Fasten your seat-belts…
Chapter 6: Zero to Sixty
It was raining. It was raining hard. Nico couldn't see the ground, he was so high up. There were stormclouds beneath and above him, rain everywhere. Bolts of lightning ruffled the boy's long dark hair as they shot by. The noise was deafening. There seemed to be no silence between one burst of thunder and the next.
The sheer power all around Nico was epic and frightening. The wind blew in every direction, as if Aeolus had let his four best go at each other with reckless abandon. Nico was thrown through the air, struggling to control his movement. He wasn't flying, but he wasn't falling, either. He tried to escape the storm, but he could barely keep himself pointed the right way.
Suddenly, Nico heard an impossible sound. Birdsong. There was no way a songbird could survive at this altitude, let alone in this storm, but through the chaos and the terror came a pure white dove, singing so sweetly that, despite the downpour, Nico calmed down. The dove seemed oblivious to the storm itself. Every wind buoyed it up, the rain water seemed to make it stronger, no lightning ever shot even close to it.
As Nico watched, three ragged brown vultures trailing smoke pursued the dove, until a blade of wind slammed all three of them together, and a single bolt of white light disintegrated the unfortunate predators. The dove flew on, past Nico, into the heart of the storm. For a split second, Nico heard, over the wind and the thunder and the fading song, the cry of an eagle in flight.
The boy fell a thousand feet, and landed in the ocean.
-Ω-
Rachel threw on a "Let's Van Gogh!" t-shirt and a pair of paint-spattered denim shorts. This was good. This dream was very good. And it was a little but crazy and confusing, but she knew how to rectify that.
Red curls bounced up and down as Rachel jogged through camp barefoot. At night. Alone. Holy Hera, she was so dead if someone caught her. She came to Demeter's cabin and hid behind a potted Russian Olive, waiting for a patrol harpy to budge up and keep waddling on patrol. When the fat chicken lady was out of sight, Rachel dashed to the end of the arc of buildings, her pale feet a blur on the grass.
As she came to the door of Hypnos' Cabin, she paused. She wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing. Chiron would never punish Rachel for coming to him about something important, but this dream had felt odd. Different. And Delphi's power was supposed to be blocked. She wanted to be sure it hadn't been an ordinary dream. And there was only one person for the job.
She reached for the doorknob, and suddenly jumped back as the door was flung open from the other side.
Rachel had seen plenty of weird and strange stuff in her life, but this had to top the list. Clovis was awake. In the middle of the night. And he had combed his tree-bark brown hair, dressed in camp attire, tied his shoes correctly, and from the smell of his labored breathing, had brushed his teeth.
Rachel almost didn't recognize him.
She went to speak, but Clovis, in a hushed whisper, beat her to it. "One sec." He stepped outside, closed the door behind him, and turned in a low tone. "Ok, good, you're here, that's convenient, although it's to be expected, you did wake up first…"
"Clovis! What's going on? I don't even-"
"Shh! Not so loud! Half a mo, let me think… Okay, yeah, so, get the rest, then… Right. Rachel, go and get Piper McLean, and the Hecate Counselor, what's her name? Melon? Helen?"
"Lou Ellen? Why? Look, I had a dream that-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I saw, the dark cave, Delphi's power, Aphrodite's message, wait… didn't she tell you what to do?"
"No! It didn't make any sense! And what about Aphrodite? What does she have to do wi-" Rachel stopped cold, looking at Clovis incredulously. "You… saw… my dream?"
Clovis returned her look. "I can see everyone's dreams when I sleep. Read their thoughts, too, if I try hard enough."
"You can what now?"
Clovis' stare became penetrating. His deep brown eyes seemed to fill with a purple mist, swirling with every shade of blue and yellow. He smiled just slightly. "You'd be surprised what I can do, Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Now. Piper McLean. Lou Ellen. Meet me in front of Hades' Cabin, and don't. Get. Caught. We don't have time to explain to anyone. Time is of the essence."
And all of a sudden, Clovis had a knife. Rachel stared as Clovis tested the edge of a slim, silver stiletto, six inches long in the blade, double-edged, with tiny Greek letters etched into the metal.
