Percy, having realized that Hestia was in the throne room as well, then bowed in respect. "Lady Hestia," he said, getting up from his bow.
"I see you went through with your plan. You bear the curse of Achilles."
I turned to the goddess. "Not to be rude or anything, but is innate that all gods are this theatric when it comes to secrets?"
Hestia rolled her eyes, which actually seemed kind of cool seeing that her irises were little flames. "When you live with Zeus for millennia, his tendencies start to rub off on you." She fixed her attention back to Percy. "You must be careful, Percy. You gained much on your journey. But you are still blind to the most important truth. Perhaps a glimpse is in order."
Annabeth nudged him. "Um...what is she talking about?"
Then Percy went rigid, causing me to sigh and walk over, sliding my arms underneath his armpits and clasping my hands together in front of his chest.
"What are you doing?" Annabeth asked, gesturing to my hands.
"You'll see," I said, "in five, four, three, two..."
Percy's knees buckled, but since I was holding him up, he didn't have to learn what the throne room floor felt like against your face. Unfortunately, I speak from experience. Seriously, marble isn't kind to human flesh.
"Percy!" Annabeth exclaimed, rushing to help steady Percy. "What happened?"
"Did...did you see that?"
"See what?"
He turned to Hestia, but she had returned to stoking her fire.
"How long was I out?" Percy asked, rubbing his temples as if to stave off a forming headache.
Annabeth knit her eyebrows. "Percy, you weren't out at all. You just looked at Hestia for like one second and collapsed."
Percy grimaced. "Um, Lady Hestia," he said, "we've come on urgent business. We need to see-"
"We know what you need," a man's voice said.
Right next to Hestia, Hermes shimmered into appearance. Instead of wearing his red nylon running shorts and New York City Marathon t-shirt, he was dressed in a military pilot's flight suit, with tiny bird-s wings fluttering on his helmet and his black leather boots. In the crook of his arm was a long staff entwined with two living serpents.
"I will leave you now," Hestia said. She bowed to her nephew and disappeared into smoke.
Helpful, I thought to myself.
While the rest of the demigods bowed towards Hermes, I cocked my head to the side, giving him a once over. "Welcome back, Hermes," I said, waving my greeting to Martha and George before the snakes could call me out on it. "How's Typhon going?"
"About as well as what happened the first time," Hermes said with a scowl, the wings on his clothing fluttering agitatedly.
"Meaning we're massively screwed."
"Pretty much, yeah."
Annabeth shook her head at me, gesturing to the rest of the campers, who looked like they were either going to pee themselves or pass out from fright.
"Um, Hermes," Percy interrupted, raising his hand. "We need to talk to Zeus. It's important."
Hermes's eyes quickly lost their mirth at the sight of the demigods, turning steely cold. "I am his messenger. May I take a message?"
Towards the back end of the group, where most of the children of Hermes were, they shuddered, not having seen their father unnerved like this before. "You guys," Percy said, turning towards the rest of the demigods. "Why don't you do a sweep of the city? Check the defenses. See who's left in Olympus. Meet Annabeth and me back here in thirty minutes."
Silena frowned. "But-"
"That's a good idea," Annabeth said. "Connor and Travis, you two lead."
The Stolls seemed to like that- getting handed an important responsibility right in front of their dad. If I remembered correctly, the last time the Stoll brothers got to lead anything, they toilet paper rolled every cabin at camp, especially the Artemis cabin since the Hunters had been there for a weekend. How else did you think that the cabins caught on fire so easily when the Hunters retaliated?
Hermes turned to me, clearly confused. "Didn't we...?"
I waved off his question. "Let them have their moment. It'll give the rest of us some privacy."
"I see."
"My lord," Annabeth said. "Kronos is going to attack New York. You must suspect that. My mother must have foreseen it."
