[fic] Goddamned - 4/6
Title: Goddamned
Author: garnetice
Part: Four of Six
Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3
Word Count: 9,330 (of 51,011)
A/N: See Pt. 1 for author's notes, disclaimer, and summary!
---
Kendall’s been at Camp Half-Blood for roughly one week before his first game of capture the flag.
“It’s more fun in the summer,” Logan says, face flushed with equal parts excitement and nerves.
“What’s the big deal? It’s just a game.”
“It is not,” Logan objects, settling his hands on his tiny hips. “Capture the flag is about honor! It’s about dignity! It’s about kicking the Ares cabin’s asses.”
Kendall only met one or two kids from Ares so far. Neither of them was very nice. “I can get behind that.”
Jo gets proclaimed team leader one, since the Athena cabin has the second biggest group of kids at camp, following Hermes’. Ares is third, and the last winner, which means that their head counselor, Oz, is the opposing team leader. The other cabins side with whoever bribes them best, by taking on chore duty, gifting them with weapons, or whatever else suits their fancy.
Kendall does not need to be bribed. Jo’s frighteningly competent, and Kendall can’t imagine her ever losing at anything. Obviously he’s Team Athena, all the way. Logan, on the other hand, swears up a storm when Hermes all goes with Oz in exchange for a month of no laundry, muttering, “Styx, Styx, Styx,” under his breath.
It’s cursing for Logan, okay?
“I don’t want to be on Team Ares,” he complains.
“Guess that means we have to kick your ass.” Kendall kicks him in the butt with one muddy sneaker.
Logan squeaks indignantly, “You can try.”
Capture the flag, Camp Half-Blood style involves weapons and strategy and gigantic banners with godly crests on them. Kendall tries not to be too miffed when Jo stations him out in the middle of the woods on his own, with stern instructions not to do anything stupid.
“Do I look like someone who does stupid things?” Kendall asks irritably.
“You look like reckless is your middle name, Seaweed Brain,” Jo replies fondly, ruffling Kendall’s hair. Which is a little insulting, seeing as she’s like, a foot shorter than him.
The woods are situated squarely between the strawberry fields and a good portion of the Long Island Sound. The trees are tall, spindly things that have grown much too close together. Overhead, branches tangle, lovers bracing each other against the cool winter winds.
Ares, the red team, is clear across the forest, and Kendall’s insanely bored.
Still. He’s totally being a good little camper, trying hard to guard his rugged patch of land and keep a lookout for the bright, blood-red banner that belongs to Ares’ cabin, minding his own damn business. That’s what makes it so distressing when stupid Jett Stetson (that’s his last name, Stetson, because apparently he comes from a long lineage of cowboy hat makers on his mom’s side), wanders up to him. Smirking.
Well. Okay, so before Jett comes, Kendall starts toying with Riptide, trying to run through the patterns of swordplay that Jo has been showing him.
He hasn’t been feeling quite so bitter or competitive towards her since he found out that she’s the best swordswoman Camp Half-Blood has seen in at least fifty years. Now he’s mostly just proud that he managed to hold as much ground as he had the last time they went up against each other.
In the midst of his truly fierce and heroic thrust, Kendall’s foot hits a squishy pit of dead leaves and mud, sinking deep. Kendall curses up a storm as mud seeps into his tennis shoe. That’s probably really what lures Jett over.
Not that it matters. Kendall hates Jett, which he figures must be the byproduct of the whole supernatural cold war going on between their dads. It’s the only real explanation for the way Jett’s stupid smirk sets his teeth on edge, works a knot between his shoulders and his forces his toes to curl in his sneakers.
Jett’s got a sword lashed to his side with a leather belt, a pair of sunglasses perched on his perfectly coiffed hair, and a predatory gleam in his eye. Kendall shifts his grip on Riptide. “What do you want?”
“We’re playing a game,” Jett replies with a shrug.
“I don’t have the flag,” Kendall says, because hi, obviously. The big gray Athena banner with its wise looking owl is nowhere in sight, and down a ways in the forest, he can hear the clash of swords and loud warrior yells. Jett should be in the midst of that fray, not here, being all…obnoxious.
Jett looks him up and down, from his mud-splattered shoes to his messy hair. Kendall spent the morning having a canoe race with Logan on top of the chilly lake, right up until some playful nymphs (because those are totally a real thing, Kendall’s learned. Satyrs, too) decided to upturn them both. He didn’t really have a chance to pretty himself up before Chiron made the announcement that it was Camp Competition Day.
“You know, for a kid raised by porpoises, you’re not unattractive.”
Kendall’s first instinct to being told he’s not bad looking probably shouldn’t be to cringe. “Just go back to whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing, please.”
“What I’m supposed to be doing isn’t important. Do you think this game really matters?” Jett asks, completely dismissive.
“It matters to the other campers.”
“Like their opinion is worth anything."
”That makes Kendall mad, because okay, sure, he only really knows Jo and Logan so far, but he also knows guys like Jett, who think they’re above it all. They’re bullies, and cowards, and everything he’s been opposed to for his entire life. “What about your teammates?”
“They don’t deserve to be on a team with me,” Jett retorts, easy as that.
Kendall can feel his ears burning. Birds call in the trees, and the grip of Riptide in his palm is slick with sweat. “Seriously? Does it make you feel better about your life to call other people unspecial, or are you actually enough of a jackass that you think you’re superior to everyone else?”
“Both, I think,” Jett replies uncaringly.
“You’re disgusting.” It rips from his throat, those words, full of venom. He regrets them the second they’ve left his lips, because he doesn’t know Jett, not really, and it isn’t fair of him to say something so mean well into their first conversation, but, but, he’s just so freaking angry. It’s like electricity is crawling under his skin, like all he wants is to draw his sword and drive it home.
Jett sees that. His smirk turns into a full-on grin. “Not at all. We’re bigger than they are, Ken-dork. We’re faster, we’re more powerful. Our fathers are the root of each and every one of their parents, their powers. Do you know what I see when I look at you? Aside from really ill-advised fashion sense?”
“Get out of my face.”
“No.” Jett steps in closer, reaches out, and when he touches Kendall’s cheek, cradles it, really, Kendall does not flinch away. “You have the sea in those eyes. I see thunder and ferocity, and you don’t even know it yet. Yes, we are better than the rest of them, and I’m not going to stand here and pretend that each and every camper here is a unique, special snowflake, but also all equal in the end, because neither is true. You get to choose one or the other. People are lame across the board, or stuck in a hierarchy of preeminence, and either way, you and I are on top of the curve.”
Kendall gets what Jett means, is the awful thing. He saw something in Lucy, and he sees it now, in Jett; lightning streaking across the sky, crackling over the surface of his flesh when they’re near. They are not just the children of gods; they are the products of nature, of untamed storms and wild catastrophe. And now, here Jett is, telling Kendall he’s the same, and maybe he’s right. How many times, when his anger has overtaken him, has he felt like a tsunami, a flash flood, a cyclone of power with blood and salt on his teeth. He broke one kid’s arm during a hockey game in the midst of that exact feeling, and afterwards everyone said it shouldn’t have been possible.
Jett leans in close and adds, “Also, you know, I’m the best looking person at this camp.”
Kendall blinks. He was not expecting that. “Uh. If you say so.”
“I do.” Jett raises his chin, the haughty tilt to his neck strangely reminiscent of James. It’s their smiles that are different; Jett has shark’s teeth where James wore kindness. And sometimes, cherry pie.
Kendall can’t really see Jett burying his head in crust and preserves any time soon.
He knows he’s supposed to say something. He just isn’t sure what. Kendall settles for snarking, “I might see it, maybe, if you didn’t wear so much hair gel.”
He is too busy ferociously challenging Jett’s steady gaze to pay any attention at all to his weapon. It’s a Celestial Bronze sword, not half as nice as Riptide, but sharp enough that it slices through Kendall’s skin butter-smooth.
At first, Kendall cannot acknowledge anything other than the stab of pain along his ribs, the spring of hot-wet-dripping. For all his fighting monsters, his serious injuries have been few and far between. And this, it could have been worse. Jett didn’t aim for any vital organs, didn’t try to do anything but temporarily debilitate Kendall, but why? He isn’t threatening anything by standing guard for snow-damp soil and browned-over leaves.
Kendall stumbles backwards, and Jett laughs, the freaking psychopath. “Oops. I meant to do that this way,” he twists the sword in his grip and jams the hilt of it straight up, towards Kendall’s sternum.
Kendall leaps back, feints left, and then jabs forward with Riptide. He tries to smack Jett with the flat of his blade, but it’s beyond ineffectual. Jett dodges, well-trained. The next time he thrusts forward, Kendall grunts and parries, just like Jo showed him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your hair meant that much to you.”
Jett snorts. This time, when he dives for Kendall, he makes the mistake of sinking straight into the soft mulch Kendall had sunk into earlier. He staggers, trying to free his foot, and Kendall takes advantage of the misstep, bashing the hilt of Riptide right up against his skull.
Jett crumples like an aluminum can meeting a frat boy’s forehead.
“You don’t sneak attack a man like that,” Kendall tells Jett’s body, and he is panting, hard. Isn’t this stupid camp supposed to teach him to be better at this? Less winded? Less wounded, maybe? Kendall clutches his side. “It’s not cordial. It’s not polite. Didn’t your mother raise you with manners?”
He’s got more to his tirade, but his vision’s growing hazy, and he doesn’t know if he has it in him to retaliate in the event of Jett waking up and vying for round two. Kendall blunders forward, crashing through thin branches and crunching over dead leaves, walking blindly. He has no idea where he’s walking, no sense of direction other than away. He limps over twigs, dead leaves, the slimy sludge of snow melted into mud slowing his progress. He doesn’t even notice he’s thundering into a tiny creek until he’s there, panting, clutching his side.
The water is a shock of adrenaline to his system, a caffeine-high and a pain killer all at once. When he looks down, he sees why; the wound near his kidney is closing in front of his eyes, leaving only the ragged edge of his t-shirt and the deep red of the blood already spilled. That’s…
New, is what that is.
Experimentally, Kendall backs up the embankment. He’s immediately overtaken by exhaustion, right down to his marrow. His fingers are still slick with blood, stained so deep that Kendall thinks he’ll have to take five showers to scrub it out, but the wound stays healed. It’s only the tiredness that remains, free of the creek. He lunges back for the water, for energy, for life.
Maybe this demigod thing isn’t all bad.
A snap in the wind catches his attention, so very reminiscent of the crack of towels against skin in the locker room. His head tilts towards the sound, and there it is. The reason Jett sought him out and started a fight. Strung up in a tree, unguarded, exactly where no one would think to look.
Footsteps pound hard towards him, a girl’s voice calling softly, “Kendall, Kendall, are you okay? We found Jett passed out and- oh my gods, are you bleeding?”
Kendall grins up at Jo when she bursts through the trees. “I’m better than okay. We are so going to win this thing.”
---
Kendall tries visiting the beach after the whole miraculous healing power thing. He figures Katie would be way jealous of that, if she would talk to him. Which she won’t. He’s made a grand total of three Iris messages home so far, and during the last one she ended up throwing a text book at his face.
It didn’t hit him, but it ended the call pretty thoroughly, so.
Up close, the ocean is charcoal steel and coal, navy blue darkness that he feels too deep in his soul. Kendall digs his feet into the sand, waves lapping at his toes. They’re too tiny to knock him over, even when he wades deeper, up to his knees, but he can’t look down without thinking that this place, the whole damn Atlantic is threatening to drown him at a glance. It has gunmetal teeth with black gums that will never truly let go.
He knows, consciously, that the water is freezing cold, but he can’t quite feel it. He can’t even feel the wet. It’s like there’s a bubble of warmth keeping him safe from hypothermia. This is a gift from his dad, he thinks. It means his dad cares.
But when Kendall tries to feel something other than the gentle rush of power seeping into his bones, maybe some hint that his dad’s actually out there, thinking about him?
It doesn’t work.
---
Following the whole capture the flag thing, Kendall decides he’s really not into Zeus as a general whole. The god’s barred him from air travel for like, ever, his kid’s a total a-hole, and also Kendall has this weird, sneaking suspicion that he might be gunned down by a lightning bolt for you know, knocking said kid out with his magic sword.
