So I'm under the impression that this is not as good as the first one, but that's just me. Sorry.
The ride home was not pleasant.
Liam couldn't stop thinking about just how much Alex had known before they had killed her. Obviously she knew as much as they did now, which certainly seemed like it was enough to get her killed. But Barbarous had said that she had been there two months before they had arrived, which left a month in between the time she visited Barbarous (how did she manage that without Lawrence noticing?) and her…death. And Liam knew her; she wouldn't stop digging. So that meant she'd had more information before they'd killed her.
He banged his fist against the armrest of his seat. What had she known?
Liam missed her more than ever, and not just because she'd had valuable information. Whenever he was confused about something, she would be able to clear it up. She'd also had the miraculous gift to cheer him up, no matter what. And she would have listened.
He hated that he had to use past tense.
Liam pinched his arm to get himself to think about something else. Thinking himself into a mournful spiral wouldn't help anybody. Luckily, a distraction soon appeared.
Percy suddenly swerved left hard, banging Liam's already sore head against the car window. He slammed on the brakes a moment later, slamming Liam's nose against the headrest of the front seat.
"Oh…" he moaned. "Ow."
"What the hell, Percy?" Thalia demanded from the seat next to Liam. Grover and Beckendorf chorused their confusion from the back of the van as well.
Percy didn't respond, but he did unbuckle and clamber out of the van, an odd look on his face. Annabeth followed him from the passenger seat a moment later. Liam and Thalia shared a look before following them.
Liam nearly tripped onto his face when he saw what was waiting for them. In the middle of the road, right in front of the van, was a massive hellhound, barking loud enough to make his eardrums ring in complaint.
Liam leaned heavily on his cane in relief when he realized that it was just Mrs. O'Leary, Percy's weird pet hellhound. In fact, Percy and Annabeth were both petting her comfortingly. Liam realized that Mrs. O'Leary was barking mournfully, like Cooper had after Alex's death.
"What's going on?" Grover asked, maintaining a safe distance from the hellhound.
Annabeth straightened, holding something in her hands. With a start, Liam realized it was a blade of grass—only, it was dark black, like it had been charred in a fire or something. It took him another moment to realize that Annabeth was tense and seemed shaken by something. Annabeth was never shaken.
"What is it?" Thalia asked gently.
Annabeth wiped one of her eyes and read from the blade of grass in a shaky voice. "'It's Alex,'" she read, and Liam almost collapsed to the ground. "'I'm in the Fields of Asphodel. Trial was rigged. I have info about TS—send somebody to get me out. Please.'"
Liam was hyperventilating. It felt like his brain was simultaneously going too fast and too slow at the same time.
Alex was in the Fields of Asphodel? The place where spirits went to forget every aspect of their lives? And she knew something about the Syndicate, too, which he had suspected. What if she forgot it? More importantly, what if she forgot herself? How had she managed to hold on to her identity for this long? How had the Syndicate managed to interfere with a trial in the Underworld?
He needed to go. He needed to free her. He needed to…do something!
Liam took a step forward, but his palms had become sweaty and his cane slid out of his hands. His foot instantly protested, and he tripped into the side of the van. He immediately balanced himself and prepared to fly—where he would go, he wasn't sure, and in the back of the his mind he knew he wasn't thinking straight.
Somebody grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. Then two somebodies, holding him in place.
"Liam, you need to calm down," Beckendorf said.
"How can you be so calm?" Liam demanded. A vague thought told him he was shaking. "She's down there, right now, forgetting who she is—"
"We can't do anything right now!" Percy said, tightening his grip on Liam's other arm. "We're in the middle of nowhere."
"Get off of me!"
Crack!
Suddenly the scent of burned hair filled the air, and Beckendorf and Percy both jumped away from Liam, cursing. His body was crackling with blue electricity.
How could they not care? Their friend was down in the Fields of Asphodel. She wasn't celebrating or having a good time like she should be. Granted, she wasn't in the Fields of Punishment, but she was forgetting who she was—and to Liam, that felt like torture. He would have been able to grieve properly when he thought she was in Elysium. But he just couldn't live with himself if she was anywhere else.
"Liam!" It was Thalia. She was marching towards him, her face angry. "Stop it!"
Stop what? He wasn't doing anything. The electricity on his body had faded, and Percy and Beckendorf were both shaking off their shock—physical and literal. All Liam wanted to do was rescue his best friend. Why couldn't any of them see what they needed to do?
