The wind howling through the alley swept away the golden dust of two more hellhounds we had just slaughtered. It mingled with the snow plastering itself to my hair. What a repulsive stench. Luke was wrapping the final section of bandage around my forearm. The fabric stained red in a matter of seconds, but the compression managed to dull that irritating, burning sting. Clarisse was leaning flat against the brick wall, staring down at her own arm, where her bandage was already beginning to seep with blood too. She wasn't complaining—which, in and of itself, was a flat-out miracle.
"Damn mutts… how the hell did they track us down so fast, Thorne? Are there more of them out there?" Clarisse muttered.
"Yeah, but for now, we're good," I replied seriously.
"This will hold for a few hours," Luke said, stuffing the rest of the roll back into his pack. "But we need water and some hot food before we catch the next bus. Our bodies won't endure the cold and the fighting on nothing but dry rations."
"Seriously, we have ambrosia," Clarisse said, looking over at Luke, who let out a sigh.
"Clarisse, we already talked about this: if we pop ambrosia for every little scratch, one of us is gonna die, and when we actually need it, there won't be anything left," I said with a smirk, making her glare at me and flash her middle finger.
"Yeah, we have it, but it's for absolute emergencies," Luke agreed, cracking a smile.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Clarisse grumbled, letting out a heavy sigh.
I gave a nod, wiping the remaining blood from my nose with my jacket sleeve. I clamp my eyes shut for a second, letting my Seismic Sense fan out across the surrounding sidewalks. The hellhounds were still pacing near the Port Authority entrance, completely disoriented by the sheer volume of light and people. But I register something else… a fainter presence, harder to pinpoint, circling the blocks as if it were catching our scent. I snap my eyes open and lock onto Luke, who was peering upward with narrowed eyes.
"What is it? Another monster nearby?" Clarisse asked.
"Yeah, but something is off. Those mutts… I thought there were seven, but now I can't tell for sure. The ones tracking us are steering clear of the light and the crowds, but…" I looked over at Luke, who gave a firm nod.
"Someone is watching us," Luke said, looking over at Clarisse, whose face turned dead serious.
"My thoughts exactly. But some of them must have an absurd level of intelligence, or they're just waiting for their moment," I noted.
"All monsters possess intelligence, Caleb, but most let their hunger do the talking. We have to stay sharp," Luke said, looking at Clarisse, who gave a nod before turning her glare back to me.
"Are you actually gonna explain your little trick, or are you gonna keep hiding it, jackass?" Clarisse questioned.
"You aren't completely brainless, right? You should already have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. But if you think I'm about to map it out for you, you're dead wrong—because someone could be listening to us right now. And if you haven't realized what's going on around us yet, our problems are much bigger than I thought," I said. Luke threw a hand in front of Clarisse, who was already sizing me up to throw a punch, while I just flipped her off.
"You... piece of work. You're lucky we have more important things to worry about. The second things quiet down, I'm breaking your nose," Clarisse replied, cracking a dark smile.
"They aren't gonna wait around forever," I said, freezing her out. "We need to clear out of this grid right now. And don't even think about heading back to Port Authority—they know we were there and they have the hounds."
"Then where are we heading, genius?" Clarisse asked. "Are we sleeping on the sidewalk?"
"There's a smaller terminal over on 50th and Seventh. Interstate buses stop there—less foot traffic and fewer shadows," Luke answered before I could even open my mouth. "If we move, we can make it there in twenty minutes and catch the eight o'clock bus to Plattsburgh."
Clarisse snorted but was already on the move, adjusting the wrapped spear slung across her back. "This better be worth it. If I stay freezing cold for much longer, I'm impaling the both of you just to warm up—and right after that, I'm breaking your nose, Thorne."
I just let out a grunt of agreement and led the way out of the alley, scanning both sides of the street. The New York crowd swallowed us right back in as we walked. Clarisse kept a sharp eye on our surroundings while Luke guided us from the front. I completely shut down my Seismic Sense—too many people. It was a massive blind spot for me. I needed to find a workaround. If we ever ran into a monster horde, this was a weakness I flat-out couldn't afford to have.
