The Broken and the Hunted (Percy Jackson Fanfic)

chapter 22

Third person pov

The whole hunt was gathered around a large table in their campsite, the table was covered in paper with maps, and information on different people. Annabeth was moving papers around picking up one or another before putting it aside. "So we have maps of the mansion and all the information of the personal hired by the target William. However I don't see a way that we can convince him to let a group of young girls guard him from an assassination attempt." Annabeth was saying.

"Oh come on we could do a much better job than those lousy men ever could." A hunter complained.

"Well we know that but he doesn't so I don't know what we should do. We could hide in the area and then try to fight off talon when he attacks but that has its own set of problems." Thalia stated.

"The party is only a couple weeks away we need to figure something out fast." Alice said.

"How about you hire someone to help?" A voice chimed in.

"Well we might be able to but wouldn't he consider that as cheating becau-" Annabeth was saying before she stopped and quickly stood up to look at the source of the voice.

A female with a hooded cloak stood behind the hunters who were now surrounding the new person with drawn hunting knives. She quickly held her hands up in an act of surrender "I come in peace." She said softly.

"Who are you, and state your business here!" Thalia growled aggressively.

"We met a couple days ago, I'm Angel, I'm one of Talon's companions." Angel said.

"Why are you here, come to spy on us and report back to your master." Phobie accused her.

"No not at all I was guessing you might be stumped at what to do so I decided to offer my help, I mean Talon means what he says and he didn't say you couldn't hire help so here I am." She explained making Annabeth think.

"Ok but how can you help us?" Annabeth asked making Thalia turn to her shocked " you are going to take her help she said it herself she's with him! She's probably just a spy to see when he can come and attack more of the hunters with those damn coins."

"I promise to you I came with the full intent to help you. The group that I work with is pretty well known by the darker sides of the world so I could get you in as guards." Angel assured them.

"Why would you help us go against your boss?" Annabeth asked.

"Well he is independent, he formed the group I work for but doesn't work with us and he counts it as a type of training if we go against him so therefore if you hire me I can easily get you in there."

"You said your well know by the darker side of the world why would a man in the leading of eco-energy tech know about you?"

"Well there is more to him then meets the eye that's all I can say for now, I can't give out information for free you know." She said with a small shrug.

"I still don't think we're should trust her." Thalia muttered under her breath.

With a glance around the room Annabeth made eye contact with Artemis. With a barley noticeable nod Annabeth asked "If, we do agree and hire you. How would you get us in?"

With a smirk Angel replied "well that's easy darling, he has already hired us to provide security for his little party. "

"But when we win and stop him from killing this guy won't he just say we cheated by working with you?" Alice asked.

Angel barked out a dry laugh "even if he could fail he wouldn't complain. He is very particular about his words and promises. He never says anything he doesn't mean and never lies. If he leaves a loop hole, he meant to. Just to give himself that extra challenge, and to test his opponent."

The hunters looked at each other in disbelief. Thalia noticed Angel closely looking at Annabeth, who was deep in thought. "Alright I'll think about it, how do I get ahold of you if we do agree to work together?" She asked.

Angel pulled out a card from somewhere and placed it on the table in front of her.  "Just in case you want to research who we are." Then she winked at us and slowly faced from our sight.

Annabeth picked up the small business card and looked at the simple script in neat letters 'the scarlet reapers'. Her heart almost stopped reading those words. When she was researching Talon she ran across rumors of them and dug into it some more. What she found, scared her. The best of the best from around the world weren't good enough to join the scarlet reapers, from rogue demigods to monsters even meta-humans they took on any job from anyone. If you wanted an escort through a hostile area, or a whole town wiped from existence, They would do it.

'Just who are those people?' she thought to herself.