that Seth had to be one of us but for now I didn't see a immediate threat for him. Maybe he was better off living a slightly normal life with his dad. I had no chance for a normal life. Of course if I didn't get my ass back into town really quickly I didn't have much time to live that abnormal life. Sophie would kill me if I showed up late for training. And the sad thing was that if she wanted to she could easily kick my ass.

The place we trained in was a dump. It was an old building that was falling apart and that no one used any more. It was disgusting, dangerous and deserted. It was perfect for what we needed it. Sophie held the sword she got from her mother years ago. It had been a while since her claiming. She got claimed even before she went on a quest with Jake, Ashlyn and Darius to defeat Hyperion and that was three years ago. She had been a known daughter of Aphrodite for a long time. I had been a known son of Erebus for a while now too but I hadn't really done anything with that yet. I knew how to shadow travel but I hadn't mastered it. Other than that I had no idea what I could do. Did I even have any more powers? I didn't know this things and if all went well I didn't have to find out or at least I hoped so. I didn't want more fights for the fate of camp or worse, the world. I just wanted to worry about keeping myself alive and knowing that everyone else would be fine. Of course that wasn't the fate that was chosen for me.

"So you're saying that Seth might be a demigod?" Sophie said. She had met Seth a few times as I took him to our place. She thought Seth was nice, both of us did. Of course neither of us really knew how to deal with him. We didn't know if he actually wanted to hang out with us or not. Of course I believed him when he said he enjoyed hanging out but I never knew for sure. He didn't laugh about my jokes or made any jokes of his own he mostly just sat there on the couch.

"Well if anyone knows just by coming close it's monsters right? I'm sure the Dracanae said demigods and Seth and I were the only ones there." Could it be true? It had to be, Seth obviously saw the monsters and as far as I knew the only human looking beings that could do that were demigods. So my conclusion was, Seth had to be a demigod.

"If he is one of us do you think he should go to camp?" Truth was Sophie and I weren't the most pro camp demigods there were. Both of us loved it there but if a demigod was doing good in the real world why should they have to go to camp? After all we were doing fine and Seth didn't even have to give anything up yet. He was still going to school and maybe he would be able to finish it unlike pretty much every demigod I knew.

"I don't know. He seems to be doing fine." I said. Sophie and I both put on our protective gloves. Now just to be clear these things weren't worn to protect our hands. It was from keeping us (mostly her) from beating each other's faces in. We went all out in our sparring and if we went bare knuckle we would both be in some serious pain by the end of it.

"Well then let's keep it as it is and if there comes a time we feel like he needs to go we'll take him there." Seemed logical to me. Both of us were ready to go. Gloves, elbow pads and knee pads were on and both of us were ready to knock each other's teeth out. "Lets go." As Sophie lunged forward I realized that it were my teeth that were going to get knocked out. I always thought I was a good fighter but Sophie could kick the shit out of me. Her fist connected with my face and she got ready for her next punch. Her hands were a lot faster than mine but I was just quick enough to block her second punch. That was how it was, she threw two punches, one I could block the other would hit the target. She attacked again. Two quick jabs right after each other hit their target but the hook she threw with her right was knocked away. Now I had to attack. I threw everything I had at her, jabs, hooks, elbows I didn't hold back. For a second Sophie seemed in trouble but she still blocked every attack. When she was sick of defending she pushed her foot into my kneecap nearly breaking it and hooked me in face. I went down after that. I was panting heavily. The pads halved the pain but I still felt pretty beat up. "Come on Angel is that all you got?"

"I liked you better when you were crying earlier." I said. That was a stupid mistake. Sophie kicked me in the ribs out of anger. Because he were still sparring there was little I could do about it. I always knew that most of the Aphrodite kids weren't into the entire fighting thing but Sophie was different. She knew how to fight and she didn't seem to mind showing it.

"Come on Angel. You're better than this." She was mocking me. I had to get up. I crawled back to my feet and attacked. Two left jabs, hook on the right, left elbow I was so fast she didn't have a chance to do anything about these attacks. That was until I went for the finishing punch. That's the one she knocked out of the way. The quick jabs and hooks that followed were beyond my speed. The final time she hit my my head flew backwards and I could feel blood flowing out of my nose. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened, and I figured it wouldn't be the last. Of course Sophie wasn't stopping the attack until I was down on the floor. She spun around and lifted her leg to my face. A spin kick right to the jaw hurts, trust me on that. I got knocked off my feet by the power of the kick and landed on the hard floor of the building. Blood streamed from my nose to the floor and my body hurt everywhere. Most damage had been done to my face and ribs but when you get beat up you feel it in every part of your body. A few minutes later I got up, shoved up piece of paper up my nose and held my head backwards to stop the bleeding. "Sorry about that." Sophie said. Like I said this happened before but not very often.

