Twenty-Six: Reyna

Salvation by Wet Ones

The blood was thick and only grew thicker the further they swam downward. Reyna had to keep reminding herself that they were, in fact, swimming, and not thrashing, which is how she felt—a victim on the border of drowning.

In their current condition, Reyna couldn't truly swim. She had one hand enlaced with Axel's and the other clasping Calex's quiver, which she hoped was attached to a person. The occasional pull of it might have been from a monster instead of her comrade, and she reminded herself that she might need to retaliate at any moment.

All she could do was kick downward, further into this nightmare river. There didn't seem to be a bottom and the pressure around them kept building. Above, there was certain death by being shredded by tiny teeth, then rendered apart by larger ones. Down here…

Axel's kiss, that he stole as the boat flipped, told her a horrifying piece of information: he didn't think this plan was going to work and he was scared they were going to die without getting to talk things out. He'd run out of ideas or—from what she gathered about the fight with the ahuitzotl and what she'd felt of him when she lent him her bravery—he felt overwhelmed by childhood fears. The recent shattering of his confidence took away his reserves.

Calex surprised her. While near panic when she first lent him her courage, he'd calmed in this vicious dive. Away from the bats, he seemed confident this Let's Dive into the Mysterious Blood River and Hope for the Best plan would work.

Thalia was similar, desperate and determined. Exactly what Reyna would expect out of the Lieutenant of Artemis.

Reyna wanted to know how Thalia found out that Reyna could lend her strength to troops. Few people knew of that, and she doubted Nico or Axel would have shared the information. The huntresses, however, knew the Amazons. Could Reyna's sister, Hylla, have betrayed that information?

Unfortunately, Reyna might never find out. Her lungs burned. The pressure inside her head and along her body was splitting. Although her eyes were closed, white spots began to fleck her vision.

Similar to how she felt when transporting the Athena Parthenos back to Camp Half-Blood, she could accept her own death on a quest. But, she couldn't accept letting her troops down in the upper world.

When she felt the strength ebbing from her kicks, the world lost all orientation. The blood grew cold. Reyna couldn't be sure she was swimming down anymore. The heaviness of the blood alleviated, like they were propelling upwards. She wondered, foolishly, if she accidentally breathed the blood into her lungs, would she contract any blood born diseases. That shouldn't be the concern, considering all the open injuries they sustained from the bats. All she could do was fight for survival and consciousness, and pray the Mayan gods had really good infrastructure to keep their rivers from getting polluted.

The disorientation and nausea felt familiar. Less like drowning and losing oxygen, and more like—

Someone coughed and gasped.

Another gagged.

Reyna thought these must be auditory hallucinations, or tricks of Xibalba. They were still swimming—weren't they? They had never broken the surface. Though, the liquid no longer felt as thick as blood. More like…

Gravity had flipped. Reyna felt something wonderful scrap her knee: solid land.

Thoughts failed her. With how weak her limbs were, and the blurriness of her vision, pure survival instinct took over. She kicked off and onto what she assumed was shore, though the heavy thickness around her didn't dissipate.

Reyna's willpower let out: she gasped and anticipated an irony liquid to flood into her mouth.

The air she inhaled was heavy, thick, and cold. Not warm blood. No bats swarmed her.

"Did we just shadow travel?" Thalia asked. She sounded like she had swallowed a live miniature faun and was regretting her decision.

"None of us should be able to shadow travel," Calex said between rugged coughs.

A moment of panic squeezed Reyna's chest, in a way it hadn't since they'd arrived in Xibalba. Not everyone was accounted for. During her thrash to get to land, she'd released Axel's hand and Calex's quiver. She sat up, feeling for her knife so one of them was armed. It was still there.

Reyna opened her eyes to search beside her, but was blinded when the blood dripped from her forehead and eyebrows into her eyes. They stung. She fumbled with her cape to wipe her face, forgetting momentarily she was completely covered from the swim.

"Praetor?" Axel's voice came tight and concerned from somewhere beside her. She could hear him sniff, then gag at the metallic reek. "Reyna?" he called again.

"I'm here," she said. Her breath and pulse slowed to a regular rhythm. She couldn't let herself indicate that she was worried or let them process what had just happened. "Is your true sight back?" she asked.

"I can't see to tell. There's too much blood."

"Here," Thalia said.

After a moment, someone—Reyna assumed the huntress—pressed something cold and wet into her hands.

