The Shadow Archer Twins

Finally waking up was one of the best feelings I had ever felt. After floating in and out of consciousness for the past 18 hours as a side effect of the poison, to be fully awake was like having everything come back into focus. I could eat again, which I hadn’t done since breakfast, and I could talk, and interact. I had felt like a sack of meat for most of the day, so even talking was a joy to do. We were on I-70, heading east towards Harrisburg and the safehouse, and everything was going smoothly, which made me concerned. But, I decided not to worry about it until I had reason to worry.

Eager to break the silence, I asked, “How long until Harrisburg?”

“Only about half an hour, plus the time it takes to go through town. The safe house is on the North Side, right Malcolm?”

“Yep,” He confirmed, “The Blue Ridge Mountains are to the North of Harrisburg, and the Camp wanted to put the safehouse in a strategically sound position, so, they picked the high ground of the mountains.”

With that, he kept on driving. After about 15 minutes, he said, “About the archery thing. I only have my personal quiver, plus about 5 arrows for each for you two that came with the cases from the Hephaestus Cabin, so we’ll have to stock up on ammo at the safehouse. There should be at least 250 arrows there.”

I finally asked the question I had wanted to voice since he saved me in Pittsburgh.

“If you’re a son of Athena, why do you use a bow? And, why do you think we’d be good archers?”

The second question popped into my head as I was thinking about it. Malcolm thought for a while, his eyebrows furrowed. Finally, he responded,

“As for me, I guess I liked ranged combat over 1-on-1 fighting, and as for you two trying archery, it’s just a hunch. But, seeing as Katie took so well to healing you…well, to put it simply, I think I might know who your godly parent is.”

I was about to ask who, when Malcolm looked ahead and saw a sign with a Greek insignia, and subconsciously I recognized the word, ‘Camp’. Up ahead was a small shack about twice the size of an RV, with a faded coat of orange paint on it. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years, but it also possessed a subtle aura of strength to it, and for that, I trusted the building. It looked healthy on the outside, even if a bit old and empty. Malcolm parked the car and we got out, stretching our legs. I was ready for a nice long sleep. Then, we stepped inside.

The place looked like it had been ransacked. Papers lay everywhere, along with spilled canteens of nectar, ripped bags of ambrosia, torn clothes, and bent weapons. A quiver of arrows lay scattered all over the floor, most of them snapped in half hastily. The four cots that were arranged to one side of the room looked like they had been lit on fire and then doused out, leaving only the charred remains of the beds. I felt bad for the little shack. It hadn’t done anything to deserve this. But then, I looked at the back wall where the beds were, and saw a sign, written in thick, red ink.

The letters were in Modern Greek, not Ancient, like the inscription outside. It took me longer to decipher them because of that, but I finally translated them, and my heart froze. The first of the two lines said, ‘All Hail Gaia’, and below that was the second line, with an arrow pointing to the door, which was to the right of the beds. The sign read, ‘Jake Campbell’, and it was crossed out, almost on purpose. Just before I realized what that meant, Malcolm let out a soft,

“Oh, no,” Then his voice turned panicky, and he called, loudly, “J-Jake? Are y-you here, buddy?”
A low, pained groan came from outside the house, and we all ran out the door to see who had responded to Malcolm’s call. What I saw next made me want to vomit, cry, and shout in anger all at once. Pinned against the wall, with spikes embedded in almost every part of his body, was a young, thin kid in jeans and an orange t-shirt, like Malcolm’s. He couldn’t have been more than 12 years old, with brown hair and brown eyes. When Malcolm saw him, he burst into tears.

“Oh, Jake!” He cried, “I’m so sorry!”

The kid had three spikes in his stomach, one through each of his shoulders, and one through each of his legs, pinning his up against the outside of the safehouse like a messed-up remix of a crucifixtion. Even with his shoes being about a ten inches off of the ground, he barely came up to eye level with us. Thin streams of red ran down the wall and onto the ground below, causing the green stalks of grass to be tinged brown with blood. Despite all of this, the young kid smiled weakly. He said, in a soft, sweet voice,

“Chiron told me you’d be coming soon, so they sent me to prepare the safehouse for your arrival, and to provide…extra assistance if any monsters came. Then, the manticore came before you did. He had two dracanae with him, but he didn’t need them.”

