Useful quotes to jog your memory:
"Our beach is on the North Shore of Long Island, and it's enchanted so most people can't even see it. People don't just appear on the beach unless they're demigods or gods or really, really lost pizza delivery guys. (It's happened-but that's another story.)" The Last Olympian, pg. 44
"A demigod with a bloody knife stood...He'd been trying to stab me. Judging from the position of his blade, he would've taken me-maybe by sheer luck-in the small of my back, my only weak point...I locked eyes with the enemy demigod. He wore an eye patch under his war helm: Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis." The Last Olympian, pg. 190
"Kronos rose to one knee...'Nakamura!' he groaned. 'Time to prove yourself. You know Jackson's secret weakness. Kill him, and you will have rewards beyond measure.'
Ethan's eyes dropped to my midsection, and I was sure that he knew. Even if he couldn't kill me himself, all he had to do was tell Kronos...
...Then he charged...but not at me. While Kronos was still on his knees, Ethan brought down his sword on the Titan lord's neck..." The Last Olympian, pg. 328
Nico watched gloomily as Travis played poker against himself. Years ago, the Stoll brothers had challenged him to a poker game. Being ten and stupid, he'd readily agreed, but after Connor figured out Nico's idea of "prized possession" was the super-rare Apollo and Artemis duo figurine, the brothers decided it wasn't worth their time.
"Oh, full house," Travis muttered under his breath. "I guess that means I lose a drachma...oh, and I gain it too! Ha."
Katie had her white earbuds in, pointedly ignoring the boy. Percy was flipping through a skateboard magazine, but Nico could tell he wasn't really reading it-for one thing, he was holding it upside down, and for another, Percy's eyes were darting around the bus nervously.
The Greyhound creaked to a stop, and the doors flew open. It'd been...what? Half an hour, forty minutes since they got on. Nico wasn't sure where they were.
Two teens got on. The boy had golden hair and looked about fifteen, a year younger than Percy. There was a scar on his upper lip, and he was buff, like he'd spent his childhood wrestling monsters. The girl, who was maybe a bit older, had dark hair braided down her back and a regal, steely look about her, the kind that said don't mess with me.
Nico's jaw dropped. It was Jason and Reyna, the two praetors of the Roman camp. He'd met them...had it been only yesterday?
What were they doing here? Romans stayed West and Greeks were East. That was an unspoken rule.
Percy looked up too, and his eyes lit up. He nudged Nico. "Hey, dude, look, it's that guy!"
What? Nico looked behind Reyna.
A couple months ago, somehow, a pizza delivery boy had gotten really, really lost, and had managed to show up inside Camp Half-Blood when he was supposed to be delivering pepperoni-and-sausage in New Jersey. Sure enough, he had just gotten on the bus. He still wore that dazed expression that had struck Nico as a bit off when they'd first met.
"Hey, Derek!" Percy waved.
That was when Reyna noticed the son of Poseidon.
Her eyes darkened, and her hand went straight to her dagger, which was strapped to her hip.
Jason placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you okay?" he murmured. He glanced at Percy apprehensively.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Reyna snapped, even though she was looking murderous. "Let's not sit here. Closer to the front would be better."
"Uh, sure," Jason agreed, looking completely confused. Then he saw Nico. "Oh, hey! You're Haz-"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Nico interrupted. Percy, who'd been chatting animatedly with the lost pizza guy Derek, finally noticed what was going on. He looked from Reyna and Jason to Nico.
"No, no, you just showed up yesterday," Jason said, frowning. "You're Pluto's-"
"You must be mistaken," Nico insisted. Greeks and Romans didn't mix: he knew that much. And his dad, Hades, had warned Nico not to reveal the existence of Camp Jupiter to Camp Half-Blood, or vice versa.
Reyna's face softened. She seemed to understand that Nico didn't want to be recognized. "Jason, the boy just looks a lot like Octavian," she said, raising her eyebrows.
Octavian? Nico remembered the skinny sandy-haired kid with mutilated stuffed animals hanging around his belt. He resembled that guy as much as Mr. D looked like Aphrodite.
Jason still looked puzzled, but he went along with it. "Oh, yeah. That must be it."
"You look familiar," Percy blurted out, looking at Reyna.
Reyna scowled. "Oh, really? And why would that be?" But Nico, who was an expert when it came to lying, saw the twitch of her eyebrow, the tilt of her shoulders, and he knew this girl was aware of exactly who Percy Jackson was.
Percy frowned. "Do you go to Goode High?"
"You must be mistaken," Reyna snapped, turning away. "Jason, we should sit down."
