I wasn't so lucky as to land on top of the Aphrodite cabin's table like the trio. Instead, I landed in some poor satyr's lap, causing him to jump so hard that he snapped his reed pipes in half. I apologized and fixed his reed pipes, quickly getting out of his lap and composing myself, standing next to the trio as they climbed down from Aphrodite's table.
That didn't last long, however, as Piper clutched her stomach like she was about to sick, and Leo dashed off to the nearest bronze brazier, throwing up in it. I wasn't too sure the gods would be too keen on that particular offering, but I'm sure they've seen weirder.
"Jason?" Chiron trotted forward. I know that my half-brother had seen thousands of years' worth of weird stuff, but even he looked totally flabbergasted. "What – How –?"
"Hi," Piper said, as casually as she could, ignoring the gawking looks of the Aphrodite campers. "We're back."
I turned towards the Hermes and Apollo tables, searching out for the two very familiar mops of blond hair that belonged to some of the people I cared most about. My heart just about stopped when Kayla Knowles met my gaze, shaking her head sadly as she returned to her conversation with Austin Lake.
The Hermes table was greatly subdued, the older campers pushing around their food while the younger kids stared, uneasy about the siblings' moody demeanor. Not even Connor and Travis attempted to crack jokes, looking worse for wear as they gently goaded the younger kids to eat their dinner. From the Demeter cabin, Katie stared at Travis, worry evident in her eyes as Miranda jostled her back into their conversation.
"No," I exhaled softly, biting my lip so harshly that I tasted blood. "She was lying. She can't have..."
Jason patted my back sympathetically. "I'm so sorry."
I scowled as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, gold ichor smearing across my skin. "You have nothing to apologize for, Jason," I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. "I'll get my friends back, even if I have to jump into Tartarus myself."
"Andy, what are you doing?" Chiron asked, grabbing me by the wrist before I could leave the dining pavilion. "You cannot throw yourself into Tartarus after coming back from a quest, I forbid it."
I felt everyone's eyes on me, all other conversations dying out almost instantaneously. They wanted to know how this would end.
"I can't let them suffer because of me," I said through gritted teeth, staring Chiron directly in the eyes. "I should've been here, keeping them safe-"
"My dear, you can't be in two places at once. Don't blame yourself for something you had no control over. You're acting on your emotions, just like when Percy-"
"Percy's gone, Chiron!" I shouted, digging my nails so harshly into my palms that I felt the skin break underneath. "Now Luke and Will have been taken too, but this time they were taken by the personification of everything dark and evil, not the Queen of Olympus! I cannot, will not, stand by knowing that every second that I am here, they are being tortured beyond anything my worst nightmares can conjure up!"
Chiron pressed his lips together in a thin line, his expression grim. "We will talk about this later, Andy," he said, his voice impossibly soft, barely louder than a whisper. "Until then, let us celebrate the return of our questers for freeing Queen Hera and preventing G-"
"Mother Earth," I insisted.
"And preventing Mother Earth from waking."
The dining pavilion broke out into roars of approval, the sounds of cheering and the Ares cabin pounding their weapons against the ground flooding the valley. I pushed down my anger again, finding a weak smile make its way onto my face as I applauded loudly for my friends, watching as they stood there awkwardly, unsure of how to react.
Afterward, Chiron allowed for everyone to go back to their dinner, opening the floor for the four of us to be bombarded with questions. Thankfully for me, once I sat down all by my lonesome at Poseidon's table, the majority of the campers left me alone, still remembering my previous outburst.
I debated skipping dinner entirely, but I could feel Kayla glaring daggers at the back of my head, daring me to get up without eating. I was tempted to take that dare, actually, but not wanting to cause any more issues, I begrudgingly ate a slice of pizza. Then I got up and left the dining pavilion before anyone else, allowing for me to slip away mostly undetected.
Of course, I couldn't get away entirely without someone noticing, so it came as no surprise to me when I heard Leo yelling, "Andy, wait up!"
I stopped and sighed, pulling on a curl that had wormed its way out of my ponytail. I waited until Leo was next to me, his movements all carefully calibrated, like he thought I was some kind of vicious animal about to rip his face off.
"I don't bite, you know," I said with a half-hearted chuckle, resuming my path to the Big House. Leo made sure to keep up with me.
"I know," Leo said, fiddling with some wire and pipe cleaners in his hand, his orange tool belt sticking out like a sore thumb against his subdued camouflage clothing. "I've known that for a while, actually, ever since you saved me from getting arrested in that Sears."
"That was, what, seven years ago?"
Leo ticked the years off on his hand. "Yeah, that sounds about right. And that was one of the happiest days of my life, because, for the first time since my mother's death, I felt loved. You have no idea how much that meant to me."
