Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own the PJ or HoO series by Rick Riodan.

"So where would the best place be to find a shadow?" I ask.

"Dark alley?" he asks.

"Let's use that as a last resort. How about a store's supply closet?" I suggest.

"Sounds good." he says, nodding in approval.

Instead of a supply closet, we found an abandoned pawn shop. Now, usually that wouldn't be a wise decision but everywhere else we looked was either deserted (the owners would notice two teenagers sneaking off into a supply closet and never coming out), or a really sketchy part of town. So this was the second best option.

Nico looks around to make sure no one is watching then kicks at the rotted boards on the door. They give easily and soon we're inside.

Sunlight was peeking through the gaps in the boarded up windows. There were dusty china cases, some of the glass panels smashed. Long counters were covered in grime. It looked as it no one had been inside in years.

"Shadow, shadow, shadow." he mumbles, looking around.

"Over there." I say, pointing to a dark corner where there wasn't any loose rays of sunlight.

"Perfect." he says.

Just as he takes my hand, I hear a slithering sound. Sort of like a snake. I inwardly groan. I had really just hoped we could shadow travel back to camp, no monsters or anything, but obviously the fates just hated me and wanted to make every single day of my life a living hell.

I drop my bags and toss them in a dusty corner. I touch the familiar sun pendant threaded onto my camp necklace and I have my bow in my hands and my quiver slung behind my back. I notch an arrow and look around, trying to find where the sound was coming from.

"Kyra!" Nico yells, pointing with his sword behind me.

I whip around to find a very large snake slithering towards me. And when I say "large", I mean like twenty feet long and about as wide as an old tree's trunk. So, ginormous for a snake. Definitely not your average, run of the mill, snake.

It starts to rear back, ready to strike out at me. I immediately fire and arrow. It hits the middle of it's body but merely bounces off. Almost as if the arrow was made of flimsy rubber.

I dodge the snake's attempts at trying to bite me, all the while firing arrows like mad. Nico tried stabbing the snake with his sword but it seemed defective, same as my arrows, against the snake.

After countless arrows had been fired, I was about ready to give up and just let the snake kill me. I look frantically to Nico and he seemed about at a loss as I was. Then, a thought occurred to me.

Jumping aside, for what felt like the millionth time, I make my way over to Nico.

"What if it's like the Nemean Lion? We can't injure it by cutting away at it's skin. We have to strangle him or something." I say.

"Percy helped kill the Nemean Lion. He threw freeze-dried ice cream sandwiches down it's throat and it choked to death." he says, a completely serious face staring daggers at the snake.

I stare at him, not sure what to think about that story. Never, in my entire time at camp, had I heard of Percy killing the Nemean Lion. And certainly not with freeze-dried food.

I shake my head and reply, "Well, we're a little short on those. Any other ideas?" I ask, jumping aside as the snake strikes again.

"How about you distract it and I sneak up behind it and strangle it." he says.

"Sounds as good as anything else." I say, shrugging.

"Go." he says, darting to the side and around the snake.

I start firing my arrows again, not that it would do anything besides annoy the snake. I jump over it, dropping my bow in the process, as it strikes out, it's teeth smashing into the cracked, checker board floor.

I painfully land face-down on the floor, managing to inhale a ton of dust at the same time. I glance up to see Nico about to pounce on the snake's back. I watch, paralyzed with fear that the snake will turn around and see Nico.

He makes his move and drops his sword, jumping on top of the thing. It hisses so loudly it feels like my eardrums might burst. I clamp my hands over my ears, watching wide-eyed as Nico commences to wrap his arms around the snake's gargantuan neck and begin to squeeze.

The snake slithers and rolls all over the place, trying to shake Nico off but his grip just tightens around the beast's neck. It starts to slow down, obviously beginning to loose consciousness.

Soon, the snake had stopped moving altogether. Nico sits there for a minute, his arms still wrapped around the snake's neck. It starts to crumble away to yellow dust. All that was left was the snake's skull.

Nico gets up and kicks at the dust, scattering it all over the floor. He bends down and picks up the skull, examining the teeth. I get up, over my initial panic, and walk over to him.

I look at the teeth on the skull and feel my skin prickle. The fangs were at least five inches long, the rest of the teeth little needle-like things. The fangs looked wet and I peered closer at them. There was a sort of acid green liquid covering them.

"Poison." Nico says, spitting blood out of his mouth.

"I guess it's a good thing it didn't bite either of us." I say.

"Yea. It would have killed you in seconds. Nectar wouldn't have healed it fast enough." he says.

"Come on. Let's go home." I say, tugging at his arm.

I grab my bags and sling them over my shoulders, once again. Nico takes an empty ambrosia bag out of his back-pack and puts the snake skull inside. He zips the pack shut then comes over to me.

He takes my hand and we start running. Soon, I'm engulfed in the bone-chilling coldness that accompanies shadow traveling. It's hard to explain but, the first time I shadow traveled, I despised it. I didn't like it because it was so foreign to me. Now, it feels like part of my home. Average, everyday life.

A/N:

I'm in a pretty good mood today so I decided to do a surprise update! There hasn't been a giant snake in the stories for a while so I decided to put one in there. I don't think there's actually a Greek monster like this one so I decided to make it up.

It feels so incredibly good outside today where I am. Spring/early summer finally decided to show up. I laid out and tanned for about an hour. I think I fell asleep actually... Lol! I hope everyone had an excellent day and I'll talk to you guys on Saturday!

XOXO,

Mrs-diAngelo25