Interviews with Demigods – II


The piece of paper wasn't blank any more. In fact, there were quite a few now, piled up on one side of the desk, each covered in a mixture of Will's neat hand, and Nico's decidedly spikier one. Nico had made the comment that doctors were supposed to have bad handwriting. Will had explained that that was stereotyping, and, besides, he wasn't really a doctor, as he essentially healed people by magic. And singing. Jason had said that Will had tidy handwriting because he was gay, and that they were neat like that. While he was fixing Jason's broken nose and assuring him that the black eye would go down on its own, Will explained, as Nico wiped the blood off his hand, that that was stereotyping too.

The papers were held in place by one of Will's paperweights. It was a skull – a present from Nico's dad. Will hadn't asked if it was real, and, for Will was pretty sure he'd know if it was real if he checked himself, he'd deliberately not examined it too closely. It was quite a good paperweight, though. It was particularly good at discouraging people from moving it. The eye sockets seemed to follow you around the room. It had been accompanied by a note which had simply read: 'Sorry for the ants.'

He'd always suspected that it hadn't been a coincidence. Will had no intention of letting Nico see it. No need to send him off on an angry jaunt to the Underworld.

They had now interviewed all the year-round campers, performing the same tests that they had with Jason. The most interesting ones were those from the same cabin but with varying powers. Of those, though, the even more intriguing were those who shared both parents. Currently, of the year-rounders, that was just the Stoll brothers, though Thalia was someone they wanted to talk to.

Results, though, were unsatisfactory. There seemed no logic to any of it. Why one daughter of Athena (of the same age) was cleverer than another. Why Connor was a better thief than Travis. Why Clarisse was more aggressive than anyone in the entire world.

With every frustration, though, Nico seemed to get happier and happier. He'd spend hours trying to piece things together, or coming up with new questions. Occasionally, he actually came up with some answers.

They now knew, for instance, that demigods did have the normal number of genes, and that these could, fairly consistently, be identified for both parents. Will kept all the swabs carefully labelled in a box in the Infirmary, and had run a comparative chart on his computer. Gods, it seemed, had DNA too – and this was even passed down to the 'mind-children'. Will, though, had nowhere near enough technology to determine if it was human DNA or something that was just compatible with it; he could only identify similar chemical traces between siblings. Nor could he separate out each gene. That required proper science.

They also knew that the gods were getting more and more suspicious. Chiron kept organising 'activities' for them that kept them apart all day. It was becoming harder and harder to interview people and test their new theories out. Some of the old ones were bearing a little fruit, though. Nico's experiment of withholding burnt offerings had not resulted in the loss of his powers (as the range of startled people around Will knew – Will was well used to Nico's appearances by now). Nico had received a stern note from his father, though, and he hadn't been able to bring Will a new book in ages. But maybe the revocation of powers was just a step up from that, and Nico's dad was just lenient – with Nico alone, of course. They wouldn't know until they tried it out with other gods, and, so far, no-one else was willing to join Nico.

Will squeezed Nico a little tighter. He felt a bit disloyal for not joining him, but he was worried about what the loss of his powers might do, if it turned out to be true. Concern had to trump curiosity. Nico kissed him on the jaw, and then buried his head in the hollow of Will's neck. His ever-longer hair massed up over Will's mouth and tickled his nose.

It was in this comfortable, though rather intimate, position that the Iris message arrived.

His eyes widening as Percy's face appeared out of the air, Will took a sharp breath in – along with a fair chunk of Nico's hair. Spluttering, Will squinted up at Percy. Detaching himself a little from Will's side, Nico rolled his head onto the pillow and likewise looked at Percy.

"Hi," all three chorused. All three were quite pink with embarrassment. None of them quite knew how to start.

Nico eventually spoke. "What do you want?" he said, sourly. He looked at his watch. "It's, like, 11:30."

"This is New York!" grinned Percy. "The city –"

Will tried to punch the Iris message. He only succeeded in making Percy laugh, but at least it distracted him. "I second Nico's grumpy question: what do you want?"

"Firstly," smirked Percy, "to know why Nico is still in your cabin this late. It's after curfew." He grinned. "I'll tell Chiron…"

Nico snapped his fingers. A skeletal hand appeared on Percy's shoulder, and he jumped, shrieking, out of view. He snapped his fingers again. Percy, red-faced and dishevelled, returned to the image. Will smothered a laugh.

"You were going to do what?" asked Nico, coolly studying his fingernails.

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Good. Now, again, why in the gods' names are you here?" said Nico.

"You asked me to be!" protested Percy. "I was at school, so Iris left a message here –"

"She does that?" muttered Will, surprised.

"Oh, yeah, you weren't there…" murmured Nico, remembering.

" – with my mum, so I thought I'd message you back."

"Now?" whinged Will. Nico elbowed him in the ribs.

"Excellent. So, I've been wanting to ask you a few things."

"Shoot," grinned Percy.

