***NOTE: Just a quick warning, this story does contain spoilers for The Blood of Olympus. This is a two-part story. The second part will be up in a couple of days. Also, disclaimer: This world and these characters belong to Rick Riordan, I'm just borrowing them and causing them problems.***
A double date had seemed like a good idea, right up until Piper's mom appeared. Fortunately, Piper was alone in her bedroom when Aphrodite, goddess of love, showed up in a shower of rose petals. Unfortunately, Piper was in the process of getting dressed and she didn't yet have a shirt on.
"Mother!" Piper snatched a towel off the back of her desk chair and quickly wrapped it around herself.
"Nothing I haven't seen before, dear. I am your mother." The goddess looked agitated. "Besides, we have bigger problems right now. I require your assistance."
Piper secured the towel more firmly around her. "You have got to be joking."
It had only been two months since Piper and her friends had last assisted the gods with a problem; namely, killing a band of bloodthirsty giants and destroying the Earth Mother Gaea. The fight had cost Piper one of her best friends. A lump still formed in Piper's throat every time she thought of Leo, though she hadn't lost hope that she would see him again one day. But for Aphrodite to show up now and ask for help again, so soon, well, that made Piper mad.
Apparently, from the hard glint in her mother's eyes, this was an emotion they were sharing. "No, Piper, I am not joking. Something terrible has happened and I need the help of my most powerful demigod child."
Piper crossed her arms. "And why should I help you again?"
Aphrodite pursed her lips. "Because I am your mother. And because I am the goddess of love. Things are going so well for you right now, aren't they? I would hate for anything to throw your relationship off track."
Fury rose in Piper's throat like bile. Blackmailed by her own mom? Piper nearly took a swing at the love goddess. Instead, she forced herself to take a deep breath. Arguing with Aphrodite wouldn't do any good. Piper was a hero. She may not be happy about yet another quest, but she could handle it. And deep down, really deep down, she was just the tiniest bit pleased that Aphrodite had come to her for help. Her mom needed her.
"Fine, I'll help you," Piper said. "But first, can I put on a shirt?"
Aphrodite's stormy mood vanished the instant Piper agreed to help. The goddess beamed at her. "Of course, dear. Go right ahead."
Piper stared at her mother for a moment. Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "Oh for goodness sake, Piper." But the goddess turned to face the wall.
Piper quickly hung her towel back up and grabbed the turquoise shirt she'd laid out. She was already wearing her jeans. While she dug in her drawer for a pair of socks, she asked, "So, what's the big emergency?"
Aphrodite turned back around. Her eyes were full of tears. "My hairbrush is missing."
Piper dropped the socks she was holding. She gaped at her mother. "Come again?"
"My hairbrush is missing." The goddess plopped herself down on Piper's bed and sighed dramatically. "It's my favorite hairbrush, capable of creating any style you could wish for with just a few brushes. And it's gone."
Piper was tempted to bang her head against the wall, but that wouldn't accomplish anything. She considered bonking Aphrodite with the hilt of her sword, but that probably wouldn't help either. Instead, she picked up her socks and sat down in her desk chair to put them on, still staring at her mother. "How the heck am I supposed to find a hairbrush in New York City? I assume it is somewhere in the city?"
Aphrodite had taken out a compact mirror and was now checking her reflection. "Oh yes. I believe the fools took it to Fifth Avenue. That's the most likely place for them to go about getting their makeovers, after all."
"Wait, you know who took your hairbrush? And where they went?"
"Mm-hm." Aphrodite pulled a tube of lipstick out of thin air and began to reapply her makeup.
"Why can't you just go get it yourself?"
Aphrodite finished applying her lipstick, studied her face a moment longer in the mirror, then snapped the compact shut. "As I told you on the Acropolis, my dear, we gods need mortals. I cannot go after the Lemnian women myself. But you can."
"The Lemnian women." The name rang a tiny bell in Piper's head, but she couldn't place the story. "So, they stole your hairbrush and then went to Fifth Avenue to go shopping for makeovers?"
"Yes."
Piper put her face in her hands for a three count. "You realize I have a date in an hour?"
"Don't worry, dear. I pushed your reservation back until eight o'clock. Two hours should be plenty of time for you to accomplish this task. Especially since I'll allow you to take your friend along to help."
Great, Piper thought, though she could only imagine Annabeth's reaction when Piper gave her this news. "How am I supposed to get this all-important hairbrush to you?"
"You can meet me at the Pulitzer Fountain, in front of Central Park." Aphrodite rose and smoothed down her dress. "And I can give you some advice. Seek out your sister Harmonia. She may be able to aid you."
"Oo-kay," Piper said. "Where can I find Harmonia?"