“You’re being paranoid,” Jo tells him when he admits to that little theory out loud. She is sharpening her own non-magic sword, this rough looking stone in hand, sliding the blade rhythmically off the surface until the edges turn gleaming and deadly. Kendall wonders how many different ways she could gut him with it.
“Uh, crazy Uncle Z doesn’t hate you. You’re like his-“ Kendall thinks, “Granddaughter. He probably wants to give you cookies and pinch your cheeks.”
“You don’t know that he hates you. Admittedly, Zeus’s history with Poseidon’s children isn’t fantastic, but you could be different,” Jo replies. She is not showing the appropriate level of concern for Kendall’s wellbeing here at all.
“I knocked his child out.”
Jo shrugs. “That happens.”
Logan is watching Jo with an expression of pure fright, probably trying to choreograph his next sparring match with her and her newly super sharp implement of death in his head. It does not appear to be ending well for him.
He has nothing useful to contribute to the discussion of Kendall’s imminent demise.
“At least I got to hit Jett before I died,” Kendall moans. “He’s such a dick.”
“He’s not that bad,” Jo replies patiently, and this time she actually glances up to meet Kendall’s eyes. Hers are warm, the color of honey. “He’s a little, arrogant. And vain. But you get used to it.”
“He’s not as bad as Aphrodite’s kids,” Logan finally pipes in, watching the hypnotic saw of Celestial Bronze against stone. It’s not a special weapon, but it is nicely crafted. And again, pointy.
“Hey, I like Aphrodite’s kids more,” Kendall rejoins, and he does. Aphrodite’s kids spend a lot of time staring at themselves in flat, reflective surfaces. So does Jett. But Kendall doesn’t mind it that much with the former.
His favorite of the bunch are the Jennifers, who are bossy to the point of terrifying, but are also shockingly smart when it comes to things like hostile corporate takeovers and the many, many ways the Oscars are rigged. Kendall met the three of them when they tried to wrangle him into choosing which was the prettiest at swordpoint, but they backed off quick when they realized he was more interested in checking out Jett’s ass while he sparred with Oz across the way.
Which he will not admit to doing out loud, by the by, not ever.
But seriously, that’s the great thing about Aphrodite’s kids; they might be shallow and vain, but they love love. No matter what form it comes in.
Not that Kendall’s in love with Jett, mind. Kendall’s not even in lust with Jett. Jett attacked him, viciously, and told him that they were better than other people.
Jett just has a really shapely butt.
“You have a dopey look on your face. You must be thinking about me.”
Speak of the devil.
“Go away, Jett.”
“Don’t be like that. All’s fair in capture the flag, and besides, you don’t even have a scar.”
“Jett, you’re blocking my sunlight,” Jo says seriously. Jett moves to the side, and Jo continues sharpening in peace.
Unfair. Jett doesn’t listen to Kendall when he tells him things. Things like go away, which he is not doing. “Go away,” Kendall repeats, just for the sake of trying.
“You’re really rude. Isn’t he rude?” Jett inquires of Logan. Logan, the traitor, nods. “You know what happens to rude boys, Knight? Dragons eat them.”
“There’s no such thing as dragons,” Kendall scoffs.
No one answers him.
“Wait. Guys? There’s no such thing as dragons, right?”
Jo, Jett, and Logan continue to totally ignore him. Now who’s being rude?
Jett says, “I was thinking-“
Jo stands up, immediately. “Logan, come on. I’ll teach you how to make cupcakes.”
Logan puts up a token protest. “I’m a man, I don’t need- ooh, wait, can we put glitter sprinkles on them?”
Alright, it’s barely a token protest.
“I’ve got gold and purple,” Jo confirms.
“Purple!” Happily, Logan follows Jo away.
From Kendall and Jett.
Where Kendall mostly does not want to be.
He yells after them, “Why are you abandoning me?”
“Jo’s so insightful,” Jett marvels. “Don’t you think she’s insightful? She’s stellar. Say, have you ever seen my cabin?”
---
So yeah, no, Kendall really isn’t a big fan of Zeus. That’s probably why he’s a little uncomfortable the first time Jett pushes him into the black satin sheets of his bunk and makes Kendall moan his name into a pillow while he fucks into him like a raging storm. There’s gotta be a Poseidon-esque rule about that. Like thou shalt not let the king of Olympus’s progeny pound you into the mattress with his impressive lightning bolt. Thou shalt definitely not let him convince you to call him master.
Twice.
The next time the opportunity arises, Kendall turns the tables. Jett makes a much better bottom bitch anyway.
When Kendall forces him to come, he can swear he hears Zeus strike up a tornado outside. Whatever effect it’s supposed to have, Kendall’s positive it’s intent is not to make him nuzzle into Jett’s neck and say, “Sleeping here tonight, kay?
Jett grunts and pulls him closer.
---
Kendall can’t even pretend to know what the underworld looks like, but he dreams about it anyway.
Jo says that all the heroes who’ve been there call it a wasteland, a bleak, sterile stretch of black filled with the souls of the dead. Hades lives in an imposing castle of a place right off the Asphodel Meadow, where he can watch mortal souls suffer through all sorts of misery.
Kendall can’t really imagine the Diamond twins coming from anywhere like that.
Jo tells him that there are other places too; the Elysian Fields, where good men go to rest, and the dark pit of Tartarus, where the titans are sealed. But those are not the locales of his nightmares.
When he closes his eyes, some nights, even in Jett’s arms, he sees James wending his way between the five rivers of the Underworld; Archeron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, Styx, and Lethe.
Those dreams are dark, bitter, and James searches for Shane until he no longer can, until the water of Lethe, sparkling hematite silver-black, becomes too tempting.
In the landscape of Kendall’s mind, James loses himself there, and in the process, he loses Kendall, too.
---
Kendall decides that Jo has a crush on him. She’s much nicer to him in the arena than she is to Logan, and she gets cranky whenever he and Jett are too near. Weird behavior, for a girl who was trying to tell him days before that Jett wasn’t actually the worst demigod on the face of the earth.
Admittedly, Kendall basks in it. She’s pretty and she’s smart and she can do some major damage with a sword. Besides, it makes Jett crazy jealous, which makes the sex hotter.
It doesn’t make the nightmares go away, though.
---
A month and a half in, and January is around the corner. Kendall tries not to think about how he missed Christmas, or how lonely his cabin is when he chooses to sleep there. His mom sends presents wrapped in brown packing paper, and Katie has slipped in the gift of Kendall’s favorite gray beanie; he must have left it back home when he snuck out.
It’s not quite forgiveness, but it keeps his head warm, and Kendall wears it everywhere.
He’s growing more familiar with Camp Half-Blood with each passing day. He doesn’t even spend all of his time with Jo, Logan, or Jett anymore. Kendall takes archery lessons from Jenny, a daughter of Apollo who is basically a living, breathing, catastrophe until she walks onto the range with a bow in hand. Her abrupt grace does not get passed onto Kendall, who can’t hit the broadside of a barn, no matter how many times he tries. He picks strawberries with Annie (short for Anemone), a nymph who takes pity on him on one of his lonelier days. He does not try his hand at the stables, mostly because they are very noisy each time he passes by; he figures they must be an especially popular destination. But Kendall does attempt metallurgy with TJ, a son of Hephaestus (that doesn’t end well), and playing pinochle with Chiron and Mr. D (that either), and he manages to avoid fights at least eighty percent of the time (that guy Wayne, from the Ares cabin, is a jerkoff). No monsters make any appearances, and Kendall is starting to buy into the brochures.
This place might really be something like safe.
---
There’s a bitter aftertaste to every kiss that Jett and Kendall share, reminiscent of the dregs at the bottom of a teacup. If Jett notices, he never says anything, just chases lightning across Kendall’s skin with his tongue and his teeth.
---
“This is impossible.”
“What’s impossible?” Kendall asks, nudging Jo with his shoulder. They’re seated in the gigantic amphitheater, waiting for Chiron to announce…well, something. Kendall wasn’t really paying attention to the proclamation over dinner, too busy digging into his food to do something as menial as listening.
“No one has had a quest in years,” Jo replies, worry flickering over her pretty features. She’s wrapped in a fluffy yellow scarf that accentuates the caramel notes in her big brown eyes.
“Why not?”
Jo folds her hands in her lap and stares blankly at the ground. “The last one didn’t go well.”
Up front, Chiron and Mr. D are wearing their serious faces, pacing back and forth in front of their attentive audiences.
Their mostly attentive audiences. Jett, squeezed in close at Kendall’s other side, is very concerned with the state of his cuticles. It almost makes Kendall smile.
Almost, but not quite.
He’s never had a steady boyfriend before, but with each passing minute he grows more comfortable around Jett. Sometimes he thinks he could be happy if this thing, whatever it is, keeps on.
Then he remembers James, and guilt floods his system, turning him headachey and nauseous. It’s not even close to fair; he only traveled with James for a little while, but somehow he managed to poison Kendall’s own heart against him. All it took was that incandescent smile and a forkful of pie.
There is a fire burning in a makeshift pit at the directors’ backs. Rough edged stones keep the flames in line, but they flicker and dance bewitchingly, orange-blue licks of heat throwing off golden sparks. Gravely, Chiron intones, “I’m sure you’re all eager to hear the news. The gods have requested that we remove the Apple of Discord from its current location in Los Angeles and return it to Olympus.”
“What’s the Apple of Discord?” Kendall hisses.
Jett’s forehead wrinkles. “An Apple that causes Discord, maybe. Who cares, it sounds delicious.”
Someone else saves Jo the trouble of explaining, which she was totally going to; Kendall can see the furrow between her eyebrows that means she’s awed by someone else’s stupidity.
The person in question, a camper Kendall’s never met, asks Chiron tentatively what the apple is. He sighs. “The story goes that Eris stole an apple from the Garden of the Hesperides-“
“The Garden of Herpes?” Jett demands incredulously. Jo shushes him, and from her right side Logan shoots him an irate glare.
“-and inscribed the dratted thing with the words to the fairest. She then tossed it in the middle of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.”
Kendall frowns. “Whosawhatsit?”
“Achilles’s parents,” Jo whispers, tugging her scarf more tightly around her neck. “Zeus held a banquet in their honor. Most of Olympus was there. Eris was not invited.”
“Oh my god, she’s Maleficent. Is Sleeping Beauty in this story too?” Kendall asks excitedly. Then he realizes that he has just confessed to an unhealthy knowledge of Disney’s finer works.
“No.” Jo cocks an eyebrow. Jett smothers a laugh in his hand.
Oblivious, Chiron forges on, “Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera all wanted the Apple for themselves. They demanded that Zeus choose which goddess the Apple would go to, and, uh, I believe the common vernacular is that they-“
“Threw hissy fits,” Mr. D provides helpfully.
Chiron is not super grateful. He says through gritted teeth, “-were very upset when he would not.”
“Talk about Toddlers In Tiaras,” Logan mutters, and suddenly Kendall is not making the most embarrassing pop culture references in the amphitheater.
“Zeus, in his infinite wisdom, chose Paris as a judge.” Chiron does not sound like he thinks Zeus is very wise.
“Wait, Paris, like the guy from the Trojan War?” Someone in the far corner calls. It sounds like one of the Jennifers. It also sounds like they’re giggling about how dreamy Paris was.
“I’m getting to that. The goddesses confronted Paris -“
“Naked,” Mr. D again interjects.
Chiron turns on him. “-Is that really important?”
“Nudity is always important. My sisters were running amok with Stepmommy dearest, all their bits hanging out. I was scarred for life.”
“Fine. The goddesses confronted Paris, naked, and each offered him a bribe. Hera promised to make him a king. Athena offered boundless wisdom. And Aphrodite offered the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen.”
“Helen of Troy?” Kendall inquires softly. He thinks he knows where this story is going.
Jo nods, grim.
“Paris accepted her offer, and when he went to retrieve his prize, a great war began.” Chiron apparently isn’t willing to say more, at the risk of offending the higher-ups, but for Kendall’s benefit, Jo takes over.