He coughed, and blood spurted out of his mouth in a ragged cloud.

“Don’t worry,” Malcolm shushed, “We’re going to get you down from there. Tox, Katie, help me, please.”

He looked like he was about to start crying again, and Jake said,

“I killed one of the dracanae, by the way, but it was no use. The manticore strung me up here like a puppet.” Sighing, he said, “Just let me die in peace.”

“No!” Malcolm shouted, “I’m going to get you down from—”

“Please,” Jake begged, with a tinge of pained sadness in his voice, “My dagger is in the main room. I’d like to hold it again.”

Katie instantly understood the message. She ran back inside and found the dagger, which I hadn’t noticed until now, and unsheathed it, placing the weapon into the little kid’s hand.

“Thank you. I’ve learned my lesson now, Malcolm,” He said, his energy fading, “With this in my hand I won’t, I won’t go into the Underworld defenseless, you know?”

He sounded scared, like he didn’t want to die. Malcolm started to cry again, tears trickling down his cheeks as he caressed the boy’s face until his eyes closed for the last time.

Malcolm fully broke down at that point. He started weeping uncontrollably, sobbing loudly and painfully on his knees, his hands covering his face. It hurt for me to see him like that, almost as much as it did to see Jake pinned up like a piñata against the safehouse wall. Katie went over to Malcolm and started putting her arms around him, which surprisingly got him to calm down, and to breathe in more. He slowly got up, and, on his instruction, we removed the spikes from Jake’s body using a pair of pliers from the safehouse toolbox. We covered his body in a spare blanket from one of the beds that hadn’t gotten burnt, and Malcolm said a blessing in Ancient Greek. The shroud started to fade, until it completely disappeared, leaving only a feint smell of grapes, and an almost unnoticeable sound of clinking glasses.

“Son of Dionysus?” I asked softly.

“No,” Malcolm responded, “Son of Hebe, cupbearer to the Gods, goddess of eternal youth.” After a small silence, he said, “He was like a little brother to me, one of my best friends at Camp. Now he’s gone.”

“Oh,” I said quietly.

“Yeah,” Malcolm said bitterly, “C’mon, we have to move. With the safe house trashed like this, and Jake…we can’t stay here. Let’s just get whatever supplies we can and hit the road. We might as well try to make it to Manhattan by tomorrow morning.”

And so we did. We filled up on gas from a small tank on the other side of the house, scavenged for unbroken arrows, and took any clothes, nectar, and ambrosia we could find that wasn’t torn, contaminated or smashed. Since we both had licenses, Malcolm asked one of us to drive. Katie picked first driving session. There would be no nice long sleep for me tonight. After what had happened to Jake, confirming that the manticore was on our trail, Malcolm decided to keep watch from the back seat, popping the sunroof open like the turret on a tank, with his bow drawn, scanning the edges of the road as they passed by, the streetlights of the highway illuminating any possible targets.

By morning, we reached the outskirts of New York, and it only took that long because of the fact that we chose to stick to the side roads, not using the main highways in order to remain stealthy. Malcolm had passed out in the back seat, Katie was asleep in the front, and I was now driving. I had been awake for the last 24 hours, and I felt like a zombie. I decided to stop at a breakfast place on West 80th Street. Somehow we found parking in front of the restaurant, and we all piled out to get breakfast. Malcolm sent an Iris-message to Chiron at Camp, explaining the situation with Jake and the manticore. Chiron said that they would send Argus, who was apparently an employee of Camp, to pick us up in half an hour. We used that time to eat, and to just process what had happened in the last day.

When Argus did show up, I nearly had a coronary. He had eyes everywhere on his body, even his palms and neck. Then, I remembered the stories of the ‘hundred-eyed creature’ created by Hera, and realized this must be the same guy.

“He’s our head of security,” Malcolm explained without interest, “He’ll drive us to Camp. Our journey is finally over.” I smiled, but Malcolm just looked at me angrily and said, with a bitter tone,

“Hurray.”

Notes

Sorry that it took so long to get the story to Camp Half-Blood, but I felt it necessary to take that long. From now on, the story will be centered at Camp, focusing on the conflict between the two camps while the Seven are on their quest.