Renegade

Emily's POV

We walked out into the cold night after Thorn left a big stack of drachmas on his table. Even though it was a warm June night, I shivered at the nocturnal breeze. I was scared. And we were calmly walking to a fight.

The park wasn’t well lit, only being brightened by a set of streetlights. It was in the shape of a big oval, and as our feet touched green grass, I caught a glimpse of a sign that said, “Berkeley Square Gardens.”

Thorn turned around in the middle of the park, and we were twenty yards away from him. We had kept our distance for a reason. When he turned, he called out,

“Scared, Jackson? Want to…‘put ‘em up’ as they say in your stupid country?”

“Shut up, creep,” I put in, and Thorn snarled.

Then, he released a single spike from his tail. I only saw the movement from his appendage due to my intense training and demigod eyes. The spike flew through the dim light towards Griff, and Griff didn’t react. At the last second, when I though the spike was going to hit him, he drew a dagger from a back slot in his belt and sliced the spike in two, effectively defending himself.

“Bravo!” Thorn cheered, clapping, “you are much faster than your father ever was, Griffin!”

“Shut. UP!” Griff said, replacing his knife with his two pistols, “you need to die. Now!”

Then, again, all Hades broke loose. Griff started firing as I sprinted for cover behind a big oak tree. I drew my daggers and spun around the other side of the tree, looking for Thorn. The monster was jogging in a circle, simultaneously dodging Griff’s bullets while shooting his own spikes.

I tried to sneak up behind him, but he realized I was there, and shot at me. I dodged and rolled behind another tree, cursing under my breath,

“Gods, he’s quick!”

I rolled around the tree and found Thorn again, and this time I had him. He was looking for me, but Griff was keeping me busy. I sprinted up behind him, and before he could turn, I sliced off his spike-tail with swipes from my dagger, causing the guy to wail in heavily French-accented pain. I tried to follow up my first strike, but Thorn kicked me, hard.

But Griff hadn’t been standing watching the entire time. He sent two bullets into each of the
manticore’s shins, each hitting with a sickening crunch! That forced Thorn to kneel, taking the weight off of his legs. Griff growled happily, maniacally, and I paled.

He’s enjoying this, I thought, really, really enjoying this.
But for some reason I let him enjoy this. His anger at Thorn had been driving him for the past few days, and I knew that it had changed him. He had been hunting this prey for seemingly an eternity.

He would enjoy this.

He walked over, slowly, to Thorn, who was still weeping in pain. Then, he placed the barrels of his black-as-night guns on the monster’s sweaty forehead, and the manticore stopped weeping. Thorn looked up at Griff, and Griff smiled down at him.

“In the name of the Gods,” He spoke into the night breeze.

Then, he squeezed, releasing two bullets. They didn’t even reach the back of Thorn’s skull before he had turned into sulfurous dust.

“Yes!” He shouted angrily, with a mad smile, growling menacingly, “you deserved to die, you dirtbag! I hate you! In the name of Andrew Charles Smith, go to Tartarus!”

Griff was breathing hard now, and I barely noticed as Nico di Angelo stepped out of the shadows and said,

“I see you’ve made good work of the client. I’ll take the bag now.”

But Griff didn’t even acknowledge him. He ripped the bag off of his shoulders and tossed in the direction of Nico’s voice, still staring at the pile of monster-dust that used to be Dr. Thorn. Then, he went absolutely, completely bananas-crazy. Griff started shooting bullets into the pile of dust, causing a mini yellow explosion to occur. But he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was wipe the image of Dr. Thorn, and anything related to him, off of the face of the Earth.

Nico advanced on Griff, grabbing his arms. Even though di Angelo was skinny, painfully so, he could still restrain Griff. He knocked Griff’s guns out of his hands, and motioned for me to pick them up. But, as I reached for them, Griff kicked me above the eyebrow, trying desperately to reach the guns. He was growling like an animal now, feral and rage-filled.

“Griff!” I scolded in surprise, “what the heck?”

Bt he just kept straining against Nico. I knew what to do. I stood up and said,

“So sorry, Griff.”

Then I punched him in the forehead, purposely avoiding his beautiful nose and eyes. He went to sleep instantly.

“Thanks you,” Nico grunted, “Now, you guys have to go.”

“Go where?” I asked indignantly.

“I’ll tell you later. But we need to get to Heathrow. Crow is going to want to get a report about this personally. Until I shadow-traveled here, I had no idea that thorn was the client. The fact that members of the Sixth Age could contact us is bad. Really bad.”

“Members of what?” I asked in bewilderment.

“The Sixth Age,” Nico explained, “The Free Army of Kronos, or as we in TFG call them, FreAKs. They are the badguys you’ll deal with later in your term as officers of TFG.”

“Oh,” I said, “So where are we going?”

Nico reached into his pocket and pulled out two plane tickets, each marked with La Guardia Airport’s three letter tag, LGA.

“New York,” I said, and Nico nodded.

The next hour and a half was a blur. Nico shadow-traveled all three of us onto the plane, skipping security and everything, ordering a coffee from the flight attendant. Then, he told me to get some sleep, and I agreed. Sleep was something I was lacking right now.

Notes

Enjoy!

And by the way, for anyone interested in some sleuthing, there is a location mentioned in this chapter, or in the last one maybe, called The Only Running Footman, the pub in London where Emily and Griff meet up with Thorn. That place actually exists, and I was fortunate enough to eat there when I was a little kid. The park where Emily and Griff fight Thorn, Berkeley Square Gardens, actually exists too, about two blocks from the pub in real life. This is just proof that I love to make my fantasy stories as realistic as possible. I do real RESEARCH, people.

-Grafon