Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.

Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative

Chapter Twenty-Six

Now, you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it, because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled.

–Cutter, 'The Prestige'

I did what I could to help with the casualties, but there were too many people with too many severe wounds. At least ten, probably fifteen or more demigods had been killed. Most of our troops had at least minor injuries. Even Percy had gotten a painful scrape down his left arm. The Apollo medics were working faster than I'd ever seen them, trying to keep control of the situation.

I stumbled through the melee, feeling dazed. The corpses of those who'd fallen were being put at the back of the Big House, out of the way of the fighting. I helped carry the body of a son of Ares around there, nearly throwing up in the bushes when I saw how bad he'd been hurt. Everything seemed fragmented and unreal. The monsters were still pressing at our defences, but the Hunters were doing their best to dampen their intensity, and the wards were holding steady.

Eventually I made my way to the rec room, and sat alone in the corner for a few minutes, waiting for the others.

We had to do something.

We were trapped, and there was nowhere to go. Any rational observer would include that we were going to die, but I felt a certainty in my bones, a belief that we needed to change that, tha t we could change that. I just didn't know how. Perhaps my acceptance of defeat had been swept away by the heat of combat, for now I felt sure that we could do better than just wait to die. There had to be a solution, some way to pull through, something we hadn't thought of, but nothing came to my mind except the faces of all those who'd died already.

Yet the instinct that had guided me over the last week, the intuition that had told me how to get past Nyx, that had helped me understand Tartarus's tricks, that had warned me of the catastrophes of the last two nights before they'd come to pass - that told me there was a way, there was a hope. For most of my life I hadn't been the kind of person who believed instinct over logic, but the more I used my pure sight, the more I accepted my task as Lightbringer, the greater my confidence in my own intuition became.

And now I was confident that there was an escape route. I just needed to find it.

The counsellors came in then, Annabeth and Chiron the last to enter. The daughter of Athena shut the door behind us, and glanced around suspiciously. She walked around the room, turning on any lights she could and pointing them towards the ping-pong table. We looked at her in confusion as she moved to stand at the head of the table, next to Chiron.

"Tartarus is listening through the shadows, remember," she said. "Be careful what you say." She took a breath. "Okay. Chiron. Is there any news from the gods?"

The centaur shook his head. "Nothing. I've had no communications all night. I don't even know what Tartarus is doing now. We have no idea what's going on in the outside world."

"What does that matter?" Percy was standing across from me. "What difference would it make? We're trapped here."

Annabeth shook her head. "I was thinking that if we hold out for a few more hours, one of the gods would be able to reach us. It's in their interests for us to survive. If any of them are out there, they might be able to get here and help us fight off Tartarus's forces."

"But how?" Alice, beside me, was incredulous. I hadn't seen her since this morning. She looked exhausted, worn down by the fighting. "We don't have anyone we can contact. How can they even know we need help? They're probably hoping we rescue them."

There was a tense pause. All the half-bloods, twelve or more, looked at Annabeth, who shrugged.

"I asked the Hypnos counsellor to go into a trance and use his powers to send out a psychic distress beacon," she said, looking from face to face. "He told me that if any god is nearby, he'd be certain to reach them."

"And in the meantime?" Kevin, at the end of the table, was pale with tiredness and pain. He'd twisted an ankle dashing down the hill and I hadn't even noticed. "What do we do until then?"

"We hang on," Chiron answered for Annabeth. "We have nothing else. There's no other option for us now. We hold camp. Either we survive, or we are crushed."

I don't know what came over me. I'd been standing back from the table, just watching, but an instinctual response filled me. I stepped forward, and slapped my hand on the table.

"No," I said, loudly, not sure where the words were coming from. "We can't stay here. We need to escape."

Everyone stared at me, their eyes glassy in the strong light Annabeth had set up for us. "What?" Percy said. "We can't," said the daughter of Athena, with a shake of her head. Even Kevin seemed to think I'd lost my marbles. He blinked at me in confusion.

"We're all going to die if we stay here," I said, looking around the table. Only Alice seemed to have any confidence in what I was trying to say. "We need to run, get far away, beyond Tartarus's influence."

"But Cyrus," Chiron was gentle. "We don't have any children of Hecate strong enough to get us away from here, and anyway, it's likely that Tartarus will be able to trace us. There's no way to escape."

I shook my head, though I wasn't really thinking things through, just riding that feeling that I'd missed something. "There must be someone," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper as I cast around wildly. I sensed the demigods exchanging worried glances, but I ignored them. "This is a camp of the children of the gods, we must have someone." I paused, then looked up at Chiron. "What about Nico?"

"No," the centaur shook his head, looking at me in concern. "He's far too weak. Cyrus, you need to calm down. We have a little time now, let's not waste it by trying to concoct some plan to escape when we know it's—"

"No," I cut across him. "We can't just lie here and die, goddammit, we have to find a way out. We're the last hope for civilisation, Chiron, the last hope. I didn't come back here to watch us get crushed like ants under Tartarus's boot when we're the only ones with the power to destroy him."

