In the evening, as I had told Grover, we met on the hill at the border of the camp. Annabeth was nowhere to be seen, so I asked a camper to search for her.
I the end it took her several hours to come and meet us.
During our wait the curfew had already passed so the harpys had tried to attack us only to be ordered back by Chiron who was with us to send us off.
Annabeth, blissfully unaware or knowingly ignorant of the early ending quest she had almost caused with her arrogance and tardiness, was insulted that we hadn't told her earlier.
Not realy our fault, really, since she had run of before I had even talked to Grover.
The only good thing us starting our quest so late into the night had, was that Luke had already fallen asleep so there wouldn't be any cursed shoes involved.
"Are you ready? Can we finally leave?" I asked Annabeth, not bothering to hide my annoyance.
"Why can't we just wait until it's day to start? This is stupid." she responded.
"Well, Young Perseus, I do agree with her. This seems incredibly unwise."
Grover, the only Person in this group that had actually stuck around to listen to my plan, rolled his eyes.
"Because this quest is time sensitive. So we have to start as early as possible. No time to wait."
"Thanks Grover." I said. I really didn't feel like explaining everything twice. Grover had been there and Annabeth could have been there two if she had bothered. I stead she went crying to her head councilor.
Anyway, finally after having to waste four hours waiting for her we could finally start.
Argus started the car and drove away from camp with all three of us in the backseat.
For about an hour and a half we were just quiet, but then Grover had had enough and asked us what our problem was, which Annabeth answered with her favorite reason. "We're supposed to dislike each other, because our parents do."
I return I just keep quiet until both stared at me.
"What? Do you realy expect me to like her after all the genunily concerning behavior she has shown towards me? Even that answer of hers barely resembles an actual and believable reason."
This seemed to annoy her as her face grew as red as a tomato.
But before she could say anything Argus interrupted, saying that this was as far as he was allowed to take us, saving me from having to listen to Annabeth enraged rant, which I was sure would come eventually.
We exited the car on the curb of a bus terminal. It was mostly clean with the exception of several wet cigarettes and Glas shards on the ground.
Grover mumbled something about disgusting human behavior and I had to agree with him. Whenever I saw something like that I could only think about how parasitic humanity as a whole was. It disgusted me but at the same time it made me happy that I wasn't one any more. I was a Wicker, hiding behind a human facade.
The terminal was mostly empty with one or two homeless sleeping of in the distance on benches.
The earliest bus we could take wouldn't come for the next three hours and the night grew colder by the minute.
I tried to figure out if I had access to a skill or ability of mine that wouldn't be suspicious and could be explained easily. So anything in my inventory was immediately eliminated. The class skills weren't usable right now either, since I wasn't supposed to be able to do any of that nor did I have any visible preparations with me. Which reminded me that maybe I should go out and try to find some things for both potions and poisons. Couldn't be that hard since I need only between two and three ingredients for them and, as far as I had tested them, I didn't necessarily need magical ones either.
So while I left Annabeth and Grover behind to scavenge some items from the trashcans, floor and the grass and flower beds near by, I continued to think.
The summons? Not possible. It would be hard to cover up or find an explanation on how I managed to befriend three nemean lionesses, an undead dragon or a weird raven/crow when two of those things don't exist in Greek mythology and there only being one nemean LION in existence.
The undead and Chimera? Well, the undead weren't really an option with how two of my current quest companions think the thief was Hades, Lord of the Dead and ruler of the Underworld, a place full of the deceasd/undead.
The Chimera were an option as I did happen to have a few that weren't as obviously one as some of my others. But those I could reasonably "control" as a son of Poseidon were aquatic in nature, then again I could use some amphibian creatures since neither Grover nor Annabeth knew that children of Poseidon weren't supposed to be able to talk to those and reptiles. I blame my demonic side on the reptile thing, since the sinners and demons from hell took the forms of many different creatures. I think I can talk to birds as well, maybe because of the Ars Goetia. There were some bastards of some of their members in the demons I killed/ate.
Anyways, the magical creatures atleast those that originated from my magic, couldn't be used either as they were pretty obviously made out of other things, but most definitely not water.
Then I had an idea. Since there was no way for us to get into a bus this early and none of my current abilities were fit to be used, why rely on them then? I had a whole gaggle of both sinner and Hellborn demons that I rescued from the Red Cushion(The place where they were Rescued from will from here on out be named "Red Cushin". Might also be reverence as a "horehouse" or "the trafficking ring".)
One of them was bound to be able to drive and who knows, maybe one of them even has a human disguise. Yes, that's it. I will call them and find out who would be up for the task.