DISCLAIMER: Guess who threw Percy and Annabeth and even poor Nico into Tartarus.
Rick Riordan.
REVIEW RESPONSES:
Emoxkitten – Nyx: Well, then feel free to berate me for not checking my typos as often as you want :3
oOo
I have run from many things in my life.
Demons, gods, Titans, humans. Cameras and machines and Living and Dead. And yes, even a dog, once or twice.
I had no name for what this was.
The footfalls screamed of dog, the ragged yet tireless panting of wolf, and everything else of demon. Oh, Laelaps was a dog, alright – I remember that much of the myth. So technically he should smell like a dog. He had to Moon that night Hunter and Brook had come across one of his victims.
He did not smell like dog.
With every hard pump of paws on sod and harsh whoosh of breath carelessly pushed past his teeth, it felt like I was standing before the world's largest hairdryer. A torrent of hot wind would blast from behind me and on it I could still smell the people he'd killed. The reek of rotting flesh and splashes of dog slobber threatened to drown me with every step. I could all but feel him on my heels, claws inches from my back. The snap of hungry jaws was going off like gunfire.
And despite running from those demons and Titans and gods and humans and dogs, running from Laelaps, I was scared. An instinct rooted deep began to spew adrenaline and with it came fear, the terror, the urge to flee and flee and flee until one had sprinted off the edges of the earth and was no longer for anyone's taking. My heart was maybe fifty beats ahead and gaining ground.
My lungs, of course, had begun to protest. As for the rest of me, I was doing alright.
That infernal barking rang in the air again, a cannon's fire, a single broken funeral bell, ultimately just annoying. I ran faster, my feet practically lifting off the ground as I ran.
Turns were a little tricky. I had to be fast and turn early, lest the move be predictable. But I dared not enter the trees. One, it would render their timepiece out of sight. Two, the forest would only slow me down. I could last longer out here. Out here in the clearing, racing around a writhing mass of angry demons and beneath a swirling cloud of shadows, were my legs had room to stretch.
The shadows were starting to burn. I'm sure Bree had it worse, but at least she would not grow tired. I would and I was. An ache had started in my chest, and I knew that I couldn't save myself from slip-ups much longer.
The clearing flashed by again, nothing but a blur of green and black and the golden gleam of the Manticore. Some blue – was that water? I couldn't tell, because I passed the battle too fast to even develop the urge to care.
Just run. Run and run and run. It was the only thing I had left to do.
And running required not caring for the moment.
So I did not care about the fight or about a story or hardly about Orpheus. I merely prayed that Hermes give me the speed I needed to make this stupid plan work, and I prayed that I did not run alone. So many times, so often, that is what I did. I ran alone, in a maze, in a city, in graveyards, in sleep.
But I did not run alone now. She was here somewhere; the thought made me smile.
Before I reached the cliff again, I made another surprise turn and torn across the clearing once more, and Laelaps followed closely.
oOo
He sang.
Not once did he stop; he sent but one glance in the direction of my brother and then whirled on me with his sword unsheathed and his iniquitous melody unbroken. His lips and tongue and perfect teeth did not falter. If I hadn't heard the song they made, with his eyes closed, I'd never have guessed he was an insane man.
And then he would move and he'd open his eyes and take one wild sweep with his sword, and I'd feel the twist in the shadows, and I would know once more that there was no saving this kind of crazy.
I must admit, his first glance made me steal one of my own. My brother was tearing through the grass in his mad dash to escape Laelaps.
Escape. Yes, yes, Nico would escape. The hope rose like a panicked bird in my chest. Nico was clever and experienced and wise in his own strange way; imagining all that gone was merely impossible. I had no doubt in my mind that he was playing at something. There was a way he would get out of it alive.
I had to believe that.
Even if false hopes were something he hated as much as I'd thought he'd hated me.
He'll make it, I thought.
And then Orpheus's sword met mine and that thought, with all others, vanished.
The golden flash whipped around, back and forth, so fast I could barely see it. He shoved two daring steps forward and pushed me two regrettable steps back.
Hot anger boiled in my throat. He had taken too much from me. And I had been trained to fight by Kronos, Ethan, and Nico. Like I would let him control the endgame.
I screamed and all but leapt into him, shoving him back with all my momentum and the swords pressed dangerously between us. Not a single hitch could be heard in his song.
The madman yanked his sword free and, with a noise not unlike one gurgling a thick clot of blood, brought the golden streak down on my right shoulder.
But I was no longer there.
Didn't even have to shadow travel – silent and swift, that was what I had been taught, what I had engrained into myself as much as Ethan and Kronos had. Întuneric flashed out once, twice, three times from two different sides.
Each time, he found a way to parry.
