Splitting a Soul~Chapter 10

“You girls should have seen it,” Jack joked as he told the amazing story of how he was eaten by Myrtle. “Well you couldn’t really see much because of how dark it was. But you could at least feel around the sides of her stomach and I started blasting around. The stomach acid just kept eating away at the chunks of ice and the turtle wouldn’t die. Then when all that water rushed in I knew exactly what to do!”

“I’m so glad I wasn’t swallowed by a turtle,” Aisling said, obviously a little grossed out by Jack’s story. Kimi didn’t seem to like it any better as her face looked a little pale.

“And on that happy note,” I interrupted. “Let’s just get to our next destination as fast as we can.”

“I think we’re only about eight hours away,” Aisling said from her spot in the back seat. She had given up her position as driver for now and was letting Jack drive. Unfortunately without Aisling at the wheel anymore, the car seemed to revert back into its old busted self. It was like just being related to Hermes had improved the car and with her no longer there, it lost the will to keep going. Jack turned the key a few times, but the engine just made a few choking sounds.

“Come on baby,” Jack urged the car as he turned the key a held it, constantly hitting the gas pedal to try and bring it to life. “Come on!”

Jack hit the steering wheel with his head and the car’s engine sprung to life. Jack began to pet the wheel as if the car was a dog or something and kept spewing complements at it. It was sort of weird. As he asked how his car was feeling, it gave out a loud BANG and Jack took it as a good sign. He hit the gas a little and the car’s engine revved, more than it should have for how fast we were moving.

“Ok, so where are we going again?” Jack asked, looking around the car. “I feel like we should me making a left out of the parking lot.”

“Make a right out of the parking lot and follow signs for I-190 S. Then pick up I-90 W and follow that for a few hours. Wake me up when we get to Ohio because I’m taking a nap until then. I’ve been driving all night and the sun is hurting my eyes,” Aisling complained before grabbing a blanket and pulling it over her entire body, including her head.

“You heard the lady,” I said to Jack and he pulled out onto the road, the car releasing another loud Bang as we rolled onto the street. We were actually pretty quiet for a really long time, but it was Kimi who broke the silence.

“I think she’s getting worse,” Kimi explained, placing her hand on the blanket and stroking it gently.

“I don’t know about that,” Jack countered. “I mean she still seems like the crazy ball of energy she was when I met it. She is probably just a little irritated from lack of sleep.”

“No, Kimi is definitely right about this. Did you see her eyes earlier?” I added and Kimi nodded, but Jack didn’t seem to notice. “They were turning this weird shade of red. She also said that the sun was hurting her eyes. It is winter; the sun isn’t exactly that bright.”

“Oh I’m sure she is just tired,” Jack claimed. “We still have plenty of time, I’m sure. No reason to worry yet.”

I knew what he was doing, as I had known the guy for years. Jack was trying to calm everyone down by playing down the problems we had. Sometimes it worked to calm down a group; other times he just made people worry more…like now. Next he would most likely try and change the subject.

“So you never really told me where you have been for the past few months. I know the red-head in back isn’t your cousin so what is her story? Or you could tell me about the vampire girl in back,” Jack suggested. “I mean you don’t show up on the last day of school and then your mom tells me you went to some kind of summer camp and never came back. Dude, what the hell?”

“Ya, I should have sent you a letter or something,” I confessed. I mean it wasn’t like he was wrong, and once again he had managed to change the subject on me. “A lot of stuff happened and I didn’t know you were a demigod. What could I even say that wouldn’t have sounded crazy?”

“I have no idea, but something would have been cool. There was even a pool going on at school where people were making bets about what happened to you,” Jack informed me. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone else would care. Making friends wasn’t exactly my forte.

“What did you think happened to him?” Kimi asked Jack. As strange as Jack could be at times, he wasn’t the kind of person that would bet on my fate.

“I bet that he ran away from home, joined a fishing crew, and then was swallowed by the sea,” Jack stated. “I think I was pretty close.”

“Nothing about any of that is true,” I stated, a little unbelieving of the craziness of his claim. “Did anyone suggest maybe I joined a secret group of special individuals that worship ancient gods and I was trying to save the world?”

“I think that was Nagato’s guess, but don’t quote me,” Jack said. I didn’t really know her too well, but I did remember she was the quiet girl of the school that spent most of her time in the library. I wondered if she was a demigod for a second before moving on.

“Jack, turn!” Kimi yelled and Jack turned the wheel hard, causing the tired to shriek as we cut through the striped line area. Two or three cars swerved to avoid us and another one honked his horn at us.

“Thanks Kimi,” Jack called to the back seat. “Maybe a little more warning next time, but thanks. So, what’s your story?”

“Ash found me in a burning room on Olympus and brought me back to Camp Half-Blood,” Kimi explained.

“Sounds like fun,” Jack mused. “Ash and I met in detention, not really as cool as a burning room, but the teacher was probably more dangerous.”

Things continued like that for awhile. Jack would ask about Camp Half-Blood and we would answer as best we could. Camp Half-Blood wasn’t really the kind of place you could describe in words, but a place you had to see to understand. Jack also talked about some of his past as well. He had known he was a demigod for a really long time, even before I knew I was one. There was this other side of his life that we had hidden from each other. Our parents were both considered minor gods, so monster attacks were rare thankfully. That didn’t mean they didn’t happen however.

“Ya, this one time Ash and I were at a school dance. He only came because I dragged him all the way up to the door. I went because I wanted to shake my groove thing,” Jack complimented himself, making it sound like he was an excellent dancer, which he hasn’t. “Then this harpy walked through the doors and I had to get it away from the students.

“I thought you told me you were going to the bathroom,” I added, remembering the night clearly now. It was the middle of spring and the dance had to be called short because apparently all the pipes froze. “Were you fighting a harpy instead?”

“Yup, it almost ripped my throat out too, but I managed to freeze it solid by grabbing the school’s fire hose and freezing the water as it hit her,” Jack beamed.

“So how did you get the staff?” I asked him. I had seen him use it twice, but never really know how he got it and it didn’t seem like a good weapon. I mean it looked like it was made completely out of wood, except for the small bit of Celestial Bronze the wood grew around.

“Oh that. It was a birthday present from my mom,” he explained as he gave a smile. He rubbed his wrist band a few times and the wood that made it moved to his touch. I guess it was the disguised for of his staff. “She said it would come in handy soon. Guess she was right.”

It was then that I heard another loud Bang, but this time it didn’t come from Jack’s care surprisingly. I looked in the mirror and saw three guys on motorcycles catching up fast. I figured they would just keep going, but they didn’t. One of them got in front of us, the other next to us, and the last one kept an even pace with the other two from behind us. We were boxed in by a trio of bikers that looked like a mix between 50’s biker gang and old west cowboys. All of them had leather jacks with dark sunglasses blocking their eyes, but they also had large cowboy hats that didn’t seem to fly off, despite the speed they were going. They even had on cowboy boots to complete the outfit.

“Do these guys have a problem with us or something?” I asked, looking at the trio. As soon as I said it, the guy next to use pulled out a chain he had wrapped around his chest and smashed it against the car, knocking off Jack’s side mirror. Jack rolled down his window and cold wind filled the car. That was another thing, how where these guys not freezing to death?

“What’s the deal?!” Jack yelled, only to jump back when the chain came down again. “Windows up!”

He rolled up his window again, not that it mattered as the chain cracked into several pieces. Now wasn’t the time for another monster attack, but we got one anyway. Only question was what kind of monsters were they?