CHAPTER XLIII:Chisa Fo’s Sushi, The Best Place In Chicago.

I moved quietly through crowds of people who took no notice to me. Most of them probably thought I was going to a convention, party, or something in between.

The city seemed to be alive with business and people. I kept moving, and looking around. Little light poked through the stormy grey clouds above, but with snow covering the ground it made no difference. Light bounced off the snow lighting the city up. Buildings were lit up like a Hephaestus' forge.

I looked through the crowds for my teammates. Not only would we need to find the Labyrinth entrance, we also needed to find each other.

I heard the snow crunch under my feet, and cover my ankles. I was not in my element whatsoever, not even death was as cold as this, and Persephone's tantrum storm was definitely pale in comparison to the winter here.

Shadows danced around gracefully, and I watched them carefully. The last thing I needed was a surprise attack from Selene's minions, even in plain daylight the shadows could come out from anywhere, and take me out quickly.

I moved quickly through the crowds still looking for my teammates, and I saw Adam in a daze. He was definitely not used to Hermès travel, I ran to him narrowly dodging people.

"Adam?" I said kneeling next to him which was a big mistake since I was still trying to keep warm, the snow spared no time cutting through my clothes freezing my leg and knee quickly.

"Everything….everything is…..spinning…." Adam muttered out.

Adam's eyes were trying to focus on something, but I'm pretty sure the world was upside down for him.

"C'mon Sun Boy." I said helping Adam up, and leaned him on me.

"Only…..only Luna….calls me…..calls me that." Adam managed to mutter out.

"Yeah, well if you don't cooperate with me she'll be calling you that at your funeral." I said walking with him, slowly, carefully watching our steps.

"Where's Owl Eyes when you need her?" I said looking around.

Adam stumbled and I caught him quickly, and picked him up, carrying him in my arms. He was surprisingly light, and I was shocked to find he passed out.

I looked around at all the signs on the street, but one caught my eye, a large neon sign that read 'The One and Only Chisa Fo's Shushi House'. It was out of the way in a small dark alley, and the neon sign was flashing. However every mortal passed it, and I looked at the sign again and realized what caught my eye. When the sign flashed it read 'TOh saFe' (which explained the weird name on the sign).

I walked in with Adam, and saw the place alive with movement. Demigods, in and out of uniform, were scattered about eating. I could smell salt on the air, and the noise was overwhelming.

"Hello there! I'm Chai Fo, and I'll be your host for tonight! May I get your names?" A man behind a small desk said.

Chai was very cheery, and he wore typical black server attire. His messy oak brown hair was in the perfect look placed neatly in a square white hat, and his golden flecked hazel eyes were kind. I mean even with his hair being as messy as it was, not a single strand was out of place.

"I'm Mary Riley, my friend here is Adam Flores." I said.

"Oh, I believe we have a table waiting for you! Do you know a Olivia Neptune?" Chai asked.

I nodded quickly, relieved someone else made it, and followed with Adam as Chai led me.

"I assume you will need a room for the night. We have a vacancy, and room in our in house hospital for your friend." Chai said kindly.

"Thank you sir. If it's no trouble could you take him now? We had to travel by Hermès' mail system." I asked.

"Of course ma'am! We're all too familiar with inflictions caused by Hermès' mailing system!" Chai said smiling taking Adam from my arms, Chai inspected Adam for a bit, and finally gave a nice bright smile "Your friends in the corner ma'am, I'll come to serve you when I can!" Chai said in his host voice.

Chai turned and his tone changed into a angry bitter tone as he gave orders in a language I could only assume came from somewhere is Asia, probably Japanese.

I went to the back left corner Chai was leading me to before taking Adam from me, and saw Olivia sitting down eating a small plate of various nigiri sushi.

"Hello Mary, I was wondering who would find this place first." Olivia said as I sat down across from her.

"What is this place?" I asked looking around.

"Well it's a demigod safe house. These are found in most major cities. You always have a protector who runs the safe house, in this case Chai, and a staff of medics and servers. These places hide in plain sight from mortals. When the sign flashes demigods see a hidden message typically along the lines of TOH safe house, or something like that. That being said, mortals just see the sign flashing 'Closed' or 'Under renovation'. It's a neat little magic trick." Olivia explained.

I nodded, thinking about how I always heard about these, but never saw a single one in person.

"HELP!" I heard a voice suddenly cry out.

I turned around in my seat to see Penny carrying Seth, who had a large gash across his chest.

I went to get up, but Olivia grabbed my arm, "Let the staff handle it." She said.

I wanted to go to my brother and Penny, but Olivia had a sound point to her statement. If I got up, and ran to Seth, I'd only get in the way.

A server grabbed Seth, and took him away to the hospital. Two guards, both in samurai armor, wielding katanas ran to the door too protect the safe house. A shadow, a full bodied one, came through the door and a guard chopped it down in the blink of an eye.

I sat there stunned at the speed of the attack. More shadows came through, and were instantly chopped down, but the guards speed was slowing.

Finally Chai came out from the back room, past all of the black wood tables, and was shouting something lost in the midst of screams and panic.

He got to the front door and held his hand shouting the only thing I could hear clearly "I cast you un-godly creatures of Selene OUT!".

The Omega symbol appeared in a bright gold light, pushing the increasing number of shadows out, and disintegrating them. The two guards waited for more shadows then went back to their posts, two small ebony lacquered pedestals, that I hadn't noticed before.

Chai went to the middle of the restaurant, where his bright host smile came out again, "Sorry for the inconvenience ladies and gentlemen! Everyone here will be given their meals free of charge and enjoy twenty five percent off of our rooms! Please enjoy your meals, and may the gods favor you!" Chai said happily bowing, he moved to the front door continuing his job like nothing happened.