I'm sorry guys this is the last chapter before I discontinue this but I will make it, as good as possible, again sorry but I'm running out of Ideas for this but Theseus Di Angelo will be continued past this I can't do this any farther with the son of Hades and Athena because the ideas are backed up with Athena.

ch.13 Thalia and I talk

I run up to the deck and say,"Dad gave this to me a while back and I've brought it if we hook it up it'll cover the ship in a sphere of black-fire much stronger than mine."

Leo takes the machine and attaches it to the control panel and black-fire surrounds the ship only letting in air. I look around and ask,"Where's Hazel?"

She steps onto the deck from a ladder and says,"I had a talk with Hecate."

she told us about the secret northern pass through the mountains, and the detour Hecate described that could take them to Epirus.

When she was done, Nico took her hand. His eyes were full of concern. "Hazel, you met Hecate at a crossroads. That's…that's something many demigods don't survive. And the ones who do survive are never the same. Are you sure you're—"

"I'm fine," she insisted.

But she knew she wasn't. She remembered how bold and angry she'd felt, telling the goddess she'd find her own path and succeed at everything. Now her boast seemed ridiculous. Her courage had abandoned her.

"What if Hecate is tricking us?" Leo asked. "This route could be a trap."

Hazel shook her head. "If it was a trap, I think Hecate would've made the northern route sound tempting. Believe me, she didn't."

Leo pulled a calculator out of his tool belt and punched in some numbers. "That's…something like three hundred miles out of our way to get to Venice. Then we'd have to backtrack down the Adriatic. And you said something about baloney dwarfs?"

"Dwarfs in Bologna," Hazel said. "I guess Bologna is a city. But why we have to find dwarfs there…I have no idea. Some sort of treasure to help us with the quest."

"Huh," Leo said. "I mean, I'm all about treasure, but—"

"It's our best option." Nico helped Hazel to her feet. "We have to make up for lost time, travel as fast as we can. Percy's and Annabeth's lives might depend on it."

"Fast?" Leo grinned. "I can do fast."

He hurried to the console and started flipping switches.

Nico took Hazel's arm and guided her out of earshot.

I spent the night in testing my powers, I'd learned a few days ago that I can make things out of black-fire without using any energy by making it solidify, so I can make another Black-flames I hear someone say,

"Angel,you should renamed black-flames it's a mouthful."

I smile at my girlfriend and say,"How about Chaos, that's what it causes after all?"

She smiles then frowns,"Theseus I forgot to tell you my father asked me to become a goddess after this war and I hate that you will become a god of the underworld when you die and then I won't see you again."

I say,"Actually since Percy didn't become a god mom offered me the position god of time during the time you were 'lost' I told her I'd think about it."

She smiles,"I was offered to be the goddess of Heroes and I'd take Mr.D's place."

I smile and we fall asleep on deck looking at the stars.

Later

We were in the mess hall and I was looking at the images of camp, the scenes from back home—the campfire sing-alongs, dinners at the pavilion, volleyball games outside the Big House—just seemed to make everyone friends sad. The farther they got from Long Island, the worse it got. The time zones kept changing, making Leo feel the distance every time he looked at the walls. Here in Italy the sun had just come up. Back at Camp Half-Blood it was the middle of the night. Torches sputtered at the cabin doorways. Moonlight glittered on the waves of Long Island Sound. The beach was covered in footprints, as if a big crowd had just left.

With a start, I realized that yesterday—last night, whatever—had been the Fourth of July. They'd missed Camp Half-Blood's annual party at the beach with awesome fireworks prepared by Leo's siblings in Cabin Nine.

He decided not to mention that to the crew, but he hoped their buddies back home had had a good celebration. They needed something to keep their spirits up, too.

"So," Jason said, "now that we're here…"

He sat at the head of the table, kind of by default. Since they'd lost Annabeth, Jason had done his best to act as the group's leader. Having been praetor back at Camp Jupiter, he was probably used to that; but I could tell my girlfriend's brother was stressed. His eyes were more sunken than usual. His blond hair was uncharacteristically messy, like he'd forgotten to comb it.

Leo glanced at the others around the table. Hazel was bleary-eyed, too, but of course she'd been up all night guiding the ship through the mountains. Her curly cinnamon-colored hair was tied back in a bandana, which gave her a commando look that I found kind of cool.

Next to her sat her boyfriend Frank Zhang, dressed in black workout pants and a Roman tourist T-shirt that said CIAO! (was that even a word?). Frank's old centurion badge was pinned to his shirt, despite the fact that the demigods of the Argo II were now Public Enemies Numbers 1 through 7 back at Camp Jupiter. His grim expression just reinforced his unfortunate resemblance to a sumo wrestler. Then there was my brother, Nico di Angelo.

The only absent demigod was Piper, who was taking her turn at the helm with Coach Hedge, their satyr chaperone.

I wished Piper were here. She had a way of calming things down with that Aphrodite charm of hers.

On the other hand, it was probably good she was above deck chaperoning their chaperone. Now that they were in the ancient lands, they had to be constantly on guard. Leo was nervous about letting Coach Hedge fly solo. The satyr was a little trigger-happy, and the helm had plenty of bright, dangerous buttons that could cause the picturesque Italian villages below them to go BOOM!

I had zoned out so totally he didn't realize Jason was still talking.

"—the House of Hades," he was saying. "Nico?"

Nico sat forward. "I communed with the dead last night."

He just tossed that line out there, like he was saying he got a text from a buddy.

"I was able to learn more about what we'll face," Nico continued. "In ancient times, the House of Hades was a major site for Greek pilgrims. They would come to speak with the dead and honor their ancestors."

Leo frowned. "Sounds like Día de los Muertos. My Aunt Rosa took that stuff seriously."

He remembered being dragged by her to the local cemetery in Houston, where they'd clean up their relatives' gravesites and put out offerings of lemonade, cookies, and fresh marigolds. Aunt Rosa would force Leo to stay for a picnic, as if hanging out with dead people were good for his appetite.

Frank grunted. "Chinese have that, too—ancestor worship, sweeping the graves in the springtime." He glanced at Leo. "Your Aunt Rosa would've gotten along with my grandmother."

Leo had a terrifying image of his Aunt Rosa and some old Chinese woman in wrestlers' outfits, whaling on each other with spiked clubs.

"Yeah," Leo said. "I'm sure they would've been best buds."

I cleared my throat, "A lot of cultures have seasonal traditions to honor the dead, but the House of Hades was open year-round. Pilgrims could actually speak to the ghosts. In Greek, the place was called the Necromanteion, the Oracle of Death. You'd work your way through different levels of tunnels, leaving offerings and drinking special potions—"

"Special potions," Leo muttered. "Yum."

Jason flashed him a look like, Dude, enough. "Thece, go on."

"The pilgrims believed that each level of the temple brought you closer to the Underworld, until the dead would appear before you. If they were pleased with your offerings, they would answer your questions, maybe even tell you the future."

Frank tapped his mug of hot chocolate. "And if the spirits weren't pleased?"

I say,"Let's just say, you wouldn't come back, I plan on seeing the first son of Hades and learning more about black-fire."