Then he heard something from above. Something through the rushing of the waves.
SCREECH!
“He’s gone down. He’s sinking in the ocean, over there, by where the bubbles are,” the muffled voice called.
Jay’s muscles weakened, and he felt his lips peel from their diamond lock.
He was just about to give way to the water when he got blasted out from the deep.
He coughed up mountain loads of water as he flew upwards. His eyelids clenched and his throat exploded with a delightful sound of desperate gasping.
Just then, when he felt himself starting to fall back down into the ocean, something swooped down from the sky and grabbed him by his collar. He coughed some more, as he was lifted up into the sky.
Then, when he was about to open his eyes, he heard someone shout,
“EXOTHIUS!”
He felt himself drying up. He knew what was happening now. So he opened his eyes and screamed with all his might,
“HOCKVALMIA!”
There was a blinding light and the clutch on his collar loosened. He looked up and started soaring back up into the air, not looking down.
He got back up with the rest of the group, and then carried on, following Hollie, with her watery feet, to France.
His mind was awoken now and he had ultimate focus, petrified of going any closer to the sea again. It had all happened in a flash, and it was only happening in one flash, that was for sure.
They passed over the sea and back over land. The sky was getting darker now and the sun was descending for a rest.
After another twenty minutes of travelling Hollie started to veer towards the ground.
The others followed and Jay was glad to see the sight of land. At least landing on that didn’t burn his skin!
Five dodgy stumbles later they all safely grounded.
Hollie pulled back her curly, black hair and straightened herself out, shaking her legs and arms around to stretch.
Jay’s legs were weak and he could barely hold himself up.
“Blimming hell, aching like, woo! Claire, don’t turn invisibility off until the morning, we should camp over in that field over there, and there are some trees which we could use. C’mon,” Hollie instructed, she clearly wanted to get down for bed because she didn’t even ask if Jay was alright, which was unlike her.
The five of them walked over a road and into a park, which was lined with trees, quite like the field at camp.
“Ok, this way.” Hollie pointed to her left and ran into the trees. Everyone followed her through.
It was hard to see where they were going because it was getting really dark now, the sun had reached the horizon.
“How much further Hol?” Jordan asked wiping his eyes clear.
“Here,” Hollie replied, “We need to make a bed each, up high in the branches. If you need any help ask me, I’ll be asleep over… Alovium,” Hollie pointed her finger at a tall branch above her, the branch widened and then the bottom sunk “there,” she finished.
“Decendio Ginormius,” she whispered whilst pointing at a leaf, which fell off a branch, landed on the wooden bed and expanded. She climbed up the tree with ease and then jumped onto her bed.
Jay and the others stood in awe.
“Goodnight, oh I love magic,” she muttered as she sank into her bed and pulled the leaf over her like a cover.
“That, was amazing,” Claire said, her lower jaw remaining in its drooped position.
“Easy peasy, we best get started,” Broudie instructed, as he, Jay, Jordan and Claire scaled the tree.
It was a giant of a tree with a thick, three metre trunk and huge bulky branches.
Each of them hopped onto a branch as they climbed, putting Claire at the very top.
“How are we supposed to do what Hollie just did?” Jordan said.
“Like this. Alovium.” Jay pointed at the branch he was sat on, and it steadily curved into shape, bowing to the waving of Jay’s hands.
He could feel the wood as he controlled it, its grains expanding and widening to make a perfect shape.
Then he pointed at a leaf above him and said, “Decendio.” The leaf shot down onto Jay’s branch.
“Then you go Dublicatius.” The leaf made about twenty copies of itself, which filled the bottom of his bed. “And that, my friends, is how you make a bed.”
“You are such a show off sometimes.” Jordan shook his head.
“Wait a minute, you’ve gave me an idea, get off your bed a minute,” Claire told him.
“No, you’ll take it.”
“I promise I won’t,” Claire spoke in her persuasive tone, fluttering her blue eyes.