"I know what it's like to feel like that," I said, remembering the time where I didn't have many friends and Salina had gone silent for two years, making me feel totally and utterly alone despite being constantly surrounded by the Olympians. It wasn't until Salina came back that I realized how much I craved being loved by a parental figure again.
"Andy, the point I'm trying to make is that you're the kind of person who gives that feeling of hope and love that many people desperately want," Leo explained, setting down his wires and pipe cleaners back into his tool belt. He grabbed my hands, imploring for me to look at him in the eyes.
"You make people feel loved, and if you truly cared for these friends of yours, they know that you'll do everything short of blow up the planet to get them back. But leaving now, throwing yourself into what I've heard is literally the darkest thing in all of existence won't do any of you any good." Leo's eyes nearly glowed in the otherwise darkness, a ring of fire circling his irises.
Huh, that was new.
I shook my head sadly, pulling my hands back to my side. "I can't let more people get hurt because of me, Leo. It seems that whenever I try to help, I only make things worse for those I care about."
"Hey, I feel you, hermana. It feels like we're jinxed sometimes, huh?"
"You have no idea."
Leo started to laugh. I cracked a slight smile.
"You're fifteen – I should be the one comforting you, not the other way around," I said, fiddling with my jacket's zipper.
He held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not the one whose world is crashing down around them, at the moment. So until we switch places, I'm just the comedic relief."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, Leo. I will gladly suffer if it meant keeping my friends safe, and that includes you."
"No wonder you want in on this suicide quest, then."
"No one's going to die if I can help it."
"Eh, I'd be okay with dying. I mean, I don't want to die, because that's a shame to deprive the world of all this smoking hotness that is Leo Valdez" – here I rolled my eyes again – "but I'd get to see my mom again, so I guess death isn't the worst thing in the world."
I felt my eyes widen in shock as I stopped yet again, grabbing onto Leo's arm. I hadn't summoned ghosts in two years, but I doubted that would cause much impediment on my part.
"Leo, I'm going to check something really quickly, and I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?"
"The Underworld," I answered, ignoring the way Leo's jaw practically hit the floor. "Back in a jiffy!"
True to my word, I had my answer within three minutes of entering the Underworld, courtesy of cashing in a longtime held favor I had with Tisiphone, one of the three Furies. She owed me ever since I got her whip back from that one guy in Punishment who was forced to run in a field of cacti, naked, for the rest of eternity.
There are some things you just can't unsee.
"Okay, I'm back," I said as I reappeared inside Camp Half-Blood.
"Jesus Christ!" Leo shouted, flinching so hard that the end of his nose caught on fire. He gave a meek yelp, quickly smothering the flames before anybody noticed, swearing under his breath in Spanish. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
I smirked inwardly at that scene in Big Hero 6, where Baymax went to use a defibrillator against Hiro. Ah, that was such a good movie – one of my favorites, actually. Such a shame that it wasn't out in theaters yet on this Earth.
Oh, well, good things come to those who wait.
At least, I think that's how the saying goes. I don't know; it's been a while.
Where was I going with this...? Oh, right, my plan.
"I have a good excuse for scaring you," I said, my heart hammering in my chest as I thought of how Leo might react to what I was about to offer.
"Oh, this is going to be good. I can feel it," Leo said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "What information did you uncover in your three-minute excursion to the Land of the Dead?"
"I can summon your mother, if you'd like to talk to her."
All of the joy that Leo had been holding seemed to drain right out of him, as if a dementor (yes, another Harry Potter reference, I don't care) had gotten too close to him. He even staggered backwards, as if someone had sucker-punched him in the gut.
"Don't play with my emotions like that," Leo warned, his voice laced with anguish. "That's not funny."
"I'm not joking, Leo," I said, keeping my voice steady but still kind. "Some of my powers grant me control over the dead, and that includes summoning spirits. I just checked with one of Hades' Furies, and she told me that your mother is still in the Underworld. If you want to talk to her, I can bring her here for a short amount of time."
Leo shook his head in disbelief. "Where's the camera guy waiting to yell, 'Punk'd'?"
"This isn't a practical joke, I swear it on the River Styx."
Thunder rolled across the cloudless night sky, signifying that my oath had been made.
After hearing the thunder, Leo finally conceded. "Alright," he agreed. "What do I need to do, some sort of blood sacrifice?"
"No, this isn't a cult. Ghosts don't like blood, actually, unless they've become a mania."
"Then what do we need?"
"Some McDonalds."
"You're kidding."
"I never kid when it comes to Mickey-D's. Come on, Leo, we're going on an adventure!"
