The Curse of the Ghost Captain
CHAPTER 6
"Ghosts"
The thunderstorm had only started fully raging over their heads when Nico and company reached the main dirt path that led them out of Cagliari. The rumbling of thunder and the blinding light of the bolts splitting the sky in half became stronger as they rode north, signaling that they were galloping straight into the eye of the storm.
Heavy raindrops and strong winds hit them face-first, but Nico stared resolutely ahead, leading the way, his knuckles white as he held on to the reigns for dear life. Fierro, who had returned to her black stallion form, tore through the path with speed that matched the thunderbolts in the sky, her massive chest heaving, her mouth frothing.
Nico turned his head and spotted his companions riding a few yards behind him, their horses struggling to keep up with Fierro's unearthly speed. He spotted Will with difficulty, riding on a brown horse with black mane and legs, its form blurred by the thick curtain of rain that divided them. Nico couldn't see him, but he knew Magnus was riding behind Will, his arms around his waist, his face probably plastered against Will's back.
He did not allocate much of his attention to Magnus's current state of mind, he knew enough to go on. He was well aware that Magnus much preferred mules, but fear for his companions seeped into him in the form of courage and determination, and he did not speak a word of protest against the prospect of returning to the farm on horseback. He did not even wince as he saw Fierro transform from elephant to black stallion, he merely looked away and took deep, calming breaths.
Frank Zhang, Percy's man through and through, rode next to Will, perhaps torn between keeping up with Nico and keeping level with Will, whose safety was in fact Zhang's admitted responsibility.
With the moon completely blocked by the thick, black clouds over their heads, they rode in pitch darkness for a few miles, which Nico was perfectly at ease with. The horses could see well enough in the dark, and Nico's own night vision (Will's too, by the looks of it) was excellent, and he was glad they could ride under the cover of darkness for a couple of hours.
Underneath him, Fierro moved like a sharp blade cutting through the air, splitting the rain in two, but occasionally she would slow down, and Nico knew the others had somewhat lagged behind. He would pull on the reigns and Fierro would make a sharp turn and trot back, until the others became visible once again in the distance, riding fast as their horses could.
This time, as Fierro slowed down significantly, Nico feared there was something wrong.
"What is it?" Nico yelled, trying to make himself heard in the rain. He could have just as easily used their mental link to communicate with Fierro, but Nico had had the urge to scream at the top of his voice for the past few hours, and welcomed the opportunity to do so.
The horses are exhausted, Fierro responded mentally.
"Fuck!" Nico yelled, and narrowed his eyes, trying to peer into the distance. "How much farther?"
Perhaps another hour, Fierro replied. I can make it in half.
Nico let out another series of curses before pulling on the reigns and redirecting Fierro back along the same path, looking for the others.
He couldn't tell by their expressions, what with the heavy rain blurring his vision, but Nico recognized the outline of an exhausted horse's lagging moves and refusal to gallop forwards.
He pulled up next to Will, whose eyes shone in the dark, just the way his own did. He reached out and found Will's fingers.
"What do we do?" Will yelled, letting go just as quickly to regain control over his horse, who was threatening to walk into the field.
Nico looked around desperately. It was hard to tell, since he wasn't sure how long they'd been riding for, or at what time they had left Cagliari, but he feared dawn was approaching, and without the cover of darkness, they could be easily spotted by whoever was chasing after them.
"I'll have to go ahead!" Nico yelled, loud enough so Frank Zhang, who was having trouble controlling his horse himself, could hear.
"I'm coming with you! Magnus can ride with him!" Will bellowed, pointing at Frank.
Nico couldn't see Magnus's face, draped as he was over Will's back, his arms barely holding onto Will's waist.
"Negative," yelled Frank Zhang turning to Nico. "William Solace stays with me. You can ride into the farm yourself under the protection of your powers, but they do not extend to the rest of us. The pirates waiting for us there are mutineers, Captain Jackson sent them on the mission never expecting to come back for them, they were given false orders to await my return. I, instead, was to return to the Argo II, berthed to the west, and bring William Solace with me. Going back to the farm is a mistake."
Nico cursed loudly and shook his head disbelievingly.
"Whose fucking dumb idea was it to set loose a band of mutineers on a group of unarmed farmers?" Nico yelled. "Was that Percy? I'm going to fucking murder him, again!"
"Like I said, the farm was a regretful collateral, but –"
Nico did not order Fierro to close in on Frank's horse with threatening speed, but he was one hundred percent behind the move. Frank's horse whinnied and stumbled back, almost tripping over.
"Those are good people there!" Nico yelled, feeling his throat begin to grow hoarse. He could feel the fury and the frustration coursing through his veins, and he could even distantly sense black smoke beginning to form around his arms and shoulders.
To Nico's surprise, Frank Zhang threw back his head and laughed.