“Hera was so enraged that she sided with the Greek forces, and the battle went into overdrive, and, well. They’ve been fighting over this stupid Apple for thousands of years. The last rematch resulted in the War For the Roses. It needs to stay hidden.” She stands up and asks respectfully, “Sir, why are they moving it now?”
Chiron sighs. “The position of the Apple has been compromised.”
“What do you mean, compromised?”
“We believe that Aphrodite has learned of its location. It will be only a matter of time before she sends someone to retrieve it.”
“So the goddess is hungry. Big deal,” Jett yells.
Logan makes a noise like a dying cat. “Does he ever pay attention to anything? How can you stand to be naked with that?”
“That has a great ass,” Kendall replies easily.
Chiron is not quite pouting, but he is definitely unhappy with Jett’s insolence. Dionysus appears to be considering what a fine, fine toadstool the son of Zeus would make. “She doesn’t want to eat the Apple, Stetson.”
“Why not? They’re nutritious.” Jett tilts his head, considering. “If the other goddesses want in, why can’t they hit up a grocery store?”
“This is not up for discussion.” Mr. D rolls his eyes skyward. “The quest is on, and let’s be honest. It’s barely a quest. More of a paid vacation, really. You brats should be begging for the honor.”
Chiron clears his throat. “Fortunately, no one has to beg. We’ve already chosen the person who will lead this mission. Kendall Knight.”
“Me? Why me?”
“I agree,” Jett says emphatically. “Why him?”
“Your faith in me is overwhelming.” Kendall glares. It’s not like he’s eager to hit the road again so soon, but still. A little support wouldn’t hurt.
Jett is not in a supportive mood. “You don’t want to go.”
“Why? I mean, on a scale of one to don’t go, they’re going to bury your body in the back yard, how bad is it over there?”
“It’s Los Angeles, gods, haven’t you seen 90210?”
Before Kendall can answer, Chiron cuts in. “You were asked for. By name.” He’s got a shifty look on his face, if shifty is the same on a centaur as it is on a human.
“Who asked for me?” Kendall asks. The whole camp is staring. He doesn’t get stage fright, but that doesn’t mean this is exactly comfortable.
“That’s unimportant. Choose your companions.”
Jett stares at Kendall expectantly. Kendall knows from all the time he’s spent paying attention to Jo, which is always if she’s sharpening her sword, that he can bring two people along for the ride. That’s easy.
“Jo and Logan.”
Jett squawks, “What?”
“I’m not taking you, you told me I’m going to fail,” Kendall reasons.
“You can’t take Jo, her mom wants the Apple.”
“Oh, so you were paying attention,” Kendall says at the same time as Jo protests, “Hey, no, I am an unbiased observer.”
“Your mother’s Athena-“
“Un. Biased. Observer,” Jo emphasizes, teeth grit. Fearing for his soft parts, Jett backs down.
Chiron nods, all majestic and horsy. “As you wish.”
Logan raises his hand. “Do I get the option to say no to this?”
Kendall tries to force a grin. “Come on, hey, it’ll be fun.”
“Oh yeah,” Jo agrees, not even bothering with a smile. “It’ll be a riot.”
---
Before going on a quest, it is traditional for young demigods to visit with the Oracle.
“It used to be that you’d have to go in alone, but the new Oracle likes the company,” Jo explains, guiding Kendall straight for the Big House. Night is falling over Long Island, dusky purple, and even though it is still midwinter, the air is balmy and sweet with the taste of fruit.
“I’m not coming though,” Logan says quickly.
“Why not?”
“Camille’s pretty,” he hisses, as if that’s any kind of explanation.
“Okay, so, uh-“
“No, she’s too pretty. I can’t look at her. I have to avert my eyes or I’ll, I’ll -“
Kendall’s beginning to worry, “You’ll what? Go psycho-stalker on her?”
“No, of course not. I’ll possibly maybe uh, um, pass out.” Logan averts his eyes, shame burning bright on his cheeks.
“Pass out? You pass out when you talk to pretty girls?”
“You don’t pass out when you talk to me,” Jo objects.
“You’re Jo. You hit me with sharp, pointy objects on a regular basis. You’re a du-“
“If you imply that I’m a guy, I will cut off your testicles,” Jo tells him cheerfully.
It turns out that the Oracle is indeed a very pretty girl with a head full of brown curls and dark, laughing eyes. She lights up when she sees Jo, throwing her arms around thin shoulders and hugging her close. “Long time, no see.”
“Same, stranger.” Jo sits primly beside Camille on a paisley print quilt. They’re in the attic, for reasons Kendall can’t quite discern, surrounded by the junk and litter of thousands of heroic lives. There are things with labels like Bellerophon’s Bridle, all written in painstaking Ancient Greek. “You don’t visit enough.”
“Eh.” The Oracle wrinkles her nose. “School. I hear you need a prophecy.”
Jo nods, blonde curls bouncing with each shake of her head. “Do we get the green light?” She almost appears to be hoping the answer is no. Maybe Kendall should have chosen Jett as a companion; he’s the only one who really seems to want to go.
The girl considers them both, taking Kendall in from head to toe. “Yep.”
“Tell me that was not the prophecy,” Kendall says, and then as an afterthought adds, “I’m Kendall, by the way.”
“Camille,” Camille replies sunnily. “And what, do you want me to make a production about it? Thou shalt travel west for the apple of shining gold-“
“Don’t mock. The old Oracle liked to speak in code. It was a thing.” Jo sniffs. “I miss it.”
“The old Oracle was a mummy,” Camille explains for Kendall. “I don’t miss it.”
“Come on, Cam,” Jo wheedles. “You can give us a little more than yep.”
“What do you want me to say? Aphrodite, Hera, and, uh,” she spares Jo a careful glance, “the other goddess are going to mess with you. Probably. This isn’t an exact science, you know.”
“It’s exact enough that it’s lasted thousands of years.”
“When you put it that way, you make me feel like I’m losing touch with my Delphic heritage.” Her gaze snaps to Kendall. “Hera won’t play fair, and the best way to avoid her traps is to avoid her altogether. Athena-“
“-won’t try to stop us,” Jo says firmly, certainly.
Camille doesn’t comment. At least not on that. “And the best way to keep out of Aphrodite’s grasp, from what I’ve heard, is to remember your soul mate and hope for the best. That woman is a hurricane.”
“Wait, excuse me, your what?” Kendall gapes.
“Your soul mate. Don’t look at me like that, newbie. If there are things like gods and destinies, why can’t there be soul mates? Why can’t there be one person out there in the whole world who just…completes you?” Camille asks sensibly.
“I know why,” Jo says miserably, and she sounds sadder than Kendall’s ever heard her. He isn’t sure why this quest thing is bumming her out so much. “Our lives are too short, too meaningless. The gods use us.”
Camille shrugs, head falling against Jo’s shoulder. Their legs are tangled together in that familiar way that best friends have, so comfortable with each other that touching isn’t even a conscious thing any longer. Kendall has always, always wanted that. He thought he’d found it with Shane and James, but…he can’t keep thinking about them. He can’t. It’s killing him.
Camille says, “Maybe. But people created the gods.”
“Don’t let them hear you say that.”
A ghost of a smirk wisps over Camille’s lips. “We created the gods, and they create for us. Aphrodite wouldn’t exist if people weren’t meant to love. Have you ever heard the old story, the one about soul mates?”
“I don’t think so,” Kendall says, and Jo doesn’t appear to mind hearing it again.
“Once upon a time, before the gods.”
He hears his mother’s voice overlap Camille’s, a quiet whisper in his head. He’s suddenly sure he has heard this story before. Camille’s eyes have gone distant and dreamy. Jo’s gaze has turned hard.
Reverently, Camille continues, “The sun, the moon, and the earth bore children. Although their parents were celestial beings, each child was human, as were their children, and the children of their children. The progeny of the stars grew and thrived, and the gods looked down with envy, because among the universes, humans were unique. They had four arms and four legs, four hands and four feet, two faces and two hearts, but only one soul. They were complete in a way the gods could not be, and they were powerful, strong creatures.”
It sounds like a lullaby, like a memory, even though Kendall is certain he hasn’t heard this bedtime story since he was very, very young.
“When they began bearing arms to defend themselves against the wilderness, the chimeras and the griffons, the sphinxes and the more mundane, Zeus’s fear grew so large that he could no longer stand it. He proclaimed to the denizens of Olympus that something had to be done.” Camille’s voice catches, shadows playing over her face, darkening the hollows beneath her eyes and the corners of her lips. “And so Zeus and the gods attacked humanity, not aiming to kill, but to separate. They struck each child of the moon, sun, and earth down in turn, halving them so that each had only two hands, two feet, two arms and two legs, one face and one heart. Their power was dimmed, and so were their souls.”
Camille bows her head, solemn and gorgeous. Jo’s hand snakes around her waist, urging her onward with a squeeze to the hip.
“The plan worked too well; few humans ever attempted to rise up against the gods. Most of us are too busy, searching the earth for the other halves of our soul, which calls to us, even now. It is our primal instinct; we remember being complete.”
---
Chiron bids them off early the next morning, when Kendall’s fingers are twitching for a cup of coffee in a ridiculous, unconscious parody of Shane Diamond.
Mr. D barely acknowledges their presence, and his words of farewell are, “Dead heroes are so much paperwork.”
Jo, who is much closer to Chiron than Kendall ever hopes to be, doesn’t hear. She’s too busy running a hand across his flank and murmuring tiny, secret things into his ear. Logan on the other hand, is listening, and his pallor turns white as the marble pillars outside of Hera’s cabin.
Mildly, Kendall replies, “I’m touched by your concern.”
Jett does not come to say goodbye, but Kendall is okay with that. He doesn’t really know where he and Jett stand, and he thinks the best part about this quest might be the breathing room it grants him.
Outside the camp, winter is in full swing, a bitter chill seeping into their bones. They’ve got the use of a taxi, specially ordered by Chiron, and they crowd into the backseat, falling all over each other to get close to the heater. The taxi driver smokes a big, cherry scented cigar, which probably violates eight million health codes, and he keeps the windows cranked down to accommodate all the smoke. If he finds it bizarre that he’s been asked to pick up three teenagers by the side of a deserted hill, he doesn’t say so.
Jo carries a bookbag packed full of snacks, maps, weapons, and little baggies filled with golden brown squares that she calls ambrosia.
“For if we get hurt,” she explains, and Kendall doesn’t quite get how snackage is going to help.
He’s got a knapsack of his own, squished in between his body and Logan’s, and he tries to inch it up his shoulder. “So, uh. How do we get to LA, exactly?”
He didn’t think to bring his guitar. Busking is definitely out, this trip. Cheerfully, Jo replies, “We fly.”
“Fly?”
Amused by his sudden search for jetpacks, Jo offers, “On a plane?”
Red alert, red alert, no. “Uhhh. I feel like being trapped in a pressurized deathtrap in the sky is not the way to go here.”
“Don’t be a baby. The gods want the Apple just as much as we do, so they’ll make sure we’re safe. At least, on the trip out.” Jo’s face darkens. “The return trip’s going to be long.”
“What if a monster gets on the plane?” Logan murmurs nervously, craning his head over Kendall’s lap, and how did he even end up in the middle anyway?
Jo brightens. “Then we won’t have to worry about the return trip, will we?”
“You’re bad at this comfort thing,” Logan squeaks.
The taxi drops them straight off at JFK, which is a little disappointing. Kendall thinks he might have liked to see New York City before Zeus swats them out of the sky. At least his headstone will be interesting.
Here lies Kendall Knight, smacked down by the hand of a god.
---
Normally, Kendall is all about throwing himself head first into a stupid situation. But this time…well. You know. Planes.
Jo paid for the tickets, presumably with money straight from Camp Half-Blood’s strawberry funds. Kendall climbs onto the plane with utter trepidation, but he does not turn back. He has this unfortunate affliction where he thinks he can do anything. It’s still a close call, once he’s squeezed into his seat, Logan shaking like a leaf beside him. His entire body is screaming for him to run.
