Chapter 2 – Bad Company

The truth was, in all his seventeen years, Travis hadn't traveled much. The trip he and Connor made to Camp Half-Blood when he was thirteen and then a half a dozen trips into Manhattan while at Camp Half-Blood constituted his travelling experience. Considering his dad was the god of travelers, it seemed ironic. Katie had fallen asleep, her head resting on the glass. To try and stop himself from staring at her, Travis was watching the countryside roll by. He was worried about his brother and he had no idea how to go about finding him. He'd never been on a quest, and he liked it that way. It was so much easier to just stay at camp, train, break into the camp store and raid the other cabins. But out here, he felt like he was lost. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.

"Hey Dad, if you're listening, I don't know what to do. I have no idea where to go to even begin looking for Connor. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated." When he was done, he let himself rest. It might be a while before he had another chance.

The dream was always the same.

The demigod forces of Olympus were surrounded. They had held out for two days, but the Titan army had pushed them back until they held only twenty feet in front of the Empire State Building. The monsters pressed in, fighting in one on one combat, but as soon as one disintegrated, another one took its place. She was trying to fight off a dracaenae. Poison ivy grew from the street and tangled in the monster's snake trunks. Vines crawled up the snake woman's front, but they seemed to be mere annoyances at best. Katie had never been the best with swords or knives or bows and arrows, preferring the strawberry fields to combat training, but she did her best to use her shield to block the spear that the dracaenae kept jabbing at her. The monster kept pressing her back, farther from the rest of the battle. Suddenly she found her back against a wall. The spear clanged down again on the shield, reverberating painfully through Katie's arm. The snake woman hissed in frustration and surprised Katie by using her weapon to rip the shield away from her body. Katie now stood before the monster, defenseless, and she was sure that this was the end. She offered up a final prayer to her mother. The dracaenae raised her spear in victory and started to bring it down for the killing blow. Katie raised her hands in vain to shield herself. Suddenly, she was covered in golden dust. The monster exploded around her and she was left looking up into the smiling face of Travis Stoll and his sword. He reached out and brushed some dust off her cheek and she drew in a sharp breath.

"You have some monster dust on you," he said helpfully.

"Thanks," she replied shakily. For a moment there was nothing else but them. She stared up at him, noticing for the first time that he had a small scar above his left eye. Why was she noticing this now? He looked like he was about to say something when she yelled, "Travis!"

He turned quickly and before the monster behind him could land the blow, he had sliced the monster's head clean off. He turned back to her. "Be careful, Katie. Next time I might not get here in time." He gave her one of his impish grins, leaned in, and before she knew what he was going to do, he had kissed her.

She blinked in surprise and raised her hand to her lips, but he was already loping away, hacking and slashing the monsters in his path.

Katie awoke with a start to find Travis snoring next to her, his head on her shoulder. An announcement over the loudspeaker was telling them they would arrive in Richmond in approximately fifteen minutes. "Get off me!" she hissed as she pushed him away.

"Huh? What? Are we here?" he asked sleepily. He yawned and stretched.

"No, it's the next stop. We need to figure out where to go next. Rachel said we needed to go south, but we had to cross a bay. What in Hades does that mean?"

Travis yawned again. "There are lots of lakes; maybe it's one of them. There's always the Gulf of Mexico too."

"So we need to cross a lake or the Gulf of Mexico to find where we're going? Lovely." Katie didn't sound like it was lovely at all.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Travis," she snapped. She stood up and stepped over him. "I'll be back." Katie disappeared down the aisle.

Travis was left in the seats, watching her leave. He wondered what was bothering her. Did she really hate him that much? He tried to remember all the pranks and everything he and Connor had pulled on her. There were the Easter bunnies, and the time he'd stolen her gardening tools. He had put shaving cream in her shoes and vegetable oil on her sandals. She had been about to mention something else, but at the last minute, decided not to. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, he was sure, but he had no idea what he'd done to her.

The train had come to a complete stop before Katie returned. She took her backpack silently when he handed it to her and they got off the train. She glanced around, taking in their surroundings. "You are armed, right?" she asked quietly. She reached for her necklace, reassuring herself that it was still there.

"Of course. I'm not completely inept, Gardner," he retorted.

She glanced around warily again. "Let's get out of here. Something doesn't feel right." She headed for the nearest set of doors. They had almost made it when a voice purred, "Young heroes out on a quest? How lucky for me!"

Travis glanced at Katie, and she nodded slightly. He whirled around and pulled a bronze plated lighter from his pocket. The girl that stood behind him laughed when she saw what was in his hand. "Fire can't kill me, foolish boy," she said. "And even if it could, there isn't much you can do with that," she nodded derisively to his lighter.

"You're probably right," he said with a grin. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Katie slip through the crowd, circling around to the back of the monster. The monster-woman lashed out at him with a clawed hand and he stepped back, narrowly missing being slashed. As he moved, he clicked the button on the lighter and it extended into a full Celestial bronze sword. "But I bet this might hurt a bit," he said with a smirk. He twirled the sword in his hand and took up an offensive stance.

She hissed and stepped back. A look of pure shock crossed her features and she exploded into a cloud of yellow dust. In the space behind where the monster had been, Katie held her bronze dagger. "Next time, make sure you watch both demigods you plan to kill!" She glanced around and noticed they were attracting a little bit of attention. "We better move, Travis," she said. She grabbed his free hand, ignoring the spark of electricity that shot up her arm, and dragged him out the door. She could hear people starting to panic behind them.

