Rebirth
As much as James had prepared himself to begin his life as a runaway demigod hiding from monsters, the reality of it was much more annoying than he had originally anticipated.
For starters, James was cooking.
James yanked off his jacket and sweater and tied them around his waist, fanning himself with the map of Manhattan he had grabbed from the subway rack.
Maybe he should’ve thought twice about bringing everything, including his winter clothes, when it was only May and the chances that he’d survive to see the first snow were about .000007%.
On the other hand, James would rather get eaten alive by a crusty mythological creature than have to make it through a New York City winter without a goddamn jacket.
The subway was bustling, filled with people on their morning commute to work. No one blinked twice at the backpacked eleven year-old holding a winter jacket and standing by the tracks with the rest of the adults, and even if they had, no one was invested enough to bother him with questions.
James was grateful for that. He didn’t think he could handle another “Young man, you look…” or “Young man, are you…” etcétera, etcétera.
Amongst the people lined up to wait for the train were various ghosts; floating about aimlessly, holding suitcases and newspapers like they were still living, or flying through the air in a frenzy— making the lights flicker faintly.
There was even a guy playing soft jazz music on his ghostly saxophone. James had heard about him. Dubbed the Jazz Man, he had had been a beloved part of morning commutes up until a few months ago when he’d a heart attack and died right there on the platform. Even now there were still flowers and crosses wilting at his ghostly feet.
James felt a little calmer listening to him play. There were always ghosts in New York. Especially in the subways. His mom had said—
James flinched.
Right. Fresh wound. Freshly fresh wound.
James rubbed his eyes under his glasses. Okay. Refocusing. Where was he going?
On the train. Why? So he could get from Manhattan to Long Island. Why? So he could get to Camp Half-Blood.
Why?
So he could be safe.
Or as safe as a demigod that wasn’t supposed to exist could be, anyway.
Neither of his parents had been very specific with the details, but James had always had it drilled into his head that the last thing he should ever do is trust someone with the name of his father, demigod or god alike. Even he hadn’t been trusted with it until the guy had actually shown up and told him.
That didn’t sound like a great way to make friends, especially in a supposed safehaven, but whatever.
James shuffled closer to the Jazz Man ghost and slid down the wall next to him (gross, gross, subway floor— ugh barf) suddenly too exhausted to care too much about what kind of toxic, subway-floor-piss he was sitting in.
He wasn’t supposed to exist. His dad had been pretty clear on that part, earlier. Still, James couldn’t quite get his head to wrap around that fact.
He was his mother’s pride and joy— (had been. He had been her pride and joy)— so much so that couldn’t imagine being anything else. Being forbidden was a new feeling for him.
He didn’t like it.
James pulled out the long handle poking out of the top of his backpack. It was a smooth bronze piece of metal, curved across the grip like a pickaxe. At the top, was a sharp horizontal point, gray and weirdly bone-like, as if someone had taken a dinosaur tooth from the Museum of Natural History and attached it to the world’s shiniest mining equipment.
James wrinkled his nose, twisting it this way and that, watching the way the underground mist clung to it like a spiderweb film.
Agift, his father had said. A safeguard while he figured out how to make his own survival weapons.
No one will be able to teach you this skill but yourself. This will help you while you learn. But be warned. You only get three uses. So use them well.
James shoved the pickaxe/bone-scyth back into his backpack handle-side first. A gift. Sure. Normally his mother’s gifts came with bows and handwritten cards, not omens of his cruel demise and a deadline, but hey, what did he know about having a father. Maybe they were all like this.
“…—train now approaching.”
James looked up. Oh good. At least something was going to plan.
Of course, that was when everything went to shit.
Duh.
James should’ve really, really, thought twice before he… well… thought. As soon as he had stood up from his germ-fest of a resting area, hiking up the jackets slipping down his waist and trying his best to wipe the offensive stink of New York subway off his pants, a low rumbling sound began echoing through the tunnel.
James had frozen, hands still wiping at his jeans, helplessly thinking …maybe it’s the train…? even as his spine shivered with alarms of wrong, wrong, wrong—
A pair of luminous eyes blinked into life from the shadows of the subway tracks, narrowing into predatory slits as the tunnel rumbled again.
No, not rumbled. Growled.
James stumbled back, heart pounding out of his chest, all thoughts of diseases and infections eradicated from his mind. Because he recognized the face climbing over the edge of the subway, lips curled, teeth bared, feline whiskers twitching. He had studied Greek Mythology all of his life. Of course he did.
”The sphinx is a trickster,” Euphemia whispered into the darkness of James’ bedroom, tickling his stomach while he gasped and shrieked. “She will offer you riddles that cannot be solved, and once you fail, she will come and eat you with her HUMONGOUS claws.”
More giggles. The warning lost somewhere between the folds of soft blankets and warm scent of perfume oil.
“That’s why, James,” Euphemia continued, pinching his cheeks gently, “you must be smart. Smarter than she, so she cannot hope to trick you.”
