The Powers of Olympus: Book One; Into the Night

Chapter One: Kayla
''Control your own destiny or someone else will. ~Jack Welch''

Kayla aimlessly stirred her cocoa puff cereal around her bowl, she was feeling awful this morning and more so than usual. It was the way she always felt when she thought of her father, a man she knew nothing of.

"Something wrong, Honey?" Kayla's mother asked. As far as Kayla was concerned, her mother, Jacklyn Stryker, was the most independent and caring woman in the world. She managed to balance work and social life perfectly, while still finding an adequate amount of time to spend with her daughter.

Kayla always had a hard time hiding her feelings, especially to someone as close as her mother. Hesitantly, she admitted that lately she was thinking of her father. Jacklyn gave her a sympathetic look, she told her the same things she always did, but it didn't matter how many times she heard it, it never got old for Kayla. "He was very important, a natural leader. He always fought for justice." She looked into Kayla's stormy blue eyes, "He'd be proud of you too." The last part Kayla found hard to believe. How could anyone be proud of her? A girl too stupid to stay in school for longer than a semester.

Kayla sighed, she wanted to believe her father was as spectacular as her mother made him sound, but every time she pictured him as a tall, handsome, CEO of sorts, the image was shattered by hard facts. The fact that he left before she was born. The fact that he never visits. The fact that she doesn't even know his first name.

On that somber note, Kayla's mother packed up her briefcase and carry-on, and headed out the door. Today she'd be defending a teenage girl accused of murder in Southern Manhattan, a few blocks from here. Her mother was an esteemed lawyer who was willing to defend anyone, no matter their background, "Everyone deserves a chance," she explained to Kayla one day.

It wasn't long before Kayla left too, she halfheartedly gave her farewells to the nasty maids. They were the filthiest, slimiest, crudest old women in the world, yet Jacklyn insisted on hiring them in place of the perky girls who used to clean.

Kayla tried to go into school with optimism, but her heart just wasn't in it. "Today's a new day," her mother said once. Yeah, a new day to get picked on and beat up, she thought sourly. As she predicted, Kayla was ambushed by three older boys at her locker. The circled around her like savage piranhas.

"Got any money, rich girl?" Micah asked.

"How 'bout a pencil? You at least got one of those." Andrew said.

"How about you back off?" Kayla retorted.

A thin smile curled around Jeff's ugly face, "Think you're tough don't you?"

"Stronger and smarter than you, not that that's saying much," She replied, knowing full well it probably earned her a dozen bruises.

But something happened to her today, something different. When Jeff gripped her wrist and dragged her away her locker, Kayla's body tingled, it surged with new found energy. Shocked (literally), Jeff yelped and released her. His greasy blonde hair stood straight up like he had just jammed a fork into a toaster. He backed away, spatting a million curses at Kayla. In bewilderment, his mindless companions followed him as he stalked down the hallway.

Study hall wasn't any less strange for Kayla either. Right off the bat she noticed something peculiar; Mr. Evans was absent. Mr. Evans wasn't your typical teacher. He was irritable, stingy and above all, stubborn. He wouldn't miss work for anything, in fact he has never, up till now, been absent. Kayla distinctly remembers him coming into school last semester, coughing and wheezing with a temperature of 103 degrees. Several teachers had advised Mr. Evans to go home, but he assured them he was fine. Yet, standing before the class was a substitute teacher, for a teacher who had never been tardy. Though most students had shrugged this detail off, Kayla was still suspicious.

The substitute appeared to be in his early twenties, he had a curly mop of brown hair, a baggy sweater vest and a pair of khakis that were at least three sizes too big. Gingerly he selected a piece of chalk and wrote his name on the board, "Mr. Underwood." He glanced through the stack of papers on his desk. "Okay, today we're going, um... to the, uh, park." It was pretty obvious he was just making the lesson plan up.

"The park?" Marisol asked. "You're the study hall teacher."

Mr. Underwood shrugged, "Well we'll go study in the park today. Grab your coats and such and meet at the school front doors. Kayla, stay behind."

Kayla froze, usually when teachers said, "stay behind," it wasn't to congratulate her on making the honor roll. "Uh, sure." She said.

As soon as the other students cleared out, Mr. Underwood walked, well limped, over to Kayla. He spoke in a low voice that startled her, "Listen, you're in serious danger, you need to come with me, now."

"What?"

"Look, you're not normal-"

"Gee, thanks-"

"And it's... it's just important that you come with me."

Kayla took one look at her substitute teacher and bolted out the door. She didn't where she was going, or what she was doing exactly, but the last thing she wanted was to be kidnapped by her substitute teacher. Not that Mr. Underwood appeared scary or intimidating, but growing up in New York City, she learned early on that if a stranger said, "come with me," Kayla was to do the exact opposite.

She kept running, through the hallways, out the door and into the school parking lot, she didn't stop until she ran into something solid. Kayla looked up to see a tall, muscular boy, a little younger than Mr. Underwood, towering over her. Being just under five foot, pretty much everyone she met towered over her. Kayla quickly noticed a lot of things about this boy; his pale complexion, dark hair and his chocolate brown eyes. He smelled strongly of Axe deodorant though, as if he was trying to mask a scent far worse than body odor.

"Sorry," Kayla realized she was blushing.

"Don't worry about it." He smiled crookedly, but his smile left as soon as it came. He gestured over to the front of the school, "We shouldn't stick around."