Airplanes, he finds, are cesspools of bad smells and uncomfortable invasions of your personal space. “Eurgh, oh, that’s funky,” Jo wrinkles her nose at eau-de-piss-and-recycled-air. Then she begins to chew on her salted peanuts, supremely unconcerned with what a bad idea this is. Logan, at least, has the decency to spare the clouds a worried grimace before burying his head in the pages of the flight safety manual.
The flight attendant’s take off spiel is not even a little comforting. Kendall listens with utter terror as she thanks them for flying Sky Blue, and forges on with announcements such as, “Admittedly, we have the seatbelts of a Fifty Seven Chevy, but we’d still prefer you keep them buckled until the captain gives you the all clear to move about the cabin.”
Kendall tugs at his seat belt, which does not make him feel very secure. The peppy flight attendant chirps, “If our breathtaking good looks give you trouble breathing, a mask will drop down from the overhead compartments, providing a steady flow of alcohol- I mean oxygen.”
Logan is unimpressed by her practiced giggle. He says, “You can’t breathe alcohol, geez. That’s a dumb mistake.”
“I think it was a joke, dude,” Kendall says doubtfully. Flying is serious business. He would rather less jokes be involved.
“If you have children, please secure your mask before attending to theirs. If you have more than one child, assist the one most likely to graduate college first.” The stewardess taps her chin cutely and waits for the polite laugh that gets before forging on, “If you would like to see a lunch menu, you should have gone to Denny’s. Please write all requests on a twenty dollar bill and pass them forward.”
And on, and on, and on she goes. Kendall digs his fingers into his armrests and tries not to absolutely freak.
---
Middle America from above is dirty red canyons like dried blood and rolling fields of greenery a la the Sound of Music. It turns from desert wasteland to unicorn glades and back in an instant, but Kendall is entirely too focused on the thick press of gray clouds gathering around the plane, an ominous zombie movie mist.
He tells Jo and Logan, “I think this was a bad idea.”
Jo pats his hand and focuses on the movie she’s watching on the tiny TV that is set into the ceiling.
---
The further west they get, the more the earth spreads out in geode colors, pale tan to flesh to dirt to red clay the exact shade of dried blood. The storm is following them, turning it all a shade darker than it could be, and Kendall is counting down the minutes until landing.
Then, like magic, the clouds clear away.
Of course, that would be when things start going horribly awry.
The plane lists left, knocking Kendall’s free soda all over Logan’s lap. Logan shrieks louder than a toddler, simultaneously trying to sponge up coke and hugging the window for dear life. The seatbelt light glows golden-orange, and the captain comes over the intercom and apologizes for the sudden turbulence.
Turbulence is okay, kind of. Kendall can deal with turbulence. He presses his palm to his chest and tries to calm the rapid beat of his heart. The plane balks again, and Kendall’s butt nearly leaves the seat. Jo cranes over Logan’s lap and taps her finger against the thick-paned window. “Guys?”
Outside, the sun is shining, the wind is still, and there is no real reason for the plane to be bucking over pockets of air like a bronco. At least not if you can’t see the hideous, drooling monster jumping up and down on the wing.
Kendall can feel his face turning green. Logan is already fumbling for a paper barf bag.
Jo, true to form, is completely unperturbed, her only comment being, “Sooner than I thought.”
“Wait, you thought we were going to die?”
“We’re not going to die,” she replies calmly. “Look. That’s a Hippalectryon. He can’t do much more than unbalance the plane.”
“And send us spiraling to our deaths.”
“Please, he’s not quite heavy enough.”
“He looks determined to try,” Kendall argues. Jo’s right about the size of the monster; it’s slightly bigger than a normal-sized horse. And it even looks like a horse, discounting its back half, which is distinctly rooster-esque. The total improbability of the thing’s existence isn’t stopping it from bouncing up and down on the wing, grinding its hooves and talons into the metal, wings ruffled in the breeze.
The stewardess’s voice warbles over the intercom uncertainly. “Due to, uh, extraordinary turbulence, we will be making an emergency landing outside of Prescott, Arizona. The captain asks that everyone remain seated, and we apologize for the-” Her voice cuts out as the plane gives a vicious jerk and begins its descent.
“See, we’re landing, aren’t we?” Jo squeezes Kendall’s shoulder. “Stop panicking. Breathe.”
The plane comes to a rocky stop in the middle of a deserted airfield, and then and there Kendall makes the executive decision that he will never, ever, ever be doing that ever again.
Now that it’s on solid ground, the Hippalectryon is having a much easier time of setting it off balance, tilting the aircraft off the landing gear. Jo murmurs, “I’m thinking we might want weapons,” and begins digging them out of her bookbag. The Mist helped them smuggle all the sharp and pointy past security, and Kendall really, really wants to know what the TSA saw on their little x-ray screens.
The Hippalectryon senses it isn’t making any progress in turning the plane into a yo-yo. It hops off the wing and sits on its rooster haunches, clearly stumped. “It’s just a rooster horse. How bad can it really be?” Kendall asks, watching it whinny pathetically.
Jo rakes a hand through her golden curls. “We’re about to find out.”
When the flight attendants finally, hurriedly allow them to take the emergency slide down and out of the plane, Kendall glares up at the sky and mouths, You’ve made your point at the clouds. He’s not sure whether or not he imagines the answering rumble of thunder.
“Oh, look, the storm’s back. That’s exactly what we need, here. In the middle of the barren desert-lands of Arizona,” Logan says idly, clutching a knife rosary-close. A nearby disembarked passenger gives him a strange look.
The Hippalectryon finds its footing.
“Nice pony-rooster,” Logan soothes, edging away from the crowd and the plane. Kendall and Jo take his lead, trying to lure the monster towards the minimum casualty zone. It paws the ground and snorts, except the snort sounds more like a cluck. “Nice, nice pony-rooster.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the flight attendant announces, and she probably follows it up with an apology and information about booking another flight to reach final destinations. Kendall is a wee bit distracted by the whole crow-and-charge thing that the rooster-horse does.
“Look at that. A horse that doesn’t speak horse.” He draws Riptide back, fully prepared to swing.
The Hippalectryon soars over his head, talons raking against Kendall’s skull, and ow, ow, it totally just ripped out a hunk of his hair. He hacks at whatever he can, flailing a bit uselessly, but determined to avenge possible premature baldness. On the rebound, the thing dives straight for Logan, impressive wings spread wide and downy, and Logan sort of stands still and lets it come.
“Just try to hit it, damnit, remember what I showed you,” Jo yells, and Logan thrusts his knife forward, nicking its forepaw.
Mostly this just makes the monster cluck loudly.
They’ve got the full attention of the plane’s passengers now, most staring, some with their camera-phones whipped out and wow, Kendall really hopes the Mist works on all electronic equipment.
Jo tackles the Hippalectryon from behind, clinging to its tail feathers with one arm while trying to saw into its hide with the other, which is a stellar plan, except for how it is a winged pony thing, and decides that now would be the opportune time to take flight. It launches up into the air, weirdly graceful, despite its strange silhouette.
“Jo!” Kendall and Logan shout, trying to lunge for her, but she’s already in the air, too high to let go or to save.
Not that Jo Taylor needs to be saved; she somehow manages to maneuver up the back of the rooster’s sloped rump, and judging by the fistful of very large feathers that nearly hit Kendall in the face, she’s got a pretty solid grasp on the creature’s furry, feathery butt. It swoops back down, raging mad, matted with blood all along its side, but Jo can’t scrabble up any further to inflict any kind of significant damage. The gigantic bird-horse rears back, throwing her in an undignified pile in the dirt, and comes charging straight at Kendall. He steadies his stance, lifting Riptide in the air, trying to breathe through his nose. The horse’s sinew and tendons stand in clear relief beneath glossy brown fur, the auburn, green, and indigo shine of its feathers catching the sun. Then, right before it reaches Kendall, it skids to a total and complete halt.
“What?”
Knives jut into the creature’s shoulders, its stomach, its kidneys. It collapses into itself and dissolves, dusting gold glitter across the fallow dirt.
“Alright,” Kendall demands, gawking at the precision of the throws. “Who has a secret past as a ninja?”
Jo and Logan aren’t paying him any attention, frantically searching for whoever threw the knives. Which Kendall takes to mean it wasn’t them. Oh, fuck. He stands on his tippy toes, craning to see over the heads of the sobbing, innocent bystanders. Being the tallest person in their little three man crew has to count for something.
He spots a boy standing near the edge of the hysterical crowd, a dust covered, golden-skinned guy who winks at Kendall from across the field, and then begins walking away. “I see him,” he says, “It’s a kid, but-“ Kendall thinks he hears something about a gun, which is not going to work out in their favor at all. He remembers Shane telling him about the Mist and jail time.
Kendall announces, “New plan. Follow him.”
“But we need to change planes,” Jo protests, glancing between the distraught passengers and Kendall.
“They’ll arrest us first. Besides, if you think I’m getting into another one of those things, you are clearly on the good drugs.”
She crosses her arms and huffs, “Jett’s right, you are rude.”
“But also I am correct,” Kendall says, eyeing an advancing man of very large stature, who has evidently decided to intervene in this…whatever he thinks it is. “Time to run.”
“But-“
“I agree,” Logan grabs her by the elbow. “Running is a kickass plan. Let’s go.”
Kendall really hopes the rest of their quest goes better than this.
---
“Fleeing from an angry mob,” Kendall pants. “Was never on my bucket list.”
The boy, who they’ve finally caught up to, beams. “Surprises build character.”
Logan, lying in the dirt at the base of a cactus, glares impotently. “My character was fine the way it was.”
Jo is barely winded, because Jo is a showoff. “Whiners. And you, you helped us out back there.”
“Happy to help.”
“I don’t trust helpers,” Jo responds, expression fierce. “Who are you?”
“Carlos Garcia.” He holds out his hand to shake, still preternaturally happy. Probably because he didn’t have to run from suitcase-wielding civilians. Or deal with an impromptu plane landing. Why is the universe so unfair?
Jo does not take Carlos’s hand. “You’re a demigod.”
Carlos beams even wider, outshining the sun. “Son of Hephaestus.”
“You do have very muscley arms,” Logan agrees, as if that’s a prerequisite to being Hephaestus’s kid.
Okay, Kendall went to the Hephaestus cabin a few times at camp. It kind of is.
“What are you doing in the middle of the desert, Carlos?” Jo demands, undeterred. Kendall clutches his stomach and wonders if he’s ruptured a lung. Some lady threw a purse at him before. Who even does that?
“You know,” Carlos shrugs, and it isn’t at all an answer. “You should come back to my campsite. I’ve got s’mores.”
“We don’t want your s’mores. Jo thinks your s’mores smell of betrayal,” Logan says from the ground. Kendall wonders if he’s concussed. That could be slightly problematic. Kendall tries very hard to care, but oxygen continues to ask to be prioritized. His hockey coach would be horrified by how out of shape he’s gotten with all the canoe rides and weapons training. For shame.
“Do they? I think they smell of graham crackers,” Carlos replies, meeting Jo’s gaze head on. He is a brave man.
She is not fooled. “You’re after the Apple.”
“Apple?” His eyes widen innocently. Kendall considers the cactus and wonders if there is water inside it. He’s heard that’s what people do in deserts; tap cactuses like kegs and drink the contents. That would definitely help with the stitch in his side.
“Don’t play games.”
“Fine,” Carlos allows. “I’m after the Apple. But hey, it’s not like you’re useful to me until you’ve got it in hand, so. Uh. Have some marshmallows, have some chocolate.”
“I like s’mores,” Logan volunteers.
“You are consorting with the enemy right now, Mitchell.”
“I don’t see why I’m the enemy. You know, rightfully, they’re Hera’s apples. I don’t like the lady, let me tell you, but they were her wedding gift, in her garden, and Eris was all up with the trespassing.”
Jo lifts an eyebrow. “Preach. You’re working for Hera? Why?”
“I owe the lady a favor.” Carlos shrugs, glancing up at the sky. “Come on, have some s’mores. Stay the night. I promise not to slit your throats in the middle of the evening or anything,” he says that last part quite cheerfully.
“I feel so reassured,” Jo deadpans.
Logan curls into the dirt. “No more quests. Next time, I’m staying at camp and learning how to do macramé.”
