TO SAY THAT Sadie was having the weirdest dream yet was probably the understatement of the century. Even with the stiff Egyptian pillow filled with hieroglyphs that made her neck hurt, her ba decided to go on trips against her own will.
Well, it made sense because it was her soul, after all. Thankfully, though, she wasn't a half-bird anymore. Her ba had been hovering above her sleeping body for a few moments, allowing her to register how her hair already looked like a griffin's nest only a few minutes after she had dozed off, before the currents of the Duat whisked her away, out of the now-open window, and far away from the Brooklyn House. She didnt even have time to panic as she was brought above the skyline of Manhattan. Despite her rebellious streak, Sadie had learned that she shouldn't ever go back into Manhattan; yet there she was—well, there her soul was, not her actual, physical self. There was a big storm brewing, just above some sort of...what on Earth was she even looking at?
Through the rain and the fog, she could vaguely make out the outlines of the structures below her. She saw a vast field dotted with tiny red fruits (strawberries, perhaps?), dozens of small different coloured houses—no, they were cabins—were positioned to form an upside down U, a three-storey sky blue house, some sort of amphitheater, a climbing wall with steaming orangeish liquid pouring over the top, a lake that had a stream connected to the beach, a volleyball court, and a lot of other tiny structures that she couldn't be bothered to have a closer look at. A glint of gold caught her attention, and her heart stopped for a split second. A golden fleece was draped over a thick low branch on a gigantic pine tree, with some sort of scaly purple plant surrounding its base. Only later did she find out that it was an actual dragon called Peleus. Then she was free-falling into the strange place she decided to call a camp; she didn't know why, but she has a hunch that it was exactly that. Before she hit the ground, she abruptly stopped, hovering a few inches from the dirt, face down. She would have let out a high pitched scream, but she couldn't—thank the gods.
Sadie risked a look at the painted sign that was just behind the pine tree. The words Camp Half-Blood were written in someone's neat handwriting that she totally envied very much. Under it, there were random scribbles, but she had a nagging feeling that they were words written in some sort of language; Carter might have identified which one, but she couldn't care less.
This had to be some sort of base for the next great threat, she thought to herself glumly. After three months of miraculously not running into any trouble whatsoever, something just had to destroy the peace. In other words, it was going to be another normal day in the life of the Kanes.
The faint sound of footsteps came, and suddenly Sadie was standing upright, speeding alongside a black blurred outline of a seemingly human figure.
This time though, rather than facing a terrifying new all-time powerful monster, her ba seemed to be following a familiar looking boy of sixteen with dark tousled hair, a plain dark grey shirt that hung loosely on his thin frame, an aviators jacket, black skinny jeans, with black combat boots, and somehow managed to have gotten his hands on a sharp black sword that was in its sheath attached to a belt wrapped around his waist.
He seemed to be running down some sort of road, his face ashen, and his jaw set. It was raining hard, and mist was obscuring most of her vision.
"Damn him," the boy said through gritted teeth. The floor shook violently as hands—skeletal hands, mind you—started popping up everywhere, clawing at the wet dirt as they struggled to escape. Even the boy she was following looked startled.
Then he looked straight at her; his warm brown eyes glinting with amusement.
"Whoever you are, if you can hear me, you have to wake up. We need your help,"
There was a loud crack from somewhere behind them, and she risked a glance at the zombie-filled road. Sadie stifled a scream, forgetting the fact that she actually cant make any noise. The sight of a twenty foot monster that was crushing bones beneath his overly large and quite disgusting feet, grunting and roaring in rage whilst plowing through the undead ranks as several spears flew at it absolutely terrified her, along with the fact that the weapons seemed to bounce harmlessly off his fleshy skin. She didnt dare look any higher. It smelled of rotting flesh and decayed seaweed, and the stench alone made her eyes water.
Why was the boy even fighting that thing?
His facial features seemed to shift into that of a familiar god's, but he didn't stop running, and instead he picked up his pace.
She wanted to wake up so badly, wishing for her stupid soul to fly back into her body, but she couldn't.
"Sadie, you have to listen close."
His words were thick with an accent that sounded ancient; she knew that she had heard it somewhere before.
Lightning struck the ground not to far from him, illuminating a gigantic dog-shaped silhouette.
"Tell your brother that Percy Jackson is coming along with a few friends. They will need your help, as you shall need theirs. Nico will send you a message once he enters the safe house — "
A low guttural howl came from the trees that they had just passed. All the hairs in Sadie's arm stood, but she squinted through the fog to see a small cottage not too far away.
"—but right now you need to wake up!"
Then her soul was suddenly jerked backwards, feeling as though an invisible magnet was pulling at her ba as she hurtled towards the Brooklyn House at a hundred miles per second, and slammed back into her body. Sadie immediately sat up, drenched in cold sweat. She weakly wrapped one arm around her stomach, feeling a strange urge to regurgitate the breakfast she hadnt even devoured yet, as it was currently fifty past five in the morning.
