Chapter 6: Attacks and Distractions

Chapter 5

Julie

The camp sprang into action. People were running towards the beach or the forest with no real order to it. Annabeth was screaming at the top of her lungs, trying to get order, and Mark was grabbing campers and pushing them towards her to receive orders, but as soon as he went on to the next camper whoever he had just pushed continued running in the wrong direction. Alex was returning with the Ares campers, Clarisse in the lead, but they were the only ones who had any semblance of Order. The new kid was looking intently at Annabeth, nodding to things she was saying. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I had seen him before. Then he took a deep breath.

“Oi, listen up!” He screamed, his voice ringing out across the camp, everyone froze and looked straight at him.

“Ares and Hephaestus cabins, head to the woods to cut off that attack group, Clarisse is in command, assign some Hermes kids or Butch as a runner to create lines of communication to Athena Cabin. Apollo, split your forces in two, half goes with Ares, the other half goes to the beach to take out the killer sheep. If you have not been mentioned, go to Athena Cabin for assignment.” When he stopped talking he started to rub his throat like it hurt. The shocked silence was deafening.

“How did you..?” Annabeths voice broke through the silence like a gunshot, startling everyone.

“I could hear the orders you were trying to give, and nobody was really paying attention. I got the main jist of what you said. Didn’t make sense to me, but I am new here. I figured I should try to help somehow.” His voice was gravely at the moment, like he had strained his voice with the yelling. His orders echoed back and forth across the camp.

“Now would be nice!” Mark yelled, and to make his point started grabbing Hephaestus kids and pushing them towards the organized Ares campers. They turned and began heading to the forest. Hermes kids split into four groups, two to fight and two for communications, one of each headed towards the forest and beach. I walked up to the new kid, and as I approached him, I recognized him. I had saved him from drowning in a dream the other night. Weird.

“I s’poze you did a good job there thunderhead.” I told him. He looked up, his eyes were electric blue, even more shocking when coming out from the locks of black hair. He got up with the help from the Satyr and started to head towards Annabeth and her siblings.

“Thanks for keeping me from drowning.” He said as they walked by. He had the same dream. Now I was worried. I caught up with them before they got to Annabeth.

“We need to do something about those sheep.” She was saying.

“Hey Max,” the Satyr said. “Can you do one of those electric wall things, like you did at your house?”

“I think so, but it will take me a bit, I have to gather the charges.” Whatever that meant. Annabeth turned to us.

“Max is it?” He nodded. “Thanks for helping us get to back to order, usually attacks cannot penetrate the Camp’s defenses, so we’re not used to it, although we should be. What is this electric wall thing Josh is talking about?” He explained about the wall of opposite charges that blasted wolves and hell hounds when Mark and Alex had been picking him up. This kid had some trouble it seemed...

“How long do you think it will take?” Annabeth asked.

“Bout five minutes in this weather, at most seven.” He replied. She nodded, then turned to me.

“Julie, you have a way with the waters, go help hold the sheep back, but don’t get close to them. Your daggers may work, but they will swarm you and you will die before they do.” That freaked me out. I felt the electric blue eyes looking at me. “Once you get the wall up and stop the sheep, leave a couple of archers to make sure nothing else gets through and come join us in the forest.” She said, then the rest of the campers moved off to follow the path of the Ares kids.

“Alright thunderhead, lets see you work your mojo.” I said, then went off to help the kids at the beach.

The sheep were nearing the beachhead, and the Apollo campers were not doing too well in holding them back. One in six arrows fired seemed to take down a sheep, and three more popped out of the bubbling waters to take its place. I sat down behind the line of archers and closed my eyes, placing my hands, palm down, on the dirt. I focused on the sound of the waves, willing them to rise up and push the sheep back. Ridiculous, fighting sheep. At first nothing happened, then the waves stopped. I felt a pull in my gut and a crack in the air, followed by an explosion. My eyes snapped open.

The Long Island Sound had frozen. On top of that, columns of flame shot out of the ice at regular intervals, reaching at least ten feet in the air before dissipating. My body started to feel weak and I was falling over when Will Solace grabbed me by the shoulders and held me up.

