5

The next time Nico awoke it was with a strange sense of contentment. He wasn't so deathly tired anymore. He felt stronger. And he felt warm for once. Very warm, in fact, and comfortable.

He grabbed two fistfuls of the covers and pulled them snugly around him then turned onto his side and buried his face in the pillow.

Then he realized that he had no idea where he was.

Both of his dark eyes snapped open and he took in his situation. Unlike the last time he awoke, the sights that greeted his eyes were less disturbing. He was in a small room with dark blue walls, instead of a cavernous room with oppressing white walls. And he was on a twin bed with a cloth pillow and a pile of different colored blankets draped over him, rather than a king sized bed that threatened to swallow him, with stupid white sheets and an even stupider headrest for dead Egyptians. There were some pictures on the wall. Posters of fish and a fantasy art print of a black pegasus.

It didn't take one of Athena's kids to figure out whose room he was in.

Nico sat up slowly, reluctant to leave the warmth of the bed. He felt a bit guilty as he realized that he'd stolen his cousin's bed from him the previous night, but that was quickly drowned out by panic as he realized that he wasn't wearing the same clothes that he'd had on last time he was conscious.

A dark green sweat shirt hung off his thin frame, the sleeves covering his hands completely and dropping past them a good six inches. Nico's hand flew to his chest to touch his heart scarab through the shirt. Then he tugged at the neck of the sweatshirt, hoping to find his black T shirt beneath it. No luck. Someone had changed his clothes while he slept. Probably Percy. And unless he had done it in the dark, then there was no way he could have missed the big stone scarab imbedded in Nico's chest.

Nico groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He stood and tried to take a step, but ended up getting tangled in his oversized jeans and fell to the floor with a very loud thump.

Great, he thought miserably, that's sure to bring someone running.

Sure enough, footsteps sounded in the hallway then the door opened. Percy peered in cautiously then his eyes went to Nico on the floor. He stepped inside his room and hurried over to his cousin. "Are you okay?"

Nico jerked his head in a nod then touched his heart scarab again. "You saw." He didn't phrase it as a question.

"The stone bug that's stuck to your chest? Yeah," confessed Percy, "I saw."

Nico looked at the rest of what he was wearing. A pair of jeans that must have been Percy's too and a pair of warm black socks. Not his usual all black wardrobe, but it wasn't bad, even if it was colorful. At least they were dark colors. And they were warm.

"What? Hey!" protested Nico as Percy picked him up off the floor and set him back down on the bed. "I'm not a kid."

"You are too a kid," Percy told him. "And dressed like that you're even more obviously one."

"Chronologically, I'm older than your mom you know," said Nico irritably. "Probably older than her mom too."

Percy rolled his eyes, and then started rolling up Nico's sleeves for him, as though he was all of three years old. "Mom's washing your other clothes for you, by the way. You'll have to endure wearing these until they've finished drying."

"At least they're not white," muttered Nico. He tolerated Percy's mother-hen behavior, since he knew he'd need the practice for when Sally Jackson finally got her hands on him.

"Are you really okay, Nico?" asked Percy after he'd finished rolling up Nico's sleeves. There was unfeigned concern in his eyes that made Nico feel uncomfortable and guilty. He hadn't meant to inconvenience Percy so much.

He meant to lie and try to assure his cousin that he was fine, but the words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. "I don't know."

The worry in Percy's expression went up another notch and he sat down beside Nico, still looking at him intently. "Does it hurt?" he asked. "The beetle thing, I mean."

"Sometimes," Nico said honestly.

"Were you planning on telling me about it if I hadn't seen it?"

"Probably not," confessed Nico. He bowed his head slightly. "Sorry."

"Are you going to tell me about it now?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Nico." Percy just said his name once and waited until the younger boy looked up and met his gaze before speaking again. "You always have a choice. If you're really that dead set against telling me what happened then I'm not going to twist your arm into it. I just hope that you know that whatever trouble you're in, I'm here if you want my help. I hope you know that you can trust me."

