Chapter 11

After what felt like hours, but were only a few seconds of dodging and counterattacking, the wings finally began to feel like a blessing.

Getting used to them being there wasn't a problem — the moment they appeared, Alex realised what he'd been missing his whole life.

What took a moment to understand was how to use them.

Alex flew up to the ceiling again, this time touching it smoothly, almost like a spider, before falling to the ground and crouching, avoiding yet another bite and uppercutting Echidna across her jaw.

His wings flapped once, and he dodged a clawing mid-air. He began to come down — it was just a little jump — but he had his eyes on Ugly, who was still recovering from the punch.

With a grin, he landed with his right foot on her face. But the mother of monsters wasn't stupid. She shook her head, and Alex upended like Elmer Fudd.

He barely managed to take the fall on his shoulder instead of the back of his neck, and only the narrowness of the hallway they were now fighting in saved his life: when Echidna swung her claws at Alex's head, the tips hung up in the woodwork of the ceiling.

Alex tried to roll away, but he came up against the wall, whose wallpaper was burning, and this time, Ugly got it right. Instead of swinging her claws, she lunged with a stiff arm and drove a foot of keratin through his belly.

He would normally be worried about something making a kebab out of him, but it was disconcerting that it didn't really hurt — that much. It did feel cold, like it radiated a freezing cold that surged through his body and drained the strength out of his legs, like a brain freeze you get from chewing up an ice cube only Alex felt that all over. He could feel the claw sliding around in there, slicing things up, and frankly, he didn't recommend it. Two out of ten.

Ugly pulled her claw back, thankfully not twisting it around there like Alex would see in movies. It scraped what felt like a rib on the way out, a sensation that was analogous to fingernails across a blackboard combined with having your teeth drilled in the dentist without anaesthetic; screaming clouds of blackness bloomed inside his eyes. Alex moaned and shuddered with pain, and Ugly confused it for his dying sounds — a mistake.

"There, you bastard, an easy death for what you did to my sons is better than you deserve!" She yelled, somehow showing compassion for those two abominations.

Tears welled in her eyes for her fallen children, but Alex didn't care. He hooked his left foot around her snake tail while he stamped with his right knee on the front. It snapped, loudly, and Echidna collapsed into a wailing heap. That was the trouble with snakes, he supposed: once one of their vertebrae breaks, they become defenceless. Still, Ugly attacked again.

Alex came to his feet with an acrobat's kip, tearing something inside his wounded belly. The monster jabbed with her claws — but from the ground, she was slow, and it was easy to slap his palms together around the flat of the claws, kick her wrist, and snap the longest from her. Alex flipped it end-for-end and neatly caught the thickest part, making it the hilt.

"Too bad, Ugly- I mean, Echidna," Alex said. "Maybe if you and your sons were smart, you would've lived… this is for dad."

He short-armed the jab, taking her through the forehead, the claw coming out from the other end, spraying golden blood all over the carpet. She fell to the ground, motionless, and Alex relaxed for the first time since lunch.

For a bare moment to get his breath, he took stock of his situation. He was bleeding, front and back where she had run him through, and no doubt internally as well. With his dad being a nurse, if his wounds didn't close like last time, he knew at least how to patch them up.

Right… better not think of Dad for now.

First things first, he had to get out of there. He doubted he had enough time to save anything from the apartment with the fire spreading, and he was no firefighter. Also, he didn't want to imagine what the police would see when they came.

He also had to get that weird spike that just stabbed his legs and-

"Naive. Very much naive. Just like every other demigod. Then again, I suppose my family doesn't give you the time to grow up. Your flesh tastes better young, after all."

Alex turned around with bulged eyes. Echidna was back up, the broken claw still piercing her head, but that didn't seem to matter to her. She had a wide ugly grin, golden blood dripping down, painting her fangs gold.

"You seem to have forgotten that I'm no ordinary monster, child." She hissed. "If I could've been so easily defeated, my name wouldn't have instilled fear in your kind for thousands of years."

Panic welled in him.

The fire continued to spread. The mother of monsters was blocking the door, so the only way out was the window. Normally, that would've seemed suicidal… but he had wings that magically passed through his indestructible jacket now!

Without thinking, Alex ran for it, feeling the heat of the fire surely burn some of his hair.

Leaping, he avoided one last tail attack and went through the glass like a bullet. He spread his wings wide and flapped them awkwardly with all of his strength, crossing to the rooftop of the building across the road. And then, he ran away. He ran and ran without looking back.

Echidna loomed over the broken window, her eyes fixated on the young demigod. "Run all you like, Alexander. No matter what you do or where you hide, I'll find you. AND I'LL KILL YOU!"

