The Undead Heroes (The first part of The Reiteration of Olympus)

Chapter 4, I hate escort missions

DYLAN

I really hate escort missions. They are so annoying and pointless.

Of course, I had to do them in real life too.

I had explained to Des what it meant to be a demigod and how monsters would start coming after her now that she knew about them. I also told her about Camp Jupiter and how it's the only safe place for demigods. It seemed to be a bit much to take it in but she handled it better than I thought she would. She decided that she wanted to come to this 'Camp Jupiter'. I advised against it, seeing as if she just disappeared all of a sudden her parents would worry. She told me that they wouldn't and called her dad to prove her point. It turned out that her dad knew that she was a demigod and he was somehow okay with her coming with me to Camp Jupiter. And, I don't know about you, but if I called one of my moms and told her that I was going to go with a stranger to a camp for demigods she'd send me to therapy. If she didn't already know about me being a demigod of course.

So now Des and I were walking towards Main street station to get her on a train to San Francisco. It would be a long ride to get to California from Virginia but it was the easiest way to get to camp if you didn't go by plane.

Des was asking me a lot of questions about camp and a lot of them I couldn't answer. I hadn't been there since I was five, which is almost twelve years ago.

Wow, I'm old.

"What type of food do they have there? Is it like food from the Roman empire or like food from the 21st century?" Des had endless questions like that one and I had no idea how she could ask so much.

After we had been walking for a while I got a bad feeling in my stomach. Something was following us.

I dragged Des into an alley and she started asking what was going on. I motioned for her to be quiet. I dragged her behind some crates when I heard footsteps coming towards us. We kept ourselves hidden and tried to figure out who had come into the alley. By the footsteps, I'd say it was two people of very different builds and when they started speaking I could tell that they were a male and a female.

"Are you sure you saw them go in here?" a calm deep voice that seemed to belong to a man said.

"Yes I'm sure," a higher pitched voice answered him, this one belonging to a woman. "They could probably tell we were following them and got scared." She sounded regretful and sad.

"I know you feel bad about it but if they really were demigods it would be the right thing to help them get to camp half-blood," the man said. Camp half-blood? 

I didn't know who they were or what they were talking about so my plan was to stay hidden until they left and then make our way to the station.

But Des ruined my plan.

She seemed to have tripped over something when she tried to adjust her position but lost her balance and crashed into a crate. The people that had followed us heard it and rushed over to us. At least now I could get a good look at them and decide if it would be possible to fight them.

I was right about them being a male and female and about them having very different builds.

The woman was extremely beautiful and looked very kind. She was quite skinny and had long dark brown hair gathered into a high ponytail. She wore a pink hoodie and light denim skinny jeans. She wore a pair of flats, which she probably regretted seeing how cold it was outside. She also had a sports bag thrown over one shoulder.

The man, on the other hand, couldn't exactly be defined as beautiful. He wasn't really ugly but he wasn't stereotypically attractive. His build was very big and he looked extremely muscular. His dark skin had a lot of scars on it and he wore simple clothes; a pair of jeans, an army jacket, a pair of sneakers and a large backpack.

Though, when I think about it I probably should call them a boy and a girl. They only seemed to be about 18 years old which wasn't much older than me.

The girl rushed over to Des and it looked like she was going to help her up to her feet but I stopped her from getting too close. She might have looked kind but I didn't trust her. She must have caught on about my suspicions of her and apologized.

"I'm sorry," she said and backed away to give us some space. "I didn't mean to get too close."

She and the boy watched me help Des up and then motioned for her to stand behind me. I pulled out my sword and held it defensively in front of me.

"We're sorry", the guy said, taking a step back and pulled the girl along with him. "We don't want to hurt you; we just heard you talking about Camp Jupiter and thought you might be demigods."

I made no move to put down my weapon and that had apparently annoyed Des.

"Oh come on Dyl!" she exclaimed and pushed in front of me. I looked at her as if she were an idiot. We didn't know these people and she wanted me to put down my weapon. She really had a lot to learn but I did as she wanted and attached the sword to my hip. Des looked satisfied.

She looked at the two strangers and seemed to take them both in. She apparently didn't think they were threatening and started talking to them.

"Who are you? And why do you know about Camp Jupiter?"

The girl smiled at her directness and answered her.

"My name is Silena Beauregard and this is my boyfriend Charles Beckendorf", she said and pointed first at herself and then at the guy. "I'm a daughter of Aphrodite and he is a son of Hephaestus." The guy, whose name was apparently Charles, gave us an awkward wave. They used the Greek names.

Des seemed to be satisfied with their answer and introduced us.

"I'm Desirée Santiago. I'm a demigod, I think, but I have no idea who my parent is." She pointed at me and said, "This is Dylan Jones and she's the daughter of-"

She remembered what I'd told her and changed her sentence. "Someone. She hasn't told me yet." Silena looked a bit suspicious but she didn't say anything.

I turned towards them.

"Answer her question", I said. "Why do you know about Camp Jupiter?"