Untitled Part 16
Nico had never seen a blemmyae cry before.
Johan's large pectoral eyes were red and puffy as he staggered across the front porch. Tears streamed down his rib cage. In his arms, he held the limp form of Hazel.
Nico's heart slammed on the emergency brake. He couldn't move. Couldn't think. Will rushed forward and helped Johan lay Hazel on the porch.
"She's breathing," Will announced.
Nico's muscles unfroze. He ran to his sister's side. She lay motionless, her hair spilling across the whitewashed boards, her face set in a look of mild consternation, like she was having a stress dream.
"Good pulse," Will said, then gently inspected her head. "No contusions. No visible wounds. She's just...unconscious."
"The others," Johan sobbed. "The others are inside."
"I should go check." Will glanced at Nico. "Stay with her?"
He could only nod. Will and Johan disappeared into the mythics' quarters.
Nico cradled Hazel's head in his lap. His nerves felt like the tesserae— hot, overloaded, and fuming. He wasn't sure if he wanted to sob or scream. His Cocoa Puffs, who had shadow-traveled with him, now circled Hazel warily, sniffing her clothes like she smelled of rival cacodemon pheromones.
Hazel's eyes fluttered open. "Wh-what—?"
"I've got you," Nico said in a broken voice. "You're okay. You're okay."
Nico heard shouting and the clanking of armor coming from the direction of Camp Jupiter. Frank Zhang was running toward them at impressive speed, followed by two archers.
Hazel struggled to sit up. "What happened? I—"
"Take it easy," Nico urged. "Do you remember anything?"
She rubbed the side of her head. "I—I was sitting on the sofa, waiting with Yazan and Maynard. I'd pulled the Mist around us to hide, and then... did I fall asleep?" She straightened. "Is everyone okay?"
Will emerged from the quarters, propping up Yazan, who limped along at his side. Orcus flapped around them, squawking with concern. "Will he be okay? Can I help? Yazan, don't die!"
"Chill, little buddy," Yazan said groggily. "I'll be fine."
Johan appeared next, with Maynard Thee Faun in his arms. Maynard looked perfectly fine, but he seemed to be enjoying the free ride. He was in the midst of regaling Johan with his adventure of falling asleep on the couch. "And then, dude! I, like, passed out or something! That couch is comfy!"
Last came Semele, her smoky gray form thicker and darker than usual.
Frank and his archers finally reached the porch.
"Hazel!" he gasped.
"I'm okay," she assured him.
"What happened?" He glanced around at the motley group, like he would accept answers from anyone at this point. "You heard that voice?"
Hazel exchanged a confused look with Yazan and Maynard. "What voice?"
Then, because things weren't confusing enough, Terminus decided to join the party. With a
BANG! and a flash, the godly statue appeared in a column of smoke like a low-budget magician.
"NOBODY PANIC!" he announced. "I AM HERE!"
"A little late," snapped Semele.
The god glowered—which Nico knew was his default expression. From the waist down, Terminus was a rough-hewn block of white marble. From the waist up, he'd been sculpted as a curly-haired, muscular man with no arms. Whenever he moved, he reminded Nico of a magician trying to wrestle their way out of a straitjacket for the gathered crowd.
"Save your criticism, eidolon!" said the god. "I was just summoned to twenty different sentry points at the same time. It's a miracle I didn't shatter! Now, where's the intruder? And please don't tell me, for the twentyfirst time, that there isn't one!"
"There isn't one," said Semele. "At least not anymore. We all passed out —even me, and I didn't know I could pass out."
"There was a voice," Frank said. "I think all the other sentries heard it."
He repeated what the Christmas witch had said over the tesserae.
Johan looked at him blankly. "We did not hear this."
"Which means the actual intrusion probably happened here," Terminus said. "And the other sentries were victims of some kind of magical distraction—decoys to keep my attention divided until it was too late."
Nico shivered. "That presence felt very real. If it happened simultaneously, everywhere we had sentries stationed...What kind of being has that kind of power?"
