Leo was having a weird dream where giant marshmallows bounced after him, their cheery voices calling 'Eat us, Leo! Yummy marshmallows!' He was woken up abruptly by shrill screaming.
Annabeth was hastily backing away, crawling along the floor backwards and screaming for Percy to kill the spider scuttling towards her, over her discarded sleeping bag.
The only problem- the spider was the size of a dinner plate.
"Percy!" Annabeth screamed. Percy pulled himself together, uncapping Riptide and prodding experimentally at the spider and it spun to face him.
Nico sat up, looking groggy, but wary. He snapped his fingers and the spider let loose a dying screech, keeling over. Its legs twitched in the air. Frank got up and gave it a hefty kick, sending it soaring into the mantelpiece. Leo instantly set it on fire.
Percy capped Riptide and slipped the pen into his pocket, moving forward to comfort Annabeth. She was shakily looking around for more giant spiders, but the shadows were so dense outside of the ring of light cast by the fire.
"Where's Jason?" Piper asked, glancing around worriedly.
"And Hazel." Frank added. Leo did a quick head count and realised Louisa was missing as well.
Percy was holding Annabeth in his arms while she calmed down, but he was looking around too.
Leo sent a few fireballs into the shadows to provide light, but they only saw the dismal furnishings of the gloomy room.
A few minutes later, they set out on a search party, taking their stuff with them. Percy was holding Annabeth's hand, who was throwing nervous glances around. Leo walked at the front, his hands on fire. Nico, Percy and the girls were in the middle while Frank bought up the rear.
They checked every room they passed, shouting for their friends and running up and down flights of stairs.
An hour later, they had found nothing and no-one. They sat on the stairs up to the third floor, munching on breakfast bars and attempting to come up with a plan. Annabeth was quiet, studying her breakfast bar as if it were a deadly weapon. (In her hands, it could be).
Leo was tinkering with scrap parts from his tool belt, when a chill ran over his shoulders and twisting down his spine. A low moan caught his attention.
Looking up, he saw no-one else looking around curiously, indicating that they hadn't heard what he had.
Another groan followed, louder this time. Leo glanced over his shoulder, up at the third floor landing, pausing in his tinkering to focus all his attention on wherever the sound was coming from and to determine what it was.
A door slammed on the landing above them, followed by an ear-splitting, inhuman shriek. They were on their feet almost immediately, swinging their packs onto their shoulders.
Frank sprinted up the stairs first, Nico behind him. Both of them were calling for Hazel. Piper was close behind them, screaming for Jason while the other three caught up to shout for Louisa.
"Silence!" A voice shrieked. They glanced down the corridor, seeing two glowing scarlet orbs glaring back.
"Wh-?" Leo started, but was cut off by the orbs surging forward. Something sickly white burst out of the shadows and slammed through their group in a blur, scattering them and bringing an icy chill and leaving their ears ringing from that unearthly cry.
Nico raised his hand as the white blur swooped and dived at them again. He swiped it as it passed overhead and its dying wail sent icy tendrils over his skin, but it had vanished. In its disappearance, there was a lingering chill in the air that stunk of rotting meat and blood.
"OK, we split up and look for the others." He said, turning back to his friends. They were all staring at him, gobsmacked. "What?"
"Karate chopping ghosts." Leo mumbled.
"Ghost king." Percy added just as quietly. Nico smiled at them, a cold glitter in his eyes.
"Anyway- Leo and Piper, look for Jason. Annabeth and Percy, look for Lou and we'll look for Hazel." Nico gestured at himself and Frank. Frank studied Nico warily- even though his girlfriend was a child of Pluto, she was warm and kind, whereas Nico stood up to his father name, being cold and unfeeling most of the time, often harsh and sarcastic. But this was his sister missing and they all knew he had already lost one sister. He couldn't lose another. "We meet back here in an hour." Nico said firmly.
The group split up, Leo and Piper heading back downstairs while the others went in opposite directions down the hall, all of them calling for their missing friends.
"Lou!" Percy shouted for the thousandth time. Annabeth mimicked his call, opening a door to yet another room. "Louisa!"
"Percy…" Annabeth squeaked. Percy turned and saw Annabeth had frozen, her shoulders hunched with her hands up as if to protect herself. Her eyes were wide and cross-eyed, focusing on the average-sized house spider dangling from a thin, silvery web, suspended from the ceiling.
Percy knocked the spider to the floor and squashed it underfoot. He turned to check on Annabeth when a startled, stricken yell sliced through the otherwise silent mansion. They shared a look before sprinting down the hall, turning a sharp corner and following the yells.
They skidded to a halt five minutes later outside a door right at the end of the hall. Percy tried the handle, frowning when he saw it was locked. He motioned to Annabeth to stand back as he retreated a step to kick the door open.
The smell of reptiles washed out on a tide of muggy heat and angry hisses. Percy retrieved Riptide and uncapped it, the celestial bronze distributing a faint glow over a floor withering with all different kinds of snakes.
The snakes were all facing and hissing at a struggling figure chained to the wall.
It was Louisa.
She was standing and tugging on the chains around her wrists, trying to rip them from the wall, but she shied away from the snakes, looking pained.
Percy studied his sword for a few seconds, frowning in concentration. Its glow turned sea green and he swiped at the snakes, freezing them in jagged blocks of ice. It was easier to cut a path through to his sister this way.
"Lou?" Louisa looked round and relief washed over her at the sight of her brother. She pulled the chain taut and Percy slashed down, shattering the chain easily.
They started back out the room, Percy freezing any snake that he had missed. They reached the door when Louisa stumbled into Annabeth. In the light from the hall, they could see the dried blood covering the left side of Louisa's face, leaving a reddish-brown crust around a gash under her fringe, near her hairline. Percy gingerly brushed Louisa's hair away from the head wound, but it made her wince. Her hair was sticky and rough from dried blood and there was a bruise forming around the injury. "What happened, Lou?" She seemed dazed and pale, despite her stubborn and defiant fire giving life to her eyes.
"I dunno. I woke up 'bout three this mornin' 'n' had ta get up." She frowned. "It's all fuzzy, but there was this white thing 'n' then I woke up in that room with all those damn snakes."
"We heard you yelling." Annabeth said softly, placing Louisa's arm around her shoulders as she swayed unsteadily on her feet. Louisa grimaced.
"I was only awake for a few minutes 'n' then you two came bargin' in." Louisa glanced round, frowning. "Where are we? 'N' where are the others?"
Leaving it there. Hopefully I can update again tomorrow.
Does anybody see what I've done? There are two things that I can think of that you lot could guess. If I remember, I'll post them in the next chapter.