Four: Reyna

The Scent of a Liar

Last summer, when Reyna had escorted Percy Jackson to the principia, the Lares' reaction had been unnerving. The household gods and ancestral ghosts of New Rome had slurred him as "Graecus" or Greek. They were still adjusting to the occasional presence of the Camp Half-Blood members, sometimes shouting more derogatory insults and threatening to empty their chamber pots on the visiting campers.

However, they'd never done this.

As Axel and his five walked towards the principia, the Lares were completely silent.

Similar to when Percy entered, the Lares would stop and stare. Some looked angry. Some looked scared. None threw an immediate insult. She only heard one speak. A young, purplish boy ghost whispered, "How did that monster get in?"

Their continued silence was unnerving and uncharacteristic.

Reyna was beginning to wonder if the information she got out of their interrogation would outweigh whatever threat these six could pose to New Rome. By the end of the conversation, she hoped to know if these six were stranded guests or if she should have let them drown in the Little Tiber.

Once Reyna sat in one of the two high-backed chairs in the principia and set her dagger on the table, she felt more at ease. Frank took a seat beside her, at rigid attention. They'd had several new recruits since he'd taken over the position as co-praetor and could comfortably run an interrogation on his own, but this was a little different than collecting stray Lupa pups.

Normally, new recruits would gawk at the polished marble floors, the velvet drapes cascading down from the mosaic of Romulus and Remus on the ceiling, and the enormous banners. She remembered how impressed she had been the first time she'd seen this room and later how she felt like the weight of New Rome had shifted onto her shoulders when she'd first sat as praetor.

Neither Axel nor Pax seemed surprised by the room as they entered. If anything, their glances were so direct, they appeared to have the layout memorized. As Axel stepped in, his head held high despite his prior humiliation and pain, his gaze darted to note the weapons in the room, the lack of guards, and—she was shocked he registered they weren't statues—the metallic greyhounds at either side of her seat.

Pax still cowered behind his taller brother. Similarly, he seemed to know where everything was, but his panicked eyes were darting between all the exits.

Behind him, Piper's cousin was having the reaction she was used to seeing. Calex's wide grey eyes drifted around the room in awe. He and the tall Indian girl with a burgundy jacket were in better spirits than the rest of the group. The girl teased him over his excitement.

Both quieted down when Calex turned to the last two members of their group and asked, "Where's Joey?"

The Korean girl looked straight forward, like he hadn't addressed her. She wore all black, maybe for a stealth operation, like Reyna had seen on her weeks ago. Something that looked a suspicious amount like a dinner napkin was tied around her neck in place of a bandana. Out of all of them, she was the only one armed. A xiphos sword hung at her side, one thumb pressed delicately on the top of the pommel, like she feared the sword might unsheathe itself of its own volition.

Reyna assumed some of the others had stealth blades on them elsewhere. Although torn up, she noticed the younger Pax brother had a utility belt with darts, vials, pouches, and some sort of brass knuckles.

The last member of the group, the daughter of Apollo with strawberry blond hair, pressed her lips together at Calex's question. Her eyes teared up, and she shook her head.

Calex's face fell.

Reyna frowned. She knew how hard it was to say that a friend had died.

Argentum and Aurum, the greyhounds at either side of her chair, perked up. Aurum, her gold dog, growled at the new comers. Argentum sniffed furiously in their direction, looking confused.

Reyna rubbed Aurum's head to calm him down. "Thank you, Dakota, Michael," she said and waved her hand in dismissal.

Dakota squeezed the shoulder of the Indian girl one last time and handed her his flask of Kool-Aid. Then he and Michael Kahale departed.

Reyna nodded at Frank to begin. He cleared his throat, adjusted his purple toga—something he still wasn't used to wearing—and said, "What happened?"

They had instinctively formed a shoulder to shoulder line in front of her and Frank as they walked in. Except the smaller Pax boy. He still cowered behind his older brother.

Axel stepped forward and told their story, though he started somewhere she didn't expect. He said that he and Pax were descended from Mayan Mopan Royalty on their father's side. That their father, Santiago Pax, discovered the Greek gods were real, and thought he could become a god by a combination of eating a Greek goddess's heart, and sacrificing thousands of lives to himself in a ritual. Axel and his little brother, Ajax Pax—or the one who went simply by Pax—were gathering weapons to stop their father and got sidetracked on some Greek missions along the way.

During this, Santiago captured their group of seven, and dragged them back to Santiago's temple to use Pax's blood for one of the ceremonies. Apparently, two of the Pax boy's half siblings—an Egyptian magician named Lapis and a Japanese monk named Hiro—drugged Merry and Calex so they couldn't use their demigod powers.

