If you see yourself getting annoyed by that, feel free to avoid this one, wait for the next and read'em back to back.
The Graeae - The Grey Sisters - of Greek myth and legend were the three daughters of the sea primordials Phorcys and Ceto, and they were…
Hmm.
Let me put it this way:
If a complete newbie cracked open a history book, skimmed a few old stories, and then thought to themselves: "Hey, aren't these old fossils just bargain bin knock-offs of the Three Fates?"
Well…
They'd be dead wrong, and stupid as anything if they said it where any of 'em could hear - Greek, remember? - but you could see where they'd be coming from.
Three ancient old bats who represented and embodied portents of forbidden knowledge and ominous doom?
Who also kept to themselves and scared the bejesus out of most anyone who looked at them twice?
They're lucky the Moirai didn't sue them for false impersonation.
Style cribbing aside, they were never in the same weight class as The Ones Who Weave.
Not even close.
Their names weren't as revered or feared - or known, even - and their existence never came close to commanding the same respect.
They were just too small and out of the way for that, and that one story where Perseus extorted them hand over fist on his way to kill Medusa probably didn't help their rep any.
That's where most people recognise them from - a footnote in a great hero's tale.
Not exactly a glowing resume.
But they were still a big deal.
I knew that.
That's why my brain threatened to glitch and start sparking erratically as I remembered where else I knew them from and in what way I did, a sliver of a second after Gleeson up and decided to summon them out of the flipping blue.
In my birth world - the nonsensical madhouse that it was - the Graeae of Greek myth and legend… drove a taxi cab in New York City.
…
…
…
It sounded stupid.
Too stupid.
A ridiculous, over-the-top, are-you-for-real? kind of stupid, like something out of a slapstick comedy routine, and coming from me that's saying something, because my baseline for stuff is already way lower than it honestly should be.
Just absurd.
But there it was, right as I whirled on the spot in a heartbeat, ready to launch Serpent's Downfall forwards like a fiery missile with attitude.
A battered old Ford Crown Victoria was rising straight up from a patch of tarmac that had darkened and started bubbling until it resembled sloshing blood and stank in a way that was three times sharper, and it looked like it was made of smoky grey mist.
As in, the entire car seemed to be woven out of smoke, as if you could walk right through it and scatter it every which way.
Except it also wasn't a car.
It only took the barest degree of attention - of reflexive focus - to peer past the lie splayed out over the surface, and suddenly I could see past and under illusion.
Immediately, a part of me really wished I hadn't.
[̴O̸h̵?̷]̸
It looked like an ancient Greek war chariot, but too small and too large all at once. The frame was an off-bronze shade half swallowed by creeping rust, and it was engraved all over with eerie, shifting inscriptions and overlapping symbols that had the skin at the back of my neck crawling at first glance.
The twin wheels were large and spoked, with dark, sickly wood bound to the frame by half-rotted leather straps. The spokes were their own kind of nightmare, covered in what looked dangerously like gore -some of it dry and crusted over with time, and the rest menacingly, dripping fresh.
The image of it seemed to warp in the quicksilver moment I stared at it, bending and twisting in jaggedly uneven shapes that felt like they were trying to break free of my line of sight and stab into my brain through my eye sockets, but that wasn't the worst part.
No, all of that paled in comparison to the nightmare responsible for pulling the chariot.
The mortals of way back when used horses.
So did a lot of the gods - even my dad's Sun Chariot was driven by four flaming steeds great enough to have their names immortalized in history.
The so-called Chariot of Damnation was carted along by an abomination.
That was the only word I had for it: a horde of skeletal, emaciated, wraith-like figures, all collared and leashed to the infernal thing by an endless series of brittle-looking chains that leaked wafting poison-green mist from in between old chips and breaks even as they held the tortured prisoners in place.
The chained were too many to count - some decaying with only mottled and bloated scraps of flesh left to hang over blackened bone, terrifyingly human-adjacent from head to toe, and plenty more obviously monstrous, with too many gnarled limbs and teeth and sunken pits for eyes.
All of them shouldn't have possibly fit the space they were standing in, but the same twisting force that had the chariot warping in on itself was working overtime, brutally cramming them down into one writhing bundle of absolute horror.
