Okay, I was re-reading some stuff and I realized that there are some wholes between this chapter and the last one. So, basically when they found it they gathered outside the entrance to the Greek section. And than they split up inside the entire Greek section and then, well the story goes on from there . . .
Percy Jackson – SECRETS – Chap. 24
Annabeth:
"There it is!" I yelled, looking through an archway at the book on the pedestal. We had split up before, in hopes that we'd find the book quicker. And here it was, right in front of us. I ran into the circular room and noticed that the pedestal was on a raised landing. Walking up the few steps, I got a closer look at the book. It gleamed gold and intricate, silver swirls lay on the cover, stretching out over the spine and all the way to the back of the book. "It's . . . it's amazing."
"I bet it is, but if you be so kind as to look inside it and get the information. We're on a tight schedule." Zoe said and everyone looked at her. She stared back, "What?"
"Nothing," Thalia said. "Annabeth how long do you think it's going to take you to find the answer to our problem? That book is huge." And she was right; the book was huge, one of the biggest ones I've ever seen.
"10, 15 minutes. If it has a glossary." I said. "You better call everyone back here, we should all be together for this. From behind me I heard Zoe call out, her voice echoing through the almost empty halls. I took a deep breath and opened the book.
Katie:
I let my hand slide across another row of books and sighed deeply. My mind had wandered back to that man again. Who was he and what did Jess have to do with him? I glance over at one of the sitting areas. Jess was lounging on a couch and reading an old scroll about who knows what. I strode over and sat on the chair next to her. I kept like that for a few moments, trying to figure out what to say, but ended up just with everything just tumbling out of my mouth.
"Jess, who was that guy and why was he trying to hurt you and why does he remind me of Nico?" I said quickly, slapping my hand over my mouth once it was done. Almost immediately I heard Jess's breath catch in her throat and she became very still. I didn't even try to touch her, I just waited. Why did I ask? After awhile she rolled up the scroll and looked at me.
Taking a deep breath she looked at me and spoke up, "That man is Nico's eldest brothers."
"Oh, well I guess I have no reason to worry." I said sarcastically and stood up. I started walking back down the aisle of books and began to look for a particular Son of Hades. Of course, Jess could tell what I was up to and ran in front of me.
"You are not saying one word of this to anyone." Jess said.
"But—"
"No."
"But you're my sister," I said, walking around her. "I have to protect you, it's my job."
"Yes," She said, walking with me. "I am your sister and I know if you were my sister you'd keep this a secret." I looked at her. Then she gave me that puppy dog look and added, "Please?"
I sighed and looked at her sympathetically, "Fine."
"Thank you." She said and hugged me. I hugged her back, how could I not. Somewhere off in the distance Zoe called out and we both looked at each other. Annabeth found the book. We started running in the direction of Zoe's voice.
Annabeth:
This. Book. Is. Impossible. Fifteen minutes I had been searching it and it had a glossary! For some reason I couldn't find it. The thing was, it wasn't the book that didn't make sense. It was the information inside it. It didn't connect to our situation in any way. Someone walked up behind me and put their hand on my shoulder.
"How's it going?" Percy asked.
I chuckled and looked up at him, "Just perfect."
"Anything wrong?" He said, looking at the book. I ran my hand along the binding and sighed.
"It looks like a fake on the inside, but it doesn't feel that way. Can't you sense the power that's coming from it?" I asked and he nodded.
"Anyone know what I could possibly do to get information out of this thing?" I asked everyone. They were all scattered around the room looking at books or scrolls.
"I don't know, but look at this stuff. It's all about famous demi-gods, them and the other known ones. What do they have to do with this?" Clarisse asked, rummaging through another shelf.
"There were probably cursed ones before us. It wouldn't surprise me." I answered Clarisse absentmindedly.
"Maybe you should try talking to it," Lee offered. "That always seems to work in the movies."
"I don't think that's going to work here, Lee." Thalia said.
"Actually," I said, mind calculating. "It might."
"You've got to be kidding." Zoe said, the strangest look on her face.
"No, no. It actually might really work. I just have to say something to open the book." I said happily. I was so close to figuring this out. So, so close.
"That could take forever," Clarisse whined. "Can't you just tell it you're a demi-goddess and that will gain you secrets access or something?" Click.