Calex and Merry's eyes widened at the news. Merry looked a little sick.

Frank frowned and muttered, "Mayan royalty? Egyptian magicians…"

Reyna sympathized with his confusion. Before the Greeks, she thought the Romans were the only godly children out there. Now, the modern mythological world was starting to feel a lot more crowded and a lot more dangerous.

During the entire conversation, Aurum growled softly. He didn't react when Reyna touched his head to soothe him.

"What made Pax's blood so important to the ritual?" Frank finally asked.

Each time the word "ritual" was mentioned, Pax shrank more behind his brother.

Axel frowned. "His mother is a Greek goddess. Santiago thought his blood would be more powerful. He wanted Ajax and… and another demigod's blood. He cut open Ajax's tongue for blood and took the life of one of our friends, Joey Song."

As Axel said it, his eyes unfocused. Reyna remembered the helplessness and guilt she'd sensed in him before and thought about the muzzle and bindings he'd worn when he arrived. He likely had sat there and watched, incapable of doing anything.

Euna, stared blankly at the back wall. She must have been in shock. From what Reyna was gathering, Joey Song was this girl's little sister.

Merry hugged herself. Calex made a choking sound, his jaw dropping in disbelief. "What?" He glanced over at Euna, who continued to ignore him.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Reyna said. She thought about the soldiers she couldn't save during the Second Titan War and repressed a shudder. She still remembered the stories of the Triple A Chimera that would stalk into their camp at night, how people would mysteriously die in their sleep. She remembered her Cohort being torn to pieces when they were flanked by the children of Hecate, lead by a disgusting monster that combined skeletal features with a lion's head—called the Leonis Caput by her troops, since they'd never seen it in their mythology before.

Although she knew they were grieving, Reyna needed to hear the rest of this story. She pushed away the memory of screams and forced herself not to touch the scar across her thigh, where the Leonis Caput had stabbed her.

She focused back on Axel and his little brother. "Your mother is a Greek goddess? Which one?"

Pax peeked over Axel's good shoulder, his black and hazel eyes rimmed red from crying. "She never did that official glowy-claimy-thing," he said, his voice much lighter than his demeanor. "But you know how it is with gods. One decade they're having an affair with a crazed Mayan prince, the next they're smiting a town because a cashier gave them Pepsi instead of Coke. I'm sure it's on her to-do list."

Plenty of demigods didn't know their godly parent's identity, but this situation felt different. "Your father never told you?" she asked.

Pax laughed nervously. "He is… he was a really busy guy too. Going to go out on a limb here, but he wasn't much for laying around." At the word "laying," Pax released a hysterical giggle-sob.

Aurum growled again.

Pax ducked behind his brother's back.

Reyna would need to question that further. She got the feeling it might be better to do one-on-one interviews with all of them after this. She picked her dagger off the table and twirled the tip on the edge of her armrest in thought. "I know this is hard, but we need to know what happened after."

Axel glared at ground and swallowed. "I don't remember."

Kally, the small strawberry blonde, took a step forward. She trembled and choked on her words at first, looking nervous. After a moment, she collected herself and said, "Axel had been shot several hours prior to our fight with Santiago. He lost a lot of blood."

Reyna understood the message: he'd passed out.

"That's the second boss fight you've missed," Pax whispered. [footnote 1]

Axel sighed. "Shut up, Ajax."

Kally started to lift a hand to her mouth, but stopped and slowly lowered it. She took a deep breath and managed to make eye contact with Reyna and Frank, though barely. "Afterwards, Euna fought Santiago Pax and—um—"

Kally's green eyes had drifted to Axel, as though to look for affirmation about what she could or couldn't say, only to remember Axel didn't remember the event.

Pax almost fell reaching a hand out to her. "Wait! Kally, that sounds an awful lot like one of Mr. Pax's secrets," he babbled. The formal way he referred to his father felt uncomfortable. He gave an apologetic shrug to Reyna and Frank. "Mr. Pax tricked Kally into swearing on the River Styx to keep his secrets and I don't really want her all cursed and bot fly-ridden."

Kally stared at Pax like he'd smacked her.

Frank frowned. "We can't expect you to curse yourself on an oath you swore to their dad. Does anyone else remember?"

Merry and Calex both looked stunned. They were still digesting the death of their party member. Euna kept her eyes on the back wall, thumb pressed firmly to the top of her sword. Reyna wondered how long it would be before she would speak.

