THE HEALER| Heroes of Olympus

VI

I was certain that he hadn't been there a second ago. He'd simply materialized, as if he'd stepped out from behind an invisible curtain.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The bandit laughed. "Sciron, of course!"

"Chiron?"Jason asked. "Like the centaur?"

The bandit rolled his eyes. "Sky-ron, my friend. Son of Poseidon! Thief extraordinaire! All-around awesome guy! But that's not important. I'm not seeing any valuables!" he cried, as if this were excellent news. "I guess that means you want to die?"

"Wait," Hazel said. "We've got valuables. But, if we give them up, how can we be sure you'll let us go?"

"Oh, they always ask that," Sciron said. "I promise you, on the River Styx, that as soon as you surrender what I want, I will not shoot you. I will send you right back down that cliff."

Hazel gave us a wary look. River Styx or no, the way Sciron phrased his promise didn't reassure her.

"What if we fought you?" Jason asked. "You can't attack us and hold our ship hostage at the same –"

BANG! BANG!

It happened so fast that my brain needed a moment to catch up.

Smoke curled from the side of Jason's head. Just above his left ear, a groove cut through his hair like a racing stripe. One of Sciron's flintlocks was still pointed at his face. The other flintlock was pointed down, over the side of the cliff, as if Sciron's second shot had been fired at the Argo II.

I choked from delayed shock. "What did you do?"

"Oh, don't worry!" Sciron laughed. "If you could see that far – which you can't – you'd see a hole in the deck between the shoes of the big young man, the one with the bow."

"Frank!" Hazel cried.

Sciron shrugged. "If you say so. That was just a demonstration. I'm afraid it could have been much more serious."

He spun his flintlocks. The hammers reset, and I had a feeling the guns had just magically reloaded.

Sciron waggled his eyebrows at Jason. "So! To answer your question – yes, I can attack you and hold your ship hostage at the same time. Celestial bronze ammunition. Quite deadly to demigods. You three would die first – bang, bang, bang. Then I could take my time picking off your friends on that ship. Target practice is so much more fun with live targets running around screaming!"

Jason touched the new furrow that the bullet had ploughed through his hair. For once, he didn't look very confident.My ankles wobbled. I was the best shot I knew with a bow (well besides Kayla my sister) but this bandit Sciron was inhumanly good. 

Which probably shouldn't have made me fan girl as much as I did. I wanted to know how he did it! He wasn't even a son of Apollo and yet he could shoot better then me!

"You're a son of Poseidon?" Hazel managed. "I would've thought Apollo, the way you shoot."

The smile lines deepened around his eyes. "Why, thank you! It's just from practice, though. The giant turtle – that's due to my parentage. You can't go around taming giant turtles without being a son of Poseidon! I could overwhelm your ship with a tidal wave, of course, but it's terribly difficult work. Not nearly as fun as ambushing and shooting people."

"Just from practice?!" I gaped. "You've got to teach me how you shoot like that–!"

"Eliana!" Jason scolded nudging me to shut up. 

Hazel cleared her throat and continued. 

"What's the bandanna for?"

"So no one recognizes me!" Sciron said.