“Keep it up just a little longer Julie,” he said. “Max said that whatever you did helped him, his wall is almost done.”

I tried to tell him to hurry, that this felt like it was killing me, but all that came out was “ully, ez hilling pe.” I was running out of energy. There was a snap in the air.

“Done,” Max said, then he collapsed. That seemed like a good idea, so I followed suit.

I woke up in a boat with Max next to me. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and he was nicely muscled, I looked down at myself and saw I was wearing a bikini with a shawl wrapped around my waist. Max groaned.

“Not again, Lady, I told you. I don’t know anything, they just picked me up yesterday.” I looked in the same direction he was. A woman with a beautiful face, that looked like a mask, was looking at us. She wore a saffron kimono decorated with flowers and sunbursts. Her rosy fingers were tapping her cheek (it sounded like nails tapping plastic) and sleeve was bunched up at the elbow of her golden arm.

“Nobody said my interrigation couldn’t be pleasent. Now, children,” Max finally noticed I was there and blushed, looking away again. “I want you to tell me what happened to my father. I know he was near your camp when his presence dissipeared. Well, closer to Olympus, but thats not the point, I have looked all over that city for him, I could not find him. If he had been dissipated, I would know it. Where, is, he?” She asked with clipped tones. I could feel her trying to bore into my mind.

“Enough,” Max cried out. “I don’t know why you are asking me this question, I don’t know who the hell you are, much less who your father is. You keep bringing me here, and things always get worse for me as soon as I get out of this dream you drag me into. Leave me alone!” Lightning crackled along his body and the boat started to burn. The kimono lady squealed in fear and took off with white doves wings that grew from her back.

“You will pay for this insult lightning’s son. My minions will hunt you down, and destroy you. You cannot escape me, for I am the Dawn and the Sunset. I see all, and can find out the rest!” Then she flew off. I summoned the waves to put out the fire. Then the boat disintegrated.

I woke in the camp infirmary. Max was in the bed next to me, groaning as he got up.

“It was Eos.” I said. He looked up.

“What?”

“That lady, the one asking questions? That was Eos, Titan of the Dawn. Her father was turned into a Maple Tree last summer during the war. At least, thats how I hear it.”

“And you hear it correctly young lady. It seems that something important happened to you.” Chiron wheeled himself into the infirmary, with Annabeth on his heels.

“The battle, is everyone all right?” Max asked, I looked at the two newcomers.

“Yes. It seems that whatever you did scared the enemy off or something, those that were left alive retreated. The Sound has thawed by the way. Julie, what exactly did you do?” I explained that I asked the waves to stop the sheep somehow, and that happened.

“She removed the heat.” Max said.

“I did what?”

“It’s physics,” he replied helpfully, when Chiron and I stared at him blankly he looked to Annabeth, who was nodding. She explained.

“According to Human physics, all atoms are moving. If something is solid, like ice for example, those atoms are moving very slowly. Think in numbers to make it easier. Water as a liquid moves at 50, ice moves at 10, and steam moves at 150. The way to explain what you did in physics terms Julie, is to say that you made the water slow down to 10. The energy required to do that, however, made air above the water move at something like 1000. Oxygen only moves like that when it burns, so you literally made burning ice. Luckily it didn’t spread further than the camp boundary, so no mortals saw. Pretty good catch.” That last part was to Max.

“Moms a physicist.” He shrugged. “What now?”

“That is a good question,” Chiron started. “What is this about Eos?”

Max looked at me, then explained his first encounter with her, the one where I ended up saving him from drowning. Then we got to this second one. Once we were finished, Chiron frowned.

“This is worry some. We had thought Eos had faded away, never to return. It seems that she was spending all that time somewhere, whiling away the years. Now she wants to know where her father is, and we cannot let her free him.”

“She certainly is giving it her best to do just that.”  Max replied. Smart ass.

“She certainly is. However, I wouldn’t worry about it too much right now. She doesn’t know where her father is, and you two are new to the Camp and shouldn’t have to worry about this. Julie, when you two are ready to get out of bed, why don’t you give Max a tour of the camp? We’ll see you at dinner.”

With that, Annabeth and Chiron left us alone.

Chapter 7