After a few more minutes of walking, we pulled up to a small, cramped diner on the corner of 49th. The harsh scent of greasy burgers and hot coffee hit me before I even shoved the door open. The place was packed with truck drivers and travelers hauling luggage; nobody paid us any attention. We slid into a booth in the furthest corner, right by the window.
"By my mother, I'm starving," I said, making Luke look up at me from across the table while Clarisse tried to choke back a laugh. "What? It's just a figure of speech, you know? Whenever you guys say 'oh my God,' just say 'oh my father' or 'oh my mother'—get it? Gods." I gestured with my fingers, making Luke let out a sigh.
"No, thank you. I'm good," Luke muttered, while Clarisse just stared at me.
"Seriously, you are so incredibly stupid, but you just won't quit—you keep going. At least you're the team clown," Clarisse said, glaring at me. I just stayed silent, ignoring them completely. It wasn't like they would ever understand.
"What can I get for you kids?" a waitress with black hair asked. She was pale with a pair of really striking green eyes—but a sudden shiver ran down my spine as a memory of that damn Empousa flashed through my mind.
"A grilled cheese and a black coffee," I said. The woman jotted it down with a smile, looking over at Clarisse.
"Unlike grandpa over here, I want a roast beef sandwich and a strawberry milkshake," she said. I just made a "she's crazy" gesture to the woman, who shifted her gaze to Luke, biting her lip.
"And for you, sweetie?" she asked, her voice dropping into a much sweeter tone, making Clarisse and me exchange a look.
"Just a black espresso, please," Luke requested with a polite smile. The woman gave a nod and walked away.
"Seriously, she is totally into you," I joked with Luke, who just cracked a smile.
"No, she's not," Luke replied. I simply shrugged my shoulders.
The orders arrived, and Clarisse tore into that sandwich like she hadn't eaten in days—and honestly, she probably hadn't had a decent meal since lunch back at camp. Luke sipped his coffee, glancing out the window every now and then. I drank my coffee, feeling the heat cascade down my throat and soothe my aching muscles, and took a huge bite of the grilled cheese… absolutely delicious.
"You're deep in thought," Luke noted. "What's running through your head?"
"The prophecy," I replied in a low voice, taking another bite and washing it down with a sip.
Luke stopped eating, furrowing his brow. Clarisse paused too, the straw of her milkshake still in her mouth, locking her eyes on me with genuine interest despite trying to act nonchalant.
"I heard talk of a place like that when I was out on a quest two years ago," Luke spoke quietly, scanning our surroundings to make sure absolutely nobody was listening in. "An old, abandoned psychiatric institute up near the Canadian border. They say it's been deserted for decades, but monsters use it as a sanctuary. A few demigods who passed through there came back… different."
A chill raced straight down my spine. "Different how?"
"Insane," Clarisse answered, finishing off her sandwich and wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "My older sister went on a quest near that grid. She said she could hear voices scraping inside her head, even after she made it back to camp. Chiron had to perform a purification ritual on her."
"You have an older sister?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"Not by blood, but she had already aged out of camp before you got here," Clarisse replied, sucking down the rest of her milkshake.
"Isn't that a massive coincidence? This is getting way too off," I noted, making both of them freeze. A heavy silence settled over our table. Luke sipped his coffee, and Clarisse stared down at the table.
"Yeah, it is incredibly off. Caleb… why me?" Clarisse asked, locking her eyes dead on mine. "You had much better choices. So why am I your rival?"
"To be completely honest, I don't really know either. The name just popped into my head and I rolled with it. Why the hell not?" I replied, finishing off the last of my grilled cheese.
"The gods handed down one quest, the Oracle gave us another. Chiron and Argus are acting completely sketchy… and to top it all off, we're being hunted," Luke said dead seriously.
I fell silent, staring at the dark coffee inside my cup. The prophecy is no joke, and something is seriously off. What could it be… well, we didn't have time. "We'll think about this later," I finally said, standing up. "First, we need to get there alive."
