The Gathering

Chapter Twenty

"Come out, come out wherever you are!" The man said with a cackle.

"Belshazzar, why don't you bring out our new friends so we can see what they look like"

At this, another man on his left stepped forward and, almost immediately, a loud screeching noise erupted in our ears. It was unbearable. We all ran out into the clearing just for the sake of stopping that noise.

"Ah hello, my young demigods. So nice to meet you. My name is Matalel, and if I'm correct, this man here is your father, Riley"

"Please, let him go. He has nothing to do with this" Riley said, through tears.

"Alas, that is not our intent. This is" Matalel said as he brought a dagger from within his robes and cut Riley's fathers throat.

"NOOO! DAD!" Riley screamed. Me and James jumped forward to hold Riley back and make sure he didn't attack Matalel.

Matalel just stood there with Riley's fathers body at his feet, blood pooling, with a wicked grin on his face. He raised his hand and then pointed it at us, apparently making a horde of zombies pour out from the alleyways and doorways near him.

Riley got himself together and there was a fury in his eyes. He charged the zombies and brought out his chain. Using his other hand he made balls of light appear that blew up the zombies in his wake. Well that was new...

Once we all got over the shock of the thing we all charged after Riley into battle. James with Chrysaor, Ava with her moon bow, Lindsay with her whip, Kat with her daggers, and me with my daggers. We made slow progress, since there were so many, but it was clear we were winning. Slash, hack, stab. Slash, hack, stab. Slash, hack, stab.

Matalel, Belshazzar, and the other cloaked man stood back and watched the fight in amusement. "Fight your way to Matalel. That's the only way to end this!" I yelled to our group.

"Oh I hate to tire you out, especially since youre going to try and fight me now" Matalel said, flicking his hands to the side and making the zombies go back to the alleyways and houses.

We all grouped up in the middle of the street, about 50 feet away from Matalel. We all prepared to fight, possibly, our toughest battle yet. "I'm not letting you guys possibly get killed. Let me face him alone" I said.

"Vande, you can't do this-" Lindsay began.

"Yes. I am" I said, as I began walking forward.

"Ah, so cocky are we?" Matalel said with a cackle. We met and drew our weapons. Me and my two daggers, and Matalel with his scythe. Again, black as night. And scary. There might as well have been blood dripping from the scyhte, as i was alredy imagining it. Probably my blood, but there was soon to be some of his own too. That, I would make sure of.

I attacked first, just trying to get a better feel for his battle strategy, but quicker than anything I had seen before, Matalel blocked my attack and spun me around so that I was facing my friends and his scythe was pressed against my neck. The shadows pressed at my very being and I felt every fear I had ever felt in that split second, and I found I could no longer even move on my own body.

"Remember this place, demigod: The Scar. You will return here soon, and I will not hesitate to kill you then. This isn't the last time you'll see your friends parents die, and there's nothing you can do about it" Matalel whispered into my ear.

He then let me go and threw me back to my friends, and they all rushed over to see if I was okay. "Vande, are you okay?"

"Holy Hera, he was fast"

"Don't worry about this, next time we will be prepared"

While everyone was barraging me with questions and reassurances, I heard Matalel talk to the unnamed man, "Kodiak, if you would do the honors" He said.

"I would love to" Kodiak replied, and something incredibly peculiar happened. His form flickered and he looked like a ghost. When his form came back into view he had purple eyes. I made the mistake of looking into his eyes and began to feel drowsy. Next thing I knew, My eyes dropped and i passed out.

I've had dreams before, but nothing like this. I was inside my body but I was just a spectator inside his body. I could only see forward, but from what I could see I was back in DC at camp.

Everyone was running around, but for what i didn't know. I recognized faces and names but when I called out no one heard me.

"Did you look over at the McDonalds?"

"Has anyone found anything yet"

"Where did they always sneak off to?"

Then I saw Hanna, she was really worried. "Where could you be Doug?" She muttered.

What does this mean. Why would Doug be gone?

"Hello Vande" a voice behind me said. I turned around and saw it was the cloaked man named Kodiak. "We have your friend Doug. You will be meeting him again soon"

With that I awoke. I sat up and looked around. It was cold. Really cold. I appeared to be in a graveyard at night, I have no idea where though. I looked around some more and saw everybody else scattered throughout the graveyard, but we were all tied up to different gravestones. "Hey guys, are you up!" I yelled.

At this, Ava and James awoke. "Where are we Vande?" Ava asked.

"I wish I knew. We need to get out of these if we has any hope of surviving and figuring out where we are" I said. I began fidgeting with the rope to see how loose it was. It wasn't. I looked around to see if anyone else had awoken, but we were still the only ones.

I looked over at Ava and saw she had taken her shoe off and began digging into the dirt. "What in gods name are you doing Ava?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?! I'm digging a hole so that when it gets big enough I can slide under and free everyone else" Ava said.

"Spoken like a true Athenian" James remarked, with a laugh.

While Ava dug her hole, I looked around at the graves, to see if that would clue me in to where we were.

One said "Marty Creed. Self proclaimed king of the monkeys. Tragically killed, although the murderer is a mystery. 1999-2014"

Another read "Hazel Levesque. Although she was thought to be a witch, she was a hero to us all.
1928-1942" Hazel... Hazel Levesque... That name sounds familiar, but I don't know where I know it from.

By now, Ava had dug the hole and slipped her slim body from underneath. She detached her sun beam and it turned into her sword. She came over to me and James first, cutting our bonds.

I walked over to the gravestone of Hazel Levesque and inspected it. I couldn't find anything on it, so I walked over to Lindsay and took out my dagger to release her.

As I got down to cut the rope I heard a whooshing sound come from behind me. I turned, and a boy with hazel eyes and buzzcut brown hair was squatting beside me. "Well hello there, might I ask what you're doing?" The boy said.

I think this guy is a child of Hades. We must already be in New Orleans. Weird that they would take us here, though.

"Seriously though, why are you here" The boy said bluntly. "Why did we find you unconscious on top of our home"

"I wish I could answer that, believe me" I said.

"How about this. We lock you up and can take our time questioning all of you" The boy said cherfully as he grabbed me and shadow traveled. That didnt sound so cheery to me.

All too common in the past several days I felt the uncomfortableness of the shadows. It wasn't a feeling Id describe as pleasant.

I appeared underground inside a jail cell made of dirt. The boy shadow traveled back up and soon returned with a newly awakened Lindsay.

"Welcome to the club" I said sarcastically.

Soon everyone was in my cell and the neighboring cell. I explained my dream to Lindsay and Ava, who were in the cell with me. Ava was disturbed by my dream, but wasn't sure what to make of it. We both thought it was weird they thought Doug was our friend.

"...And now we wait..." James said from the adjoining cell.