Clovis saw Rachel's eyes pop and smiled even more. "There's a prayer to Hypnos carved into the knife. I need to go cut a rod from the poplar tree out back, then fetch Will Solace."
Clovis quickly put away the knife before dragging Rachel into the long reeds that grew all around Hypnos' cabin. Two satyrs, part of the night patrol, walked by with flashlights. As they moved on, Clovis leaned into Rachel's ear and whispered. "Go, my friend. Quickly now."
Lying down, Rachel began to turn in the reeds. She wanted to see the colors in those eyes again. But when she looked, he was gone. Nothing but a low wind in the reeds that seemed to whisper. My friend. My friend. My friend.
-Ω-
Nico could swim. Kind of. He didn't spend much time in the water, but he'd swam in the canoe lake before. Lots of times. But swimming through the middle of a hurricane was not in his skill set.
It was all he could do to keep his head out of the water. Walls of water slammed into him again and again, forcing him to fight his way back to the surface for a precious lungful of salty air. The sky was dark with gray storm, and it was impossible to know if it was night or day.
Nico looked up in desperation, trying to think of what he could possibly say to Poseidon that would warrant rescue, when he saw something really ridiculous.
There were an awful lot of birds flying through this storm. A huge gray owl was winging over Nico's head, looking at him with bright eyes. It folded its wings and dove, plunging into the water. Nico found himself being pulled under with the owl. Taking a breath, he sank into the swirling blue waves. He opened his eyes and found he could see just fine under water.
And there was that owl. The creature moved through the water as if it was flying through the sky. It darted about, with lazy flaps that sent it shooting through the sea. As Nico watched it swim, the color of the water around him changed. From a steel-blue to a lighter blue, to a brilliant blue green.
When Nico resurfaced for air, the sky was clear. The storm was gone. The sun was high, and the water flat in every direction. The owl came bursting out of the azure plain, spinning as the seawater came spiraling from its light gray feathers. It turned to fly into the horizon.
The sun abruptly began to fall out of the sky, from noon to an instant sunset in an instant. The Son of Hades was swallowed in darkness.
-Ω-
Clovis was having way too much fun. The poplar rod in his hand wasn't helping matters. He'd stripped the stout stick of branches or leaves. Whenever he came across a volunteer satyr or patrol harpy, he'd move through the shadows beside them, strike them in the small of their back with the rod and mutter a word in Ancient Greek. The goat boy or chicken lady would collapse right where they were, lost in a dreamless sleep.
He had reached Apollo's cabin. Moving to a window, the boy peered inside. He reached out with his mind, and he could sense sleep in all of the campers inside. All but one…
Jogging to the golden door, Clovis opened it silently and stepped into the dark cabin. The sight of all those sleeping youth unnerved Clovis. He didn't want anyone to wake up. Going down on one knee, he pounded the poplar staff on the ground. A wave of magic washed over the room, putting restless and light sleepers into deep REMs.
Suddenly, Clovis realized his mistake. Will. The healer had been sitting awake on the side of his bunk, but he was starting to topple over. Unaffected by his own magic, Clovis strode to Will's side, grabbed him under his arm, and fairly dragged him to the door.
Back outside, Will, sitting with his hands between his knees, began to awake from the veil of the spell. A lone satyr on patrol spotted the two campers from across the green. "Hey! You two! Don't move!"
"If he whispers any louder, he'll wake up the camp." Clovis grumbled. He waited for the satyr to reach the front of Cabin 10. "C'mon, Will. We've gotta go."
The satyr was enjoying this. "Well, you two are in for it now. You're lucky I'm not a harpy, or you'd be dinner. Who said you could be out after dark?"
Clovis hefted his stick. "The goddess of love." Swinging at the confused satyr, he smacked him right between the horns.
The next day, his satyr friends would still be trying to wake him up.
-Ω-
Nico was underground. Which would have comforted him, were it not for the grizzly bear.
The thing had been chasing him since he'd found himself in this underground maze. The tunnels were twisted and confusing, like the Labyrinth, but no death traps. Just dirt walls and the bear. At least, it was mostly a bear.
