The Ghosts of Millennia

Bianca, Stop Maiming Your Brother

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Cho boards Charon's ferry. Nico runs into Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

BEGINNING NOTES

Chapter Rating: General Audiences
Content Warning: Violene (mild)
Word Count: 3967

REMINDER: In the Coming of Nico di Angelo, Will's mom is Jewish. I'm saying Jew as in Jewish descent. Not like Will practices Judaism. Maybe he does. I don't really know.

And all the characters are owned by JK Rowling, or Rick Riordan.

Credits at the end.

____________________CHO____________________

Cho sat on a leather couch in a crowded room. The walls were the color of steel. The only sound came from soft piano music playing from speakers attached to the walls. No one spoke or moved. She sat in silence, waiting. For what? She didn't know.

There was something heavy in her pocket. She took it out. It was a coin of some kind, made of bronze. She didn't know how it got there, but she somehow knew it was important. She put it back in her pocket before anyone else could see it.

A man entered and sat behind the security desk, which was on a raised platform so high that she had to crane her neck to see his face. He was a black man with his blond hair in a buzzcut. He wore a tan, silk Italian suit and tortoise-shell sunglasses so dark that Cho could see her reflection in them. There was a black lapel in his suit pocket and a silver name tag. Cho squinted at it. "Charon."

She stood. Hundreds of eyes followed her as she walked to the security desk. Charon's back was to her. He was thumbing through thousands of pieces of paper, sorting them into different piles, mumbling to himself as he placed each one.

"Visa, Visa, Amex, Time Warner Cable, Visa, T-Mobile--who uses T-Mobile anymore?--Amex, Amex..."

Cho looked a little higher, just to get a closer look at him, when he stopped what he was doing. She ducked under the platform just in time. It was dark and earthy down there, damp, cold. Charon's shoes turned away from her, and she heard, "Time Warner Cable, Verizon, MasterCard, Visa..."

Cho tried to crawl out, but it was too dark for her to see anything but Charon's shoes. She started shaking with fear, but there was no other way. She crawled towards the shoes. Silent as a shadow, she wiggled her way out from under the platform. Charon's back was inches from her nose. She backed away slowly. Then, she froze. She couldn't move another step.

That's when a man melted out of the shadows. He was nothing more than a long, black cloak. Afraid he would see her, she ducked under the security desk.

"Will you take off that damn thing, Thanatos?" Charon grumbled. "How many millennia will it take for you to get over your grim reaper act?"

Thanatos lowered his hood but refused to take off the rest of the cloak. It took all of Cho's might not to faint at the sight of him. He was... there was no other word for it but angelic. Her whole body shook worse than before. He looked a little Middle Eastern, with dark, tanned skin and jet black hair that fell to his shoulders. His eyes were honey gold. His nose, face, and chin were chiseled like a Greek statue. He even had wings. She couldn't tear her eyes from him.

"Humans fear the Reaper," Thanatos said.

Charon huffed. "How many do you have for me?"

"300,000."