We paid the bill and stepped back out into the snow. The wind was stronger now, and the blizzard was starting to pick up as we walked. The feeling that something was wrong grew even heavier.
We reached the station on 50th—it was tiny, filthy, and reeked of mold and urine. Only a few people were waiting for the bus, sitting on cracked plastic benches. I scanned the area with my Seismic Sense before we even walked in: just a few signatures, nothing out of the ordinary.
"Looks safe," Luke said, nodding his head. I walked up to the counter.
"Three tickets to Plattsburgh," I said, looking at the elderly clerk who had nothing but a few white hairs left on his head. He cracked a smile.
"Here you go, kid," he said. I took the cash Argus gave us and paid. I grabbed the change, and as I walked back to where Luke and Clarisse were waiting, I picked up a familiar presence approaching—but it wasn't a monster.
A short man with a shaggy beard and goat legs concealed beneath baggy pants approached us, pretending to be just another passenger. It's a satyr, I thought, looking at Luke, who placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.
"Gus sends his regards," he spoke quietly, just loud enough for us to hear, while pretending to check a schedule board. "Chiron discovered something: your weapon, Leviathan. It's giving off an incredibly strong divine signature. That's why the monsters are tracking you down so fast. And it's not just hellhounds—worse things are moving down from the North to find you. Some are already watching."
My heart hammered against my chest. I looked down at the bracelet on my wrist where Leviathan was concealed. "Son of a bitch… why didn't he mention this back at camp?" I asked, catching the satyr off guard.
"He said you'd react like that. But someone banned him from speaking. I'm the opening," the satyr replied.
"Is there any way to block it?" Luke asked, deadly serious.
"For now, only distance. The further you get from populated areas, the more the Mist helps mask the signature. But be careful: there's something bigger coming. Something that wants that weapon just as much as it wants your head."
"How do you know this? And give me the names of whoever wants to kill me," I asked, taking a step forward—but Luke gripped my shoulders.
"He can't. Don't waste your time. Thank him and let him go," Luke said seriously. The satyr gave a nod, a sorrowful look in his eyes, and walked away, blending in with a group of passengers who had just arrived.
Clarisse stared at me, her eyes narrowing. "Your damn weapon is gonna get us killed before the prophecy even plays out."
"Go fuck yourself. You think I knew about this?"—Luke cut me off, clapping a hand over my mouth.
"Watch your mouth. Not just your words, but names have power. Our situation is already messy enough, don't make it worse," Luke said, locking his eyes firmly on mine. Then he turned his gaze back to Clarisse. "And that goes for you too. We have a quest. We're going to pull this off as a team. So if you're gonna open your mouth, make sure it's to say something useful." Luke pulled his hand away from my face. I stayed silent.
"Let's move," I replied, catching the boarding announcement for our bus. "Let's just hope the blizzard slows them down more than it slows us." Luke nodded while Clarisse took the lead, stepping onto the bus first. The vehicle was old, with stained fabric seats and a heater that barely worked halfway. But it was nearly empty—just about five other passengers scattered across the rows. We took the very last seats in the back. Clarisse threw her head back and closed her eyes, snoring lightly within five minutes. Luke kept his eyes glued to the window; I sat with the backpack wedged between my legs, fighting off sleep.
The highway grew progressively darker as we left the city behind. The snow was falling so heavily that the bus's headlights could barely cut through ten meters ahead. The pine forest flanking the road looked like a solid black wall.
Damn gods… it's a trap. How do they even know about my weapon? I got it from the system. It has to be something divine, or some god wants it for a reason.
I closed my eyes just to rest for a bit and calm down, and I was immediately yanked into a dream, as if someone had hitched a ride on my consciousness.
I was in a forest identical to the one outside the window, but darker, freezing—the snow wasn't falling here. The ground was slick with blood. In the center of the clearing, a weak light pulsed, like a dying flashlight. But the glow wasn't white or yellow—it was crimson, bleeding from the edges as if it were wounded.