---
Part Five
Author: garnetice
Part: Four of Six
Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3
Word Count: 9,330 (of 51,011)
A/N: See Pt. 1 for author's notes, disclaimer, and summary!
---
Kendall’s been at Camp Half-Blood for roughly one week before his first game of capture the flag.
“It’s more fun in the summer,” Logan says, face flushed with equal parts excitement and nerves.
“What’s the big deal? It’s just a game.”
“It is not,” Logan objects, settling his hands on his tiny hips. “Capture the flag is about honor! It’s about dignity! It’s about kicking the Ares cabin’s asses.”
Kendall only met one or two kids from Ares so far. Neither of them was very nice. “I can get behind that.”
Jo gets proclaimed team leader one, since the Athena cabin has the second biggest group of kids at camp, following Hermes’. Ares is third, and the last winner, which means that their head counselor, Oz, is the opposing team leader. The other cabins side with whoever bribes them best, by taking on chore duty, gifting them with weapons, or whatever else suits their fancy.
Kendall does not need to be bribed. Jo’s frighteningly competent, and Kendall can’t imagine her ever losing at anything. Obviously he’s Team Athena, all the way. Logan, on the other hand, swears up a storm when Hermes all goes with Oz in exchange for a month of no laundry, muttering, “Styx, Styx, Styx,” under his breath.
It’s cursing for Logan, okay?
“I don’t want to be on Team Ares,” he complains.
“Guess that means we have to kick your ass.” Kendall kicks him in the butt with one muddy sneaker.
Logan squeaks indignantly, “You can try.”
Capture the flag, Camp Half-Blood style involves weapons and strategy and gigantic banners with godly crests on them. Kendall tries not to be too miffed when Jo stations him out in the middle of the woods on his own, with stern instructions not to do anything stupid.
“Do I look like someone who does stupid things?” Kendall asks irritably.
“You look like reckless is your middle name, Seaweed Brain,” Jo replies fondly, ruffling Kendall’s hair. Which is a little insulting, seeing as she’s like, a foot shorter than him.
The woods are situated squarely between the strawberry fields and a good portion of the Long Island Sound. The trees are tall, spindly things that have grown much too close together. Overhead, branches tangle, lovers bracing each other against the cool winter winds.
Ares, the red team, is clear across the forest, and Kendall’s insanely bored.
Still. He’s totally being a good little camper, trying hard to guard his rugged patch of land and keep a lookout for the bright, blood-red banner that belongs to Ares’ cabin, minding his own damn business. That’s what makes it so distressing when stupid Jett Stetson (that’s his last name, Stetson, because apparently he comes from a long lineage of cowboy hat makers on his mom’s side), wanders up to him. Smirking.
Well. Okay, so before Jett comes, Kendall starts toying with Riptide, trying to run through the patterns of swordplay that Jo has been showing him.
He hasn’t been feeling quite so bitter or competitive towards her since he found out that she’s the best swordswoman Camp Half-Blood has seen in at least fifty years. Now he’s mostly just proud that he managed to hold as much ground as he had the last time they went up against each other.
In the midst of his truly fierce and heroic thrust, Kendall’s foot hits a squishy pit of dead leaves and mud, sinking deep. Kendall curses up a storm as mud seeps into his tennis shoe. That’s probably really what lures Jett over.
Not that it matters. Kendall hates Jett, which he figures must be the byproduct of the whole supernatural cold war going on between their dads. It’s the only real explanation for the way Jett’s stupid smirk sets his teeth on edge, works a knot between his shoulders and his forces his toes to curl in his sneakers.
Jett’s got a sword lashed to his side with a leather belt, a pair of sunglasses perched on his perfectly coiffed hair, and a predatory gleam in his eye. Kendall shifts his grip on Riptide. “What do you want?”
“We’re playing a game,” Jett replies with a shrug.
“I don’t have the flag,” Kendall says, because hi, obviously. The big gray Athena banner with its wise looking owl is nowhere in sight, and down a ways in the forest, he can hear the clash of swords and loud warrior yells. Jett should be in the midst of that fray, not here, being all…obnoxious.
Jett looks him up and down, from his mud-splattered shoes to his messy hair. Kendall spent the morning having a canoe race with Logan on top of the chilly lake, right up until some playful nymphs (because those are totally a real thing, Kendall’s learned. Satyrs, too) decided to upturn them both. He didn’t really have a chance to pretty himself up before Chiron made the announcement that it was Camp Competition Day.
“You know, for a kid raised by porpoises, you’re not unattractive.”
Kendall’s first instinct to being told he’s not bad looking probably shouldn’t be to cringe. “Just go back to whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing, please.”
“What I’m supposed to be doing isn’t important. Do you think this game really matters?” Jett asks, completely dismissive.
“It matters to the other campers.”
“Like their opinion is worth anything."
”That makes Kendall mad, because okay, sure, he only really knows Jo and Logan so far, but he also knows guys like Jett, who think they’re above it all. They’re bullies, and cowards, and everything he’s been opposed to for his entire life. “What about your teammates?”
“They don’t deserve to be on a team with me,” Jett retorts, easy as that.
Kendall can feel his ears burning. Birds call in the trees, and the grip of Riptide in his palm is slick with sweat. “Seriously? Does it make you feel better about your life to call other people unspecial, or are you actually enough of a jackass that you think you’re superior to everyone else?”
“Both, I think,” Jett replies uncaringly.
“You’re disgusting.” It rips from his throat, those words, full of venom. He regrets them the second they’ve left his lips, because he doesn’t know Jett, not really, and it isn’t fair of him to say something so mean well into their first conversation, but, but, he’s just so freaking angry. It’s like electricity is crawling under his skin, like all he wants is to draw his sword and drive it home.
Jett sees that. His smirk turns into a full-on grin. “Not at all. We’re bigger than they are, Ken-dork. We’re faster, we’re more powerful. Our fathers are the root of each and every one of their parents, their powers. Do you know what I see when I look at you? Aside from really ill-advised fashion sense?”
“Get out of my face.”
“No.” Jett steps in closer, reaches out, and when he touches Kendall’s cheek, cradles it, really, Kendall does not flinch away. “You have the sea in those eyes. I see thunder and ferocity, and you don’t even know it yet. Yes, we are better than the rest of them, and I’m not going to stand here and pretend that each and every camper here is a unique, special snowflake, but also all equal in the end, because neither is true. You get to choose one or the other. People are lame across the board, or stuck in a hierarchy of preeminence, and either way, you and I are on top of the curve.”
Kendall gets what Jett means, is the awful thing. He saw something in Lucy, and he sees it now, in Jett; lightning streaking across the sky, crackling over the surface of his flesh when they’re near. They are not just the children of gods; they are the products of nature, of untamed storms and wild catastrophe. And now, here Jett is, telling Kendall he’s the same, and maybe he’s right. How many times, when his anger has overtaken him, has he felt like a tsunami, a flash flood, a cyclone of power with blood and salt on his teeth. He broke one kid’s arm during a hockey game in the midst of that exact feeling, and afterwards everyone said it shouldn’t have been possible.
Jett leans in close and adds, “Also, you know, I’m the best looking person at this camp.”
Kendall blinks. He was not expecting that. “Uh. If you say so.”
“I do.” Jett raises his chin, the haughty tilt to his neck strangely reminiscent of James. It’s their smiles that are different; Jett has shark’s teeth where James wore kindness. And sometimes, cherry pie.
Kendall can’t really see Jett burying his head in crust and preserves any time soon.
He knows he’s supposed to say something. He just isn’t sure what. Kendall settles for snarking, “I might see it, maybe, if you didn’t wear so much hair gel.”
He is too busy ferociously challenging Jett’s steady gaze to pay any attention at all to his weapon. It’s a Celestial Bronze sword, not half as nice as Riptide, but sharp enough that it slices through Kendall’s skin butter-smooth.
At first, Kendall cannot acknowledge anything other than the stab of pain along his ribs, the spring of hot-wet-dripping. For all his fighting monsters, his serious injuries have been few and far between. And this, it could have been worse. Jett didn’t aim for any vital organs, didn’t try to do anything but temporarily debilitate Kendall, but why? He isn’t threatening anything by standing guard for snow-damp soil and browned-over leaves.
Kendall stumbles backwards, and Jett laughs, the freaking psychopath. “Oops. I meant to do that this way,” he twists the sword in his grip and jams the hilt of it straight up, towards Kendall’s sternum.
Kendall leaps back, feints left, and then jabs forward with Riptide. He tries to smack Jett with the flat of his blade, but it’s beyond ineffectual. Jett dodges, well-trained. The next time he thrusts forward, Kendall grunts and parries, just like Jo showed him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your hair meant that much to you.”
Jett snorts. This time, when he dives for Kendall, he makes the mistake of sinking straight into the soft mulch Kendall had sunk into earlier. He staggers, trying to free his foot, and Kendall takes advantage of the misstep, bashing the hilt of Riptide right up against his skull.
Jett crumples like an aluminum can meeting a frat boy’s forehead.
“You don’t sneak attack a man like that,” Kendall tells Jett’s body, and he is panting, hard. Isn’t this stupid camp supposed to teach him to be better at this? Less winded? Less wounded, maybe? Kendall clutches his side. “It’s not cordial. It’s not polite. Didn’t your mother raise you with manners?”
He’s got more to his tirade, but his vision’s growing hazy, and he doesn’t know if he has it in him to retaliate in the event of Jett waking up and vying for round two. Kendall blunders forward, crashing through thin branches and crunching over dead leaves, walking blindly. He has no idea where he’s walking, no sense of direction other than away. He limps over twigs, dead leaves, the slimy sludge of snow melted into mud slowing his progress. He doesn’t even notice he’s thundering into a tiny creek until he’s there, panting, clutching his side.
The water is a shock of adrenaline to his system, a caffeine-high and a pain killer all at once. When he looks down, he sees why; the wound near his kidney is closing in front of his eyes, leaving only the ragged edge of his t-shirt and the deep red of the blood already spilled. That’s…
New, is what that is.
Experimentally, Kendall backs up the embankment. He’s immediately overtaken by exhaustion, right down to his marrow. His fingers are still slick with blood, stained so deep that Kendall thinks he’ll have to take five showers to scrub it out, but the wound stays healed. It’s only the tiredness that remains, free of the creek. He lunges back for the water, for energy, for life.
Maybe this demigod thing isn’t all bad.
A snap in the wind catches his attention, so very reminiscent of the crack of towels against skin in the locker room. His head tilts towards the sound, and there it is. The reason Jett sought him out and started a fight. Strung up in a tree, unguarded, exactly where no one would think to look.
Footsteps pound hard towards him, a girl’s voice calling softly, “Kendall, Kendall, are you okay? We found Jett passed out and- oh my gods, are you bleeding?”
Kendall grins up at Jo when she bursts through the trees. “I’m better than okay. We are so going to win this thing.”
---
Kendall tries visiting the beach after the whole miraculous healing power thing. He figures Katie would be way jealous of that, if she would talk to him. Which she won’t. He’s made a grand total of three Iris messages home so far, and during the last one she ended up throwing a text book at his face.
It didn’t hit him, but it ended the call pretty thoroughly, so.
Up close, the ocean is charcoal steel and coal, navy blue darkness that he feels too deep in his soul. Kendall digs his feet into the sand, waves lapping at his toes. They’re too tiny to knock him over, even when he wades deeper, up to his knees, but he can’t look down without thinking that this place, the whole damn Atlantic is threatening to drown him at a glance. It has gunmetal teeth with black gums that will never truly let go.
He knows, consciously, that the water is freezing cold, but he can’t quite feel it. He can’t even feel the wet. It’s like there’s a bubble of warmth keeping him safe from hypothermia. This is a gift from his dad, he thinks. It means his dad cares.
But when Kendall tries to feel something other than the gentle rush of power seeping into his bones, maybe some hint that his dad’s actually out there, thinking about him?
It doesn’t work.
---
Following the whole capture the flag thing, Kendall decides he’s really not into Zeus as a general whole. The god’s barred him from air travel for like, ever, his kid’s a total a-hole, and also Kendall has this weird, sneaking suspicion that he might be gunned down by a lightning bolt for you know, knocking said kid out with his magic sword.