"A minor god, obviously," said Terminus. "At least a level six. No one else could outmaneuver me this way! When I get my hands on whoever it was..."
Everyone politely ignored the fact that Terminus had no hands. Nico was also pretty sure minor-god power levels weren't a thing.
"I'll ask the obvious question," Terminus continued. "Is everyone accounted for?"
Nico scanned the group. Each person's face reflected their own shellshocked expression. Then a collective sense of horror seemed to settle over them as they turned to look at the large empty rocking chair on the porch, and realized who was, in fact, not accounted for.
"Asterion!" Nico and Hazel said in unison.
They led a mad rush into the mythics' quarters.
The bull-man was gone.
His room reminded Nico of a monastic cell—walls of gray sandstone, a hard-packed dirt floor, no windows, no furniture except a straw mattress and a basket of Asterion's knitting supplies. Asterion had spent so much of his time at Camp Jupiter knitting, yet none of his finished products were here. Apparently, he'd given them all away as soon as they were done.
Nico's heart ached. He realized the room was meant to look like part of the Labyrinth, Asterion's old home and prison. He wondered if the resemblance had brought the bull-man comfort, or if it was simply part of his traumatic history that he couldn't yet shed.
Johan paced the room, wringing his hands and muttering "No, no, no, no."
Semele floated above the mattress, her smoke still thick and roiling.
Orcus let loose a screech of pure misery. His small feline tail whipped back and forth.
"He was seven feet tall!" wailed the griffin. "He weighed as much as one of those car things! How can he just be gone?"
Nico had no answer. He could still smell the scent of Asterion's hide, feel the warmth of his last embrace.
"So, do you finally believe us?" demanded Semele. "We are being taken!"
"I didn't disbelieve you before," Hazel said, though she didn't seem able to muster much conviction.
"Hmph," said the eidolon. "In any case, we'll be leaving at first light. Orcus, Johan, gather your things."
"What?" asked Frank. "Why?"
"You know exactly why!" snarled Semele. "Someone is kidnapping our family, and you are not able to stop it!"
Nico racked his brain. He couldn't let things end like this—with half the mythics taken, the other half fleeing. Asterion wouldn't have wanted that.
He thought about what had happened tonight—the voice from the tesserae, the sensation he'd felt at the Caldecott Tunnel, the way his cacodemons had reacted just beforehand.
He looked down at the Cocoa Puffs, now bouncing around the room as if they sensed nothing amiss....
"One more night," Nico blurted out. "Please, Semele."
"Why should we?"
"Because we're close to cracking what's happening," Nico said. "I know what to do now."
"Bah!" the eidolon scoffed.
"I would like to hear the boy out," said Johan. "Before we make a decision."
"Johan," Semele said, "I know you have a fondness for these demigods, but—"
"Why can't we just listen?" pleaded the blemmyae.
Semele's smoke turned pale. It dawned on Nico that Johan had actually interrupted someone...which seemed impolite. Nico was so proud.
"You forget that I am your elder," Semele said, her voice taut. "I existed hundreds upon hundreds of years before you were even a thought in the universe. If Asterion really is gone, then his authority as leader of this little group passes to me."
Johan dropped his gaze. "Yes, of course. I apologize...but could we please just listen to him? Thank you."
Orcus flapped his wings. "I agree with my big-faced friend!"
Semele muttered something in a language Nico didn't recognize. Ancient Minoan? Phoenician? Dead languages could be useful when you wanted to insult someone.
"Very well, Nico di Angelo," said the eidolon. "Tell us what you know, and we will decide if it is worth the risk of staying here another night."
Nico glanced at Will, who nodded at him encouragingly.
"My cacodemons," Nico said. "Just before Asterion's disappearance, they began to panic. They kept trying to get my attention."
"I saw it," confirmed Will. "They'd never acted like that before."
"A moment later," Nico went on, "I sensed a presence—like something cold and unfriendly, washing over me."
