Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.

Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative

Chapter Ten

"I am the mother of all terrors!" Nyx cried. "The Fates themselves! Hecate! Old Age! Pain! Sleep! Death! And all of the curses! Behold how newsworthy I am!"

–Rick Riordan, 'The House of Hades'

We faced the night goddess, shoulder to shoulder with one another. Nyx just looked at us, her pale features unreadable. Not even her aura gave an indication of her mood.

"Two demigods," she said, talking to herself. "And a mortal. How strange to receive visitors, after such a long time." She paused, frowning, then added, "Yet I am honoured to greet such noble characters."

I eyed her warily. Next to me, Olivia was bristling with tension, ready to spring into magical action at the drop of an eyebrow. Next to her, Kevin was relaxed and loose, deceptively calm, but I knew he was a flicker away from drawing his sword.

Nyx looked back at the sea for a moment, then turned to face us. She looked at Olivia first.

"Your mother is a fine goddess," she said, clasping her hands behind her back. "Strong in will and steadfast in principle. I have always respected her power and independence."

My heart skipped a beat or two. Nyx sounded like a more mature version of her daughter. Yet Olivia didn't seem to notice the resemblance, or else it didn't bother her. Her expression remained neutral. "Thank you. I'm sure she'd say the same of you."

"No, she wouldn't," Nyx replied, with a brief shake of her head, though she didn't seem angry. "Hecate has always been far too concerned with her own life to be interested in the greatness of anyone but herself."

Olivia shifted her weight, as though about to take a step forward, but she held herself back. Nyx gave her one last approving glance, before turning her razor-sharp concentration on Kevin.

"Son of Ares," she said, her tone colder now. The sea breeze picked up, blowing refreshing air in our faces. All around, mortal life went on, no-one even glancing in our direction.

"I have little respect for your father's… methods," Nyx lifted her chin, as though to look down on Ares's mere existence. "He is a brutish force, who does not recognise the importance of restraint, thoughtfulness and precision."

Kevin frowned, but didn't react. His aura was still calm.

"My father is definitely a dangerous guy," he answered. I noticed his hands were loose at his sides, ready to go for his weapon. "That doesn't mean his children are all like that, too."

"Correct," Nyx said, for a crazy moment putting me in mind of a game show host. "The nature of your godly parent influences, but does not predetermine, your own character. You are free to make your own choices."

Kevin just nodded slowly, as though having a conversation with an amiable lioness. Nyx glanced him up and down, and then turned her focus on me.

I looked in her dark eyes, and felt a sort of indefinable pressure settle on me. For a moment, I was completely aware of how Nyx embodied all the things of the night: the peace and rest that comes only with sleep, the calming silence of the still darkness; but also the pain and frustration of a lonely, restless night, and the terror that comes with the nightmares.

"And you, Cyrus Wright," Nyx said, her black gaze unreadable. "The son of no god, but a mortal endowed by Hestia herself. You bear the gift of pure sight, but one wonders if it is more a curse than a blessing."

I stared back at her, my words gone from me like children fleeing before an approaching tank. These were only introductions, but in a flash, I knew they were far more important than that. Everything we said could influence Nyx's final decision. It was a test, but we didn't know the questions, never mind the answers.

The goddess was still watching me, waiting. I swallowed, and said, "That's true. But then, maybe all gifts are curses and blessings."

Nyx raised one eyebrow, but I couldn't tell if she was angry or impressed. Her aura was impenetrable to me, full of power and darkness yet somehow devoid of the impressions of emotion that I usually picked up. "A wise thing to say. It is a blessing that you can see through the tricks of the shadows, but it is a curse because it brings responsibility greater than even you understand."

She paused, glancing out to sea again. A trace of longing flicked through her eyes, gone nearly before I could register it. It was the first emotion I'd spotted in Nyx, and I wondered what it was about Poseidon's realm that drew such a feeling from her.

"What is that you want?" Nyx asked, looking back at Olivia.

"Information," the half-blood replied. "We request the location of a piece of darkness. We know that one is in the gods' possession, and that another is lost. We need to know where the third can be found."

Nyx nodded neutrally. "Very well. Come, take a walk with me."

She brushed past us and started walking down the beach before we even registered what she'd said. We just stared for a second, as she strode off without a backwards glance. The three of us exchanged confused looks, before our brains started to work again and we hurried after her.

"You're all wondering why I chose this place as my domicile," Nyx stated, didn't ask, as we caught up. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, as though on some distant goal.

