The magic training started the next day.
Anubis had seemed eager enough to start at once and Nico saw no reason not to learn magic during his free time. In fact, he felt some excitement run through him at the thought of knowing more about the grey light that had surrounded the god's fingers when he'd used death magic.
Nico had left the comfort of his hotel room to shadow travel to their agreed location. It was a secluded area of a large forest not far from Venice, and the demigod found he quite liked the clearing.
Anubis was leaning up against a tree, his jacket folded beside him on the ground. He looked bored but seemed to light up when he spotted Nico. The demigod stopped and watched as the other walked towards him.
Anubis walked slowly, something akin to a smirk on his face.
"You kept me waiting, I almost thought you'd forgotten about me."
Nico cringed inwardly at the skip his heart made at the god's voice. "Yeah, sorry. Had to get some food."
Anubis cocked his head sideways - Nico bit back a dog remark, "Mortal food. I wonder what it tastes like."
Nico raised an eyebrow, "You've never tasted human food?"
The god shook his head, "I don't need to eat it, therefore I never felt the need to taste it. After all, I am immortal."
Nico rolled his eyes at the reminder, "That's no reason not to eat ice cream."
"Ice cream?"
Nico laughed, "Yeah, it's milk and stuff mixed together, then frozen into ice. You eat it, and it even has different flavours."
Anubis seemed puzzled by that, his eyebrows furrowing, it was a bit cute, "Hm, that sounds rather odd."
"We can go get some afterwards if you want," the demigod offered.
Anubis studied him for a second, "...Very well. But first you shall learn."
Nico straightened, "Right. Death magic."
"Good," Anubis said. "Just like that, concentrate."
Easy for him to say, Nico thought. He wasn't the one bent over a flower trying to turn it to dust. He squinted and focused all his energy into his fingertips which were gently wrapped around the stem of a daisy.
Nothing happened.
He heard Anubis sigh. Turning to him, he raised an eyebrow.
"What?" the god asked.
"The sigh…?" the demigod retorted.
Anubis furrowed his brow, "I thought you would get the hang of it at once."
Nico stared back at the flower and grit his teeth, of course this one would also find him disappointing.
"Well, sorry if I don't live up to your standards, you were the one who offered to teach me, remember."
He felt the anger raise inside him and tried not to crush the flower in his hands.
"We all make mistakes, don't we? You would know," Anubis replied, his voice irritatingly smug.
Nico grit his teeth and was about to give the god a piece of his mind when he saw what was happening to the flower. The petals had started to turn grey and were slowly disintegrating. The dust slipped through his fingers and down onto the grass.
"Wow," he heard Anubis say behind him.
He turned and saw that the god was looking at the ground beneath him. He looked down.
The grass around him had all but disappeared entirely, leaving only grey dust behind.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, "It would seem it spread from your hands and through the flower."
Nico stared down at the ground. Had his anger done this?
"Splendid. Even better than I'd hoped," Anubis whispered.
Nico felt that he should pick up on something in those words, but the god's fingers on his shoulder were too warm and his voice too appraising.
Nico felt the other's presence before he heard him walk beside him.
"You don't have to come with me on every task, y'know," he said, not sparing a glance at the Egyptian god.
Anubis said nothing but Nico saw a smirk appear on his face.
Ignoring the god, he trudged on.
It was dark and that suited him just fine, he wouldn't need light to do what he was supposed to.
The street was not nearly as empty as he would have hoped, but no-one seemed to spare him a second glance, or a first glance for that matter. It was an odd effect he had on people.
He continued forward until he found the alley he was looking for. He slipped inside and took a left turn then a right turn and then a left turn again. He now stood outside a dark wooden door, and here there were no-one occupying the street beside him and Anubis, who was still following him.
Nico opened the door without knocking and walked inside, Anubis tailing behind him.
The entry was dark, a single wax candle illuminating the far end of the hallway.
Nico walked forward and noticed a door to the left of the candle. He lowered his hand onto the hilt of his sword and opened the door slowly.