"Yes, we're aware an invisible force infiltrated your camp," Semele said bitterly. "That is not comforting to us."
"Hold on." Hazel looked at Nico with newfound interest. "How long was it between when the Puffs sensed the intrusion and when you sensed it?"
"Only a few seconds," Nico admitted. "Still..."
"They could serve as an early warning system," Hazel said.
"A what?" Semele asked.
"That's kind of brilliant," Will said. "If this god-level thing comes back tonight, and if we keep the Puffs with us..."
Frank nodded slowly. "Then we'll know when it's about to strike. We can be ready this time."
Semele muttered another curse in ancient whatever-it-was. "I'll remind you that here, where the abductor actually struck, we felt nothing."
"But you didn't have the Cocoa Puffs," Nico said.
"Even so, this force was powerful enough to put all of us to sleep, including me! None of your lookouts knew what hit them. Why would next time be different?"
Hazel winced, clearly hurt. She'd been working with Asterion since the mythics first arrived. They'd become good friends. Nico imagined the bullman's disappearance, and her inability to stop it, was tearing her apart inside.
"Speak, Praetor," Semele urged her. "Do you have a solution?"
Hazel took a deep breath. "Maybe so...Nico, you felt that cold presence before the other demigods did?"
"By a few seconds, yeah."
"Were you in physical contact with a Puff at the time?"
Nico remembered Jealousy prodding him with its tusks. "Yep."
Hazel looked like she was running an equation in her head. She faced Semele. "Okay, so...as the daughter of Pluto, one of my abilities—growing abilities, I should say—is that I can manipulate the Mist."
"I'm aware," Semele said. "You made yourself and your comrades invisible tonight while you were on watch. It did not help."
"Except it wasn't really invisibility," Hazel said. "That's not how the Mist works."
Johan stopped his pacing. " 'The Mist works more on the mind than the eyes.' I read that in a treatise by Aristides of Pergamon!"
Nico had no idea who that was, but the comment seemed to make sense to Hazel.
"Right," she said. "Usually, the Mist is generated when mortal minds encounter something magical that they can't understand. That...friction, I guess you'd call it, creates alternate perceptions."
Will frowned. "Okay, but...I thought that, as demigods, we see right through the Mist."
"You see through it more easily," Hazel corrected. "But you can still be fooled, especially if someone is actively trying to manipulate you. You've encountered plenty of creatures that you didn't realize were mythical at first, right?"
Will nodded sheepishly. "Point taken."
Frank leaned against the stone wall. He looked like he was having trouble following Introductory Mist Theory with Hazel Levesque, especially since it was one o'clock in the morning. "Sorry...how does this help us?"
"Whatever is abducting the mythics," Hazel said, "it has to be using the Mist. To put an entire room full of people asleep, to cause disturbances all around our borders, to kidnap someone as huge as Asterion—and to do all of that at once? Terminus must be right. We're dealing with something like a minor god."
"Then it's hopeless," Johan said.
"No," Frank said. "Terminus is a minor god. He's not perfect."
Until that moment, Nico had never really appreciated the power of understatement. But Frank had made his point. Everyone in the room nodded and looked thoughtful, as if imagining all the ways that a minor god might fail spectacularly.
"When multiple people are trying to manipulate the Mist," Hazel said, "it becomes sort of like a poker game. It's all about bluffing and calling, not necessarily who has the most powerful hand. Tonight, the intruder got the drop on me. I'd created a general illusion that I was blending in with the couch, but even that took a lot of energy. The intruder called my bluff and convinced everyone in the room that they were super tired and needed to pass out. I couldn't respond because I didn't know we were being attacked. But maybe if I'd had a Cocoa Puff in my lap..."
"The Puff would have warned you," Nico said. "And being in contact with one heightens your emotions."
"Which makes you more aware." Hazel smiled. "That's why you felt the intruder's presence before anyone else did. Altogether, that should be enough warning for me to be prepared this time. At the very least, I can stay awake and put all my energy into revealing this intruder's true form."
