Nine

A Goat's Warning Comes True

The atmosphere was tense after the fight, as if we could all tell something big had happened but weren't sure what was coming next. I washed the blood and grime off me in the nearby creek a ways into the woods, then helped Thalia wrap up the cuts on her side while Annabeth saw to her own leg. Luke just sat a distance away, staring into the forest as if waiting for more monsters to appear any second, gripping his sword tightly enough to turn his fingers white.

Across the clearing, careful to keep her distance, Mrs. O'Leary was lying on her belly, watching us patiently. Once I'd done my part patching up the others, I started toward her.

Thalia grabbed my hand. "Watch it. That's still a hellhound, who knows what it'll do if you get close."

"She helped us," I said. "If she wanted us dead we already would be."

Annabeth, still wrapping her leg, muttered, "Her?"

"Still," Thalia said. "Strolling up to a monster is pretty much never the smartest thing to do."

"It'll be fine," I said. "Come on, look at her!"

As if sensing she was the topic of conversation, Mrs. O'Leary rolled onto her side and stuck her paws in the air. Her tongue came out and rested on the ground.

Even Thalia melted slightly. "I guess it's fine. Just be careful."

When I approached Mrs. O'Leary completed the roll, going all the way onto her back.

"Hey girl," I said, stopping a few steps away. "Boy is it good to see you."

She panted happily.

I kneeled down and reached out a hand. "But what are you doing here, did Daedalus send you?"

Unsurprisingly she didn't answer. She did roll onto her feet though and give me a nice, full-body lick though. I spit, laughing.

"Yeah, yeah. It's great to see you."

She dipped her head, looked to the woods, then back at me. She repeated the motion a few more times until I got the hint.

"You want to leave?" I asked. "Like, right now?" I shook my head. "I can't, girl. The others need me."

She stared at me for a long minute. Then she lay her head on the ground and exhaled hard through her nostrils. A moment later her eyes were shut.

I wandered back, lost in thought.

"Fun visit?" Thalia asked when I got close, eyeing the drool still dripping from my clothes. I nodded absently.

"Mhm."

"Good," she said. "Then you can help me with this." She kicked a box at her feet that she'd been slowly dragging from the tent.

Usually she could've carried it like nothing, but her side must've been giving her problems. I grabbed it followed her, eventually setting it on a flat rock.

"So," she said, "what's the situation on our turncoat hellhound?"

"No idea," I said, pulling the lid from the box. Inside it was a pile of Ziploc bags, a square of ambrosia in each. Thalia grabbed two.

"Really?" she said. "Because it sure seems like you two know each other."

"She saved my life," I said, a touch defensive.

"She, huh?" Thalia pulled both bags open and poured the contents into her mouth all at once. I winced. Pounding god food like that was a great way to spontaneously combust. She caught my look and rolled her eyes.

"Relax. I know how much I can get away with and its more than this. So you really don't know the dog?"

"Not at all. But she's not a threat! I mean she helped us, right? If she hadn't we'd be dead."

"True." Thalia looked over at Mrs. O'Leary. The hellhound let out a loud snore, blowing up a cloud of dust in front of her face. When Thalia looked away she was failing at hiding a smile. "It should be fine for now, but we'll have to keep an eye on her. Unless, of course, someone knew her and had a good story about why we should trust her…"

She stared at me. I fiddled silently with the Ziplock on my baggy of ambrosia.

"Alright. Watch and wait it is." She took a big handful from the box and tossed half of it to me. "C'mon, let's give these to the others.

We went to Annabeth first. She'd tied her own leg and was sitting alone in a lawn chair where she looked like she was fighting her toughest battle of the day with sleep as her opponent. She'd was escaping defeat by the skin of her teeth when seeing us approach gave her something to latch onto, and she sat up straighter.

Thalia dropped two bags in her lap. She eyed the younger girl up and down. "Is your leg the worst of it?"

Annabeth nodded. "Everything else is just scrapes and bruises."

"Take one square now, then, and the other in a few hours. No need to overdo it."

I'd half a mind to point out that Thalia was in no position to be lecturing others on overdoing it, but I didn't feel like becoming a power outlet so I kept my mouth shut.

