I woke up in the middle of the night, my chest heaving. My skin felt prickly and damp. I glanced over at Nico sleeping beside me, but he didn't show any sign that I'd woken him up. So I lay there on my back, staring at the ceiling and trying to take deep breaths to calm my racing heart.
I'd been having the same kind of dream for days now. Well, I guess it was more of a nightmare – I'd dream that I was lost in the Underworld, trying to find Nico. I would search and search, but I could never find him. Sometimes I would hear Nico calling my name, but I couldn't locate the sound. I would wander deeper and deeper into the Underworld until I was hopelessly lost. I knew that even though I was Nico's only hope, I was going to fail him and die alone, trapped.
Now, I know that half-bloods rarely have dreams that are random. Especially when they're recurring. But I didn't know what a dream like this meant, unless Hades was just trying to scare me like he'd tried to scare Nico. And I refused to be scared away from him, even by the gods. So every time I would have a nightmare, I would lie awake for a while until I had calmed down enough to go back to sleep. The dreams always seemed less important in the morning, anyway.
The next day was Saturday, so at least I got to sleep in a little. Mom had gone out for the day – Paul was taking her to an art gallery and out to dinner afterward. It was late afternoon, but Nico and I hadn't really done much all day. There was only the weekend left until school started, and I didn't know what was going to happen then. I mean, Nico wasn't going to go to school, and I wasn't sure Mom was going to let him stay over all the time when I had homework and stuff I was supposed to be doing. Of course, I would've much rather spent time with Nico, but I was pretty sure that was why she wouldn't be thrilled if he was around all the time.
I was lying on my back on the couch, propped up against the arm with a couple of the cushions. My jeans were pooled around my ankles and Nico's were on the floor with his shirt. Nico was straddling my hips, his fingers digging into my sides as his breath hitched and we both arched almost in unison.
Just as we'd finished and he'd slumped down to rest his forehead against my shoulder, both of us grinning and panting, someone buzzed at the door. We both jumped. Nico groaned, and we waited to see if they would just go away. After all, we weren't exactly in a fit state to deal with company. And we weren't expecting anybody.
The bell buzzed again. Then a third time. Whoever it was, they sounded impatient. Finally they just leaned on the buzzer and I rolled my eyes, pushing at Nico to get him to crawl off my lap. I yanked my pants up and waited for him to pull his rumpled clothes on before I headed for the door, but his hand caught the back of my shirt and stopped me an inch away from the handle.
"Your shirt," he said, with a nod to my front. I looked down and realized there was a big blotchy stain on it, where… Well, I ran into my bedroom to pull on a new one while Nico answered the door.
"Nico? What are you doing here?" The voice that came from the front room made me freeze with my old shirt flung onto the floor and a clean one halfway over my head. "Why are you all sweaty? Is something wrong?"
It was Annabeth.
I quickly finger-combed my hair. I couldn't remember if Nico's had been sticking up or not. "What are you doing here?" I asked, coming into the living room and trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Nico was really good at that. He could look like nothing was a big deal under some pretty crazy circumstances. I wasn't as good at it, though, and if Annabeth figured out something was weird she'd start asking questions.
And I wasn't sure how I was supposed to answer them.
"There you are!" Annabeth exclaimed. She was wearing jeans and red t-shirt with the letters SIN(x) printed over a dotted line. Her New York Yankees cap was stuck in her left pocket. Her blonde hair was tied up in a messy ponytail, and I watched as her eyes traveled up and down my body once. "You're all sweaty too," she said, frowning. "What were you doing?"
"Moving the living room furniture," Nico said calmly, before I could even open my mouth. "Percy's mom asked us to do it while she was away." I glanced at Nico, trying to tell him I thought he was brilliant without actually saying anything out loud. The tiny grin he flashed me told me he got the point.
"Oh." Annabeth didn't sound all that convinced, but she didn't really have any evidence to suggest it wasn't true.
I took her momentary silence to start asking more questions of my own. "What is it?" I asked, stepping further into the room. "I mean, why are you here? It must be important –"
"It is." Annabeth's tone was much more serious, and her eyes flashed darker as she frowned. "We have to get to camp. Chiron needs to talk to you."
"Camp?" I knew Annabeth had stayed behind to tend to Chiron until his leg had healed, so it made sense that he might send her as a courier. But why did he need to talk to me? I wondered suddenly if it had to do with what Nico had told me about how we might beat Luke. We'd kept it to ourselves so far, talking about it in hushed whispers in the dark of my room. It was a good idea, but we'd wanted to wait until we'd been able to work out more of a plan before we thought about contacting Chiron.
Well, I thought grimly, maybe it was time to talk to Chiron about it now. "Okay," I finally said, feeling both Nico's and Annabeth's eyes on me. "Do we need to leave now?" I'd have to leave Mom a note. She'd understand. I hoped.
Annabeth made a face. "I think maybe you guys should shower first." For a minute I didn't know if she was serious, but the look on her face said she was. I guess maybe she didn't want to share a taxi with two sweaty guys.
I glanced at Nico, but he just shrugged. "I'll go first," he said, disappearing down the hall. At least he had extra clothes he could change into. He'd started keeping extras here.