"He—, uh, definitely," Kevin said, who was closest to the goddess. He glanced sidelong at Olivia and me, as if to say, what's this about? I shrugged at him, and Olivia maintained her confused expression.

"I used to reside in the darkest places I could find," Nyx said. Her stride was long and her pace fast. We were just about keeping up. "I spent thirty years in the northernmost part of Alaska. It was beautiful. So peaceful. Almost as fine as my time in Greenland."

She heaved an appreciative sigh, her memories of wonderfully freezing cold, pitch-dark, barren wastelands somehow inspiring palpable joy. We just listened, and scurried.

"The events of the Titan War changed my views, however," Nyx went on, finally glancing around at us. The sea breeze picked up again, making her hair billow with implausible melodrama. "I realised that it is a mistake to ceaselessly take refuge in my greatest strengths. When a moment arrives, and I find myself forced from my resources, I am left with nothing but my flaws. As the goddess of the night, I must confront my own shadow."

Our group of four split in two to pass around a congregation of parked motorcycles. For a brief moment, I was walking alone with Olivia.

"What's she doing?" she hissed. "We don't have time for this."

"I don't know," I whispered back, as low as I could. The goddess probably couldn't hear us - those bikers were pretty damn noisy - but then you never know with these supernatural types. "Let's just run with it. We don't have much choice."

We rejoined the goddess and Kevin, who looked simultaneously baffled and fascinated, a peculiar expression unique to him.

"Thus, it was clear to me that if I am to be a truly strong goddess, I must seek out the things that make me weak, and confront them," Nyx was saying. She sounded so much like Athena, it was creepy. "None of the other gods understand this, of course, but then I have always been ahead of the pack."

She glanced at us. Kevin and I nodded politely, and Olivia began to reply but, quite abruptly, something to her right caught her eye.

"Oh my gods," she whispered, stopping dead. My momentum kept me moving forward a few steps before I stopped, along with Kevin and Nyx. We looked back at Olivia.

The daughter of Hecate stood stock-still, staring at thin air with utmost concentration. Her hands were clutching together, clasping and unclasping, and her aura was flickering and sparking with all possible shades of green and blue.

"What is it?" I said.

Olivia drew in a shaky breath, and pointed. "It's my mother. She's just there. Look."

We followed her quivering finger. She was pointing toward the wall that divided the beach and the promenade, as though there was someone standing there, but I could see nothing except the passers-by who'd been ignoring us since we'd arrived.

"Olivia," Kevin murmured, taking a half-step towards her. "There's no-one there."

"There is!" she exclaimed, not looking around. Her eyes were wide now, manic with frantic emotion that was starting to consume her. "She's there. She's beckoning me. She— she has something. Look, I'll be right back."

She leaned forward, as though to dash to what she saw, but she didn't move. She just tilted forward, a strange sight, like long grass bending to the wind.

"I— I can't move," Olivia gasped, still staring blindly. Her aura was snapping with light now, chaotic and moving faster every second. "My feet, they're so heavy. What's going on?"

"Olivia," Kevin repeated, stepping towards her.

"No!" she snapped, her gaze flickering towards us for a nanosecond. "She's there. Just let me move!"

All the colour had drained from her face. Kevin looked back at me, his eyes pleading, as though I had the answer. Nyx stood behind us, silent. I swallowed, and let my pure sight fill my vision, clarifying everything.

Olivia's aura came into sharper focus, the colours growing stronger, and the emotions that were swamping her started to spill into me. As I looked upon her restless aura, I felt impressions of fear, anger, loss, frustration and confusion, secondhand feelings that were still strong enough to make me wince. They spiked through my mind, in tune to her aura's pulses of colour.

Kevin was saying something else, but I wasn't listening. I'd felt this kind of empathy before when I'd used my sight, but it had never been useful. Now, maybe I could put it to work.

I took a deep breath, concentrating, keeping my pure sight fully engaged, and stepped towards Olivia. Two steps, three, four, and I was next to her. She didn't react to me as she had to Kevin, even as I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. Her aura was coursing around her, a psychic thunderstorm moving at impossible velocity. Her face was straining, every muscle in her body was straining, as she tried to force herself to move.

"Olivia," I murmured, trying to reach back down that connection of empathy. All of her emotions were running through me now, and I embraced the rush of feeling, seeking the way through it, an opening into her besieged mind.

