The Shadow Archer Twins

As soon as Izzy closed the Cabin 7 door, I mentally kicked myself. Why had I thought it would be a good idea to make friends with the guy you like’s girlfriend?

“Oh Katie, you’re so stupid! Now you’ll never get him!” I told myself.

All of a sudden, Tox’s voice, deep and calm, spoke from the back corner of the cabin. “Katie, why do you bring yourself down by being hung up on him?”

I jumped so high I almost flew off of my bed. I whipped around to see him, but he wasn’t there. There was nobody there. I thought I was going crazy, hearing what Tox would have said about Izzy and Malcolm, until a form, human in shape, becoming more solid, formed from the shadows of the back corner. All of a sudden, Tox was there, in his leather jacket, and new black-grey sweatpants. It was a weird fashion statement, but I realized that his outfit had concealed him completely in the corner. He had transformed into a shadow, and then back to human.

Gesturing to his clothes Tox chuckled, “Pretty cool, right? The Hephaestus cabin has been working on this one for me. They blended a special type of cloth derived from Hades’ helm of darkness with the fabric in my leather jacket, and then connected it to my pants. Somehow, I can hide super well with it, make myself part of shadows. It’s pretty weird, but I’m getting used to it.”

He then added, “It might get a bit cold in December, though, because these shadows are making me cool. And it’s the hottest month of the year.”

I laughed in amazement and then added, sarcastically. “Didn’t think that part through, did you?”

He chuckled. “No, I guess I didn’t. And I guess you didn’t want to think Izzy over, did you?”

I dropped my gaze. He then said, in an annoyed tone, “Katie, just because you have feelings for a guy doesn’t make his girlfriend the enemy. That’s only supposed to happen in movies. She’s a good person. The way she looked at you, it looked like she was begging you to become her friend. She needs you to be on her side in order to make a point to Malcolm. He can’t just run around hurting people anymore. Even if he does have a good plan.”

“Malcolm’s scared of your plan with Chiron, you know,” I said, trying to change the subject, “He thinks that you are too aggressive, too untrustworthy. He thinks you’re after blood for no reason.”

“I’m just trying to follow Chiron’s orders,” He responded. He sounded like he was saying, ‘It’s not my fault, I’m innocent.’

“I know,” I said, agreeing with his tone.

He then continued, “But I think Malcolm needs to realize that we won’t be the team going on offense first. We need to be able to defend the camp, and the way I see it, inviting 20 of their most skilled warriors over for lunch isn’t a good way to do it. And, if we say that they have to be unarmed, they’ll back out, smelling an ambush. But, if we hold the meeting in the middle of the turnpike, neutral territory, every passing mortal will see us, even with Chiron helping out with the Mist. Which, in short, means we will be inviting 20 highly skilled Roman warriors, fully armed, over for lunch.”

I looked up at him, and saw a look of deep concern and worry. He was scared, which wasn’t good. Tox tended to go on the offense when he was scared. He told me that while sniping another player in one of his videogames.

“Look, I know it seems dangerous, but they’ll be on our turf. I’m assuming the Athena kids will do all of the talking, seeing as they’re the smartest with strategy?”

“You’d be correct in assuming that. We are also talking to a group of Aphrodite kids who have power in their words. They call it ‘charmspeak.’ I guess it provides the ability to persuade people using magic in the sound of their voice. The Athena kids will tell them what to say, and if they’re good enough, it should work in persuading some of the officers. Let’s just hope that the Romans don’t have a way of countering the charmspeak to find out what we told them. The Ares cabin will be providing security, along with the rest of our cabin, except for you, of course. Malcolm talked to me about that, by the way. He should be over to apologize any minute.”

“I don’t care about that anymore,” I said, with conviction, “What I do care about is this camp. And even though I don’t like it, I’ll do anything to protect it. By the way, where are you going to be in all of this?”

Tox muttered to himself, loud enough for me to hear, “Finally, she asks the right questions!” Then, in a louder voice, he said, “That’s why I wanted these clothes. I’ll be with you in the meeting, in one of the back corners. If he so much as sneezes in a suspicious way, he’ll have three arrows in his neck faster than you can say ‘bless you’.”

I laughed at that. Then, I looked at Tox and saw his face was stern, with complete sincerity. He meant what he said, and he didn’t think it was funny. Then, he saw my face, and he slowly began to smile. It felt good to see him smile again.

“I love you,” I said. “And I’m sorry I haven’t been acting like a sister lately. I’ve just had other things on my mind.”

He walked over to me and wrapped his arms around me, and we hugged for the first time since getting to camp. I smiled again. I had my old brother back. He pulled away after four long deep breaths and reached behind him. I thought he was going to scratch his back, but his quiver and bow suddenly appeared over his shoulders. The same stealth cloth had been woven around them like a skin, hiding them completely from view.

“Jeez!” I said, “You could walk into an airport with that thing and not even raise an eyebrow! Is it completely invisible?”

“When I want it to be. The Hecate cabin had to work a little magic into this one along with the boys down at the forges,” Tox responded, “But that’s not the point. The point is this.”

From a sheath slung on his shoulders between his leather jacket and quiver, he pulled out a thin grey dagger; sharp, curved, with a beautiful celestial bronze handle and a blade made entirely out of bone. It was the most beautiful killing instrument I had ever seen.

“The right horn of the chimera’s goat head,” Tox explained, “Because you’re my right hand girl. It’s yours if you want it.”

I took the dagger in my hand reverently, and looked up at Tox in awe.

“This…this is amazing. It’s…beautiful.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. After the Hephaestus cabin made the handles and carved the horns into a rough shape, I asked for the daggers back. That dagger was done completely by me.”

I looked back up into his eyes, and saw a pride beaming in them that I had never ever seen before. He slipped the shoulder sheath off of his back and handed it to me, tightening it to fit me. I slipped the dagger into the sheath and put it around my shoulder. The strap was so light, I felt like it wasn’t there. And when I looked down, it had disappeared from the camouflage.

“I can’t thank you enough, Tox. This is awesome,” I said, looking down again to make sure the strap was invisible.

“Well, it’s my present. A gift to bring us closer, eh?”

“Yes,” I said, and I hugged him again. He ruffled my hair like he used to do when we were little. I realized how much taller he had grown at camp. He was easily six feet tall by now, and he had gotten stronger too. He looked like an adult.

I wondered how I had changed since getting to camp. I had been scared during our journey here. And, based on the upcoming events, I was about to find out how much I’d changed, because I was about to go through one of the hardest tasks ever assigned to me. Distract an insanely suspicious Roman officer and pretend like I liked him, all without letting him think I was lying to him, or making him wonder why he had been separated from his officers. Piece of cake, really.

Notes

This chapter is a bit long for some reason, but I wanted it to be, so meh, it's whatever. I have a feeling I'm going to have to take a break to develop the plot a bit more before writing, but that won't be until after the nest 5 or 6 chapters. Will post them soon.