James pushed the glossy pages of the mythology picture book back into his mother’s arms, trying fruitlessly to use the image of the feline-faced lion-woman as a shield against her nimble fingers. “I don’t have to be smart if I’m fast!” James announced, breathless and red-faced. “I’ll run and run, and she won’t ever catch me!”
”You? Run from a cat?” Euphemia tucked James back into his sheets, smoothing down the curls over his forehead that refused to sit still. “You cannot outrun a cat James. That is why you must be quick of the mind. Intelligence will save you when strength falters, remember that.”
James’s back hit the wall. Smart. Right he had to be smart. He had to… he had to…
The sphinx crept closer, taking her time pushing through the mildly annoyed crowd of commuters, like she knew she had cornered easy prey and was in no rush to finish the chase.
Think… think… think…
The sphinx licked her lips.
Suddenly, a booming blast of sound broke through James’s thoughts, startling both him and the monster. The sphinx shrieked and gave a such an incredibly cat-like flail that it sent her tumbling right back down into the tracks.
James gasped for air. He’d stopped breathing. Why had he stopped breathing? That was the opposite of smart. You need air to live, stupid.
”Run, boy!” Jazz Man boomed, swiping at James’s frozen body with his ghostly hand. “Run! RUN! That there’s a cat-lady! Run!”
Finally, James’ brain came back online, rebooting like the pixilated loading screen on his favorite arcade game.
Oh yeah. Run.
He bolted.
James shot up the subway stairs, pushing past disgruntled commuters and irritated businessmen to burst out onto Williams street like a spooked rabbit.
Or maybe not a rabbit. Rabbits got eaten. So something else. Right. What was fast and didn’t get eaten? Think,think, think—
James sprinted around the intersection and was halfway down Fulton street before the commotion behind him let him know that the sphinx had made it out of the subway.
And that she was seriously pissed.
”You cannot escape me, James Potter!” She roared. “You will be my brunch!”
Sphinxes know about brunch? the hyperactive and easily-distracted part of his brain thought as he went skidding around the corner of the nearest intersection. How did that happen? Who introduced the menace of the ancient world to omelettes— FOCUS!
James slammed into a crowd of pedestrians, went skidding into the street, dodged a bright yellow taxi absolutely demolishing their horn, like, seriously— and scrambled back up onto the curb on the other side, praying the wealthy ladies laden with shopping he had just knocked over would find it in their wealthy-lady hearts to forgive him—
”Hey! You brat—“
…Or not.
Focus, James! Focus! He was running out of places to run. It was early in the day but there were already swaths of people out and about, clogging up his escape routes with their morning commute.
The sphinx roared behind him, and James chanced a look back just in time to see her leap over the heads of the morning pedestrians, using buildings and light poles as sideways trampolines to propel her forward.
Shit—
James tripped.
He was so preoccupied with watching his certain death rapidly approach him that he hadn’t been paying attention to where exactly he was putting his feet down.
As in, he hadn’t noticed the rat that had come scurrying out of a pile of street-corner trash just in time to get underfoot and send him sprawling.
Downed by a rat, what a joke. Oh great New York, forgive him—
James hit the ground chin-first and let out a yelp of pain. People paused around him, even the most hard-core New Yorker startled by a kid eating-shit on their morning commute, when a loud roar made everyone scream and scatter like… well, like rats.
“Got you.”
James turned over just in time for the Sphinx to land directly over him with one huge paw on either side of his head, caging him against the ground with her body.
”Nice of you to plate yourself, my delicious brunch,” the sphinx cooed, leaning so close her whiskers brushed his throbbing chin. “Eating you will be wonderful. But first, my riddles.”
James’s hands scrabbled at the ground searching for something, anything, to save him—
“Riddle number one:”
I can’t die here, he thought desperately. I can’t, I cant—
“What eats to grow, but will die if it drinks?”
Mom, I’m so scared—
“Riddle number two—“
James’ hand closed around something solid and he swung on instinct, hitting the sphinx in the face with the butt end of his bone pickaxe.
Smack! The sphinx screeched, rearing up to cover her face with her paws, and James wasted no time scrambling to his feet, holding the axe in front of him with trembling arms.
“My face!” She howled. “You wretched boy!”
”S-stay back!” James shouted. He was shaking so hard his axe felt like it weighed fifty pounds, but he raised it anyway— or tried to at least. The harder James fought to raise the axe, the lower the axe dipped, as if a gravity were increasing, drawing it straight down.
“W-what the hell—“
The axe tip hit the ground and broke off, melting into the concrete like it was warm butter.
James was left with nothing but a bronze handle and an extremely pissed off cat.
“Aha!” The sphinx shouted gleefully. Golden blood poured from her nose but she still raised herself up on her haunches, fanged teeth bared in a wicked grin. “You got the first riddle wrong! The answer wasn’t axe, it was fire!”