So, Jay jumped off his branch bed and hopped onto Broudie’s.
“Ok, this might not work…Dublicatius,” she shouted.
Three more branches started to grow from the tree each bending into the shape of Jay’s and each with the same amount of leaves inside them.
Claire grunted under her lack of energy.
“Good thinking.” Broudie nodded as the branches froze in motion and Claire gave an exhausted gasp.
“Yeah, that is pretty awesome.”
“I know.”
Jay jumped off Broudie’s branch and then nestled down into his bed. The three above him also jumped down into beds and then after a few minutes, they were all fast asleep. It was strange how a bundle of leaves could feel more comfortable than a mattress.
“Wake up Jay. We need you to make a fire,” Broudie shivered.
“It’s blimming freezing,” Jordan called as Jay rubbed at his eyes.
“Wha, oh, fire yeah, alright,” Jay yawned loudly and stretched out his arms, brushing the dry leaves out of his thin, static hair. He could see the blinding sunlight falling through the green leaves that were sheltering them.
Jay climbed down behind Broudie and Jordan, and then sat down on the ground beside Hollie.
“We got some twigs, could you set ‘em alight?” Hollie asked.
Jay lifted his arm and thought of fire, he pulled back his hand and then urged for flames. A ball of fire shot from Jay’s hand and hit the pile of twigs, which erupted, in a spectacular mini dance.
“When did you learn to do that?” Hollie questioned shocked by how Jay had not used a spell to make the fire.
“Oh, when me and Jordan were duelling.”
“Duelling?”
“More like target practise and practising controlling our powers. We did have a go at duelling, but not properly,” Jordan corrected.
The morning was warm and Jay had had a surprisingly good sleep as he had been snuggled up cosy all night.
“Ah, well, let’s get warmed up and fed, then we can start our search,” Hollie told them as she pulled out a bag.
“What’s in there?” asked Jay.
“Microscopic beans, you heat them up and then make them bigger,” Jordan replied, “One of the best inventions ever.”
“Ginormius.” The beans grew to normal size and then Hollie pulled out another bag.
“And in there is a microscopic pan,” Jordan answered Jay’s question, reading his mind.
After another load of ‘Ginormius’, Hollie was cooking the breakfast.
Breakfast was shoveled down in a very polite manor, and then Hollie got up and turned all the bed-shaped trees back to the normal plain branches they were the night before.
“Ok, we need to start looking for Frederick, we know he’s old and we know he is very important. Athena said we might find him somewhere special, any ideas.”
“The Eiffel tower,” Jordan suggested.
“Or, the Arc de Triomphe,” said Claire, holding her head and trying to tidy up her hair.
“So we want Paris, yeah?” Hollie asked.
“How far is Paris from here?” Jordan questioned.
“About zero seconds, ‘cause were in Paris.”
“Really?” Claire said excitedly.
“Yep. C’mon, let’s go see the Eiffel tower,” H
ollie said, walking out of the forest like some sort of tour guide.
“Wait, we haven’t taken off the invisibility spells yet,” Jordan remembered.
“Oh, yeah. Claire, do you know how to stop the invisibility spell?” Hollie asked.
“All I know is that it’s draining me of energy.”
“Just clear your mind and then picture all of us, ok. Then you need to say the spell. You should feel your energy rejoin you,” Hollie said in that same teacher voice she changed to now and then.
“Ok, eh, right,” She closed her eyes for concentration then spoke the spell, “Polacify.”
She gasped for breath then opened her eyes, this time about three times wider though,
“Wow, I feel awake.”
Everyone laughed, and just to check it had worked, Jay looked at his reflection in a puddle on the ground.
“Alright, have a look around for signs of where to head,” Hollie ordered.
“The one over there says river, and there’s a river near the Eiffel tower,” Jordan suggested.
“Yeah, but do you go down that side of the river or down the other side.” Hollie shook her head and continued to walk along the road.
“I think we should head towards that spire in the distance.” Jay pointed out between the trees and laughed.