"You are one to talk, Di Angelo. Last year you were on a murdering rampage, destroying ships all over the Mediterranean, burning down ports as you passed. You've had a change of heart, is that it? Do not for a single second fool yourself into thinking that you are not responsible for this. If those farmers managed to survive, good for them, but if they are dead, remember it was you who put them in danger in the first place! It was you who led us to them! Everything and everyone unlucky enough to cross your path ends up dead!"
Nico looked as if Frank had slapped him. Fierro whinnied menacingly, snorting and thrashing so violently Nico had a hard time controlling the reigns, but his anger disappeared almost as quickly as shame began to wash over him.
It was true. It was all true.
If he had been on his own, if Will hadn't pressured him into doing the right thing, Nico would have, perhaps not murdered, but definitely robbed the cheese farmers, taken their valuables and horses, and been on his way, unaccompanied, to blindly search for information himself. He would have perhaps come to a dead end – without the information the farmers had provided about the Seer Historian – but at least Magnus and the rest would be safe.
He should have known he was being followed. He should have realized he had a chip on his shoulder – on his ring finger – that would never let him interact normally with people. He brought danger wherever he went, and now innocent people were paying the consequences.
He would have bolted away had Will not suddenly placed a hand on his shoulder.
Nico flinched away and turned to face him, perhaps expecting to see anger or disappointment in Will's eyes. He did, but Will's furious gaze was directed at Frank Zhang instead, his rain-splattered face white with rage.
"I've seen what you're capable of – I saw you onboard the Argo III in Bonifacio, the only murderer here is you! Don't you dare blame this on him," Will yelled, driving his horse to stand between them. "I don't know why in the name of God you are after me, but if you want to complete your mission, you had better stop talking," he said, and to Nico's surprise, Will's white sleeves, plastered against his skin by the rain, began to smoke, as if scalding water had been poured over him instead.
"What –" Nico stammered.
"Don't you dare accuse him of bringing death! You are the murderers here! You are to blame for this! And you stay away from him! Or I'll kill you!" Will yelled, and a deafening sound resonated all around them, just as a blinding lightning bolt hit a tree nearby and split the trunk in half.
It all happened in a split-second, a large, ghostly wave of energy, with Will as its epicenter, exploded through them, and suddenly, Nico felt a rush of energy surge through him. Fierro whinnied and walked backwards a few steps, as if she had come across a wall of fire. Frank almost fell off his horse and Magnus screamed as if it had been he and not the tree who had been hit by lightning.
"What the fuck –" Frank's eyes were wide with fear.
Without waiting for them to react, Will pulled on his horse's reigns and began to gallop forward, past Nico and Fierro, directly towards the cheese farm, his horse fully reinvigorated and sprinting faster than ever.
What the fuck was that, Nico thought, and in his mind, Fierro responded.
Breeches. No time to explain.
"What the fuck did you just say?" Nico yelled, just as Fierro tore through the path, chasing after Will.
Frank was last to regain his composure, and he kicked as hard as he could, prompting his horse to catch up, which it did with difficulty. "This is a mistake!" he yelled, but no one heard him.
They hadn't ridden for long when the sky began to turn silver, despite the storm still raging over their heads, morning fast upon them.
Fierro had come level with Will's horse, and they rode neck and neck for two or three miles at top speed, before they could discern the clear outlines of the farm's surrounding hills and half-sowed fields.
The wind had calmed down, but heavy drops still fell over their faces. In the silver light of the overcast sky, Nico's eyes zeroed in on the few buildings that made up the living quarters of Magnus and the others. He couldn't see much, except for the few scattered cows and sheep that had seemingly escaped the stables. Nico swallowed hard, fearing the worst.
"Faster!" Will yelled next to him, leaning into the horse's neck, Magnus's face a mask of worry behind him. "Faster!" he screamed yet again, and Nico wondered if Will had somehow seen something he hadn't.
They stopped just as they reached the hill where, many nights ago, Nico had revealed to Will the secret of the Angelica Curse. Under the relentless pouring of the rain, Nico could barely discern the heavy log that Will had rolled over, upon where they had rested their backs and shared stolen wine and stolen kisses veiled by the darkness of the night. It seemed like a completely different, hostile place under their current circumstances.
Frank joined them after a few seconds, his horse utterly spent and frothing at the mouth, but still standing.
"I don't see anything," he yelled, trying to be heard over the rain.
Will scanned the area with narrowed eyes. Rain poured into his open mouth and dribbled down his chin and into his soaked, ruined clothes.
"The place looks deserted," yelled Nico, feeling a knot on his chest.
"Be on your guard!" Frank yelled back. "The pirates might have never left."
Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot resonated around the clearing, and Will kicked and heaved, egging the horse to sprint downhill. Fierro was quick to give chase and Frank was last to descend.
The front of the farm looked deserted, but the doors and windows had been kicked open, and now yawned widely and ominously, like hungry mouths revealing the darkness within.