They ran as fast as they could, zigzagging through the streets, until they were sure no one was following them. Katie pulled him into an alley where she finally dropped his hand and leaned against the wall. She was breathing hard as she sheathed her dagger.

Travis tapped the hilt of his sword and it turned back into a lighter, which he stowed in his pocket. He leaned against the wall next to her, trying to catch his breath. "We work pretty well as a team."

"It wouldn't do me any good to let you die on the first day of the quest," she replied with a sideways glance at him. "Your sword is disguised as a lighter? Really?"

He shrugged. "It gets through security."

They were quiet as they both regained control of their breathing. Finally, Katie spoke. "We can't afford to take another train. Maybe a bus, but since we don't know where we're going, we'll run out of money fast."

"Leave it to me," Travis said with a grin. He pushed himself away from the wall, left his backpack with Katie, and went to find them a ride.

"Travis!" she called after him. There was no answer. "He's going to steal a car," she said to herself. "Great. Not only are the monsters already trying to kill us, but he's going to steal a car and add grand theft auto to the list!"

Katie continued to rant to herself while she waited for Travis to return. After fifteen minutes had passed, she had worked herself into a fit, thinking he'd been arrested, or worse. "What am I going to tell Chiron? How am I going to get Connor back? Oh gods, what will I tell him?" She was interrupted by a sharp beep. When she looked toward the alley entrance, there was Travis, sitting behind the wheel of a Lexus. Katie paused for a moment, noticing how natural he looked behind the wheel of the fancy car. Shaking her head, she picked up both of their bags and ran to the door. Travis leaned over and opened it for her. "I figured you more for a pickup truck than a Lexus," she said as she slid in and tossed the bags in the back seat. "What took you so long?"

"Yeah, I looked at a pickup truck, but I figured this might be a little less conspicuous," he said as he drove off.

"Wow, that's a pretty big word, Stoll. Conspicuous."

Travis glanced at her and raised a brow before continuing his story. "So anyway, I had to switch the plates. It'll make it more difficult to track us. But we're going to have to ditch this one after we cross a state or two."

"My juvenile delinquent cross country quest with Travis Stoll," she muttered.

"Do you have a better way to get us wherever we need to go?" he demanded. For someone who hasn't had much practice driving, he was actually very good.

"No," she replied softly.

"Then do me a favor, Kitty-Kat, and shut up."

"Do not call me that again. You have no rights to call me anything other than Katie. Are we clear?"

He held his hands up in mock surrender. "I hear you, loud and clear, Gardner. Any ideas where we need to go next?"

"Keep heading south. Maybe we'll get lucky and there'll be a 'Bay Lake' or something."

Travis drove them through Virginia. They didn't talk much, but once they crossed into North Carolina, Katie shut off the radio and looked at him. "We've kind of been at each other's throats since we started, but I wanted you to know that I am really sorry about Connor," she said.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah, thanks," he said. He noticed she didn't apologize for 'being at each other's throats.'

"We'll find him," she offered.

"I'm sure we will," he said. I hope he's still alive when we do, he added silently.

"Let's stop and get something to eat. We can find a new ride too," she said, changing the subject.

Travis pulled into the parking lot of a McDonald's off the highway. They went inside and he ordered a Big Mac meal while Katie ordered a chicken salad. While they ate, he scoped the parking lot and surrounding areas for a new car. They didn't talk much during their meal.

After they finished eating, Travis slid behind the wheel while Katie got into the passenger seat. He had been eyeing a strip mall that was across the highway. He figured the employees parked in the back, and they could easily swap cars. "We should be able to swap cars at that strip mall," he said pointing to it. He swung the car across the highway and pulled behind the strip mall. While Travis scouted the cars, Katie grabbed their bags from the back seat. She glanced at the doors lining the back.

"Travis, I'm going to run around to the front and see what's going on. Make sure no one is taking an interest in us. I'll be back in a couple minutes."

Travis nodded and went to work switching out some license plates. He had that done in about five minutes and then went to work opening the car and hotwiring it. He only wished this was like the movies, where the doors were always left unlocked and everyone kept their keys in the sun visor, but alas, this was real life. People were paranoid and locked their cars, so people like him didn't have an easy time stealing them. He had chosen something less flashy this time, a Toyota Corolla. "Yes!" he said as he got the car started. He glanced around to make sure no one had stepped outside for a break, and was surprised to see Katie hadn't returned.

He shut the car off and reached for his lighter. He crept around to the front of the building, but he didn't see any sign of Katie. He started walking along the front of the stores, peeking into the windows. He paused when he found her sitting in a chair in the hair salon underneath the dryer. It really wasn't like Katie to decide to stop and have her hair done. In fact it wasn't like Katie at all. Maybe if one of Aphrodite's daughters were on the quest…

He tried to see if there was anyone else in the shop, but it looked deserted, so he stepped inside. A little bell above the door rang when he opened it. Katie glanced over at him but she didn't say anything. She was trying to tell him something with her eyes, but he had no idea what it was. She kept glancing at the door to the back room. Travis moved closer and found that her hands were tied to the arms of the chair with silver wire. "What is it?" he whispered, nodding toward the door.

She shook her head. He could tell she was terrified. He pushed the button on his lighter, and the sword sprang to life. He gently cut the wires on her left arm. Just then, the door behind him burst open and a woman stood there. "Another customer? How lovely!"

Chapter title song credit – Bad Company (Bad Company; Bad Company album released 1974)