“Well, where are we going to find a better heading than the head of where were looking for,” Hollie said, slightly confused at what she’d said herself. “C’mon let’s go.”
The five kids strolled down the French streets, with blades in their pockets, the police could arrest them easily, but nobody took one glance at them. It was either they were used to seeing kids walking around with blades in their pockets or it was because they didn’t know what they were.
“Keep a look out for monsters, the closer we get to Frederick, the more monsters we are likely to encounter.”
“What type of monsters might we see?” Jay asked.
“Hopefully, because the gap in the gate is small, only tiny ones.”
“Yeah but even if they are small that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.”
“Well, let’s just hope we don’t meet any.”
The group of teenagers carried on along the path, each with their head darting from hedge to hedge, just in case a monster was to pop out of it.
Then, they passed a television shop window and the signs were in English. In the window was a television with the news on,
“People around the world are claiming that they have seen lots of unusual creatures. Some say they have seen horses swimming with fish tails, or seals with dog head, or even a rooster-horse. All these people have been given psychiatric help, and the doctors have said that they are hallucinating. No drugs were found in their system so we are presuming some sort of disease. People have even gone to the extent of editing pictures to make it look like these animals are real, how ridiculous.”
“How ridiculous, you won’t be saying ridiculous when Ladon comes out to play,” Jordan laughed.
“C’mon guys were nearly there, can you see the tower?” Hollie pointed to a massive spire, separated into four legs at the bottom.
Hollie led them around a corner and towards the foot of the tower. They walked under some trees and then arrived. The tower wasn’t that big really, you’d expect it to be so high that you can’t see the top except you could. So it wasn’t as impressive as Jay was expecting.
“Ok, let’s have a look around. Talk about demi-gods and Greek monsters, then if someone looks at you quickly, and they look quite old and wise, then tell everyone who he is and we will try and talk to him. And if you find him, don’t talk to him by yourselves, we don’t know what type of guy he is. Ok let’s split up.” Hollie, Jordan and Claire went around the left-hand side, and Broudie and Jay went along the right.
“Oh, Jay, let’s talk about de-mi-gods, and chi-me-ras,” Broudie spoke quite loudly as they both wondered around the legs of the tower.
“Look over there, he might be him.” Jay pointed to a tramp sat on the floor, with an upside down hat. The man was sat cross-legged and was staring at the floor.
“Walk past and say his name, if he looks up, just walk back to me.”
“Okay.” Jay walked slowly towards the man sat on the floor in a very suspicious way. He was about to pass him when he whispered,
“Fred-er-ick, demi-god.”
The man kept his head down and didn’t move at all, so Jay wondered if he might have been asleep or deaf. Or even if he had heard and was Frederick, would he even look up in any case, for he is supposed to hide and not reveal himself. So how was Jay supposed to know?
“Jay, come here,” Broudie shouted from behind him.
Jay turned and walked back past the old man, who remained still once again. He was about to pass him when he decided to ask the man himself.
“Excuse me.” Jay bent down beside the crippled man. “Is your name Frederick?”
“F-Frederick, people ask moi, moi no knows,” The old man blurted out quickly in a French accent, swaying forward and back.
“More people have asked you?”
“People…things with, ah.” He stopped swaying and then slowly raised his head, it was covered in dirt and was scrunched up. His hair was shaggy and long.
“Frederick is in danger. moi no knows Frederick, Frederick in danger.” The old man looked tired and drained, no wonder with all the monsters that he must have seen here, trying to find Frederick.
“Merci,” Jay recalled the word for thank you in his lessons at school.
The old man grabbed Jay’s hand and shook it urgently,
“Au revoir monsieur.” The man let go of his hand and Jay jumped up and ran over to Broudie, who was stood with his mouth wide open.
“What the hell are you doing, you can’t go talking to people, what would happen if that man was a sorcerer and just decided to kill you.”
