Death and His Many Friends: Chapter Two

"So, uh, where are we going?" I asked to Alice. We had been flying over Brooklyn almost an hour now, and from the looks I was getting from everyone, I just had to break the silence.

"Oh right," she said, removing her goggles. "we're going to Camp Half-Blood. It's a place where demigods like us can be safe."

Almost instantly I had remember what my father had said to me before he left.

"...look for a place where demigods like you can be safe."

The red-haired boy sitting in front of me was giving me a strange look, which prompted Alice to give him a small nudge. She gave him a menacing look, and he had begun to talk.

"Oh, right. I'm Dominic, but you can call me Dom. I'm a son of Hephaestus, the God of Blacksmiths or whatever." he said to me.

"Nice to meet you." I said to him.

"From the looks of it," he said, "you must be a son of Hypnos, right?"

"Yeah." I mumbled.

"I figured, 'cause Alice usually finds these kids of Hypnos all around New York, but I don't really know why, though." he said.

I remembered about the poppy, and how Alice had found me, but I remembered that it had burnt up after I had held it in the sky.

"So, you did pretty well against that skeleton back there," Dom said. "I'm assuming you had a weapon to fight it, yes? I'm sort of the resident weaponsmith around here, so, what weapon are you carrying? Celestial bronze, I presume?"

I laughed sheepishly, and reached into my pocket for Charos. I held out the black hilt, and it instantly sprouted out a four-foot blade of pure black. Dom's face suddenly darked.

"That's uh, not a very common weapon. Must be Stygian Iron by the looks of it." he said to me.

"Stygian Iron..?" I asked.

"It's a very rare metal," Alice interrupted us. "It's forged from the River Styx, and it's pretty dangerous to boot. Able to harm both mortals and monsters. And mostly sons of Hades carry around that kind of stuff. Take Nico di Angelo, for example."

I quickly let the sword back into its hilt, fearing that Dom just might have tackled me right there and there. As I stuffed it into my pocket, Alice leaned on the railing, and stared into the night sky.

"How exactly did you get here...?" she asked me.

I realized that I had been carrying this baggage of heaviness for quite a while now, and I just had to tell Alice. I told her all about how Hypnos put me into a deep sleep, and me awaking here.

<p style="text-align: left; ">She had a face mixed with surprise and genuine interest, and began to speak to me in a low tone.

<p style="text-align: left; ">"You know, things like that don't happen to normal demigods." she said to me.

<p style="text-align: left; ">"Well, aren't all demigods out of the ordinary...?"

<p style="text-align: left; ">"Well- nevermind. I'll just let you speak to Percy. He'll know what to do. Anyways, we're here. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood." she said to me as we approached this Camp Half-Blood.