A voice whispered in my ear, raspy and trembling:
"Ragnarök does not wait for Greek gods."
I spun around, and right behind me loomed a massive shadow, taller than any tree, with eyes that burned like hot coals. It opened its jaws and unleashed a roar that made the entire world shake.
I snapped awake, startled, my heart pounding violently. The bus was still rolling along. Clarisse was still fast asleep. Luke looked over at me from the side, concerned.
"Nightmare?" he asked quietly.
"No… what the hell was that?" I looked down at Leviathan in its bracelet form, which was vibrating. I don't get nightmares—the system blocks mental invasions. But this was different.
Before I could even answer, my Seismic Sense triggered. My nose began to bleed. Outside: something massive and incredibly fast was tearing through the forest alongside the highway, matching the bus's speed. It wasn't a hellhound. It felt heavier and way more agile. It was closing in fast.
"Something's tracking us," I said in a low voice, already tensing my wrist. Leviathan began to burn against my bracelet.
Luke sat upright in his seat, his hand moving toward the sword hidden at his waist. "How many?"
"Just one," I answered, clamping my eyes shut to focus my senses. "But it's… bigger." I wiped the blood from my nose with my jacket sleeve.
"Folks, the blizzard is getting pretty bad up ahead. We're gonna pull over at the rest stop at the next exit for about forty minutes until the worst of it passes. Sorry for the delay."
Luke and I exchanged a look. "This is bad. Really bad," I said, looking at Luke.
The bus pulled off the highway and came to a stop at a tiny, deserted rest area, featuring nothing but a closed-up diner and a few broken streetlamps. The snow was falling so hard I could barely see the parking lot entrance.
The other passengers started filing out, complaining about the delay. Clarisse woke up from the movement, letting out a yawn.
"We've got trouble," I said quietly to the two of them. "Something huge is tracking us in the woods. And now we're sitting ducks."
Clarisse went on high alert instantly, her hand darting to the spear on her back. "What kind of thing?"
"No clue. But it's not small." The three of us gave a firm nod and stepped off the bus together. The air was so freezing it hurt to breathe. I walked away a bit, closing my eyes to pin down the vibrations. The creature had stopped at the edge of the woods, about two hundred meters away from us. It was waiting. But for what?
"It's not attacking," I murmured.
"Maybe it's waiting for us to split up," Luke said, stepping up right next to me. Clarisse slotted herself to my left, ready for a brawl.
Then I registered another presence. Fainter, blending right in with the commuters. Something that had stepped off the bus right alongside us without me picking it up. I looked over at the cluster of people near the entrance. Standing right among them was a tall man in a black coat, completely static, staring dead at us. His eyes… weren't human. They were completely yellow, like a serpent's.
Seeing me stare him down, he flashed a grin, revealing teeth that were way too sharp for a mortal mouth.
"Not just one," I said under my breath. "We've got two problems."
The man started walking in our direction, taking his time. And from the woods, I caught the sound of branches snapping. The massive thing was moving in.
I made Leviathan materialize in my hand. Luke drew his sword, and Clarisse unwrapped her spear, blue sparks leaping from the tip.
The three of us dropped into position, backs to each other, forming a tight triangle.
"Good luck, Thorne," Clarisse murmured right beside me, zero mockery in her voice.
"You too," I replied, tightening my grip on the handle of my axe.
I noticed the man in the black coat widen his grin, his sharp teeth fully revealing themselves as he took in our defensive stance. The surrounding mortals stood completely static, staring at us as if they were hypnotized.
The skin on his face stretched in a grotesque metamorphosis, shifting to reveal dark-green scales underneath. His coat ripped open across the back as a massive serpent body erupted from his waist down, completely replacing his legs. He hoisted himself nearly ten feet into the air, his scaly tail coiling into the snow with a sickening, heavy scraping sound. His yellow eyes gleamed.
The system began to ping wildly inside my brain, irritating me, but I shut it out—just like I did with the hellhounds. Now wasn't the time.