“Well, he’s not a sorcerer, but he has been asked by some creatures, and they always ask things about Frederick. Poor man probably thinks he is going insane. He reckons he is in danger. The monsters are here already,” Jay told.
“What should we do?”
“I think we should go over to Hollie and explain what you’ve heard, then let Hollie decide what to do.”
“Ok, let’s go.”
The two boys ran towards the centre ground of the Eiffel tower, and looked around for Hollie, Jordan and Claire.
“Wow, look up through the middle.” Jay pointed above him.
The centre of the tower was amazing.
It was like looking through millions of spider webs. Thousands of metal bars were joined together, spiralling upwards in an organised mess like some sort of OCD bird’s nest. There were lifts gradually floating up the legs of the tower, and crammed inside them were tonnes of tourists.
All oblivious to the five destined saviours of earth looking for a powerful demi-god to complete a very important quest.
“Yes, it is amazing, but for now, we need to concentrate on our quest. Where are they?”
Jay did a three sixty spin and spotted Jordan in a crowd of people.
“Look, over there.” They ran across towards him, but by the time they wriggled through the swarm of people, he had disappeared.
“Why can’t he stay in the same place?”
“Well, let’s just carry on along-”
“Broudie, Jay. Quick get in here,” a voice in the bush beside them called.
“What?” Both Broudie and Jay turned around confusedly.
Then some hands emerged from the bush and dragged Jay and Broudie inside it.
Thankfully it wasn’t a thorny bush as the leaves scratched at Jay’s ears.
“For god sake, have you not seen them yet?” Hollie whispered.
“Seen who?” Broudie asked.
“Seen, the tribe of Panotii walking round, that’s who!”
“The pano- what?” Jay questioned, rubbing his pained ears and neck.
“There proba
bly here looking for Frederick, dunno what they would want with the jewel of Barthimia,” Hollie spoke to herself. “Anyway, we need to be careful, I know them as friendly creatures, but you remember what Athena said,” she added.
“Where are they, what do they look like?” Jay asked, expecting the answer to be, they have six fire-breathing horse heads and a highly venomous snake protruding from their stomachs. But instead the answer was:
“They have ears the same length as their bodies. They’re hiding in black robes, be aware.”
“So stay clear of the black robed people, and we’ll take a trip up to the top of the tower, we might find Frederick there.”
“Eh, Hol. Jay was talking to a tramp and he told him that ‘lots of things’, he quoted, were coming to him and asking him about Frederick,” Broudie informed.
“Ok, so there will be more things here and they might have already found him, so let’s go.” Hollie leaped out of the bush, and everyone else followed.
Hollie led the way to a queue near one of the legs of the tower. The queue wasn’t long, but the wait was tense.
“Five kids to the top please,” Hollie told the man in the pay box hen it was eventually their turn.
The man asked for the amount and tore off some tickets, passing them to Hollie as she gave him the money.
“Merci,” she thanked, and the five teenagers walked towards the entrance to the lift, a man was stood outside taking the tickets. He took Hollie’s and then they joined the other people in the lift.
The lift smelt slightly of oil and lots of rust. There were others inside the lift as well, none of the long-eared cloak monsters thankfully.
“How did you pull out the exact amount of euros from that purse of yours?” Claire questioned.
“Enchanted so as it will give the wearer exactly how much he or she wants.”
“Cool.”
“Who d’you get it off?” Jay asked.
“It was a gift of Athena to Amy when she started, she said we were gonna need it if we did a quest. And voilà.”
“What if he’s on the second floor, and not on the top floor? Frederick, I mean,” Jordan questioned.
“I didn’t think of that,” Hollie replied.
“How about we just fly down to the second level. We could use the invisibility spell,” Broudie suggested.
“Well, I suppose we’ll have to, but we need to be careful,” Hollie reminded them.
“Is it my hallucinating, petrified self, or are them cloaked people coming in here,” Jordan muttered straightening up and trying to keep his words low.
“Oh, my gods. Hol what do we do?” Jay asked.