In the meantime, I was left in the living room with Annabeth. I supposed that meant I was supposed to be a good host, so I asked, "Uh, do you want to sit down? We have sodas in the fridge…"
I wasn't really sure what kind of hospitality she was expecting, but it seemed okay because she nodded and said, "Yeah, sure. A Coke would be good." She followed me into the kitchen and sat at the table, looking around while I pulled a can out of the fridge for her and handed it over.
"So how long has Nico been here?" she asked. I stared at her for a minute, but then I realized that she probably wanted to know for some reason other than the reason that kept leaping to mind. There was no way she could know about us. And I got this uneasy feeling in my stomach every time I thought about telling her. I mean, I didn't know how she'd react. I can never tell how girls are going to react, but Annabeth especially had been weird about some things lately.
I shrugged and said, "A while. He's been looking for clues about his mom and stuff. We're pretty close to the library." That seemed to be enough for Annabeth, because she popped the tab on her Coke and took a swig. "How's Chiron?" I asked. Down the hall, I heard the shower start.
"He's getting better," Annabeth began. "It's been hard just convincing him to stay off that –"
"Percy?" Nico called from the bathroom. His voice sounded strained – I left Annabeth at the table and burst through the bathroom door a few seconds later. And then I stood there, staring, as he peered around the edge of the shower curtain. The water was running, and Nico was clearly standing under it. But he was still perfectly dry.
"I'm not getting wet."
I glanced back, shutting the door behind me quietly and coming over beside the tub. I put a hand on Nico's skin, but it told me the same thing my eyes had. He was dry. The water from the showerhead pattered against the back of my hand, wetting my skin and running down my hand in little rivulets.
"What's happening?" Nico asked in that same strained voice. I wasn't sure I had an answer.
Now, I was pretty familiar of the concept of not getting wet. It was one of the perks that came with being the son of Poseidon. I could choose whether or not I wanted to get wet, and I could even breathe underwater if I needed to. But I'd never heard of any other half-bloods being able to control something like that.
Nico's voice broke into my thoughts. "You can do this, can't you?"
I looked back up at him and nodded. "Well, yeah, but – "
"So how do you… you know. Get wet?"
I frowned, thinking. It was kind of hard to explain. "I just kind of… think about getting wet, and I do," I said, thinking it wasn't really much of an explanation. Nico's face went sort of blank for a minute, and then suddenly, the sound of the water hitting him changed and his hair began plastering itself to his scalp as it absorbed the spray.
Nico looked distinctly relieved. "That's never happened before."
"That's weird," I murmured, running my hand along his collarbone and collecting the drops on my fingers. "I thought only children of Poseidon could do that."
"So did I," Nico said quietly. He glanced over at me, but suddenly shifted back a step, retreating under the shower spray. "You'd better get back to Annabeth."
"Yeah." I locked gazes with him for a few more seconds, but he was right. We didn't have time to figure this out now. But that didn't mean we wouldn't talk about it later. I slipped out of the bathroom as he pulled the curtain shut again, and went back to the kitchen, wiping my wet palm on my jeans.
When I re-entered the kitchen Annabeth gave me a very interesting look. "Everything okay in there?" she asked slowly.
I tried to think fast. "Huh? Yeah – yeah, he just needed the soap. We were out," I lied, wishing I could do it as well as Nico. Annabeth gave me another look, but she didn't ask any more questions about it, to my very great relief.
When Nico finished and entered the kitchen with damp, dark hair, I took my turn in the shower while Annabeth called for a cab. The taxi ride back to camp was pretty uncomfortable, despite the fact that I was side-to-side with Nico because I'd been given the middle of the backseat. That meant my other side was pressed against Annabeth, who kept glancing over at us and frowning, then glancing out the window and frowning, and then repeated the whole process over again. We talked a little, but not much. It wasn't like we could talk about trying to save the world from a Titan army with the cabbie right there in the front, driving us.
When we finally arrived and hiked up the hill that marked the border of Camp Half-Blood, Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair form. He looked from me to Nico, but he only said, "Welcome back. I'm sorry to pull you away from home so soon after you left, but I have an important matter I need to discuss."
I nodded, and Annabeth took hold of Chiron's wheelchair handles and we headed back down the hill towards the Big House. I wasn't sure if I should say something, and I guess no one else was either, so we walked in silence. When we finally arrived in front of the Big House's porch, Chiron spoke at last.
"Nico," he said gently, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I need to speak with Percy and Annabeth in private."
I felt the corners of my mouth tugging down and I wanted to protest, but Nico only shrugged. "It's fine," he said, tilting his head. "I'll just wait outside." He ambled off towards the rest of camp while I followed Annabeth and Chiron inside and into the sitting room on the first floor. Grover was waiting for us there, chewing nervously on a tin can. When he saw me he waved and grinned. I returned the gesture, sitting down on one of the big overstuffed chairs in the room while Annabeth wheeled Chiron across from us and sat down herself on the couch next to Grover, shooting me a look that I couldn't really read.
"Now that I have you all together," Chiron began, folding his hands on his lap, "there's a quest I need the three of your to undertake. I'm hoping," he smiled grimly as he looked at the three of us, "that it will be a good deal easier than your last."