"I do trust you," muttered Nico. He forced himself to keep looking at Percy while he spoke, though his eyes seemed to be demanding that he look away, at the walls or the ceiling, or out the window, or anywhere other than his cousin. "More than I trust anyone else. More than I've ever been able to trust anyone else." He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around the outside of his legs to hug them close, and hoped that his embarrassment at this touchy-feely comment wasn't showing on his face. "There has never been anyone who's ever tried to help me like you have. Even when I was horrible to you after . . . well you know."

"You were young and in pain and I'm not big on grudges," Percy told him.

Nico tore his gaze away from Percy and rested his chin on top of his knees. After Bianca had died he really had been horrible to Percy. Even when he'd known it wasn't really Percy's fault, he'd been so furious that he had to lash out at someone. He'd seen what happened in his nightmares; how Bianca had stupidly picked up the Hades figurine and tried to leave that junk heap place with it. How Percy came up with a plan to kill that giant Greek mecha-thing, a plan which Bianca had stolen and tried to put into action by herself. Nico didn't know which of those actions was more stupid. In hindsight he was realizing a lot of things about his older sister that he felt bad for thinking and would never have dreamed of speaking out loud.

She'd been shallow. Hypocritical. She tried to act like she was the grown up and tried to mimic what she thought their mother would have been like, and had been overly strict. Only letting him watch G rated movies, no candy or fast food, no swearing, or Magic: The Gathering cards because some of the images on those cards were too violent or scary. Nico had only rebelled once, and that had left his sister in tears, threatening to leave him alone in the world and never look back. He'd never gone against her or questioned her lame attempts at parenting after that, but she'd gone and abandoned him anyway. She'd joined Artemis' Hunters because she didn't want to be saddled with the responsibility of caring for Nico, then she'd gone and gotten herself killed doing something so freaking stupid that were she anyone else, Nico would have thought she deserved a Darwin Award.

So why? Why was Percy always looking out for him? He didn't have to. No one told him to. Nico wasn't his responsibility or his little brother. They were family, but only in a convoluted, DNA-less way that rendered any real family or genetic ties null and void. He'd been nothing but horrible to Percy, telling him that he hated him, acting like the biggest brat in the world, stupidly getting himself into trouble and forcing Percy to save him twice, then accidentally betraying him in the Underworld. So why did Percy give a care what happened to him one way or the other? No one else did, and of everyone in the world, Percy had more reasons to hate him than anyone else? So why? It didn't make any sense!

He was raised as an only child. It can get lonely.

Nico's head snapped up as Anubis spoke. You!

Yes. It's me. I thought I'd check in and see how you and the Kane siblings were doing, but it seems you've been busy while I left you to your own devices.

"Gods, you're one annoying jackal-headed freak."

"What?" Percy sounded more than a little taken aback.

"Not you!" Nico said quickly. "I wasn't talking to you! I'm sorry."

You should be nicer to your cousin. He seems to genuinely care about you, and he's not loud and obnoxious like my cousin Horus is.

Nico held up his hand, making a motion to Percy to wait a second. "I need a minute. Sorry. I'll explain to you, just as soon as I . . . gods, there's no way to say this without sounding like a lunatic."

"Uh, okay. Take your time," said Percy generously.

Will you leave so I don't have to carry on two conversations at once? Nico asked. Or were you planning on using me as your freaking marionette and having a heart to heart with my cousin like you did with big-headed Carter and ugly Sadie?

Sadie's not ugly, Anubis said immediately.

Yeah she is. You just don't know any better because you're too used to seeing people with hippo heads or mummified faces. Or, of course, freaks who have a whole giant scarab in place of their head like that Capri fool from your pantheon.

Khepri, Anubis corrected him. And speaking of the scarab, I have been doing some research into the matter.

