A/N: Happy Friday everyone! I hope you've had a delightful week and Happy Valentine's Day! This chapter is dedicated to everyone who is celebrating single (like me) or has a special someone (lucky you) or whatever so enjoy!
Shy
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The first time Leo faced a monster in Chicago, he nearly brained the manager of the shelter with a hammer and almost died alongside the kids he was meant to be protecting. All in all, it was a pretty successful fight.
After breakfast, Leo had spent the morning in the general space on the second floor with Daisy and Michael, slowly edging information out of them, piece by piece. It was gruellingly frustrating but at least they weren't trying to kill him. Leo slowly began to piece together their story from what they said- they weren't native to Chicago, originally from Minnesota but they weren't siblings. Daisy had just turned twelve, three weeks after Michael. They'd been staying with a nice woman called Melanie for a little while but something (Leo could read between the lines: monster attack) had happened and they'd been alone for two weeks. Neither kid spoke about their parents or how they'd ended up at Bearmont but they were at least talking a little.
"We've been at Bearmont for about a week already." Michael admitted, hugging his bag to his chest. The three had commandeered a faded, uncomfortable sofa- Leo on one side, Michael and Daisy on the other. "We only just made the cut on Friday."
Leo frowned slightly. The shelter worked on a weekly rotation- every Friday, it emptied for cleaning and reorganising and admitted a new load of kids in the evening who could each stay for the week. The system meant people swarmed the building on Fridays, hoping for a chance to be admitted and essentially refused admission the rest of the time but it kept people from 'hogging' the shelter and gave everyone a fair shot, rather than waiting for a space to open up.
It sucked to be past the cut off point in the line and know you'd only missed out by a couple of people. Leo knew the feeling all too well.
"What about you?" Daisy asked, eyes narrowing slightly as he and Michael spoke. She'd remained pretty quiet throughout the conversation. "What're you doing here?"
"Me?" Leo echoed, trying to stall for time. The girl's pale blue eyes seemed to darken the longer he took to think of a story so in the end, a mix of the truth and lie came out instead.
"I've been here for years," he said, shrugging. "Got here when I was thirteen from Texas." The best stories had seeds of truth in them, Leo thought.
"Why'd you leave?" Michael blurted out, curiously.
Leo winced. He'd been thirteen for all of a month the first time he'd seen Chicago. It was a bad time- he'd been kicked out of his last home for making the dishwasher only turn on once every fifty six hours and generally annoying the hell out of his moronic foster parents. He'd been tossed into a group home with about fifteen other orphans. The foster mother was this absurdly pious freak who insisted they wash frequently and keep their rooms neater than a window display to deter the devil from entering their souls.
Leo, she claimed, had a particularly vile devil inside him and she was on a mission to verbally and occasionally physically cleanse him of it. Flashes of being smacked across the face with a wooden spoon or being sent outside in the stinking heat for hours at a time ran riot through his head, making him grit his teeth in constrained anger.
He'd taken great delight in making her car radio spit out nothing but extremely graphic rap songs in retaliation before he'd left.
"My foster home and I had artistic differences." Leo said instead, a slight smirk rising to his face when he recalled old Ms Sullivan and her holier-than-thou attitude. "The mother was a freak."
"So your dad is…?" Daisy asked, eying him with a softer look. Leo suspected that she was still on the fence on whether he was a monster or not but he seemed to be slowly wearing him down. She really did remind him of Calypso a little in that way, he realised.
"Out there, somewhere." Leo replied, truthfully. "My mom's gone though."
Michael shrugged and opened his mouth to ask another question but Daisy beat him to it. "Did you ever go back?" she asked, a hint of something like desperation in her voice, although she kept her eyes carefully neutral.
Leo averted his eyes. "I haven't been back for a long time." he edged, still twisting the truth for all it was worth. He knew now that nothing was really for always but he could suddenly recall with vividness how it felt to leave Houston and think it was forever.
