"Whaa! The five of us screeched as Lucifer dived out of the traveling vacuum. He collapsed from his leg wound, his body skidding face-first onto a thick layer of gravel. I slowly averted my gaze up, still gripping tightly to Lucifer's fur. We seemed to be on the roof of a tall apartment complex, a black rail of stairs attached to the ledge. The air was chilly and dry as it wisped around us like a sandless Egyptian storm.
"That was a rocky ride," Caleb grunted as he sat up and combed his hair with his fingers. "Do you guys spend all of your travel this way- by dogrides?" He asked quizically.
"No- not for a while, anyway," I turned to see Hillary examining the arrows stuck in Lucifer's thigh muscle, and maybe even some of the bone. Lucifer whined in pain. He twisted over and tried to lick his wound but Hillary pushed his piano-sized head away. "No, boy," she chided him. "The wound could be infected from shadow travel." (AUTHORS NOTE: SHADOW TRAVEL IS THE BLACK-VORTEX-THINGY HELLHOUNDS USE TO TRAVEL FROM PLACE TO PLACE IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. SRY IF I DIDN'T MENTION THAT. CONTINUE)
I hopped off of the hellhound's back and took a look beside Hillary. It was pretty bad- Lucifer's leg fur was now matted with blood and the skin was swollen to make leg seem more the size and shape of a punch-buggy car than a dog leg. The arrows stuck out at different areas of his leg like porcupine quills, rising and falling every time Lucifer wheezed for a breath. His ruby eyes glinted with agony and distress. Little whines escaped his throat. I embraced his nose. "It's alright, buddy. We'll take care of it." I turned to Hillary. "You're the one who was going to be a Medical major in college- what should we do first?"
Hillary paused to stare at the wounds once more. "Well, we need to get the swelling down." She observed. "But of course we need to clean it, which takes the arrows getting pulled out. Okay- so I will pull the arrows out, Sierra will comfort him so he doesn't go berserk on me, while you three hold him down the best you-" Her cellphone rang from her dress pocket. She opend it and answered the call.
"Hello?....Oh, hey Pheonix...Yeah, we're alright- a bit of a bumpy ride but we made it across...Uh-huh... Er, I don't know... Okay, okay! I will, hold on!" She held the phone down and looked at us. "Do you guys know where we are?" She asked.
Good question. Infact, I was wondering the same thing.
"We're in Philadelphia," Ethan remarked. "There's a billboard right there." He pointed behind Hillary where a gigantic sign read, WHERE DOES FREEDOM RING? RIGHT HERE AT THE LIBERTY BELL EXHIBIT, TWO EXITS DOWN FROM THE CREAM CHEESE FACTORY! Well that had to be a coincidence.
"Did you hear that, Pheonix- we're two exits away from the liberty bell... Sure, hold on." Hillary looked at us apolegetically. "Scratch that- Hannah is going to pull out the arrows. Sorry she needs to talk to me real quick." She walked across the roof top and continued to talk to Pheonix.
"Who's Phoenix?" Caleb asked.
"Hillary's older sister." Hannah said, walking over to take Hillary's place at Lucifer's leg. "I'm not surprised she called- there must be reports on the news about the Parthenon and the House of Hermes fire."
"Hermes?" Caleb furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He settled onto Lucifer's back paw to keep the hellhound from kicking us away. "Wait, I saw something abouta mansion in North Carolina burning down. Was that my father's house? Wait, were you guys there?" He thought for a moment. "And why am I here? You said I was important and you needed me for something- what, may I ask?"
Hannah looked up at Ethan, who shifted his weight onto Lucifer's heaving flank. He stared back, then looked at me. I stared at him, then shifted my gaze at Hannah. She was looking back but never averted her gaze. In fact, all three of them were staring at me to say something. I sighed. "We'll take turns explaining, how about that?" I compromised. The others shurgged in agreement. Hannah held onto the first arrow and began to pull.
YOU ARE READING
The God's Reign: Book one, The Knowing
General FictionSierra scott seems like a normal 15 year-old girl- well every hero does at first. The Greek mythology world comes alive in front of her own eyes as she is called to find twelve demigods to fulfill their destinies in Olympus. Including her, they must...