"Really?" Nico perked up. "What did you find out?"

"What?"

"Not you. Sorry." Nico shook his head, trying to keep his thoughts straight.

"Are you okay, Nico?"

"Yeah. Just talking to the voice in my head. I'll explain to you in a minute." He switched back to projecting his thoughts at Anubis. What did you find out?

Nothing.

Nothing? Then why in Hades' name did you even bring it up?

To let you know that I have been looking into the matter. As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened before. Scarabs have always been used as symbols of good fortune and rebirth. You are probably aware that scarabs made of carved stone were placed over the hearts of the deceased during the mummification process –

To keep the heart from being weighed down by its sins when you weighed it against your stupid feather, Nico cut in, or to help the soul learn how to turn into a bird, which makes even less sense than trying to lighten a heart by weighing it down with a rock.

Its purpose when it was placed over the heart was symbolic, Anubis tried to explain, not literal. And how did you learn all this? I thought you were dyslexic.

I am. I raised a dead librarian to read to me.

. . . and you say that I'm the freak?

Last time I checked only one of us had a jackal head, and it wasn't me.

Anubis gave a mental sigh. I also looked into the reasons that my past subjects began removing the heart and replacing it with a stone scarab, to try to figure out why the change came about.

Let me guess, that didn't turn up anything either.

I'm still researching it. There are millions of souls to be questioned and sadly none of them have perfect recall. After being dead more than three thousand years details seem to slip their minds. So far the only thing I have been able to learn is that the embalming process was sometimes altered in hopes that replacing the heart with a scarab would transform the deceased's soul into a living personification of death. The spirits who mentioned this used ambiguous wording and weren't very forthcoming, but I will try to find out more.

If that's all you've got then would you mind getting out of my head for awhile? I want to talk with Percy now.

He felt rather than heard Anubis give his consent, and the god's consciousness began to withdraw from his own. But it didn't decrease to the level that Nico considered normal.

You're still there, he accused. I can feel you.

I thought it best to leave a bit more of my consciousness with you, so that I am not so out of the loop every time I check in on you.

No. I don't want you here spying on me all the time. I want to talk to my cousin without any interruptions.

And I will let you. Unless you speak to me directly I will not interfere, but I think it's important that I know.

Nico could feel that there wouldn't be any compromising on this point, but still, he had to try. I'll bring you a Happy Meal if you get out of my head.

A Happy Meal?

Alright, two Happy Meals!

Anubis sent his confusion through their telepathic link. Why would the meals be happy?

Nico's brow furrowed. Because they're Happy Meals! Don't you know what a Happy Meal is?

?

. . . never mind. There went Nico's best bargaining chip. He gave a mental sigh. Alright, you can keep enough consciousness in my skull to know what's going on, but don't take me over again or I'll . . . I'll start singing at you. Everyone knows it's annoying when you get a song stuck in your head, but I imagine it's a lot worse to be stuck in someone else's head while they're trying to get a song to stick in your head.

Now that things were settled with the voice in his head, Nico turned to Percy. "Sorry," he said.

"Are you okay?"

Nico shrugged. "I seem to have quite a few problems right now. Last chance to back the heck out while you still can."

Percy shook his head, as Nico knew he would. "What kind of person would I be if I let you do this alone?"

"A normal person," said Nico honestly. "Which we both know you're not . . . and I'm glad. Because if anyone can help me with this . . ." He cringed at how sappy what he was saying sounded, but he needed to throw Percy a bone every now and then, let him know that he was appreciated. "If anyone is completely insane enough to want to help me with something this screwed up it would be you!"

"I'll consider myself counted in, then," decided Percy. "So why don't you tell me what's going on? And why don't you start with the voices in your head?"

"Not voices. One voice. Singular," explained Nico. "The Egyptian god of death somehow tangled his soul with mine, and can't separate them now, but can now possess me at will."

"Wha- what?" Percy stared at him. "Possess you?"

