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

CHAPTER 20, We meet an old friend

CHARLES

The rest of the way up the mountain was quite safe. There were monsters here and there but we were able to avoid them. And those we couldn't avoid got hit with one of Leo's hammers.

The way up the mountain was slow, and it gave me a lot of time to think. When I first saw the Laistrygonian giants, I froze. When Percy and I had tried to destroy the Princess Andromeda I had been caught by Laistrygonian giants, and if it wasn't for them I might have been able to make it out alive. But in the end, I didn't. They slowed me down, so when the ship exploded I couldn't get away.

In that moment, I couldn't help but think of Silena. I had promised her that I would make it out of there alive and that we would have a picnic in the strawberry field afterwards. I broke that promise to her, and my last thoughts were that I was sorry. I was sorry that I couldn't keep my promise.

I came back to my senses when Silena linked her arm through mine. She leaned into my arm and I could smell the scent of her shampoo. When we had travelled we couldn't shower a lot, and when we could we used cheap shampoo's we stole from hotels. I had missed the smell of Silena's vanilla and chocolate shampoo.

I kissed the top of her head and she smiled. We were about to run straight into a camp filled with monsters but she could still steal all of my attention.

"Stop," Dylan whispered and hunched behind a large rock. We all followed suit and I waited for something to happen. I didn't have to wait long until a dracanae walked past us. She was talking to herself, hissing smugly. We waited until she was out of sight before we continued walking.

"Why didn't you stab it?" Desirée asked Dylan. Dylan readjusted her backpack before she answered.

"Sometimes you have to pick your battles. She wasn't posing a threat to us." Desirée didn't seem to understand what she meant, and I couldn't blame her. We had taken down monsters that didn't exactly pose a threat before, so I could understand her confusion.

We walked for a few more minutes before we could hear faint growls and hisses. We approached the sounds slowly until the things emitting it came into view. There were about a few dozen monsters at the top of the mountain, all of them standing in a circle around something. I couldn't see what was in the middle of the circle until it stood up. In the middle of the monster circle was a huge bull-like creature with an axe on its back. It was hairy and buff, and I tried to remember what it was. The name was right on my tongue, but I couldn't remember it.

"The Minotaur," Silena whispered in my ear.

"They look like they're worshipping it," Leo whispered. He seemed to feel a bit better now that he had felt when we were in Bunker 9.

"Yeah," Jake muttered. "And what's with his eye? It's all golden and glowy."

I didn't know what he was talking about until I looked closer at the Minotaur's face. His right eye was glowing gold. It looked like...

"Luke's eyes..." Silena whispered. She was staring at it and her hands were shaking. I put my arm around her and pulled her close. I knew how guilty she felt about betraying the camp, and especially how Luke had manipulated her. And she was right, the Minotaur's eye looked exactly like Luke's had looked when he was being possessed by Kronos. But that couldn't be the reason for the Minotaur's eye being golden. Luke had destroyed Kronos and there was no way he'd be able to reassemble his body that quickly, unless...

"If we got resurrected," I whispered to Silena. "Maybe Kronos would be able to be resurrected too?"

Silena looked at me, fear clear in her eyes. Her mouth formed the word 'no' without any sound coming out.

I jumped when a low, chilly voice I recognized said:

"I think we have some visitors."

The Minotaur was looking at where we were hiding, and all the other monsters followed his line of sight. I could feel their stares and it brought chills up my spine.

"Massssssster," something hissed. "Can we eat the visssitorsssss?"

"No," the chilling voice of the Minotaur said. "We should welcome our guests first."

I looked over at Dylan to see what she made of the situation. Her eyes were stern and her jaw was set; she looked ready for battle. We silently agreed on what we had to do and slowly emerged from our hiding place. The monsters growled and hissed when they saw us, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. I wasn't as scared as Desirée and Jake though. Desirée was practically glued to Dylan's side and Jake was hiding behind Leo, which wasn't such a good hiding spot seeing as he was at least three inches taller.

Silena slowly got something from her back pocket and hid it in the sleeve of her hoodie. I had a pretty good guess of what it was. When we were travelling through Mexico I had found some pieces of celestial bronze. Silena didn't have a weapon at the time so it felt like an obvious decision to make her one. It took a lot of time and effort but eventually, I finished it. The weapon I had made for her was a comb, or at least that was what it looked like. One half of the comb was actually a lid, and when that lid was removed a sword revealed itself. I tried to make it like Percy's sword, but I only had so much material and skill. But even though I wasn't proud of the weapon I'd made, she seemed happy with it, and that's what mattered the most.

"What do we have here?" the Minotaur said with a cruel grin on its face. "My, my, my! Six little demigods who's come to battle the big bad Minotaur!" It laughed an earth-shaking laugh and the other monsters joined in. It chilled me down to my bones. The monsters continued laughing and slowly surrounded us. Every way I looked, there were laughing monsters, glaring teeth and hungry eyes. If the Minotaur hadn't told them to wait they'd probably had demolished us in a second.

To be honest, I was completely terrified. People have told me that they see me as this calm, strong leader but that's not true. I'm scared. I'm scared a lot. I'm scared of how people view me, I'm scared that people will compare my machine's to my dad's, I'm scared that Silena will leave me and I'm scared to lose everything again.

But even if I was scared, I couldn't show it. I needed to be strong, I couldn't show fear. I would not let those stupid monsters the satisfaction of scaring me.

I grasped my weapon tighter, and locked eyes with the Minotaur. I was going to be prepared for whatever it was planning.

"Is it Silena Beauregard I see?" the Minotaur asked and walked closer to her. She became startled and I stepped in front of her.

"It's so lovely to see you again." He grinned at her and she unsheathed her sword. A sharp bronze sword sprung out from the comb handle and she pointed it against the Minotaur.

"Now, now, Silena, we were on the same team once! You should treat an old friend better." Okay, this guy was starting to piss me off. It was obvious that he was trying to use Silena's past against her, and he was so not getting out of there unharmed because of that.

"Shut up," Silena growled. Her voice was shaking and tears had started to pool in her eyes, but you couldn't miss the absolute hatred in her eyes.

"Silena," Jake asked. "What's going on?" He, Desirée and Dylan looked at Silena expectantly. Leo glanced at her too, with a look of sympathy on his face. I guess they wanted to see what she was going to do. Silena was stayed quiet and simply glared at the Minotaur. It shook its head disappointedly.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk Silena. Haven't you told your companions how you were a traitor to Camp Half-Blood? How you told Lord Kronos all of your camps little secrets? How you betrayed everyo-"

"SHUT UP!" Silena screamed and lunged at it. It dodged her attack but the damage was done. All the monsters lunged at us.