Will pulled a face and leaned over to the desk, Nico keeping a hold on his pyjama top so that he didn't fall out of the bed. He leaned back in again, clipboard in hand.

"So," started Nico, "I want you to think back to when you had the master bolt. Years ago. Do you think you could have used it?"

Percy thought for a moment. "Yeah. I reckon I could have done. Zeus would have incinerated me with a lesser bolt, but still, yeah, I could have given it a go." He hesitated. "You're not in the process of doing something really stupid, are you?"

Nico shook his head. "Oh, no. No! I'm just trying to understand how it works. How do you think you could have activated it?"

Percy nodded. "Quite easily."

Nico frowned. "Really? You didn't have it for that long –"

Percy grinned. "There was a pretty big button at one end. I guess pressing that would have made it work. And brought down all kinds of trouble on me. Besides, if only Zeus could use it, why was he so worried about Hades getting hold of it?"

"True." Nico's mouth twitched. "Though Dad wouldn't have done anything like that."

"No," said Will, his face expressionless. "He's such a sweetie – ouch!" He rubbed his ankle. "OK, OK, I'll just go back to quietly making notes!" He glanced up at Percy, who grimaced in sympathy. "Ow!"

"I saw that." Nico looked back at Percy. "So, I've been asking everyone about their powers, and I want to know how yours work."

"Well, they're pretty awesome! I can –"

"Yeah." Nico cut Percy off with a wave of his hand. "What I want to know is how it feels when you use them. How does it come about?"

Percy bit his lip, thinking. "It – It feels amazing. Like I'm connected to everything. I can hear the sea – taste the water – really, I can't think of any other way of describing it except that it's like I'm part of it."

Nico nodded. "I know what you mean. And you can breathe underwater, right?"

Percy nodded. "Just like normal. I don't grow gills, or anything like that."

"And you can talk to fish."

"And horses!" replied Percy.

"Are they more interesting than fish?" chipped in Will.

Percy laughed. "Anything is more interesting than what fish think about."

"And, generally, anything Poseidon can do, you can do to? Earthquakes, hurricanes, the lot?"

"Uh-huh." Percy blushed. "But on a much smaller scale. I have to actually be there."

"So…?" Nico reached across and brought a glass of water into Percy's line of vision.

Percy screwed up his eyes in concentration, and then shook his head. "Nothing."

"But I can…" mused Nico. "Hmm."

"You're connected to the shadows, I guess," said Percy. "They go everywhere." He started, and looked round –

"Who are you talking to?" floated a voice. Annabeth slid into the picture. Nico and Will waved. "Hi, you two," she said. "What are you up to?"

"Finding out about Percy's powers."

"And how they're exceptional," said Percy, smugly.

"They're not, actually," said Will coolly, flipping back through a few sheets.

The other three looked at him, frowning. "This is Percy," said Nico. "Even allowing for his ego, he's just about the most –"

"Oh, no, not in terms of strength. But his powers, and the way he accesses them, all conform to the standard model – a kind of one-ness with whatever the parent god is, um, god of, but on a strictly localised level. And, actually, even the strength of his powers isn't hard to account for: the fewer children a god has, the more powerful those children tend to be. And Percy has no demigod siblings in either form." Will hesitated. "Yet."

Percy blinked. "So, if my dad were to have more kids…?"

"You might get weaker. There are anomalies, though. Some demigods simply are stronger than others. And it all depends on what the god has power over to start with. But, um, yeah. How those powers are distributed fits a fairly standardised model."

Annabeth looked impressed. "Huh. What about gods with more abstract qualities?"

"Like Athena?" grinned Nico. He looked inquiringly at Will. "Well?"

Will pondered. "No idea." He shrugged. And then yawned. "Which might be a project for another day."

Percy nodded. "OK. I'll call back at another time – the week-end, maybe?"

"Fine. But, like, in the day-time?" suggested Nico.

Percy grinned. "Will do!" He winked. "Sleep tight – ouch!" The connection dissolved with a scene of Percy being poked by Annabeth. Nico laughed lightly.

He turned over to hug Will more closely. "You were being clever, weren't you?"

"It helps if you actually read the charts you make me compile…" sighed Will. He yawned again – longer this time. He shifted in the bed. "Now – out. This bed isn't wide enough for the two of us to sleep here."

"Especially not with your windmill arms," said Nico. Kissing Will, he slipped over to the bed made-up opposite. It was close enough that they could reach out and touch each other.

"Night, night," murmured Nico.

There was a sudden knock at the door. Will sat bolt upright, banging his head on the bunk above. "Yeah?" he said.

Chiron put his head around the door. "Just a routine inspection," he said, looking round the room. Will rubbed his head and glanced guiltily across to the other bed. Nico, luckily, had melted away.

After Chiron had closed the door again, and Will laid his throbbing head back onto the pillow, he wondered idly if it had been Percy.

And if so, whether Nico was making him pay.