Chapter 10
Sympathy For The Devil
Gregory's electric eyes burned at the sight of Lucy's birthmark. The son of Zeus fought against the ropes that bounded him to the chair, while Lucy just smirked with amusement at the whole situation. She glanced at me and arched her eyebrow.
"He's just as stupid as I imagined him, cousin," She said. "You although surprises me. You don't look tense at all, Jack Brown, son of Poseidon."
My eyes widened as I wondered how she knew my name. She read my expression and shrugged.
"I have my sources. I've been looking for you for quite some time now, Jack. I knew Gregory here was at Camp Half-Blood, but the son of Poseidon was still at large, probably unaware of whom he really was. Unfortunately, you got to them before I could get to you."
Lucy nodded her head and a guard approached me, a knife in his hand and a thirst for blood in his eyes. He stopped before me and I closed my eyes, expecting the worst. A swish of the blade and the ropes that tied me fell on the stone floor. I got up and felt my legs hurt.
"A glass of water?" Lucy offered me, ordering another guard to serve me. The water pleased my soul, making all the pain go away. I took a deep breath and looked at Lucy in the eye, the amusement smirk still on her face.
"So you are a daughter of Hades?" I asked.
"It's great to meet you too, cousin." She said, ordering the guards to free Mary and Jane, but not Gregory. He grunted at her, his face red with anger.
"Sending sorcerers to capture me is not really the best way to start a friendship." I said, helping Mary stand on her feet. Lucy's cold eyes went from me to her.
"I have a hard time staying away from unorthodox methods, I admit," She said. "But I was desperate. Word between the gods was that the son of Poseidon had fled to America with his mother. I was starting to lose hope of finding you."
Her cold eyes melted before me, gradually turning warm and caring. Before I could notice, I had lowered my defenses.
"Why were you after me?" I asked.
Lucy blinked and touched my shoulder.
"I needed someone I could trust. Someone with the power to do something about it. Jack, something really bad is about to happen and I need your help to stop it."
Gregory let out a sarcastic laugh. "Don't fall for her words, Jack. Deception and manipulation are in her blood. Yes, something bad is about to happen, but she has no interest in stopping it. Don't believe her lies."
Lucy rolled her eyes and ignored Gregory.
"Jack, I need to speak to you in private."
Without waiting, she walked out of the room through a heavy iron side door, leaving it opened behind her. I swallowed dry and started walking toward it, when Gregory tried to stop me.
"Jack, remember what happened at camp. Remember all the people who lost their lives in last night's attack, think of all the ones who barely made it. You can't trust her, Jack. You can't trust Hades."
I looked at him and said nothing before walking out of the room, feeling Mary and Jane's worried eyes on my back. I stepped into a dark narrow alley submerged in the shadows of the night that reigned absolute. Lucy gasped beside me, looking almost invisible in the dark. She stepped under the moonlight and my heart froze. She was as beautiful as the night.
"I know you hate the son of Zeus," She started. "Just like his father, he is blinded by his arrogance. To him his truth is the only truth. Jack, you can either trust me or not. But if I were to kill all of you, I would have already done it. Look, I know my father is planning to dethrone Zeus. Gods, it's only what he's been doing for the last few millennia. I care for him or any of the gods as much as they care about you and me. Not being allowed in Camp Half-Blood made me grow with a different point of view. To the gods, we are just a disposable new batch of kids they can use in their own disputes of power."
"Did your father tell you about his plans?" I asked.
Lucy rolled her eyes and laughed. "Oh, trust me, he knows better. Besides, I would be useless to him. He needs someone inside the system, someone in Camp Half-Blood. This is why I wanted to get to you before they could. Before you made friends there and that clouded your judgment."
"Are you saying someone inside the camp is working with Hades?"
"This isn't an opinion, Jack. It's a fact. I know how these things work, I know how my father thinks."
A loud bang sounded from inside Lucy's office. She quickly opened the iron door and we stepped back into the room. The smell of gun powder impregnated the room, Gregory remained tied down in his chair, while Mary and Jane hid behind Lucy's desk.
"There you are, the mysterious Fair!" A man carrying a rifle shouted. He wore expensive clothes and his mad eyes were fixated on me. "You thought you could outsmart me, deceive me into destroying my own business? You're a new blood into this, Fair. My family's been running this city for decades before you were born."
The man was accompanied by three drunken guards carrying guns and blades. He nodded to one of his guards and he grabbed Lucy by the arm, forcing her to kneel down on the floor and aiming the rifle to her head.