When Nico had come to a fork in the tunnel, he'd chosen the more claustrophobic route, in the hope that the bear would get stuck. And it had been stuck. For about 5 seconds. Then it'd morphed into a slim leopard and come barreling down the shaft like a wall of animal death.
Now Nico looked over his shoulder and saw the bear was changing a second time. If it chose leopard again, it would run him down and kill him. Nico looked ahead to see if the end was in sight. Nothing but tunnel.
Please not leopard, please not leopard, not a tiger or a panther, no cats, please, not leopard...
It didn't choose leopard.
The ivory tusk swept Nico's legs out from him as the thick gray trunk grabbed him by one leg and chucked him farther down the tunnel. Nico tumbled head over legs over aching head. As he came to a stop, he tried to prepare himself for hand-to-hand with an elephant. Dazed, he looked behind him.
As Nico had flown down the tunnel, something had fallen out of his pocket. It laid in the path of the beast, now a bear again. It scooped it gently into one paw and sat back on his haunches, staring at it.
It hadn't wanted Nico. It had wanted the jewel in his pocket. A ruby the color of blood, glinting in the darkness of the tunnel. The bear held it close to him as the jewel glowed brighter. The tunnel collapsed all around the Son of Hades, just as he began to understand.
-Ω-
Piper was running out of drachmas. She'd tried over and over again to send a simple Iris Message, but nothing was working. She'd messaged Annabeth just to make sure her connection was working, and then tried again. Nothing. What was going on?
Sighing, she turned of the spray gun and the flashlight, moving to leave Cabin 9's one bathroom.
There was a freckly, curly-haired ginger on the other side of the door. "Little late for powdering your nose, isn't it?"
Piper blinked. "R-Rachel? What are you-"
The Oracle held a finger to her lips, using a finger to motion 'Follow me.'
Piper followed Rachel past the rows of her sleeping siblings and out of the cabin. Waiting just outside was a familiar looking sorceress.
"Hey Pipes! Hold still real quick, 'kay? I need to layer you in Mist."
Lou Ellen touched the middle finger of her left hand to the ring finger of her right hand, then vice versa. Black mist curled around her hands, and then flew to Piper, wreathing her in a darkness that quickly disappeared. Lou Ellen blew black smoke off of a finger gun. "That's how it's done, fools."
Piper sized up the trio. "So, Rachel, girls' night out?"
"Well, not exactly. We're meeting the boys soon." Rachel blushed when she saw the way Piper's eyebrows went up. "Not like that! Clovis and Will are waiting for us at Hades' cabin. We all had dreams from your mom, and now we need to help Nico."
Piper smiled. "Will and Clovis, huh? Can I bring Jason if you two are bringing your boyfriends?"
To her surprise, Rachel blushed even deeper at this. "Clovis isn't- I don't- you know what? I don't have to grace that with an answer." And she stormed off in the direction of Hades Cabin.
Lou Ellen sidled up to Piper. "I think you hit a nerve."
"Hey, I thought the Oracle swore off boys, anyway?"
The pair almost woke up Camp Half-Blood with their laughter.
-Ω-
"Great, the ocean again."
Nico didn't usually talk to himself, but this was getting old. At least he had a boat this time, and there was no storm. Nico was floating on some kind of raft, with a crude white sail and a bronze navigation panel that he didn't know how to work. He was floating just offshore of a very unpleasant looking island.
The entire mass of rock was a concrete monster with iron bars and barbed wire for decoration. An enormous prison island, like Alcatraz, but scarier. Shadowy wind spirits flew around the caps of tall lookout towers, which were equipped with searchlights that swept back and forth. The place reminded Nico of the Underworld, but in this case, that wasn't a good thing. Nico found himself pitying whatever poor souls were incarcerated there.
Nico wondered what would happen if his raft was spotted. Sans sword, Nico didn't like his chances against those spirits. He wondered if he could get the complicated bronze dashboard working, when he spotted something.
The tallest tower on the island had a single celled window, as if a solitary cell was the cause of all this security. Atop the tower was an enormous black sign, like a billboard. One word. The name of this place, it would seem, written in chipped white paint. Nico could just make out the letters.
Ogygia.
Suddenly, the sky was on fire.