Drake Baylor and the Curse of Death: Part 1; Race to Camp (PJO, HOO spin-off)

Chapter 5: The Home Stretch

I turned to see who spoke. She was roughly sixteen with short, choppy black hair and electric blue eyes. I could tell that she had a kind personality, but her presence radiated power. As if she had seen many battles and was a firecracker just waiting to blow. 

"Where am I?" I asked again.

"You are in the campsite for the Hunters of Artemis." She replied. It sounded as if she had to say that line a lot. She looked at me like I was supposed to know what that was. When she found that I did not, she continued to talk while moving around the tent inspecting bottles at random. "We've been hunting that Hydra for months. If you didn't slow it down when you had, we might have never caught up. Which bring me to my first question, who are you?"

For fear of being electrocuted to death by her eyes alone, I answered her question. She followed with, "The hydra was killed by a blade of some sort based off of the slash marks on the spoil we collected. You seem to be unarmed and by the fact that you were buried underneath the hydra and the rubble, the task for you should have been impossible. How did you do it?"

"I never did anything." I answered truthfully. "I just remember running from this building full of statues and then the hydro..."

"Hydra." The girl corrected.

"Hydra stepped on me and I don't remember anything after that."

"Odd. Hydra's don't normally leave their lairs unless they are hunting something. So if you were trapped, and the hydra started to move away from the complex, based off of the tracks on the ground..." She trailed off. She turned towards me and her eyes widened. "Who else was with you? Where are they now?"

"I was with a group of kids and there were six older people but now there are five." I answered. "I don't know where they are, I just remember them talking about some sort of camp in New York."

"Camp Half Blood." She judged. "Describe the five oldest from your group."

"There were two guys and the rest were girls. Two had blonde hair and gray eyes, one had brown hair and blue eyes, one had brown hair and eyes that constantly changed color and one was tall with black hair and green eyes."

"Percy, Annabeth and Piper!" She exclaimed under her breath. "Last time we spoke, they were headed on a sort of rescue mission with a few questers to jail break some young demigods. That must've been your group?"

"I guess. I still don't understand everything that's happened."

"Not every demigod does, kid." She said.

"First, these men kidnapped me and my sister. Then, when we break out, these symbols appear over our heads. Then I could suddenly sword fight with no practice. Then I could eat fire. Then I could survive two thousand tons of Hydra laying on top of me. What has happened to me?"

"Let me just say, your vocabulary is immaculate. I would guess that you are a child of Athena, but the 'fire' thing threw me off. That leaves Hestia or Hephaestus. What was your symbol?"

"Two hammers and an anvil surrounded by fire." I recalled. That imaged had burned itself into my mind. I still can't make sense of it, but it makes me feel elated and enraged every time I think of it.

"Hephaestus, god of the forge and fire. You must be one of the few. Mcshizzle is gonna want to hear about you. I guess we can take you as close to camp as we can get, but we have to meet up with Artemis on Olympus."

"But what about the others?"

"They're lost in the woods, somewhere in New Jersey, but they'll make it to camp. They have Percy and Annabeth. Now the sooner we get moving, the better. Can you walk?"