Olivia suddenly lurched forward, stumbling a couple of steps. I moved with her, keeping my hand clamped on her shoulder. I heard noises behind me, and vaguely recognised that Kevin was arguing with Nyx.

"Olivia," I said, more forcefully. There was a pattern in her tangled emotions. Fear, anger, loss, and then desperation, over and over, like damaged clockwork. She was caught in a loop, but something about it seemed alien, like it had been imposed on her.

Then I understood. It was a program, running on and on, but each time it looped there was a pause, a breath of air, a gap. I focussed on that, timing it by my breathing, waiting, and then—

"Wake up."

The right words, at the right moment. I connected with the daughter of Hecate in the space between bursts of emotion, my words forcing a way through the storm, aided by the empathy link. Instantly, I felt the cycle break. Olivia drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and looked around at me.

"Cyrus," she whispered, her eyes glassy, but her aura already calming, the storm breaking. "What happened?"

"A spectre. A waking dream," pronounced Nyx. Suddenly she was standing next to us. "Tartarus is always dispatching these psychic menaces to trouble we who support the Olympians. Think nothing of it, the aftereffects will be gone soon. "

Kevin hurried around me, and enveloped Olivia in one of his trademark bear hugs.

"It's alright," he soothed, as she drew long, shaky breaths. "It was an illusion. It's over. Just breathe."

As he calmed Olivia down, I looked at Nyx. "A spectre," I repeated. "Tartarus is sending out psychic menaces now, huh?"

"Oh yes," the goddess nodded at me. Her innocent expression would have been convincing, if it weren't the first attempt at facial expression she'd made since we'd arrived. "It's a regular occurrence, particularly near a god's residence. It may well happen again. Be on your guard, my friends."

She glanced at said friends. Kevin looked more shaken than Olivia, who was already regaining her composure.

"I think we can walk on," Nyx said coolly, after a moment. She turned, and began striding down the beach again.

"Is she crazy?" Kevin hissed, glancing between me and Olivia, but the daughter of Hecate shook her head.

"No, she's not," she said, her eyes steady now. Her aura had cleared quickly, as though the whole thing had been a brief dream. "She's not crazy, she's the night. Let's keep up with her."

Sounding as cryptic as the goddess herself, Olivia hurried after her. Kevin threw his hands up in the air. "This is so freaking weird weird," he muttered. "Nice job there, by the way."

"Thanks," I said vaguely, feeling overwhelmed. I glanced around the beach, but still no-one seemed to have noticed us. It was like we were invisible, just ghosts wandering along the beach. Hell, maybe we were already dead and we just hadn't realised it yet.

I shook myself. Now wasn't the time for morbidness. We had to get out of here before we were all driven crazy.

We started walking again, and rejoined the other two, who were having a nice calm discussion, as though Olivia hadn't just had some kind of psychotic episode.

"So what happens if Tartarus gets back this piece of darkness?" Olivia was asking, totally composed, though her hand was twitching towards her sword every now and then.

Nyx looked like she was enjoying her nice walk at the beach. She glanced around at Kevin and me as we caught up, before saying, "Tartarus regaining even that one fragment of his power is a reality so grim that I would rather not contemplate it."

"Well, we've got to talk about something," Olivia reasoned.

I wiped sweat from my brow. The Florida heat, eased as it was by the sea air, was starting to get to me. My mouth was drier than the sand we were walking on.

"Very well," Nyx muttered, sounding amused. "Currently, Tartarus is highly dangerous from a distance, but if he were to confront any of the Olympians in close-quarters, he would be easily overcome. If, however, he regains a piece of darkness, he would be able to overpower all but the most powerful of gods in direct combat."

I gulped. The more I learned about these pieces of darkness, the more disturbing they sounded. I just hoped I wouldn't have to look after one. It'd be like holding the detonator remote to a nuclear bomb, and knowing me, I'd probably hit the button by accident.

"And what if he got all three?" Kevin asked, glancing past me to look at Nyx. "How bad would things be then?"

I gave him a grumpy look, and nearly walked into a rubbish bin. Was it really necessary to make everything sound even worse? It's like demigods have an obsession with making these things as dramatic and doom-laden as possible. It's not healthy.

"That's not possible," Nyx said dismissively, making me feel better. "In any case, if that were to happen, there would be nothing left. The son of Chaos would sweep his veil of power over everything."

We walked in silence for a while after that.