A shocked, almost angry silence filled the air, but I didn't meet their gazes. My thoughts ran furiously as I tried to catch hold of the idea that was lurking just beyond the reach of sane analysis.

"Nico could do it if he was strong enough, he did something like this before," I muttered. I glanced from person to person, not really seeing them. Then I turned to Alice. "Remember? He saved us, at the Edge of the West, even with Tartarus right there. He did that, and he was exhausted. He could do it again, right? He could do it."

Alice looked back at me, her eyes wide. "I don't know, Cyrus," she whispered, as though talking someone down off a ledge. "I don't know. I never even figured out how he was able to do that, and there was only two of us then."

"It never did make sense," I nodded, paying no attention to the whispered discussions around me, as people wondered if I'd finally gone insane. "It was like he'd tapped into some other power source. And there was something else strange, too. Remember the box he gave—?"

I froze, my mouth half-open, my eyes going glassy. Alice just looked at me.

That was it.

My thoughts slowed as they reached a still point of clarity. Pieces fell into place. Connections formed. Reality converged.

The box Nico had given me. The implausible power he'd shown that night. The intensity with which he'd made me swear to never reveal its existence. His long imprisonment. Jake's mention of trying to get something out of the son of Hades. The curious way Nico had already known about the pieces of darkness.

And the aura, the aura, that was at the centre of it all. The aura had shown me Jack's deception, and now it showed me the truth. My hand shook as I reached down, into my pocket, and withdrew the little tin box.

I stared at it, really looked at it, for the first time in months. It had a dark, intense aura, like the aura of a god, exerting a tremendous pressure on the space around it. It was unlike any aura I'd seen around any other inanimate object.

Almost.

Because it was exactly the same aura that I'd seen around Jack's box. Around the box he'd shown me in New Mexico, the one that had contained the piece of darkness.

The same aura. Around this object, given to me by Nico di Angelo, who was conveniently lying in a bed upstairs making a miraculous recovery.

Distantly, I heard a voice - Alice - saying my name but I ignored her, and started running. I dashed to the door, and out into the corridor. I threw myself up the stairs, heading to the top floor, to the infirmary. I shoved past a medic at the door, drawing a cry of irritation, and raced to the back, jumping over the makeshift beds that lay on the floor.

I tore through the partition that concealed Nico. He was sitting up in bed, and looked at me with a raised eyebrow as I stopped by his bed.

"Nico," I gasped. "I get it. I see it now."

He frowned, and started to say something, but then he saw the box in my left hand, and nodded.

"Where did you get it?" I asked, thrusting it at him.

Nico said nothing for a long moment, just looking at the tin in my hand.

"Hestia," he said finally. "She told me it was a piece of pure shadow. She gave it to me after I recovered the Flame, but didn't tell me anything about it. It was only when we were in the Fields of Silence that I stumbled upon a spirit, the spirit of restrained power, that I learned what it really is." He took the box from my shaking hand. "I'd almost forgotten about it till now. Jake wanted to know where it was, but I suppressed the information so he could never find it. Imagine if he'd known that you'd had it all along."

"You can use it," I said, still breathless from my run. "You used it that time, to get us back to Hades. You can use it again, and shadow-travel us all out of here."

Nico popped open the box. The piece of darkness lay inside, a dark, shiny thing that somehow did not reflect the light.

"I can't," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not strong enough for that, and anyway, Tartarus is blocking shadow-travel. I sensed it a few hours ago."

I fell on my knees next to the bed.

"You can," I insisted, staring up at him. His aura had recovered a great deal, almost restored to its former power. "I can see it. Hestia gave you this for a reason. She knew things would reach this point. She's been planning everything from the start, playing the game against Tartarus. The two of them have arranged everything, and she has arranged this. You have this piece of darkness because we need it, and we need it now."

I wasn't just making that up. I remembered Hestia's words, how she said she'd seen everything, all the combinations, all the possibilities. She'd tried to make me believe that she wasn't influencing the war in any real way, but I knew that was a diversion. She was the other chessmaster here, the true enemy of Tartarus, the flame that raged against the dark.

A high-pitched screech came from outside, followed by human and inhuman shouts of alarm. The screech went on in a single note for a painful moment, before stopping as abruptly as it had begun. Then I heard Alice's voice, growing nearer.

"Cyrus? Are you here?" She reached us, as I rose to my feet. "That was the wards. They're starting to break down. We need to get outside."

"Wait," Nico said, in a familiar tone of command. He turned, so that he was halfway out of bed, and met my gaze.

"We would have to get everyone far away, right beyond Tartarus's reach," he said quietly. "Not America. Somewhere further away, where he can't get to us."

"I know a place," I said.

"Where?"

I opened my mouth, but Alice had caught the gist of my idea, and grabbed my arm. "Wait," she said, gesturing at the shadows all around us, not filled by the dim light from the overhead bulb. "Not here. Tell him downstairs."