Derek shifted in his seat and craned his neck to look at Nico. "Oh hey! It's Nicky, right? You're the one who found me. How's the farm been doing?"
Nico squinted, trying to remember what story they'd fed Derek. Oh yeah, Camp Half-Blood was a strawberry farm that sometimes held an agriculture camp to give kids a hands-on experience in green living...something like that. Probably Katie had been the one to make it up.
"Yeah, the strawberries are...good," he mumbled. "How've you been?"
"Hey!" Travis's head popped up from the seat behind Nico. "Derek, wanna play poker?"
Nico knew there was something off, something wrong, but he didn't figure out what the problem was until it was too late.
It wasn't just that Reyna and Jason, the two praetors of Camp Jupiter, were on the same bus as four campers from Camp Half-Blood. That was messed up, and Nico couldn't figure why Reyna and Jason would be here at all, but...that wasn't what was bothering him. Something about Derek was wrong.
He's just a regular mortal, he told himself. You're just paranoid.
"Royal flush!" Travis cheered. "The pizza coupons go to me!"
"Oh, okay, that's enough," Derek groaned. His eyes flashed red. "You beat me. For the sixteenth time. Happy?"
Travis gave him a sneaky grin. "Oh, just-" Then his face contorted, and he fell forward, eyelids fluttering.
Immediately, Percy, Nico, and Katie were on their feet. "Travis!" the daughter of Demeter cried, rushing over.
A silver blade was sticking out of Travis's chest. White sticky liquid was oozing out of the wound.
Percy whirled around. "What did you do?" he demanded.
Derek drew a sword out of nowhere. "It's time. I've had enough. Now it's time for revenge."
"For what?" Nico had to ask. "We even bought you a ticket back to New Jersey..."
Derek laughed humorlessly. "Idiots! Did you really buy my half-assed lie, that I was a Domino's delivery boy?"
Percy looked completely baffled. "So that wasn't true? Then what pizza chain do you work for?"
Nico resisted the urge to smack the guy upside the head with Stygian iron. For the so-called hero of the Great Prophecy who saved the entire world from doom and gloom, he sure was dense sometimes.
"You're a legacy," Nico realized. That was what had been off. Derek hadn't...seemed like a mortal, completely. But he also wasn't a demigod. He was a quarter-god, or something like that.
"Ten points to the scrawny pale boy!" Derek threw a knife at Nico's head. He ducked, and a golden sword came swishing and deflected the blade.
He didn't have to turn around to know it was Jason who'd come to his aid.
"You get a bonus if you can guess who my grand-daddy was," Derek taunted, but his eyes were focused on the son of Jupiter.
"What do you want?" Nico demanded, grabbing out his sword.
Derek chuckled and grabbed something out of his backpack. Nico didn't realize what it was until it was too late.
A remote control.
This vehicle is rigged.
Then the bus exploded.
He couldn't believe they all survived.
Right before the blast hit, Jason grabbed Reyna and Nico by the collars and barely managed to fly out before the bus caved in, thousands of pounds of metal and plastic and rubber crashing down.
About a hundred feet behind them, the wreckage was smoking. There were no mortals in sight-they'd probably disintegrated on the spot. Nico's throat constricted at the thought.
Derek came out from behind the rubble, dragging an unconscious Percy onto the sidewalk. Katie and Travis were both collapsed on the pavement. Nico could tell from the rise and fall of their chests that they were still alive.
Reyna and Jason gave each other nearly imperceptible nods and then charged together. Nico raced to help them, raising his own sword.
Three against one should've been a no-brainer, especially considering that all three demigods were experienced fighters. But Derek could match all of them, easy.
Jason wove in and out, slashing with Imperial gold. Reyna hacked and stabbed with her dagger, mouth a grim slash. Nico could feel his legs tiring out, and it felt like heavy weights had been strapped onto his arms.
What's going on? Nico never got this tired this fast in a fight. He glanced at the Roman praetors. Their faces were sagging, and their moves weren't as sharp as they could've been. They were exhausted too.
It's Derek. He's messing with our stamina. Just as he realized this, Derek released a flurry of wicked-sharp silver knives. Reyna, Jason, and Nico managed to deflect nearly all of them, but one ricocheted off Nico's blade, whistling past his nose by an inch, and flew straight at Reyna.
"No!" Jason body-slammed into her, knocking her out of the way. The knife lodged into his shoulder, spurting out silver-white liquid.
Reyna rushed over to him. "Jason!" Her shoulders were shaking, and she looked too worn out to even stand up. Immediately, she collapsed.