He spotted the little girl sitting opposite him immediately. She was clad in dark clothes with almost equal dark skin and even darker hair. Her eyes lifted from the book in her lap to meet his when he entered – they were empty of emotion.
She raised an eyebrow, "Customers, at this hour?" She eyed Nico and her gaze landed on his sword. "I guess not."
The son of Hades noticed that her body tensed, ready to fight or flee at any moment.
"We're not here to fight, we just want some information," he said, lifting his hands to signify peace, even though his focus were now on the three flower pots in the room. He sensed the earth within them and willed it to move towards the girl, fortunately, none of the pots were in her line of sight at the moment, and she wouldn't notice the soil moving on its own.
He moved forward and sat down on another chair in the room, directly opposite the girl. She seemed to relax a bit at his peaceful demeanour, but was still on guard.
"What kind of information?" she asked, eyeing Anubis whom had sat down on the floor beside the door.
"We heard you had information about people, a lot of people," Nico replied.
"I do have information about people, but what makes you think I'll give it to you?"
Nico leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, "I think you'll give it to me, since I know about your current position."
The girl raised an eyebrow and eyed his sword again. Then she bolted, or tried to, only to find her feet stuck in soil.
Nico smirked, "Oh, you're not going anywhere." He stood up, "You'll sit right here in this chair and tell me everything you know about Saltus' contacts."
The girl's eyes widened at the god's name and she tried to free herself. Nico pushed her back into the chair and grabbed her hands in one hand and her hair in his other. He tapped his foot on the ground and it cracked open, a few skeletal hands reaching up to grab her shoulders and hands, keeping them still against the chair.
"I won't tell you anything," the girl spat at him.
Nico shrugged, "I had a feeling you might say that." He grabbed her hand and studied the well-manicured nails.
"So, what? You're going to torture me with that sword or knife? A little girl?" she tried in a sweet voice.
Nico squinted at her, "Please, we both know that's not your actual appearance, you just like this one because people tend to pity small girls. Shapeshifting into other people is your thing, after all." He grabbed a pen lying on the table at her side, "Y'know, some forms of gaining information are so much easier than others. You don't need fancy tools to make someone talk. You can use the simplest objects, a pen for example."
He placed the pen between her index and middle finger and squeezed her hand, the digits forced apart by the pen between them.
The girl wailed in pain and thrashed, the skeletal hands rattling. Nico ignored her and squeezed harder, feeling the hand spasm as the nerves were assaulted with painful stimuli.
"No, please stop! AAAHHH!" the girl screamed, her body bucking in the chair.
Nico paused, "You want to tell me about them?"
The girl glared but told him one name and address, "I won't tell you anything else."
"I guess we'll just have to try a little harder to remember then," the demigod replied, and glanced around for something else he could possibly use.
"She has a lot of skin, this girl," Anubis spoke up, suddenly beside him. "You won't miss this tiny bit right here, will you?" He pointed to her thigh.
He looked at Nico, "Won't you cut of a tiny bit of skin right here, you can train with it later, flesh is best to use for training."
The son of Hades stared at him, was he asking him to flay part of this person? He frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but Anubis leaned towards him and tucked some hair behind his ear.
"Won't you do that for me, Nico?"
Nico blinked slowly, his eyes lost in the god's endlessly dark eyes.
He nodded numbly and smiled. He turned towards the girl again and barely noticed that Anubis had handed him a knife.
He sliced apart her pant-leg and felt her strain against the hands holding her.
"Don't worry, I'll just take this part here." His voice sounded far away, even though it was his own voice.
He made the first incision and felt the skin give way to the knife, splitting open in its wake. Dark, red blood flowed from the wound and dripped onto the floor. He lifted the knife and prepared to make another slice.
"I'll tell you another name!" the girl said her voice desperate as she stared at Nico with wild eyes, her cheeks streaked with tears. She told him yet another name and address.
Nico nodded and made a second incision, the muscles in the leg twitching. He slit the skin open a third time and ignored the screams of the girl. He slid the blade across the skin a fourth time and lifted it to cut the flake away.
"Stooooop! Agh- Stop!"
Nico ignored her and neatly cut the skin away from her leg, holding it up to look at it, the blood seeping into his shirt.