With Annabeth seen to that only left one stop. Thalia started toward where Luke sat, his back to us, then stopped. She started again, made it a few more steps, stopped again.

"Do you want me to do it?" I asked.

She smiled at me but shook her head. "No, I'll do it. It's just…"

I nodded even though she hadn't finished her sentence. There was something ugly about Luke right now, in the way he stormed off or the way he was brooding apart from of us. I thought of the look on his face when he'd been fighting. He'd been smiling.

"Together, then?" I offered. Thalia didn't shoot me down, just started walking again. I fell into step. This time she didn't stop.

"Luke," she said when we got close, voice uncharacteristically soft. "How're your injuries?"

He grunted, not turning around. "Good enough. You should head back, look after Annabeth. Her leg looked pretty bad."

"Then help her with it," Thalia said. "That'll do more good than sitting alone over here."

"Not right now."

Thalia pursed her lips. "Luke-"

"Not right now."

She grunted in annoyance. "Fine. Be difficult. But at least take some ambrosia- your shoulder looks terrible and so does your leg."

"I'll live. You should take it or give it to-"

"To Annabeth, right?" Thalia growled and chucked three baggies into his lap. "You think I didn't already give her some? We have a full box for gods' sake. Don't be stubborn and take it."

He looked over his shoulder and for a second I hardly recognized him. A small cut on the side of his face had been allowed to breed freely, leaving one cheek caked in recently dried blood. His hair was matted with sweat, bits of monster dust still stuck in it. But worst of all was his eyes, boiling with fierce emotions.

"They're trying to kill you," he said to Thalia. "After everything, they're trying to kill you."

"You mean the Furies?" I asked.

"I mean the gods! After all the things we've had to struggle through, after all the things they abandoned us to face alone, they go and decide that wasn't enough? That they should just drop pretenses and do the job themselves?" He punched the ground hard enough for his knuckles to creak. "Thalia, how can you be so calm about this?"

Thalia looked at him. Then she laughed. When she noticed the looks we were giving her, she made an effort to pull it together.

"Sorry, it's just, you think I'm calm?" Still chuckling, her hand clenched into a fist. "I am very much not calm. I want to charge enough volts up Hades' ass that you could hang Christmas lights off him and watch them light up like New Year's Eve."

"But," she said when Luke opened his mouth to speak, "that's secondary. The main thing is that I want all of us to survive. And look! We're a little roughed up, but we're not dead. There'll be time to worry about revenge later."

Luke recoiled as if she'd slapped him. He looked away resolutely, but before he managed to avert his eyes I saw guilt in them. He picked up the baggy in his lap and popped it open. "Got it."

Thalia and I traded a look, then shrugged at each other. We headed away in silence, our job done as well as it could be.

But before we got all the way back something disturbed the still air. Across the clearing Mrs. O'Leary had jumped to her feet, barking.

At first I thought she'd had a bad dream. It had happened before. But when she didn't stop I realized something was wrong.

Her head was low, body ready to pounce. Her red eyes darted around the forest, searching for a glimpse of something. Then the rest of us heard it- crunching, cracking, and rustling. Something was in the forest, and it was coming straight at us.

Thalia's hands filled with Aegis and her spear. Luke abandoned his watch and leapt up, advancing forward slowly, his sword ready. Annabeth fell in behind us, clutching her dagger, and I stepped beside her, Anfisa whirring into shape.

Snap.

Bark bark bark.

Snap snap.

Bark bark bark.

Snap snap snap- a figure hurtled into sight, sprinting forward and…faceplanting?

Everyone froze, all except the intruder who, without raising his head, moaned. "Owwww."

He picked his way to his feet, and I realized he looked younger than Thalia. "Great job," he said, using a gangly arm to pick a strand of curly brown hair from his mouth. "What kind of Saytr manages to trip himself in the woods?"

He finally looked over at us. When his mocha-colored eyes roved over the array of weaponry aimed in his direction they went wide.

"Waaait," he called, the middle syllable stretching and warbling. "I'm friendly! Friendly!"

Thalia advanced slowly. "What do you want?"

"Want?" he said. "To protect you!"