"Your mother," Hermes grumbled. He scratched his back with his caduceus, and George and Martha muttered Ow, ow, ow. "Don't get me started on your mother, young lady. She's the reason I'm here at all. Zeus didn't want any of us to leave the front line. But your mother kept pestering him nonstop, 'It's a trap, it's a diversion, blah, blah, blah.' She wanted to come back herself, but Zeus was not going to let his number one strategist leave his side while we're battling Typhon. And so naturally he sent me to talk to you."
"But it is a trap!" Annabeth insisted. "Is Zeus blind?"
I cringed at the comment. "Watch your wording," I warned. "Zeus will still kill you where you stand if you're disrespectful." To further cement the fact, thunder rolled through the sky.
"I'd watch the comments, girl," Hermes agreed. "Zeus is not blind or deaf. He has not left Olympus completely undefended."
The god gestured to the protective dome overhead before patting me on the back as well. "Andromeda here has been trained for this exact reason. She is bound to Olympus for the rest of her life, and as such, she is our last line of defense."
Luke, who had refused to leave with the others, scowled at his father. "Stop treating her like some pet, and treat her like a person, Hermes," he said, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"Luke, you don't-" I began.
"No, Andy, you always put others before yourself, but not this time." Luke took a deep breath, which seemed to calm him down. "At least ask if she wants to be here, Dad. Don't force her to risk her life for the rest of us."
Hermes looked at me expectantly. "Well, then. Do you want to be here, Andy, fulfilling your duty as you promised us all those years ago?"
"I do."
"There you have it, Luke," Hermes said, stabbing his caduceus into the ground. "She stands firm in her decision. Now, before I go, there was something I had to tell you all..." He scratched his head in confusion. "But for the life of me, it seems I can't remember what the message was."
"Please, Hermes," Annabeth pleaded. "You said my mother wanted to come. Did she give you any messages for us?"
The god frowned. "I'm positive that she did, but I can't remember." Hermes looked around, a genuine look of surprise on his face as he realized that he was standing in the middle of an empty throne room. "Wait, why am I here? Wasn't I fighting Typhon just now?"
The four of us in the room glanced at each other, unable to believe what we were seeing. Since when did gods, especially the messenger god, forget what they were sent to do? Not to mention, this never happened in the books.
"Lord Hermes," I said, pinning his attention on myself rather than on the others. "Zeus sent you to give us a message from Lady Athena. Do you remember what she wanted to tell us?"
He shook his head miserably. "I'm sorry, I don't remember."
I nodded grimly. "That's fine. You should get going, though. The other gods will need your help."
It didn't take much convincing to get Hermes to leave, shame written clear as day across his face before he disappeared, returning to the fight against Typhon. Needless to say, Annabeth was crushed about the fact that her mother's message hadn't been relayed to her.
"What are we supposed to do now?" she asked. "My mother must've had a plan that we could've used."
Percy and Luke turned to me. "You hang out with the gods," Luke said. "Maybe you know what Athena had in mind."
I began fiddling with my bracelet. "Plan twenty-three," I said, watching Annabeth's eyes go wide with realization. "We need to begin activation as soon as possible. And, Percy, you have to remember the rivers. Also, while I don't agree with this, Athena told me to tell you to stay away from her daughter."
Luke was chuckling softly at the bright red blush that covered both Percy and Annabeth's cheeks.
"Anything else?" Annabeth asked, ignoring how Percy was gaping at her like a fish out of water.
"We'll have to hold Manhattan on our own, but I'm pretty sure we all knew that by now." I started to pace back and forth. "But we have bigger problems to deal with than being low in numbers."
"What could possibly be bigger than you-know-who attacking New York?" Percy asked. "And what do you mean, 'remember the rivers?'"
I waved away both of his questions. "I'll explain in time, Percy, but right now, we need to go. The others are waiting for us by the-"
I was cut off by Connor Stoll running into the throne room, paler than I'd ever seen him before and breathing heavily, as if someone had just knocked all the wind out of him. "You need to see this," Connor said, holding a hand against his chest as he tried to regain his breath. "Now."
0o0o
We found the other campers gathered in a small park at the edge of the mountain. They were clustered at the guardrail, looking down at Manhattan. The railing was lined with those tourist binoculars, where you could deposit one golden drachma and see the city. Campers were using every single one.