“You’re being paranoid,” Jo tells him when he admits to that little theory out loud. She is sharpening her own non-magic sword, this rough looking stone in hand, sliding the blade rhythmically off the surface until the edges turn gleaming and deadly. Kendall wonders how many different ways she could gut him with it.
“Uh, crazy Uncle Z doesn’t hate you. You’re like his-“ Kendall thinks, “Granddaughter. He probably wants to give you cookies and pinch your cheeks.”
“You don’t know that he hates you. Admittedly, Zeus’s history with Poseidon’s children isn’t fantastic, but you could be different,” Jo replies. She is not showing the appropriate level of concern for Kendall’s wellbeing here at all.
“I knocked his child out.”
Jo shrugs. “That happens.”
Logan is watching Jo with an expression of pure fright, probably trying to choreograph his next sparring match with her and her newly super sharp implement of death in his head. It does not appear to be ending well for him.
He has nothing useful to contribute to the discussion of Kendall’s imminent demise.
“At least I got to hit Jett before I died,” Kendall moans. “He’s such a dick.”
“He’s not that bad,” Jo replies patiently, and this time she actually glances up to meet Kendall’s eyes. Hers are warm, the color of honey. “He’s a little, arrogant. And vain. But you get used to it.”
“He’s not as bad as Aphrodite’s kids,” Logan finally pipes in, watching the hypnotic saw of Celestial Bronze against stone. It’s not a special weapon, but it is nicely crafted. And again, pointy.
“Hey, I like Aphrodite’s kids more,” Kendall rejoins, and he does. Aphrodite’s kids spend a lot of time staring at themselves in flat, reflective surfaces. So does Jett. But Kendall doesn’t mind it that much with the former.
His favorite of the bunch are the Jennifers, who are bossy to the point of terrifying, but are also shockingly smart when it comes to things like hostile corporate takeovers and the many, many ways the Oscars are rigged. Kendall met the three of them when they tried to wrangle him into choosing which was the prettiest at swordpoint, but they backed off quick when they realized he was more interested in checking out Jett’s ass while he sparred with Oz across the way.
Which he will not admit to doing out loud, by the by, not ever.
But seriously, that’s the great thing about Aphrodite’s kids; they might be shallow and vain, but they love love. No matter what form it comes in.
Not that Kendall’s in love with Jett, mind. Kendall’s not even in lust with Jett. Jett attacked him, viciously, and told him that they were better than other people.
Jett just has a really shapely butt.
“You have a dopey look on your face. You must be thinking about me.”
Speak of the devil.
“Go away, Jett.”
“Don’t be like that. All’s fair in capture the flag, and besides, you don’t even have a scar.”
“Jett, you’re blocking my sunlight,” Jo says seriously. Jett moves to the side, and Jo continues sharpening in peace.
Unfair. Jett doesn’t listen to Kendall when he tells him things. Things like go away, which he is not doing. “Go away,” Kendall repeats, just for the sake of trying.
“You’re really rude. Isn’t he rude?” Jett inquires of Logan. Logan, the traitor, nods. “You know what happens to rude boys, Knight? Dragons eat them.”
“There’s no such thing as dragons,” Kendall scoffs.
No one answers him.
“Wait. Guys? There’s no such thing as dragons, right?”
Jo, Jett, and Logan continue to totally ignore him. Now who’s being rude?
Jett says, “I was thinking-“
Jo stands up, immediately. “Logan, come on. I’ll teach you how to make cupcakes.”
Logan puts up a token protest. “I’m a man, I don’t need- ooh, wait, can we put glitter sprinkles on them?”
Alright, it’s barely a token protest.
“I’ve got gold and purple,” Jo confirms.
“Purple!” Happily, Logan follows Jo away.
From Kendall and Jett.
Where Kendall mostly does not want to be.
He yells after them, “Why are you abandoning me?”
“Jo’s so insightful,” Jett marvels. “Don’t you think she’s insightful? She’s stellar. Say, have you ever seen my cabin?”
---
So yeah, no, Kendall really isn’t a big fan of Zeus. That’s probably why he’s a little uncomfortable the first time Jett pushes him into the black satin sheets of his bunk and makes Kendall moan his name into a pillow while he fucks into him like a raging storm. There’s gotta be a Poseidon-esque rule about that. Like thou shalt not let the king of Olympus’s progeny pound you into the mattress with his impressive lightning bolt. Thou shalt definitely not let him convince you to call him master.
Twice.
The next time the opportunity arises, Kendall turns the tables. Jett makes a much better bottom bitch anyway.
When Kendall forces him to come, he can swear he hears Zeus strike up a tornado outside. Whatever effect it’s supposed to have, Kendall’s positive it’s intent is not to make him nuzzle into Jett’s neck and say, “Sleeping here tonight, kay?
Jett grunts and pulls him closer.
---
Kendall can’t even pretend to know what the underworld looks like, but he dreams about it anyway.
Jo says that all the heroes who’ve been there call it a wasteland, a bleak, sterile stretch of black filled with the souls of the dead. Hades lives in an imposing castle of a place right off the Asphodel Meadow, where he can watch mortal souls suffer through all sorts of misery.
Kendall can’t really imagine the Diamond twins coming from anywhere like that.
Jo tells him that there are other places too; the Elysian Fields, where good men go to rest, and the dark pit of Tartarus, where the titans are sealed. But those are not the locales of his nightmares.
When he closes his eyes, some nights, even in Jett’s arms, he sees James wending his way between the five rivers of the Underworld; Archeron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, Styx, and Lethe.
Those dreams are dark, bitter, and James searches for Shane until he no longer can, until the water of Lethe, sparkling hematite silver-black, becomes too tempting.
In the landscape of Kendall’s mind, James loses himself there, and in the process, he loses Kendall, too.
---
Kendall decides that Jo has a crush on him. She’s much nicer to him in the arena than she is to Logan, and she gets cranky whenever he and Jett are too near. Weird behavior, for a girl who was trying to tell him days before that Jett wasn’t actually the worst demigod on the face of the earth.
Admittedly, Kendall basks in it. She’s pretty and she’s smart and she can do some major damage with a sword. Besides, it makes Jett crazy jealous, which makes the sex hotter.
It doesn’t make the nightmares go away, though.
---
A month and a half in, and January is around the corner. Kendall tries not to think about how he missed Christmas, or how lonely his cabin is when he chooses to sleep there. His mom sends presents wrapped in brown packing paper, and Katie has slipped in the gift of Kendall’s favorite gray beanie; he must have left it back home when he snuck out.
It’s not quite forgiveness, but it keeps his head warm, and Kendall wears it everywhere.
He’s growing more familiar with Camp Half-Blood with each passing day. He doesn’t even spend all of his time with Jo, Logan, or Jett anymore. Kendall takes archery lessons from Jenny, a daughter of Apollo who is basically a living, breathing, catastrophe until she walks onto the range with a bow in hand. Her abrupt grace does not get passed onto Kendall, who can’t hit the broadside of a barn, no matter how many times he tries. He picks strawberries with Annie (short for Anemone), a nymph who takes pity on him on one of his lonelier days. He does not try his hand at the stables, mostly because they are very noisy each time he passes by; he figures they must be an especially popular destination. But Kendall does attempt metallurgy with TJ, a son of Hephaestus (that doesn’t end well), and playing pinochle with Chiron and Mr. D (that either), and he manages to avoid fights at least eighty percent of the time (that guy Wayne, from the Ares cabin, is a jerkoff). No monsters make any appearances, and Kendall is starting to buy into the brochures.
This place might really be something like safe.
---
There’s a bitter aftertaste to every kiss that Jett and Kendall share, reminiscent of the dregs at the bottom of a teacup. If Jett notices, he never says anything, just chases lightning across Kendall’s skin with his tongue and his teeth.
---
“This is impossible.”
“What’s impossible?” Kendall asks, nudging Jo with his shoulder. They’re seated in the gigantic amphitheater, waiting for Chiron to announce…well, something. Kendall wasn’t really paying attention to the proclamation over dinner, too busy digging into his food to do something as menial as listening.
“No one has had a quest in years,” Jo replies, worry flickering over her pretty features. She’s wrapped in a fluffy yellow scarf that accentuates the caramel notes in her big brown eyes.
“Why not?”
Jo folds her hands in her lap and stares blankly at the ground. “The last one didn’t go well.”
Up front, Chiron and Mr. D are wearing their serious faces, pacing back and forth in front of their attentive audiences.
Their mostly attentive audiences. Jett, squeezed in close at Kendall’s other side, is very concerned with the state of his cuticles. It almost makes Kendall smile.
Almost, but not quite.
He’s never had a steady boyfriend before, but with each passing minute he grows more comfortable around Jett. Sometimes he thinks he could be happy if this thing, whatever it is, keeps on.
Then he remembers James, and guilt floods his system, turning him headachey and nauseous. It’s not even close to fair; he only traveled with James for a little while, but somehow he managed to poison Kendall’s own heart against him. All it took was that incandescent smile and a forkful of pie.
There is a fire burning in a makeshift pit at the directors’ backs. Rough edged stones keep the flames in line, but they flicker and dance bewitchingly, orange-blue licks of heat throwing off golden sparks. Gravely, Chiron intones, “I’m sure you’re all eager to hear the news. The gods have requested that we remove the Apple of Discord from its current location in Los Angeles and return it to Olympus.”
“What’s the Apple of Discord?” Kendall hisses.
Jett’s forehead wrinkles. “An Apple that causes Discord, maybe. Who cares, it sounds delicious.”
Someone else saves Jo the trouble of explaining, which she was totally going to; Kendall can see the furrow between her eyebrows that means she’s awed by someone else’s stupidity.
The person in question, a camper Kendall’s never met, asks Chiron tentatively what the apple is. He sighs. “The story goes that Eris stole an apple from the Garden of the Hesperides-“
“The Garden of Herpes?” Jett demands incredulously. Jo shushes him, and from her right side Logan shoots him an irate glare.
“-and inscribed the dratted thing with the words to the fairest. She then tossed it in the middle of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.”
Kendall frowns. “Whosawhatsit?”
“Achilles’s parents,” Jo whispers, tugging her scarf more tightly around her neck. “Zeus held a banquet in their honor. Most of Olympus was there. Eris was not invited.”
“Oh my god, she’s Maleficent. Is Sleeping Beauty in this story too?” Kendall asks excitedly. Then he realizes that he has just confessed to an unhealthy knowledge of Disney’s finer works.
“No.” Jo cocks an eyebrow. Jett smothers a laugh in his hand.
Oblivious, Chiron forges on, “Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera all wanted the Apple for themselves. They demanded that Zeus choose which goddess the Apple would go to, and, uh, I believe the common vernacular is that they-“
“Threw hissy fits,” Mr. D provides helpfully.
Chiron is not super grateful. He says through gritted teeth, “-were very upset when he would not.”
“Talk about Toddlers In Tiaras,” Logan mutters, and suddenly Kendall is not making the most embarrassing pop culture references in the amphitheater.
“Zeus, in his infinite wisdom, chose Paris as a judge.” Chiron does not sound like he thinks Zeus is very wise.
“Wait, Paris, like the guy from the Trojan War?” Someone in the far corner calls. It sounds like one of the Jennifers. It also sounds like they’re giggling about how dreamy Paris was.
“I’m getting to that. The goddesses confronted Paris -“
“Naked,” Mr. D again interjects.
Chiron turns on him. “-Is that really important?”
“Nudity is always important. My sisters were running amok with Stepmommy dearest, all their bits hanging out. I was scarred for life.”
“Fine. The goddesses confronted Paris, naked, and each offered him a bribe. Hera promised to make him a king. Athena offered boundless wisdom. And Aphrodite offered the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen.”
“Helen of Troy?” Kendall inquires softly. He thinks he knows where this story is going.
Jo nods, grim.
“Paris accepted her offer, and when he went to retrieve his prize, a great war began.” Chiron apparently isn’t willing to say more, at the risk of offending the higher-ups, but for Kendall’s benefit, Jo takes over.