"To protect us?" Thalia snorted. "Why, out of the goodness of your heart?"

He gulped visibly, gaze stuck on the spear tip pointed toward his chest "I'm a satyr. Protecting demigods is our job."

He kicked off a ratty sneaker and held up his foot- or where his foot should've been. Instead there was only a black, cloven hoof, as if straight from a barnyard animal. Thick clumps of fur stuck haphazardly out from his pant leg.

"See?" He said. "Me satyr, me friend!"

Apparently, Thalia was more used to things like this than I was, because while I was staring at the genuine hoof she was already grilling the boy.

"If it's your job," she said, "then who do your work for? Nothing is free for kids like us."

"You dad," he said. Then, catching the foul look on her face, elaborated as quick as he could. "Indirectly, at least. I work for the Camp, everyone there works for Mr. D, and he works for your dad. Sort of. When he feels like it, or when he's threatened, at least."

"Camp?" Annabeth asked. "What camp?"

The boy pressed a hand to his forehead. "You big idiot," he said to himself, "You're supposed to open with that!"

He cleared his throat, straightened his bag a little, and did his absolute best to pretend he wasn't terrified.

"Camp Half-Blood, the official and only place for people like you, would love to welcome you into its borders. Tired of people not understanding you? Looking for a safe place from monsters? Just want to receive professional training in stabbing living things? All that and more can be yours for the low price of following the satyr in front of you. So don't delay! Fall into step, because your new life awaits."

He took a breath, pitch finished, and took in the blank stares he was getting.

"Was that an… advertisement?" I asked.

He pulled slightly on his collar. "That was the official introduction to be read to new half-bloods," he said. "We didn't used to have one, but Lord Apollo visited recently and said every self-respecting organization needed one, so he whipped it up for us." He lowered his voice and confided, "I memorized the whole thing on my way here. Was my delivery ok?"

Staring at the boy shifting from one foot to the other looking at us like a lost puppy (lost lamb?) Thalia sighed and lowered her weapon. Whether that meant she believed the satyr or that she wouldn't need it to send him packing, I wasn't sure.

"How'd you find us, goat boy?" she asked.

"I have a name!" he said. "Call me Grover."

Thalia cracked her knuckles.

"I mean, only if you want to! Maybe part of the time?" He saw she wasn't moved and hung his head. "…goat boy is fine."

"Glad we solved that. So, goat boy, the question?"

"The question?" he said. "Right, the question! Honestly, it wasn't hard. Four demigods in one place, one of them a daughter of Zeus, well…" He tapped his right nostril and flared it. "I could smell you from three towns over."

I sniffed at my armpit, frowning. I didn't think I smelled anywhere near that bad, but Grover had already moved on.

"If I can find you," he was saying, "then monsters can too. We need to move. Quickly."

"Monsters already find us," Luke said. He'd prowled closer over the course of the conversation, now standing just behind Thalia. Unlike her his weapon was still very much at the ready. "We handle them, they're nothing new."

Grover shivered. "Not like this. Not yet. What you've experienced is just a drop in the bucket, the seedling to an oak. Because…because," he dropped his voice and half-whimpered, "the Guy Downstairs is after you."

We looked at each other. Thalia asked, "You mean Hades?"

Grover flinched. His hands came up to protect his head like he expected a monster to make a lunge for it at any second. "Not the name!"

"Why?" Thalia asked. "What'll he do, send his furies after us!"

"Yes! And hellhounds! Lots and lots of hellhounds!"

"Been there, done that."

"Exact- wait, what?" Grover peaked out from behind his fingers.

"Earlier today," Thalia said. "Two Furies and lots and lots of hellhounds. We sent them straight down where they came from. Look, we even kept one as a keepsake!"

Grover's eyes followed Thalia's outstretched finger and landed on Mrs. O'Leary. The hellhound barked and he scrambled backward, ending up tripping on the toe of the shoe he still wore. "What in the- Ah! Help!"

Thalia started laughing, and the rest of us quickly followed. Even Luke. The scene was just too funny not to- a sprawling satyr attempting to crawl away and cover his head at the same time while a hellhound sniffed and licked at his hindquarters.