"A Lamia. This is getting messy," Luke noted. I just stared her down as her breath rolled over us, replacing the crisp winter air with the unbearable stench of rotting flesh and sulfur.
She finished coiling up to her full height right in front of us. Her upper body, which belonged to a grotesquely beautiful woman, writhed over a colossal, scaly serpent tail that crushed the asphalt and parking lot ice like eggshells.
Her triple rows of razor-sharp teeth glinted under the dim, flickering streetlamps. A lime-green venom dripped from her mouth, searing the snow the second it splashed onto the ground beneath her.
The mortals scattered around—the bus passengers and truck drivers who had just stepped out—remained completely frozen in place, utterly hypnotized and paralyzed. I could see a heavy, localized mist swirling around the creature. They stared at the ground with glassy eyes, unable to blink, as the snow began to stack on top of their shoulders.
"So young… so full of life, and possessing such a mouth-watering divine blood," the Lamia sibilated. The female voice echoed from her throat, multiplying into a raspy, dual-toned drone that reverberated straight inside our ears. "The Queen of Witches wants your blood…" Her eyes locked onto me. I felt Luke's body lock up beside me. "But the rest of you will do nicely to fill my stomach on this cold, lonely night."
Clarisse didn't even wait for the bitch to finish her monologue and charged forward with a feral roar.
The idiot completely threw out any shred of caution and went straight for it. She took two massive strides forward, twirling her spear and shredding the remaining worn cloth covering Maimer. Instantly, the celestial bronze tip of her weapon crackled in a blinding blue hue, snapping electric arcs against the foul air as she went all-in, aiming for the serpent tail to pierce through the monster's flesh from the bottom up.
I didn't move an inch to follow her lead. Shifting away from Clarisse's impulsive style—which honestly used to be my go-to—I decided to change my approach. Since the Lamia was hyper-focused on me, almost entirely ignoring Clarisse, I engaged my Seismic Sense. It exploded from the soles of my feet, sending invisible shockwaves ripping across dozens of meters of solid ground.
My eyes widened as I processed that level of power. The wind snapped, and the sound of Clarisse's spear instantly vanished from my conscious mind. My racing heart rate plummeted into a slow, steady thumping rhythm. My stance turned rock-solid. I felt the shaft of Leviathan vibrate in my hand, as if it were pumped up for what was coming. It felt incredible—I could sense the surrounding forest, the sap pumping through the tree trunks, and the roots threading through the earth beneath the snow. It was like millions of veins connecting directly below my feet.
My mind mapped out the subsoil in a split second. Five meters from our position, right behind the tree line of snow-covered pines, the earth and ice were being ruthlessly pulverized.
Through the sheer impact of paws hitting the ground, my senses mapped out the exact shape of the creature that was hunting us and had decided to make its move. Holy shit, my Seismic Sense was actually capable of this… I cracked a grin, pumped up but also slightly freaked out by the imagery inside my head. It was a massive, monstrous wolf, easily the size of a full-grown grizzly bear, with bristling gray fur covered in jagged ice needles.
Its crimson eyes burned like hot coals. Long, yellowish fangs resembling daggers jutted out from its half-open jaws, spraying saliva that glistened in the freezing air.
"Crap!" The ground beneath me shuddered at that exact moment. A second wolf burst through the tree line in a terrifyingly quiet, massive leap. These sons of bitches were working together—that's why the Lamia was just dodging Clarisse with a mocking smirk, acting as the perfect bait for an ambush.
The wolf came straight from above, claws extended, targeting Luke's exposed back while he was still tracking Clarisse's advance on the giant serpent.
"Watch out, Luke!" I yelled.
Without hesitating, I snapped my left hand out. A thick root ripped through the asphalt, wrapped around Luke's ankle, and yanked him violently back, launching him several meters away and sending him rolling heavily into the snowbank.
At the exact fraction of a second Luke's body cleared the area, the second wolf slammed down right where he had been standing.
BOOM!