[̶T̷h̵i̴s̶ ̶O̵n̸e̵ ̵S̵e̴e̴s̷ ̸M̵o̸r̵e̷ ̸T̶h̵a̴n̴ ̵M̴o̸s̴t̸.̴]̸
Freezing up was antithetical to a demigod's continued life expectancy, to the point that we were even born with a head start in avoiding it - the super-instincts and reflexes that presented as ADHD but weren't really, the better to think on our feet in mid-fight and not get killed in the process.
Chiron went the extra mile and a half to train us out of it, because locking up in the kind of messes we get into was an almost surefire way to meet a grisly end.
All of that… and I still came far too close to the shock-still edge when the horde's mindless focus suddenly snapped to me.
A sea of blackened sockets rolled my way, and the chains went taut as the whole throng of them just leapt forwards in this futile, furiously desperate charge.
Malformed arms reached out, a cloud of smoke billowed across the ghostly space in between, and dozens of damned jaws unhinged in a silent, terrible wail.
And I do mean that.
No sound. No volume.
Total, unforgiving silence.
Somehow, that made it worse - the sheer hell of it hit me like a tidal wave, rattling just about everything on its way down to my soul.
[̵H̷o̴w̷ ̵I̶n̶t̷e̷r̶e̴s̶t̶i̸n̴g̶]̶
"Gah!"
I recoiled, pulling back as the chariot flickered back into a car, and I couldn't resist the need to screw my eyes shut even as I kept my spear up and ready, trying to flush the jittery revulsion out of my mind.
It didn't work.
"Dan?" Sai angled himself to my right, fists already raised and cocked. "What's wrong?"
"You didn't see that?"
He hesitated, never taking his eyes off the car.
"I think I felt it. Whatever it is. I'd have to look deeper-"
"Don't!" I hissed through my teeth, trying to focus past the rush of blood pounding in my ears and repressing the revolted horror clawing at the inside of my ribcage. "Trust me. Don't."
I didn't have to tell him twice, because barring Chiron, no one in any world could read me better.
Regulus's attention had also sharpened like razor blades - he perched just off the curb, eyes narrowed into slits, paws braced lightly against the ground, mane fluttering in the breeze with a deceptive calming sway.
It was exactly the same stance he'd taken against the Wizards of Oz months ago - A small peek at the real monster playing possum behind the persona of the most irritating cat to ever walk the earth.
At least we were all on the same page-
"Stop!"
Scratch that.
Gleeson slid right in front of us, and that was solid proof the man was nuts, even if he had the good sense to angle himself as far away from Regulus as he could without throwing himself back the other way again.
"Put that spear away." He demanded, staring us down with a hard look in his eyes. "They're as dangerous as anything, but they've been playing 'nice' with mortals for centuries. They can't touch you if the fare is paid and the rules are obeyed."
Come again?
"Fare?" I asked incredulously, but I remembered the drachma he'd flipped into the air well enough. "Rules?"
Of course there were rules, because there always had to be - they were a classic, and the more convoluted and underhandedly deadly, the better!
That wasn't the problem.
It was the fact that I didn't know a thing about them.
I can't plan around a question mark.
Just my luck that Gleeson was already turning around and marching up to the - possibly literal - ride from Tartarus before I could bring up that little tidbit.
Or deck him on sheer principle, because I'm not gonna lie, the urge was there.
He walked right up the front passenger window - tinted grey all the way through, naturally - and knocked against the glass in three quick raps.
It came rolling down before he'd even finished pulling back his fist, and an old woman poked her head out.
Immediately, all of us tensed some more.
If I didn't have the context that I did, I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on why.
She looked ordinary enough, at first glance, with skin that was maybe a shade too pale and grizzled, corded hair that fell over the space where her eyes should have been in a mop anyone would bet was too thick to see through.
Nothing obviously monstrous, at first.
But the lizard-wired part of my hindbrain still hissed like a rattlesnake on a bender: Not right.
Not exactly fear or wariness, but a sense of total wrongness, like I was looking at a doll that was almost life-like, but just off enough to set off the internal alarm bells.
And I swear it seemed to be looking right back, straight past the satyr standing right in front of it.
Serpent's Downfall rose a little higher, and the wood grew warmer and angrier against my palm.
Just in case.
"Gleeson Hedge." That voice rasped oddly, with a strange, echoing beat after every word. "Summoning us again, are we?"
"Honored Ladies." Gleeson bowed his head respectfully, but he kept it short and sharp. "Duty calls. Four for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal-"
"Five." She interrupted, "Including the hellhound pup lurking in the demigod's shadow."
Ah.
That.