"Around the main house!" Will commanded, egging his horse on, but Fierro tore past him, bringing Nico back to the head of the trio.
The desolate scene that greeted them as they galloped around the main building resembled a vandalized oil painting – a watered-down back yard, blurry under the rain, pale under the silver light of the overcast sky – and the bodies that were scattered around the area could have passed for boulders or carelessly late additions to the painting, in the shape of haphazard blotches of white and red paint.
"No," Nico gasped, the moment his eyes landed on the first figure on the ground. He kicked Fierro around the middle and the stallion galloped forward. "No!" Nico repeated, pulling on the reigns.
Fierro, confused, came to an abrupt halt, turning back into a naked woman just as Nico jumped off her back. He barely managed to stop himself from falling all over Gunderson's lifeless body. He landed hard on his knees, splattering mud all over the giant's face and neck. Gunderson's left hand still held on tightly to a man's severed head, but his right arm was missing. The appendix had been sliced off and lay a few yards away, his hand still tightly grasped around a blunt, blood-stained broadsword.
Blinded by rage and tears and the relentless rain that fell around him, Nico looked around, helplessly, for any signs of life. Perhaps this was all a joke. Perhaps he was only dreaming. But Gunderson's body was heavy in his arms, and Nico screamed so loudly he closed his eyes and hid within himself for a few seconds, completely guilt-ridden and overwhelmed by rage.
If only he had opened his eyes, if only he had looked around, Nico would have spotted several crucial things happening all at once.
He would have seen Fierro, stark naked as the day she was born, dissolve back into the ethereal, ghostly form she had held before Will Solace had come into their lives. He would have seen her slide in Will's direction, just as he threw himself off his horse, and like a gust of wind, gather him into her incorporeal arms and carry him away like a tornado. Alas, he did not.
He would have seen Frank Zhang pulling his horse to a stop before he trampled over anyone, living or dead, momentarily distracted by the devastation around him, and the shadow that moved quickly behind him. Perhaps he would have seen Frank's look of disbelief as he was hit on the back of the head and he crumpled forward, falling off his horse and into the mud. Alas, he did not.
He would have seen Magnus crawl his way from underneath the horse that had fallen over once Will had been snatched away by the ghost, clawing at the muddy soil towards Mallory Keen's naked, lifeless form. This, Magnus's deafening scream of pain, Nico heard only too well, but he found he did not have the spine to look upon the scene with his own eyes.
"NO!" Magnus screamed at Keen's dead body, gathering her in his arms. He screamed and shook as he took off his own shirt and draped it over Mallory's naked body, cradling her back and forth. "NO!"
Yet Nico's eyes remained resolutely shut, utterly refusing to focus on the other bodies scattered around them, which he had not yet recognized, afraid of what he would see. He saw nothing, not even the slightest inkling of a shadow heading his way, as two pirates pounced on him from behind, the first throttling him to the ground, the second reaching out for his right hand and tugging it straight.
Nico was so taken aback that he did not even feel the blade cut through his skin as it sliced his right hand off his arm.
He might have screamed, he might have passed out for a few seconds, but the pain did not fully hit him until he managed to pry his eyes open, and an altogether familiar, hateful figure stood before him, just as fresh blood soaked his sleeve and Gunderson's face and neck.
"Welcome back, Captain," said Octavian, the mutineer Captain that had lay waste to the city of Bonifacio only a few days prior. He held Nico's severed hand in his, and with as much care as if he had been handling a decomposing fish, he pried Nico's skull-shaped ring off his lifeless finger, tossing the hand into a puddle of mud. "I believe this belongs to me now."
As Nico passed out from the pain, cradling the severed stump that used to be his right hand, Will's face was the last thing in his mind.
Octavian threw back his head and laughed, rain gushing into his open mouth and making him cough.
"T-take them to the main house," he commanded, sliding the skull ring into his right-hand ring finger. "And look for the other one. William Solace his name be."
"What about this one?" said a burly man nearby. In his arms, holding a pistol to his neck, stood a shivering man with a dark complexion.
T.J. swallowed hard as the pirate aimed the pistol against his Adam's apple.
"Keep him alive for now," Octavian commanded. "Let him be our final bargaining chip, just in case."
A few yards away, Alex-Fierro's ghostly form revolved around Will like a miniature tornado, shielded by the relentless falling of the rain, Will thrashing within her.
She made a sharp turn as she reached the front yard and funneled them into the empty cabin Will and Nico had once occupied, back when they were nothing but momentary guests at the Valhalla cheese farm.
Will rolled onto the floor as soon as the now-turned-hurricane Alex-Fierro brought them into the cabin, his back hitting the wall with a loud thud.
"Alex!" Will bellowed, his voice echoing throughout the stone cabin. "What the fuck!?"
"No time," the ghost responded, moving around the room in the shape of a soaked, naked woman, her bronze skin glistening feebly against the silver light that filtered into the cabin through the open windows.