"Why?! I told you the names!" the girl thrashed again.
The demigod looked at her calmly, "You didn't."
"Fuck you!" she said.
Nico moved the knife to the other leg, "I guess I'll just have to carve it out of you, then."
"No! No, please," she begged and told him the third name and address.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Nico grabbed her hand again and held it in his hand.
"What are you doing? I told you all the names!" she lied again.
Nico studied her fingers again, "Y'know. We don't need all five fingers, four will do just fine. A funny thing I can do is speed up the aging process. Or as my friend here likes to call it, death magic. I'll give you a hands-on demonstration."
He held only the girl's middle finger and concentrated. He saw the skin slowly start to turn yellow and then grey before it started to dissolve. He looked at the girl's face and saw that her face was contorted in pain but it was so painful it seemed she couldn't utter a sound.
He gripped another finger and started aging it too, focusing his attention to the agony on the girl's face, how her eyes widened and her mouth opened as if to scream, only for no sound to come out. She then stared at him and anger filled her features along with the pain.
Nico let go of her hand and looked at her in anticipation. She told him the last name and address.
The son of Hades smiled, "Thank you. If you had just told me in the beginning, none of this would have happened, I guess it's kind of your fault."
Her eyes narrowed and she smirked, then her features changed and she suddenly had Percy's face.
When she spoke, Percy's voice was her new voice, "You betrayed him, didn't you? It was your fault he fell into Tartarus. I've seen it in your fears."
Nico glared, "You'd be wise not to peek into my emotions, parasite. If you want to live that is."
Percy smiled at him and changed into Maria di Angelo, "If you hadn't been born I would still be alive, my son."
Nico gripped the knife still in his hand tighter but willed his sadness and anger away, "She would still have died, since Bianca was also a child of Hades."
"But it was your fault I died, Nico," Bianca di Angelo's voice spoke.
Nico blinked away his tears as he stared at his sister's face.
"I would be alive if you weren't here, I wouldn't have to look after you. I would be with the Hunters of Artemis if it weren't for you," Bianca spat. "You'd be better off dead!"
The demigod squeezed his eyes shut and felt his jaw ache from his gritting teeth. His cheeks were now wet with tears.
"We'd be better off dead," the shapeshifter spoke in Nico's voice.
Nico's eyes flew open and he stared at his own face, the empty eyes staring back at him.
"Right?" Nico spoke again.
Before he knew it, Nico had taken a step forward and buried the knife from Anubis into his own chest. He pulled it out and thrust it into his chest again. He grabbed the hilt with both hands and stabbed it into Nico di Angelo's torso, pulled it out and stabbed again, and again, and again, and again. He watched his face contort in pain and his body thrashing as he screamed.
He pulled the blade out again and buried it to the hilt in Nico's neck.
He stared at the mutilated body and smiled. Nico was better off dead anyway.
He looked at the parasite's face. A blank head stared back, no ears, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, just a blank skin surface covering the entire skull.
"It would seem it took its true appearance in death," Anubis spoke up beside him.
Nico stared at the creature, "Don't we all?"
He bent down and picked up the discarded skin-flap. He handed it over to the god.
The Lord of Funerals raised an eyebrow, "You should use it for training."
Nico shrugged, "I just used that creature for training."
A hungry look crossed the god's face and he stepped closer.
Nico looked at him as Anubis cradled his face with one hand and the demigod's eyes widened as he leaned down and kissed him.
"A reward," the god said in the air between their mouths.
Nico swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, "Since when has that been a reward?"
"Since now," was the reply as the other kissed him again, gripping his hair and pulling him closer.
Nico's hands rested on Anubis' chest and he leaned as close as he could to receive more rewards.
He felt slightly out of breath as the god pulled away and slid his thumb across his cheek.
"You had some blood on your face," he said and licked the blood off his finger. Nico felt blood rush to unspeakable places and he blinked slowly at the god.
Anubis smiled at him, "I guess we have a couple more visits to pay in the next few weeks."
Nico smiled back at him, dazed, "Yeah, more souls to collect."