He snapped right back around to me, and I could only shrug and keep my eyes very deliberately fixed on him and not the thing right behind him.
"Not a danger. I'll explain later."
He took a very slow, very calm breath - the kind people take when they're about to punch a wall or throw something across the room - and slowly turned back to the Graia.
"Five then, my lady. The toll-"
"Consider it paid in full."
That made him stiffen.
"I haven't offered any more drachma-"
"Drachma are the standard fare." Slowly, the old woman smiled, and the expression stretched sallow skin over bones in all the wrong ways. "But hardly the only ones we will accept. Knowledge and entertainment are worth their weight in gold to we who are immortal, and this outing..."
Then it happened.
The Graia's focus shifted just so, and suddenly she was looking straight at me.
I didn't flinch, but only just.
"This promises to be most entertaining." Her focus drifted off to the side, lingering on Sairaorg, and then pausing completely on Regulus for a few quiet, loaded seconds. The smile flickered in something close to surprise, before it stretched wide again - too wide. "Most entertaining indeed."
Neither of my quest mates flinched, either, but that was really no surprise.
"Do hurry and climb aboard." She leaned back seeming satsified, her face fading into the shadows inside the car as the window rolled back up again. "Daylight's wasting."
And that right there?
Something so small had no right to sound as ominous as it did, but as usual, them's the breaks.
"So." Sairaorg started up the second the window sealed shut. "Ignoring the mountain of red flags here, she means climb aboard... where exactly?"
Good question.
There were three of us, plus a lion big enough to fill out the entire backseat and then some.
The car must've felt the silent judgment we were putting out, because it chose then to pull a Mist trick - literally.
The whole thing just... came apart, dissolving into wafting smoke that swirled in place once, twice, and then ballooned outwards all in one go, taking on a new shape in real time.
And by real time, I mean about three seconds.
The next thing we knew, it was a bus - a regular old RTS city bus, dull grey and pockmarked with rust, paint peeling at the edges like old wallpaper, and windows tinted just as grey as before.
"...Never mind then," Sai muttered warily. "Fair enough."
Gleeson chose then to point a finger at yours truly.
"You."
"Me?"
He threw a thumb over his shoulder, aiming at the bus.
"You know who's in there?"
"Pretty good idea." I nodded, before making a show of glancing at my spear's blade and back. "That's why I'm still holding this."
"Don't use it." He said sternly. "You want into the Sea of Monsters, and they'll get us halfway there."
"...We're listening."
"Don't attack first. Don't ask them questions, and try not to answer any if you can avoid it. Be smart. And whatever else any of you do..."
He panned around, looking at the three of us - Regulus included, which was almost impressive considering the quiet, barely restrained menace the Nemean lion was radiating when he did.
"-if you get the chance, don't look into the Eye."
The Eye, he said - Capital.
I didn't need to ask what that was about.
The Graeae famously had just the one eye and a single tooth, shared between the three of them.
Remember what I said about Perseus extorting them in the myths?
Spoiler alert - he stole both the eye and the tooth and held them for ransom until they gave him what he wanted.
I try not to think about how the logistics of any of that would have actually worked, because it sounds gross and Greek and makes my head hurt every time.
Still, message received.
"Right then."
Gleeson nodded when we did, then spun back around and marched right up to the bus without another word.
The doors hissed open as soon as he got close enough, letting rip a burst of air that sounded disturbingly like an exhale, long and sharp and probably tortured.
Wonderful.
"Guess we're doing this then."
Sai sounded about as excited about it as I did.
"Looks like it."
"I-" Regulus cut in as he slinked up behind him, eyes narrowing with an emotion I couldn't quite place. "-Am seeing so many things I can't explain today. That's an achievement."
Then he glanced at me knowingly and followed after Gleeson without saying anything else.
Because of course he did.
"At least he's happy." Sai watched him go and nudged me in the ribs. "Plan in case this goes terribly wrong?"
I didn't miss a beat.
"You grab Gleeson, jump out the window with Regulus, and I set everything on fire with Incinerate Anthem."
"..."
I'd do it, too.
Assuming the cat doesn't beat me to it himself, that is.
Longinus Gears had the terrifying reputation that they did for a reason.
"Overkill and crazy dangerous." Sai thought it over for a moment and nodded firmly. "I like it."
"Of course you do." I smiled with precisely zero feeling and finally stowed Serpent's Downfall away. "Shall we?"