Will screamed and shut his eyes, gathering fistfuls of his own hair in frustration. He got to his feet and ran towards the door, but suddenly found his way blocked by Fierro's very naked form.
"Breeches," she repeated, pulling Will around the waist with one arm and tugging him towards the corner of the room, whereupon lay a pile of discarded garments underneath a small mountain of hay.
"What!? Alex, let me go!" Will bellowed, and to his surprise, Alex's grasp went slack around his waist. With the momentum, Will ran into the nearest wall, missing the threshold by a few feet.
In the few seconds that it took Will to collect himself from smashing against solid rock, Alex-Fierro had rummaged through the pile and found a pair of breeches – the very same she had mended all those nights ago.
Without a moment's hesitation, she pounced on Will and began to undo the sash around his waist.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Will yelled, struggling to keep a naked Alex from ripping his breeches off. "Alex, this… this isn't the time! I'm… I'm not going to have sex with you… not now… not EVER!" Will yelled at the top of his voice, just as Alex tore Will's ruined breeches off with one swift, violent tug.
"Will needs to put these on!" she yelled back, presenting Will with the mended garment. "Will needs to put these on!"
"Unhand me!" Will bellowed, and Alex suddenly took her hands off him.
"Will must put these on!" she yelled, now at a safe distance from him. Just as she said the words, her form began to fade into the background, suddenly as transparent as the day Will had first set eyes on her.
"Why?" Will managed to ask, completely ruffled by the ordeal. He looked down at his naked legs, then at the open door that lay only two steps away from him. When he glanced up, Alex was barely visible.
"I can't say," she replied, her voice a feeble echo across the empty room. "Will has forbidden me to say."
Will stared at her in disbelief, his mouth slightly open. Under less pressing circumstances, he might have stayed there and argued with her, perhaps even lectured her about proper manners, and how some men are simply not interested in the fairer sex, but just as Will opened his mouth to retort, Alex-Fierro disappeared, her face distorted in a silent scream as her figure faded into vapor.
"Alex? Alex?!" Will screamed, but he remained alone in the cabin.
Torn between running out into the rain, alone and confused with naked legs, and taking a few seconds to slide the lower extremities that carried his body into the pair of breeches that lay discarded before him, Will took a deep, calming breath, before opting for the latter option.
He reached for the garment and clumsily tugged it on, one leg at a time. The moment he began to tie the sash around his waist, a gust of wind went through him, as if he had been standing on the edge of a windy cliff.
Close enough, whispered a voice in his mind.
At that moment, Will's head exploded, as a horrible scream filled his mind. Nico's voice, Nico's scream resonated around the inner walls of his skull, a scream so full of pain and rage that Will gasped and ran out of the room as fast as he could.
Without pondering as to Alex's whereabouts, Will made a sharp turn and headed towards the back yard, but just as he ran past the main house, he noticed a few lights were on inside, and he stopped by the window, his clumsy footsteps muffled by the rain.
His eyes almost bulged out of their sockets as he took a look inside.
Half a dozen men stood around the room, wielding swords, pistols and daggers, all pointed in the direction of the three prisoners that lay tied up in the middle of the room. Frank Zhang, Magnus and Nico – Nico who looked pale as death, weak and folded over himself – were kneeling on the floor, tied in a bundle, just as a slim, pale figure took a few steps in their direction.
Will recognized him all too well, and his blood began to boil in his veins.
"So," said Octavian. "We meet again."
His thin lips were stretched in an ugly sneer, just as he raised his right hand in order to better appreciate the ring that now adorned his right hand.
With a gasp, Will realized Octavian was wearing Nico's Angelica ring, which led his eyes to search for Nico's ring finger. He felt a stab to the chest as he realized that not only was Nico's ring finger missing – so was his hand.
A curious feeling began to envelop him, not the way it had done all those days ago, when he'd been a witness to the massacre at Bonifacio, but in an altogether destructive way, as if he himself were the bringer of death. Will felt rage and fury course through his veins like fire quickly engulfing a ship's sails, unstoppable and hungry for revenge.
Nico's face was obscured by his hair, but Will did not need to see him to know that he was unconscious. He was tied in the middle, between Magnus and Frank, both of whom were struggling to set themselves free. Nico was the only one who lay still, on a growing pool of his own blood.
Will tore his eyes away from the scene with difficulty, then looked around helplessly. He couldn't see Alex anywhere, and the entire party of pirates seemed to have gathered in the main hall. Careful not to make a noise, Will stepped around the house, hoping to make sure there no others waiting for them outside.
That's when he saw them – the bodies of the previous occupants of the cheese farm.
There was Gunderson, his mutilated body only a few feet away from Mallory, whose naked body displayed marks or terrible violence. They'd been half-buried by the mud already, but Will could perfectly discern their grimaces of pain and fury.