I noticed the silence almost immediately, feeling a chill sink into my bones. I shuddered with disgust as I ran to the guardrail, looking down into the streets of Manhattan. Though I could still see the Hudson and East River snaking around the island and all the lit up skyscrapers and roads, I saw that everything was eerily still. The wrongness of it all deeply upset me, the constant hustle and bustle of the city having become one of the most consistent things in my life.
"I don't...hear anything," Annabeth said.
"Oh, gods," Luke muttered, pushing aside one of his younger siblings to get a look at the sleeping city through the binoculars.
"What did they do?" Percy asked, his voice sounding tight and angry. "What did they do to my city?" He then pushed Michael Yew aside and used the binoculars, a scowl forming on his face as he took note of all the sleeping mortals everywhere.
"Are they dead?" Silena asked in astonishment.
"And see the world in endless sleep," I mumbled to myself, wincing when I heard other people gasping at my comment. I hadn't meant to be so loud, but with all this silence, it wasn't too hard to overhear anything.
"Not dead," Percy confirmed, angrily shoving the binoculars aside. "Morpheus has put the entire island of Manhattan to sleep. The invasion has started."
0o0o
I was pacing back and forth in front of the Door of Orpheus, mulling over what had happened in my dream last night. Salina had given me her blessing for some reason, and it just so happened to be the same night that Percy had gotten his Curse of Achilles. I didn't believe in coincidences, and Salina never did something as major as giving her blessing without expecting me to do something in return.
Trust me, I learned that quickly while under her training.
I stopped at one point, pressing my hands against the moss covered rock, shivering at the perpetual cold I felt. It held the same aura of death that surrounded DOA studios, except this was a much more powerful aura – unrefined and angry from being unused.
"Okay, Salina," I said, positioning myself so that I was standing right in front of the hidden entrance. "Let's see what you have planned."
Now, I could just shadow-travel myself to the Underworld and be done with it, but from what I've read about the Curse of Achilles, you were supposed to walk down to the banks of the Styx, not just appear. Then again, there's only been three documented cases, so I guess that could be inaccurate, but there's no way I was going to take any unnecessary risks about what I was about to do.
"Music," I said out loud, trying to think of a song. I'd already tried using my phone, but all that managed to do was make a single stone fall to the ground. Apparently Orpheus had set the standard much higher than anything electronic music could hope to achieve.
I finally settled on "Top of the World" by Greek Fire, deciding that the song was fitting seeing our circumstances. And while I definitely wasn't going to earn any awards for my singing voice, the entrance shuddered, the rocks collapsing inward and revealing the tunnel that led right to the depths of the Underworld.
Andy? I heard Percy's voice ask. Where are you?
I swore under my breath, quickly walking into the tunnel before the entrance disappeared again. Whatever light had been illuminating the tunnel quickly vanished as the rocks reassembled, plunging me into darkness. I opened the palm of my hand, a flame dancing along my fingertips.
I'm in Central Park right now. Why?
I need you here with the rest of us. We're severely outnumbered, even with the Hunters.
The Hunters are here?
Yeah, they just arrived. But stop trying to change the subject! What are you doing in Central Park?
I kept walking further down the tunnel, the smell of mildew intensifying as I moved deeper into the earth. The whispers of dead spirits flew past, leaving a chilly breeze as they moved onward. Even from here, I could hear the screams from the Fields of Punishment, the crack of the Furies' whips breaking the otherwise quietness associated with the Underworld.
I'm investigating a lead on how to break Morpheus's spell. I should be back soon.
Could you at least try to give me an ETA?
Maybe an hour or two.
We don't have that kind of time, Andy! There's a Sherman tank heading for the Lincoln Tunnel and a ship full of monsters heading towards us on the East and Hudson Rivers. I need you here to help the Demeter and Hephaestus cabins protect their tunnels.
I'll be back in time, Percy. Don't worry about me.
Please hurry. I don't like our chances if we can't figure out something soon.
