Hi hi people of the internet!

I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. I'm not saying much today, except thanks for the lovely reviews and the favs.

Cloudypelt: You'll find out soon :) Not this chappe, but the next ;)

Matt: I haven't forgotten it

Guest: I count in meters and I will continue using it. If you have a problem with that, ask and I will give it to you in feet. But thinking up a story and using a system you didn't grew up with is hard, (because I think in meters) and it is more comfortable to me to write in it. Also, for me ground floor, then first floor. It's my story I can do whatever I want :)

Chapter 25

Following a hellhound through the streets of Chicago was harder than Nico had thought. Especially because said hellhound was currently weaving between the cars on the street, not walking on the sidewalk like Nico, Will and Akemi did. Sometimes Mrs. O'Leary would take an abrupt turn and that left the three to wonder where she had gone.

Akemi was grumbling something about 'big dogs from hell' and 'why doesn't she have a leash'. Will was trying not to laugh at her expense, but was failing miserably. This resulted in Akemi punching him and them getting in an argument. By the time they stopped shouting at each other, Mrs. O'Leary was long gone.

"Great job!", Nico said to the two of them, who had the decency to look embarrassed.

Akemi was looking up and down the street they were on, but couldn't spot any gigantic dogs. Maybe because she was actually the same height as Nico and therefore not able to look over the other people's heads. This job was Will's, who was standing tip-toed, trying to find the hellhound.

"I can't find her", he announced after a while.

Nico groaned.

"Maybe you want to give it a try", Will suggested with a smirk. "I could lift you on my shoulders"

"Shut up, Solace!"

Will snickered. "Not my fault you're so tiny"

Nico glared at Will and stomped off towards another street. He hated it when people made fun of his size. Especially when Will did that. It made it even more embarrassing because he was his age and not three years older, like Jason or Reyna. Then he could explain it with the age difference, but with Will that wasn't possible.

He was startled from his thoughts, when somebody nearly ran him over. Nico glared after the business man, who just scrunched up his face in annoyance and kept talking into his phone.

Nico looked around the street he was on and just realized how crowded it was. Everywhere where business men and women, people who where carrying bags from designer shops and small families trying to not lose each other. In other words, it was loud, full and everything Nico despised. Looking around him, he noticed that neither Will nor Akemi where in sight, leaving him to deal with this alone. He sighed and started walking again. It was probably best to find a side street that was less crowded, like the one they were in before, even if that had been full of people too.

Suddenly a loud bark echoed down the street and Nico caught a glimpse of Mrs. O'Leary on the other side of the road, sniffing at the edge of a tall building. Then she started running down the street, coming Nico's way and racing past him. Instantly he turned around and went back the way he came from, pushing some unfortunate people out of the way. It was hard to cover any ground with people randomly standing in the way, others coming your way or pushing you to the side. He got slowed down too often and sometimes had to yell at the people in front of him to move. There was no feeling worse than being stuck in a large crowd while you try to be fast. It's like swimming in quicksand.

Luckily, Mrs. O'Leary rounded a corner, nearly causing an accident. The driver in the car leaned out and yelled at her. Nico was faced with a different problem. How was he going to get on the other side of the road? With all the people around him, it was a bad idea to shadow-travel. He didn't want to know how they would react to a teenage boy suddenly dissolving into shadows. On the other hand, they were all too busy with their own stuff to pay attention to him.

A red light in front of him solved his problem.

Mrs. O'Leary finally came to a stop in front of a dark alley, a mile away from his earlier position. Nico was ready to collapse on the floor at this point. The hellhound sometimes lost the track and ran into the completely opposite direction, just for her to turn around and race past him again. Other times she ran a full circle or took long ways just to get to a street right next to the one before. Once she even jumped over the river and left Nico to search for a bridge, before losing her four half an hour. Now it was nearing dark and Nico hadn't seen nor heard from Will in three hours. There was one point where maybe an IM was shimmering in front of him, but he didn't find out because somebody else walked through it.

"There you are, big girl", he muttered and patted Mrs. O'Leary on the head.

She wagged her tail, slamming it in the building which resulted in a crash inside and somebody yelling.

"Did you find Gina?", he asked and looked around the alley.

It was dark, but Nico, being the son of Hades was able to see enough. Nobody was there, though. There were some people in the neighboring houses, but they weren't Gina. Nico had spend enough time with her to recognize her life-signature. It could be that she was around here somewhere and the walls where messing with Nico's senses, which wasn't a comforting thought. But according to Mrs. O'Leary, Gina was truly in this area. At least Nico thought that was what her tail-wagging and the happy face meant.