"Anubis?" she whispered, her voice shaky as she stared at her trembling hand. What in hell had that been about?
Nothing good, she heard Isis speaking in her mind. You need to wake Carter and tell him everything you saw.
Sadie didn't bother to object. She dashed out of her room—ignoring her bedraggled hair and gods awful pyjamas—and burst into that of Carter's.
"Rise and shine, brother dearest." she said, managing not to throw up, and pulled back the curtains covering the glass door that lead to the balcony.
The older Kane grunted in his bed, mumbling into his pillow.
"Carter, this is important."
"Go away," he groaned, chucking a pillow at her. She managed to catch it and throw it back at him. He let out another disgruntled moan of annoyance into his pillow, but he didn't make any obvious effort to get up.
"You are such a git, Carter, dear gods." Sadie said, rolling her eyes. "This is about the bloke you fought with when you were scouting Long Island and found the croc that had an amulet of Sobek."
"You mean Percy?" he said, his words muffled as his face was buried in a white pillow.
"Yes, Percy. And I guess it involves Anubis too. They said they'd be coming in a few along with some friends. Mentioned something about us needing them as much as they need us?"
"What do you even mean by that?"
Sadie grabbed one of the many pillows on her brother's' bed and started hitting him with it.
"Get the bloody hell up you oversleeping chicken-headed turd."
"All right! I'm up, I'm up. Gods, Sadie, stop attacking me. What's so important that you had to wake me up at six in the morning?"
Sadie let out a sigh, clearly irritated, as she watched her brother groggily sit up, but she told him everything anyways. He listened, though he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
"So, a giant and a dog were running after Anubis while skeleton zombies rose from the ground to protect him, even though he himself looked surprised when they did?"
"Yes!" she said, throwing her hands up in an exasperated manner. "And there was some sort of cabin nearby; about half a mile away from where we stood. Maybe they settled in there?"
"Sadie—"
"He mentioned something about a chap named Nico sending a message. What how do you reckon—?"
"—banished us? You have got to be kidding me!" yelled a clearly angry voice coming from somewhere inside the room, making the siblings jump in alarm. "Honestly, after everything we've done, all we could ask for is some peace. This is how Zeus decides to repay us for saving his damn ass more times than we'd like?"
"What—" Carter frowned, frantically looking around the room.
There was a loud cracking sound, and the Kanes could only guess that the speaker broke something; probably a table.
That's when Sadie noticed the holographic image that clearly had not been there a few minutes ago hovering above the prism that she had given her geek of a brother on his last birthday.
"Carter?" she whispered, her eyes wide. "What in the name of Ra is that?"
"Percy, you have to calm down." Athena said from the other end of the shimmering mist, trying her best to sooth the hero.
"Calm down?" he roared, the deadly glint in his eyes causing the goddess of wisdom to abandon her obviously futile attempts. "Calm down? No thanks, I'd rather rip Zeus' head off and shove it up his sorry, unthankful, arrogant little—"
The demigod stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the two Kanes staring at him with shock from the other end of the Iris Message.
"Oh," was all he could say, his voice suddenly an octave higher.
Carter had grabbed his khopesh from the Duat not too long ago, and it was in front of him in a somewhat defensive manner, trying to look threatening despite his linen pyjama pants and bare top.
"Uh, hey." Percy said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry if you saw that little...um,"
"Tantrum," Thalia suggested from the other end of the room.
The demigod scowled at her, but looked back at the shimmering image of the two teenagers.
"Why did you call them?" Percy asked, scanning the people that stood inside the safe house with him.
"We're right here, you know." Carter said weakly, putting an arm out protectively in front of Sadie.
She blew a raspberry and rolled her eyes. Boys, always thinking that girls wouldn't be able to defend themselves. She shoved Carter's hand away as she crossed her arms above her chest, before sticking a tongue out at him.
"We sort of needed something to calm you down," the voice was the one from Sadie's dream—literally. He wore the same outfit as she had seen in his dreams; only that this time they were soaked and clung onto his thin frame. Sadie felt her face growing warmer as she forced herself to look away—she had a boyfriend, for God's sake. "Athena already told you the plan, Percy. This is the part where we tell them,"
"You do know that the last time I talked to a Kane was—"
"When we defeated Setne, yeah. And before that you saved my dear brother from being digested in the stomach of a gigantic croc blessed by none other than the ever so cheerful god of all sweat swamps." Sadie finished, raising her eyebrows. "Don't worry, Percy. We've noticed that whenever we make contact with you lot, something dangerous is here and it's about to destroy the world, so we ought to stop it before it does, yes?"
No one spoke for a few seconds.
"Now, would you want to discuss this plan of yours over some tea here in our place? It's a lovely time to talk about how to stop armageddon again, isn't it?"
***
a/n: hey guys! sorry i haven't been updating lately. i currently have another account that im going to be on mostly (yes, again, a new one) but i'll try to be here as often as i can! it's suburbanescape if any of you are interested.