"Get it away! Away!"

"Relax," Thalia said. "She won't hurt you." She looked at me. "Unless our resident expert knows about something we don't? Like, say, a passionate taste for mutton?"

"You know," I said, "now that you mention it…"

Grover yelped and went white as a sheet, beginning the process of curling into a ball.

We laughed harder. By the time we'd calmed down Grover had found his way to a sitting position. He still looked extremely uncomfortable with the dog looming behind him, but had found it in himself to give us all a glare.

"I was scared for my life!"

"Sorry, sorry," Thalia said. "But, well…"

"It was pretty funny," I finished.

"Just think," Grover said, "while you're playing practical jokes on a poor Satyr that risked his wool to save you the Furies are out there, waiting for their chance to attack. If you mess around too much then bam!" He smacked a fist into his palm. "They'll catch you, and you'll be dead meat, and I'll fail my task, and we'll all die, and I'll probably get reincarnated as a," he shivered, "Eucalyptus."

I was about to ask what was wrong with that (I liked the smell of Eucalyptus!) when a new, nasally voice spoke above us.

"The satyr is partially correct, dears," it said, and my spine went stiff. I slowly cranked my head up and found exactly what I didn't want to.

Perched on a high branch like some type of vengeful bird was Alecto in all her glory, the third Fury's wings and claws on full display.

"My sisters failed again," she said. "Unfortunate for them, but not unexpected. This is what I get for expecting them to coordinate rather than rush in like children seeing a new toy." She eyed us hungrily, eyes flitting over the numerous injuries. "At least they managed to soften the path to my inevitable victory."

Thalia was in battle mode before I could blink. Aegis faced straight toward Alecto and the Fury's predatory smile slipped.

"We got rid of two of you earlier," she said. "Why not make it a full set of three?"

But the weight was doing bad things to her injured side. Her spear was wobbling as she fought to keep in in proper position. Her threat wrang hollow, too much of her attention taken up just keeping up appearances. The bandages I'd helped wrap had begun to tinge with red.

A sea of glowing eyes sprung up in the woods. A legion of hellhounds, far more than we'd faced earlier, came forward. Mrs. O'Leary barked tirelessly at them but didn't seem to know which way to face, her neck on a swivel as she tried to intimidate enemies appearing from every direction.

We were in no condition to fight. Well, none of us except Grover, but based on the way he was trembling I doubted he'd be doing much protecting anytime soon, even if he said that was his job. We started backing up, bunching ourselves closer and closer together.

Pretty soon Grover's shoulder bumped mine while Thalia was inches away on the other side. We were crammed in like sardines, and Alecto looked like she was in the mood for some fish.

"There is a reason my sisters are below me," she said. "Unlike them, I know how to pick my moment. How to ensure I do not fail."

My backpack pushed against Annabeth as we ran fully out of space to retreat into. But as the bag was pressed I felt something inside it jab into my back. I pulled the pack off and yanked open the zipper. A small canister stared back at me- the container of Greek Fire from Daedalus's workshop. I'd completely forgotten that I'd grabbed it, all those days ago.

A half-formed plan came to my head.

"Why're you doing this!" I yelled.

Thalia elbowed me to keep quiet, but I squirmed away.

"Is it really just because of who her dad is?"

"There is nothing 'just' about a daughter of Zeus, nor about the will of Hades," Alecto said with a raised eyebrow. Still, she seemed to find my question amusing because she humored it. "Children of the sons of Kronos are dangerous, more dangerous than you could know. Just earlier this year intervention was required to solve a similar problem. Zeus's attempts to handle it made a complete mess of things and allowed the problem to escape. There will be no such mistakes here."

"And if you could correct that mistake?"

"And how exactly coul-"

I didn't let her finish. Focusing all my attention on the water tank I'd filled earlier, I willed its contents to action.

I wasn't sure it would work. I'd tried similar things a handful of times down in the Labyrinth but could never get the results that I had with the Harpy. Daedalus said I'd grow into my powers, and that until then they'd only react in intense situations. This, apparently, qualified.

