บท 899: 7
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"Say cheese in one, two, three!"
People around me chorused the name of the common dairy product once the photographer snapped a shot of the entire cast and their stunt doubles in front of the Selimiye Mosque. Lola Peters, a slim, petite blonde beauty whose smile could brighten your day, shook my hand as everyone else said their goodbyes.
"You were awesome the entire time, I can't believe that you're just a teenager and not a professional," she enthused. I grinned back, her enthusiasm contagious, but made sure to keep my head tilted down so that my snapback covered most of my eyes.
"Thank you, and um, I'm sorry again about when I disappeared from set," I said, embarrassment leaking into my voice, but Lola laughed at that, waving aside the apology without hesitation.
"It's fine, honestly, I think everyone actually appreciated the hours off since it was really hot that day," she assured me. "You really have a future in action showbiz, lady, Gordon won't stop raving over how quickly you learned the stunts."
I thanked her some more, and seeing how Paige kept fidgeting at the corner of my eye, I tried to briefly introduce my future step-sister to the friendly actress. Paige's eyes were sparkling in awe the entire time as the two of them talked and after a few minutes, I was able to excuse myself from the conversation. Justin Adalstan was hanging at the back of crowd and was looking at the mosque instead of engaging in the social behind him. I would have assumed that he was in the middle of a photoshoot with his perfectly windswept dark blond hair and well-fitted clothes except there were no lights, reflectors, props, or a photographer. I stepped up next to him and also observed the piece of beautiful architecture in front of us.
"You don't want to talk to anyone?" I inquired lightly.
"No," he said shortly.
"Introverted or extraverted?" I asked jokingly.
"Neither, I already talked to the people I wanted to. I'm just waiting now," came his clipped reply. I was going to asked another question to get the ball rolling, when I paused. He didn't seem very happy judging by his tense shoulders and how he wouldn't look my way.
I tried being careful. "Um, is everything alright?"
That's when he glanced down at me, the five-inch height difference bothered me when he did that, and his light brown eyes bore down my own darker eyes.
"I don't know, is everything alright for you?" He repeated my question with a sour note twisted into the words and I blinked in confusion at two things. One, he should have hit the ground snoozing, or something similar, when he made direct eye contact with me, and two, there something I wasn't seeing in this conversation.
Come to think of it, Paige doesn't drift into dreamland either when she looks directly at my face.
"Wait, am I missing something?" I asked slowly. I kept the eye contact, scanning his face for any sign of reaction. His boyish face maintained its cold expression and I was the first to look away, disturbed at how my godly abilities didn't affect him. I had to test this phenomenon with Paige later to confirm that they were immune.
"Are you?" He challenged without giving any details about his vague responses. I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes at his slightly hostile barbs.
Justin went on, inner feelings and suspicion leaking out. "You think I don't see how you sneak off almost every day without telling anyone? It's bad enough that your mom has to cover for you when you're gone, and don't get me wrong, she's cool, but what do you even do that makes your mom scared?"
I reeled at the accusations. "You think I'm a delinquent?" Disbelief colored my voice.
"No, just some wannabe teenage rebel," he shot back. "So what is it, alcohol? Drugs? Both? Or something else?"
I stood there without responding to any of his words due to extreme reluctance and tiredness, but I got a little nervous when he emphasized his last claim. It seemed like he was suspecting me of something other than simple delinquency. I only disappeared to kill monsters and I understood how my behavior can appear strange, given the random timings, but to explain all of that would mean revealing the Greek world to him and I couldn't do that. I felt mildly frustrated at having to keep a secret from my future step-brother. If I was allowed to tell him, I would have already done so in a heartbeat to clear up the misunderstanding, but I couldn't. Besides, he probably would have thought that I was crazy and wouldn't even be able to see Greek stuff because of the Mist.
"I know you're dyslexic and have ADD or ADHD, or something, but that doesn't mean you can just pay attention only when you want to or do whatever you want, especially now that your life can affect ours," Justin taunted and I twitched at that comment.
"Okay first off, don't joke about dyslexia, ADD, or ADHD; it's not funny or cool so drop that subject. Second, don't blame disorders for misbehaviors and third, I'm fully aware that you and your side of the family have a public image to maintain, I get it, I'm not exactly new to the world of celebrities," I gestured at Lola Peters and the other actors, actresses, and film workers I've gotten familiar with on set the past week to prove my point.