For the first time, I wondered if our battle with Tartarus was actually futile. It wasn't like he was just going to go away if we waited long enough. He was only going to get stronger, more dangerous, and more confident, as we failed again and again. And the son of Chaos wasn't even the only bad guy out to get us. We were always talking about the primordial being, but what his buddy Jake Wilson? And what about Wilson's old mistress Rhea, the one who'd been the start of all this? What if they started unleashing grand plans just when we were on the ropes from Tartarus's haymaker?

"And where does Rhea come in?" I said, looking at Nyx again. The goddess had started tying her hair as she walked, casual as can be.

"Rhea is a problem," she shrugged. "Hades believes that the fallout from the ritual at the solstice destroyed her prison."

"What?" Olivia cried, coming to an abrupt stop, and just as abruptly starting to walk again, as though afraid of being caught by that nightmare.

"Oh yes," Nyx spoke like she was delivering a weather report. "Traces of her presence and power have been appearing around the continent. Some of the smaller disturbances that are happening have been caused by her. She is weak still, and does not yet pose a real threat, but one thing is certain. She is not interested in a dialogue with the gods."

The three of us all had the same thought, at the same time.

"But what happens if the two of them team up?" Olivia asked, her eyes widening in horror. She looked around at us all. "Tartarus and Rhea, working together? How will we survive then?"

Nyx opened her mouth to reply, when suddenly Kevin grabbed my arm and pulled me a stop.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, looking at me intently.

I blinked at him. "Um. What?"

His blue eyes narrowed, and flickered around the beach, scanning passers-by, as though waiting for them to attack. "Someone called my name. There! There it was again. A man's voice. You hear it?"

I frowned, listening, but I heard nothing except the hubbub of people moving, talking, shouting, living. I shook my head. "I don't hear it. Are you sure it wasn't the wind or something? It's getting very breezy…"

"No," Kevin shook his head. Then his eyes widened. "There it was again!"

He moved fast, turning away from me and starting to run back the way we'd come—

But he froze mid-step, his foot halfway through the air, his expression twisting with frustration.

"I can't move," Kevin said, very low, very quiet, the way he got when he was furious. "What's happening? Dad, is that you?"

His eyes narrowed again, as he listened to whatever phantom had gotten into his head. I stood there, feeling helpless. The exact virus that had struck Olivia was forcing itself on my best friend. I reached for my pure sight, but I only saw what I expected. Kevin's aura, normally a calm brown mixed with grey, was trembling and spiking, churning with anger and longing, a psychic Richter scale in 3-D colour.

"Kevin?" Olivia asked, just behind me. "Can you hear me?"

The son of Ares didn't respond, still straining to dash towards the non-existent voice of his father. I glanced over my shoulder - Olivia was looking back and forth between me and him, while Nyx was standing still, watching, her arms folded. I looked at Kevin, then back at the night goddess, and for a split second I met her eyes. Her dark eyes, full of secrets and power that none of us could imagine.

I understood.

This was the test.

Tartarus wasn't sending out phantom psychic disturbances. That was a ridiculous idea. He was the god of shadows and monsters, of ethereal menaces, but not the shadows of the mind. Nyx had told us a simple lie, one that was easy to believe. She was inflicting these mental tortures on my friends. She was queen of the night, mistress of nightmares and fractured dreams, and she was using her subtlest powers to drag our weaknesses out under the merciless Southern sun.

I turned back to Kevin, and swallowed. It was a macabre, sick sort of test, like screaming in someone's ear just to see how high they could jump, but that didn't matter. We had to pass Nyx's trials, no matter how twisted they were. I stepped towards my friend, my hand outstretched, as I'd done with Olivia. I tuned into the working of power that was twisted around him, and now that I was looking for it, I sensed the same kind of cold, calm power that shrouded around Nyx.

I steadied my breathing, synching myself with the loops of frustration and desperation that were pulsing through Kevin, turning over and over, emotional clockwork. The rhythm was similar to Olivia's psychic trap, though it had a different cycle. That didn't matter much. I waited one breath, two, following the cycling passions, and when Kevin hit the end of the loop—

"Wake up," I said forcefully, giving him a little shake, trying as hard as I could to imbue my voice with authority. Immediately, I felt the energy of Nyx's psychic program shatter, and Kevin's eyes refocussed. He drew in a rattling breath, as a sleeper emerging from a harrowing dream would, and he met my gaze.

Then I saw her.

She came in a blink, appearing out of nowhere, just over Kevin's shoulder, standing at the edge of the beach, almost in the sea. Her arms were folded, but Hestia was looking at me directly, and I knew that she needed to talk to me.