He stifled a sob when his eyes landed on the two figures just a few yards ahead. Tears ran down Will's face as he took in Hearth's missing hands – both of them – as they'd been sliced clean off his arms and were nowhere to be seen. Next to him, at an abhorrently close distance, lay the body of Blitzen, pinned to the ground by a sword on his back, his arms reaching out in Hearth's direction.
Will wouldn't look up, he closed his eyes and pulled Hearthstone to his chest as if he had been nothing but an injured child. He held him flush against his beating heart and began to cry out in pain.
Please wake up, please wake up. Please, don't be dead. Please wake up.
A ripple went through him, and a voice whispered in his ear, but Will was too grief-stricken to pay it any mind.
He must have cried there for a mere few seconds, but by the time he raised his head, Will's eyes were no longer blue. He stood up and walked straight towards the main house, not bothering to remain hidden.
"Stop!" Will bellowed, jumping into the room through the window. His legs carried him effortlessly, and he landed on a perfect stance, ready to pounce.
All eyes but Nico's turned to him in surprise. Octavian smirked as his men pointed their weapons in Will's direction.
Will, on the other hand, had eyes for no one but Nico, who lay crumpled up between Magnus and Frank, his chin to his chest and his missing hand bleeding out a pond underneath them.
"Ah," said Octavian, an ugly smile on his face. "You are most welcome, William Solace. For a second there, we weren't sure you were coming back at all. But I'm afraid there is no further need for you, I've got what I wanted." He raised his right hand and Will's eyes fell upon the ring. "And now that you're here, we can get this all over with. I'm tired of dealing with simpletons."
He nodded to the guard that held T.J. at gunpoint, and before Will could call out his name, before anyone could have done anything other than blink, the pirate shot T.J. in the neck and pushed him into Will, who lunged for him, grabbing him just as the farmer's lifeless form spilled onto the floor.
"NO!" Will bellowed, cradling T.J.'s head in his arms. He tried to stop the bleeding, but the man's neck had been practically severed in two. Next to him, Magnus let out a scream of pain through the gag in his mouth, thrashing about harder than ever, but for all the good it did, he might have hoped to break free by wiggling his toes.
Do it, said a voice in Will's mind. He will listen, if you command it.
"No!" Will screamed, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He pressed T.J.'s forehead against his own, his warm blood seeping into his clothes. "T.J. wake up! Wake up!"
Octavian laughed, snapping his fingers and commanding one of his pirate friends to point his gun at Will's head instead. "Goodbye, William Solace," he said, just as he took off Nico's Angelica ring and lifted it up to inspect it more carefully.
Magnus and Frank thrashed harder than ever, but they only managed to move an inch closer to Will.
Desperate, shaken and furious, Will looked around the room. His eyes landed on Nico, who he was surprised to see, was looking back at him, his eyes glassy and unmoving.
He can't do anything to help you, said the voice. It's all up to you now.
"No," Will all but yelled in Nico's direction, then turned his face to plant a kiss on T.J.'s forehead. "T.J. can you hear me? Wake up, wake up T.J."
Octavian rolled his eyes and turned to leave. "Kill them all," he commanded, and his men raised their weapons. With a terrible smile, Octavian smirked at Will and suddenly popped the ring into his mouth.
"T.J.!" Will yelled, his throat raw. "T.J. Wake up! WAKE UP!"
Command him, the voice urged. Command him!
"I COMMAND YOU TO WAKE UP!" Will screamed, and the earth began to shake.
T.J. did not open his eyes and began to walk about the room, but something did. Smoke began to billow out of him, first from his chest, then from the rest of his body, and all around them, objects began to fall over, as if a small tornado had found its way inside the room.
Will was gasping for breath, his eyes tightly shut in concentration, as scenes of graphic violence began to play across the inside of his eyelids. He saw the pirates arrive to the farm and hide around the area. He watched as he, Nico, Magnus and Alex rode away only a few days ago, and he saw, in terrible detail, all the things the pirates had done to his friends.
He watched them die, one by one, and he screamed and pulled at his hair, wishing he could simply close his eyes to the ordeal, but the images were within him, not without. Then all of a sudden, he watched them rise again, vaporous shapes that rose out of their corpses, one by one, and join them in the room, through the floor, through the walls, until they stood protectively all around him.
They are yours now, said the voice in his head.
Will opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Octavian flinch back in agony, a horrible grimace of pain on his face. He screamed and writhed as he scratched at his throat. With a start, Will realized Octavian had swallowed the ring out of sheer shock as the ghosts appeared all across the room.
Octavian threw himself onto the floor and began to choke, black smoke coming out of his mouth.
"What is happening?" Will yelled, looking around the room and jumping back each time his eyes landed on a different ghost.
He cannot withstand the power of the ring. It doesn't belong to him – he is not within the bond… replied a voice in his head.
"And the ghosts? How? W-why?" Will asked again.
You called them, the voice replied. They are yours now.