And then the sphinx pounced.
James raised his broken axe handle even as he knew it was futile, even as tears gushed down his face, even as his mind kept up a steady chant of I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die—
You cannot outrun a cat, James.
—I’m sorry mom. I’m so sorry—
James squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the end, when all of sudden a huge tremor was knocking him off his feet.
The sphinx screamed and James snapped his eyes open just in time to the see the sidewalk explode beneath him. Something gray shot out and body slammed the sphinx so hard she went flying into the side of the bus-stop shelter.
James’s mouth dropped open. “W-what…”
The gray figured materialized in front of him again, holding his skeletal hand up to his temple in a military salute.
James would have fallen if he hadn’t already been flat on his ass, staring up at the zombie yankee soldier standing in at attention in front of him.
Because there was a a zombie yankee soldier standing at attention in front of him.
There was no mistaking he was a zombie either. James had seen ghosts all his life, he knew what they did and didn’t look like.
And this was not what ghosts looked like.
He was solid, a skeleton held together by translucent gray skin and a Navy uniform. There was a flickering gray light that seemed to phase in and out of him, revealing what he must have looked like when he was alive—a beard, blue eyes, a shock of blonde hair— before blinking right back out of existence.
”Orders?” He asked in a strange bony chattering.
Because he was a skeleton. A talking skeleton. Talking with his bones.
“I…” James opened and closed his mouth but nothing came out. Orders? What? What the hell kind of orders was he waiting for?
The incoming screech of a dozen sirens shocked James back into the present, along with the furious roar of the sphinx as she crawled out of the bus-stop shelter, shaking glass and perfume ads out of her fur.
“HALF-BLOOD, YOU WILL PAY FOR—“
”Kill the sphinx! Kill the sphinx!” James screamed in a high pitched voice.
The zombie soldier wasted no time. James had barely finished speaking before it had sprung into action, rushing the monster before it could even react and stabbing her from chest to navel with a rib bone it had pulled form its own skeletal chest.
The sphinx exploded, showering the whole intersection and all the spectators looking on in horror in bright sulfuric-yellow dust.
James’s mouth dropped open.
What… just happened?
The zombie soldier ambled casually back up to James and raised his monster-dust covered hand back into a salute.
“Orders complete,” he chattered.
James stared at him. “W-what? I— what are you—“
”Hey you! Kid!”
James whipped his head up. The cops had arrived on the scene. And they were headed straight for him.
”Shit.” James scrambled to his feet, grabbed his axe handle, shouted “Get out of here!” to his new zombie companion and sprinted in the opposite direction. He took full advantage of the crowd of stunned onlookers and dove through them like a snake, slipping out the other side and leaving his pursuers to struggle to shove their way through.
James didn’t stop running until he physically couldn’t take one more step, collapsing inside of a bus-stop shelter (the irony) with heaving breaths and a cramp down both his legs.
People walked past the bust stop. Cars honked and swerved on the road. On the street corner somewhere, a man was shouting about Jesus. All around him, New York kept moving.
James refused to cry.
He didn’t have the breath for it, for one. For another, he felt too fragile for it. He was afraid that the moment he let himself break he might keep breaking, on and on until he was dust just like the monster the zombie had killed.
The monster the zombie had killed. Gods. Was this really the life that awaited him? The life his dad had warned him about?
His dad. James lifted up his axe. It weighed normally now, the bronze handle unchanged saved for a few fingerprint smudges. Nothing different. The weird bone tip had even magically reappeared again.
James touched it gingerly. It was cool and smooth under his finger. It was real bone, he could tell. No illusion.
That meant that all of that had been real. The tip breaking off and sinking into the ground. The zombie soldier popping out and killing the sphinx.
You only get three uses. So use them well.
James led his head thunk against his knees.
“This sucks,” he whispered. His voice was wobbling, but there was no one around to hear it, so he let himself have it. Just that much.
“I want to go home, Mom.”
Nobody answered him. James pressed his fists into his eyes. He was scared. He was so scared. And exhausted. And hungry.
But he was alive. His dad’s gift had kept him alive.
His dad had kept him alive.
James sniffed and raised his head. Maybe having a dad wasn’t so terrible after all. He was no Euphemia Potter, but…
”Thanks dad,” James whispered.
He didn’t get an answer from him either, but James was already used to that.
He stood up shakily, brushing the bus stop grime from his clothes. He stuck the bone axe back into his backpack and retightened the knots on the jackets tied around his waist. Right. He didn’t really know where he was, but he was at a bus stop, and buses went places. James checked the peeling map on the wall, following this bus lines with his finger.
“I’m near the Towers?” he murmured in surprise. The World Trade Center was several blocks from the subway entrance. Had he really run that far?
His stomach growled, and James huffed in irritation. He couldn’t concentrate when he was hungry, it was his greatest flaw.
“Right,” he muttered, following the bus lines in the opposite direction. “Food first.”