"And third, I don't drink, do drugs, or do anything else. So don't assume that either," I stated firmly and jerked a chin at my mom. "Don't drag my mom into this, too."
We would have argued more on the spot if Paige hadn't bounded over and hugged us together.
"So, how's the view?" She asked in a bright voice. Justin only grunted and I gave her a half-smile. I exponentially appreciated her timing and cheerful attitude at that moment because the weirdly tense atmosphere dropped at her entrance. Paige wanted us to talk with someone, but I had to decline. Ignoring the mistrustful look Justin sent me, I walked a short distance into an alley, away from the crowd, where a black-haired centaur stood.
"Asbolus," I greeted.
"Two juvenile Laestrygonian giants," he responded, ignoring the scowl I sent him when he ignored my hello.
"Yes, Jade, nice to see you too," I said hollowly, but followed him into a remote part of the city regardless of his cold demeanor. I was grateful for his help despite his rocky personality ever since I had met him several days ago. Asbolus has warned me of approaching or threatening monsters before I could sense or encounter them unprepared so I didn't complain about his attitude. Besides, I'd be a little crabby too if a god sent me to babysit a demigod.
The centaur led me into a corner where two old buildings met side by side. The place was devoid of other humans.
"Don't let your guard down because of their age," he imparted before clipping away in a relatively fast gait. I nodded at that and took a deep breath.
Okay. Laestrygonian giants. Beheading, just like last time with the adult. You can do this.
Even though Asbolus has been very helpful with the heads up on monsters, the help made it harder to fight them. If I encountered one on accident, I'd be forced to fight, but walking up to a brawl was like asking for the Fates to gamble on my life. I could just run away, ignore the monsters and pretend that I hadn't seen them.
Twin adamantine katana appeared in my hands and I gripped them hard, fingernails digging into the weathered, wrapped hilts.
"Let's go," I said to myself. I gingerly stepped into the building on the left, internal radar blaring at the two large presences in the next room. Slowly inching behind a wall, I glanced at the blue monsters dressed in leather sitting across from each other. They looked like they were sleeping and one was even snoring. They didn't have any weapons in sight.
I stepped even closer, but stopped when something crunched under my foot. The ground was covered in a very thin layer of ice. In fact, the entire room had been frosted over and my breaths came out in visible puffs. The two juveniles must have been in here for a bit of time in order to affect the room to this extent. I couldn't march in their comfortably because I'd slip while running around with ice on the floor, plus Laestrygonian giants were stronger in colder temperatures so I had to lure them out of there. Picking up a splintered piece of wood, I threw it at the closer giant's head and held my breath.
It didn't wake up.
I repeated the throw with a slightly bigger piece of wood, but the thing didn't even flinch.
"Wake up, Frosty," I grumbled and lobbed a piece of cement this time. The hard object hit the giant in the head with a solid thud and the blue monster finally stirred, grunting and blinking in search of its wakeup call. I kicked a nearby stone rubble and the monster's head turned at the sound. Its large nose sniffed for something, my blood I suspected, and got up without waking its companion. I stayed in a dark shadow behind a wall as forced down the panic when I noticed how it was almost eight feet tall. Physically, it was practically an adult.
Once it walked past the doorframe, I left my hiding spot and slashed at the muscles behind the blue giant's knees. Crippled, it howled as he fell forward and I immediately chopped off the head, effectively stopping its pained yell.
"Brother?"
Gritting my teeth, I darted back to where I hid and waited for the second one. The other blue giant, only an inch or two shorter than the first, lumbered towards the scattered remains of its relative.
"Brother!" It wailed as it pathetically tried to hold onto the crumbling body. Taking advantage of the moment, I raised my blades to strike, but the giant stiffened before I got close.
"I smell you, demigod," he snarled. The blue monster whipped around and slammed a fist at my chest with speed I hadn't expected. Luckily, I reflexively held out my swords to take the brunt of the hit, but I still flew backwards at the force.
There was a sharp thump sound when my back crashed into a crumbling concrete wall on the other side of the room. I choked, air knocked out of my lungs, and scrambled for my swords that clattered in front of me.
Come on, come on, get up, I told myself frantically as I heard large footsteps coming closer. I nearly had one blade in hand when a blue foot kicked away the katana.