"How… how are you here? Nico… Nico?" Will gasped and turned to Nico but the young Captain did not reply.
Mallory Keen, Gunderson, Hearthstone, Blitzen all stood protectively between Will and Octavian. Last one to rise was T.J., his skin glistening with the same light as the rest.
"Wha – wha – what the fuck…" called one of Octavian's men, kneeling forwards and violently patting Octavian on the back, but the ring was halfway through his esophagus and it would not budge.
"Get him!" yelled another man, and between the two of them, they lifted Octavian off his feet, who had started to turn blue, and ran out of the room as fast as their legs would carry them, leaving the room to the ghosts.
Will got to his feet and almost stumbled over, he would have in fact, collapsed on top of T.J.'s fresh corpse had he not been suddenly held in a firm, gentle grasp. Will looked up and his eyes found T.J.'s ghostly form standing before him.
Will gasped and recoiled, but T.J. held on to him, his touch cold yet gentle.
"William Solace," said T.J. in a wisp of a voice. "Better than Uranus."
Will burst into tears and fell to his knees, hiding his face in his hands.
"Forgive me," he whispered. "All of you, I'm so sorry."
"Your friends need your help now," T.J. replied, lifting Will's chin and turning his head to where Nico, Frank and Magnus were still tied together.
Will flinched and scrambled to them.
Magnus and Frank both held identical looks of shock and disbelief, staring intently into the ghostly faces of T.J., Gunderson, Keen, Hearthstone and Blitz.
Will's fingers fumbled with the rope, but Nico had bled so much the soaked rope simply refused to collaborate.
"Fu – fuck! I can't, I can't get this open!" Will stammered, his own hands soaked in Nico's blood.
"I can help," said Blitzen, taking a step forward. "If you will it so."
"Help! Help me!" Will said desperately, and no sooner were those words out of his mouth, then a gentle, vaporous breeze went through them, taking the rope with it.
Magnus and Frank automatically reached for the gags in their mouths, but they did not make any moves to stand up, or in fact, move an inch in any direction. They merely sat there on the floor, looking around as Nico fell into Will's arms.
Nico had always been on the paler side, but the lithe figure that spilled onto Will was beyond white. His lips were cracked and the same color as his face; his eyelashes barely fluttered as his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
"Nico, Nico, wake up," Will whispered desperately into his ear, cradling him against his chest, careful not to touch the stump of his missing hand.
Nico blinked and his eyes found Will. He moved his lips as if he were trying to speak but found he could not.
"Please," Will whimpered, touching their foreheads together. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Nico. It's all my fault, I – I wasn't here, I was pulled away, Alex… Alex… Alex?! Where did you go?" he yelled, but the ghost was nowhere to be found.
Then he felt Nico's cold left hand on his face, wet and sticky with his own blood.
"Nico?" Will asked, leaning in close and pressing his face to Nico. He kissed his forehead, his cheek, his nose, his chin, he kissed his lips and was suddenly terrified of how cold they felt against his. He looked at the pool of blood, he knew what it meant, its sheer size told him all he needed to know – Nico was close to bleeding to death.
"What can I do?" Will yelled into the room, looking around the line of ghosts that stood before him utterly still. "Help me!"
Instantly, Hearthstone's ghost slid forward, turning into smoke momentarily then reappearing next to Will. At first glance, he appeared to be kneeling next to Will and Nico, but his legs dissolved into nothingness where they should have been touching the floor.
Will frowned and shook his head when he saw Hearthstone's hands – ghostly hands made out of white vapor – make a few simple gestures that Will did not understand.
"What does it mean?" he whispered, his voice cracking.
Magnus cleared his throat and came closer. With a wary look towards the ghost of his friend, he knelt behind Will, his voice trembling.
"He – he said… he said he needs a hand," Magnus said. He sounded apologetic and scared, as if he wished he could do more to help while at the same time being afraid to ask the ghost to elaborate.
Ghost Hearthstone rolled his eyes in Magnus's direction, then repeated the same gesture he had done with his hands.
"He says… he says he meant to say… he needs you to give him a hand," Magnus added. "Is that… is that something you can do?"
Yes, whispered a voice in his mind.
"I don't know," Will stammered back.
Yessss, repeated the voice a little impatiently.
Will had never felt more alone in his life. Cold seeped through him, or perhaps it originated from within himself, as he felt Nico's life slipping away with every passing second, he realized he could not, would not let him die. He had made an oath to protect him, to help him find the answers he needed. He would not break his oath, he would not.
And the strength that coursed through his veins told him that if he willed it, if only he willed it, it would be so.
Carefully, tenderly, he raised Nico's severed arm just so it was level with his face. Nico was weak but he flinched slightly at the action, his eyes flying open.
