Demigods

The Stalking Begins

Devin
********

I waved to JJ, Glynn and Mana as they left for New York. For the sake of looking like I wasn't going with them, I did my best to look sad and angry. It wasn't hard to do. The chances of them dying were great, and I was still mad at the trio for being idiots.

As soon as they had vanished from sight, I started to move, but froze when someone grabbed my arm. I glanced over to see Lexis shake her head slightly. I pulled my arm from her grasp but didn't start leaving yet.

Chiron glanced in our direction. "You three can go back to your cabins and get some more sleep if you like."

"Actually, I don't think I'd be able to get any more sleep. I'm going to go hunt some stuff in the woods. Care to join me?" I asked the other two. They both nodded and looked back at Chiron to make sure he didn't protest. He just gave us a sad nod and we all went to grab our weapons and supplies from our cabins.

Lexis was taking too long for my liking, so instead of waiting for her, I walked to Zeus's cabin and banged on the door. A sleepy yet grouchy looking boy answered.

"What in Zeus's name are you doing up this early in the morning?" he complained.

"I need to talk to Aisha." He looked like he was going to protest so I glared at him until he shrank back and pulled Aisha out of bed.

She appeared at the door, her hair still messy and he eyes still drooping with sleep. "What's up?" she asked.

"Dude, they just left! We need to follow now or else we'll lose track of them."

"Oh. OH! Oh yeah, I forgot! Sorry, I'm coming." She raced inside and came back out with a backpack and a dagger strapped to her waist. "I'm ready."

We ran towards the woods. Mattias and Lexis were waiting for us. Lex had her sword strapped to her side while Mattias had his strung behind his back. "Lead the way," I told him.

It only took a few minutes to get to the tunnel, but for me, it seemed as if time was moving really slow. I couldn't believe we were doing this. I hadn't been outside the camp boundaries since I was eleven. The thought of being outside our safe haven and into the real world with real monsters was a thrill to me. I couldn't wait to start killing things.

"Alright," Mattias said when we reached the tunnel. "No one should miss us for hopefully ten hours. During the day, nobody should care where we are but by suppertime, when we aren't there they will notice. Still, we need to be quick. No screwing up or this won't work."

What a lovely motivational speech. 'Don't screw up.'

I gave him a mock bow and gestured for him to go first. I followed right behind him and heard Aisha breathing right behind me. Lex must have taken the rear.

When we had talked about the tunnel, I'd thought he meant it lead directly out of camp. Apparently I was mistaken because we were in that stupid tunnel for over an hour. It wasn't until I started complaining that Mattias explained to us where the tunnel lead. We were walking all the way to New York. Our tunnel popped out in one of the tunnels by the train station. That was an added bonus, seeing as how that's where the three girls would have headed. Even still, spending so much time underground was not exactly what I had in mind for my first time outside.

Then finally, finally, we saw a light up ahead. I stepped out only to realize that we were still underground, just now it was less confining. We were in one of the tunnels that the trains went through. The station must be close.

I saw Aisha come behind me. She looked really pale, and it dawned on me that I hadn't heard her speak a single word since we started walking. 'Of course, she's a child of Zeus. Underground and she must not get along very well.' I realized.

"Where now, Einstein?" I asked. Even though I understood how serious this whole situation was, I was fairly certain I wasn't feeling as scared as I should have. For one thing, the fact that Mattias was being normal was alarming. I was also too excited to really be afraid.

"Follow me, thing 1 and thing 2." He glanced at Aisha. "Just follow me, okay?" His tone was far gentler to her than it was to my sister and me. Lexis seemed to notice as well.

"Why are you way nicer to her?" Lex complained.

Mattias didn't bother answering. Instead he just started walking down one of the tunnels.

"You should have seen the first time Mana and I took the tunnel and ended up here. I was so confused. Luckily tunnels and Hades kids get along really well, so we didn't get lost."

"I'm just surprised you two lasted that long just walking with nothing really to do," I noted. The pair of them were some of the most hyper people I knew, although Mana tended to hide that fact when she was around people.

He shrugged. "Like I said, tunnels and Mana get along. It never took that long for us to reach here. Guess some sort of Hades magic."

"Wish we had that now," Aisha mumbled. "My feet hurt. We've been walking for hours."

The rest of the walk was mostly in silence. It took about fifteen minutes for us to reach the subway, and from there we went across town to a train above ground. That train would take us to Montreal.

"How exactly are we supposed to pay for this?" Lexis demanded.

Mattias shrugged. "I've got lots of money. Some from our quest packs, some from home, and lots that I've stolen. Duh. I pickpocketed about thirteen people on our way here.

"Awesome!" I grinned. Lex was less impressed, but it wasn't as if she could go return all the wallets that Mattias grabbed.

The train ride itself was awful. It was crowded and the place smelled. Mattias, Lexis and Aisha all managed to fall asleep no problem but I for one couldn't even shut my eyes for more than five seconds. It was a good thing that I stayed awake too, or else I would have missed the flipped train with the claw marks beside the track.

Everyone on the train that was awake started murmuring to themselves and each other. I nudged the others awake. "Look!"

Mattias groaned when he saw it. "That's recent. It must be. How much you want to bet that's the track that JJ, Mana and Glynn were riding?"

"I don't want to waste any of my drachmas," Aisha said.

"What kind of claw marks are those?" Mattias asked. He squinted as if to get a better look."

"Gryphon would be my best guess," Lex said. Our train passed the other one. "Although I can't be sure. They must have gotten away though. But they'll be on foot."

"Not necessarily." Mattias looked deep in thought.

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" I snapped.

He shrugged. "Most likely they shadow travelled. I mean, what other choice would they really have? Walking out in the open would be suicide for them. And they would be putting every bystander at risk."

"Doesn't shadow travelling wear Mana out?" Lex asked. "I mean, she normally gets tired just travelling by herself. And Montreal is a pretty big jump from here."

"This could work in our favour. If they are shadow travelling there,they will have to rest for a few hours every time. Which means we have a chanceof catching up."