And then we stepped up and into the Grey Sisters' domain.
...
The inside of our ride was a hollow shell: ordinary frame, but the floorboard was scarred plywood, the walls were bleached off-white except for the grey windows, and there were only three seats up near the front, behind the driver's - we'll get to that in a sec.
The rest of it was just empty space, but not normal space - it took focus, but you could kind of tell that this thing was just a fraction bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.
Not enough to be absurd, but just enough to play tricks on your mind and make you uneasy.
Somehow, I wasn't surprised.
The air we were breathing in didn't help - Both cool and warm, and charged with something that smelled two parts ozone, one part reeking sulfur, and felt almost like static against my skin.
But not quite.
Everything about this was not quite, and gods did it suck.
And then there was the main event: the drivers three.
A trio of little old ladies shared the driver's seat, huddling shoulder to shoulder behind the stirring wheel, each wearing an ashy sack-cloth dress and a curtain of stringy hair that hid their eyes - or whatever they had in place of them - from view.
"Greeting, mortal passengers." The one on the far right piped up, slowly craning her neck back to us in a way that had what sounded like half her bones crackling like Pop Rocks. "And welcome aboard our humble Chariot. I am Wasp."
"I am Tempest." The one on the far left offered, while the driver in between just grunted and gripped onto the steering wheel with a bony hold.
"Anger."
"Not their real names," I heard Gleeson mutter under his breath. "Just titles."
"Quite true!" Wasp readily agreed, which distracted me from considering the implications of the one called Anger being the driver behind the wheel. "And now that that's out of the way, a brief announcement: As you have paid your toll and not stolen, extorted, or attempted to swindle a free ride from us, everything is in proper order! However, we sisters are not responsible for any bouts of… untimely expiration not directly caused by our hands."
Sairaorg blinked
"Uh, what-?"
"If you have any complaints, please file them through the governing body that presides over whatever afterlife you may be drawn to in such an event." Wasp seemed to look right at Sairaorg then. "Greek or otherwise."
…Welp.
That secret didn't last real friggin long.
"How-?"
"And away we go!"
That's all the warning we had before Anger floored the accelerator and the whole bus was suddenly blasting off like a rocket with somewhere to be.
Ever tried standing up in a plane rocked by nasty turbulence?
Yeah, not fun.
Sairaorg and I nearly tumbled back, but I grabbed onto the chair next to me and he paid it forward by grabbing Gleeson, who did achieve lift-off and almost went careening across the back of the bus.
On the bright side, the cursing was kind of funny.
Less funny was the fact that Regulus hadn't moved an inch.
"Seriously, how!?"
"I'm not pathetic. Or worse: You."
"I hate you so damn-!"
Anger jerked the stirring wheel, and the bus swerved around a corner so fast the tires screamed against the tarmac, a full-on screech of burning rubber that could've grated on a deaf man's ears.
"Look out!"
Then she did it again as Tempest snapped, and just barely scraped by a pickup truck right around the bend. I winced sharply as the close brush tore the side-view mirror right off, and someone screamed faintly in the background.
Good luck buffing that out.
In other news, holy Dad on Olympus!
Too close!
"Watch it, Anger!" Tempest was on her case from the jump. "If you're going to throw a hissy fit about the Eye, at least use it properly!"
"Bah!" Anger grumbled, but she swerved back into the right line even as she pressed down on the gas that much harder. "It was my turn anyway."
Somewhere beneath us, whatever passed for an engine roared like a monster truck and shook the entire floorboard with tremors, and Sai and I exchanged panicked looks.
At this point, you might be wondering why:
After all, even if it was still picking up speed, we could fly several times faster at our absolute worst.
Hell, we could outrun it at a light jog, but it's different when someone else is doing the driving and nearly pancaking people on every second turn.
Watching - feeling - Anger weave through New York traffic at Mach why even for the next fifteen minutes was like tossing back pure adrenaline on an empty stomach.
"Oh, don't look so tense." Wasp crooned as her sister did her level best to scare the life out of every responsible driver she could torment, complete with furious honking. "Have a seat, enjoy yourselves! We've been at this for centuries, and our track record for unplanned fatalities is excellent! Only two dozen in the last three decades!"
Because that's what you want to hear on a ride like this.
"Manticore dead ahead!"
"What!?"
We… all yelled, actually, and sure enough, there it was - a little dot just off the curb in the distance that quickly grew into something hunched, furry, and tailed with a barbed blade at the tip of it.
