The woods felt wrong.
That was the first thought in Lucas' mind as he ran beneath the trees. There were no calls of insects, no drilling of woodpeckers, not even the flapping of passing birds. There was just silence. The forest had always been alive when he was a child; he recalled the endless hours of noise that came from the forest. The only sound was his own breath and the faint crunch of pine needles under his shoes.
A bad omen.
Lucas pushed himself, trying to regulate his breathing and fight the sleepiness he felt. He had been rushing home with no rest since leaving Elysian, driving a stolen truck that had run out of fuel a few miles back, causing him to run for the last half an hour. As for the stolen truck's owner, he made sure to leave some mortal currency behind, enough to reimburse and more.
Lucas's mind was focused on running; he didn't have time to be careful. It was because of this that he only felt the wards activate after he stepped through them. He paused, daggers drawn and his Veil Sight active, looking around for any signs of ambushers, but after a few moments, there were none.
He turned, looking at the wards he had tripped, giving them a quick look over and seeing how they ran through the forest, creating a massive boundary. While he couldn't identify the exact wards, with them being too complex, he considered the creator's ability to be second to his mother's. His knowledge of wards, learned under Hecate, allowed him the ability to judge the intended use of the wards as a whole; it must have been something akin to a trip-wire that sent a signal to the creator, meaning whoever set it up knows he is here. He did another cursory look around, noting yet again how there were no ambushers.
Either the one who set up the wards is too busy to pay attention here, the location is too far, making the monsters take too long to ambush him, or, most likely, the signal was received, and they just want him to continue forward.
Coming to that conclusion, he guessed his presence here was an expected variable to whoever set up the wards; they only wanted to know when he turned up.
That put a frown on his face. It meant his actions today would already be expected, lowering the odds of defying fate and saving himself and his father.
He adjusted his jacket and moved on. Regardless of what lay ahead, he would face it.
He continued running, following an old trail through the trees, and noticing signs of outsiders' presence. A campfire here, a piece of armor there. The brief whiff of sulfur. They hadn't even attempted to hide their being here; the signs were obviously left on purpose, maybe to inspire dread in him, perhaps a taunt. He ignored them and ignored the constant feeling of being watched.
He broke from the trees into the clearing in front of the Thorne house and stopped.
Corpses littered the ground.
Some human. Most likely demigods, equipped in an assortment of armor and bronze swords still in their grips. A cyclops sprawled nearby, his eye pierced, blood spilling into a pool, where a pile of golden dust lay, most likely monsters who were too weak to leave a corpse.
The click of a safety mechanism made him freeze, turning his head, and looking over his shoulder, out of the corner of his eye, Lucas saw a bronze barrel of a revolver being pointed at him from. He froze, his instincts warning him that if he moved, he would die.
"Lucas?"
The barrel dipped. Allowing Lucas the freedom to turn his head and see the one who had pointed the gun at him.
It was his father.
"Dad!" Lucas smiled, ignoring the blood and corpses, and embraced his father in a great hug. Although he made sure to check in occasionally via Iris message, this was the first time he physically embraced his father in a while, allowing him to release a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
Surprise flashed across Steven's face as he saw his son. Not expecting to see him here, his expressions changed like a slideshow: confusion, understanding, anger, love, and pride. The emotions flickered across his face before he settled on a tired smile and embraced his son.
Lucas, however, stopped indulging in the hug, his thoughts returning to the present.
"We should go," Lucas said, stepping back. "Now. While we can."
Steven shook his head. "I taught you to be smarter than that." He gestured with the revolver's barrel toward the trees ringing the yard. "Do you really think they would allow us to leave?"
Lucas turned his sight towards the trees, seeing the new magic that had arisen while he had embraced his father.
A barrier.
He understood immediately that this wasn't intended to protect those inside; rather, it was to stop them from leaving. He now knew why no one turned up when he tripped the alarm, why they wanted him to come here. They wanted to trap him and kill him, like fish in a barrel.
Lucas sighed. While not unexpected, it was depressing. Now the only hope was to either defeat whoever set up the barrier or hope someone could shatter it and come to their rescue.
However, thinking of the last point, Lucas felt embarrassed and disappointed. He hadn't informed any allied gods of his coming here, not Nemesis, not Hestia, not even his mother. He had been so consumed by the prophetic dreams that he ignored the help he could have gotten and came alone.
Lucas turned, apologising to his father and explaining this.
Steven listened to his son and rubbed his head like a child, chuckling to himself.
"It doesn't matter." He said wistfully, "I believe even if you had brought a god for support, there would be plans to stop them from interfering."
Lucas looked past his father at the bodies, realizing something he had ignored. He looked back at his father, or more specifically, the gun in his hand, and understood it was a celestial bronze revolver.
This caused Lucas to freeze, knowing what this meant.
Steven caught Lucas's eye on his revolver and understood his thoughts. Informing him of his identity as a demigod, too.
Seeing the surprise on his son's face reminded him of the looks on the two dracanae when they discovered he was a demigod too.
...
When the second "officer" lunged, Steven had already sidestepped almost lazily, allowing the baton to pass by him.
"Trying to swat a fly?" Steven asked, tone light.
The officer snarled. He brought the baton up for a high swing, intending to quickly kill the mortal, contempt flashing in his eyes.
And then there was a flash.
A neat hole appeared in the officer's forehead; he toppled backward, his body turning to dust before it hit the ground.
The other officer's eyes widened. He had enough sense to leap back, hissing in fear at the abrupt death of his partner and the understanding that their 'disguise' hadn't worked at all; they were played with. But this didn't help him survive as Steven fired again. Killing the second dracanae.
...
Stevens' thoughts returned to the present, feeling a shift in the atmosphere.
He looked up and saw the horde of monsters at the forest boundary, watching him and Lucas. The only reason he could survive this long was that the monsters only sent the occasional individual to fight him, wearing him down and keeping him trapped here. He knew the wave tactic was their attempt to stall, but he didn't know what they were waiting for, now that his son was here. The monsters had all gathered; he understood they had gotten what they wanted. Now was the time to finish them.