"Good job, girl. You can go now, play with Ceberus or something"

The hellhound's eyes lit up at the mention of her friend and she bounded into the next shadows. Nico smiled after her before facing the alley again. Here goes nothing.

There was truly nothing of great importance in this alley, except a couple of trash cans and a rolled up rope. Nico first checked the trash. It could be after all, that Gina was dead and in there somewhere. He highly doubted it, though. First of all, he would have felt her die, secondly, Gina was capable of surviving out on the streets for one day and thirdly, monsters could only track living beings. What good would a dead demigod be to them?

Like he predicted, there was no sign of Gina Spacey. He wandered further into the alley and found a old and battered metal door at the end. That was all. Nico could not feel a living being behind it, so he figured it was an abandoned building. A perfect hide-out. The house was four stories tall and Nico could only feel life forces in a small radius, so maybe Gina was hiding on the upper floor. Nico shortly thought about contacting Will, but that wouldn't be necessary. He was perfectly able to protect himself and handle this situation.

Opening the door was surprisingly easy, not a good sign.

The door swung open slowly, revealing a old and empty room. The walls were only painted half in a dull brown color. A old wooden desk was toppled over, cobwebs all around it. A doorway lead to what used to be the living room. The green couch was cut open, the filling strewn all over the room. It was kinda creepy and if Gina truly was hiding here, she needed guts. Nico doubted even he could sleep peacefully in such an environment. Searching the ground floor led to his earlier diagnosis. No living being.

The stairs were creaking and Nico feared they would give out under him. Halfway between the first and second floor a big hole was in the middle of the stairs. A ripped piece of jeans was hanging on one of the cracked wooden boards. He carefully stepped over it and entered the second floor. Like the previous two, it was empty of any life. Left only the third and last floor. When he slowly pushed the door to one of the two apartments open, he picked up a familiar life-signature. Gina was here! He nearly ran towards the old bedroom, where a four poster bed stood. The door creaked loudly, when it was pushed open, emitting a scream from the person inside.

"Dammit, Gina, you can yell!", he exclaimed.

Gina was half hiding behind the bed and was staring at him wide-eyed. Looking back on it, he shouldn't have crept up to her like that.

"Nico?", she asked in utter disbelief and slowly climbed to her feet. "How did you find me?"

"We used a hellhound to track you down", he explained.

"Hellhound?", she shrieked and looked around wildly. "And who's 'we'"

"She's friendly and gone now", Nico said. "And 'we' is Akemi, Will and I. And Paul, to a certain extent"

She blinked a couple of times, before stepping forward and slapping him in the face. Nico flinched at the stinging feeling in his left cheek.

"Wait, not even an 'Ow'?", Gina muttered angrily and slapped him again. And a third time.

"The fuck, Gina?", Nico exclaimed. "What are you doing?"

He was rubbing his left cheek, which had started burning. No doubt was it bright red now.

"I wanted to slap you and say 'That's for me being on the run from the police', but you didn't even react. It's like slapping a freaking brick wall, because honestly, your cheekbones kinda hurt.", she whined.

Then she let her head fall forwards, resting against Nico's shoulder, and started to cry. Nico went stiff at the sudden contact. After a few seconds, he awkwardly patted her on the back.

"You're not really good with people, are you?", Gina asked, after she lifted her head again.

"Geez, how could you tell?", Nico rolled his eyes.

Before anyone could say anymore, Gina was suddenly pulled away and shoved behind the body of somebody else. Nico was slammed against the wall and then held there. He couldn't see who or what was holding them. Then he realized it must be something invisible. The next thing he noticed was the people in front of him. They all had broad shoulders and were on first glance male, other than that they were the most diverse bunch he had ever seen. He had never seen most of them before and was therefore a bit surprised why they seemed so angry at them. The one standing in front of a surprised Gina, however, was a familiar face.

"Andy?", he asked confused.

Andy scowled and something hit Nico in the head, everything turning black.

Coming back to consciousness after being knocked-out was never a good experience, but coming back while two people were yelling in the background, was horrible. The light was too bright and his head was hurting like Hephaestus was hammering around in it with his hammer. The yelling was only helping to increase his headache.

He groaned and shut his eyes tightly, trying to block everything out. The yelling stopped and someone came running towards him.

"Nico? Are you alive?", Gina asked.

Nico didn't response.

"Oh, please, don't be dead, that would break Will's heart and he looks like a kicked puppy, when he's sad."

Nico blinked and gave her a disbelieving look. Did she really just say that?