One of the other foster kids had a boyfriend who was in some kind of techno band and they were driving north to try their hand in a big city. Her boyfriend's sister's friend's fathers was some kind of music technician in Chicago or something and the night before they were going to leave, the girl had come to his room, said she knew it worse for him, that Sullivan really had it in for him in particular. She'd asked him if he wanted to get away from her for good.
Leo was sort of embarrassed to admit he had to think about her name for a minute. Denise, he suddenly recalled. Denise with the fluorescent orange nails and the bright red lipstick and the curly brown hair. Denise and her boyfriend who were in love and were going to be together forever and ever. Ms Sullivan used to call her a 'harlot' for carrying on with a 'truant' at all hours of the night.
Gods, her voice had been like nails on a chalkboard but she liked Leo for whatever reason and had begged her boyfriend to let Leo teeny tiny he won't take much space I promise Valdez tag along.
The night he left was unseasonably hot for winter, but then again, it was the South. The darkness sweltered around him and the air was thick and heavy in his lungs. He had still felt the phantom sensation of Sullivan's sharpened nails scraping across his cheek and the faint violet bruise had begun to appear around the puckered red lines.
"You're running away?" one of the band members had laughed when he hopped in the dull grey sedan that night, having slipped out while Miss Sullivan was trying to make an appointment with the local mechanic over the phone.
Leo had said nothing, not wanting them to change their minds but Denise replied instead. "We both are!" she'd said, cheerfully. "You'll be alright in Chicago, huh Leo?
"I'm alright anywhere as long as I have a screwdriver and a pair of pliers." Leo had replied, jokingly. Humour had always been his best disguise and he wore it perfectly.
Denis had laughed hysterically, realising the reason Ms Sullivan's car had suddenly taken an interest in Snoop Dog's Sweat and the band laughed because she was laughing and Leo had laughed because he was leaving Texas and the only other option was to puke. While part of him was utterly exultant, the other part was broken to be leaving the last relic of his childhood and his mother behind.
The trip was humid and sticky and every time the band got stressed from being in cramped conditions, they cracked open the cigarettes. The sedan began to reek of smoke and when Leo slept, the smell crept through his dreams and bringing a visions of a sleeping woman borne out of earth and his mother's garage lit up in flames, to the very front of his mind.
It was a 17-hour journey from Houston to Chicago. Leo remembered doing the math at some point when he moved to the trunk of the car so one of the band members could stretch out a little more. But Denise's boyfriend split up the trips so it took three days in total to reach the city.
By the time they arrived, Leo had decided to split right away. The band guys seemed okay enough but he didn't like how they talked to Denise or how they'd offered him a cigarette halfway through the trip. His mother used to tell him to steer clear of people like that. "Be smart, mijo," she used to tell him when he saw the sneering men hanging around the streets near their garage. She would brush the hair back from his forehead and press kisses into his brow. "You are too clever to be living la vida canalla." The rotten life, Leo remembered translating in his head.
"Thanks for the lift, guys," he'd grinned, grabbing his bag from the seat.
"You're leaving already?" Denise had pouted, looking worried for the first time. "It's a big city, you gonna be okay?"
"Let the kid go, Denny." Her boyfriend ordered, exasperated. "He's old enough to be on his own."
"Are you sure?" she asked one more time. For a moment, Leo considered asking her to come with him. Her boyfriend was different around his friends, argumentative and ruder. And she'd been nice to him back at Ms Sullivan's, nice enough to help him get away.
But her boyfriend's words were still in his head and Leo couldn't have agreed more- he'd been old enough to be on his own since he was eight.
"I'll see you later, Denise." He told her and she'd nodded before getting back in the car, both of them knowing they wouldn't see each other later at all.
He never saw them again and to be frank, never tried to think of them if he could help it. They were past faces Leo had only seen for a little while. Remembering them was a waste of energy Leo hadn't been able to afford at the time.