Then Anger cackled and veered right into him, and bang.
The windshield rattled violently but didn't so much as crack as it was driven into a three-hundred-pound blob of howling fur and scraping claws. The thing dropped in the next instant, and…
The bus bounced, as if we'd hit a speed bump two sizes too big.
Fwoom-Crunch
I think I even heard another gasping scream down there.
"…Two dozen and one." Wasp amended easily in the silence that followed. "But that one was a monster, drenched in bloodlust, and if it had any spine at all, it'll be back from the Pit eventually."
She gave us another close-lipped smile, lips pale and bloodless.
"No harm done!"
These people were psychotic.
"Every time," Gleeson grunted, hanging on to the seat he'd dropped into for dear life. "Every time."
I'd have sat down too, but the things didn't have seatbelts - just long, rusty chains, and considering I'd seen where and what the other chains on this thing were attached to… yep.
Hard pass.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic, little satyr." Tempest snorted loudly, twisting back to join her sister in creeping us out via uncomfortable staring. "You've all become so tame in this era - where's all that wild bravery I remember?"
"Gone with Pan, most likely." Anger said flatly, idly strangling the steering wheel this way and that.
"Well, I know that." Tempest waved her off impatiently. "I meant personal bravery. It's hardly the first time this one's ridden with us."
"Then you're misremembering, idiot. This satyr was part of a pair, and he was always the tamer one. It was his partner who had the real fire."
Gleeson stiffened.
"Don't call me an idiot, you twit… but…Ah!" Tempest perked up. "Yes, it's coming back to me now… Evelyn Winchester."
And suddenly, I didn't give a flying anything about Anger's driving violations anymore.
"Yes, we do remember your mother, little demigod." Wasp seemed delighted by my attention, which should have been a red flag the size of Everest… but I was already hooked. "A legacy of the goddess of the Crossroads… bold as brass and twice as fearless. Very entertaining."
"Of course, we would have paid attention anyway," Tempest added in after a beat. "We always keep a close eye on that goddess's descendants, after all. It's only good sense."
That… told me nothing at all.
I wasn't sure why I expected it too - and I wasn't even going to bother asking how they knew who my mom was.
"Why?"
"Because she's the one who trapped us here," Wasp answered conversationally, even as the air abruptly thickened with meaning. "Bound us to this chariot as punishment for interfering with her interests by way of our foresight."
…
"…Putting aside the fact that I have no context for that whatsoever." I shifted on the balls of my feet, and Sai very carefully didn't, which was deliberate. "Is this the part where you say you want revenge?"
Because Incinerate Anthem was primed and a hair trigger's press away from ruining everyone's day.
"Please." Tempest scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself, demigod. We have better things to do."
"You haven't broken our rules." Wasp agreed. "And thus even if we wished to, we would not be able to harm a legacy of hers regardless. Your ancestor is very thorough in ensuring that the punishments she doles out don't come back to bite her descendants unless she wills it herself."
I blinked.
The more you know.
Take notes, Zeus.
"Hah." It was Anger who snorted this time. "Lamia was a lesson well learned."
I… had no idea who that was, either.
It's not like I've read up on every myth and bedtime story out there.
"Don't be a fool, sister. The Three-Faced One has no regrets there. It's not as if she would ever allow her favoured children to fall prey to that curse." Wasp tilted her head back and sniffed the air sharply, like a bloodhound trying to find a trail. "Even this one smells faint, for a demigod of obvious power. A blessing, most likely."
I-?
"Excuse me?"
"She means your scent." When I turned around, Gleeson was suddenly looking at me like he'd just gotten the key to one of the secrets of the universe, all wide-eyed in realization - or maybe just remembered something important enough to count. "You smell like a powerful demigod."
"Uh…thank you?" I was more confused than anything, missing too many pieces to be anything else. "Am I not supposed to?"
"No, but you didn't always." He explained, and my mouth clicked shut. "I visited your mother once, just after you were born, and you smelled almost mortal. It's why you weren't brought to Camp earlier, and why David could afford to wait so long before…"
Before spilling the godly beans.
"Okay…" I turned back to Wasp, who was still leering at me in a way that would probably come back as a nightmare at some point down the line. "What does that have to do with… the Three-Faced One?"
But I could already see what they were getting at.
They thought that Hecate had blessed me?
It… didn't compute.
Everything I knew about that part of my heritage was just….
Nothing.
Complete blank.