Nico's heart chugged to a stop when he realized what the pale sticky stuff was. After all, Cabin Fifteen back at camp had a tin bowl of it on their mantle. "Hypnos," he gasped. "Your grandpa's Hypnos. God of sleep." But that didn't make sense...Most of the Hypnos kids at camp just snored all day long. They didn't have crazy powers like Derek.
The other boy smirked. "Bonus points go to Nico di Angelo!" Quick as lightning, before Nico could even react, Derek had a sword up against his chin.
Heart pounding, he choked out, "You knew my name wasn't Nicky." He paused. "Who-who are you? What do you want?"
"You know Ethan, right? Ethan Nakamura?" Derek asked conversationally, as if they were just two friends sipping lattes at Starbucks.
"Y-Yeah. Hermes cabin. Unclaimed." Nico tried to conjure up a mental image of the slender, black-haired boy with an eye patch. The first day they'd met, three years ago, they'd had to share a sleeping bag since there wasn't a spare.
Of course, Ethan had died, betraying Kronos...
"We fought side-by-side several times in the war," the other boy said cheerfully. "He was an excellent swordsman. Much better than you or your friends." He smiled broadly. "We were quite close. Good pals. The day he asked me to be his boyfriend was the best in my life."
"What?" Nico blurted out, forgetting momentarily that Derek had a sword against his neck. "Nakamura-he was-you mean-no way-"
He was so distracted, he didn't realize he was being forced backwards by Derek until it was too late.
Metal bars shot up from underneath the ground, trapping him in. Immediately, he felt woozy and nauseous, and his vision blurred. That was impossible. How did this guy have this kind of magic?
Magic. Nico wanted to slap himself. Why didn't he figure it out sooner? After all, this boy had fought in the Second Titan War. And Hecate, the goddess of magic, she'd sided with the Titans, hadn't she?
Hecate's Blessing was a pretty rare Mythomagic card, and he'd only heard about it, never seen it. But he knew the general gist: super-awesome powers, half a million attack points, epic battle skills...
The grandson of Hypnos raised his eyebrows. "Is that surprising? I mean, it's not like Ethan hadn't told me a couple stories about you and your...ah, oddness, let's just say?"
Nico flushed. "Just get to your point. What do you want from me?" Using all of his strength, he concentrated, trying to raise skeletons from the ground, but he was so tired it was impossible.
"I want you to help me get Ethan back."
Nico laughed dryly. "That's impossible. Even the son of Hades can't bring the dead back."
"You did it with Hazel Levesque, your half-sister."
"Wh-What?" Something very cold wrapped around Nico's heart. There was no possible way for this kid to know that. No one knew except for Nico and Hazel themselves. "How do you know that?"
Derek walked over and prodded Percy with his foot, ignoring the question. "Everyone has a weakness," he said, eyes trained on Nico. "It doesn't take much to guess what yours is."
"Go ahead, try to hurt him," Nico snapped, trying not to let on how nervous he was. But, he reassured himself, Percy had swum in the River Styx. He was completely invincible.
"He's not completely invincible," Derek said, as if he could read Nico's mind. "I'm sure you remember how close Ethan came to destroying Perseus's soul?"
Nico did. Percy had one vulnerable spot, one place on his body where he could be utterly annihilated, and somehow, last month, during the battle Ethan Nakamura had figured out where it was. Annabeth had thrown herself in front of Percy, just like Jason had just saved Reyna. The idea of what could've happened if Annabeth hadn't been there made Nico's blood run cold.
"I never told Ethan, but Hypnos has power over memories," Derek continued. Nico's mouth dried-he could see where this was going. "Kind of like an empathy link between a satyr and a demigod. With effort, I could completely connect my mind with Ethan's."
"And you didn't even tell him?" Nico had to ask. That was just so freaking creepy. Was all love like that, obsessive and clingy?
Or maybe just love between two boys is like that, a tiny voice in his head sneered.
"I know where Jackson's sweet spot is," Derek said, smiling wolfishly. "Checkmate. Or, as Mythomagic players would say, Trojan horse."
"There's...there's no way," Nico said, feeling like he was free-falling. "You're bluffing."
"Are you sure, di Angelo? Is that something you would swear on the River Styx? I know exactly how to kill him." Derek yanked his knife out of Travis's chest, and Nico's stomach twisted. "All I have to do is..." He rolled up Percy's shirt. "Stab him here. At the small of his back."
Deadly blade two inches away from skin, the boy looked at Nico. "So. It's your choice. If you don't help me, he dies."