The Veiled Legacy | PJO - Book Two

three

THEY FIND DEMON VAMPIRES

They'd only travelled a few hundred yards when Ariana heard voices.

Ariana plodded along, half in a stupor, trying to form a plan. It was hard to strategize with her stomach growling and her throat baking.

The fiery water of the Phlegethon may have healed her and given her strength, but it hadn't done anything for her hunger or thirst.

The river wasn't about making you feel good, Ariana guessed. It just kept you going so you could experience more excruciating pain.

Her head started to droop with exhaustion. Then she heard them - female voices having some sort of argument - and she was instantly alert.

She whispered. "Guys, down!"

She pulled them both behind the nearest boulder, wedging herself so close against the riverbank that her shoes almost touched the rivers fire.

On the other side, on the narrow path between the river and the cliffs, voices snarled, getting louder as they approached from upstream.

Ariana tried to steady her breathing. The voices sounded vaguely human, but that meant nothing.
She assumed anything in Tartarus was their enemy. She didn't know how the monsters could have failed to spot them already.

Besides, monsters could smell demigods - especially powerful ones like Percy, son of Poseidon and she had no doubt they could smell herself.

The amount of divine blood running through her veins were bound to cause some monsters heads to turn.

Ariana doubted that hiding behind a boulder would do any good when the monsters caught their scent.

Still, as the monsters got nearer, their voices didn't change in tone. Their uneven footsteps - scrap, clump, scrap, clump - didnt get any faster.

"Soon?" one of them asked in a raspy voice, as if she'd been gargling in the Phlegethon.

"Oh my gods!" said another voice.

This one sounded much younger and much more human, like a teenaged mortal girl getting exasperated with her friends at the mall.

"You guys are totally annoying! I told you, it's like three days from here."

Ariana turned to her friends, Percy gripped Annabeth's wrist. He looked at her with alarm, as if he recognized the mall girl's voice.

There was a chorus of growling and grumbling. The creatures - maybe half a dozen, Ariana guessed - had paused just on the other side of the boulder, but still they gave no indication that they'd caught the demigods' scent.

Ariana wondered if demigods didn't smell the same in Tartarus, or if the other scents here were so powerful they masked a demigod's aura.

"I wonder." said a third voice, gravelly and ancient like the first. "If perhaps you do not know the way, young one."

"Oh, shut your fang hole, Serephone." said the mall girl. "When's the last time you escaped to the mortal world? I was there a couple of years ago. I know the way! Besides, I understand what we're facing up there. You don't have a clue!"

"The Earth Mother did not make you boss!"shrieked a fourth voice.

More hissing, scuffling and feral moans - like giant alley cats fighting. At last the one called Serephone yelled, "Enough!"

The scuffling died down.

"We will follow for now." Serephone said. "But if you do not lead us well, if we find you have lied about the summons of Gaia -"