Thalia said, "Use these. It'll sting. But… uh…"

Reyna gratefully pressed the cloth to her face to clean the vicious liquid from her skin. After a few moments, she could blink enough to look around. Her eyes stung, yes, but she could make out her environment. Or, thought she could. It was dark.

Flint struck stone.

Axel held up his lighter.

The flame was small, and looked even smaller in the massive blackness.

Reyna's eyes finally adjusted.

As far as the light extended, in all but one direction, there was nothingness, a barren wasteland. The ground had black, rocky crags sticking out of a stony floor like a giant witch had died and been buried up to the fingertips. The rock slabs were perfect vantage points for an ambush and Reyna wondered how many new enemies were in this land.

Behind them was a rocky wall of sorts, reaching up out of the light's radius.

When her eyes fully adjusted, Reyna saw there was some natural lighting, but it took a moment to process, like her mind knew processing this world all at once would be like taking a full spoon of pure salt: immediate aftereffects of regret and prolonged discomfort afterwards. [footnote 1]

The ground extended eternally out of sight one direction. In the other one, it ended into abrupt darkness. These spikes of rock jutted out at various points, making it impossible to set up a defendable location without threat of a surprise attack.

"This looks a bit like a section of Tartarus that Percy and Annabeth described. The one outside of Nyx's place, where they met the goddess of poison," Calex whispered.

When she glanced at her friends, she frowned.

Despite Calex's comment, he stared at his hands. They were shaking.

Thalia held a container of Wet Ones and was desperately trying to clean the blood off her bow.

Axel crouched low. His ears were down. His reflective eyes looked demonic as he held the lighter like the cheesiest of tour guides on a graveyard tour.

Reyna needed to keep everyone moving, to distract them before they realized they were covered in blood. Someone or something's blood. Reyna wondered if the blood only came from violent deaths, and if some of it belonged to her father.

She shook her head.

"Thank you for the cloth, Thalia," Reyna said.

Thalia gave her a shaky grin and shook her huntress backpack. "It's waterproof. Like, deep-river waterproof. So, it can handle a dip in another liquid."

She seemed to regret it as the words came out. Instead of dwelling on it, Thalia went to handing out the clothing people had given her, giving Axel his shirt and Calex his scarf. She slipped on her parka, which calmed Reyna. Although it wasn't as obvious on Calex's ebony skin, or Axel's deep bronze tan, the smeared blood made swirls along Thalia's arms, where she'd tried to remove it.

Calex reached out, but hesitated about his beanie. "I don't want to get it dirty. It's the last thing I have left from Mum."

Thalia shoved it back into her bag without a word.

Calex wrapped the scarf around his neck and pressed it close to his mouth. His breath came out in miniature bursts of fog.

"I've read about this place," Reyna said. "The home of Nox."

"Nyx," the other three reflexively corrected.

"Graeci," Reyna muttered. [footnote 2] "This is where her Palace of Night is, where her children reside. We should be close to Chaos."

After a pause, Axel cleared his throat. "My true vision is back. I think we were too deep in Xibalba to end up in the rivers of Hades. Having Thalia lead must have really changed which Underworld we were in. We're just lucky we didn't crawl out of the River Acheron."

"Yea, Cat Breath, but how did that whole thing work? Think Bugs had a lucky foot?" Thalia asked.

"You're asking me to explain the physics behind trans-underworld travel? I'm a strategist, not a theologist. That's Dr. Claymore's department." Axel said. Reyna could hear the fragile humor in his voice. He handed Reyna his lighter for a moment, his fingers unnecessarily brushing against hers. He slipped his shirt back on.

Axel took the lighter back.

"You're giving away our location, mate," Calex said.

Reyna wanted to be proud of him, but she also didn't want them to lose their main source of light.

"Trust me, if something is waiting to kill us here, it already knows where we are," Thalia said and frowned. "I wish I hadn't lost my lantern in the river. It fell into the river when the boat flipped."

Reyna frowned. Her spear had also disappeared into the depth when the boat flipped and was probably close friends with Thalia's lantern at that moment.

"Where does your true vision lead us?" Reyna asked, trying to keep them on track. They'd had enough time to catch their breath. They needed to move. She dared not ask Axel what time it was on the outside world.

Axel pointed towards a bend in the cliff side beside them, one leading in the direction of sudden blackness. Wouldn't be a quest without walking towards the Danger Here signs. "There."

"At least we know we're in the right spot," Calex said, "Euna's been here."

