CHAPTER XXIV

NICO

TO SAY NICO WAS CAUTIOUS TO BEGIN WITH WAS TO BE LYING. Every single instinct inside of him was screaming at him: Run! Run! Run as fast as you can and duck for cover! But sadly Nico was stuck with doing what every demigod had to do in his position – suck it up and follow the pretty girl. Or scary leader, it depended on the gender and situation. So here he was following Rose through the haunted house. It wasn't necessarily the bramble walls that freaked him out. It wasn't even the snake torches. It was the choking atmosphere; it reminded him of being stuck in that bright but hollow cage-like room. In that room he'd felt under a spot light and the world was on his shoulders, all the mistakes he'd made had been crushing him, he'd felt like a failure getting caught so easily. He'd barely made a step to find the doors of death before he'd been caught. He'd always thought he'd preferred solitude and silence, but being alone with only his thoughts to keep him company had nearly drove him mad.

This place also reminded him of the labyrinth. He saw endless corridors ahead of them in groups of three, every time they chose one, a new choice appeared. Rose didn't seem to notice she just kept going seemingly randomly picking ways to go, finally after what felt like hours they stopped before another choice of three.

When Rose turned around Nico followed her gaze, two corridors bordered the way they had come in – another choice of three. They seemed to be in a circular dome with nine ways to go. Above them were another three channels when he looked up.

"This is getting ridiculous." Malcolm said.

Rose seemed to ignore him; she paced around in a full circle examining the detail on each wall. Finally after circling enough to make herself dizzy she stopped, almost definitely forgetting where they had started.

"Yes," She declared. "We're lost."

Malcolm balked. "Lost?" He demanded. "What in Zeus' name do you mean we're 'lost'? You mean to tell me you've been dragging us in random directions with no destination in mind what-so-ever?"

"I never said anything about not having a destination, but yes – random directions. We are lost and to be lost is to be at the heart of something unknown, therefore we are at the centre of the Temple of Hecate."

"Right," Nico said. "And how exactly are we going to get out, or well, I dunno, if under the circumstances we needed to escape..."

"Oh it will most likely collapse once we have what we want." Rose said plainly.

"Of course," Malcolm rolled his eyes. "And how would we avoid getting crushed?"

Rose pointed up to the channels that were letting in platinum white tubes of sunlight into the dome of dark thorns. They obviously led to freedom.

"Uh-huh," Malcolm said. "And do you happen to know how to fly?"

"Yes," Rose's tone implied: 'And you don't?' "We'll be fine."

"Famous last words." Nico grumbled.

"And why were we aiming for the heart of the Temple anyway?" Malcolm demanded.

Rose started tapping the ground with the tip of her wedged shoe as if she was testing it for firmness. She did it in random places, with her arms out as if to balance herself. With the white dress and dark hair, Nico thought she looked like a crazy cryptic girl doing a ritual for the rain goddess.

Just as Nico was about to ask her what she was doing, her foot tapped something with a clang. "Finally," She said. "I was feeling stupid then."

Nico resisted the urge to say anything about that. Instead, he watched as Rose knelt to the ground, without her white dress touching it, and scraped the dry earth at where her shoe had tapped. She unveiled a metal disk with an engraving of a woman with three heads, a pair of arms for each one with a torch held in one each and three snake at her feet.

"Let me guess," Nico said. "That would be Hecate's symbol?"

"Clearly," Malcolm said. "Well, now what? How does that help?"

Rose stood gracefully. "This was where Jinx was born."

"And none of Hecate's lovers saw the point in having her born in a hospital?" Nico asked.

"Jinx's father is Chaos, you think the gods were born in hospitals? No they were born where they were made."

Nico suddenly felt nauseous. "So, we're standing in Chaos and Hecate's favourite make out spot?"

Malcolm ignored him. "How is this even a temple? It wasn't made by any ordinary mortal."

Rose snorted. "You seriously think this was designed by ordinary mortals? Hecate's more into... spiritual being."

"So... Warlocks, palm-readers and hypocrites?"

"Oh my!" Nico said dryly. "Still too much information. If I wanted to know about a three headed goddess' love life I'd be her councillor."

Malcolm inspected the disk. "So, I assume this is going to help us contact Hecate somehow?"