"It would be sad, too, because you would be dead, of course", she hastily said.

Then awkwardly looked away.

"What's going on?", Nico asked after a minute of silence he had used to get adjusted to the light.

He looked around and noticed, that he was laying on the bed from earlier. Most of the unknown men were gone, except for Andy, who was glaring at him from the other side of the room. He remembered something about him being a monster, but he was to tired to care.

"Justin knocked you out", Gina explained.

"What?", Nico asked. This didn't clear up anything and Nico hated not knowing what was going on around him.

"Justin, one of the storm spirits who live here. They found me last night, after someone", here she glared at Nico. "left me to go home while I was a murder suspect"

"In my defense, we didn't know about that then and you insisted to go home alone. Also, I'm sorry about what happened in the mall"

"Anyway, Andy said, they thought you were going to kidnap me or something. Then they realized you were a demigod and decided to kill you. I kept them from doing that, so, you're welcome." Gina helped Nico into a sitting position.

He noticed that behind the barricaded window it was dark. He looked from there over to Gina, who was now actually sporting a concerned look. He frowned.

"Why are you with some monsters?", he hissed.

"They aren't monsters, they helped me", Gina said.

"Doesn't mean they never killed anybody.", Nico said. "They hunt us demigods down, you know that? They are the reason we mostly don't live until adulthood."

Gina looked shocked at that. "But..Akemi..."

"Yeah, mostly. Some lucky people like Akemi's parents manage that.", Nico grumbled.

"Okay, but Andy has never killed anybody. He told me that", Gina insisted.

Nico glared at said monster. "Doesn't mean I believe him that"

"They promised to not kill you", she said.

Nico gave her a disbelieving look. "And you believe that? You can't trust monsters, okay? That's the biggest mistake you'll ever make"

Gina frowned at Nico's angry tone. "Sounds like you did that mistake once."

Nico flinched. She was right. He had trusted that stupid ghost Minos in the Labyrinth and nearly payed with his life.

"We will not harm you, son of Hades", a new voice said. "We are sorry for this unfortunate meeting and hope you will enjoy your further stay"

A slightly older looking storm spirit had entered the room. He looked Asian and was wearing a suit. Of all the things a suit? Andy looked a bit confused in the background.

Nico reached for his sword in the shadows and pulled it out.

"Sure, because monsters are known for their exquisite hospitality and good will"

"I will swear it on the Styx if you promise to let us move on from this city", the Asian guy said.

Nico's jaw nearly hit the ground, but he picked it up fast enough. That was unexpected.

"What is it?", Gina asked silently.

"He...Styx...but...what?", Nico stammered, unable to form a working sentence.

"We don't mean harm to the people and we try to not kill any demigods. As you may have noticed, our youngest go to school, the older work in high ranking offices. We are part of all this." He made a motion around the room. "Chicago is not called the Windy City for nothing", the man responded.

Nico could only blink. They were willing to swear on the Styx to not harm him. He knew there were monsters who were nice, like Mrs. O'Leary or Tyson, but he never thought he would actually encounter some. It was a shock to say the least. And the whole thing about including themselves in the society. He didn't know monsters were even smart enough to do that.

He leaned over to Gina.

"You want to go now?", he whispered.

"Where? I can't go home! I have watched TV, they raided my bedroom", Gina responded.

"We have a couch", Nico offered.

Gina was thoughtful for a moment, then she nodded. She looked over at the Asian guy.

"Patrick, I will go with Nico now. Thank you for your hospitality and helping me"

Patrick nodded and smiled slightly. "Of course, it's our duty to help people in need"

Nico stood up and put his sword back on his belt. Gina picked up her jacket from the floor and put it on.

"Gina, are you crazy? You want to go with a demigod? They are dangerous!", Andy suddenly shouted and stared at Gina like she had gone a little weird.

Nico glared at him. Gina sighed.

"Don't worry, Andy, I know what I get myself into.", she said. "You should get back to school, Betty probably misses you"

"But...", he said, eyes flickering to Nico.

"We won't be here next week", the son of Hades said.

"What? You won't?", Gina looked at him surprised.

"You won't either. I'm not going to school while I'm a wanted criminal. We wanted to go back to Camp anyway and you're coming with us. That's the safest way", he explained.

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Okay, I'm tired, how far is the couch?", she asked. She looked tired, too, her eyelids dropping and she was trying to hide her yawn.

Nico wondered what time it was. He looked at Patrick.

"I hold you to that promise", he warned.

Then he grabbed Gina's arm and pulled her into the shadows.

So, hope you liked it.

~thegoddesskym