Divine Children

Ez

I was a great dancer, but I resisted skipping out onto the dance floor only because Cahill had ordered us to not draw attention to ourselves. I contented myself with tapping my foot along with the merry beat instead.

Alex leant against the wall beside me, grinning at every female Demigod, young and old, who passed by, each one giggling and blushing.

I slapped his shoulder. "Stop it! Cahill told us to keep to ourselves, you twit."

He laughed, tossing his chocolate brown hair back, blue eyes sparkling. "I'm only making them feel special. That's what my pretty face is here for."

I rolled my eyes. "You have to pay attention for the signal, pretty boy. This is more important than picking up some Norse girl."

"I know that we are the most powerful race," Alex said, watching a petite blonde girl twirl around the room, "but some of their females are gorgeous. Even you can't deny that, Ez. Great genepool there, a lot of beautiful blondes. Sad that we have to destroy them."

"It's either us or them, Lex." I said.

"Us or them." he said sadly.

We past the next ten minutes in silence, just watching the Norse celebrate whatever they were celebrating. I was glad that there are no children around; just adults and teenaged Norse Panelists. I could handle eliminating them.

But what about when the children hear they'll never see their parents again?

The voice rang through my head, shooting it's icy venom into my thoughts. Sometimes I could make the voice go away, but it always came back. I willed it to leave, tried to expel it by thinking about happy things. It didn't work.

I'm a part of you, Esmeralda. You can't ignore me. Not then, not now, not ever.

I took a deep breath and turned back to Alex. He smiled at me, a look that would've sent any other girl's heart a flutter thanks to his Aphrodite good looks, but not me. I just could never think of him in that way.

"Would you care to dance, Esmeralda?" he asked, mock bowing and taking my hand.

I slapped his shoulder again. "Don't call me "Esmeralda"! And no, I don't want to dance with you; you'll step on my toes."

"That was one time!" he laughed, straightening.

Before I could answer, a crackly voice went went off in my ear, "Blue Witch? Come in Blue Witch. Over."

I lent into Alex, as if we were a couple, to mask my reply. Alex got it right away, and started nodding and smiling. He had always been a great actor.

"Hey, Olive Grove. Is this the signal? Over."

Cam, a.k.a "Olive Grove", who was the son of Athena and a genius, had invented tiny radios that hooked into each of our ears for easy contact, making these missions much easier. "No, it's not. We need you to spy around. Get info on other Demigods before we blow this dump up. Over."

"Won't it be harder to get out? Over."

"I'll alert you early. Just do it. Over and out."

I lead Alex around the dance floor, ignoring his protests and questions, smiling politely at every other Norse piece of filth that came our way. The ballroom was perfectly round with two stair ways leading up to a balcony on the either side, looking out over the dancers and the Norse folk band. I could just make out a door up the stairs and to the right.

Everybody was too busy to look up and notice two teenagers being slightly suspicious, so we slipped up the stairs and through the door.

There was a wide hallway, old, framed paintings hanging on the walls, depicting Norse Gods and Demigods from the past. A few doors branched off from the hallway, but almost all of them were locked and the ones that weren't were empty. As we ran down the hall, I explained the plan to Alex, whispering quietly as we jogged.