Havoc - Piper McLean

14: Monocle motors

|monocle motors|

—When Camilla woke up, she was tied upside down by her ankle and cocooned with chains up to her neck. To her right Piper was flailing around, trying to free herself. Her mouth was gagged, but at least she was alive. Jason didn't look so good. He hung limply, his eyes rolled up in his head. A red welt the size of an apple had swollen over his left eyebrow.

"Leo, help!" A voice startled Camilla because it was a perfect imitation of Piper's. She had to check twice and confirm that the other girl was gagged and hadn't spoke out loud.

Then the voice spoke again, this time less sure. "Leo?"

"Told you it was nothing," The shape in the shadows rumbled. Its voice was too deep and feral to be human.

Another lump, Camilla couldn't describe what it was spoke this time in her own voice— "Leo, help me! Help—" Then the voice changed, becoming a masculine snarl. "Bah, there's nobody out there. No demigod could be that quiet, eh?"

The first monster chuckled. "Probably ran away, if he knows what's good for him. Or the girl was lying about a fourth demigod. Let's get cooking."

Snap. A bright orange light sizzled to life— an emergency flare—and Camilla was temporarily blinded. She wondered how she always wound up in such situations. 

On the conveyor belt, beneath Camilla, a bed of the unfinished pickup truck was being used as a fire pit. The emergency flare had ignited a mixture of tires and wood, which, from the smell of it, had been doused in kerosene. A big metal pole was suspended over the flames— a spit, Camila realized, which meant this was a cooking fire.

oh fuck no I'm not dying like this. 

She thrashed a little more, but her spatha and dagger weren't on her anymore and there was no other way for her to get out of this predicament. But she had to hold out hope. Leo was still out there somewhere. He would come for them. 

But most terrifying of all were the cooks.

Monocle Motors: that single red eye logo. Why hadn't Camilla realized?

Three massive humanoids gathered around the fire. Two were standing, stoking the flames. The largest one crouched. The two younger ones were each ten feet tall, with hairy muscular bodies and skin that glowed red in the firelight. One of the monsters wore a chain mail loincloth that looked really uncomfortable. The other wore a ragged fuzzy toga made of fiberglass insulation, which also would not have made Camilla's top ten wardrobe ideas. Other than that, the two monsters could've been twins. Each had a brutish face with a single eye in the center of his forehead. 

The cooks were Cyclopes.

Camilla tried to think back to before she was knocked out. One of these bastards had smashed through her and Piper like they were ragdolls. Camilla couldn't have fought them alone even if she tried. 

And how the fuck could they imitate human voices so perfectly?

Camilla's bound legs would have started quaking (if she wasn't, you know, already tied upside down). Blood rushed to her head and the space between her eyes started to hurt. She'd seen some weird things so far—storm spirits and winged gods and a metal dragon that liked Tabasco sauce. But this was different. These were actual, flesh-and-blood, ten-foot-tall living monsters who wanted to eat her and her friends for dinner.

The Cyclops in the chain mail loincloth walked over to Piper, who squirmed and tried to head-butt him in the eye. "Can I take her gag off now? I like it when they scream."