Nico nodded morosely.

"Egyptian god of death . . . that's Osiris, right? The guy with the green face who's wrapped up like a mummy?"

Nico shook his head. "Osiris is the god of the dead. Anubis is the god of death, the process, and also the god of the dying, and embalming. Apparently no one from the Egyptian pantheon was man enough to be the death god by himself, so they had to split it up. Unlike my dad, who is not going to be happy if he ever finds out about this." He could feel Anubis' annoyance at his judgment of the Egyptian gods' manliness, but the god kept his word and didn't offer any comments.

So Nico explained to Percy what had happened four days ago in the park, from his point of view. He skimped on the details about how badly the Ribbons of Hathor had hurt, and how he'd been sure that he was dying right then and there, but he could tell by his cousin's expression that Percy knew he was omitting how much danger he'd been in. Percy had seen what happened, of course, and judging from the shadows on his face, Nico was pretty sure he must have been a really sorry sight.

He continued on to the part about meeting Anubis in the Egyptian underworld, and how he shouldn't have been able to get in there at all since all demigod souls were the property of the Greek gods, then told Percy how he'd nearly incinerated whatever was left of his own soul trying to use his powers and how then something had happened when Anubis touched him. He explained about waking up in the Kanes' house, and about how he was pretty sure that they let their pet monkey put a needle in his arm and hook him up to an IV, and about how it continued to be one nightmare after another, as he found out that Anubis could completely take control of his body whenever he felt like it, and how he'd blacked out right after Anubis left.

By the time he got to the point where he woke up the second time, he was feeling exhausted all over again, as though he hadn't spent the last five days doing nothing but sleeping. But he managed to tell Percy about how he'd found the winged scarab on his chest when he went to wash off the dried blood and the sweat, and how he'd discovered that it wasn't just stuck over his heart, but had actually replaced his heart. He explained how Anubis was pretty freaking useless, not knowing anything about it, or even why his own subjects had decided to alter their funeral customs on occasion and replace some of their mummies' hearts with scarabs.

By the time he was finished, it was all Nico could do to keep his eyes open. He'd long since abandoned the attempt to stay upright and had flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling while he spoke.

"Well," said Percy when Nico finally reached the point where Percy had charged in to rescue him, "this certainly is . . ."

"Screwed up," Nico supplied. "I'll give you one more chance to get out of this. You can pretend you never heard any of this if –"

"I'm involved," Percy cut him off. "You're my friend, and you're in trouble, so I'm here. And I've kind of gotten this whole saving the world thing down by now. So stop trying to get rid of me."

"I dun wanna get rid of you." Nico slurred his words a bit, he was so tired. "'m glad you're on my side. Just wanted to be fair to you."

"So is getting tired out so fast a side effect of hosting a god?" Percy asked. "It doesn't sound like you've been awake more than an hour and a half in the past four or five days."

"Might be," said Nico. "A side effect, I mean. This isn't even supposed to be possible. Egyptian gods can only take certain hosts. Certain bloodlines make better hosts than others, and they usually ended up becoming Egyptian royalty. Makes sense that the gods would decide to rule here on earth, I guess. But they never managed to possess a demigod, and alot of them tried. Back when the Roman Empire pwned Egypt and the House of Life started rounding up and banishing all their gods. Before, they'd stayed away from demigods because the two pantheons had a healthy fear and respect for each other and didn't mix, and they didn't want to piss off our gods by possessing their kids. When they got desperate, many of them tried to take demigod hosts at the risk of pissing off our parents, but it didn't work. Our powers aren't compatible. Or at least they're not supposed to be."

Nico stopped talking and frowned. "How do I know that? Anubis didn't tell me that. So how . . ."

You have access to some of my memories when I leave this much of my consciousness with you, Anubis told him. It sounded like he was talking from far, far away, and he also sounded a bit distracted, like he was attending to something else. If you try to remember something that I remember, you'll be able to. Part of the time at least.