"It's cool." Given there was paper up my nose my voice sounded very weird. Like when you close your nostrils. I sounded like I was ten years old and given the way I looked (black and blue with dried blood over my face) it really didn't fit the picture. Given I had some things to ask Sophie I pulled out the paper and took the risk of the blood flowing again. When I realized it didn't I relaxed a bit. "So how did you learn how to fight like that?" Partially I knew. She fought almost exactly the way I did and I knew who taught me so I figured he taught her. But even so she was really good. Things like that kick she knocked me down with, Jake didn't do stuff like that.

"Jake taught me everything I know." I knew she was lying. Jake taught me everything I know and I didn't know half of the stuff that Sophie knew. Of course they had been friends for a longer time but did he really teach her so much more? I doubted that.

"Sophie...where were you the time you supposedly disappeared." I asked. Before Sophie and I met not far outside of camp everyone thought she was dead, I thought she was dead. So where had she been? I had never asked her that but I thought it was about time I found out.

"It's none of your..." She said as if it was some kind of reflex. Obviously there were things about her I wasn't supposed to know. Of course that made me more and more curious. "Look...Jake he told me to go somewhere to train and it worked. If you and I sparred back when we met at Jake's I wouldn't have stood a chance against you."

"Why would Jake send you away to train?" Now that was something about Jake that I didn't know about. Months before he died Jake saw his future and in his final months he set up a plan for those he left behind. I knew that it involved me in many ways and that Sophie knew about it. I never talked to her about it but now I needed to know. It was time for answers. "What's his plan Sophie? I know there's something he planned ahead and I know it involves me." I was done waiting for what was going to happen. A friend of ours could see the future and he told Sophie what the future held but I was left in the dark. That didn't feel good.

"There is more coming Angel. You thought Phthonos was the end? That is only the start!" Sophie was pissed. She didn't like me asking questions, but she had to understand that I didn't like being kept in the dark. "I know you think your fight with Dean is the toughest you will ever have but that's nothing! And oh yeah I know Dean is Samael, you can't keep things like that from me Angel!" I always thought she had no idea about that but obviously I was wrong. I felt bad that I never talked to her about it but I thought she didn't know. "That's why Jake needed me to train and that's why he told me to meet you outside camp. You need to get tougher than you are!"

"Well then why won't you tell me what I'm facing huh? If I know what I'm going up against I can prepare!" I was getting fed up with all of this. Why was I so important? She was a better fighter than me why couldn't she fight those battles? Why did I have to be the one who knows nothing but has to do everything? It made no sense to me.

"If I tell you now you won't be able to do it. Jake saw every possibility and this is the only one that ends well. I already said too much." I didn't Say anything after that. Obviously the dead were more important to Sophie than the living. I didn't feel like fighting about this. I walked towards the bathroom and washed the blood off my face. I didn't look too bad given the beating I got from Sophie. Now that I washed off the blood I could see that the damage was minimum. I took a sip of water from the tab when I heard a voice.

"Angel." The voice belonged to a guy so for a second I wondered who it was. But that's when I recognized it. I turned around and saw thick mist in which a face appeared. The face of Luke Ford son of Hephaestus. "What's up mate?" He said.

"Luke! How have you been?" It had been a while since we talked. We kept contact but usually we only talked once every few months. He and I were friends and he asked me to keep him updated but given nothing had changed for me I didn't see a reason to update him. If at camp everything was the same as it was last time we spoke I figured he felt the same way.

"I'm good but...I've got some bad news." A second ago I was cheered up by seeing Luke's face in a cloud of mist but now that I knew he was carrying bad news that changed. The last time he talked to me he told me that camp was attacked by twenty Dracanae but he didn't call that bad news (mostly because no one got badly hurt) so bad news by his standards was BAD news.

"What happened?" I said sincerely. Usually Luke and I joked around but when it got serious we were serious.

"I'm not going to tell you like this. We need to talk face to face." Now I was really shocked. Luke and I hadn't actually seen each other in almost a year. This was really bad news.

"We're on our way." I said and I hit my arm through the cloud of mist disposing of it. I walked back towards the sparring room. "We need to go." I said to her. I started putting off the pads and threw them to the ground. Usually I was a pretty tidy person but now there was no time to clean the place up.

"Angel what happened? You look like you just saw a ghost." Sophie asked. For a second I wanted to make a snappy comment about how annoying it was not knowing what was happening but this was no time for stuff like that.

"Luke just Iris messaged me. Something is up..." That's all I needed to say to make her understand that we needed to get going right now.