"I'm sure you'll figure it out, dear." Aphrodite smiled. "See you at eight! And Piper dear? Try not to be late. It's not nice to leave your date waiting."
Piper gritted her teeth, but before she could respond, Aphrodite wiggled her fingers like Toodle-loo and disappeared in a pink, perfumed cloud.
Piper quickly finished getting dressed, then headed out of her room. The dorm was quiet. At six o'clock on a Friday evening, most people were out, especially since the Friday night curfew wasn't until one a.m. Piper's room was at the end of the hall, so all she had to do was turn right to reach the staircase that led up to the junior floor.
Piper hadn't planned on attending her sophomore year of high school in New York, but towards the end of the summer at Camp Half-Blood, she had decided it might be nice to spend some time in the mortal world. After the way her summer had gone, she wanted a bit of a break from the world of gods and monsters. Her dad had agreed and Piper had enrolled in the same boarding school Annabeth attended. Annabeth was a junior and Piper was a sophomore, so their rooms were on different floors, but as Piper reached the top of the stairs, she was glad that at least her best friend was nearby, even though she doubted Annabeth would be happy to hear Piper's news. Nevertheless, she took a deep breath and knocked on her friend's door.
Annabeth smiled when she opened the door. "Hey, Piper. What's up? I thought we weren't leaving until six-thirty?"
Piper made a mental note to tell her friend that the purple and gray striped top she had on looked really cute, but at the moment, they had more pressing problems. She hated to ruin Annabeth's good mood, but they only had two hours to complete the ridiculous quest. "That was the original plan," Piper said. "But my mom just dropped in for a visit. And she needs our help."
Annabeth's smile melted. "Please tell me you're joking."
"I wish. Aphrodite's favorite hairbrush was stolen and she wants us to get it back for her."
"Okay, now I'm sure you're joking."
"I swear on the River Styx, that's what she told me," Piper said. "And yeah, I think it's just as ridiculous as you do."
"But we're supposed to meet Percy and Jason in an hour," Annabeth said. "We have reservations."
"My mother moved our reservation back to eight," Piper said. "Also, she may have threatened to wreck our love lives if we don't help her."
Annabeth's gray eyes turned Category 5 hurricane dark. "After everything we did this summer, she had the nerve—"
"I know," Piper said. "But she did tell me she knows who took the hairbrush and told me where we can probably find them."
Annabeth looked like she was counting to ten in her head. She took a deep breath. "Okay, fine. Let's just get this over with."
"That's the spirit," Piper said.
After sending a quick Iris-message to let Percy and Jason know that their reservation got pushed back (though they didn't tell the boys why), Piper and Annabeth caught the subway to Fifth Avenue. On the way, Piper filled Annabeth in on what her mother had told her about the Lemnian women and Piper's sister Harmonia.
"The Lemnian women," Annabeth mused. "It sounds familiar, but I can't remember the story. I recognize the name Harmonia, though. She's a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares; she's also the goddess of, well, harmony."
"Oh yeah." Piper remembered reading about Harmonia when she'd researched Greek myths with her dad, movie star Tristan McLean, for his role as the king of Sparta. Unfortunately, she also realized why Aphrodite had sent them to find her. Her stomach twisted. "The necklace of Harmonia."
"What?"
"Harmonia's necklace. It was a wedding present from Hephaestus." Her voice caught on the name Hephaestus, but she swallowed and quickly continued. "But the necklace was cursed. Hephaestus originally thought Harmonia was his daughter, but then he learned she was, well, actually a result of Aphrodite cheating on him with Ares. He didn't take it well."
"So he cursed Harmonia?" Annabeth said. "Not cool."
"Not cool at all," Piper agreed. "Because the necklace didn't just curse Harmonia. It cursed anyone else who owned it. It's not a nice piece of jewelry."
"But we have to find it," Annabeth grumbled. "Any idea where to start looking?"
As the train pulled into the station, Piper caught a glimpse of an advertisement plastered to the wall. She suddenly felt like she was in one of those old cartoons, where a light bulb goes off over the character's head to show they've had an idea. "Oh, that's too easy," she muttered.
"What's too easy?" Annabeth asked.
Piper pointed to the advertisement. It had a blue background with a solitaire diamond ring in a box and white letters on it. "What better place to look for a necklace than the ultimate jewelry store? We're going to Tiffany's."
Piper wasn't much of a jewelry person; it tended to get in the way when you were fighting for your life. But she had to admit that the pieces in the cases at Tiffany's were gorgeous. Jewels sparkled in their gold and platinum settings, lit by soft lighting. The atmosphere of the store was reserved but also kind of stuck up. Piper had been forced into enough boutiques and high-end stores by her dad and his old assistant Jane to know. A saleswoman gave Annabeth and Piper a cold smile, quickly dismissing them as potential customers, before turning to give a much friendlier smile to an older couple who had walked in behind them. Piper didn't care. She just wanted to get in, find the necklace, and get back out. They still had to figure out who and where the Lemnian women were and it was already six-thirty. Only an hour and a half left.