"Why would she-?"
"Who knows why she does anything?" Tempest shrugged. "Her goals are shrouded in Mist, and she works in mysterious ways."
I almost laughed.
Almost
"Though if I were to guess…your mother was very impressive for a mortal." Wasp hummed musingly. "Certainly worthy of earning a reward or two."
I took a sharp breath.
There were implications there I'd have to be blind not to see, but I didn't have time to process any of them.
We took another sharp turn, and Anger suddenly crowed out loud.
"We've arrived!"
The bus stopped.
Literally - All at once, impossibly instant.
It froze in a dead stop, dropping a hundred to zero so abruptly I nearly tore the seat I was holding onto straight out of the floorboard just trying to stay on my feet.
It was so sudden my stomach threatened to twist from the reverse-vertigo.
"Come on!"
Even Sairaorg had to play catch the satyr again as Gleeson went tumbling forward, and this time, the cursing wasn't as funny.
Meanwhile, Regulus was… still Regulus, unfortunately.
Quiet as ever, lazily watching everything.
"Brooklyn Marine Terminal, as promised." Wasp waved a hand dramatically. "Though choosing to park here has saved you quite the walk. You're welcome."
All three laughed like she'd just cracked the joke of a lifetime.
I looked out past the windshield.
Here turned out to be… a whole scene, really.
The port yard stretched out dead ahead, a patch of industrial waterfront straight out of a magazine cover, complete with multicoloured cargo crates stacked like Lego blocks and towers of wooden pallets scattered everywhere.
A little further in, and I could see the walkway leading up to a little pier on the East River, complete with mismatched boats docked in lines on either side of it, all glinting in the sun.
And then there was the foot traffic - satyrs, dozens of them in the distance, all working forklifts here or crossing raised planks there and doing whatever else all over the place.
And I don't think they were the only ones there, either.
"…Thank you, honored Ladies." I glanced back over as Gleeson stepped up again, looking to take the lead. "We'll take our leave now."
"Naturally." Wasp agreed, and the doors hissed open. "We'll look forward to your next visit."
"But," Tempest interrupted him before he - before all of us - could take so much as a step towards it. "A word or two of advice, if you would have them."
Now, my gut reaction was to nope out, but the Sisters weren't exactly waiting for an answer.
"We won't be prying, but if you so happen to be heading into the Sea Of Monsters-"
"Why would they?" Anger grumbled, "Nothing but boorish conversation partners, the lot of them."
"-Do look out for our brother." Wasp gamely ignored the interruption. "Last we heard, he was making a nuisance of himself just past the Symplegades. Do be wary of his appetite. We'd simply hate to lose your business."
Brother?
Crapbaskets.
Tempest chose them to follow up on that.
"Gleeson Hedge."
"My lady?"
"Any butcher worth their salt will tell you that slaughtering a goat is delicate, careful work."
Oh, what the hell.
"If you let them see the blade coming, they panic and flail in ever so predictable mortal terror, and the fear bleeds into the flesh."
Gleeson looked like he was actively swallowing lemons by the barrel, but he didn't look away when the Graia's mouth opened in a wide smile, and a single, unassuming tooth became visible below her chipped upper lip.
The tooth.
A chill crawled down my spine at the sight of it.
"It's a nasty aftertaste, you see." Her unhinged tirade just went on and on. "One that ruins the meat."
"Satyrs are much the same." Wasp offered as we all stared, stone-faced. "Fear makes you weak and disappointing… and fear born from guilt?"
Gleeson stilled.
"Oh, what an insidious poison that it is. Do you understand me, little satyr?"
"…I do. Thank you for your wisdom." He took a step towards the door, and he grabbed onto me out of the blue, tugging on my hoodie almost violently as he swept past. "It's time to go."
"The truth shall set you free, Gleeson Hedge, but only once you set it free in return." Anger's tone was heavy with warning, and the tugging on my hoodie turned near-manic. "Secrets like yours have no place on dangerous sea voyages, for they have the most irritating tendency of coming to light when they are least convenient."
And something about those words seemed to paralyse the satyr more than urging else had yet.
"I-"
"Besides, what have you to fear?" Tempest laughed, head turning towards me. "The Winchester blood evidently breeds true. Powerful and interesting - and he reeks of secrets worth keeping."
"And comes with most… fascinating companions," Wasp added, attention straying to Sai and Regulus.