A sudden bang! launched him out of this thoughts and back into Bearmont Shelter, his senses suddenly alert. Leo jumped to his feet while everyone else glanced toward the doors where the sound emanated from. A loud string of yelling accompanied the noise, too unclear to make out actual words. Content that the noise hadn't come from inside the general space and the trouble was removed from them, the other kids went back to their conversations.
Michael and Daisy, on the other hand, looked suddenly stiff, eyes pinned to the doors.
It was probably nothing, he told himself. But Coach's mention of monsters had egged on his paranoia and inspired all kinds of 'what-ifs'. What if something with big teeth and a nasty attitude is tearing through the shelter towards him right now? for example. He tried for another second to relax and then decided he couldn't let it go. Not when the odds were tipped against him.
Gritting his teeth, Leo dug to the very bottom of his backpack until he reached his tool belt, yanking it out quickly.
"What're you doing?" Daisy asked, confused but he didn't answer, just looped his belt around his waist and thrust his hand into the first pocket he could reach, internally demanding for a hammer or a mallet, something heavy that would pack a punch.
"Nothing, midget." Leo told her, absently as the yelling grew louder and there was another bang! Another voice joined the fray, high pitched and angry. "Here." he said, holding his bag out toward the boy.
"You want me to keep it?" Michael was bewildered by the request but took the backpack in his hands nevertheless.
"Yep." Leo said, checking the flaps on his belt. Calypso's ambrosia was tucked into one pocket at the front. Just in case.
"But why?" Michael pressed, studying the plain army-green pack with its frayed edges. Another bang! followed by the sound of something shattering against a wall. Slowly, his ears pricked, gradually sensinga strange humming noise filling the building, a backdrop to the violent thumps going on from down the hall and Leo wondered what kind of super sneaky monster was so damn loud.
"I'm just checking something out." He told the boy, vaguely. "And I can't have it weighing me down. Just wait here and I'll take it when I get back, okay?"
"What's in it?" Daisy asked, suspiciously.
Leo sighed, exasperated. There was no time for this. "Nothing bad. Just clothes and stuff. You can open it if you want."
Michael frowned. "No, it's your property. It wouldn't be right to open it." Internally, Leo marvelled at the kids' restraint because his ADHD meant he couldn't resist temptations like that. He wanted to open every locked box and look at every confidential file. Unfortunately, because of his mechanic skills, Leo usually could open anything and everything he wasn't meant to. It really was no wonder as to why his teachers had hated him but they really should invest in Leo-proof locks.
Beside him, Daisy looked sceptical but content to follow Michael's decision. Leo waved with two fingers at them as he moved toward the doors. "See you later munchkins."
"I'm not-"
"Daisy, he just says it to irritate you." Michael cut in, tiredly but Leo had already disappeared out the doors.
He followed the noise to the administration offices on the second floor and craned his neck around the corner furtively in time to catch Newman, the white-haired grouch from the day before, shouting angrily as he entered the office, slamming the door behind him. "-take this kind of stupidity!"
There were three volunteers in yellow shirts were coordinating cardboard donation boxes, which crowded the hallway outside the office, but they had paused in their work, staring with wide, nervous eyes at the office where Newman's voice was still yelling at the top of his lungs.
Leo glanced over each volunteer- a barrel chested man with a gruff moustache and two young college-student-types in jeans. None of them looked monstrous in any way (although Leo suspected the amount of gel in one of the students' hair might be kind of unnatural) but from the sounds of things, the real trouble was insidethe office. The odd humming noise had grown louder but Leo could tell it was coming from downstairs now, probably the industrial dishwasher or some other appliance in the kitchens.
He kind of wanted to grab Hedge and play a rousing game of I Smell The Greek Beastie to make sure the creature was inside but he knew the coach wouldn't approve of looking for the monster like this. Satyrs, Leo was finding, even ones as bold as Hedge, were more inclined to wait for a better moment than create trouble and blow their covers.
