coffee break

Excerpt from Nightingale (sequel to Destiny Calls)

- 🌒 T h e a 🌒 -

My hands flew across my bow, attaching a note on to the arrow as I kept an eye on the Cyclops that lumbered around the hall, looking for someone.

Looking for me.

"Where are you Thea Carter? We know you go to school here. Come out or I'll snap the neck of every teacher I find here. I know you care for these pathetic mortals, Arthella. My new master told me such." The head Cyclops said, as his minions searched the students for anyone who looked like me. Another one was standing next to the receptionist, who was terrified, and forcing her to search for my name on the database. She wouldn't find it. I wasn't Thea Carter here. I was Sylvia Hunter.

"What are you doing?" Lincoln hissed at me, carefully keeping his voice down as we hid behind a desk. "I know you're a good fighter, Sylvia, but those guys are huge! And the Thea Carter person isn't even here!"

"Patience, Lincoln. We'll all be fine." Finally securing a thin rope to be used as a trip rope just in case, I let the arrow fly from underneath the desk, flying parallel to the floor. Dom, who looked around just in time, caught the arrow, read the message, and then implanted the arrow into the ground. Leah took the message form him, and then gave me a wink. 

"On your mark, Thea." She whispered, but of course, I could hear her. I could hear everything.

"Thea, darling, where are you?" The Cyclops asked. "Ah, who is this?" He picked up Mr Phillips and sniffed him. "This mortal has your scent on him! He must know you, Thea! That means you would mind if I killed him."

I stiffened. I turned slowly, and then faced Lincoln. "I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Lincoln." I stood up and walked towards the Cyclops, and I mentally prepared myself for my transformation.

"Stop. Release the mortal." I said. "You want me."

"Sylvia? Sylvia stop! You're not Thea Carter! He's going to kill you! Thea Carter is a dead girl!" Lincoln yelled, but I silenced him, muffling him with a wave of a silver energy.

I'm sorry. I said in his mind, and his eyes widened. I let the transformation take me, silver mist surrounding me as I revealed my true self. My brown wig fell to the ground, and so did my contact lenses. My clothes changed as well, as I turned back time, into my Nightingale persona, minus the mask. The dark-grey fitted gear, the gloves that fit all the way to my elbows, the cape that attached at my shoulders and elbows, the weapons that were usually concealed by this mist appearing.

"So Thomas sent you, huh? Sending my brothers and sisters to hurt me, the Cyclops. I used to think that there was still a hope for my Cylcops siblings, but of course, you're all the results of Poseidon's affairs. Like me. But I sought to find the good in this world. And you do not threaten my friends."

Slowly, the silver mist raised me upwards, and my daggers appeared in my hands. The Cyclops laughed. "Ah, little sister. The little demigod huntress Arthella. You may have slayed many, but you will not slay me."

"I've slayed a primordial. I won't be afraid to add a couple of cyclopses to that list. I am one with the Hunt, and the Hunt will always be with me." I gathered the energy in my hands, the fingerless gloves glowing with power, connecting to the gauntlets on my forearms, and all my pent up energy flowed into my hands. "I've cooped myself up for months to fit in. Now, you get to taste some of that."

I yelled, and the energy burst out, dissipating the head Cyclops and the nearest monsters that were  unfortunate enough to be in my range. I knew Lincoln was watching me in awe, I could sense what he was thinking. Sylvia, the gawky nerd, with the nightmare disorder, the one that would scream in the middle of classes, the one that he actually crushed on, was suddenly a girl that was supposed to be dead that could control moonlight.