Chapter 20

Shelton

"You're not coming with," Nico said.

Tory glared at him. She'd apparently been awake since four looking at maps and satellite images to find possible warehouse locations. I could have told Nico that trying to argue with her on two hours of sleep was especially futile, but I was a little busy helping Sapphire run damage control with my parents. The half god thing had finally sunken in and they weren't taking magic for an answer.

"Baby mortal with two parents plus baby goddess with two parents equals baby demigod with four parents," Sapphire said.

Dad frowned for a moment. "Okay, yeah, that makes sense."

"Nelson," Mom hissed.

Dad shrugged. "It does make sense, Lori. If my brother, your sister and the kids say that's what's happened, I say we should believe them."

"Okay, great, glad we're all agreed. Sapphire, your boyfriend's head is on fire," I said.

Mom and Dad were significantly distracted by the threat of the house burning down. While Leo blamed stress for activating his fire powers to avoid getting sprayed with the fire extinguisher, Ben and I brought Tory and Hi up to date on Hades's hint.

'Do you think he means us?' I asked. 'Ben thinks he means us.'

'I didn't say that,' Ben complained. 'How would he know anyway?'

'Well, we did talk about the virus and everything in the bunker a lot,' Hi said. 'That was underground and Hades's sphere of influence is underground.'

So, a god eavesdropped on us on the off chance that we'd give him useful information to use as a cryptic hint. I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense considering that I'm related to his daughter but he couldn't have disguised himself as a human to talk to us, or something else that wouldn't increase my paranoia?

Then again, we didn't talk to other people about the wolf thing. We'd narrowly missed getting locked up in a lab and experimented on. None of us wanted to risk anything about our powers getting back to those people.

'If he means us then maybe telling them where to find the warehouse is good enough?' Tory sounded disappointed. If I didn't know that it was something her great-aunt did all the time, I might have wondered why she wanted to catch a serial killer so badly.

Richie came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and glaring at everyone. "Wha's goin' on?"

"Murder and mayhem," Sapphire said. She patted out a flame that was lingering on Leo's shoulder. "You're not invited."

Richie stared at Sapphire with a frown. "There's not gonna be another war, is there?"

Sapphire's expression softened. "I think we've had our share of wars."

"You haven't," Richie said. "Reyna said you're 'untested in battle'."

"When did you talk to Reyna and why were you talking about me?" Sapphire exclaimed.

Amber coughed. "Crush."

There was a momentary delay before Richie blushed. Aunt Mariko smothered a smile.

Nico cleared his throat. "Can we focus? Tory, you aren't coming with but do you have any maps? Maybe some blueprints?"

Tory grimaced. "Not on me. Shelton could probably find some."

Nico looked at me. "Can you?"

I nodded. It wouldn't take long once I got my computer started up. Tory's research had been very through.

"Shelton, maps and blueprints, printed out, not digital." Nico turned to Leo and Sapphire. "Who do you want for backup?"

"Everyone?" Sapphire said. "Who can we get?"

"Percy and Annabeth want in," Nico said. "So does Will. And Katie. And Lou Ellen. And Mark. And Piper. And Jason."

Leo whistled. "That's more people than you can shadow travel, isn't it?"

"I can bring three people and still be able to fight," Nico said.

"You're kids," Mom said. "Aren't there adult demigods who could...handle this?"

From what I remembered, most of the people Nico had named were adults. Probably not much older than Leo, but still adults.

"I've fought in two wars," Nico said. His tone left no room for argument.

"Will for sure," Leo said. "We're probably going to need a healer."

Amber scoffed. Sapphire laughed once. I had a feeling that meant that needing a healer was standard operating procedure.

"If we're going to be anywhere near the ocean I want Percy with us," Amber said.

Nico narrowed his eyes at her. "You're not coming with either."

"What?" Amber glared back. "Of course I'm coming with."

Nico said something about a moon god and starting an inter-pantheon conflict. Amber shot back with a point about how an alternate universe's version of the god didn't count and I had no idea what they were talking about after that.

"There are alternate universes now?" Hi asked while Nico and Amber's argument was gaining momentum.

"Yeah. Amber got stuck in one for a few weeks last summer," Leo said. "And there was this other guy who met the girl version of himself, I think? It's like a fourth-hand rumour from the House of Life. And they say we're weird."

Slowly, Hi covered his face with his hands. He let out a whine that made Coop's ears perk up.

"You okay, man?" Ben asked.

"Processing," Hi said.

He wasn't the only one. Couldn't we go one day without getting our knowledge of the way the world works upended?

I decided to stop thinking about the suddenly real possibility of falling into alternate worlds before I needed to reboot my brain like Hi was.

"Shelton, could you work on finding those maps, please?" Sapphire asked. She was carefully watching Amber and Nico as they argued and jumped in when there was a pause. "Amber can be back-up for if everything goes to hell. If we're all about to die then an inter-pantheon conflict is the least of our problems."

Amber frowned. "Yeah, okay. That works." She didn't sound happy about it.

"Give me five minutes to see if you'll be near water," I said.

"I'll send you everything I have," Tory said. She got out her phone and went into the next room. Coop rose from his spot under the table and followed her.

Nico watched Coop leave. "Do you think we can get Percy to bring Mrs. O'Leary?"

I headed upstairs before I could figure out who Mrs. O'Leary was and why she would pass out on arrival.