Chap. 3

“Tabatha” said the sweetest voice on earth. I raised my head and found the reason for which my heart had developed a hobbie for somersaults.

Annabeth Chase was standing there, with her blond hair loose over her shoulders, her beautiful gray eyes that seemed gray pearls and her perfect and beautiful face.

I know I’m ridiculous, but I’ve had a crush on the girl since I first arrived at camp. On the bright side, soon I knew almost everybody liked her even a little. The bad side: every possible chance with her was long gone.

When we were twelve, a guy named Percy Jackson joined the camp. He came out to be a son of Poseidon.Not even a week had passed when he got his first quest: retrieving Zeus’s lightning bolt. Annabeth went with him. Since then, they both had become inseparable. The guy was really awesome, though. He’d gone through plenty of quests and done pretty much everything. Fighting monsters, traveling to the Underworld, holding the weight of the sky, and one of his biggest achievements: he’d stopped the second Titan War. He’d even been offered immortality by the gods themselves.

And he was a hero at camp. Any demigod who aspired to be something knew Percy Jackson’s story. And if that wasn’t enough, he also had Annabeth. They’d started dating right after the war. For all I’d heard, he had refused to become a god for her.

But last October he had just disappeared. One minute he was at his cabin and at the other he was gone. Annabeth had almost lost her sanity looking for him. Now, it seemed to be that there was another camp for demigods, for roman demigods, and that’s where he’d been sent. They planned to sail for that camp by June, which was why Leo had been working restless in building that ship the Argo II. But even like that, Annabeth was broken. She hardly ever smiled, hardly ever talked. Even her eyes had lost life.

“We have architecture practice today” she said. There wasn’t such thing as architecture practice on the daily schedule, but since the Athena cabin didn’t really need mythology classes, they took the liberty of employing those free hours in something they cared for. Like architecture.

“I’m going” Tabatha said.

Annabeth nodded. “We’ll be in the cabin’s attic, you know” normally, the Athena campers wouldn’t talk about their secret locations in front of anybody, but since Tabatha was my cousin, they didn’t have problem revealing them to me, as long as I never spoke of them.

“Yeah, just have to fix some things with Dan. Be right there” explained my cousin. Annabeth looked at me, which almost made me choke with my own saliva. She nodded again and leaved. I silently thanked the gods that I hadn’t done anything ridiculous. Tabatha broke in laughing.

“You should’ve seen your face” she said.

“Yes, yes. I should always see my face. You know how nervous she makes me” I defended myself.

“And you know she’ll never look at you, don’t you?”

I probably should’ve gotten mad. I don’t think anybody likes to be told he’ll never have a chance with the love of his life. But in my case, well, you end up accepting that Percy Jackson won the game.

“Yes” I shrugged.

She punched me on the arm and smiled. “Come on, she isn’t the last girl in the world. Besides, she’s not exactly your type.”

“According to you no smart girl is my type.”

“Good to see you understand it” she laughed. I rolled my eyes and threw my quiver at her. She sidestepped and avoided the blow.

“Hey, you know it’s true, you’re a little fool. Anyway, see you” she turned and ran to her cabin. I stayed there until Chiron returned and announced the game was over.

The rest of the day I felt uneasy. I had a very bad feeling that something wasn’t right. My suspicions were confirmed by the campfire.

That night the tension was definitely in the air. Since dinner everyone seemed to act cautiously, as if they knew what was coming. During the sing-along, (in which I participated, believe it or not) either nobody was in mood or we weren’t. Or maybe both.

The day before, several new campers had arrived. At the campfire they were all claimed. A son of Hephaestus, two sons of Aphrodite, a daughter of Demeter and a daughter of Hecate. She caught my attention. She was a small girl with black hair and slightly golden skin. She was probably my age, but I was at least six inches taller. But what I was really staring at were her eyes. Deep black, but also bright and luminous, as if they had a spark of fire inside of them. She looked at me and for a moment I got lost in her eyes, but she looked away quickly and went to join the other Hecate kids.

Chiron gave the usual speech.

“I’d like to welcome Finn, Rick, Derek, Philipp, Lauren and Cassey to the camp, and let you know that you can feel yourselves at home. Now, for tonight’s capture-the…” he was interrupted by the wind. But not the kind of soft breeze you’re probably thinking of. I mean a really strong wind, so strong that it blew out the fire.

The place was left in complete darkness. We all were holding our breath. Whatever so powerful to turn off a magic fire was definitely something nobody wanted to meet. Suddenly, the pyre burst to life with thick purple flames. Everybody took a step back. Then, from the flames emerged a figure in black robes. It’s head covered by a hood. No one dared to move. I looked around and found the same confused and terrified look in every face.

The figure spoke.

“Good night my friends” he said. I almost fell from my place and I could see the same happened to Tabatha. His voice didn’t just sound disturbingly as mine (which was weird enough), but he spoke in Russian. How did I know? Easy, I’ve spoken Russian since I was two.

Maybe I didn’t mention it, but I was born in Russia. So was Tabatha. I lived there with my mom until I was nine, then we moved to the United States. Tabatha leaved Russia when she was thirteen, but I really didn’t know what had happened to uncle Vick. Maybe she had come alone or something.

But, anyway.

I noticed no one had understood, obviously. Either they didn’t know in what language he had spoken or, the ones who knew were all looking at me or at Tabatha, asking what the heck our mysterious guest had said.

Before I could explain he laughed.

“Well, well” he said in a perfect English “guess I didn’t really expect you would understand. I must remember how little your brains are” he mused. For most of us, this was just an arrogant almost non-important insult. But for the Athena kids it went so much deeper. It was a direct stab on their pride.

“Little brains? Better don’t talk about little brains, folk. Yours would be the smallest!”

“Malcom” Annabeth called. Malcom was Annabeth’s second-in-command. He looked at her, then at the guy and he sat, fists clenched.

Our friend laughed again.

“All right, I see you’ve got spirits demigods. Sadly, that won’t be enough to save your little friend” he thrust his hand and more flames flickered across his palm. They shined and twirled until they showed an image.

There was a general gasp. I heard a few campers murmuring in disbelief. A dozen Hermes guys choked with their drinks (why in the world they were drinking in a moment like that, I have no idea). I saw Chiron fighting hard to keep the composure. And I didn’t need to look at Annabeth to know she’d collapse at any moment.

We were looking at the sleeping face of Percy Jackson...