"No, please! Please, don't kill me, sir!" She screamed, stopping between sentences to wink at me.
"Silent, whore!" The first man shouted, before turning back to me. "You give us access to your safe, to all your money and documents or she'll die, along with everyone in this room. I'm going to count to three. One."
Lucy smirked in amusement, while taking off a ring she wore on her right middle finger.
"Two."
She closed her eyes.
"Three!"
The guard started pushing the trigger when the floor cracked around him, swallowing his leg up till his knee. Another crack as the floor closed around his member, turning the bones into dust. The other men stood in shock while the guard screamed in horror. Lucy got up and removed her ring, that turned into a dark bladed sword in her hand. In a few precise movements, she killed the other two guards and stabbed their leader in the stomach.
"You and your family ruled for too long," She whispered in his ear while he screamed in terror. "This city has a new queen now and she doesn't live in Buckingham Palace."
The man's eyes widened as he realized who Fair really was. Lucy twisted her dark sword inside of him and he gave his last breath, before falling dead in the middle of the room. Blood painted the floor red as Lucy got up, turned her sword back into a ring and put it in her finger.
"Sorry, about that," She said, looking at me, Mary and Jane. "Anyone fancy a drink?"
We came back to the now empty Devil's pub, Lucy's guards watching every movement of our hands. The daughter of Hades drank an entire glass of beer in one sip and burped before turning to us, her face completely ignoring the grunts of Gregory, who was still tied down to his chair in the office.
"Why won't you release him?" Mary asked, doing her best not to sound threatening.
"Ah, I'm just playing with him. Busting his balls for a bit. You know, it's a cousin thing." Lucy answered, chuckling childishly. "So, where are you four heading with your big quest to preserve Olympus?"
Jane, Mary and I stood silent and exchanged a few looks. Truth was, we had no idea. The job assigned to us was to simply get to London, after that we were on our own. I cleared my throat and tried to come up with something, when Lucy started laughing.
"Oh gods, you have no idea, do you?" She said, signaling to a guard to refill her glass of beer. "What a lousy quest leader that son of Zeus."
"He's not the leader." I said instinctively. "We don't know if the prophecy was directed at me or him."
"As predictable as the four seasons the gods are. The prophecy came like that so both of you had to come in the quest." Lucy said. I widened my eyes and she shrugged. "Politics, cousin. You should start learning too."
"Gregory wanted us to go to Olympus and stand guard." Jane said, while chewing a large piece of meat. She and Mary accepted the feast Lucy offered us, but I was too tense to eat anything.
"He does know that Olympus is under a total lockdown because of the moving process, no? If you go there the only thing you'll see are the marble and gold doors." Lucy said.
"He didn't mention anything about a lockdown." I said, arching an eyebrow.
"Well, what does it matter? We're just going to stand guard, no? We don't have to be inside." Mary said, trying to defend her boyfriend. Ugh, I lost the very last bit of appetite I had in me.
"True, but Zeus' lockdown won't stop my father. If you want to have any chance of stopping him, you must be inside, close to the throne room, the gods power behind you. And if you stand by the door, with nowhere to run, he and his army of the dead will crush you with ease. It actually sounds more like a trap to me." Lucy stopped and pondered, before speaking again. "There are, let's say, alternative ways though. I don't know them myself, but I might know of someone who does."
"What do you mean?"
"Legend tells of secret passageways Aphrodite had built, connecting Olympus to the mortal world, to facilitate the comings and goings of her lovers."
Mary rolled her eyes. "Sounds like mom."
"You could get us the location of those passageways?" I asked, leaning forward, to where Lucy seated.
"I could call in some favors," She said, smiling, before getting up. "Come, better not waste time. I hope you had a good night of sleep. We're in for a treat."
"I swear when this is over, I will sleep for five days straight." Jane said, while we got up to follow Lucy back into the office. The daughter of Hades approached the chair where Gregory was tied down and looked him in the eye.
"Any funny business, cousin, any at all, and I'm sending you to my father's kingdom for all eternity." She cut him loose and Gregory got up, losing the balance on his numb legs for a second.
"I'm not going to say anything, princess of darkness. But I'll be watching you."
Lucy rolled her eyes and chuckled, while returning to us our swords. "Princess of darkness? How do you come up with this stuff?" My fingers touched the cable of Perseus' blade with love, they missed each other a lot.
"Where are we going?" Mary asked.
"Visiting an old friend of your mother's," Lucy said, opening the black iron side door. "And going for a little swim."