"So unburden yourself." Anger finally turned on the spot, abandoning the steering wheel to look directly at us. I spotted a flash of phantom green - an iris - underneath the cowl of stringy hair that had me snapping mine away at once. "After all-"
And then all three spoke up at once-
"""We doubt you'll manage to get this one killed as well.""""
- and everything inside my head faded into white noise.
…
Nobody said a word as they stepped off the 'bus' and onto the port yard proper.
Not even when the thing hissed shut behind them and took off with a scream that was less metaphorical and more alive than it had any right to be.
A part of Sairaorg was ready to cheer, watching it hurtle off into the distance and disappear with a shimmer of twisted air, because everything about that had been twisted.
Thanks for the ride, but good riddance.
The rest of him was all too focused on Dan's eerily blank expression to care.
What they'd just heard…
He grimaced.
This wasn't going to be good.
The charged quiet lingered, stifling the scent of the salt breeze and the warmth of the sunlight into something dull and worthless.
There was some attention from the people on the far end of the yard, but none of them were focusing on that either.
Not just yet.
Soon enough, Dan blinked and slowly craned his head towards Gleeson.
"What did they mean?"
Here they go.
"…"
Gleeson looked grey in the face.
He opened his mouth and closed it again just as quickly.
Dan stepped forward, expression still blank, but his eyes were suddenly burning - mostly metaphorically, but there was a hint of sizzling gold in there too.
Gleeson didn't miss it, if the way his stance turned wary was anything to go by.
"What. Did. They. Ḿ̸̱ȩ̴̋A̶̫͐n̶̛̟?"
The last word… broke?
Splintered?
The sound of it did something that sound probably wasn't naturally supposed to do, and Sai almost winced.
He hated that trick.
…Except this time, it wasn't a trick, was it?
It was something much worse instead.
Regulus didn't flinch, but Gleeson did, hands twitching up like he desperately wanted to cover his ears.
He knew the feeling.
"Dan…"
"Yeah, Sai?"
He almost sounded calm about it.
Conversational, even.
Sairaorg hated how fake the tone of it was.
"Take it easy."
"I am." He shot right back. "I just heard what I did, and I haven't lost my mind."
The 'yet' was so heavily implied it might as well have been painted in bright neon green and had its own theme song to match.
"This isn't-" Gleeson stopped, setting his jaw. "This isn't the kind of conversation you have before a dangerous quest."
It probably wouldn't be, but Sai wouldn't have taken that for an answer, and there's no way Dan would either.
And he didn't.
"I'll be the judge of that."
"I will tell you, I always would have-"
"Then go ahead."
"Now isn't-"
"Tell me."
"Just wait until-"
"Tell me."
"Kid-"
The glow in Dan's eyes flared like living fire.
"Tell me!"
The satyr's mouth clamped shut roughly, and his fists clenched so violently that his knuckles went bloodless and his entire body trembled from head to toe.
He looked like he was about to rage at everything and nothing at all.
But only for a moment.
Then, all at once, the fury died.
His shoulders dropped, the air burst out of him in one reluctant exhale, and all the fight seemed to sputter and drift out with it.
"Fine." He drew in a slow, miserable breath. "Fine."
…
Another moment passed.
Eventually, he started.
"It was a few years ago. I was in Arizona, following up on a potential demigod's trail, and I found her. A little tyke by the name of Clarisse." Gleeson paused, licking his lips before sighing again. "Forget I gave you that name. The important part is the blood: turns out, she was a daughter of the God of War. The big one."
Ares, Sairaorg's mind piped up helpfully.
"She was one of the unlucky ones. Monsters sniffed her out too young, and then her mother made it worse by letting slip the secret of what she was. Her scent got stronger, and it drew in even more of the ugly freaks. By the time I got there to help, they'd been boarding up in a different motel room every day for the better part of a week just trying to stay ahead of them."
Dan didn't say a word.
Sairaorg couldn't help the reflexive question, though.
"And her dad didn't help at all?"
Gleeson looked at him like he was stupid for asking.
"That's not how the gods work. They help their own, but only at the right moment, if they're appeased and in a good mood. Most of the time, it just isn't their way."
… Apparently not.
…. If Dan had been a kid in that kind of danger, Sai couldn't imagine Apollon not interfering.
Not after what he'd seen with his own eyes - things would have probably gotten borderline biblical.
But that didn't matter right now.