"Too bad Hazel's not here," Annabeth murmured as they walked through the store, browsing the display cases for anything that might be a cursed necklace. "She could probably find that stupid necklace in two seconds."
Piper nodded. A flash of movement caught her eye and she turned just in time to see another saleswoman moving towards a door marked "Employees Only." Just before she went through the door, the woman looked over her shoulder at Piper and Annabeth with wide, frightened eyes. Then she ducked through the door and was gone.
"Did you see that?" Piper asked.
Annabeth nodded grimly. "I'm guessing we should follow her."
Again, Piper wished that Hazel was here, this time to use her Mist abilities to hide them as they made their way to the door. The two of them tried to move casually, to avoid drawing attention to themselves, but Piper's heart was pounding. She didn't want the woman to get away. They reached the door and after a quick look around to see if anyone was watching, slipped through.
The moment the door closed behind them, Annabeth gasped. Piper looked at the room around them and gulped. "Somehow, I don't think this is what the mortals see when they come through this door."
The room was the size of a warehouse, with fifty foot tall ceilings. It was so large Piper couldn't see the back wall. And it was filled with enough gold and precious stones to give a jewel thief a heart attack.
There were hundreds of display cases, softly lit like the ones in the Tiffany's store. Inside the cases were pieces of gold and silver jewelry carved in all different types of intricate shapes, some set with stones the size of Piper's fist. Scattered amongst the various display cases were golden statues of lions, elephants, and humans, some nearly as large as the Athena Parthenos statue. These concerned Piper a lot more than the jewelry in its cases; the statues' ruby, sapphire, and emerald eyes glinted like they were alive. But maybe it was just a trick of the light. She hoped so.
"What is this place?" Annabeth murmured.
"You should not have come," a mournful voice said.
Piper and Annabeth both whipped around. Behind them stood the saleswoman Piper had seen walk through the door. She was wearing a simple black wrap-dress and black high heels. Her caramel colored hair fell over her shoulders in waves. Her eyes were still wide and frightened but now that she was closer, Piper realized the woman's eyes were a lot like hers, the colors swirling almost like Aphrodite's ever-changing eyes.
"Harmonia?" she asked.
The woman nodded. "Yes, little sister. I am Harmonia, the wretched daughter of Aphrodite and Ares."
That didn't seem like the most promising start to a conversation, but Piper forced herself to smile. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Piper. This is my friend Annabeth, daughter of Athena. We actually came here to find you. I'm looking for Mom's, um, hairbrush and she said you might be able to help."
"You're here about the necklace, I suppose?" Harmonia sighed.
Piper and Annabeth exchanged glances, then Piper said cautiously, "Yes. We just need to borrow it, though. Aphrodite suggested it might help us recover her hairbrush from the Lemnian women."
"Ah. The women of Lemnos stole the brush. Yes, the necklace could help you against them."
"Great," Piper said. "So, may we borrow it?"
Harmonia shook her head. "It's not that simple. You do not want this gift, little sister. If I give you the necklace, I will also bestow upon you its curse. And after three thousand years, the curse has only grown in strength. It used to take years to come to fruition. Now, the curse acts upon its owner within minutes."
A bitter taste filled Piper's mouth. "What exactly is the curse?"
"The necklace grants its owner youth and beauty; that is guaranteed. But the curse takes a unique form each time, bringing about the downfall of its owner in new and frightening ways."
Piper was liking the sound of this less and less. She and Annabeth exchanged looks again. "So, if you can't give us the necklace without cursing us," Annabeth asked, "what are we supposed to do?"
"Steal it, of course," Harmonia said matter-of-factly.
"Excuse me?" Annabeth said.
"A thief never truly obtains an object. Possession will always remain with the original owner," Harmonia explained. "But if I were to give my blessing to a thief then perhaps, just once, they could then gift that object to another, making them the true owner of the necklace and, therefore, the curse."
This explanation made Piper's head spin, but it sounded reasonable. "Okay. Where do we find the necklace?"
Harmonia snapped her fingers. A hundred yards away, golden light erupted from a display case. "The necklace is there. However, you need to be aware that it won't be easy to steal. The moment you attempt to take the necklace, the guardians will attack."
Piper's heart dropped. "The guardians?"
Harmonia spread her arms. "This is the Room of Cursed Objects, a storeroom for all those objects cursed by the gods over the millennia. All such objects eventually find their way to this room, but are not easily removed."