Don't forget the rivers. They'll be your saving grace. Good luck, Percy, I'll see you in an hour.
I slipped my cloud charm off my bracelet and tucked it away into my bag, preventing anyone else from trying to establish a connection with me. I needed to be concentrated on this task if I was to still be alive for the rest of the day.
The River Styx was by far the most powerful of the five rivers of the Underworld, its black, frothy water striking fear into the heart of anyone who stared at it for too long. Well, that is if you don't live in the Underworld, that is.
I'd grown so accustomed to walking by the banks of the Styx that I wasn't deathly afraid of the river, but now that I was standing by myself on the edge of the river, I suddenly realized why so many souls tried to stay as far away as possible. One misstep, and poof, you're gone for eternity, your soul dissolved within the depths of the ancient waters.
Like I'd expected, I saw the ghost of Achilles rise out of the Styx and walk against the edge of the riverbank, standing directly in front of me. The famed arrow that killed arguably the best warrior during the Trojan War jutted out from the back of his heel, the skin there permanently bloodied from the wound that would never be allowed to heal.
"Achilles," I said, bowing my head in respect towards the fallen hero.
The ghost nodded, a sad look on his face. "I know you, girl. I have seen you walk the banks of this very river a great number of times. You have somehow managed to instill more hope into these cursed waters, though I am unsure of how. You have brought me some peace of mind knowing that the Styx is being taken care of.
"That being said, I urge you to turn away from this wretched place. I have warned the others, neither of which heeded my warning. Please, kind, hopeful girl, walk away from this terrible curse. You are so much more than what this river can provide you with."
Achilles spoke with such sorrow and bitterness that I was seriously begin to doubt my decision. Maybe I shouldn't bathe in the Styx. I mean, I usually escaped most of my fights unscathed anyways as long as I wore my armor – so what good was invulnerability going to do me? Not to mention that I frequently visited Camp Jupiter, meaning that the Lares would definitely sense that something wasn't right about me.
But as I began to back away from the river, Achilles shouted, "Girl, watch out!" trying to shove me out of the way of the charging girl heading my way.
Holly, I realized too little too late, the both of us tumbling into the River Styx from her momentum.
Instantly, every single part of my body was on fire. I felt like I was thrown into a boiling vat of sulfuric acid mixed with Greek fire, my soul being destroyed from the inside out.
Remember your lifeline, I told myself, concentrating on anything to prevent myself from being dissolved in the river. Now that I was being forced into this curse, I thought of my mortal point as being a tiny spot underneath my tongue, a nearly impossible place for anyone to hit unless they decided to cut out my tongue.
Visions of my friends and family flashed right before my eyes; my throat seemed to constrict, realizing that I couldn't breathe in this water, as if I was swimming in oil instead. Come on, I thought, trying to grasp onto any memory that I could.
Eventually I just saw Apollo sitting on a surfboard, looking down at me with a face-splitting smile. He held his hand out, saying, "Come on, I need you here, Andy. You're not getting out of this war so easily."
Just as I was about to black out from hypoxia, I gripped Apollo's hand and felt myself get thrown out of the river like week old trash, the rocky shore scrapping my palms and my knees as I heaved, throwing up all the excess water I'd been forced to breathe in. I then fell on my back in exhaustion, my clothes completely soaking wet, my body trembling from the shock and the cold.
Achilles quickly rushed over, his pale green eyes alight in anger. "Are you alright, girl?" he asked, his voice soft as he glared murderously at the river, where Holly was still struggling to get out.
"Just fine," I groaned, pushing myself up onto my feet. I began staggering back towards the Styx.
"What are you doing?" Achilles hissed, appearing in front of me. "Did you not learn your lesson the first time about the pain that comes from these waters?"
"I have to help her," I said, plucking the single poppy flower that somehow was growing by the Styx instead of the Lethe.
"She tried to kill you! She forced you into the worst possible curse anyone could ever possibly bear!"
"I don't care." I forced the stem of the poppy to grow long enough to act as a rope. "I'll still try to save her."