The sirens and flashing lights were getting closer, so, with a last hiss, the mother of monsters disappeared into the apartment.

==========

"I need some help on A-side!"

Normally, a fire in a neighbourhood like this one wouldn't have escalated so much. Even if there wasn't anyone home, neighbours, workers, or simply people going for a jog would spot it easily, and alert the respective authorities.

When the Brooklyn Fire Department was called to the scene, they were expecting a simple, small home fire. Maybe someone had let the oven on, or there was a malfunction with the heaters that caused a spark. But what they weren't expecting was a roaring fire that consumed the whole building in ten minutes that took for the first firetruck to arrive on the scene.

The street was riddled with sirens and red-and-blue flashing lights. People had come out from their homes and apartments, their clothes hurriedly put on over their pyjamas, all to catch a glimpse of the situation.

Policemen had formed a safety net one block from the flames, but that didn't stop the onlookers from forming a crowd near it. At some point, a small crew of journalists from newspapers and TV stations had gathered, each busy with their own report, interviewing the authorities on stand-by, and setting up cameras to begin their coverage.

"There's got to be something more interesting happening in the city for those human scribes to write about." Coach Hedge, dressed in some undersized pants he'd 'pay' for in a corner shop, grumbled.

"They're called journalists, Gleeson. And I think a fire of this size prompts worry from everyone." Grover said, trying to peek from the back of the crowd.

"Eh, I suppose," The coach shrugged, scratching his beard scruff. "But with so many humans around, it'll be hard to get close and figure out what happened to the kid. You saw her as well, didn't you?"

"Yes, b-but…" Grover stammered, fiddling with his hands. "We can't be sure until we see it with our own eyes. For all we know, Alex could've escaped-"

"Face it, Underwood." Hedge gripped Grover's shoulder and spoke in a sombre tone. "There's a higher chance for the King of the Gods to stop falling in love with every mortal woman he meets than an 11-year-old demigod surviving the mother of monsters. And let's not forget Alexander only found out about what he was a handful of hours ago. It's great to be optimistic, but you also need to understand that the world demigods live in has the odds stacked against them."

Grover bit his lip in frustration. He would be 22 in the next month or so, but this was his first rescue mission. Satyrs aged around half the rate humans did, so only when they were around 20 — having the appearance of a 10-year-old child — would they begin being sent out on missions to nature or to rescue estranged demigods. He didn't even want to think about his dream of getting a searcher's license.

The council of elders — the oldest, wisest, and sometimes greatest satyrs — had deemed Grover unfit to be sent out on rescues when he completed two decades, so in the first year of his career, he had been strictly designated to simple missions. That summer, he didn't leave camp once, working every day in its strawberry fields. That gave him a better standing with Mr D, but that wasn't what Grover was destined to do for all of his life — at least, that was what Grover himself thought.

He and Gleeson had never talked much, — Grover being a simple upstart, and the older satyr a veteran, already past the age of 100 — so it was a surprise for him when this satyr legend, someone with so many rescues on his back, who had always prefered to fight monsters instead of searching for Pan, who was known for his fighting skills (not so much his intelligence though) had recommended Grover to the council, getting him is first ever rescuing mission, and a step closer to getting his searcher's license.

"You can't be s-sure," Grover responded, looking at the ground. "He can still be alive. We won't be sure until-"

"Urgh… kid, listen. This is why the council refused to have you out here until now." Hedge interrupted him again. "Getting attached to these kids before they reach camp… often leads to more deaths than necessary; after that, I suppose it's fine, but when you're faced with a difficult situation, attachment can lead to hesitation, and hesitation leads to bigger problems."

Grover knew that, of course. Mr D. often made fun of him because he was so compassionate. His daddy goat always told him to be a little more selfish. But since when was caring for other people bad? Alex was his best friend. He might've been a little bit rough around the edges when it came to controlling his emotions, but what he did to Hunter… he did it to protect Grover.

And the young satyr knew that. Even if his friend didn't pay that much attention when he tried to explain to him the various monsters from the legends using the cards, that didn't mean he was a bad person. What happened at lunch that day… Grover was sure there was something Hedge and he weren't seeing.

"Do you really not feel anything? At all?" Grover spoke in almost a whisper. "These demigods… whether they live or die, you really don't care? You don't give a damn saying that Alex is dead?"

Hedge took his hand off Grover's shoulder and stared at the building consumed in flames. The firefighters had barely made any progress in the last few minutes, and Grover was sure it was because of the magical nature of the fire.

"That's just part of the job." The coach said in an apathetic tone. Grover would've been fooled, had he not caught a glimpse of the older satyr tightening his hands into fists, and having the same frustrated expression Grover had just minutes ago.