Sea Green Eyes

The Chalice of the Gods - Part Four

The birds were small, but they were fast, vicious, and surprisingly strong. They stormed across the space in a wave of feathers and claws, shredding more furniture, scattering the customers, and driving up the high scores on the Dance Dance Revolution machines.

And normally, Percy would have been sick to his stomach leaving his girlfriend to fight off monsters while he ran away, but when he was in his 8-year-old body being chased by killer chickens that she was having a ball whacking around with her thyrsus? He wasn't complaining.

And as the three of them barricaded themselves into a kid's playground, Cressida was actually having fun knocking chickens over. They made the funniest noises as they were airborne for a few seconds.

"You guys better not be chicken feed!" Cressida spat into her walkie as it began beeping inside her boots, telling her that someone was trying to contact her.

"Not yet. But I have a plan."

"How bad is it?" Cressida asked Annabeth as she jumped up on a table and began swinging at the chickens like she was a baseball player.

"Grover is gonna help you distract the chickens. Think you can grab a baby chick and meet us in the karaoke bar?"

"Strange request, but yeah. It's doable."

"Make sure you don't hurt the chickens!"

"I'm trying. But I may have made a few of them airborne."

"Great!" Annabeth huffed.

"Get to the karaoke bar!" Cressida returned before stuffing her walkie back into her shoe and jumping off the table and into the sea of chickens who had turned their attention to something else.

A half-man, half-goat, screaming, "SQUAWK! CLUCK! CLUCK!" at the top of his lungs.

Cressida took full advantage of the distraction as she made it to the coop to discover that the fence had lowered to about half its previous height, short enough to let the adults out but keep the baby chicks inside.

Her eyes scanned the chickens before they narrowed on the one from before that had been nicknamed Li'l Killer by her boyfriend. The chicken charged at her.

"Thank you for volunteering," she said before her eyes flamed purple and the chicken's charge stopped as it walked over to her and allowed her to pick it up. "Good Li'l Killer," she said as the chicken clucked in her arms and she tucked it under her arm before breaking into a sprint back towards the karaoke bar.

Annabeth and Percy were already there and Grover reached it about the same time she did. He had feathers stuck in his fur, and the back of his shirt was shredded like he'd been rolling around on a really dangerous mattress.

"That was super fun," he wheezed.

"Get the doors!" Annabeth ordered as the two boys grabbed the big mahogany panels and started sliding them together as Cressida petted the chicken in her arms.

The doors had just closed when the flock slammed against them and began to squawk in outrage. The panels shuddered and creaked and would only hold for so long.

"What now?" Grover asked, gasping for breath. And he looked like a terrified 8-year-old.

"Now comes the hard part," Annabeth said.

"That was the easy part?" Percy demanded.

Li'l Killer squawked in Cressida's arms as she heeded its request to put it down so it could go and peck at the pizza crumbs on the carpet as it ruffled its blood-covered feathers.

"This karaoke bar is Hebe's temple, right? Her inner sanctum?"

"And?" Percy said.

"On Hebe's holy days, petitioners used to come to her altar," Annabeth continued.