The container tipped over, its contents shooting through the air as a very un-waterlike projectile. One hellhound was unlucky enough to be in its path and was bowled over with a squawk. Alecto had more than enough time to get herself out of the way, but was too surprised to do so. With a splashing noise she was hit dead-on, forced from her branch.

She caught herself in the air, wings beating instinctually. Her attention settled square on my shoulders. I felt the earlier predatory excitement soar to new heights.

"Both," she breathed. "I can deal with both. Hades will be so, so pleased with me."

"Only if you can catch me!" I shouted. And I breathed deeply, put my head down, and took off running.

The others were too shocked to stop me, but as I got further away I heard them shouting. I didn't listen, silently thanking my luck that I was the only one in any condition to move quickly. We only had one shot of making it out of this, and it all relied on my getting out of the clearing alone.

Two hellhounds were between me and escape, and when they saw me approaching they bared their fangs. But I swiped at one with my sword and Mrs. O'Leary tackled the other, giving me enough space to slip between them. In the background, I heard Alecto's voice screeching:

"After him! After him now! The girl can be claimed at any time, but he is only vulnerable now!"

The hellhounds listened obediently. The sounds of snapping bushes and howling rocked the forest behind me. I couldn't outrun them for long. Luckily, I shouldn't have to.

One got close enough for me to feel its hot breath on my neck and I swung Anfisa to make it back off. Just a little bit further.

Up ahead the trickle of running water reached my ears. The creek was small, smaller than I would've liked for what I was about to try, but it would have to work.

I really didn't want to think about what would happen if it didn't.

Alecto had caught up now, her wings carrying her past her servants as she nimbly darted between the trunks and branches, shouting the whole while to, "Grab him! Grab him! Grab him!"

The soil underneath my feet grew soft. Instead of coarse bushes and grass I was trampling down the soft reeds and ferns of the water's edge. My left hand punctured the thermos it was holding, the Celestial Bronze thumb piercing the weaker metal with a moment of concentration. I dove for the water.

But a hand grabbed my collar. Its claws pierced the fabric and clenched into a fist, holding me back with inhuman strength.

"Got you," Alecto said. Her free hand rose, claws catching the sun and shining like little pearls of murder. In my hand the canister fizzed ominously, spewing lime green sparks.

"For Hades," she said, slashing for my throat.

I kicked backward like a one-legged donkey. My metal foot caught her in the midriff, and with a hiss of frustrated air she was sent flying backward, tearing my shirt to pieces as she went.

The canister was barely holding together now, looking like less of a Sparkler and more like a flaring green blowtorch. I hucked it back just as the edges began to melt. This time when I dove for the creek nothing pulled me back.

I hit the water and willed it into a bubble, dragging as much as I could. It felt like someone tied a rope to my stomach and pulled out the bottom of it, but the creek responded. From upstream it sped up and from downstream it reversed, coating me in a ball of solid water.

And yet the wave of heat that struck me was still the most intense I'd ever felt. My skin tingled. I worried if I'd have eyebrows left by the end of this. I focused on the feeling of the rope and willed it harder, calling on more and more water.

My protective bubble heated up. First to lukewarm, then to a well-heated bath, then to a jacuzzi. And it kept climbing. I was breathing just fine despite being completely submerged, but even that was becoming uncomfortable, my throat left scorched by the air/water/whatever it was keeping my lungs functioning.

Then, just as I was hitting my limit, the heat disappeared. Slowly, cautiously, I unclenched whatever muscle was holding the elements around me.

There was a lot of sizzling and sloshing as the water was released from its duty and returned to the ground. I coughed, drawing in gasps of reasonably heated air, and dragged myself up.

There were no hellhounds or furies or anything else fanged and deadly in sight. But the forest that just moments before had been green and full of life was completely changed- charred, black, brittle. A branch on a nearby tree gave a cracking sound and dissolved into ash, the wood completely burned through.

"Reminder," I mumbled to myself. "When Daedalus says something's dangerous, triple what you see in your head."

And with that, I promptly faceplanted in the scorched dirt passed out.

(-)

A/N: The penultimate chapter in this arc, followed by a time skip. Because they were originally a single chapter that got split up, most of the next chapter is actually already written and should be up pretty soon. Rejoice.