Will leaned forward and pressed his lips to Nico's blood-soaked forearm, getting blood all over his own mouth and chin. He closed his eyes and pictured Nico's hand – a hand he had come to know so well over the past few weeks – every detail of it. He could see in his mind it as clearly as if he were looking at it with his own eyes. Nico's longish fingernails, the mounds of his knuckles, the lines on the back of his fingers… he could summon, without much effort, the memory of Nico's touch, and his gentle but firm grasp as he held Will's cock in his hand only a few hours before, all the while thinking the same words, over and over again.
I will it, I will it, I will it.
He knew it had worked before he even opened his eyes, as a cold, wispy something caressed his face.
Will's eyes flew open and he flinched back, only to be pulled into a kiss by Nico's newly substantiated ghost hand.
Magnus and Frank gasped, Frank even added a cuss word or two.
When Will broke the kiss and opened his eyes, Nico Di Angelo was back. His face had fully regained its color, and it had nothing to do with his own blood smeared across his mouth and cheeks from kissing a blood-stained Will. His eyes were dark pools of brown, watery and alive, more alive than Will had ever seen them before.
Nico tried for a smile, but faltered in the end. Instead he shut his eyes and grabbed Will's soaked shirt with both hands, then buried his face in Will's chest.
Will took Nico's shaking form in his arms, then looked helplessly around the room.
"Nico," Will said, his voice cracking. "Nico, I get that you're happy you're not dead, uh, I am too… but… could you maybe explain to me what just happened?"
It took him a few seconds, but when Nico finally extricated himself from Will's arms, he quickly wiped away his tears and turned to the others.
He was only mildly surprised as his eyes landed on the ghostly forms of their friends. Then, as soon as he found his balance, he knelt on the floor before them and bowed his head in their direction.
"Forgive me," he said to them. "I knowingly deceived you by not telling you my real identity. I put you all in terrible danger, and you lost your lives because of me. The curse I bear upon me, passed down from generation to generation, comes with great powers, but they come at a cost. I accept the responsibility. I only beg you to allow me another moment or two, so I can apologize to Magnus, and also to Will. Then, I release you from your service, and you can take my life."
Will choked and stumbled forward, pulling Nico to his feet.
"What the fuck are you saying?" Will all but screamed, but Nico shrugged him off.
Frank Zhang suddenly appeared next to them, and to everyone's surprise, he stifled a snort.
"All that blood loss must have done its toll on the little mate, here," he said. "He has no idea what just happened."
Nico turned on Frank and glared at him.
"Who are you calling little mate?" he sneered, then once again shrugged Will's hands off of him. "I am trying to apologize to everyone here, I've killed these brave men and woman and subconsciously called them back to a life of servitude, and I am not having it! You hear me? I am not –"
Magnus cleared his throat. "But Plu – N-Nico," he stammered. "You didn't, you couldn't have. You were tied up with us, you were unconscious, you… you couldn't have done that…"
Nico rolled his eyes and tugged at his hair with both hands in exasperation. "Listen, Magnus," he said finally, walking closer to him. "There is much I need to explain to you, but one of the powers of my curse is the ability to summon ghosts back from the dead. You see, this ring –" he raised his ghostly hand and stopped short.
He seemed to only just have noticed that his right hand was now made of vaporous, white smoke, substantial to a degree, but wispy and airy nonetheless. He flinched back and bumped into Will, then he rounded up on him.
"Will," he said, his voice an octave higher. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"
Will took a protective step back, raising his hands in form of apology.
"I – I… don't know… somehow…" he stammered, just as Nico began to search the room.
"William Solace where the FUCK IS MY HAND?!"
"Nico," Will stammered back, "You… your hand was cut off… I… I…"
"Where is my ring? Where the fuck is my ring? And my ghost? Fierro! Fierro!" he called. Then he got to his knees and began to search the floor, crawling under a chair. Every time his eyes landed on his ghost hand he would flinch back, bumping against every other piece of furniture and throwing them over his head in a desperate attempt to find his missing ring.
"What the fuck is this… this… I have a ghost hand?! Fierro!" he called yet again.
"I honestly don't know what to do, or say," Frank interjected, rubbing his wrists.
"Nico," said Will, taking a few tentative steps towards him, just as Nico continued to crawl around the room looking for his ring.
He knew the ring was gone, he had watched Octavian swallow the thing, and then he saw his men take him away.
"Nico," said Will, but then his eyes found Magnus.
The last surviving member of the Valhalla cheese farm stood quietly in the middle of the room, drawing a hand up and down his arm as if he were cold. His eyes were on his shoes as he shifted his weight from leg to leg.
"Magnus," Will called, putting a hand on Magnus's shoulder.
Magnus didn't flinch, he merely raised his eyes to meet Will's.
"I… I don't know… I don't understand…" Magnus whispered. His eyes moved to where T.J.'s body was strewn across the floor and then to T.J.'s ghost, and he stifled a sob, looking away quickly just as Nico bumped his head on the underside of a table.
"I don't know how to apologize to you, to all of you," Will called, turning his head slightly so that the ghosts came into his periphery.
