In Beijing, you can get a Minion dressed as Chairman Mao with your McDonald's Happy Meal.
Beijing, Nico Di Angelo is convinced, is the future center of civilization.
He fishes a fifty kuai note out of his pocket to pay for his burger and pork porridge combo. McDonald's has done an amazing job, he thinks, of merging Chinese and American cuisine into one uni-flavor menu that tastes invariably of artificial umami.
The cashier hands him his order. He pulls the dessert out of his bag and bites greedily into the brightly purple pastry. The ghosts can have the entree, but Nico's a sucker for taro.
It's the sixth taro pastry he's had in the week he's been in Beijing. Will would say something about processed sugar if he were here, but Nico hasn't spoken to Will in weeks. Or months.
Has it been months?
"Talk to me when you've gotten this out of your system," Will had said, right before hanging up. "Let me know when you're ready to join the rest of us in reality."
Nico wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he had simply hung up. He hasn't called Will back.
Nico finishes off the dessert and crumples the cardboard wrapper in his palm. He pulls his coat tighter around his skinny frame and walks out into the bitingly cold air of Beijing in January.
He drops the Minion in his pocket.
He takes Line 2 into the north of the city, clutching the subway pole while passengers crowd in around him. He immediately regrets his decision not to walk. It's rush hour; everyone and their mother is commuting home from work. In a city of millions, that means cramped subway cars. Nico finds it hard to breathe, and not just because the car is packed so tight that he could take a nap standing up.
He hates crowds. He's never liked them, not since he was a kid and he had to clutch Bianca's hand tightly everywhere they went because he was scared that if he let go he would be sucked into a timeless place again, a place of flashing lights and enticing games like the Lotus Casino and before he knows it seventy years will have passed and he won't know where he is.
It didn't get better when he found out the truth about demigods, because then he saw monsters everywhere–anyone could be a monster in hiding; the fatigued university student leaning across from him, the sweaty laborer with his eyes shut against the plastic seats, the wizened old woman rooting around her purse for a Pocky stick or a dagger.
And ever since Tartarus…
Nico's eyes dart around the crowded car, looking instinctively for exit routes, but there are none, he's trapped, he's stuck in this tiny little box until they reach the next station and if anything happens he'll have nowhere to go…he almost reaches for his sword, because having the blade in his hands will make him feel safer, but he's cramped so tight against the other passengers that he can barely move his arm…
The subway screeches to a halt.
Nico squeezes his way through the passengers, bursts off the train, and takes a deep breathe. This isn't his stop. That's okay. He'll walk the rest of the way.
He can't wait to be out of Beijing, but he can't leave until he finds what he's looking for.
It'll be here.
It has to be.
He passes a pay phone. On impulse, he steps inside.
He has the phone number at Camp Half-Blood memorized. If he asks, they'll get Will on the line.
He hesitates.
He calls his sister instead.
She picks up on the second ring.
"Where are you?" she demands.
Nico is taken aback by how deep her voice has become. He keeps forgetting how much she's grown. She's not a girl anymore. She's taller than him, now. Percy likes pointing this out. And Nico has to stand next to her and laugh like he doesn't mind, takes the others' ribbing with good humor, and try to pretend he's not bothered by how much he's reminded of Bianca.
"Beijing," he says.
Hazel is silent for a moment. "Am I allowed to ask why?"
Nico squashes his guilt. Last time they spoke, he'd shouted at her for prying and slammed the phone on her. He would apologize, but it's not the first time it's happened and it won't be the last.
"Came here a couple times when I was learning to shadow travel," Nico says. "Wanted to see the place."
"Nico."
He swallows. "I think it's here," he says in a low voice. "I'm almost sure."
"Almost sure like you were in Pyongyang?"
"The proximity to Kim Jong Un threw me off."
"And Ulaanbaatar?"
"Ulaanbaatar was a stretch," he admits. "But I'm sure now. It's here."
Hazel sighs heavily. "It's been three years, Nico."
He clicks his teeth in frustration. "Hazel, I'm going to find it. I swear."
"I don't care. Literally–I don't care. Please come back," Hazel says. " Just please come back. It doesn't matter."
And Nico doesn't know how to explain that it does matter, it matters more than anything in the world, so he just hangs up, the same way he hung up on Will.
It's not easy to find a patch of open space in Beijing, and it's well past dark when he's finally alone in a spacious garden by the Lama Temple. He feels more than a little sacrilegious digging into the ground mere feet away from a giant golden Buddha, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
It's a moonless night, and Nico can hardly see his own hands as he digs. He's shrouded in shadow, enveloped in the darkness. He digs methodically, feeling the size of the hole with his sneakers. He moves rhythmically, mindlessly. It's dark. He's safe.
He's never been afraid of the dark like others were. No–to a son of Hades, darkness means safety, because darkness means shadows, and shadows mean a quick escape. It's bright lights that he's scared of. Bright lights, open spaces in midday. Because when everything's visible, the monsters will find you, and you won't be able to lose them.