Frank cracked his knuckles, which seemed like a very son-of-Mars thing to do. "And the rest of us will take them down, even if I have to throw Terminus at them."
Orcus stomped his front two eagle feet impatiently. "I only understood about ten percent of that. But none of it explains why Arielle, Quinoa, and Asterion were taken!"
"One step at a time, child," said Semele. Her tone had become less irritated, more pensive. She floated closer to Hazel. "We need to figure out who before we figure out why. Do you really think you can catch whoever has been kidnapping our friends, Praetor Levesque?"
"I do."
"Using us as bait again," Semele guessed.
"Not exactly." Hazel turned toward Nico. "What did the voice in the tesserae say about me?"
The memory gave Nico goose bumps.
"That you would be next," he said.
Frank grunted. "That's not going to happen. We can wait in the principia's vault tonight. It's the most secure location in camp."
Hazel nodded. "I'd like the mythics to join us there. For safety in numbers. But your people aren't the target tonight, Semele—I am. That gives us the edge. We know who this intruder is coming for, which means we know they will appear wherever I am. We won't have to spread out trying to guard the whole valley."
"And if they try to take us on in the middle of Camp Jupiter, surrounded by the entire legion..." Frank bared his teeth.
Nico usually thought of Frank as a big, cuddly teddy bear. He'd forgotten how scary the guy could be when he showed his teddy-bear fangs.
Hazel focused on the gray smoke of the eidolon. "So...will you consider staying?"
Orcus and Johan stood motionless, waiting for Semele's decision.
"It is dangerous," she said. "But perhaps no more dangerous than striking out on our own. We will stay one more night."
Nico exhaled with relief. Johan crouched, offering his hand to Orcus, who gave the blemmyae the tiniest of high fives
"Now, if it is all right with you," Semele continued, "we mythics need time to ourselves—to grieve, to rest, to prepare."
The demigods got the message. They filed out of the mythics' quarters into the night. On the Field of Mars, Terminus had conjured up several hundred feet of yellow police tape and had created a perimeter around the building.
"This is an active crime scene!" he announced. "No one may leave without my permission!"
"I'm going to bed," Hazel said, walking past him.
"Okay, fine," Terminus grumbled. "You can go."
Will walked up to the nearest line of tape.
"And you, too," said Terminus.
When Nico smirked at the minor god, he sighed. "And you. You can ALL go, but only because I gave permission."
As they headed back to camp, the last thing Nico heard was Terminus ordering a very confused Maynard Thee Faun to start dusting the scene for godly fingerprints.
Maybe Frank was right. Minor gods weren't unbeatable.
Nico put a hand on Hazel's shoulder. "That was impressive back there. Can we strategize more over breakfast?"
She yawned. "Actually, let's make it lunchtime. I should get some real, not-Mist-induced sleep."
"Sleeping late doesn't sound very Roman," he noted.
"Zip it, di Angelo."
He smiled. "I'm glad you're okay."
"And we're going to keep her okay," Frank vowed. "I just hope you two know what you're doing. All this cacodemon and Mist talk..." He shook his head. "I'd prefer a straight-up fight."
"So would I," Will admitted, "and I hate fighting. But one thing I've learned about children of the Underworld: they are very resourceful, and they make excellent partners." He winked at Nico.
"Hmm," Frank said. "Well, I can't disagree with that, or Hazel will punch me."
She laughed and punched him regardless, in the most loving way possible.
"See you at lunch," she told Nico and Will. "We'll take it one step at a time, okay?"
She looped her arm through Frank's and led him toward the principia. Nico tried to stay positive. He tried not to think about Asterion's empty room, or their utter failure tonight, or the witch's voice over the tesserae. She had called herself an officer of the court...but what court? Who was judging, and what were the crimes? Even more worrisome, what were the punishments?
He would have to trust in their plan for tonight. Hazel would be fine. They would get their answers.
One step at a time, he repeated to himself. He could do that.
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