"-on earth do you- you are?" he could hear from the muffled bellowing inside the office.
The other volunteers shuffled nervously. "Do you think we should leave?" College Kid #1 asked.
"We can't just leave this stuff out here." Moustache Man disagreed.
"I don't know, they sound like they're really getting into it." College Kid #2 (otherwise known as Gel Head) mumbled.
"-insane!"
A high pitched voice shouted back at Newman who yelled some more. The resulting cacophony of noise was a weird squawking sound, which didn't sound entirely…human.
"She just threw it at him." Gel Head murmured. "I don't think I've ever seen him so pissed."
There was a crash from inside the office like a chair being knocked to the ground and all three volunteers jumped away.
"-not answering some stupid question-"
"-unwise of you-"
Moustache Man staggered back. "I-I'm gonna go help in the kitchens. You guys wanna come?"
College Kid #1 paused. "Shouldn't we pack this stuff away-?"
"We're comin', c'mon Jules. I ain't dying for extra credit." Gel Head grabbed his friend's shirt and they left right as something shattered a hole in the glass panel of the door. Leo had heard enough. As soon as the volunteers were clear, he snuck over and, with a deep breath and a hammer in his hand, Leo threw the door open, prepared to defend himself from whatever lay inside.
His ADHD kicked in the minute the door flew open, making him super aware of everything except what he wanted to focus on. The carpet was dully grey, the walls a sort of sickening mustard-brown kind of hue and it was full of plain, chipped melamine desks, shelves, lots of paper and two tall figures in horrible yellow shirts who were staring at him in shock.
But no monster in sight.
"What're you doing here, Liam?" Sophina asked, eying him with a scowl.
"This is a staff only area!" Newman leapt right into yelling, his eyes bloodshot and thin white hair ruffled like a mad scientist. "And is that a hammer?"
"Err…hammer? What hammer?" he drawled, tucking the hammer behind his back quickly. Leo's mind whirred rapidly, tossing out a whirlwind of excuses ranging from the trustworthy I was just looking for the bathroom to the more elaborate Liam? My name Miguel, I am exchange student- this is orientation barbecue, no?
But before any of them could roll off his tongue, the background humming suddenly launched into a deafening buzz, accompanied by the sound of hard rain on a tin roof. Except the sidewalk was dry and the Bearmont Shelter was made of concrete.
"What in the world-?" Newman mumbled, slack-jawed as all three spun to look out the window. "My god."
Leo's thoughts exactly.
The window of the office was covered in a thick blanket of wriggling black and yellow, the tapping originating from a thousand tiny insect feet as the bees tried to enter the shelter.
"I will deal with both of you later!" Newman shouted, exiting the office closely followed by Sophina. Leo could only stagger forward in shock as he watched more and more insects collect on the outer surface of the windows. But these weren't normal insects. The multi-faceted eyes, which had always freaked him out, had a kind of yellow glow to them and was it just his imagination or were the stingers even longer than regular bees? The longer Leo watched, the more something tickled at the back of his skull, a memory of some lesson taught sometime ago…
He tapped a finger on the glass, unthinkingly and suddenly froze. The pressure of the insects on the glass was obviously far greater than he realised because from where his finger had touched the window, a tiny crack had emerged, smaller than the fingernail of his pinkie. The bees seemed to coalesce around the crack, tapping more and more, the force of thousands of insect feet making the crack split further, millimetre by millimetre.
"Nice killer bees…" Leo backed away slowly and decided he didn't want to be in the building when those bugs got in.
Smash!
The tinkling sound of broken glass showering to the floor filled the corridor behind him only to be drowned out by a thunderous roar of buzzing.
Too late.
Leo ducked out of the room as fast as his feet could carry him, practically flinging himself down the hall in the opposite direction to the buzzing. He tried to keep his head- he needed to find Daisy and Michael and an exit, in that order, if possible. But the two-second glance he threw around the general space was enough to tell him they had not stayed put.