Reyna followed his gaze behind her. Almost outside of their bubble of light, along the cliff face, there was a massive hole in the wall. This could have been a natural formation, except stairs, almost identical to the ones that breached Camp Half-Blood, lead upwards. Vines with beautiful white flowers bloomed along the outside, like decoration to trick children into an old woman's house that was secretly a cannibal. Children's stories were weird.

"It's like a horror movie," Thalia said.

"A very pretty horror movie," Calex agreed.

They formed a quick grid, archers in back, Axel and Reyna in the front. Once their eyes adjusted, Axel clicked away his lighter. The uncomfortable, dim grey glow of the world was enough to dodge the occasional pools of muck or smaller rocks jutting up. There was no way to see around the claw-like structures that Axel lead them through.

Thalia's silver bow and Calex's golden one glowed softly behind them, casting a ghostly mixture of light onto their immediate path. Reyna fingered her knife, wishing her spear hadn't ended up somewhere in the blood river.

"I'm sorry, praetor. Twenty-four hours ago, I would have been carrying plenty of weapons from which you could have chosen," Axel said without making eye contact.

She didn't like him sensing her discomfort so easily. Though, any warrior might have known she would dislike the lack of range.

"This is strange," Calex said, making it so she didn't need to answer. "Euna and that mad bloke, Jack, must have caused a ruckus getting down here. Percy and Annabeth's accounts made it sound like this was a popular spot for monsters. They said Nyx was a tad protective."

"So where are the monsters and the Goddess of Night?" Reyna said.

For whatever reason, Reyna got the feeling Nyx wasn't in. This place felt empty. Queasiness hit her stomach. What if they were too late and the sun had already set? Plus, the lack of aggression down here made Reyna feel like they were about to be ambushed.

"What time is it?" Thalia asked aloud for everyone.

"On the outside world? Roughly noon," Axel said.

That made Reyna's head whirl. It felt like they'd been gone for days.

Axel shot a hand out and crouched. Reyna froze and crouched beside him, hoping the others did the same. She didn't see anything, but she assumed that Axel's cat-slit eyes gave him better night vision.

"I think it's a body," he said, "On the ground, up ahead. Partially behind a rocky crag, twelve o'clock, about 30 feet."

"You don't think it's Euna?" Calex asked, his voice tight with concern.

"Too hard to say," Axel said.

"Could be a trap," Reyna pointed out.

"Let's proceed with caution, since every step takes us closer to getting out of this creepfest," Thalia said.

Each step probably took them closer to the heart of Tartarus, but Reyna knew it wasn't the time to point that out.

They advanced slowly, cautiously, keeping low to the floor. If this was an ambush, there was no way to defend against it. The light from Thalia and Calex's bows was too strong. Axel and she could let them go forward alone, and flank around the sides, or scout, but a monster with better sight could easily outmaneuver Reyna in this dimness. Splitting up would only leave them more vulnerable.

Her heartbeat thudded in her head, and she thought about the first time her cohort was pinned down by Saturn's army. When a feline, skeletal monster led an ambush that took her troops by surprise and gave her a vicious scar across her thigh.

She shook her head, promising herself to figure that out after this was over.

As they got closer, Reyna could see something peeking out from behind the rock: the silhouette of a hand and head, with some covering over the head. Neither moved.

Something about this didn't feel right. They were in Tartarus, yes, but Reyna didn't remember this enlisted in the Fields of Punishment's Guide to Hospitality.

A few more steps—the patter of which was silenced by the sheer thickness of the air—and she could discern more details: the delicate, ghostly-white hand was feminine. Its nails were stuck in the dirt, like it had tried to crawl away. Red splayed out around the head in a halo: the person's hair.

Ropes tied its head, facedown, into a pool of muck.

Something made a clipped, throaty noise.

The hand twitched to life. It violently clawed once at the ground.

Then, it went slack.

"Oh gods," Calex whispered.

Another throaty, choked noise.

Behind the first body, there was a second.

This one was tied to another black rock jutting out of the floor. It was a girl—or Reyna thought it was a girl. Her lower-half was completely wrapped against the rock, up to her chest. Her hands were free, repeatedly and absently, touching where her ears should have been.

Reyna felt nauseous to realize the redness wasn't just the natural color of her hair.

The remains of this girl's ear were at her feet. Her hands were covered in blood.

The soft, throaty sound erupted from her open mouth again.

"Oh my gods," Thalia said, "Are those demigods? We have to help them. They're still alive."

"They're empousa," Axel said. "But we are going to help them."

"Are you for real?!" Thalia demanded. She sounded offended by his calm.