I tied off one end of the stem to create a lasso and threw it into the Styx, cursing every time that it would land just a little to the left or right of Holly, who had now gone limp. If I didn't figure something out soon, she was going to die.
After another five tries, the lasso finally landed around one of Holly's legs. I made the loop tighten its grip on Holly's leg and began pulling. But the Styx, seemingly unhappy with someone interfering in its judgement of a soul, burned right through the cellulose rope, pulling Holly right back into the depths of the water. As I prepared to launch myself back into the river's depths, a wave of pure black water washed over Holly.
When the wave passed, Holly was nowhere to be found.
Achilles bowed his head. "The Styx has claimed another life. I warned you, girl, not many get to experience the full strength of this river and walk out alive."
"So will she come here now?" I asked, horrified to think that this was the way Holly was fated to die. "To the Underworld?"
"I'm afraid not. Her soul has been sent to the depths of the Styx, guarded by the river's nymph for the rest of eternity." Achilles donned his war helm, his eyes shining with unbridled concern. "Stay safe, girl. I hope that my curse does not cause you too much grief."
With that, the spirit of Achilles returned back to the Styx, where he would be forced to give the same warning as long as there was someone who was brave, or stupid enough, to bathe in the most powerful river of the Underworld.
0o0o
What the hell? That was the question I kept asking myself as I jumped through the shadows, finally landing on the Williamsburg Bridge. The Minotaur was lumbering toward us, wearing a bronze breastplate, swinging an omega-shaped blade back and forth in front of him like a blind man used his walking cane. And though I grew increasingly angry at the sight of so many Camp Half-Blood necklaces dangling from the base of his axe, I couldn't really focus on the wave of monsters storming in our direction.
Why the ever loving Hades did I see Apollo while in the River Styx? I absentmindedly summoned Epithymia and my armor and charged the moment Percy threw the Minotaur over the side of the bridge. It's not like I had any feelings for the god other than that of maybe an uncle or even a brother. But a lover? That sounded ludicrous, even to me.
Seriously, I was so distracted that I didn't even realize that a hellhound had tried to rip off my arm. In response, I'd merely just stabbed it in the jugular after it bounced off, its dagger-like teeth unable to penetrate my newly cursed skin.
Mistress! I heard Star cry from overhead, her white coat standing out like a sore thumb against the rapidly darkening sky. I was afraid that one of the archers would hit her. Mistress, the others need your help!
I turned around, watching as Ethan stabbed Annabeth in the arm, causing her to cry out and Percy to yell, "Get back! No one touches her!" while slashing an arc around them. Not to mention, my father finally decided to make an appearance, and I wasn't supposed to be here to witness the Williamsburg Bridge collapse.
Meet me on the other side of the bridge, I instructed, sparing a moment to scowl at Kronos before sprinting for the bridge's exit, using one of the stalled cars as a launch pad as I jumped off the roof of a car, landing on Star's back.
"Where do they need me most?" I asked Star, goading her to fly as fast as possible to where things appeared most dire.
That would be everywhere, Mistress, Star whinnied, dodging a flaming arrow before going up higher, disappearing into a low hanging cloud. But before I could decide where to go, I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket.
Here's a lesson, kids: don't fly on a speeding pegasus one-handed unless you want to learn what it's like to dangle over two hundred feet in the air.
Luckily for me, Star was a steady flier, so I was able to fish my phone out of my pocket and answer the call. "Hello?" I asked, taking a hard right past Fifth Avenue.
"Andy, thank God!" I heard Pete sigh in relief. "I've seen the news about what's happening in New York and just wanted to make sure you're okay."
"I'm in the middle of a war zone right now, Pete," I said through gritted teeth. "I'll call you back when I can."
For the first time in his life, I could tell Pete wasn't joking. "Okay. I'll talk to you soon."
He hung up, but a few seconds later, someone else decided to call. This time, I didn't get the luxury of asking who was calling me, a frantic Demeter girl shouting, "Andy, we need you ASAP! We've almost been overrun and..."
