The Coming of Nico di Angelo

All the Bombs Drop (and not just the literary ones!)

H-bomb style.

The list of what didn't get blown to bits was shorter than the list of what did. The entire throne room? The palace was rubble. The three Furies? In Tartarus, along with any other non-immortal Hades employed within a mile of his palace. The dead Korean soldiers? Nothing but pure consciousness, along with any dead soul closer than Asphodel. The rosebush vines? Black pulp, along with Persephone's garden, and any other courtyard.

Hades stared at Hecate, who was lowering herself to the ground, too calm for someone who'd just blown up his home. He seemed to be searching for a curse terrible enough to punish her. He scanned the rubble, trying to think of something, until he saw--

"Persephone!" Hades yelled, but it wasn't a roar of anger, but a scream of anguish. He bolted to her side. Percy didn't want to look at the Queen of the Underworld, not if the sight of her made Hades react like that, but he forced himself to.

Had Helen of Troy fallen in the Trojan War, she would've resembled Persephone now. From the look in Hecate's eye, she'd somehow planned this, or had at least known it would happen. Somehow, she'd ensured that Persephone would cripple in the blast, but not disfigure, not incinerate--she'd look just like herself, just like the Queen of the Underworld, but with painful, horrible injuries. It was all the more cruel to Hades who loved his wife more than his own existence.

First, Percy noticed her godly injuries. Her hair always curled and moved like it was in a spring breeze, but now it laid flat on the blackened rubble that used to be the floor of the throne room. Her eyes were wide open, but the golden glow had faded to a more human-like hazel. Her lips before the blast were shiny and pink, as though she wore a tinted lip gloss. Now, they had lost their magical makeup quality, and became too pale, like a hypothermic swimmer.

Then, there were the more mortal, obvious injuries. She bled golden ichor, the blood of the gods, from a thousand spots--both arms, legs, sternum, neck, shoulders, face--anywhere where the blast had scraped off enough skin to bleed. Thorns spiked the palms of her hands and bottoms of her fingers; she must've shielded her face on instinct. One thorn, a small one she couldn't block, had lodged itself in her bottom lip, on the left side. It was a deep wound, with Ichor dripping down the side of her chin and onto the floor, adding to the puddle, which was a foot wide on every side and growing. The blast tore off her finger and toenails, some completely, others broken in excruciating ways. Her left hand rested on her stomach, but her right laid twisted at a funny angle by her head. She must've dropped right where she stood, because her legs bent into her, her feet sticking out on the left side of her body, halfway down her back.

Her dress--which, until the blast, had been the same as Percy remembered her winter dress looking like, faded colors that looked white at first, arranged to give the appearance that smoke covered her body--was nothing less than mutilated. Most of it was a mixture of black--scarred from the ash--and gold from her blood. The blast ripped the hems into jagged lines, so tattered remains littered her legs. The front of the dress, from the collar to the waistline, was nothing more than a few hanging threads across her otherwise naked chest (which Percy's eyes avoided at all costs; if he ever saw Hades, and the god knew he had that image in his head, he'd turn Percy into a cockroach and squash him).

Her crown--a tiara made of a mixture of pure gold and silver, with precious gems outlining the bottom, and a large, black opal on top--didn't survive the blast. Shards of silver, gold, opal, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, topaz, sapphire, and so on glittered the floor. One gemstone--it looked like jade--had flown about thirty feet away from Persephone's body. Her other jewelry--necklaces and bracelets made of gemstones shaped into flowers--seemed to have gone the same way. Only her wedding ring remained on her finger, a band of black gold with a pinkish gem--a Pink Star Diamond, according to Hazel and Piper, the one time Persephone's ring had come up in conversation--was in perfect condition, on her left ring finger, resting on her stomach.