Blood pumping, adrenaline soaring through his veins, Leo let out a loud curse. "Damn kids! What part of wait did they not understand?" he growled, staggering back out into the hall when the hum of the bees began to draw nearer.
For a moment, his brain flitted away from him and wondered how many times his teachers or foster parents had thought the same thing about him.
Leo took the stairs three at a time, hammer still clutched in his hand, his teeth rattling with the force of his feet slamming into the linoleum floor. The buzzing grew to deafening levels, suddenly accompanied by the yelling and screaming of the other kids as they began to realise what was going on.
He came to the bottom floor, threw open the doors of the kitchens and froze at the sight before him- because the bees had gotten there first.
"Dioses mis…" he breathed. Absolute chaos. The short squat ceiling was absolutely covered in wriggling black and yellow insects and people were screaming, sprinting from on side to another trying to escape the swarms that darted after them, nimble and unshakable. The ones who had been caught- Leo winced when he saw them writhing on the ground, covered in bright purple rashes that had swelled up in a matter of seconds, mouths open in painful, silent screams.
He staggered forward, his instincts telling him to help, to at least pull the nearest victim away but a sudden cutting pain across the back of his hand suddenly snapped him back into action. He slammed the dorsum of his hand into the door alongside him, feeling triumphant as the bee attached to him was splattered against the wood.
He wiped off the bee-guts on his pants, absently and winced when he saw a small purple rash beginning to develop, the flesh around it swelling at an alarming speed. Definitely monster bugs. Leo tried to put it to the back of his mind even as he felt another sting to the back of his neck, swatting at it until the wriggling insect left him.
Instead he looked around for any sign of the kids, his eyes flitting from figures running to the prostrate kids on the ground but none of them were Daisy or Michael. They'd try to grab their stuff, he suspected. Michael had his bag but Daisy- Daisy's things were back in her dorm. He glanced across the room to a set of doors left open which led to the girls' sector and gritted his teeth.
"Leo, this is a seriously stupid idea." He told himself, scathingly before he ducked his head and ran.
He swerved around upturned tables, ducked behind broken chairs, dodged a swarm headed toward him with a ferocious buzz. He looked back when he reached the doors, just to make sure none of the insects and followed him and-
Bam!
The door exploded into his face and suddenly he was on the floor with two pint-sized demigod elbows ploughed directly into his stomach hard.
"Mikey? Are you okay?" Daisy asked, worriedly, the only one in the stairwell not to be gasping on the floor. Leo could feel the kid removing his arms from Leo's abdomen and breathed a thin sigh of relief, sharp thick pain rippling out from his gut.
"Leo?" Michael gasped, confused. "What're you doing here?"
"Would you believe, looking for the bathroom?" Leo replied, dazed as he rolled onto his side and coughed up a lung while the pain began to recede.
"What?" Daisy said, bewildered before she shook her head. "Doesn't matter, c'mon, we have to get out of here."
As if to punctuate the statement, there was a shatter of window glass from above them and the droning of the bees began to fill the stairwell ominously.
"It's just like Melanie…" the girl breathed, shaking slightly. "Michael, we have to go or we'll die too."
The words only half made sense to him through the noise and the ache of bony elbows in his gut but the name, Melanie, set off an alert inside his brain. "Mélissa…" Leo suddenly recalled as he staggered to his feet. "They're mélisses."
"Melissa? Who's Melissa?" Michael asked, side-tracked.
"Not who," he coughed back, bending to pick his hammer off the floor. "What."
The memory was flooding back to him now. Mélisses was the Greek word for honeybees but to demigods, they were so much more than bugs. The monster kind came from a favoured priestess of Demeter who had been torn apart by her jealous neighbours for not spilling her guts about the goddess' secrets. So, in usual over-reactive god behaviour, Demeter sent a plague to the village and caused some kind of freaky bee monsters to rise from her corpse.
