Chapter Text
Annie was by no means out of shape, but she was getting pretty damn winded as she zig zagged between morning commuters, nearly slamming into a couple sitting at a cafe table. She managed to take a flying leap and barely cleared the thing.
The man yelled obscenities at her, over the sound of shattering ceramic but she didn’t have time to stop on apologise. She could hear the heavy footsteps thundering behind her and the messy panting of the cyclopes hot on her heels.
When she took a quick glance over her shoulder, the scene in her wake flickered from a 8 ft tall bruiser wearing construction coveralls, saliva dripping down his face to a man in a suit. Another trick of the mist. The huge club in his had even looked like a briefcase. Just her luck, she probably looked like a street kid who’d lifted some stock brokers wallet.
Pouring on another burst of speed, she rounded the corner and scanned the street for escape options. Old, ivy covered building, fire escape, dumpster, window well, boarded up window. Before she could make a decision, the ivy seemed to come to life and entwined her ankles and midsection, effectively dragging her into a doorway hidden behind its large leaves.
Torn between the desire to escape from the plant’s grasp and desire to avoid notice of the the cyclopes still hot on her tracks, she managed to stifle a scream and instead made a strange squeaking noise. She thought, “wow good one, Annie”. Luckily it didn’t attract the attention of the monster that lumbered past, scratching it’s head. It turned into the alley muttering about losing a perfectly good snack.
With one crisis averted, she fished the knife Marcel had given her “for emergencies” out of the pocket and started sawing at the vines, which were surprisingly strong. She considered hitting the smooth silver button opposite the blade which Marcel had told her was only for “super emergencies” but before she had a chance a voice cut through the dim room.
“What the hell? Don’t do that, they just saved your ass and now you’re hurting them. Real nice thank you. Geez.”
Annie nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of the voice behind her.
“What?”
“You heard me. If you just relax, they’ll loosen on their own.”
Her eyes finally adjusted to the dim light inside the boarded up building and she was able to make out who or what had spoken to her. A boy, in a bright orange t-shirt and olive colored cargo pants with a buzz cut and a lopsided grin that took up nearly half his face. Stranger even were his legs. From the waist down he had actual, furry goat legs.
Aside from that he seemed normal enough (her new normal anyway), and maybe even friendly, but most monsters are when they’re about to eat. True to his word, however, the vines slowly disentangled her lower limbs. This did little to put her at ease, though.
She tightened her grip on her knife and brandished it at him. It was quite pathetic really, trying to take on a monster with a 4 inch pocket knife, even one barely taller than her 5 feet and 2 inches, but she wasn’t about to go out without a fight.
“Who are you?”, she demanded, doing her best to keep the quake out of her vice
He smiled even bigger and waved his hands in a calm down motion
“You can put that thing away. I’m not gonna hurt you. My name’s Connie. I’m your protector.”
“My protector?”, she asked dubiously, not lowering the knife
“Yep. Your new one anyway. Here to replace Marcel. I was sorry to hear about him biting the dust, he was a good satyr. I’m here to take you to Camp Halfblood.”
She lowered the knife a little and he took her blank look as a sign to continue
“You’re a demigod. Half mortal, half god. You don’t know one of your parents, you can’t sit still cause the the ADHD, monsters suddenly thirst for you blood. Ring a bell? Well I’m here to take you to one of the only places you’ll be safe.”
-
Was she walking into some kind of trap? Was she going to end up in some kind of monster den where they’d call dibs on her internal organs before eating her? Probably. Did she have much of a choice? Hardly.
All these thoughts passed through her head rapid fire while she followed behind Connie. The kid had put in some kind of fake legs over his goat ones and was walking with crutches. He looked completely harmless. After all, if he’d wanted to kill her and suck out her bone marrow, he could’ve when she was restrained in the building.
And he knew Marcel. He was one of the few people she’d allowed to befriend her after some asshole tried to jack her bag while she was asleep in the alley off 31st. Annie hadn’t had much of a chance to mourn his death because of the near constant stream of monsters on her tail.
He was a good guy, and if Connie was telling the truth, he’d stopped monsters getting to her much sooner. That made her feel a little less guilty because if he was doing his job then she hadn’t just dragged him into this mess with her demi god-ness. A little less guilty, but not much.
The scene flashed in front of her eyes for what felt like the 100th time. Marcel clutched in a giant’s fingers, eyes bugging out of his head as the huge hand crushed his ribcage. He’d barely had the breath to half shout, half croak,
“Go Annie, Run! Fuckin run!”.
She had looked back just as the monster’s fangs closed around her friend’s neck, ripping his head off with a sickeningly wet crunching noise.
“Annie, you okay?”, Connie asked gently
Apparently she had stopped walking when she started thinking about Marcel
“Yeah, just thinking.”
She half jogged to keep up with him, doing her best to wipe the look of horror she knew was painted across her features
“So how do we get to this camp?”
“We drive!”, he said brightly, then gestured with his arms stretched out in front of him to what may have been the ugliest car Annie had ever laid eyes on. It was a VW Bug that had seem much better days, in say, the 1960’s.
The door looked rusted closed and it was missing it’s front bumper. Connie looked so proud, though, that she kept her mouth shut.
“She’s a beaut. Wait till you see the inside. The kids from the Hephaestus cabin really fixed her up nice.”
Annie just nodded and reached for the handle, silently praying to anyone who was listening, her dad maybe, that the door wouldn’t fall off in her hand.