"As soon as I got to the kid, I knew I needed to get her to Camp for her own safety. Her mother, too. I had it all planned out and everything." Gleeson went on, and his voice got grimmer and heavier with every word. "Then I had a dream."
A pause.
"I saw my mother in it. She spoke to me through it, and asked for my help." He said gruffly. "Told me she could feel some kind of danger stalking her and some of the other nature spirits who lived nearby, and begged me to come back home before it was too late."
Gleeson shook his head carefully.
"I wanted to - gods know I did - but I couldn't. The kid needed me, and I had a duty to keep to." Slowly, he looked back at Dan - right in the eye, with meaning. "But I had a friend, you see. Strong, whip-smart, and meaner than a celestial bronze dagger in a scrap. Someone I could trust to watch out for my ma."
And suddenly, the pieces started clicking into place.
Dan swallowed lightly and took half a step back. - It was becoming clear to him too.
"My mom."
Gleeson nodded - and something about the gesture stank of regret.
"Your mom. It was supposed to be a quick check-in. She'd visited before, and I just wanted her to have a look, that's all. Keep an eye on things, just until I got back."
"...That's not what happened."
"No." The regret was louder this time, more pronounced. "There was a battle. I don't even know what happened, all these years later. Ma said there was some kind of monster that attacked her home, and the homes of the rest of the nature spirits in the area. Something hulking and twisted, made of fire. It tried to get her too, but Evelyn got her out before going back in to fight it and buy time, and-"
This time, he stopped hard, and the tremor in his rough voice was subtle but unmistakable.
Dan...
He just stood there, listening, not a tell on his face.
Sairaorg was pretty sure he'd stopped breathing altogether.
It was almost scary, and after the year he'd had and the training that went with it, he didn't scare easy.
"When it was done, the house…the mortal home, at least… all of it burned down. Exploded, even. Went right out in a fireball ten stories high. Whatever monster your mother was fighting went with it. She sent the bastard screaming right back to Tartarus." He sounded viciously satisfied by the fact, but it didn't last. "But… she didn't make it. After everything was said and done, I… took her home. Made sure David knew how it happened, or tried to explain as much as I could before he booted me out his house and warned me never to set foot in the place again, and…"
Gleeson shook his shoulders in something too helpless to even be called a shrug.
"That was that."
…
…
…
The minutes passed
…
…
…
"My mom…" Dan finally whispered, the words so low they somehow warped back into being deafening. The breeze brushed his hair back, which only drew attention to the way his eyes flickered between blue and molten gold. "Had a closed casket at her funeral."
Sairaorg's stomach immediately dropped down to Hell and kept going, and Gleeson looked like someone had ripped out his heart and rammed it down his throat.
"I remember begging my uncle to let me see her, just one more time, but he wouldn't budge no matter how much I tried - and I tried, believe me." He laughed, and it sounded jagged, with all the appeal of blades of broken glass scraping against one another. "Guess I know why now."
"…It was for the best." Gleeson finally said. "No kid should have to see tha- their mother in that state."
"Dead, you mean?"
They both flinched.
"Burned, even?"
"-it'll never be enough, but I'm so so-"
The temperature shot up by twenty degrees, instantly, and Dan's eyes flashed sharp gold for a full second.
Gold, with just a fleck of ominous purple within.
"Don't."
...
He didn't.
Silence reigned.
…
…
…
"Dan-"
"It's okay, Sairaorg."
The heat cut off just as quickly as it had come, and Dan turned to pat him on the shoulder.
Sairaorg… didn't know what to say to him past that - Unholy Satans, what could he say? - but he never got the chance to try anyway.
He tried to reach out and return the gesture, but Dan dodged out the way and stepped back easily.
"I'm fine!"
His friend smiled at him, eyes back to their normal blue again, and still the expression was so... not-Dan it was almost disgusting to look at.
"I know it's a bit of a buzzkill, so I won't go there again. In fact-"
He glanced back at Gleeson, and smiled at him, too.
"Don't worry about it anymore. Don't talk about her again - don't even bring up the subject again." He clapped his hands together and stretched that hollow lie of a smile further. "After all, we have a quest to get to, and we've been standing here so long those satyrs over there who think I can't see them looking at us are probably starting to think we're crazy - let's get right on that."
And then he stepped right on past them, and walked away without another word.
Gleeson stared after him, looking downtrodden and decades older than he had before, and Regulus just watched.
Tellingly, though, even he was silent.
And Sairaorg…
Sairaorg didn't know what to do anymore.