Chapter Twenty-One

Quinn

Groggily I blink, sitting up, the room they had put us in was small. Dark. And the three of us were divided by bars. We were in a jail after all. A mental one anyway. James was in the cell to my left. Derek off to my right.

“Are we dead?” Derek groans.

“No,” I say.

“Why didn’t you guys listen to me?” Derek mumbles.

“Maybe you should have spoken up,” I suggest. “James wake up.”

James groans and rolls over. “Did Derek kill us all already?”

“WHAT?! WHY ME?!” Derek shouts.

“You’re the son of Athena. A little warning next time would be nice,” James mutters.

Derek glares at him. “Excuse you? Maybe next time you shouldn’t be too busy beating the life out of people!”

“Excuse you?” James snaps. “Seemed more like me saving your life.”

“Nobody asked you to save my life!” Derek shouts.

I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, well you weren’t exactly complaining at the time now were you?” James snaps.

“Yeah well, I’m complaining now aren’t I?!” Derek snaps.

“I don’t see why,” James says.

“You almost got us killed?!” He shouts.

“And explain how I could do that? You’re the one that stood there like an idiot! I tried to save your life?!” James snaps.

“Well bravo you did a terrible job of it!” Derek says.

“I wouldn’t say that! You’re alive aren’t you?” James says.

“Not for long! They’re going to kill us!” Derek says.

“Well, as entertaining as this is,” a voice says from the corner of the room. “Derek’s actually right in this sense. You are going to die. But they won’t kill you. I will.” Nikki says as she steps out from the shadows.

“Great!” James snaps at Derek. “See what you’ve done? Since we were distracted you gave the enemy all our plans!”

Derek looks guilty, I frown slightly, trying to figure out what their plan was. If they even had one.

Nikki looks horrified, her mind slowly taking in this information. Turning it around, trying to figure out what information they were talking about.

“It’s not my fault! How was I supposed to know she was there!” Derek says.

He should be an actor. He was good at playing dumb.

“Well were else would she be?!” James snaps.

“I don’t know!” Derek says. “Off somewhere plotting our demise!”

“Apparently she’s already done that!” James snaps. “Now she’s here to do it!”

Nikki was still looking terribly confused.
“Will you two stop that?” I say. “It’s obvious that she wants to already kill you. You’re only making it worse.”

“No such thing,” Derek snaps.

James sticks his hands up and walks around his cell, whistling softly. Derek glares at him. Guess they weren’t becoming friends after all.

“Umm,” Nikki says. “What exact plans are you talking about?”

James rolls his eyes, “Us getting married of course. You obviously weren’t standing there as long as everyone thought now where you?”

“I’ve been here since you got here!” Nikki shouts. “I was trying to wait to see whether or not you got yourselves killed first. And I was hoping that I didn’t have to get my hands dirty!”

Derek frowns at her for a moment, then turns back to James.

“I swear to the gods that if you two start bickering again I will kill you myself,” I say.

Derek opens his mouth, apparently not believing me. James turns the other way and sits down.

Derek groans and makes a face like he was about to puke. Even Nikki turns her head away.

“You did not just sit on the ground,” Derek says.

“Well duh,” James says.

“Why?” Derek groans.

“Well because I didn’t think it would work if I tried to sit on the wall,” James says in a “duh” voice.

“Is he for real?” Nikki asks.

“You know, I’ve been asking myself that for years and I still can’t answer that,” I say. “But for now, can we get along to the part where you try and kill us?”

“Of course. That’s my favorite part of today,” Nikki says.

“Really? So you like getting defeated?” I ask.

“What?” Nikki says, looking shocked.

“Well I mean, I did say ‘try’. And since you’ll fail because of one simple thing. There’s really no reason for me to even attempt to beat you. You know?”

“What reason?” Nikki asks, her voice wobbles slightly. Like she finally wasn’t as confident as she thought she was to begin with.

“Me,” Alex says from where she’s been observing the exchange.

“Woohoo! We’re saved!” James says, jumping up off the ground and doing a victory lap.

“Of course we are,” Derek says sarcastically.

Alex glares at him, while James frowns.

“Well, Nikki’s with the enemy. I’m sure she has reinforcement.” Derek says, trying to cover up what he said. But it had been heard. And nothing could take it back now. “And there’s no way that one girl can take out a bunch of monsters.”

“What did you just say?” Alex says. “Are you saying that because I’m a girl I can’t take out your girlfriend and her onslaught of monsters?”

“Well-” Derek says, before closing his mouth. “I guess-”

Alex clenches her fist and Derek falls to the ground. Coughing violently. “Stop,” He wheezes. “I’m… Sorry… Please… Stop.”