Pax swallowed. "Euna…" Pax's voice cracked. "Euna felled him with her blade, all vengeful hero-like. But it gets fuzzy after Phobetor—you know that fun God of Nightmares—showed up. There was a dramatic, evil monologue and then we woke with bags over our heads and our hands tied in some wooden box—"

"You were in a Trojan Mario," Frank supplied.

Pax stopped sniffling for a moment. His eyes went wide. "A what?"

"Like the Nintendo character."

For a split second, Pax's face lit up. He glanced around the throne room, like he expected the giant wooden statue to be hidden in a corner. It reaffirmed Reyna's original assessment of him: he was definitely an idiot.

Pax hung his head when he registered the Trojan Mario had sunk in the Little Tiber. "Oh poor Italian plumber…" he sighed to himself. "Designed by the Japanese, built by the Greeks, and destroyed in New Rome… I feel your identity conflict."

Kally looked ready to judo flip him into a wall. "Wait!" she cried, then blushed horribly. Again, her hand almost went to her lips. She hesitated, balled her fist, and continued, "We need to warn Chiron that Camp Half-Blood might be in danger. I think… I think Santiago was in league with several gods and they're planning to attack Camp Half-Blood. We need to get back to camp as soon as we can."

Frank glanced over to Reyna. During these interrogations, she'd learn that Frank tended to be too trusting, but, unlike previous times, he frowned at her in a something doesn't add up way.

Reyna sighed and sheathed her knife. Someone was lying. If nothing else, Aurum hadn't stopped growling since they'd come in. They couldn't send them to Camp Half-Blood until they had a better idea of what was going on.

"You're in no condition to travel," Reyna said. They weren't. Most of them looked like they were barely standing and the Little Tiber had banged them up pretty bad. "You'll be detained here until you've had some food, rest, and been seen by a healer. We have phones and coins for Iris Messaging so you can get in immediate contact."

"Reyna…" Frank muttered.

Reyna nodded. "We've been having trouble getting in contact with Camp Half-Blood, but we'll get you in contact with them as soon as possible."

"Food sounds good," the Korean girl whispered. Euna slipped her thumb off her sword pommel and let it hang limply at her side. Her voice sounded hollow. Although not much, Reyna was happy she'd at least reacted to something.

Reyna and Frank dismissed them.

They started to shuffle out. Dakota and Micahel were called to escort them. Merry looked completely shocked as she clutched Dakota's Kool-Aid flask. Calex had a similar stunned expression, but he couldn't stop staring at Euna. As they left, the child of Eros gently touched her arm.

Before Axel could leave, Reyna called, "Axel Pax."

He paused. His little brother scampered to a halt beside him.

Reyna glanced over at Frank. He still looked troubled. Once she was done talking to Axel, she'd have to ask him his impression on this group. For now, she had a matter to settle.

"Frank, do you mind if I speak with Axel alone?"

Frank jumped a little. "Mm? Oh, yea. No problem Reyna. Um… be careful around him." He lowered his voice. "He… smells weird."

Although an unprecedented comment, she'd learned to trust Frank's animal instincts… even if they were a little… strange.

As Frank went to leave, his purple toga sweeping about him and threatening to trip the giant, the younger Pax brother gave a call of distress. Pax grabbed his brother's good shoulder and whined into it. In Spanish, Reyna could hear him blubber, "What if she kills you? I know you two are into some weird flirting but—"

Axel ruffled Pax's hair and muttered back in a language she didn't understand. Mayan if she had to guess.

"No, it's not alright. You're all I have left!"

Axel whispered something in that other language and pinched Pax's ear.

Pax sniffled and bolted out of the room.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Axel sighed. For a moment, his shoulders sagged, then he straightened the posture of his good one. With a control that reminded her of Jason Grace, Axel raised his chin and turned towards her. "Yes, praetor?" he asked.

Reyna frowned. She remembered how much he smiled last time they met. Before her interest was a matter of personal curiosity, but now, his secrecy could pose a threat to New Rome. "I need you to lower your Mist Mask," she said. "I believe you understand why."

Axel's eyes widened. In what she'd come to assume was a nervous tick, he puffed up his cheeks and popped them. He glanced down at his hands, then back to her. Although it had been years since Reyna learned sorcery from C. C.'s Spa, she could still sense the Mist magic coating his fingers, his face, and his legs. That must have been the spell he cast when she pulled the bag off his head at the river.

"I understand," he said and hesitated. "Is there somewhere more… private we can do this?"

Footnote 1: Thank you for pointing that out Mel. For being a tank… he's kinda failing XD

Sorry I'm late! I hope you still enjoy! :D