Kayla spun around, Mr. Underwood was hobbling their way, "Oh yeah, that teacher kind of freaks me out."

He shook his head, "Not him."

She took another look and knew what he meant. A hoard of dog-man-sea lions where waddling through the parking lot. "What are those? What's going on?"

The boy didn't answer, he slipped off his black bag made for skis off his back. But instead of pulling out skis he grasped a long sword black as midnight.

The color had completely drained from Kayla's face, "Can someone please, tell me what's going on?"

"No time." The boy charged into the hoard, hacking and slicing his way through them. Every time his sword sliced through the monsters as if they were made of butter. With a poof, the monsters turned into a pile of sickly colored dust.

Kayla was so enthralled with the bizarre battle she hand't notice Mr. Underwood at her side.

"Kayla, we really need to go now." He pulled at Kayla's sleeve, urging her to follow him.

This time she didn't run away, "What's going on? Who is he? What are they? Who are you?"

"Less talking, more running!" Mr. Underwood said.

He hopped into a silver Prius and Kayla followed his example.

"Wait, we aren't leaving without him are we? And shouldn't we help him fight off those things?" Kayla asked.

"No," Mr. Underwood said. "Nico can handle himself pretty well. It shouldn't be much longer."

As if on cue, Nico joined me in the back seat of the Prius. He looked at Kayla, with the same sympathetic look her mother gave her earlier, he'd been in her shoes before. "I'm guessing your freaking out right now. You probably have tons of questions."

Kayla gave a weak smile, "Can you start by telling me who you are and why you're here?"

"Well, I'm Nico, and to put this bluntly... you're not normal." Nico said.

"We've already established that," Kayla said. Normal people don't willingly get abducted by mysterious boys or substitute teachers, or attacked by animal hybrids.

"I'm not sure how to say this exactly, but-"

"You're a demigod." Mr. Underwood blurted out.

"A demi-what?"

"God," Nico said, "like the heroes in the stories, like Hercules."

Kayla flexed to show her skinny arms, "'Cause I look like Hercules."

Nico's sighed, "This isn't a joke."

Kayla knew she wasn't dreaming, yet this was so surreal, but maybe part of her wanted to believe. "So if I'm a demigod then who is my father?"

Mr. Underwood shrugged, "Hard to say. A powerful god though, otherwise your scent wouldn't be this strong. For all we know he could be one of the 'Big Three'."

"'Big Three'?"

"The three most powerful gods, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades." Mr. Underwood explained.

"Okay, your making this up. When can I get off the crazy train?"

"Think about it, has anything happened to you that you can't quite explain? Something out of the ordinary?"

Suddenly, every weird memory flashed in Kayla's mind; when she was eight and two strange old woman stalked her in Bargain Mart, when she tried to order a meal at McDonald's and the cashier had only hissed at her, and the most recent memory, when she had shocked Jeff enough to make his hair stand up straight. "Yeah, I guess you could say that." Kayla said. Okay, maybe these guys weren't so insane, but she just couldn't will herself to believe this talk about gods. At least not yet.

"Woah!" Mr. Underwood exclaimed as he abruptly swerved the car. The Prius flipped on its side and skidded across the seemingly empty road.

"What's going on?" Kayla demanded.

"Everybody out!" Nico said. He climbed out of the top of the car, and helped Kayla do the same. Nico pulled out his black sword again and got into a protective battle stance, keeping himself between Kayla and the threat.

Blood chilling cackling came from all around, and finally the enemy revealed itself. Seven empousai, circled around Mr. Underwood, Kayla and Nico. At first, they appeared to be beautiful teenage girls, but after a closer look, Kayla realized they were monsters just like the telekhines.

"So close," Mr. Underwood mumbled, "so close to camp."

As the empousai slowly got closer Nico jumped into battle. He cut down the two closest empousai, though it was apparent that it took more effort this time. These creatures would be more troublesome than the telekhines.

The leader of the empousai, tilted her head, "Wanna play little girl?" She said to Kayla. She murmured a chant of sorts and a wall of fire was placed between her and Nico.

Unexpectedly, it started to storm when there was not a single cloud in the sky a second ago. Rain poured down on the fire, eventually putting it out. But the leader advanced just the same. Nico was oblivious of Kayla's danger and Mr. Underwood did his best to protect Kayla. Playing various songs on his reed pipe, vines and roots grew and entangled themselves around the empousai leader, but she just burned through them with fire magic.

Kayla's ADHD was in over-drive now. She wasn't quite sure what was happening, but somehow she knew just what to do. She trusted her insticnts, bobbing and weaving to dodge the empousa's firebolts. And when came to hand to hand combat, she was able to hold her own against the monster. Kayla saw an opening and drove her fist into the empousa's mouth, several fangs fell to the ground.

The empousa spat blood on the ground and gave Kayla a toothless, yet wicked, grin. She threw another firebolt, but this time Kayla wasn't so lucky, she wasn't fast enough and the fire caught her sweatshirt sleeve. Hastily Kayla ripped off the sweatshirt and threw it on the ground.

"Nico, hurry up!" Mr. Underwood called, unfortunately Nico was preoccupied with other monsters at the time, but as turns out he wasn't needed after all.

Kayla, cursed as her arm was in excruciating pain. She fell to her knees and prayed to any god who would listen. The storm clouds turned from grey to black, and lighting struck all the remaining empousai, including the leader. Exhausted, Kayla stumbled. The world around her became blurry and started spinning.

Then everything went black.