Leo only remembered because he'd been ill around anything honey-related for weeks and Jason had had fun asking the nymphs to make batches of Ancient Roman Honey Cookies with Sesame Seeds. Leo had queasily set them on fire, in retaliation.
"What're you talking about?" Daisy asked, frustrated.
"There's no time, we have to go!" Michael said, glancing upwards warily. "They found us, we have to go now!"
A loud bleat suddenly cut across his pleas, coming from outside- a bleat that Leo would've known anywhere. "Just try me, you pollen-eating punk!"
Thinking frantically, Leo dug through his tool belt for some kind of weapon but his thoughts were obviously too chaotic because he withdrew with crow bar instead. "This'll do." He decided, quickly and handed the tool to Michael, figuring Daisy still had her make-shift dagger.
"What are you doing?" Daisy shouted as he ducked back toward the kitchens. "We have to go!"
"Leo, you don't understand!" Michael added, fearfully. "They'll kill you! They're not normal bees!"
Leo turned back to them for a second, thinking how ironic it was that they were warning him about monsters. "Stay put! I'll be back soon, just find somewhere to hide and keep quiet!"
He edged around the enormous mess hall, keeping to the walls and ducking when a swarm came near him. The kids who'd been upstairs were trying to escape through the bottom floor, running right into the chaotic swarm in the kitchens but he couldn't send any sign to tell them to stop, not that they would've followed the direction anyway.
Leo could feel his skin beginning to swell with rashes, across his arms and several on his neck but he tried to convince himself he'd had worse. Ketos' acid mouthwash, for example, had hurt a hell of a lot more, he pointed out internally. But he could still feel himself beginning slowing down a bit, some his movements becoming just a little sluggish and clumsy. He wanted to let loose a blast of red-hot flames at the monster bugs attacking so many innocent mortals but there were too many people and the exits were blocked by the swarms. If anything caught on fire, Leo could do more harm than good.
"C'mon Valdez," he muttered under his breath, crawling beneath a table which had been upturned by the rioting kids. Screaming and yelling filled the mess hall and the noises bounced off the walls alongside the hum of the drones. It was booming and chaotic and terrifying for everyone inside but Leo knew the real trouble was outside, currently being faced down by a pissed off satyr in an apron and a hair net.
He was close to the alley doors when the hum grew louder and he realised one swarm of mélisses had taken an interest in him and surged towards him. "No," he snapped, staggering forward and nearly tripping on a snapped chair. "I am not dying because of gods damned bugs!"
He plunged his hand into his tool belt, trying to think as clearly as possible. "C'mon, give me something." He begged and when his hand closed around a familiar shape, he didn't hesitate. He raised his hand and sprayed WD-40 lubricant straight into the swarm which recoiled from the thick aerosol mist immediately.
Not quite fly spray but efficient enough. Gasping from the close call, Leo glanced at the spray and managed a shaky grin. "The Can With 2000 Uses." He muttered the well-known tag line with his eyebrows raised, impressed.
There was suddenly another bellowing call from the alley and Leo snapped back into action, throwing open the doors to the alley beside the kitchens right as Coach Hedge swung his bat at the snarling creature in front him. "Die insect scum!" he shouted, although the blow didn't seem to do much but anger the beast.
It was big; at least six feet tall and a revolting hybrid-cross between humanoid and insect. Six legs sprouted from its torso and a pair of glossy translucent wings exploded out of its spine. The main body of the creature was about the size of small sedan but what made Leo's eyes really go wide was its skin. Or lack thereof. The mélissaqueen bee skin was covered in the smaller mélisses attacking Bearmont, turning it into a mass of wriggling bees crawling across its form. The sight made him feel a little sick to be honest and when the creature swung its head to face Leo, the scene became even more grotesque.
