Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 59

There were at least half a dozen of the demon ladies that were like the Furies but they suspected a million times worse.

They were arai.

And they wanted to curse them. Naturally.

Sure the odds of four against what was now a few dozen demonic ladies weren't good, but they were better than driving themselves crazy just waiting to be attacked as they walked through the darkness.

"Back off." Percy jabbed Riptide at the nearest shrivelled hag, but she only sneered.

We are the arai, said that weird voice-over, like the entire forest was speaking. You cannot destroy us.

"Whatever you do, don't touch them," Castor warned. "I've heard about these hags. They're the spirits of curses."

"Bob doesn't like curses," Bob decided. The skeleton kitten Small Bob disappeared inside his coveralls. Smart cat. The Titan swept his broom in a wide arc, forcing the spirits back, but they came in again like the tide.

We serve the bitter and the defeated, said the arai. We serve the slain who prayed for vengeance with their final breath. We have many curses to share with you.

Cressida sent up a wall of fire that startled the arai for a moment before they realised that the fire didn't burn. And there was no way she was going to try and curse curses with her mind magic.

"I appreciate the offer," he said. "But my mom told me not to accept curses from strangers."

The nearest demon lunged, her claws extended like bony switchblades. Percy would've cut her in half but Cressida's weapon was longer as she hit the demon straight in the chest as she vapourised.

But then Cressida cried out as if she'd been the one to be killed as she held a hand to her chest, the raggy shirt she wore turning red along with her fingers.

"Cress, you're bleeding!" Percy exclaimed. "Oh, gods, on both sides."

She'd killed many monsters like this before but for some reason, as if the spirit she'd killed was providing her with the answer, a memory from two years ago flashed in her head.

"Geryon," she whimpered. "When I impaled all three of his chests..."

The spirits bared their fangs. More arai leapt from the black trees, flapping their leathery wings.

Yes, they agreed. Feel the pain you inflicted upon Geryon. So many curses have been levelled at you, Cressida Lynn, Percy Jackson. Which will you die from? Choose, or we will rip you apart! Perhaps we will drive the daughter of madness mad!"

Castor took one down next and remained uninjured. They supposed that one, because he was dead and two, because he didn't exactly have as many enemies as his little sister and her boyfriend, that he'd be ok for the most part.

But Cressida was still on her feet as the blood stopped spreading yet it felt like the red-hot knife that normally cut up her uterus once a month was now sticking up her ribs. And her spear was limp in her arms.

"I don't understand," Percy muttered.

Bob's voice seemed to echo from the end of a long tunnel: "If you kill one, it gives you a curse."

"But if we don't kill them..." Castor said.

"They'll kill us anyway," Percy guessed.

Choose! the arai cried. Will you be crushed like Kampê? Or disintegrated like the young telkhines you slaughtered under Mount St. Helens? You have spread so much death and suffering, Percy Jackson. Let us repay you!