"Liam," Thalia repeated, grabbing his arm. Lightning sparked for a moment on her hand, but it did her no damage—afterall, she was a child of Zeus too. "Look at what you're doing."
Liam looked around him, and realized with a start that he was doing something; above them, the clouds had turned an ugly black and flashed with lightning. The winds had picked up, nearly blowing his friends right into the van. Oddly, Liam was the only one unharmed by the miniature storm. Even Thalia was affected, swaying back and forth as she attempted to talk to him. The others were shouting something at him, but he couldn't even hear Grover's bleats over the storm that Liam had somehow created.
Horrified, Liam forced himself to calm down. Instantly, the storm clouds dispersed and the wind returned to normal. He never knew he was capable of something like that—and it terrified him.
"I—I'm sorry," he said, placing both hands on his cane just in case lightning could jump out of him without warning. "I didn't mean—"
"It's all right," Percy said. "You're not the only one who's accidentally created a small storm."
Liam gave him a confused look before Thalia's voice drew his attention.
"We'll get her, all right?" Her voice was gentle now. "We won't leave her there."
"Promise?" Liam asked. He felt like a little kid asking for ice cream, but he didn't care as long as it brought Alex back to him.
"We promise."
x x x
Chiron was waiting for them when they got back, and he did not look happy.
"Three hours," Chiron said, somehow managing to keep his voice level. "That is how long I have been waiting here for you."
The centaur's normally white stallion body had turned gray, and his tweed jacket had become frayed. His brown hair looked as though it hadn't been combed in several days, and his beard was growing unevenly. Liam couldn't tell if it was because of Alex's death or the stress of dealing with the gods for long periods of time, but he suspected it was the former. Alex had been one of Chiron's students both in school and outside of it—she had trained with the bow under him, and he had even trained her father Lawrence. Chiron took every demigod death hard, but this one seemed to have drained him of the vitality that he possessed before.
They were gathered in the gym of Goode High, where they all attended school. It was about 10:00 at night. Normally, Liam wouldn't have been caught dead at the school at this time, even if training had been scheduled, but desperate times called for desperate measures. They needed to speak to Chiron.
"Chiron," Annabeth started, since she was the most likely to talk their way out of trouble. "We—"
"Imagine my surprise!" Chiron continued. "I had been a few hours late, but I've given you instructions in the past to train without me. When I came here and found nobody waiting, I thought…I thought something had happened."
Liam felt a flash of guilt as he sat on one of the gym benches. No wonder Chiron was pissed. When they hadn't shown up, he'd probably thought that monsters had gotten them too.
"I don't know why you could possibly be possessed to be so careless, but—"
"Chiron," Liam interrupted, his voice tired. His head was throbbing and he was continuously fighting down the urge to fly to Los Angeles (where the portal to the Underworld was) to free the girl he loved. "It's about Alex."
Chiron froze.
Annabeth handed him a piece of paper, which she had used to create a rubbing of the blade of grass Alex had sent them before it collapsed into dust. Alex's handwriting was fairly well preserved. Chiron read the message quickly, made a strangled sound from the back of his throat, then read it again.
"How can this be true?" he finally asked, looking up at the group of demigods gathered around him. "Nobody can 'rig' a trial in the Underworld."
Thalia and Percy elbowed Liam, and he cleared his throat. He told Chiron the whole story, starting with the black crossbow bolt in Alex's chest (where the others, thankfully, didn't say anything about the tears in his eyes) and ending with the message from Mrs. O'Leary. Liam made sure to mention his suspicions that Alex knew more than they did about the Syndicate, possibly something terribly important.
Chiron seemed tremendously troubled by the news of the Syndicate, especially when Liam told him about Thaddeus's views of the olympians.
"Percy," Chiron said, running his hand through his hair. "Do you still know of the rogue demigod?"
Percy paled a shade or two. "I think so. Why?"
"He might respond to your attempt at communication."
Percy sighed. "All right."
Confused, Liam and the others followed Percy to the male locker room that adjoined to the gym, where they could more easily create a stream of water from the showerheads for a proper Iris Message. Liam looked to the others for answers, but if they knew who this "rogue demigod" was, they weren't giving him any answers.
Percy pulled a golden drachma out of his pocket, sighed again, and threw it into the small rainbow that he had created. "Oh Iris, Goddess of the rainbow, show me Nico di Angelo…uh, wherever he is."