"Well that's just great," Nico told Percy. "Our mind meld gives me access to some of Anubis' memories. I guess this means I can see instant replays of all the corpses he's desecrated in the name of embalming."

Percy patted him on the shoulder. "Well, that's good news. What you remembered at least. If Anubis is right, then demigods can't be possessed by the Egyptian gods, with you as the only exception, then we have a little less to worry about."

"How so?" asked Nico. He somehow felt like he should be able to figure this out on his own, but it took too much effort at the moment.

"We don't have to worry about the Egyptian gods' war coming to us," explained Percy. "If we can't host them, then the Egyptian gods shouldn't be too concerned about us, and the House of Life should be busy enough trying to seal them away that they won't try to make an enemy out of us. If the demigods, or our parents decide to get involved in their war, it will be on our own terms at least. And if they think that demigods can't be possessed by the Egyptian gods, then they'll have no reason to suspect that you've got Anubis hanging out in your skull. If they think it's impossible for an Egyptian god to possess a demigod then they won't think that you and Hades are allying yourselves with the Egyptian gods for some sort of takeover."

"They might sense him in me if they come face to face with me," pointed out Nico. "The other gods might be able to feel his power in me. My dad will know for certain. He'll know that there's a foreign god's power inside of me, probably the moment he sees me."

"Can you avoid him for awhile?" Percy asked. "Long enough for us to figure out how to exorcise Anubis?"

Nico nodded. "I can try. It shouldn't be too hard actually, since he really doesn't care what I do. But if he finds out about this, he's not going to like it at all, Percy. I know that Zeus and Poseidon will think he'd jump at the chance to ally himself with an Egyptian death god and try to shift the balance of power, but he wouldn't do that. As much as he pretends otherwise, he likes things the way they are. He likes having his own kingdom, away from the other Olympians, because being around other people so much annoys him. He wouldn't try to change that by teaming up with foreign gods, and he would never allow anyone to trap me in my own skull and use my body as their puppet."

"I believe you," Percy told him. "But have you considered that maybe he could actually help you –"

"No!" said Nico frantically. "He can't know!"

"Nico–"

"I only just got him to see me as a real person! As someone worthy to be part of the House of Hades. I can't let him know how bad I just screwed up, getting myself possessed by a potential enemy and putting myself in a position to be used against him! That's what he'll see this as, Percy! He might even kill me himself. It will be the easiest way to get rid of the threat, and in his mind he'd be protecting me rather than hurting me."

"Alright, I get it," said Percy as soon as Nico stopped for breath. "We'll find a way to get Anubis out of your head without your dad's or any other god's help. Any idea where to start?"

Nico considered this for a moment. "With breakfast?" he suggested hopefully when nothing else came to mind.

Percy smiled at that. "Sounds like a plan."

Percy had to carry Nico to the breakfast table. His cousin protested this rather loudly, but wasn't strong enough to try to resist. Percy did give him the chance to try to walk on his own, but Nico hadn't been strong enough to. He fell down three times before Percy decided that was enough, and lifted him off the floor. And his falling down had nothing to do with his ill-fitting clothing. Percy had given Nico a belt to keep the jeans from falling down over his hips. They'd had to use Riptide to punch another hole in the leather of the belt so that it would cinch tight enough, and then they'd had to roll up the jeans' legs the same way Percy had done to Nico's sleeves, but even after all that, Nico hadn't been able to stay on his feet.

"Nico!" Percy's mother said brightly upon seeing the younger boy. "I'm so glad that you're finally awake."

"Miss Sally," Nico said, sounding shy as he always did when talking to Percy's mother. He shrunk away from her slightly, leaning back into Percy before his cousin set him down in a chair at the table. "Good morning."

Sally wasted no time filling plates for both boys, heaping fruit, poached eggs, and toast in front of them, to go along with the big bowls of oatmeal that were already waiting.