"Calex, Thalia, stay a few feet further behind us," Reyna said. If someone was waiting behind the empousa's rock, she wanted to make sure Calex and Thalia would have enough time to react. If nothing else, she wanted Thalia to be able to shock everything in front of her, accepting Reyna and Axel as collateral damage.

A few more feet, and Reyna could see the empousa features. The earless one's eyes were red, matching the stains on her arms. There were fangs in her gaping mouth. The donkey and brass legs weren't visible under the binding.

The empousa's eyes didn't follow their movement as they got close. Reyna was so used to seeing this monsters snarling with a sadistic grin. The blank expression was disturbing.

"Why would Tartarus punish its own?" Reyna asked. She tightened her grip on her knife, glancing around for any potential torturers. "I thought monsters came down here to respawn."

"They do," Axel said. They paused a few feet away from the bodies. Axel frowned and knelt down beside the one twitching in the puddle. "Monster-on-monster violence does happen, but I've never seen or heard of anything like this."

His claws reached for the ropes around the grounded body.

"Don't touch those," Calex hissed.

Axel froze.

Reyna, Axel, and Thalia glanced at him.

Calex looked pale. His grey eyes were wide and glistened a silvery hue in the bows' illumination. "That's poisonous. In Alnwick Castle, back at home, they had this poison garden. Gretchen and Tom used to make me take them there with their mates. That stuff was in the poison garden."

"He's right," Thalia said. She stepped past Reyna to kneel down beside Axel. "This is a poisonous vine. It's one of the first things we're taught to avoid as huntresses.

Reyna gritted her teeth. She didn't want to say it, but someone had to. "This is the work of a child of Demeter."

"Why didn't she just kill them?" Thalia asked, baffled and, maybe, scared. "I've killed a lot of monsters, but, I mean, I just kill them. That empousa looks like she ripped out her own freaking ears."

Axel's frown deepened. "That must have been Jack's doing. He never liked the empousa, but they were under Alabaster and Hecate's protection at camp." He stood from his crouch and walked to the mutilated monster tied to the rock.

"I'm sorry, Kelli," he said, and thrust his gladius into her throat.

"'Ey!" Calex said, his voice quivering. "I thought you wanted to help them! You even know their names and—"

The throaty noises stopped. For a split second, those blood-red eyes focused on Axel. The empousa's expression eased and her body scattered into dust.

"I am," Axel said. He puffed up his cheeks, then slowly popped them. The pop felt like it should echo in this vast space; it died in the cold. "They're tied up and dismembered. They can't starve. If they die, they at least have the chance to come back fully formed, instead of prolonging this state."

Part of Reyna knew it wisest to leave them like this. That way, the empousa couldn't come to the top world, to attack them. They'd be trapped here, withering. But, if she did that, she felt like she'd be no different than the monsters.

She stepped over to the empousa whose face was permanently half-drowning in a puddle of muck. With a calculated thrust, she stabbed into the empousa's exposed temple, the area with least resistance from the skull.

The claws scratching at the dirt stopped moving.

The empousa crumbled into the muck.

Axel gave her an appreciative nod and she had to wonder how many of his own troops he'd had to dispatch as an act of "mercy."

"We need to keep moving," Reyna said, rubbing her blade with the ends of her cloak, before realizing she was smearing crusted blood from the cloak onto the blade. If they survived this, she would be cleaning her armor for weeks. And probably take bathes neurotically for the next month.

Axel nodded. He wiped his gladius off on his shirt. "I get the feeling we're close."

Reyna glanced at Calex and Thalia. Their bows were lowered, completely unprepared for an ambush. At least Thalia still had her fingers on the bowstring from where she was crouching.

She looked mad.

Calex seemed terrified. "I don't think Euna did this," he said.

Reyna had seen that look of distress on new recruits before: the disbelief at an act of horror or violence.

"Debating whether she did or didn't isn't going to do anything," Thalia snapped, "Let's find her and she'll tell us that she didn't." The huntress rose to her feet. "Which way, Cat's Breath? I wanna get Euna and get out of here."

Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them. Slowly, he continued past the rocks. "Remember that Euna killed Santiago and his men by making saplings burst from their insides. Not that I think it was the wrong decision; it was the only decision to get rid of an evil."

"What's your point, mate?" Calex asked. They took up the grid formation again, with Calex and Thalia in the back.