0o0o
Five Happy Meals and a freshly dug pit later, I began chanting the incantation in Ancient Greek to summon spirits. Seeing that the Doors of Death were currently open and that Thanatos was imprisoned at the moment, I held my Stygian iron hunting knives tightly in my hands as the first shades appeared, only allowing for Esperanza Valdez to come forward.
When she kneeled to drink from the offering, I gasped. Esperanza Valdez was literally a female version of Leo, only that she had more calluses on her hands, and she was about an inch shorter. Other than that, down to the smile that frequently got Leo pegged as a troublemaker, the two were nearly identical.
"Mami?" Leo asked, his voice cracking, full of emotion. "Is it really you?"
Esperanza stepped forward, her pale hand vaporizing slightly as she attempted to caress Leo's face. "You're all grown up, mijo," she said, her eyes shining with love and pride as she looked into her son's face. "You have your father's gifts, you know. I'm sure he is as proud of you as I am."
"Mom, that night at the warehouse, I-"
She held a hand up, cutting Leo off. "I know what happened that night, mijo, and I would never blame you for it, not in a million years. I'm sorry for how Rosa treated you after I was gone. You deserved all the love in the world, Leo."
"I ran away six times," Leo admitted, unable to look his mother in the eyes. "I wanted to get as far away from Houston as possible. There was nothing left for me once you passed."
Esperanza gave her son a knowing smile. "Not nothing, mijo. I'm sure Andy here knows what I'm talking about."
"I mean, Raina and the others nearly took my head off when they found out we'd reconnected," I said, eyeing the growing number of spirits starting to flock to the offering, tightening the grip on my knives.
Esperanza laughed – a light, twinkling sound full of joy. "Not exactly what I had in mind, but you're right, nonetheless."
I looked back after cutting down a particularly restless spirit, biting my lip as I thought. "The drill bit patent?" I asked.
Leo inhaled sharply. "That – it –"
"It was going to change our lives," Esperanza agreed, nodding slightly. She reached into the pocket of her oil-stained overalls, pulling out a small, weathered spiral notebook. The pages were smeared with dried grease and oil, but as she thumbed through it, the writing appeared to be unharmed. "I want you to have these, Leo. I'm sure you can make these much better than I could've ever dreamed of."
Leo tried to take the notebook from his mother, but once again, her form flickered when his living flesh got too close.
"I've got it," I said, holding out my hands towards Esperanza, far enough so that she didn't dissipate from my touching her.
She dropped the notebook, and like something out of a movie, the once ghostly book became corporeal, resting in my hands. I quickly gave the notebook to Leo before returning to guard the pit, muttering more protection charms as some spirits started to grow more and more restless.
"I must get going," Esperanza said, turning back in time to watch me stab another shade. "Dark forces are brewing in the Underworld, and I don't want to aid anything that wishes to bring you harm, mijo."
"But, mami, I don't want you to go," Leo begged, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, clutching the tiny notebook to his chest. "I can't lose you, not again."
Esperanza gave Leo a sad smile. "You'll never really lose me, Leo, as long as you remember me. I'm always there, watching over you, my precious baby boy. You have made me so proud. I love you so, so, so much, mijo."
Leo didn't reply, instead tapping out "I love you" in Morse code on his thigh, earning another smile from his mother.
Esperanza then turned to me. "Thank you for taking care of my son. I will be forever grateful to you, Andy."
"Don't mention it," I said, returning the smile. "Leo's grown up to be a fine young man. And I'll always be there when he needs me."
"Goodbye, mijo. I love you to the moon and back."
Esperanza bowed her head one final time, her spirit returning to a misty form like all the other nearby shades. Before any other shade could drink of the offering, I said one last incantation, sending all the other shades back to the Underworld.
Once all the spirits were gone, Leo fell to the floor and started to cry. I pulled him into a tight hug, not saying anything, just waiting for Leo to calm down enough so I could bring him back to his cabin for the night.
But the crying, on top of the rest of the day's events, had drained Leo so much that he fell asleep in my embrace, leaving me to pick him up bridal style and march him back to cabin nine. Jake Mason didn't say anything when he saw Leo in my arms, merely calling out, "Bunk 1-A, please."
I tucked Leo into bed, pressing a kiss to his forehead as I pulled his blanket up to his shoulders. "Keep an eye on him for me?" I asked Jake, watching as Leo's room descended back to its proper place downstairs.
"Sure thing. I'll send Nyssa to get you if he needs anything."
"Thank you so much," I said. Then I remembered his full-body cast, and said, "Let me see if I can help with that."
By the time I left cabin nine, I was exhausted and downright about to pass out, but at least Jake didn't need his arm casts anymore, something I knew he was overjoyed about.
