Wow... Just realised I haven't written anything since Thursday!!🙊but I'm back and on holiday!
By the way, Lamia is a real greek monster: I did the research.
Jess xx
Towering over me was a sight, that combined with its sound and smell and probable taste, made me want to
a.) Scream 'MOM!!!!!!!!!!' and find a bed to hide under
or
b.) Barf.
She had long grey-green that hung in thick but greasy rat tails, and her eyes were black holes: The worst kind of void, churning with, I don't know, miserable souls of the children she probably ate for breakfast. Her lips were stretched too tight over too-sharp teeth, and her lower body was a scaly coil the colour of rusting iron. When she finally spoke, it was a gutteral hissing that reminded me of an old, crackly radio with water poured through the speakers, and a great deal of popping candy somewhere in the mechanism.
'My children... I am Lamia. Come to end your miserly and infuriating lives.'
I racked my internal Greek myth dictionary for Lamia. After a frantic twenty-five seconds of wondering what I was up against and feeling more nauseous by the second,it came to me. Lamia, a daughter of Poseidon, mistress of Zeus. When Hera found out, Lamia was cursed: She was driven mad by Hera's murder of her only children, and she, um, started to eat everyone else's.
Turns out the whole 'Eating children for breakfast' thing I mentioned earlier wasn't as far off as I hoped. Also, I was pretty sure that, especially by ancient greek rules, we were all children.
McShit.
I nocked an arrow,wanting a quick and simple shot to the heart, but she darted forward, biting the arrow in half straight from my bow, leaving two halves of an arrow, vaguely red and slightly charred. I did manage a pretty good, solid hit with my bow, nailing the corner in the base of her throat. Duke, Hazel and Nico had woken up, although I secretly suspected that Nico was sleepwalking. Hazel had a dagger in hand, she was stabbing like there was no tomorrow.
Oh, yeah.
Maybe there wasn't.
I looked at Duke. His expression was similar to someone with constipation and anger issues. If he was already manipulating force in our favour, then we must have been doing pretty badly to start with. Ichor was spattering Lamia's back, but although her skin and scales were being hacked to peices she was holding out. That lady was one tough cookie. While Hazel was providing a distraction, I knocked an arrow surrepetitiously and...
Wham!
She turned around, seething, and the arrow started smoking from her proximity.
Hwaiiiyyyaaathuuuumpppp!
A suitcase that appeared to have been abandoned on the luggage racks flew through the air, narrowly missing my left foot and landing squarely on Lamia's shoulders. She screeched in fury, but seemed to be pinned down for a while as she recovered from a blow that obviously winded her. Then, sailing through the air from the luggage racks like an adorably sleepy Tarzan, Nico swiped an arrow from my sheath, and stabbed it like a dagger through the back of her neck and deep into her spinal cord. Lamia started to go limp, but the last expression before she disintergrated into mustard yellow dust, I saw in her eyes a look of vengeance.
Crap, she was scary!
Crashing down onto the seats in exhaustion, I shut my eyes ready to get some well-deserved sleep. Just as I was dropping off (you know, about five seconds after sitting down) I felt a tingling on my lips, cold and smooth and moving ever so slightly. It lasted only a precious three seconds, awhen I opened my eyes, all I could see was Hazel lying opposite me on the other side of the carriage and Duke as he lay unconcious on the floor from the effort of the fight. But I did see a single lock of ink-black hair disappearing above me as it's owner curled up on the luggage rack. The end curled a tiny bit, like a ski slope, and the buzzing lights reflected off it in some places, like it was shot through with fifty one shades of grey and white. I smiled.