Kevin was saying something - thanking me? I don't know, it didn't matter. His voice was fading away, and in a moment I'd forgotten he was even there. I saw only Hestia, and the distance between us. She extended a hand towards me, nodding, reassuring me, and I knew she was here to give me peace, give me tranquility, give me freedom.

I took a step towards her.

Except I didn't.

Every one of my muscles had turned to stone. I was a frantic mind sealed in solid rock. I strained, screaming at myself to move, pushing as though I was about to die, but the harder I forced the stiller I became. Hestia was looking more urgent. I was running out of time. With a movement of tremendous effort, I managed to drag myself forward one step, but the distance between me and the goddess was widening, yawning out between us, a void of concrete.

But no, I decided, I had to get there. I would not give up. I pushed harder, but it was like trying to punch out Zeus. It was horrible. It was like some sort of—

Nightmare.

A chill went through me, the first physical sensation I'd had since I'd seen Hestia. Realisation trickled around my mind, as comprehension dawned, word by word, the way it always does in strange dreams.

I blinked. Hestia seemed oddly transparent, like a reflection or a ghost or a projection. Sensation was edging back into my body, tentatively, as though waiting to see if it was safe.

This wasn't real. Nyx had put me straight into one of her constructed nightmares after I'd gotten Kevin out of his. It was just a dream, an illusion of something that I wanted. It wasn't real.

I focussed on that, as the falsified feelings of frustration and fear began to fade into the background of my mind, returning to whatever primordial soup emotions are born from. It wasn't real. It was a trick. I kept saying that, over and over, refusing to believe in what I saw before me—

I woke up.

"—rus, can you hear me?" Kevin said next to me. I turned and looked at him, blinking rapidly. He met my eyes, and started backwards.

"How did you do that?" he asked, staring at me as though I'd just sucker-punched Tartarus himself.

"What?" I blinked some more. My eyes were dry, gritty.

"Pull yourself out like that," he replied, shaking his head. "You just woke yourself up. Neither of us could do that."

I shrugged, the effects of the nightmare melting off me already. "I don't know, man. What I want to know is," I turned around to look at Nyx. Olivia caught the grim look in my eyes, and quickly edged out of my way, "what the hell was that supposed to be? I thought you were going to test us, not screw with our heads like we're your psychic playthings."

Nyx barely moved, just raised her eyebrow. "That was the test, Cyrus Wright. I do not favour the dramatic methods of challenging mortals enjoyed by my fellow gods. Did you expect a trek up a flaming mountain, or a battle with yet another slavering beast? How tedious. No, my friends, the night does not work in such obvious ways. I cannot test your worth if you know it is being tested."

She spread her hands out before her, palms up, and the air over them shimmered. A small scroll of papyrus faded into her hands.

"You have passed the test," Nyx informed us. The three of us exchanged sidelong, bemused glances. "You will find the piece of darkness in a ghost town with which one of your number is already familiar. To ease your passage, I offer you these numbers, which I believe the mortals call GPS coordinates."

Despite the bizarre events of the last half-hour, or perhaps because of the strain, I nearly burst out laughing. I'd been expecting some kind of cryptic riddle that led to an anagram that led to a magical map which would reveal the ancient artefact to be hidden under the bed. I certainly hadn't been anticipating GPS coordinates.

Olivia was as surprised as me. She hesitated before reaching out to take the scroll, staring at it for a minute before remembering to say, "Thank you, Lady Nyx."

The goddess inclined her head. "You have proven your abilities to overcome challenges of the deepest nature, and you have demonstrated your inner strength. I am proud to send you on this task. Go now."

Nyx made a eye-blink fast gesture. On either side of me, shadows howled. By the time I glanced around, Olivia and Kevin were already gone.

"What—" I started to say, but Nyx silenced me with an icy glance.

"I have a final word for you, Lightbringer," she stared at me with frightening intensity. "This test was intended to challenge the three of you, but its focus was on one of you in particular."

I held her gaze, and gulped.

"You mean—"

"I mean that I would not surrender such valuable information to someone of such importance in the narrative that is unfolding around us, if I were not certain of that person's integrity," Nyx turned, so that I saw only her profile. "I was already sure of your companions' strength. I was not certain of yours. Now, I am." She turned her head and looked me in the eye. "I hope that you can gain that same confidence, before it is too late for us all."

She smiled, and when the shadows rose this time, they engulfed me.