I somehow made my way back to cabin three without falling flat on my face. But exhaustion didn't stop the fresh wave of guilt I felt when I saw Percy's things still in a horrid state of disarray, his bed a disaster area even though I remember having made it before I left.
But I was too tired to care about a messy bed at the moment, so I crawled into my bunk, falling asleep almost instantly.
0o0o
That night I had some of the worst dreams of my life, even worse than the time I was forced to endure watching Cleo's death for a month before she actually died.
I stood inside a large, abandoned arena, similar to the one Antaeus had back in the Labyrinth. A chandelier of skulls and bones drooped from the ceiling, adding to the creepiness of the room. The only source of light was a few torches, casting long, foreboding shadows everywhere I looked.
Chained to the wall were Luke and Will, their bodies slumped over each other in an entanglement of limbs, their eyes shut. I would've thought them dead if it weren't for the fact that I could still see their chests slightly rising and falling with each agonizing breath.
Will was missing a good chunk of his hair, like somebody had scalped him halfway, got bored, and left. His right foot bent in the wrong direction, one of his ankle bones jutting out from the skin. He had three parallel lines bleeding from his chest, staining his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt to the point that the black lettering and pegasus were impossible to make out.
Luke didn't look any better off. His jeans had been turned into a tattered disaster, revealing dozens of burn marks and deep gashes, many of which were still bleeding. I could make out what seemed like hundreds of lash marks on his back, tearing through his shirt, turning the flesh there into a shredded mess, like someone had dragged him against a cheese grater.
The scar on his left cheek seemed to have been reopened, the edges tinged an ugly shade of purple. Dark lines wrapped around his throat, arms, chest, and back, appearing almost like briar thorns or barbed wire shoved deeply into his skin and left there to slice him open from the inside out.
Like Will, Luke also had a broken bone, but instead of his foot, it was his right arm, his sword arm. The skin there was an angry shade of red and swelled up to the size of a small balloon. There was another similar injury by his shoulder, making it appear that he'd gotten his shoulder dislocated and no one had popped it back into place.
It was a miracle that infection hadn't killed either one of the boys or that they hadn't drowned in the pool of blood they were both in. Honestly, I knew they were still alive, but it was concerning the amount of blood that was currently outside their bodies.
I rushed forward, only to run into an invisible wall, unable to get to my friends. I tried taking a longer way around, passing behind this huge pool of green-tinted liquid, but once again, I walked into the same barrier.
I swore under my breath as I pressed my hand flat against the barrier, racking my mind for anything that could undo this type of protection. Sadly, nothing came to mind.
I was broken out of my thoughts when all the torches flared violently, and braziers that lined the walls lit up as well, flooding the arena with light. I cringed as my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, my heart practically stopping in my chest when I saw who had walked in.
Tartarus himself.
He easily stood seven feet tall, with muscles large enough to crush a watermelon between them if he so wished. His flesh was so black that it was almost purple, little dark red and purple lines webbing together across his skin, like external veins of some sort. He didn't have eyes, instead pits of darkness filled them, as if you were staring into the depths of Chaos yourself. A scar cut across his mouth, giving him that much more of a sinister appearance, especially since he wore a sneer fierce enough to curdle dairy, casually swinging around a rusted, bloodied sword like it was a toy instead of a deadly weapon.
"I've got to have some kind of entertainment, don't I?" he asked, his attention fully on me as he passed through the barrier, yanking Luke up onto his knees. "It gets dreadfully boring down here."
The son of Hermes stirred instantly, glaring daggers at Tartarus, holding his chin high in defiance. Luke didn't even scream as Tartarus sliced off his shirt and dragged his sword across his abdomen, the same way a doctor would perform a C-section, except this was much, much deeper. Instead, he glanced at something on his forearm, shutting his eyes moments later as Tartarus continued cutting him open.
Luke swayed on his feet, falling back to the ground, swearing as Tartarus kicked his side, slamming him into the marble wall he was chained against. Will's eyes flew open, and he attempted to push himself up, but a weak shake of Luke's head was enough for him to feign being asleep again.
I screamed at Tartarus, begging for him to take me instead, to which he replied, "We will have our fun in due time, girl. Night-night."
Then I woke up in my bed, tears streaking down my face as I pulled my arms tightly around myself, trying not to fall apart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi, all!
I know that the world has been absolutely hectic since we've seen each other last, but I want you all to know that this is a safe place for everyone. I love you, no matter your sexuality, race, religion, ethnicity, etc.
You are all such amazing human beings and deserve to be treated as such, and I hope with the events occurring now, this will be the start to a path to equality for everyone.
And one more thing, please stay safe! COVID-19 is still out there, so please continue to wear your masks, practice social distancing, and wash your hands!
I love you all from the bottom of my heart! ❤️