Its face was human enough with dark, sallow skin stretched from forehead to chin and a perceivable nose and cheekbones. Yeah, human enough- except for the big, sickly yellow, multi-faceted bug eyes and the furry black mandibles poking out from either corner of its snarling mouth.
Sitting atop its shaven head was a pale blue baseball cap embroidered with Salt Lake Bees and a little cartoon logo. The sight of it was so ridiculously familiar, Leo felt like the Fates were just messing with him now. "Of course!" Leo shouted, exasperated as the creature snapped its pincers at Hedge's club. "The twitchy guy with the bee cap." The one Hedge had been interrogating the day before.
"I told you!" Hedge called back, cheerlessly as he wrestled with the creature for his club.
"Who said monsters don't have a sense of humour?" Leo added in a mutter, swinging his mallet right into one glowing yellow eye until the monster reared back and let out a high pitched buzz of pain.
It wriggled all over and suddenly Leo realised, sickeningly, that the monster wasn't covered in smaller bees- it was creating them. The mélisses sprouted from the thick blanket of insects covering its skin, soaring off into the pale grey sky.
They were all drones to the Queen- the tiny mélisses swarms to the enormous mélissa.
As the swarm dove towards him, he raised the can of WD-40 and let it loose, smothering the newborn monsterlings with thick layers of mechanic lubricant while Hedge swatted at them, fearlessly.
"Don't let them sting you, cupcake!" Hedge shouted as he pushed back against the mélissa, which was trying furtively to get to the doors.
Leo paused and ducked to avoid one of the mélissa's bug-covered legs from swiping him. "Okay…why is that again?"
"Mélissa poison does strange things to demigods! Ba-a-a-a-ad things!" Hedge bellowed. "Argggggh!"
He took a running leap at the creature who dodged him easily, sending the satyr flying into a nearby dumpster pressed to one wall. Leo glanced down at the rash across the back of his hand, which had already turned purple and had swollen to about the size of an apricot.
Bad things to demigods huh?
Well, that was always good information to have.
He was too busy worrying about whether he was going to drop dead that he didn't see the mélissa surging forward until it had knocked him off his feet and pinned him with two of its powerful limbs. If he'd been Frank or Percy or Jason, he possibly could've wrestled the creature away. As it was, he was Leo and his attempts to push the bigger monster off him had the same effectiveness as a gnat trying to escape a black widow.
"Coach?" Leo shouted as the mélissa'smandible drooped towards him, dripping in a bright purple poison. "I could use a little help here…!"
The mandibles clicked feverishly and Leo tried once more to wriggle out from beneath it, to free at least one of his arms, just long enough to reach his belt but to no avail-
Suddenly a small dark shape appeared in his periphery vision, something long and metallic in her grip. "Hey! Get off him!" Daisy demanded as she swung the crowbar Leo had given them, straight into the mélissa's side, wedging it between its second and third set of legs.
The monster recoiled and buzzed fiercely at Daisy, losing interest in Leo almost immediately. It scuttled toward her, snapping the mandibles in her direction, the bees covering its back vibrating ferociously. The girl staggered backwards, eyes wide and fearful as the monster loomed over her. Her hand went for the dagger tucked into the waistband of her jeans but it shook tremulously.
Across the alley, Leo rolled to his feet in a second, one of his now free hands suddenly exploding into flames, the other rifling through his tool belt. "Hey bug-brain!" he yelled, grinning viciously as the creature turned, shaking all over with angry buzzing. The moment it faced him, Leo let loose a stream of the WD 40 lubricant and lifted his fiery hand to it, turning the thick mist into a flamethrower.
It engulfed the monster in crimson flames within seconds.
The mélissa squealed furiously, writhing as the bees sprouting from its hide began to burn to crisps, falling off the creature in dead blackened lumps until the mélissalet loose a dying shrieking buzz and exploded into fine yellow sand.
From inside the shelter, Leo could hear the buzzing begin to fade and realised that by taking down the mother ship, the drones had lost their power. Even the ones in the alley were dropping like flies, no pun intended.