“Alex let him go. He’s not the enemy yet,” I say.

“Wrong, he just signed himself up to be my enemy,” Alex says.

“Well let him go anyway and after you set us free I’ll help kill him,” James offers.

Alex pauses for a second before unclenching her fist. But then she turns to Nikki and smiles. “Hi. My name’s Alex. I’m here to kill you.”

Nikki scoffs, “No you see, you have it wrong. My name is Nykole Hellhound, daughter of Hades. And I am going to kill all of you. Me and my pets of course.”

With that Nikki steps back and raises her arms. Immediately a small army of skeletons, maybe twenty in number spring from the ground. Their bodies were hunched over and slowly, as they stood up straight their bodies, which consisted of bones and a few torn scapes of clothing covering some parts of their body.

“Impressive,” Alex says. Sounding genuine.

Nikki smirks, thinking that she had won.

“But maybe I should have mentioned. My name is Alexandria Drevak. And I am the only living daughter of Thanatos.”

The skeletons take a step forward, and then they bow down to Alex. A few even drew their swords and placed them on the ground in front on them, bowing their heads down to it.

Nikki opens and closes her mouth, at a loss for words. Before she narrows her eyes and claps her hands.

A sad army of four hellhounds come up from the ground.

“Oh gross,” Derek says, turning around and heaving his guts out.

The hellhounds growl, normally the hellhounds were fluffy and huge. These were not normal hellhounds. Their teeth were probably twenty times bigger. Their claws yellow and stained red, curling in like an eagle claw.

They had no fur. It was skin, pasty white colored skin. But it was decaying, hanging off of the hellhound. Puss oozing out of wounds that never healed. Mixing with blood. Dripping onto the floor, creating a gooey puddle.

Their eyes were red and slightly yellow, one even had it hanging out, attached by nothing other than a thin red piece of vein. Their decaying skin slowly coming off, dropping to the floor. Mixing with the goo already there. You could see through some of them, see their black organs as they shifted, Derek continues heaving in the corner.

It almost appeared like they had been out in the sun too long. And the sun had melted away their fur, their skin. Leaving behind a rather gooey shell of what they used to be.

Alex frowns, something that I had never seen her do in battle. When in battle it was the only time she actually smiled.

Three of the hellhounds sprung at our cells, ripping off the bars like they were nothing.

Alex closes her eyes, summoning normal hellhounds and an army of skeleton. They immediately attack the other hellhounds and Nikki. I step over the puddles the hellhounds had made and stand beside Alex.

“How long?” I ask.

She hesitates, “Mutt and Moon will be here in hopefully three minutes. But I don't know if we can last that long.”

“Well then we better get a move on,” I say. “Go.”

Derek and James run out ahead of us. Followed by Alex. I turn to leave, throwing up a wall of  water as I go. Hoping to give us a little extra time. Doing that about every ten feet I follow the others.

“Just a few more feet,” James calls from up ahead.

Derek was panting, Alex kept summoning more and more hellhounds. Which the demonic hellhounds just ate through them like they were nothing.

All the while Nikki’s laughter trailed after us. Luckily the water seemed to slow them down. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep it up forever.

There still was no sign of Mutt or Moon. And already I was beginning to get light headed. There was so many hallways, and not even that, our commotion had caused an alarm to start going off. So we had people with tranq guns tracking us down along with Nikki.

We turn one corner and come face to face with the women from earlier.

“Don’t let them get away! They’re some of them,” the women says.

James’s eyes go wide, as did the rest of ours. These people knew what we were.

Behind us I could hear the growling of the hounds getting closer.
I turn and make another wall of water. It was getting harder, taking more time to concentrate and do it.

“Well, well, well,” the women says. “You must not be that powerful. Let me guess. Oceanus?”

I glare at her and don’t speak. Better for her to think that than to realize that there were three very powerful children, of very powerful gods here. Plus another one behind us trying to kill us. I would’ve said Derek, children of Athena are normally very powerful, but he hasn’t even figured out how to use his powers yet.

“I see them! Attack!” Nikki shouts.

Alex groans, “We don’t have time for this. Tell me that I wasn’t the only backup you called in?”

I raise an eyebrow at her, “I had one phone call.”

“And these idiots had one too!” She groans. “But then again, I answered my own question. They’re idiots. Where are the two lovebirds?”

“Oh, those two?” The women laughs. “You won’t be seeing them anytime soon. They’re in a car on their way to our other base.”

“Where is your other base?” I demand.

“Oh, you won’t be alive long enough to figure it out. I need you to send a message to your people. You will be fighting in this war. You will be fighting for me,” the women says with a huge grin, like she had won the lottery.

“And who might you be?” Alex says.