For a moment, the rainbow shimmered, like it was trying to decide if Percy's instructions were accurate enough. Eventually, though, it seemed to make up its mind, and the group huddled around Percy in an attempt to see what the shimmering square of light in the middle of the room showed them.
It wasn't as weird as it sounded.
Liam blinked as the image came into focus. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but not…that.
The Iris Message was showing them an image of a kid who was maybe fourteen, but he was the scariest looking fourteen-year-old he had ever seen—and he had a little sister that age. Nico di Angelo was wearing an aviator's jacket, black jeans, and a T-shirt with a close-up image of a skull on it. Oh, and he was using a chain for a belt, which Liam thought was creative but a little odd. He had dark black hair, and looked like he was in the middle of reading a book titled World's Grimmest Graveyards and seemed to be enjoying it.
Percy coughed. Nico didn't even jump, like most people did when they were interrupted by an Iris Message. He just glanced up from his book, sighed, and closed it with a soft thud.
"What do you want, Percy?" Nico's eyes flicked to the group of people surrounding the son of Poseidon. "And friends."
"Nico," Percy said. "We need your help."
There must have been something about the desperation in Percy's voice that swayed Nico. The younger boy looked as if he were about to refuse, but he hesitated.
"Fine," he said eventually, not sounding too happy. "You're all at the school, right? Great."
The Iris Message ended suddenly with a soft pop. Silence filled the locker room.
Liam looked around at his friends, none of which looked concerned. "What just happened?"
"Just wait for it," Thalia said.
Liam waited, but nothing could have prepared him enough for the sudden shadow that seemed to grow out of the wall.
It was very sudden. One moment there was a solid wall, and the next a boy with a skull shirt standing in the room with them. Thankfully, Grover shouted out in fright first, so Liam's exclamation of surprise was somewhat drowned out. Liam had only ever seen hellhounds travel through the shadows before. If a demigod was doing it…
Nico seemed a little more tired, but he adjusted his coat and stared around the room. "Hello."
"Ah, Nico," Chiron said, poking his head into the locker room since he was too tall to fit inside. "Nice of you to join us. I believe our friend Liam has a request to ask of you."
Liam gulped. Why did people always single him out? Not that he was intimidated by the scrawny fourteen-year-old that had just materialized and who may or may not be the son of Hades. No, that would be insane.
So, trying his best to appear confident, Liam explained the situation to Nico—how Alex was trapped in the Fields of Asphodel and how her trial had been weighted against her from the start. Liam didn't mention his feelings for her (he wasn't sure how comfortably he could tell a stranger that) or that she was the daughter of Artemis (usually demigods asked how that was possible, and Liam was sure Alex didn't want the fact that she had been a punishment for her mother broadcasted everywhere). Then, of course, he had to explain the Syndicate to him, and by the time Liam was finished, his mouth was very dry and his throat was sore from talking so long.
"So what do you need me to do?" Nico asked.
"Well," Chiron said, stroking his beard. At some point during Liam's explanations they had moved back into the gym. "We would all appreciate it if you could…urm—"
"We need you to help us break her out," Thalia interrupted bluntly.
Liam sighed. Leave it to his half-sister to clarify things in a single, blunt sentence.
Nico crossed his arms. "And you can't do that on your own because…"
"Nobody knows the Underworld like you do, Nico," Annabeth said. "If anyone can get her out of there, it's you."
Nico clenched his jaw. He seemed to be struggling with the decision. Liam could understand why. He'd gone against his own father before, and Zeus had nearly killed him. Liam imagined the decision was even more difficult when your father was the Lord of the Underworld.
"Nico," Percy said, the desperation that they all felt showing on his face. "We'd all owe you a massive favor."
That seemed to make the decision easier. Liam'd had five powerful demigods as friends, which made the decision immeasurably easier—for a wandering demigod like Nico, having them in his debt could mean a lot better protection for him.
"Fine," Nico said, sounding defeated. "I'll see what I can do."
And with that, the son of Hades faded back into the shadows.
A moment of silence passed before Liam said something.
"What now?"
"Now," Annabeth said, frowning as she thought, "we figure out a way to get you back into the heart of the Syndicate."
I hope you guys enjoyed this. I also need some feedback—I don't really know Nico's character as well, so it would be great if you guys could help me out with that (cough cough review cough cough). Thanks!
What do you call a man with no arms and no legs hanging on a wall?
Art.
(again, my mom told me this one)