A division felt like it was forming between them, and Reyna realized her presence might not just be to keep Axel from betraying them. "He means to say that Euna isn't well and might not be the same person you started traveling with. She's been through a lot, and hasn't received proper—"

"Shut up. She's going to be fine," Thalia snapped. The gleam of Thalia's silver bow flickered violently. From what Reyna could tell, the huntress was scanning around them erratically. "We'll just get her away from Backbiter, get that creepy talking head away from her, and she'll be fine."

Axel paused. He turned his head, frowning again. "Thalia—"

"Shut up," she snapped.

"Lieutenant of Artemis—" Reyna began, but another noise cut her off.

A metallic squeak came from behind.

Axel collapsed to one knee, grunting.

Everyone else whirled to look back. There was nothing there. Just the darkness.

Another metallic squeak from behind their new position.

Thalia jumped forward. "It's on my back!" she said, her hand fumbling at her backpack.

"It's the Leonis Caput helm," Calex said, grabbing Thalia to steady her. He untethered the helm from her backpack, careful to only touch the ties and not the helm itself.

Sure enough, the helm itself made a soft squeak of… it sounded like panic. Its fierce jaws and feline features glinted wickedly in the dim lighting.

Axel clutched his head, stumbling back to his feet.

Reyna gripped her knife. "Axel?" Although she accepted it as a real possibility, Reyna didn't want him losing control down here.

He shook his head. Despite the cold, sweat intermixed with the blood on his brow and dripped off, onto his shirt. "It says… something is wrong in the upstairs world. One of my brethren is in danger…" Axel's voice took on a gravely quality towards the end. He quivered. "Something happened to Alabaster or Ajax. I think the attack started."

The helm made another creaking noise.

Reyna felt her heart thud louder. Axel had said it was noon. Had he lied about the time? More likely, the goddess of Chaos had lied about when she would attack.

"Uh, could you kindly shut this thing up?" Calex asked, holding it away from him, understandably, like a bag of legionnaires' used socks.

Axel reached for the helm, looking queasy.

"No," Reyna started to say, but Calex already moved it away.

"I meant from a bit of a respectable distance," Calex said.

"Sh," Thalia muttered. Her eyes focused ahead.

Calex gave her an incredulous look.

Reyna understood though. Thalia's tone had been different from her prior rage. She crouched and held a hand for silence. Then she pointed in the direction they had been traveling.

The creak of the helm must have covered the secondary, sharper sound. Reyna could hear it clearly now, like someone made an orchestra of tortured, squealing animals, likely tormenting them with Apollo's haikus.

The squeals jointed together to make a horrific voice.

"What was that? Euna, oh Euna, thou, my beautiful, terrifying Euna.

Does thy heart not quiver at the whispers of this eve, forever glistening?

Why does this dismembered fool even bother, you're not even listening."

They crept forward. Reyna had a hand on Axel's arm to steady him. He shivered violently under her touch. Calex tied the quieting Leonis Caput helm to his belt. He and Thalia kept their fingers on their bowstrings.

"Didn't really think this far ahead,

Fuck up now, and we'll wind up dead.

Here: a lazy couplet,

From your poetic pet."

They crept around a few more rock spires and halted abruptly.

There was Euna, standing maybe fifteen feet away.

Calex and Thalia both gasped, and Reyna understood why.

What Reyna had mistaken for blackness was the edge of a cliff. Euna stood at the edge, quarter turned towards them, gazing into the void before her. One hand balanced a giant sickle beside her, more like touching the shoulder of a fellow soldier than steadying a weapon. Her other hand fingered something small and glistening, likely Persephone's box. Along her belt, there was a flash of red hair—the Plague Bringer's decapitated head, chattering away.

Her clothing was in tatters. Her black hair wiped violently about in an updraft from the cliff. It looked longer then Reyna remembered. She'd only met this girl a few times, but she didn't remember Euna's hair alternating between shoulder-length with strands that went down her back—vines and flowers, Reyna realized. A gash split open one of her sleeves, and the material fluttered in the gusts of air, exposing the curve of one of her breasts. Euna didn't seem to notice or care.

Her tan skin had its own glow. She looked beautiful, powerful, and indifferent to her surroundings.

For a horrified moment, Reyna knew that Euna looked like a goddess.

An awful, scraping sound, that must have been laughter, came from the head hanging off her belt. "Oh, hello quartet, bienvenue. Are you pleased to hear, we've been waiting for you?"

Eh, I'm sure Euna is just fine ''''

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading :D

Footnotes:

1 So, Jack may have done a lot of those "chug a gallon of milk under an hour," and other challenges growing up.

2 Greeks.