Nico had obviously taught him a lesson. New, somehow more calming layers filtered in beneath the melody. The winds would hold my sword at a standstill or he'd suddenly move faster and he was there, every time, blade a wall of flashing bronze.
I growled and tried to retreat a few steps and gain speed for a charge and feign. If I could only get past his guard, I would show him exactly what my little sword could do.
He whirled in a too-graceful way and sent my beloved Întuneric spinning away.
Well.
He moved like a dancer, like he'd honestly lost himself to the song, sold his soul for this spell and his life for a handful of notes. Humans – nor demigods – don't move like that.
He waited patiently, throwing his head back and singing all the louder. Around us, the wind began to howl out the haunting laments.
Something cold ran past my ear. "This is child's play," the winds whispered.
I glowered at Orpheus. "Say that to my face."
The wind blew harder as I charged, kept blowing as our swords twisted and writhed. "Dear daughter, what a sight! Child's play with you, it is like the first epics all over again! How I love children's epics. We all do. 'Tis been that way for a while, it has."
I ignored him and sliced for his throat. He dodged easily.
"My child, you are. I see it in your eyes, I saw it in his. Tempted, tempted, caught in the threads among the Fate's loom. Quite like my daughter ought to be."
Daughter. The man was crazy. He was mistaking me for the daughter he'd never had.
"Break, break, break!" the small currents sang, well beneath the agonizing twists of the main melody. "Break it into little pieces! You'll be stronger then!"
It was the wail of a dying animal, that cry. It rose into the notes of the song. Something cold and forbidding flashed for a moment in my mind-
-And then there was fire.
It was like he'd lit the shadows ablaze. The song was the only thing I heard, so loud that my own screams were reduced to harsh vibrations in my skull and nothing more. Întuneric slipped away from my fingers once more and I found myself staring at the long grass.
"Not your fault!" the smaller currents wailed giddily. "It won't be your fault!"
It felt like someone was trying to rip my spine out from my stomach. Perhaps I had felt worse, after some battle or another fight, but it was enough. I curled up in the grass and prayed for it to pass, but I knew that it wouldn't.
Shrieking, screaming laughter tore at my eardrums. The grass before me was swallowed by shadows.
Nausea rolled through me. We were out of time.
For good, this time around.
"My daughter you are! You'll spill blood and tear through cities and blaze like the epics they'll write! But it won't be your fault! Death and ashes! Never our fault!
"Never our fault!"
The desperate cry rang out again and again, a horrified shriek. I groaned and dared to move, first my right arm, knowing it'd be the worst. Orpheus did not stop me. Just shrieked and laughed, mostly to himself now.
"Never my fault, never my fault! The sun was in my eyes!"
Didn't know what he meant, didn't care. Half of it was insanity. I pushed myself to my hands and knees, teeth grinding in an effort to hold back the shadows' agony.
Nearby, I saw the writhing of demons. Brook's orange pelt flashed through the darkness. To the left, the Manticore's, a hulking sheet of gold. Water was flowing between my fingers.
"I heard something behind me!
"I only meant to call your name!"
Beyond them, Nico had gained ground on Laelaps. The dog was almost half a clearing behind him as they streaked away from the cliff, low to the ground, like panicked bullets.
Ha. The raven's light bones had saved him. Made for flight, he was…
Before my eyes, the raven lost his footing.
Orpheus's tortured screams were like the loud clatter of a thousand dry, piled bones. "Not my fault!"
I couldn't help but relax. The raven was fast and clever and several meters from the dog. And not even his wounded leg had bothered him so far. He got up and kept running.
The dog slammed into him.
It was naught but a grey streak, crossing the clearing faster than I could blink. I stared in utter astonishment as they flew an impossible distance together. Then they landed with a sickening snap and rolled on until the edge of the trees, crashing into a wide and proud trunk.
I wasn't sure what I was seeing for a moment. Like a dream that gave itself away by not adding up. The dog reared back and, raven locked in its jaws, rammed its quarry into the tree again. The force let Nico slip through his teeth and slump onto the scarlet-stained grass.
The dog snarled and opened its monstrous wide jaws, saliva dripping down like old cobwebs, eyes shocked and gazing at the motionless heap, before locking onto pale throat once more. Strong shoulders braced themselves as it made to whip its head from side to side.
"NOW!" Hunter screamed.
There was a flash of silver across the battlefield. Moon. From it sailed a white… ball?
The orb hit Laelaps in the back of the head. The dog froze and snarled, audible above Orpheus's horrible song.
"I wrote a song for you! You wanna hear it?!"
Slowly, he pull those enormous jaws off the broken raven and turned, glaring all the fires of Hell at that innocent little ball.
