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It’s a routine patrol. Laurent’s not there to help, really, he’s supposed to be there to learn. That changes pretty quickly.
“Go!” Luk shouts, shoving the baby into his arms, “Run back! Get help!”
Laurent scrambles to get away. Camp Jupiter doesn’t have a strong barrier like Camp Half-Blood has at all; it’s a miracle that the monsters haven’t broken through and gotten to the baby.
The shouting is loud behind them; he’s not sure how long five campers will last against four manticores. The bridge on the Little Tiber is in his sights when he hears thudding behind him.
He makes his decision; his whip appears and cracks against the manticore’s eyes. He almost drops the baby in the meantime. The manticore howls.
He keeps attacking it. The shouting has stopped and he knows that that isn’t good at all. Another manticore appears, only hindered by a cut along its side. It’s bleeding from its mouth too.
The original manticore after him laughs. An arrow shoots it through the eye.
“ Godsdamnit fuckit !” Laurent hears, “Pick on someone with some damn experience, you dimwits!”
Calhares skids down from the Oakland Hills, yelling. He slams a sword through the skull of one of the manticores. He rips it out and splatters blood all over his nice trench coat.
“Just want the child,” The other manticore hisses, “Give child.”
“Specify which one!” Calhares nearly tackles its side. Laurent remembers to take the opening and rips a gash in its stomach. “ Because legally, one of them’s mine! ”
He’s like some sort of avenging angel, if they came in scrubs and a trench coat and a side-braid ponytail. The bow on his back Laurent vaguely recognizes from their car trip three years ago; the sword he doesn’t.
“Laurent? Laurent, are you okay?” Calhares cups his face in his hands. He blinks. He hadn’t even realized the manticores were dead. “Say something.”
“Are the others all right?” He asks. He hadn’t even seen the death of the other manticores. Calhares winces.
“I don’t think so,” He says. “May I take the baby?”
Laurent looks down at the baby. He’d forgotten he was holding them. He shakes his head.
“Well, okay,” Calhares says. “Here.” He fusses and adjusts his arms so he’s holding them better. “Don’t repeat any of the words I said.”
“Am I really legally yours?” He asks. Calhares turns the sword into a hairpin and sticks it in his ponytail.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Auguste appointed me your legal guardian in his will, so technically I didn’t kidnap you, but it’s kind of shaky.”
The baby starts screaming and Calhares swears. Then, he gives Laurent a crash course in how to rock a baby.
“What did you actually come here for?” Laurent asks quietly after he’s explained the patrol finding the baby inside camp borders and the manticores outside. The baby is sleeping, swaddled against his chest in his old blanket. They’d found a note in his blankets with the name Nicaise written in curvy handwriting. So far no one has really insisted on taking him away.
“I was going to tell you how Auguste died,” Calhares says. He tenses. “Weirdly enough today has been a proper segue into that.” He exhales. “A group of manticores killed your brother.”
“Like today,” Laurent says.
“I’m going to look into it,” Calhares tells him, “Manticores are usually more solitary. They don’t hunt in groups, much less work together.”
“Where did you get the sword?” Nicaise smells like baby powder. “I don’t remember you ever having one.”
“It was Auguste’s.” Calhares takes the pin down from his hair and fingers it absentmindedly. “I was going to give it to you, but it became a little sentient with me.”
Laurent’s heard of it. Weapons getting attached to someone who uses them. “My whip’s been doing that recently,” He confesses.
“Oh yeah? Has it got a name yet?”
He shakes his head. Calhares shrugs. “Oh well. It’ll come eventually.” He looks at him. “Are you going to keep the baby?”
Laurent looks down again. “I don’t see why not,” He says.