"Fantastic," Annabeth muttered.
"Quite," Harmonia said, completely straight-faced. "If you manage to retrieve the necklace and escape the room alive, come find me outside Tiffany's. I will give you my blessing to bestow the necklace on a new owner and perhaps help you locate the women of Lemnos so that you may recover our mother's all-important hairbrush."
"If we survive?" Piper asked.
"Good luck," the goddess said. She turned and walked back through the door, into the mortal jewelry store.
Annabeth checked the time on her cell phone. "Six forty-five. Piper, we'd better make this a quick robbery."
The two of them set off, winding around the display cases. Now that Piper was aware that the room was packed with cursed objects, she could almost feel the malevolence radiating off of them. "Don't touch anything," she warned Annabeth.
"Wasn't planning on it." Annabeth shuddered. "This stuff just feels evil. Also," she lowered her voice, "I think the statues' eyes are following us."
Piper had been thinking the same thing. Trying to ignore the jumpy feeling in her chest, she changed the subject. "I figured out who the Lemnian women are."
"That's good news. What did you remember?"
"It's not a nice story," Piper said. "The women of Lemnos, this Greek island, forgot to make the proper sacrifices to Aphrodite. As a punishment, the goddess cursed them by making them smell horrible."
"That's unusual."
"And gross. Apparently the odor was so bad, their husbands didn't want to be with them anymore. The men went out and got new wives, then brought them back to Lemnos."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Which, understandably, made their original wives upset. But the way they got revenge…" Piper winced. "They murdered their husbands."
"That's horrible!" Annabeth looked as disgusted as Piper felt. "But shouldn't they be dead?"
"They should be," Piper agreed. "Maybe they came back through the Doors of Death before we closed them. They were nasty and crazy; Gaea probably had some plan for them."
The moment she finished saying that, Piper flashed onto the moment when they had defeated the Earth Mother, when Leo had unleashed the explosion that destroyed Gaea, and suddenly her eyes blurred with tears. Grief was like that. Piper would just be going along, minding her own business, and then suddenly grief would come up and sucker-punch her in the stomach. Even after two months, the pain of losing Leo was like a knife wound to her heart. Piper found herself thinking of things she wanted to tell him, then realizing she couldn't. That was the hardest part. She knew Jason was still having a hard time, too. They had talked about it. But all they could do was keep hoping he would come back. The more time that passed, though, the harder it was to believe.
"Piper?" Annabeth asked gently.
Piper didn't realize she had stopped walking. She was standing with her fists clenched, trying to get a grip on herself. She blinked the tears out of her eyes. "I'm—I'm okay."
She clearly wasn't, but Annabeth just nodded and patted her on the back. Piper took a deep breath and continued moving toward the glowing golden column. When they got closer, she could see the necklace inside, sitting on a purple velvet cushion.
"Wow," Annabeth breathed as they walked up to the glass display case. "It's amazing."
Piper had to agree. The necklace was made up of two solid gold snakes. The tips of their tails touched to make the clasp. Their scales were carved with such meticulous detail that they appeared to glisten like real reptiles. In the front of the necklace, both snakes had their mouths open, revealing razor sharp fangs. And held between them was a massive opal, as large and round as an eyeball. The opal shimmered with different colors. The patterns were mesmerizing. Piper felt that she could watch the colors shift all day.
"It makes sense that it's an opal," Annabeth said. "They're often called cursed stones."
Piper blinked, trying to shake herself out of the gem's trance. "I've heard that too. So, how do we steal it?"
Annabeth shrugged. "Break the glass?"
"A plan worthy of Athena," Piper said, the corner of her mouth turning up.
"Oh, shut up, McLean. Now, do you want to do the honors, or should I?"
"On it." Piper drew Katoptris, her dagger. She'd left her Boread sword at home; it was a little large to carry around Manhattan. Annabeth drew her drakon bone sword, which she had strapped to her jeans. Considering no one had given them funny looks on the subway, Piper assumed the Mist had been disguising their weapons. Piper raised Katoptris and slammed the hilt of the dagger into the glass, which shattered.
She'd expected to hear alarms ringing, but there was only silence, which made her even more uneasy. She reached for the necklace, but Annabeth grabbed her wrist. "Wait. Maybe we shouldn't touch it."
"Good point." Piper pulled the sleeves of her jacket down over her hands. Even through the cloth, she could feel the warmth of the gold. Whether it was because the necklace had been sitting under the lights or whether it radiated its own heat, she wasn't sure. "Okay, let's get out of—"
Before she could finish her thought, Piper heard a horrible grinding noise. When she looked back the way they had come, Piper's stomach dropped into her shoes.
Every statue in the room had just turned to look at them.