The monster's iron claws shattered the ground, tearing up the asphalt and kicking up a cloud of smoke, ice, and debris. The creature hoisted its snout directly toward me, just inches from my face, its jaws open as it unleashed a low, guttural snarl that rattled the air.
The Lamia's playful demeanor vanished the moment she saw the wolf. Realizing that the surprise attack had failed because of me, her female face contorted into a monstrous scowl of pure hatred. Her serpent pupils narrowed, and she propelled herself forward with her tail, lunging at Clarisse for real. The sharp claws of her human upper body shredded the air at an insane speed, forcing Clarisse to use the shaft of Maimer to block the pounce, sending her flying backward from the impact.
"Behind you, Clarisse!" I yelled, sensing through my Seismic Sense that the first wolf was tearing through the brush to ambush her from the flank.
I raised my left hand and commanded the vegetation of the deserted rest stop. Two thick stakes of hardened wood erupted from the snow-covered soil, crossing in front of Clarisse to serve as a makeshift shield against the snapping claws of the serpent. The Lamia slammed full-force against the wood, shattering it into splinters, but it bought enough time for Clarisse to dodge the strike.
She locked her eyes on me, and a wicked, cruel smile returned to the serpent-woman's face.
"If you surrender, boy, I won't kill your two friends," the Lamia taunted, her voice sibilating as if she had hundreds of snakes writhing in her throat.
"Snake bitch… who the fuck are these wolves?" I asked in anger, spinning my body through the snow to dodge a swipe from the wolf beside me.
"And why should I tell you, you worm?" she mocked, advancing in a brutal sequence of strikes.
The Lamia turned into a blur of scales and claws. I was forced into a desperate retreat, alternating between rapid ducks and heavy parries with the blade of Leviathan. The impact of her tail against the bronze shaft of my axe made my arms shudder all the way to my shoulders. At the same time, I snapped the fingers of my left hand to make roots emerge from the ground, trying to slow down the snake's slither and trap the paws of the wolf closing in on me.
Luke had already recovered from his fall. He lunged forward with a low sweep of his sword, slashing the hind leg of one of the wolves, but the beast's hide was tough as iron. Clarisse roared and drove her electric spear into the Lamia's scales, making the beast howl in pain as blue sparks cascaded from the weapon.
Through my Seismic Sense, I picked up the exact moment the two wolves traded a low snarl, as if they were communicating.
The sons of bitches completely ignored me for a fraction of a second, spinning their bodies in perfect sync and charging together at Luke and Clarisse.
"Luke! Clarisse!" I screamed.
Seeing that the larger wolf was about to snap its jaws around the back of Luke's head while he fought the other one, I threw myself forward without a single thought for the consequences and shoved him clear with my shoulder.
The movement saved him from the wolf, but it left my own body completely off-balance. Clarisse managed to score a hit on one of the wolves' paws while Luke spun with his sword, slashing the snout of the other one—the larger beast.
But the Lamia capitalized on my opening. Her serpent tail wrapped around my waist like a tourniquet, freezing me in mid-air and wrenching me with crushing force toward her torso.
Before I could even hoist Leviathan to defend myself, the Lamia's razor-sharp, venomous teeth sank deep into my left shoulder with full force.
A sickening crack echoed in my ears as my collarbone felt like it snapped clean open. An agonizing pain surged through my chest as if boiling oil were being injected straight into my veins. Hot blood sprayed out, soaking my jacket and staining the snow below.
I stared straight into her mocking eyes, trying my best not to scream in agony, while the System window flashed violently right in front of my face:
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[HOST HAS BEEN POISONED!]
[EFFECT: LAMIA NEUROTOXIN — ATTRIBUTE REDUCTION AND CONTINUOUS DAMAGE TO THE BODY.]
"Crap, you bitch," I muttered, clenching my left hand. A root erupted from the ground, skewering through her tail. The Lamia unleashed a shriek and dropped me. I crash hard, instantly feeling my left arm turn numb.
Holy shit, I thought, watching her lick her lips and stare me down. Dammit… they always have that same fucking smirk.