"Nope." Rose took each of their torches and slammed them into the disk where Hecate was holding them. The fire from the torches spiralled together glowing an eerie glow. Nico felt as if his windpipes were being blocked as if the heat was choking him. All the exits apart from the ones above them vanished in a stream of new brambles. Smoke rose from the torches like a claw.

With a jolt, Nico realised the smoke was really forming a claw. It grabbed for Rose and hauled her across the room. Vines trapped her and she started to melt into the walls as they covered her.

Malcolm and Nico ran to help her, but they were already losing sight of her as the smoke seemed to drug them. The room started spinning and Nico couldn't catch sight of her, but they heard her shouting desperately.

"You're both on this quest for a reason! You can do this, follow your instincts! Nico! You're a son of Hades you have a bond with – mph!" Whatever Rose was about to say was muffled as she seemed to have been cut off by the vines.

"Rose!" Malcolm yelled, but he was swaying on his feet as the purple smoke surrounded him.

Nico started to panic. He knew what Rose had been about to say. He had been told at Lucy's camp several times that children of Hades and Hecate had a special bond with each other. But other than the fact that they were both outcasts Nico didn't see how.

He looked towards the smoke. They didn't have long, no doubt the vines were suffocating Rose, they had to hurry or she'd be dead soon. The smell of burning had always reminded him of death, and this was no different. He didn't know anything about magic or Hecate, but there was an instinct inside him; a voice – smaller than the one that was shouting run – that was telling him to go forward. He looked into the purple fire and saw nothing but he heard a faint sound. A whine. Like a baby crying. Then a smash of something thicker than glass. Pottery?

As if it was being picked up and controlled by an invisible force his hand reached for the fire and through it. Nico didn't feel any pain, but he felt a pulsing at the front of his brain like a headache. The ground felt uneven, like it was spinning.

And suddenly he was somewhere else. He was in another dome but if was filled with marble walls and statues of archers and men wearing long elegant robes and handling tall staffs as if they were Merlin plucked from Sword in the Stone and had been turned to marble, but younger and more handsome.

In the centre of the room was a woman with dark hair in a flowing indigo gown that dipped off her shoulders gracefully. Her eyes were the colour of bronze but Nico noticed that the whites of her eyes were mercury silver instead of white. The woman was holding a silent baby, so quiet Nico wondered if it was dead, but its eyes were open and it was looking at the woman with a puzzled expression as if it was thinking: Why are you touching me?

Nico didn't know much about baby's, but he did know that they were all born with bright blue eyes, but this one's glowed violet. Jinx. Which meant the woman was Hecate. He was glad she didn't have three heads at the moment because that would have freaked him out a bit.

Hecate placed Jinx in a bronze bowl that rested on a pedestal at the centre of the room. The bowl was small but Jinx was so tiny that the only thing that wasn't in were her dangling legs. All that covered her was a white dress that was too long for her, it spilled out the bowl and half way down the pedestal majestically.

Hecate's hand formed claws faced to the ceiling, and, as if she was against a magnet, she raised them slowly and difficulty. Bronze dust travelled with them – literally out of Jinx – and formed three glowing balls of pure light and soul. Being a son of Hades, Nico could feel the life force pulsing like liquid power. Hecate placed one onto Jinx and it shimmered around her until it had dissolved inside her.

"Three life-lines." Hecate said in a voice that slicked over Nico like ink. She lifted Jinx out of the bowl as it multiplied into three and two of them disappeared. Hecate looked at the curious Jinx, who was staring dumbly at the pedestal, her violet eyes wide. Hecate whispered to her. "Three chances." She looked at the bowl. "Three births."

Nico fell out of the vision like he'd been slapped. He drew his hand out of the fire.

In it was a second bronze bowl. Or he guessed it could have been a third.

He could feel the vines start to dye and blacken, releasing Rose as she gasped for air. He couldn't have been long otherwise Rose would have suffocated. He imagined he'd only been out for half a second.

Three Births. Hecate's voice warned him in his head. This was Jinx's second chance at life. Nico knew she had to be reborn for this bowl to properly hold her life-line, but he had a feeling that it would also solve more than one problem.

The only question was...

How would she become reborn?

If you like Lucy, you'll LOVE Kalika Valdez in

Her Treasuring Smile!

Meet Percy Jackson's sassy, kick ass sister and Leo's loyal, sweet Great, Great Grandmother!

Humour, Friendship, Action, Romance, Loyalty!