Then he tore it to shreds.
Before he was done, Hunter threw a second. The last one we'd been able to save from the funeral home. This one hit him squarely between the eyes.
"La la la la la la la la la la la! LA LA LA!"
The wolf-sized canine howled and took one swipe at the orb. It burst into shattered pieces. His crimson eyes narrowed as he growled, eyes scanning for the one who'd thrown it.
Eyes the color of my brother's blood landed on the air behind me.
No. Not the air.
The dog bolted, that perfect formation of bunching and releasing muscles, beautifully curved legs, flawless form. He sailed over my head gracefully and landed with horrible finality on the nearest floating orb.
There was the horrible sound of bending metal and then of shattered glass as his teeth closed in around the half-open orb. The shadows inside burst free with a snap. A bright red scratch opened across Laelaps's throat before they vanished to their respectful places. The pain in my chest began to lessen.
Then he lunged for the next. And the next.
In a blind, wild fury, Laelaps tore through orb after orb. Orpheus's insane shrieks cut off in shock as the vortex of shadows fell apart. The sun dared slice through our cover and pierce my eyes with dazzling, beautiful light as the dog shattered the last orb in those long jaws.
Glass is very pretty in the light.
Laelaps was in shreds; that beautiful pelt was torn and ripped and stripped with crimson that glimmered much like the melted sand. The shadows had left large patches of skin bare and without fur. In several places, the skin was gone, too, and all you could see was red.
That last orb send another swath of shadows straight through his skull. Not a crack or scratch appeared that time as the shards fell through his fangs and to the grass.
He stood, panting, falling off his last legs.
As the elbows in his forelegs began to buckle, those red eyes closed, and his form began to fade. Like mist vanishes in sunlight, the blood disappeared, and for a moment his pelt shone like new, and then even that was gone.
I swore I saw light in him. A dazzling white, brighter than the sun or the glow of any ordinary spirit. Icy blue eyes opened and stared at me from their place in that star-speckled outline.
And then he was gone.
Orpheus stared in shock at the empty space before him. The demons warred, unaware, to my left. The empty space between us was flooded with sunlight, and the grass littered with tiny diamond orb pieces.
Then, just under his breath…
"La, la, la, la-la la, la la la…"
The pain long gone, I slowly got to my feet, striding backwards step by step.
His insane brown eyes locked on mine, unhindered by the broken spell that'd been between us. "You, daughter, are coming with me."
oOo
He approached slowly.
He laughed and spat things about performing a song. That he had a right, because it hadn't ever been his fault. That I was tempted like he was and he would play his song for me and for Eurydice and then we'd be cleansed. His bronze sword shone bare and proud in the early morning light with a new angle for every step he took.
Eyeing it, I took a matching step backwards. My heart was pounding away in my chest.
But my mind was not on him.
"Nico!" No response.
Orpheus laughed. "The Ghost King, child? He is not here."
The wind began to pick up again. A new melody began; it was haunting like the wind in an old house and the whispers of demons and the silence of the birds at night. Of things that happened in the shadows and stayed there. Of silent deaths and hidden graves and the horrible fact that nobody would ever know.
In my mind's eye, I saw Laelaps drop Nico for the orbs Hunter and Moon had thrown. I saw him running and recalled his cunning in our countless days in the parking lot and even his fast-learned skill in the snowball fight. Of his complete and utter awe and utmost respect for the dead. For his magic. Love and passion, one might call it. I recalled his hand on mine in the tunnels and him hauling me over the cliff and I knew;
He wasn't dead.
Screw the logic. He wouldn't just… leave.
"Nico!" I called, holding Întuneric close. The wind tugged fiercely at it.
Not a sound.
I risked a glance over my shoulder. "Nico! Nico, answer me!"
He lay still amid telltale crimson spills.
Something cold twisted in my stomach at the sight. No. No, it wasn't true. Nico was quiet and sly and crazy and ingenious at times and stories and solid ground, the lack of heights, and so much more. Nico wasn't dead.
Though yet again, neither was Ethan.
I took one last glance at Orpheus to be sure he would follow me and not kill someone in my absence, and shot through the shadows. It was amazingly pain-free; it felt odd, after that horrible song.
I landed behind him, among the trees, staring out at the fight. I saw Orpheus blink in confusion at the place where I'd once stood. The Manticore still howled and sliced at Hunter. Shay guarded her back; Brook was working with the fact to mow down as many of the extras as they could. The demons had just barely begun to thin. I didn't stop to wonder how. Orpheus's gaze found me soon enough, and when it did, he charged.
A ball of needles caught in my throat as my own eyes landed on Nico. He was curled on his side before the tree, almost as if asleep. Blood was drizzled across his side and stained the fluffy white collar of his aviator's jacket.