“Hera was so enraged that she sided with the Greek forces, and the battle went into overdrive, and, well. They’ve been fighting over this stupid Apple for thousands of years. The last rematch resulted in the War For the Roses. It needs to stay hidden.” She stands up and asks respectfully, “Sir, why are they moving it now?”
Chiron sighs. “The position of the Apple has been compromised.”
“What do you mean, compromised?”
“We believe that Aphrodite has learned of its location. It will be only a matter of time before she sends someone to retrieve it.”
“So the goddess is hungry. Big deal,” Jett yells.
Logan makes a noise like a dying cat. “Does he ever pay attention to anything? How can you stand to be naked with that?”
“That has a great ass,” Kendall replies easily.
Chiron is not quite pouting, but he is definitely unhappy with Jett’s insolence. Dionysus appears to be considering what a fine, fine toadstool the son of Zeus would make. “She doesn’t want to eat the Apple, Stetson.”
“Why not? They’re nutritious.” Jett tilts his head, considering. “If the other goddesses want in, why can’t they hit up a grocery store?”
“This is not up for discussion.” Mr. D rolls his eyes skyward. “The quest is on, and let’s be honest. It’s barely a quest. More of a paid vacation, really. You brats should be begging for the honor.”
Chiron clears his throat. “Fortunately, no one has to beg. We’ve already chosen the person who will lead this mission. Kendall Knight.”
“Me? Why me?”
“I agree,” Jett says emphatically. “Why him?”
“Your faith in me is overwhelming.” Kendall glares. It’s not like he’s eager to hit the road again so soon, but still. A little support wouldn’t hurt.
Jett is not in a supportive mood. “You don’t want to go.”
“Why? I mean, on a scale of one to don’t go, they’re going to bury your body in the back yard, how bad is it over there?”
“It’s Los Angeles, gods, haven’t you seen 90210?”
Before Kendall can answer, Chiron cuts in. “You were asked for. By name.” He’s got a shifty look on his face, if shifty is the same on a centaur as it is on a human.
“Who asked for me?” Kendall asks. The whole camp is staring. He doesn’t get stage fright, but that doesn’t mean this is exactly comfortable.
“That’s unimportant. Choose your companions.”
Jett stares at Kendall expectantly. Kendall knows from all the time he’s spent paying attention to Jo, which is always if she’s sharpening her sword, that he can bring two people along for the ride. That’s easy.
“Jo and Logan.”
Jett squawks, “What?”
“I’m not taking you, you told me I’m going to fail,” Kendall reasons.
“You can’t take Jo, her mom wants the Apple.”
“Oh, so you were paying attention,” Kendall says at the same time as Jo protests, “Hey, no, I am an unbiased observer.”
“Your mother’s Athena-“
“Un. Biased. Observer,” Jo emphasizes, teeth grit. Fearing for his soft parts, Jett backs down.
Chiron nods, all majestic and horsy. “As you wish.”
Logan raises his hand. “Do I get the option to say no to this?”
Kendall tries to force a grin. “Come on, hey, it’ll be fun.”
“Oh yeah,” Jo agrees, not even bothering with a smile. “It’ll be a riot.”
---
Before going on a quest, it is traditional for young demigods to visit with the Oracle.
“It used to be that you’d have to go in alone, but the new Oracle likes the company,” Jo explains, guiding Kendall straight for the Big House. Night is falling over Long Island, dusky purple, and even though it is still midwinter, the air is balmy and sweet with the taste of fruit.
“I’m not coming though,” Logan says quickly.
“Why not?”
“Camille’s pretty,” he hisses, as if that’s any kind of explanation.
“Okay, so, uh-“
“No, she’s too pretty. I can’t look at her. I have to avert my eyes or I’ll, I’ll -“
Kendall’s beginning to worry, “You’ll what? Go psycho-stalker on her?”
“No, of course not. I’ll possibly maybe uh, um, pass out.” Logan averts his eyes, shame burning bright on his cheeks.
“Pass out? You pass out when you talk to pretty girls?”
“You don’t pass out when you talk to me,” Jo objects.
“You’re Jo. You hit me with sharp, pointy objects on a regular basis. You’re a du-“
“If you imply that I’m a guy, I will cut off your testicles,” Jo tells him cheerfully.
It turns out that the Oracle is indeed a very pretty girl with a head full of brown curls and dark, laughing eyes. She lights up when she sees Jo, throwing her arms around thin shoulders and hugging her close. “Long time, no see.”
“Same, stranger.” Jo sits primly beside Camille on a paisley print quilt. They’re in the attic, for reasons Kendall can’t quite discern, surrounded by the junk and litter of thousands of heroic lives. There are things with labels like Bellerophon’s Bridle, all written in painstaking Ancient Greek. “You don’t visit enough.”
“Eh.” The Oracle wrinkles her nose. “School. I hear you need a prophecy.”
Jo nods, blonde curls bouncing with each shake of her head. “Do we get the green light?” She almost appears to be hoping the answer is no. Maybe Kendall should have chosen Jett as a companion; he’s the only one who really seems to want to go.
The girl considers them both, taking Kendall in from head to toe. “Yep.”
“Tell me that was not the prophecy,” Kendall says, and then as an afterthought adds, “I’m Kendall, by the way.”
“Camille,” Camille replies sunnily. “And what, do you want me to make a production about it? Thou shalt travel west for the apple of shining gold-“
“Don’t mock. The old Oracle liked to speak in code. It was a thing.” Jo sniffs. “I miss it.”
“The old Oracle was a mummy,” Camille explains for Kendall. “I don’t miss it.”
“Come on, Cam,” Jo wheedles. “You can give us a little more than yep.”
“What do you want me to say? Aphrodite, Hera, and, uh,” she spares Jo a careful glance, “the other goddess are going to mess with you. Probably. This isn’t an exact science, you know.”
“It’s exact enough that it’s lasted thousands of years.”
“When you put it that way, you make me feel like I’m losing touch with my Delphic heritage.” Her gaze snaps to Kendall. “Hera won’t play fair, and the best way to avoid her traps is to avoid her altogether. Athena-“
“-won’t try to stop us,” Jo says firmly, certainly.
Camille doesn’t comment. At least not on that. “And the best way to keep out of Aphrodite’s grasp, from what I’ve heard, is to remember your soul mate and hope for the best. That woman is a hurricane.”
“Wait, excuse me, your what?” Kendall gapes.
“Your soul mate. Don’t look at me like that, newbie. If there are things like gods and destinies, why can’t there be soul mates? Why can’t there be one person out there in the whole world who just…completes you?” Camille asks sensibly.
“I know why,” Jo says miserably, and she sounds sadder than Kendall’s ever heard her. He isn’t sure why this quest thing is bumming her out so much. “Our lives are too short, too meaningless. The gods use us.”
Camille shrugs, head falling against Jo’s shoulder. Their legs are tangled together in that familiar way that best friends have, so comfortable with each other that touching isn’t even a conscious thing any longer. Kendall has always, always wanted that. He thought he’d found it with Shane and James, but…he can’t keep thinking about them. He can’t. It’s killing him.
Camille says, “Maybe. But people created the gods.”
“Don’t let them hear you say that.”
A ghost of a smirk wisps over Camille’s lips. “We created the gods, and they create for us. Aphrodite wouldn’t exist if people weren’t meant to love. Have you ever heard the old story, the one about soul mates?”
“I don’t think so,” Kendall says, and Jo doesn’t appear to mind hearing it again.
“Once upon a time, before the gods.”
He hears his mother’s voice overlap Camille’s, a quiet whisper in his head. He’s suddenly sure he has heard this story before. Camille’s eyes have gone distant and dreamy. Jo’s gaze has turned hard.
Reverently, Camille continues, “The sun, the moon, and the earth bore children. Although their parents were celestial beings, each child was human, as were their children, and the children of their children. The progeny of the stars grew and thrived, and the gods looked down with envy, because among the universes, humans were unique. They had four arms and four legs, four hands and four feet, two faces and two hearts, but only one soul. They were complete in a way the gods could not be, and they were powerful, strong creatures.”
It sounds like a lullaby, like a memory, even though Kendall is certain he hasn’t heard this bedtime story since he was very, very young.
“When they began bearing arms to defend themselves against the wilderness, the chimeras and the griffons, the sphinxes and the more mundane, Zeus’s fear grew so large that he could no longer stand it. He proclaimed to the denizens of Olympus that something had to be done.” Camille’s voice catches, shadows playing over her face, darkening the hollows beneath her eyes and the corners of her lips. “And so Zeus and the gods attacked humanity, not aiming to kill, but to separate. They struck each child of the moon, sun, and earth down in turn, halving them so that each had only two hands, two feet, two arms and two legs, one face and one heart. Their power was dimmed, and so were their souls.”
Camille bows her head, solemn and gorgeous. Jo’s hand snakes around her waist, urging her onward with a squeeze to the hip.
“The plan worked too well; few humans ever attempted to rise up against the gods. Most of us are too busy, searching the earth for the other halves of our soul, which calls to us, even now. It is our primal instinct; we remember being complete.”
---
Chiron bids them off early the next morning, when Kendall’s fingers are twitching for a cup of coffee in a ridiculous, unconscious parody of Shane Diamond.
Mr. D barely acknowledges their presence, and his words of farewell are, “Dead heroes are so much paperwork.”
Jo, who is much closer to Chiron than Kendall ever hopes to be, doesn’t hear. She’s too busy running a hand across his flank and murmuring tiny, secret things into his ear. Logan on the other hand, is listening, and his pallor turns white as the marble pillars outside of Hera’s cabin.
Mildly, Kendall replies, “I’m touched by your concern.”
Jett does not come to say goodbye, but Kendall is okay with that. He doesn’t really know where he and Jett stand, and he thinks the best part about this quest might be the breathing room it grants him.
Outside the camp, winter is in full swing, a bitter chill seeping into their bones. They’ve got the use of a taxi, specially ordered by Chiron, and they crowd into the backseat, falling all over each other to get close to the heater. The taxi driver smokes a big, cherry scented cigar, which probably violates eight million health codes, and he keeps the windows cranked down to accommodate all the smoke. If he finds it bizarre that he’s been asked to pick up three teenagers by the side of a deserted hill, he doesn’t say so.
Jo carries a bookbag packed full of snacks, maps, weapons, and little baggies filled with golden brown squares that she calls ambrosia.
“For if we get hurt,” she explains, and Kendall doesn’t quite get how snackage is going to help.
He’s got a knapsack of his own, squished in between his body and Logan’s, and he tries to inch it up his shoulder. “So, uh. How do we get to LA, exactly?”
He didn’t think to bring his guitar. Busking is definitely out, this trip. Cheerfully, Jo replies, “We fly.”
“Fly?”
Amused by his sudden search for jetpacks, Jo offers, “On a plane?”
Red alert, red alert, no. “Uhhh. I feel like being trapped in a pressurized deathtrap in the sky is not the way to go here.”
“Don’t be a baby. The gods want the Apple just as much as we do, so they’ll make sure we’re safe. At least, on the trip out.” Jo’s face darkens. “The return trip’s going to be long.”
“What if a monster gets on the plane?” Logan murmurs nervously, craning his head over Kendall’s lap, and how did he even end up in the middle anyway?
Jo brightens. “Then we won’t have to worry about the return trip, will we?”
“You’re bad at this comfort thing,” Logan squeaks.
The taxi drops them straight off at JFK, which is a little disappointing. Kendall thinks he might have liked to see New York City before Zeus swats them out of the sky. At least his headstone will be interesting.
Here lies Kendall Knight, smacked down by the hand of a god.
---
Normally, Kendall is all about throwing himself head first into a stupid situation. But this time…well. You know. Planes.
Jo paid for the tickets, presumably with money straight from Camp Half-Blood’s strawberry funds. Kendall climbs onto the plane with utter trepidation, but he does not turn back. He has this unfortunate affliction where he thinks he can do anything. It’s still a close call, once he’s squeezed into his seat, Logan shaking like a leaf beside him. His entire body is screaming for him to run.