"Clarisse! Thank you!" I yelled, smiling wide. Everyone stepped closer, curious to know what I had figured out.
"What? I was right? Come on, it has to be harder than that." Clarisse said, crossing her arms on her chest.
"No, it's not. Here Percy, could you step down?" I asked, and he backed down the steps. I turned around and faced the book. My hand hovered about the cover. "I am Annabeth Chase, Daughter and Cursed One of Athena. And I command you to show yourself."
Wind whirled and I shut my eyes tight. I could feel the book heat up underneath my palm and once everything died down I cracked my eyes open slowly. Taking the cover and opening the book, I smiled to myself. "It worked."
"You've been looking at that book for hours." Clarisse said, still whining.
"It's not as easy as it looks." I said, gritting my teeth.
"Whatever." She muttered, and collapsed on the floor, leaning against a wall.
I kept flipping through pages, looking for keywords, anything that would be a hint to the information we needed. Flip, flip, flip, scan, flip, flip, scan, scan, flip, flip, flip, almost rip page out from frustration, flip, flip—wait.
"Gotch'ya!" I screamed at the book as if it was an energetic puppy that I had been chasing.
"You found it?" Silena asked.
"Yes, I'm sure of it." I said and started to read aloud. "Heirs have always tried to get rid of what they have been given. Many have tried, many have failed, none have succeeded."
"Isn't that just loooovely."Luke interrupted before Annabeth shot him a look that silenced him instantly.
"They have failed not because they weren't brave enough or courageous enough, but because the task of removing the curse is dangerous. The only way to remove this curse is to have God or Goddess remove it themselves and our lords and ladies waste no time in eliminating any threats they may have. Their heirs never have enough time to explain." There was silence.
"Annie, is there—" I stopped Thalia before she could even finish a sentence.
"Let me read." I said calmly. "Heirs could always become the god or goddesses second in command or they could be given immortality and become a minor god. The only other option is to kill the one that they are stealing the power from and gain their position. Of course there are only a few select people who would want to do this and those are the people who want to see the Gods' perish."
"Annabeth I don't think that part concerns us." Percy tried to say, but instinctively I turned the page and kept reading.
"These people are the heirs who purposely take the curse upon them. These heirs only goal is to see the God's destroyed and there has only ever been on line of them. Every line of heirs after this league has tried to warn their parents, but is always either killed off by the league or their parent's hand. The lines of heirs that warn their parents try to protect them. These are the cursed ones that see past their parent's facade. The one league died before they could kill the Olympians and no one knows who they are to this day." I couldn't speak anymore, I couldn't move, I just kept staring at the book.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Clarisse asked. "I mean, we want to protect our parents. So, what? Are these people going to stop us? How are they supposed to stop us if they're dead?"
My head began pounding and a knot started to form in my stomach. Images were flashing before my eyes and voices were sounding inside my head. I could sense my eyes fluttering and Percy shaking me but nothing could wake me from this trance. But it didn't feel like a spell, it was like when all of that information was pouring in my head, but this time it hurt less. Stop it, Annabeth, gain some control. I said to myself. Trying to stop the flying pictures in my mind, I started to make out faces.
There was a picture of the sister that had tried to kill Silena. Lee's voice came front and center in my head, "Calm down, will you? I wasn't trying to shoot my dad; I was trying to shoot the guy behind him." For a horrible second I relived the scene when Triton kidnapped Percy. They were all trying to hurt us, or at least that's what it seemed to be. Suddenly, everything stopped; everything instantly reorganized itself. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. Thankfully, I was still standing, but Percy had his hands close to my sides, as if I was about to fall and Lee was checking my temperature.
When Lee saw my eyes open he gave a smile, "You're alright."
"Yes and you're not crazy." I said.
"What?" He asked, confused.
"Seems like one of your immortal brothers is trying to kill your father." I said simply.
"I knew it!" Lee yelled.
"Wait, so, our siblings are trying to kill our parents?" Silena screamed.
"She just said that." Zoe rolled her eyes.
"But wait," Lee said. "I don't have many immortal brothers and I don't think a lot of them would want to kill my dad. Which one is it?"
"That's just the thing. If you think about it in a whole . . . our parents were scared and could tell we were powerful together. The book said that the league that tried to kill the Olympians died. I think some of them slowly came back after time, some actually never died, and others . . . I think our parents brought them back." I explained, awkwardly. A lot of blank stares looked back at me.