She took off out of the infirmary, dragging me with her, and Nico dragged himself out of bed to hurry after us. We scurried through the corridors of the Big House, the faces and voices of our friends flashing past, as if in a dream, as we hurried to the rec room. I heard Kevin saying something, shouting a question, but I didn't stop.

We reached the ground floor, and nearly collided with Chiron and Annabeth as they came through the door of the rec room.

"What is it?" Annabeth said, staring at us, especially at Nico.

"Inside," I said, pushing past them. "I have an idea. We can save the whole camp, if you just listen. Come on." Alice and Nico followed me to the pool of light in the middle of the room, while Annabeth and Chiron just gaped at us, particularly at the son of Hades, who quirked an eyebrow and said, "Don't just stand there. Shut the door and listen to the crazy guy."

The two of them exchanged a bemused glance. Annabeth swung the door shut, and I laid our last hope on the table.

"Are you sure?" I asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You can manage three jumps?"

Nico nodded. His aura was growing around him, as he gathered his power. "It's the only way. I can't do everyone at once, but—"

"We're not leaving anyone behind," Annabeth interjected, for the tenth time, just down the hall from us. "Not a soul."

"I'll get it done," he replied, meeting her gaze. "Before the wards fall. I promise."

We were on the second floor of the Big House, near the infirmary. Most of the camp counsellors were here, along with all the wounded. We were forming a human chain, all of us linked by touch. Some of the people in the infirmary were still arranging themselves, linking up one by one.

Next to me, Nico had the piece of darkness clenched in his right hand. Power was wafting from the artefact through his whole body, layer upon layer of energy settling into his aura, enlarging and intensifying it. It reminded me of Jake's aura, all the layers and levels of power, but Nico's aura did not carry the Dark One's air of anger and hatred. I was at his left shoulder, and Alice at his right.

A high-pitched noise rang out for a second, more quiet than before. The wards were still up, but they were wearing out. Already some monsters had slipped through them, but our friends had cut them down before they could cause real damage.

Chiron had agreed to our plan, simply because there was no choice, and no time left to discuss it. If we were going to do it, we had to do it now. He was outside, marshalling the defence. He'd insisted on being one of the last to be transported to safety, while also making Nico promise to shadow-travel the most important demigods first.

"Are we ready?" Percy stood next to Annabeth, gripping her hand. Bradley, Will and Rachel were between me and the son of Poseidon. As he spoke, another pulse of power ran through Nico, and this time his aura doubled in size. I could physically sense it, a pressure on my skin and on my mind, like the presence of a god, awe-inspiring in its scope. But then a god was just a supremely powerful being, and for this moment Nico was harnessing the pure power of a primordial being.

"Alright," he whispered, a vein at his temple throbbing. This was a lot of power for anyone to wield, even a son of the Big Three. His whole body was tense as the energy ran through him. Alice had been concerned about his ability to withstand this much power, but he was confident of his strength - or, at least, pretended to be. "Is everyone ready?"

Shouts of assent came from the back of the infirmary. Everyone was linked. We were set. Nico took a deep breath, and flexed his left hand. The shadows all around the landing and infirmary whispered toward him, drawn toward the son of Hades's aura like detritus being sucked into a hurricane, and like a hurricane, his aura began to whirl and blow, growing until the son of Hades was surrounded by a pillar of spiralling darkness.

It struck me that Nico was saving us from a deeper dark by wielding these shadows. It made a kind of macabre sense. The darkness isn't bad, it's just frightening. But sometimes only one frightening thing can overcome another.

"On three," he said, just about visible through it all, his eyes shut now. "One."

Everyone tensed, readying themselves. No-one was certain that this would work - but we had nothing else. Camp was a death trap now, all we could do was get out before it snapped shut.

"Two."

The temperature was dropping, as though the piece of darkness was sucking the heat out of everything. I breathed out, and icy air wafted in front of me.

"Thr—"

Before he could say the word, a terrible shattering pierced the silence of the corridor, as though every mirror in the world had just been broken. Screams of terror came from outside, and my senses, already heightened by the stimulation of Nico's power, felt a breakage all around us, as though the walls were exploding - but not the walls of the building.

The wards had fallen.

The trap had shut.

"Hurry, Nico, we don't—" Annabeth started to say, but a tinkling sound, quieter yet more ominous than the shattering noise, made her stop.

I looked up, and the world slowed to a crawl.

A black arrow shot through the window next to Annabeth and Percy, and before either of them could react, it speared into the son of Poseidon's shoulder.

He roared in pain, and fell to his knees. Annabeth screamed, and dropped with him, holding onto him, but the chain was broken now. I felt a shift beside me. Nico's power had reached a climax, whirling around him, and it was too late to stop, he couldn't wait, even as Percy slumped against the wall, blood oozing from his wound, and the terrible noises of the battle outside filled the air as the monsters poured into the final part of Camp Half-Blood which had been unharmed—

And the shadows surged around us, blocking out everything, filling every sense, their sheer power even reaching into my mind, and then we were gone, borne away through the darkness, away from the monsters, away from Tartarus, and away from our friends.