The danger appeared to have passed.
From the dumpster, Coach Hedge was groaning and grunting as he tried to right himself, his hooves flailing a little in the process. Leo's hand was still alight, flickering a cheery crimson against the bright purple of his rashes. Michael peered his head out from the alley doors, watching the scene with wide eyes but seemed relatively unharmed.
And Daisy?
Well, Daisy stood beside the pile of yellow sand, her gaze slowly rotating between Hedge's cloven hooves, Leo's fire-encased fist, the remains of the monster and the slowly fading husks of the bees before she finally met Leo's eyes.
"Someone," she said, her voice trembling. "Had better start talking. Now."
A/N: So that was my very first imagined monster. What did you think?
For anyone who's interested
Melissa is the name of two notable characters in Greek mythology. The first is a mountain-nymph who hid Zeus from Kronos and raised him on honey and goat's milk. Kronos turned her into a worm for deceiving him and Zeus took pity on her and transformed her into a honeybee instead. That is a very nice story and I like it very much. But it's not good for monster-creation.
So the Mélissa I mentioned in this chapter is from a Greek philosopher named Porphyry, who wrote about, like Leo mentioned, an elderly priestess of Demeter who was initiated into the goddess' order by Demeter herself. Her neighbours tried to make her reveal the secrets of this initiation and when she refused, they tore her pieces. Yikes. Demeter sent a plague upon them and caused bees to be born from Mélissa's dead body. I just tweaked it and made the bees into enormous monster bees. The reason this Mélissa has an accent over the 'e' is because in Greek, the word for bee is mélissa and bees is mélisses.
As for WD-40 lubricant, in case anyone is confused, it is indeed a mechanic lubricant found in many workshops (mine included) and it possesses three qualities which make it remarkably useful in monster hunting. One, it's thick, even in aerosol mist form. Two, it stings like fuck if you get it in your eyes. And three, it's highly flammable. It's tagline, in case it's unclear, is 'The Can With +2000 Uses'. Well, 2001 if you include monster-killing.
Leo's backstory, as mentioned in this fic (i.e. him going to Chicago as a thirteen year old with a bunch of smoking band members in a crappy sedan) is not cannon. Let me point that out first and foremost, so there's no confusion. I've taken creative license with his backstory and trust me there is still more to come, I promise.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and thankyou very much for reviewing, reading, following or favouriting this fic, you are delightful people and I will see you on Monday!
Now for reviews!
Miss Genre Savy: It was pretty awesome, I'm glad I went. I'm absolutely thrilled you're enjoying the plot so far and I hope you liked the new chapter! Thanks for reading :)
TheManInLeather: I had a great time thanks and I'm glad you enjoyed last chapter :D You are most welcome and thankyou very much for reviewing :)
Caro: That's okay, I'm glad you liked it :) As for Caleo…soon, I think but there's a bit more CHB and a bit more Chicago before there can be a reunion. Enjoy the new chapter!
Starry: You think? I don't know, they're pretty young and I'm fairly certain Daisy would chew Michael up and spit him out for breakfast but that's just me. I'm really glad you're enjoying and thankyou very much for those lovely compliments :D
DC: Glad you like the new demigods, they've been really fun to write. I must say I'm a little saddened by your take on the romance element though. Boring and disgusting? That's too bad, I really enjoy writing fluff at times :(
1t9n9g8: Yes, Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you enjoyed Chapter 34 (I think some people had some high expectations, you know?) and thankyou very much for all the support :)
Guest: Naw thanks ;) I'm absolutely thrilled you're enjoying it! Thanks very much for taking a minute to review :D
Anyway, that's it for today. I did update Traditional if anyone's interested but other than that, it's been a very slow Valentine's Day- I've been waiting for the chance to come home and reply to all your lovely reviews so thankyou and have a wonderful weekend!
Shy