Airplanes, he finds, are cesspools of bad smells and uncomfortable invasions of your personal space. “Eurgh, oh, that’s funky,” Jo wrinkles her nose at eau-de-piss-and-recycled-air. Then she begins to chew on her salted peanuts, supremely unconcerned with what a bad idea this is. Logan, at least, has the decency to spare the clouds a worried grimace before burying his head in the pages of the flight safety manual.
The flight attendant’s take off spiel is not even a little comforting. Kendall listens with utter terror as she thanks them for flying Sky Blue, and forges on with announcements such as, “Admittedly, we have the seatbelts of a Fifty Seven Chevy, but we’d still prefer you keep them buckled until the captain gives you the all clear to move about the cabin.”
Kendall tugs at his seat belt, which does not make him feel very secure. The peppy flight attendant chirps, “If our breathtaking good looks give you trouble breathing, a mask will drop down from the overhead compartments, providing a steady flow of alcohol- I mean oxygen.”
Logan is unimpressed by her practiced giggle. He says, “You can’t breathe alcohol, geez. That’s a dumb mistake.”
“I think it was a joke, dude,” Kendall says doubtfully. Flying is serious business. He would rather less jokes be involved.
“If you have children, please secure your mask before attending to theirs. If you have more than one child, assist the one most likely to graduate college first.” The stewardess taps her chin cutely and waits for the polite laugh that gets before forging on, “If you would like to see a lunch menu, you should have gone to Denny’s. Please write all requests on a twenty dollar bill and pass them forward.”
And on, and on, and on she goes. Kendall digs his fingers into his armrests and tries not to absolutely freak.
---
Middle America from above is dirty red canyons like dried blood and rolling fields of greenery a la the Sound of Music. It turns from desert wasteland to unicorn glades and back in an instant, but Kendall is entirely too focused on the thick press of gray clouds gathering around the plane, an ominous zombie movie mist.
He tells Jo and Logan, “I think this was a bad idea.”
Jo pats his hand and focuses on the movie she’s watching on the tiny TV that is set into the ceiling.
---
The further west they get, the more the earth spreads out in geode colors, pale tan to flesh to dirt to red clay the exact shade of dried blood. The storm is following them, turning it all a shade darker than it could be, and Kendall is counting down the minutes until landing.
Then, like magic, the clouds clear away.
Of course, that would be when things start going horribly awry.
The plane lists left, knocking Kendall’s free soda all over Logan’s lap. Logan shrieks louder than a toddler, simultaneously trying to sponge up coke and hugging the window for dear life. The seatbelt light glows golden-orange, and the captain comes over the intercom and apologizes for the sudden turbulence.
Turbulence is okay, kind of. Kendall can deal with turbulence. He presses his palm to his chest and tries to calm the rapid beat of his heart. The plane balks again, and Kendall’s butt nearly leaves the seat. Jo cranes over Logan’s lap and taps her finger against the thick-paned window. “Guys?”
Outside, the sun is shining, the wind is still, and there is no real reason for the plane to be bucking over pockets of air like a bronco. At least not if you can’t see the hideous, drooling monster jumping up and down on the wing.
Kendall can feel his face turning green. Logan is already fumbling for a paper barf bag.
Jo, true to form, is completely unperturbed, her only comment being, “Sooner than I thought.”
“Wait, you thought we were going to die?”
“We’re not going to die,” she replies calmly. “Look. That’s a Hippalectryon. He can’t do much more than unbalance the plane.”
“And send us spiraling to our deaths.”
“Please, he’s not quite heavy enough.”
“He looks determined to try,” Kendall argues. Jo’s right about the size of the monster; it’s slightly bigger than a normal-sized horse. And it even looks like a horse, discounting its back half, which is distinctly rooster-esque. The total improbability of the thing’s existence isn’t stopping it from bouncing up and down on the wing, grinding its hooves and talons into the metal, wings ruffled in the breeze.
The stewardess’s voice warbles over the intercom uncertainly. “Due to, uh, extraordinary turbulence, we will be making an emergency landing outside of Prescott, Arizona. The captain asks that everyone remain seated, and we apologize for the-” Her voice cuts out as the plane gives a vicious jerk and begins its descent.
“See, we’re landing, aren’t we?” Jo squeezes Kendall’s shoulder. “Stop panicking. Breathe.”
The plane comes to a rocky stop in the middle of a deserted airfield, and then and there Kendall makes the executive decision that he will never, ever, ever be doing that ever again.
Now that it’s on solid ground, the Hippalectryon is having a much easier time of setting it off balance, tilting the aircraft off the landing gear. Jo murmurs, “I’m thinking we might want weapons,” and begins digging them out of her bookbag. The Mist helped them smuggle all the sharp and pointy past security, and Kendall really, really wants to know what the TSA saw on their little x-ray screens.
The Hippalectryon senses it isn’t making any progress in turning the plane into a yo-yo. It hops off the wing and sits on its rooster haunches, clearly stumped. “It’s just a rooster horse. How bad can it really be?” Kendall asks, watching it whinny pathetically.
Jo rakes a hand through her golden curls. “We’re about to find out.”
When the flight attendants finally, hurriedly allow them to take the emergency slide down and out of the plane, Kendall glares up at the sky and mouths, You’ve made your point at the clouds. He’s not sure whether or not he imagines the answering rumble of thunder.
“Oh, look, the storm’s back. That’s exactly what we need, here. In the middle of the barren desert-lands of Arizona,” Logan says idly, clutching a knife rosary-close. A nearby disembarked passenger gives him a strange look.
The Hippalectryon finds its footing.
“Nice pony-rooster,” Logan soothes, edging away from the crowd and the plane. Kendall and Jo take his lead, trying to lure the monster towards the minimum casualty zone. It paws the ground and snorts, except the snort sounds more like a cluck. “Nice, nice pony-rooster.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the flight attendant announces, and she probably follows it up with an apology and information about booking another flight to reach final destinations. Kendall is a wee bit distracted by the whole crow-and-charge thing that the rooster-horse does.
“Look at that. A horse that doesn’t speak horse.” He draws Riptide back, fully prepared to swing.
The Hippalectryon soars over his head, talons raking against Kendall’s skull, and ow, ow, it totally just ripped out a hunk of his hair. He hacks at whatever he can, flailing a bit uselessly, but determined to avenge possible premature baldness. On the rebound, the thing dives straight for Logan, impressive wings spread wide and downy, and Logan sort of stands still and lets it come.
“Just try to hit it, damnit, remember what I showed you,” Jo yells, and Logan thrusts his knife forward, nicking its forepaw.
Mostly this just makes the monster cluck loudly.
They’ve got the full attention of the plane’s passengers now, most staring, some with their camera-phones whipped out and wow, Kendall really hopes the Mist works on all electronic equipment.
Jo tackles the Hippalectryon from behind, clinging to its tail feathers with one arm while trying to saw into its hide with the other, which is a stellar plan, except for how it is a winged pony thing, and decides that now would be the opportune time to take flight. It launches up into the air, weirdly graceful, despite its strange silhouette.
“Jo!” Kendall and Logan shout, trying to lunge for her, but she’s already in the air, too high to let go or to save.
Not that Jo Taylor needs to be saved; she somehow manages to maneuver up the back of the rooster’s sloped rump, and judging by the fistful of very large feathers that nearly hit Kendall in the face, she’s got a pretty solid grasp on the creature’s furry, feathery butt. It swoops back down, raging mad, matted with blood all along its side, but Jo can’t scrabble up any further to inflict any kind of significant damage. The gigantic bird-horse rears back, throwing her in an undignified pile in the dirt, and comes charging straight at Kendall. He steadies his stance, lifting Riptide in the air, trying to breathe through his nose. The horse’s sinew and tendons stand in clear relief beneath glossy brown fur, the auburn, green, and indigo shine of its feathers catching the sun. Then, right before it reaches Kendall, it skids to a total and complete halt.
“What?”
Knives jut into the creature’s shoulders, its stomach, its kidneys. It collapses into itself and dissolves, dusting gold glitter across the fallow dirt.
“Alright,” Kendall demands, gawking at the precision of the throws. “Who has a secret past as a ninja?”
Jo and Logan aren’t paying him any attention, frantically searching for whoever threw the knives. Which Kendall takes to mean it wasn’t them. Oh, fuck. He stands on his tippy toes, craning to see over the heads of the sobbing, innocent bystanders. Being the tallest person in their little three man crew has to count for something.
He spots a boy standing near the edge of the hysterical crowd, a dust covered, golden-skinned guy who winks at Kendall from across the field, and then begins walking away. “I see him,” he says, “It’s a kid, but-“ Kendall thinks he hears something about a gun, which is not going to work out in their favor at all. He remembers Shane telling him about the Mist and jail time.
Kendall announces, “New plan. Follow him.”
“But we need to change planes,” Jo protests, glancing between the distraught passengers and Kendall.
“They’ll arrest us first. Besides, if you think I’m getting into another one of those things, you are clearly on the good drugs.”
She crosses her arms and huffs, “Jett’s right, you are rude.”
“But also I am correct,” Kendall says, eyeing an advancing man of very large stature, who has evidently decided to intervene in this…whatever he thinks it is. “Time to run.”
“But-“
“I agree,” Logan grabs her by the elbow. “Running is a kickass plan. Let’s go.”
Kendall really hopes the rest of their quest goes better than this.
---
“Fleeing from an angry mob,” Kendall pants. “Was never on my bucket list.”
The boy, who they’ve finally caught up to, beams. “Surprises build character.”
Logan, lying in the dirt at the base of a cactus, glares impotently. “My character was fine the way it was.”
Jo is barely winded, because Jo is a showoff. “Whiners. And you, you helped us out back there.”
“Happy to help.”
“I don’t trust helpers,” Jo responds, expression fierce. “Who are you?”
“Carlos Garcia.” He holds out his hand to shake, still preternaturally happy. Probably because he didn’t have to run from suitcase-wielding civilians. Or deal with an impromptu plane landing. Why is the universe so unfair?
Jo does not take Carlos’s hand. “You’re a demigod.”
Carlos beams even wider, outshining the sun. “Son of Hephaestus.”
“You do have very muscley arms,” Logan agrees, as if that’s a prerequisite to being Hephaestus’s kid.
Okay, Kendall went to the Hephaestus cabin a few times at camp. It kind of is.
“What are you doing in the middle of the desert, Carlos?” Jo demands, undeterred. Kendall clutches his stomach and wonders if he’s ruptured a lung. Some lady threw a purse at him before. Who even does that?
“You know,” Carlos shrugs, and it isn’t at all an answer. “You should come back to my campsite. I’ve got s’mores.”
“We don’t want your s’mores. Jo thinks your s’mores smell of betrayal,” Logan says from the ground. Kendall wonders if he’s concussed. That could be slightly problematic. Kendall tries very hard to care, but oxygen continues to ask to be prioritized. His hockey coach would be horrified by how out of shape he’s gotten with all the canoe rides and weapons training. For shame.
“Do they? I think they smell of graham crackers,” Carlos replies, meeting Jo’s gaze head on. He is a brave man.
She is not fooled. “You’re after the Apple.”
“Apple?” His eyes widen innocently. Kendall considers the cactus and wonders if there is water inside it. He’s heard that’s what people do in deserts; tap cactuses like kegs and drink the contents. That would definitely help with the stitch in his side.
“Don’t play games.”
“Fine,” Carlos allows. “I’m after the Apple. But hey, it’s not like you’re useful to me until you’ve got it in hand, so. Uh. Have some marshmallows, have some chocolate.”
“I like s’mores,” Logan volunteers.
“You are consorting with the enemy right now, Mitchell.”
“I don’t see why I’m the enemy. You know, rightfully, they’re Hera’s apples. I don’t like the lady, let me tell you, but they were her wedding gift, in her garden, and Eris was all up with the trespassing.”
Jo lifts an eyebrow. “Preach. You’re working for Hera? Why?”
“I owe the lady a favor.” Carlos shrugs, glancing up at the sky. “Come on, have some s’mores. Stay the night. I promise not to slit your throats in the middle of the evening or anything,” he says that last part quite cheerfully.
“I feel so reassured,” Jo deadpans.
Logan curls into the dirt. “No more quests. Next time, I’m staying at camp and learning how to do macramé.”
---
Part Five