Just unconscious, I told myself as I laid a hand on his shoulder. "Nico? Can you hear me?" There was no answer.
As gently as I could, as if I were disarming a bomb, I pulled his shoulder back to roll him over just a little. My other hand turned his head with it.
Hope fluttered in my chest. His eyes were half-open.
But something in me choked. They were glazed over and dull, the night sky missing its stars, a dark lake without its playful fish. Gems without luster and tools without purpose. He stared at the lighting skies without care nor passion nor blinking.
It was like my joints had become unhinged. Involuntarily, I dropped him, backed away shaking. He gazed dully out over the clearing. Crimson had coated my hands.
A horrible rotting sensation began to swell in my chest. A poison in my mind. And an awful sense of déjà vu.
It doesn't matter how brightly a soul burns. Death can snuff it out of a body faster than one can blink.
So many things dark things flew through my mind at the sight of my brother's body lying there. Pain, dread, horror. There was no way that he… That he'd joined Ethan…
Speaking of such. There was no one else I'd have rather had right then. But Ethan had left me long ago, and Hunter was busy, and now Nico was gone. The winter sun mocked me with its lack of warmth; suddenly the world had gone cold, cold, colder than Kronos's scythe.
And worse yet, I had the sinking feeling that this was my fault.
I could still hear Nico's voice, if I listened. That wonderful laugh that was so rare. Him talking to Phil and his promises that I wouldn't fall, his teachings of the dead, his battle cry ringing out louder than the Manticore could ever roar. Words from his rant.
Life's about what you're willing to die for.
And then suddenly the world wasn't so cold.
It did not grow warmer; I grew icy, locked away in stone, grief frozen until a more convenient time. Utterly calm resolution set in. Hate like a frozen wasteland embedded in every last bone in my body. Staring at my brother then, for the first time since Ethan died, I felt no fear.
Not a single speck of it.
My gaze leveled to the approaching Orpheus, who was three-fourths of the way to us.
I drew Întuneric and ran to meet him.
oOo
The shadows were furious.
Cold whips lashed out, slicing at the scars on his skin, making red welts and streams of crimson. Întuneric slammed into his sword so hard, the bronze dented.
He yelled in surprise at my charge. The winds responded, that haunting melody rising again.
It didn't bother me the slightest.
Well beyond reason, I lunged again, slicing his sword in half with shadows as I went.
His own furious screech lit the song on fire as he dodged, parrying my strike with what was left of his baton. The wind shot up from behind him and, using it to his advantage, he leapt forward with a series of quick and hard swipes. I snarled as he forced me back.
But I was not in the mood to slave beneath him.
The shadows sliced at him from the sides, first at his face, at his shoulder, a daring one at his collar bone. Our swords clashed and ripped apart again. We spun and danced around one another. His tuxedo developed a new rip each time.
"I'll show you my song!" Orpheus cried as we fought. The words were torn from his throat as if he'd been choking on them, yet somehow found their place in the melody. "I'll save you from temptation! Come with me, little girl! I'll save you!"
There were no words for how cold I felt. Save me? He wanted so save me now, after having my brother slaughtered?
"No! You will harmonize!" Orpheus shrieked as Întuneric slammed into his shoulder. "Harmonize!"
"Over my dead body!" I spat, slamming my sword's hilt into his face. He cried out and stumbled back, cradling a bleeding nose.
Brown eyes glowered. "Harmonize! We'll save you!"
"You don't look so saved to me," I growled.
"You won't look back! You can't look back!" he shrieked. "Harmonize! Don't ever look back!"
The words were like ice on my spine. I felt that they should mean something, but right then, they didn't. Not a single thing mattered to me right then. Just this hungry predator awakened inside me.
With another battle cry, we continued to fight.
oOo
Nyx: OMG HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON TWO! LOOK UP TRAILERS GUYS!
Nic: Oh, geez.
Nyx: HIS HAIR IS LIKE NICO'S BUT SHORTER! And I think it's braided at one part…
Nic: Did you really just now figure out there's a sequel?
Nyx: Anyway. Orpheus is crazy; some of the stuff he says makes sense, the rest of it doesn't, the rest you can kind of see how an insane man found that train of thought. There's a lot more on him in the next chapter.
Nic: You're not gonna cry over… this chapter?
Nyx: *glances away* Uh… Not again, no.
Nic: Kol….
Nyx: Please review, guys. I have time to work on the cover now. I'm going to work on it as soon as this is up. Well, I've had the urge to draw Laelaps lately, and he's not on it… Anyway. Today is a drawing day. I'll be working as hard as I can.
'Til Monday, guys.