"Payback," the giant rumbled. I grunted when it kicked me into a heap of wood chips and broken bits of glass. Jagged edges bit into my skin as I rolled away from the next blow.
Levelling another foot to stomp, the Laestrygonian yelled, "Stop writhing like a rat, demigod, and become dinner!"
My chest soon ached, breath becoming ragged, as we continued the game of cat and mouse, the giant throwing fists while I dodged. I couldn't re-summon my swords from the Void if I had already pulled them out, so I could only hope to grab it before I ran out of energy. I tried formulating a plan when a voice distracted me from an incoming blow.
Paige's voice echoed into the abandoned building. "Jade?"
WHAM
I hit the floor hard. The blue giant towered over me, a purple tongue running over oversized teeth.
The voice came closer, more panicked this time. "Jade?" At the corner of my eye, I saw a blonde head poking inside.
What was she doing here?
"Get out," I wheezed and groaned when the monster placed a large, cold foot over my chest, putting increasingly heavy weight into it. Frost immediately covered my shirt and I felt the cold seep into my skin. A blue hand with yellow nails reached out for my neck when a small piece of concrete hit the giant's head.
"H-hey, get off of her you creep," Paige shouted. Fear clearly radiated from her voice and trembling fists, but she held her ground when the Laestrygonian redirected its attention away from me.
"Hey, ugly!" Another voice joined in and my eyes widened when I saw Justin standing behind another wall.
"Too ugly you can't pick on someone your own size?" Justin taunted boldly. When the giant took its foot off of me, I made eye contact with Paige desperately.
"Swords," I cried out hoarsely and pointed at the twin blades lying at the corner of the room near her. She threw them across the ground, metal clanging loudly, and I seized them before the monster next to me could react.
Ducking under the first fist, I sliced ribbons into its legs and rammed the butt of the katana in my right hand into its jugular when the giant toppled forward. Sidestepping, I chopped the head off as a final blow.
The blue head hit the ground at my feet and I kicked away. Forgetting momentarily that there were two onlookers, I watched the beheaded body dissolve into sand-like substance. All that was left of the head was a set of large teeth as if they had been pulled out from the Laestrygonian's jaw. Swiping a hand over the spoils of war, I willed for the monster remnants and my twin katana to be stored in the Void. After staying silent for several seconds, I finally faced my soon-to-be stepsiblings slowly.
"Er, thanks for the help," I said tiredly to their stricken faces.
After hearing out that they had only followed me because the movie crew was about to leave, I began my own story, albeit with a heavy heart. However, telling them about the Greek world was a lot easier than I had expected. In fact, the two had even anticipated it.
"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it," Paige crowed as she pointed a finger at Justin. "I told you it wasn't just a 'childhood' thing, ha, but everything is real! Remember that horse with wings and that weird looking guy with one eye?"
Justin moved away the offending finger and scowled, "Okay, I get it, but that doesn't explain how only we see it and not everyone else."
"There's this Greek magic called the Mist," I explained. "It warps reality so that regular humans aren't exactly seeing the Greek stuff, the Mist helps hide a lot of the Greek myths from the world, but only a few people can see through it, like you two."
"So we're special?" Paige asked excitedly.
I shrugged. "Sort of, don't let it get into your head though. You'll only get into danger if you try to involve yourself, like today with that blue monster."
"Then why did you fight it?" Justin looked at me pointedly.
I took a deep breath and winced when my ribcage throbbed. I hadn't fully recovered from the fight with Laestrygonian giant so my body was still bruised and my skin scuffed with shallow scratches. The 'demigod' part was always the hardest.
"Well, I have training, so I'm better prepared that you guys, and I'm only half human," I said carefully, gauging their reactions.
Paige gasped and I saw her putting the pieces together in her head. "No way...you're a demigod?"
Justin snorted disbelievingly, "Which god? Zeus? Hades? Poseidon? Ares, Apollo, Athena, Deme-"
"Okay," I interrupted him before he could carelessly spout anymore names. The sky outside of the car we were in rumbled with grey clouds gathering and my mom glanced questioningly in the rearview mirror as she drove.
"We're fine," I called out to her. She was worried that Justin and Paige's reactions might destroy the fragile family dynamics we had been forming the past week, which was understandable. I didn't want my life to threaten her relationship with Fritz because she deserved to happy with a guy after the crappy years she had with me.