"Like, right now?" Silena asked. I nodded.
"But then we still don't know which one of our siblings is also an heir." Thalia said.
"Think about it, which one of your siblings from the past would have made a good heir. Which ones are immortal? Which ones died? Who do you think your parents would bring back to help kill us? Narrow it down." I explained.
"So, that means . . ." Nico began.
"Tritons trying to kill my Dad!" Percy exploded. He stomped down the steps, the tile cracking under his feet, but as soon as he was about to walk back through the archway, Nico tackled him.
"Yes, he is." Nico said, while trying to restrain Percy. "But that doesn't mean you can go out there and hunt him down with half the world wanting to see you dead."
It was strange seeing the two of them struggle. They were best friends as far as I knew, but now it was just very . . . weird. Nico was being so protective, even though Percy was older than him. Something at the back of my head told me something should be making sense, but nothing changed. I sighed and watched as Percy quit struggling and started breathing normally again.
"Get off me." Percy said quietly.
"Not going to run off?" Nico asked, standing up and pulling Percy a long with him.
"No," Percy answered and then he became very fierce again, almost scary. "But I swear Nico, my brother is going to die if he tried to murder my Father. I don't care who does it, but he will die."
"Same goes for my brother." Nico said sadly, as if he was calculating various scenes and chances in his head. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Jessica looking very guilty, I made no attempt to address it though.
"Well, I say we grab the book and get back to the mansion." Katie concluded. What?
"We can't just take a book with loads of priceless information from its library!" I said, back to my nerdy, Athena childness.
"We'll bring it back." Katie said. "Look, I'm tired and hungry."
"She needs some wheat in her system." Luke said and Nico chuckled loudly. Katie kicked Nico in the shin, but everyone saw the smile on her face.
"I didn't even say anything!" Nico laughed.
"Oops, my mistake." Katie said, laughing along. Before a happy atmosphere could even appear, a gigantic explosion sounded somewhere in the library. The noises echoed off the walls making it even louder and many of us covered our ears.
"What was that?" Pollux asked, once the noise had died down.
"I don't know." I said.
"Oh no," Beckendorf cried, clearly exhausted. "Here we go, booby traps. Come on, Luke, let's start disarming these things one at a time."
"I don't think those are traps." Nico said. "Anybody seen Jason?"
For the first time, I noticed that the Jason wasn't with us. Zoe answered, "No, he hasn't been around."
"Uh oh." Nico said, suddenly going very pale.
"Nico, what do you mean by uh oh?" Thalia asked slowly and very calmly as if she was trying to keep herself from screaming.
"Well, I was with Jason when Zoe called and he wanted to look around more," Nico said. "So, I thought he'd be okay and I left him. I mean, for God's sake he's a strong demi-god and he's cursed. Can't he keep himself safe?"
"That's alright, if it's just another monster I'm sure—" Thalia was cut off. There was another explosion and a scream for help.
"He's in trouble!" Thalia yelled, running for the hallway, but Percy grabbed her back. Thalia elbowed Percy in the chest and broke free. "What the Hades, Percy?"
"Don't yell at me! I don't think those are monsters out there." He yelled.
"Which is an even better reason why we should go help him." I said and everyone turned their heads towards me.
"What?" Clarisse asked.
"You know how our parents brought back our siblings to kill us?" I asked.
Clarisse rolled her eyes and snorted, "No, 'cause we haven't been listening to you for the past thirty minutes."
"Oh, haha, you're so funny." I said sarcastically.
"ANYWAY." Silena said loudly.
"Anyway, I think they found us and Jason's probably fighting one of them right now. Most likely his brother." I said.
"Now we're going." Thalia said walking away.
"Wait, which one of your brothers is it Thalia?" Nico asked.
"I don't know." Thalia said. Suddenly her bracelet glowed and Aegis materialized at her side. The next second she was holding a spear in the other hand. "But I do know that I'm going to help Jason kick his ass."
"I think I know what brother it is," Percy said and everyone turned towards him. "And I've got his name."
Also, if you any of you are confused about what Annabeth read from the textbook, I'll gladly explain. I'm not the best at explaining things and on my DevART account people have commented that they are a bit confused. Sometimes I get a little confused myself. I'm sorry if I did confuse anyone. ^^"
Thanks for reading!