"I'll be right there," I assured, hanging up and shoving my phone back into my pocket. "To the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel we go."
Right away!
By the time I dismounted Star's back, there were more monsters than demigods on the street, the Demeter kids desperately trying to hold off the army from breeching the tunnel. But the vines and ivy they'd grown had been cut down by the monsters, slashed at faster than the Demeter cabin could regrow.
Of the eight Demeter kids we originally started with, only five were left, one of them being Lucy. She wore a fierce scowl, skillfully brandishing her dagger as she kept a handful of dracaenae from hurting one of her brothers, who was nursing a dislocated shoulder yet was still fighting with his other arm.
I sprang into action, taking out as many monsters as I possibly could, speeding time up around me so that no one could see me coming. As for the failing barricade, I threw a handful of seeds onto the ground and waved my hands, the asphalt and cement cracking from how violent the sudden growth of the seven large beanstalks blocking the tunnel.
Yes, beanstalks are real plants, but this is the first time I'd ever seen one grow to twenty feet tall.
"Lucy, watch out!" Katie shouted, shoving off a karpoi before stabbing it in the shoulder, the grain spirit bursting into a cloud of parsley.
"Huh?" Lucy asked before gasping, a spear head protruding from underneath her ribcage. Within seconds, I'd cut down the Cyclops that had thrown the spear, scattering its dust underfoot before running over to Lucy, who'd collapsed to the ground.
Another daughter of Demeter, Miranda, ran over, frantically pressing her hands against the wound, muttering a prayer to her mother as she tried to staunch the bleeding. I threw a dagger at the last remaining monster, catching it right in the chest as I turned and ran towards Lucy.
She wasn't supposed to die, as far as I knew, so for the Fates to have changed something so quickly must've meant that someone earned the right to live in their eyes.
I took Lucy's hand into my own, meeting her tearful gaze with one of my own, trying my best to keep as calm and collected as possible. She'd just lost James, so I guess I could take solace in knowing she'd be reunited with her almost-fiancé, but she had become another one of my friends too, so there goes another one.
"Miranda, please stop," she croaked, a thin stream of blood trickling out the side of her mouth. "It's okay. I'll be okay."
Miranda shook her head vehemently, pressing her hands harder against the wound. "You can't leave me, Lucy. Please, don't go."
Katie placed a hand on her younger sister's shoulder, her own eyes misty with tears. Together, the three of us watched as Lucy's breathing ever so slowly came to a stop, the last word she ever uttered being, "James," her hand going slack in mine.
As Katie and Miranda held onto each other and sobbed, I closed Lucy's eyes, whispering a silent prayer to Hades that he would grant her safe passage to Elysium. Then I stood up, aggressively wiping Lucy's blood off my hand, trying to coax the remaining four members of the Demeter cabin to come back to the Plaza Hotel.
Then, for the third time that night, my phone began to ring again. "Hello?"
"Oh, gods," I heard Will muttering, his voice vibrating as if he were riding on a motorcycle of some sort.
Oh, right.
"Will, what's wrong?" I asked, fortifying the remaining vines in case any monster had the idea to attack during broad daylight. For good measure, I grew some poison ivy and pokeweed as well.
"It's Annabeth," he exclaimed, sounding extremely panicked. "The blade she was stabbed with was poisonous, and I don't know if I'm strong enough to stop it from spreading."
"You are strong enough to heal her, Will. Look, I'll be there in a few minutes, but I don't think you'll need my help. Just hang on until I get there."
"Please hurry."
I sighed as I hung up the call and mounted Star's back again, exhaustion beginning to seep into my bones. If I could just remind conscious long enough to help Will, that'd be great, but we'll see.
"To the Plaza Hotel, please," I told Star. And we took off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Holy moly, we made it to 50 chapters!!
I promise that there is still so much more to Andy's story, so stay tuned!
That being said, I'd like to thank every one of you who have voted, commented, and/or have added this story to your reading lists. I deeply appreciate and thank you for your continued support!
I love you all and hope you enjoyed the chapter! See you guys on Sunday's update!