We walked out in the warm summer night of London, the Palace of Westminster, and Mount Olympus, in the distance at our right, shining under the moonlight, while we headed south, towards the bank of the River Thames.
The great river that cut London in north and south halves was calm as always that night, quietly going with the flow while the city of tomorrow raged all around it. I looked down at the bottom of the river, remembering that last Wednesday a couple of days ago, when I began to know who I really was. I could say more had happened in those few days since then, than it had in my entire life.
We were standing at the bank of the river for hours now. Lucy, calm and serene, told us to wait a little bit more. I looked down at the water again, trying to see what were we waiting for. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the calm river. Man, I had never looked so beautiful. The reflection winked at me and I almost fell backwards.
Lucy stared at me and sighed. "Finally!"
The calm water suddenly started revolting on itself, a huge whirlpool rising upwards, creating the image of a beautiful transparent skinned girl with white hair that glowed under the moonlight. She opened her big blue eyes and laughed.
"Leaving the almighty Fair waiting has made my day. How are you, Lucy? Long time, no see." The water lady said, ignoring the other four of us completely.
"I am great, tired though, thank you very much," Lucy said, turning to us. "This is old Lady Thames, the river naiad. Late as usual."
The naiad's eyes shifted to me and I recognized something familiar on them, like an echo from an old dream. She analyzed me and chuckled.
"You snore while sleeping, did you know, son of Poseidon?"
Everyone turned to me. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I watched you sleeping last Wednesday. Always so hurried the children of the big three. You didn't even knew who you were and you were already trying to sleep at the bottom of the river."
Behind me, I heard Gregory grunting, getting on everyone's nerves. Since we met with Lucy, the prince had become extra-annoying. At least to me.
"I thought we were going to ask one of Aphrodite lovers for the secret passageways into Olympus. What are we doing here?" He said, turning to Lucy, who, I could see, was starting to really lose her patience towards our cousin.
"And what do you think we are doing here, genius?"
I arched an eyebrow and looked at the sea dryad, then at Mary who shrugged.
"Mom likes to experiment different things." She explained.
Lady Thames licked her lips and winked at Mary.
"You should do like your mommy, young rose. I can help you with that if you want." Mary blushed like a tomato and chuckled nervously, hiding herself behind Jane, who took a step to the side, exposing the daughter of Aphrodite to the naiad again.
"Anyway, you once needed my help, Lady Thames, and I helped you didn't I?" Lucy said, crossing her arms, starting to do what she does best. "Those illegal industries never again dumped their waste in your river, am I right?"
"Yes, Lucy, you're right. Gods, what happened to doing favors just because you like people? So you want one of the secret paths to Olympus that Lady Aphrodite uses?" The naiad said, looking eager to put an end to that as soon as possible.
"Yes, Lady Thames, thank you in advance." Lucy said.
The naiad rolled her eyes. "The well on the 23rd street, just a few hundred meters north of the Westminster's clock tower," Lady Thames started to dissolve back into the river. "And a word of advice? Don't eat much before going in it."
A sound like rain falling echoed in the river and the naiad was one with her Thames once again.
"I don't trust this, it's a trap. We can't trust Lucy, people. Remember what happened in Camp! Remember all the ones who lost their lives!" Gregory started saying, his right hand coming dangerously close to his sword.
Lucy's expression closed and the floor cracked between the legs of the son of Zeus, threatening to throw him straight down to the Underworld. The daughter of Hades slowly came close to Gregory and her voice sounded determined.
"I don't want to kill you, but you are starting to give me no choice."
Ground and thunder cracked at the same time as the tension between the cousins started to grow. Gregory smirked presumptuously and walked away giving his back to Lucy. She grunted and did the same, walking back alone to the Devil's pub.
"You three go," Gregory said, without looking at us. "I don't want to be around her any longer. Tomorrow morning we go for the secret passageway."
"Where are you going?" Mary asked, as Gregory started walking away from us, strolling through the night with no apparent destination. The son of Zeus ignored her and just kept walking until he was nowhere to be seen.
Mary stared at the moon before looking at me, her beautiful brown eyes sparkling like the stars in the sky. Without saying a word we started walking back to the Devil's pub.
"It's like I'm stuck in the middle of a fucking Shakespeare play, gods." I heard Jane whispering to herself. I swallowed dry and felt Mary walking slowly behind me, her breath, her smell, her presence attracting me to her like the twilight to the night.
As far as I was concerned, the plot of the love triangle was about to thicken even more.