They're everywhere.
Three years. It's been three years since Tartarus, since…
He can't think about it. If he thinks about it the memories will flood together, all at once, and he'll be curled into the corner again, gasping and sobbing, only this time Will won't be there, Hazel won't be there, no one will be there because he insisted on coming here, he insisted on doing this, and he has no one to blame for his self-imposed exile but himself.
The trick is not to think. The trick is to just focus on the job at hand, focus on moving his arms, feel the cold bite of metal under his clenched fingers as he presses the blade into dirt.
Finally the digging is done, and the real work can begin.
The burgers are cold by now, but that will make no difference to the dead.
"Let the dead drink," he mumbles, pouring red-bean flavored soy milk into the ground. It's not soda, but it'll do.
The ghosts take their time congregating around the fast food offering. Nico sits back on the grass, toying with Chairman Minion as he watches them eat. He peruses their faces, trying to pick out the features he's looking for. He's never called this ghost before, not since she died, and all he's got to go off are photographs and blurry memories from when he was a kid.
"Nico." A voice speaks directly into his ear, chilly and tremulous.
"Zeus!" Nico jumps and drops the Minion. Heart hammering, he scrabbles for his sword while his mind screams stupid, stupid, STUPID for being caught off guard.
It's not a monster.
It's just a ghost.
The slight form hovers hesitantly behind him, a little ways off from the feeding spirits, like a party guest who isn't sure he's invited.
Which, come to think of it, is exactly what he is.
"Wait." Nico furrows his brow. "I know you."
The ghost looks apprehensive, as if awaiting a verdict. His eyebrows furrow together, and his expression tightens, and that's when Nico places the face to the name.
"You're that asshole from Rome!"
"New Rome," corrects Octavian, descendant of Apollo.
"You tried to kill us!" Nico shouts. "You tried to kill us multiple times!"
"Water under the bridge?" the ghost of Octavian offers hopefully.
"What?"
"Let bygones be bygones?"
"No!" Nico's hands make agitated fluttering motions in the air as he speaks, like he's trying to ward off demon gnats. "I didn't–you weren't summoned! Begone! Get away!"
"I need your help," Octavian says quickly. "Please, I don't have a lot of time–"
Time? Nico snorts. "You're dead."
"So how much could it hurt to hear me out?"
"A lot," Nico snaps. "You're hurting my ears right now."
"Nico. Please."
Octavian drops to his knees, then.
Nico is so startled to see Octavian–self-righteous, disgustingly power-hungry Octavian–kneeling before him that he doesn't banish the spirit immediately.
Instead he settles back warily against his lawn, arms crossed tightly across his chest. "What do you want?"
"There are two demigods in this city," Octavian says quickly, before Nico can change his mind. "Young. Six and nine. Greeks. They'll need help reaching Camp Half-Blood."
Yeah, they will, Nico thinks. Beijing is a far way from upstate New York.
But this is a trap if Nico's ever smelled one. Demigods in need? Friendly ghost? For all he knows, Octavian's struck a deal with some monsters–the son of Hades in exchange for whatever it is that a ghost could want.
"How would you know?" he asks suspiciously. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, burning in the pits of my father's kingdom?"
Octavian scowls. "When I died, your father assigned me to help guide demigods who hadn't found their way to the camps. I'm a descendant of Apollo. I show up in their dreams. Warn them about monsters, show them where to go. Something about being the guide that I never was when I was alive." Octavian pulls a face. "Your father's all about poetic justice."
Nico considers this. "Sounds like Dad."
Octavian looks agitated. "But these two–it's been days, and I haven't been able to reach these two. They're attracting monsters like magnets, and they have no idea what they are. Someone's got to find them."
This actually sounds plausible, so Nico has to think for a moment before pulling his next counter-argument.
"Why can't you just get a satyr?"
"Have you seen Beijing pollution? You think there are satyrs around here? Please, Nico." Octavian hasn't budged from his kneeling position. "We're the best chance they've got at staying alive."
"Don't say we," Nico says quickly.
In the corner of his eye he can see the spirits beginning to dissolve into the night air. They've gotten their free meal; even better if they don't have to hang around for the interrogation. A few more seconds and they're gone, leaving behind empty paper bags and the smell of high-fructose corn syrup.
He'll have to find her another time.
Part of him wants to banish Octavian right then. He doesn't trust him, not even this wispy incorporeal version of him, because Octavian's weapon was never his body but his words. Nico doesn't need a ghost whispering in his ear.
He's been under the influence of a ghost before.
But if there's even the smallest percent chance that Octavian is telling the truth, then somewhere in this sprawling city are two demigods, young and scared, without a clue of what's happening to them.
Nico has some idea what that's like.
"Fine," he says finally. "Fine. I'll help you."
Relief washes over Octavian's face.
"Thank you," he says, and Nico almost believes he's being genuine.
He rises to his feet and shakes the cold numbness out of his legs.
Looks like he'll be in Beijing longer than he thought.