“Just stay calm, and act as if you’re a tourist.”
Just then, five cloaked men walked into the lift, walking straight through some people, like they were ghosts.
They were silent. They didn’t say a word to each other-unlike the racket the rest of the tourists were making. All five were stood in the same space as some of the tourists, but they didn’t see them. It was only Jay and his mates that could see them.
Jay thought about what Hollie had said. Maybe these monsters could only see people and bump into people who can see and bump into them.
Then that must mean Jay is Greek, he had Greek instincts so basically he was Greek. And that was why some people were seeing the monsters and not others. Those people must have been great great nephews of demi-gods, which, if they didn’t know, would scare them if they came across a monster that was stood actually inside someone else.
“I wonder what it will look like from the top,” said an Australian guy.
“Probably better than the views from our rock faces, ay,” They laughed weirdly as the lift doors closed.
The journey up was very nerve racking. There was an eerie atmosphere floating about, killing the thought of conversation. The lift grunted as it passed through the spider web of bars making up one of the tower legs.
The views were amazing: minuscule people strolled along the streets, a river moved slowly through the city, a large church type building sat in the middle like an island out at sea, a small arch could be seen near two rows of trees, a light lit dim underneath it, and small-ish buildings scattered the large area like a rash.
All these things were slowly shrinking, growing smaller as the lift was yanked to the top.
Then a minute later, the bars outside the window started thickening up, and then a platform arose.
The lift froze and the doors slid open. First to get off were the hooded Panotii in their dark black robes. They moved swiftly out over the platform and around to the right. The other passengers departed quickly, all scurrying out to get a nice place to take a picture.
“Ok, we need to be really careful, any sight of them tell me and we will move away. Now let’s carry on with our search.” Hollie led the way out of the lift, taking a left onto the platform.
They all knew that they were here on a quest, but how often do you get to take a look over from the top of the Eiffel tower.
The five teenagers grasped the safety bars and peered out over the city. The view was outstanding now being at the top. The people were hardly noticeable.
Except the views were not as important, according to Hollie, compared to saving the world.
“C’mon we need to keep looking,” Hollie said.
“Hol, what exactly are we looking for?” questioned Claire, “Because we don’t even know what he looks like, not even his exact location. All we have is France.”
“I know he is here,” she said, “I can feel it, it’s like as if someone is guiding me without talking, just giving hints all the time.”
“You are going loo-. Hol there coming straight for us,” Jordan told, spotting the hooded figures behind them.
“There are two over there as well.” Claire pointed out.
“Ok, I didn’t really want to do this, but,” Hollie reached in her pocket and pulled out a watch, the same watch she had used when Jay and her first met, the gooble watch.
“Kareymas,” she shouted.
Everyone stopped mid-motion. All the people paused in speech and muted there laughter. No one moved, the tribe of Panotii dead in motion.
“I really didn’t want to do that, Athena has told Amy that we could mess up our minds using it too much,” Hollie told them, breaking the silence.
“Well, now it’ll be easier to find Frederick,” Jay stated.
“So, you are after Frederick, allies of those who imprisoned us,” a deep tone said angrily.
The group looked back towards the Panotii, they were moving, and coming closer, the time freezing hadn’t worked on them.
“How did you unfreeze?” Hollie asked.
“Only mortals get frozen in time,” the tribe members laughed deeply, “We, Panotii, will find the jewel and use it to take over the gods, those who wrecked our lives.”
“The gods wrecked your lives?” Jay trembled.
“You did too, not directly but the gods did, and you are on their side so you are classed an enemy.”
“We don’t have to be on the gods’ side, we could switch,” Claire sounded hopeful, trying to use her fluttering eyelid persuasive technique.
“You are friends of those evil immortals. They threw us into the abyss with those who deserved to be there. We didn‘t, I tell you, we did nothing to them, and they did not care. We will rule over the gods, but first…we shall dispose of their allies!”
The unwilling demi-god.
(Chapter 7)