Blitzen took a figurative step forward.
"You brought us back," said Blitzen, his voice an airy whisper. "You do not apologize to us."
Will shook his head despondently, then choked back a sob.
Magnus's arms were suddenly around his neck.
"Thank you," he said to Will, loud enough so only he could hear. "Thank you for bringing them back."
"Will!" yelled Nico from a far corner. He got to his feet and tugged at his hair desperately. "Where is my ring?"
Will let go of Magnus and made his way to Nico's side, who looked just about to pass out in despair.
"Nico," said Will as gently as possible. "Octavian has your ring. He swallowed it by accident, and now they're gone."
Nico's eyes widened, his mouth fell open. "Wh-what?" he stammered.
"I'm sorry to interrupt whatever is going on here," said Frank Zhang suddenly calling the attention to himself. He stood by the window, looking out towards the field. The rain had stopped and the sky had started to clear up. "But I think we will have company soon. Those men that were chasing us… well…"
Nico, Will and Magnus all ran to the window, where they spotted a congregation of pirates in the distance.
"I don't see anything" said Magnus, but Will and Nico saw enough.
Octavian and his remaining men had negotiated their way up a distant hill, whereupon they seemed to have run into a company of fierce-looking pirates, all riding exhausted horses. There were too many of them, two, perhaps three dozen men and women on horseback. Even if Will somehow managed to regain control of his nerves and command the ghosts to do his bidding, he figured they would only help so much before the men got to the remaining living members of the entourage. Nico was in no state to fight, and he and Magnus had barely ever held a sword. The only able man on their side was Frank, and even with all the help the ghosts could give him, he was only one man.
"We have to get out of here," said Will, looking around the room to where the ghosts remained standing, completely immobile.
"What would you like us to do?" said Gunderson's booming ghostly voice, and Nico whipped around so quickly his hair flew into his mouth.
"Why is he answering to you?" Nico asked, grabbing Will by the neck of his shirt with his ghost hand, then quickly jumping back at the sight of it. "Agh!"
"I… I think I called them back… Nico, I think it was me who did it…" said Will, torn between looking at Nico and at the pirates in the distance, who had now come in close proximity to Octavian's men and were now deep in conversation.
"We need to leave," said Frank's commanding voice. "We won't make it to the west coast where the Argo II is berthed, but if we can somehow outrun them… they have exhausted horses, we can make it I think. We'll ride north and hide in the mountains –"
"No," said Nico, cutting in and stepping next to Frank. "We need to move to the sea."
Frank narrowed his eyes and looked at Will instead.
"Tell me you have a ship somewhere in the area," he said.
"My ship," said Nico, and you look at me when I'm talking to you.
Will stepped between them before they resorted to violence. Apparently, Nico was not ready to forgive Frank for having led the pirates into the cheese farm.
"There is a lot we need to discuss, and there are many questions that need answers, but Frank is right, we need to leave. Now. Nico," said Will, pulling the young Captain to the side and leaning in to whisper into his ear. "I don't know how or why it happened, but I can tell you one thing. I called them back, I know I did because… because I felt it, I saw it all happen in my mind, and they came to me."
Nico opened his mouth to retort and raised his right-hand index finger. As soon as his eyes landed on his ghost hand, he flinched and shook his head.
"And this?" he whispered back. "My hand?"
Will stepped closer and grabbed Nico's hands in his, both of them solid under his touch. The moment their fingers laced, Alex-Fierro appeared as a distant, wispy figure in their minds. Nico held on tighter to Will's hand, just as Will flinched back in fear.
"What –" Will stammered, but Nico silenced him with a look.
Master and Will must share a treasure now, said Alex-Fierro directly into their minds.
Where are you? Nico asked mentally, desperate for answers.
I am here, but I am weak. The ring is gone. Master must trust Will, together, you can summon the Charon. Not one or the other, together! she insisted.
What treasure? Nico added quickly, just as Fierro's image began to fade.
Breeches, she replied weakly.
"They're heading our way!" Frank yelled, and Nico and Will broke apart. As soon as they did so, the ghost of Alex Fierro disappeared from their minds.
Will looked at Nico, searching his face as if hoping to find answers there.
"I don't understand much either, but we can figure it out, together. But we need to leave now. Tell me what to do… tell me what to do with… with them," said Will, nodding in the direction of the line of ghosts.
Nico followed Will's gaze, then took a deep breath.
"If they are truly yours, you can command them to do your bidding," he said, stopping to look out the window. "I would have them murder those pirates out on that hill, but… I guess… that's your call."
Will leaned in and pressed his forehead to Nico.
"I'm so glad you're alright," he whispered, then straightened up and turned to face the ghosts. He was mildly surprised to see Magnus walking slowly around them, looking them up and down and poking a finger straight through Hearthstone.
"Can any of you find a way to take us to the sea?" Will asked nervously.