"Don't say Greek names aloud," I said sternly at Justin's annoyed expression. "Names have power and attract unwanted attention even if they're the names of gods or monsters."
"So who's your dad?"
"Hypnos, I think," I responded quietly, ignoring the curious looks they gave me.
"And your mom knows everything, too," Justin stated as a confirmation and I nodded.
"No, you can't tell your dad," I added when Paige opened her mouth. They didn't seem particularly bothered with keeping the big information a secret from their dad.
And then I paused. "Wait, does your dad see through the Mist?"
The siblings shook their heads. "Right, definitely can't tell him then," I repeated in a wry voice.
"So, are we good?" I asked cautiously. Justin and Paige exchanged eye contact before chorusing agreement, Justin being more reluctant. My shoulders slumped, extremely relieved that the issue didn't blow up more that it could have.
"You guys are welcome to ask questions and I'll answer them as long as I'm allowed to," I said as I settled into my corner of the minivan. Paige jumped at the opportunity and Justin even put in his own questions several times. My mom relaxed at the driver's seat upon seeing how they accepted it and the rest of the drive to the airport went without a hitch.
We flew out of Turkey without encountering another monster and I couldn't have asked for a better departure.
"Finally home!"
Paige bounded up the steps to a house while Justin and I followed her at a slower pace, both of us dragging suitcases. Mom and I were settling into the Adalstan's home in Los Angeles, California. We had been here several times before the wedding, but we were officially moving in today.
Despite my worries, the wedding had gone well. It was pretty and held in private from the public, which I preferred. Mom had the happiest smile on her face when she had walked down the aisle, so I was content with the ceremony. Fritz was a cool guy and very perceptive to my moods, understanding when I wanted space or just kept to myself.
When Paige introduced me to my new room, I took a nosedive into the twin size bed and blacked out.
I needed a twenty-hour sleep, considering how there had been too much happening in the past several weeks.
"P-please, father, I didn't mean to!"
"Quiet."
"Please! I'm sorry, father, I'm sorry."
There was a thump of hands and knees hitting cold, marble floor. In the ominous setting, the kneeling man quivered. He could feel death seeping through the ground and into his skin. The cold and uneasiness threatened to overturn his stomach from all the ambrosia and nectar he had eaten, food of the gods that he had stolen. The man sobbed. If only he hadn't let his greed get the better of him. If only.
"Hades, I leave him to you," his father rumbled. The man scrambled for the disappearing presence.
"Wait, father! Please, save me," he howled. He kept up the cries until his sobbing muffled his words. For a moment, he was alone in the underground darkness.
"Well, well," a faceless voice echoed. "You must have done something terrible to have your own father to drag you in."
The man froze, his panicked eyes flickering into the dark, trying to find the source of the words.
"W-who are you?"
The cool voice ignored the question and tutted, "Tsk, tsk, stole food from the Olympian's own table-"
"I didn't mean to!" The frenzied man wailed and tripped on his fine robes when he shuffled over to where the voice came from.
"-and revealed a godly secret to the mortals," the voice listed as it shifted in the darkness.
"Please, please have mercy," the demigod sobbed.
"And lastly," the voice paused for dramatic effect. "Served human flesh to the gods."
Weeping reverberated into the darkness. Nothing can save him, the man knew.
"Punishment for fatal mistakes such as yours require...special attention."
The man choked back a sob, his hands outstretched and head bowed. "Please, please, please…"
"You had your fill of godly food, so let you also experience the pains of hunger. In the Fields of Punishment, you will be given eternal starvation and thirst in the Fields of Punishment. Never shall you eat or drink to satisfy your stomach and throat," the voice declared. The sobbing only grew louder and more distressed.
"And for spilling the blood of your son," the voice continued in a more frigid tone. "Let your life serve as an example for the rest of your family."
The demigod shrieked, "No, please, not my family-"
"Your family shall be cursed so that every one of your male descendants' lives will end in the hands of another family member, just how you have ended your own son's," the voice decreed.
"No, no, no, please, oh my gods, no," the man cried and yellow claws from above clamped onto his arm.
"As you order, Lord Hades," reptilian voices hissed. The Furies, in their natural form, carried the weeping demigod away.
Jade, that's enough.
My eyes flew open and I quickly got up into sitting position. I checked the clock at the side of my bed. It was five in the morning.
I sighed and laid back down, closing my eyes.
That's enough.
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