Nico was normally a picky eater, Percy had discovered, at least where healthy foods were concerned. He regarded anything that wasn't deep fried or smothered in transfat with great suspicion, and never, ever managed to finish an entire plate that Sally put before him, at least not until today. That morning he wolfed everything in front of him down like it was a race, and gave the second helpings that Sally put in front of him the same treatment. He even accepted a third helping of oatmeal, and finished the entire glass of mixed fruit juice that Sally had poured for him, which was a first.

"Hungry much?" asked Percy when it finally appeared that his cousin was finished.

Nico looked embarrassed. "I guess I was," he said sheepishly. "Thank you for breakfast, Miss Sally."

"You can just call me Sally," Percy's mother told the boy. "You don't have to bother with the Miss." She'd told him the exact same thing at least a dozen times before, so it was unlikely that Nico would change his ways today, Percy knew. "The dryer's broken, so it will be awhile before you can have your old clothes back," continued Sally, "You'll have to make do with Percy's things for now. They're a little big, I know, but you look nice wearing colors for once."

Nico looked down at his attire darkly, and Percy wondered what the kid was actually thinking. Nico had been very venomous when he talked about how many white things were in the room that he woke up in at the Kanes' mansion. He talked about the clothes that they left for him like they were a deliberate insult.

"These are warm," said Nico at last, plucking at the sleeve of his sweatshirt. That was probably the nicest thing he'd ever said about any piece of clothing that wasn't black.

"We've got some stuff to sort out, Mom," Percy told his mother. "Nico was in a bit of a fix when I found him and we've still got some things to sort out."

"So you'll be missing more school is what you're saying." Sally didn't look very happy about that.

"Sorry," Nico spoke up, "but I need Percy's help . . ."

Sally's expression immediately softened and she nodded. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to, Nico," she told him.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"But of course if you're going to be staying here, you'll have to stop being so formal and standing on ceremony," Sally said sternly. "You're family, after all. You're Percy's cousin." Percy could practically see the lightbulb lighting up above her head as the idea came. "Which actually makes me your aunt. If you must call me by some title, then you can call me Aunt Sally. Fair enough?"

Nico looked at her with wide, almost frightened eyes, then nodded shyly. "Yes . . . Aunt Sally."

Sally beamed then turned to Percy. "I assume that this is one of those demigod things that you're better off without mortal interference?"

Percy nodded.

"I'll trust you to know what you're doing then. And to look out for your cousin."

"Of course, Mom."

Sally looked satisfied. "And if there's anything Paul or I can do, you'll let us know, won't you?"

"I will."

"I don't want to find out that you've just been using this as an opportunity to get out of school."

"I won't, Mom," said Percy exasperatedly. "You can trust me." He decided not to mention that Nico didn't seem to attend any sort of school at all.

"Good." Sally turned to Nico and winked. "Keep him in line for me, alright Nico?"

Nico managed to stay awake the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, which was pretty good for him, since he'd become nocturnal since his powers started developing. He was stronger at night and found it harder to sleep then, but weaker and sluggish during day-light hours. He and Percy watched sitcom reruns to pass the time, since there wasn't much they could do in the way of planning until they'd done more research, and not much they could do in the way of researching while they were in Percy's apartment. And going out of the apartment was not an option as far as Sally Jackson was concerned. She treated Nico like a sick invalid, making him put a thermometer under his tongue every hour to take his temperature, as though trying to make sure he didn't have a fever. Nico didn't see the point of this, considering that he had only slightly more body heat than the average post-rigor-mortis corpse, and the thermometer showed that, but he was too scared to argue with "Aunt" Sally. If he tried she'd only kill him with kindness. Or health food.

He took a nap before dinner when he nodded off on the sofa, but he woke up back in Percy's bed again, buried underneath the mountain of blankets Percy kept on his bed. He didn't mind the blankets. Most people seemed to think that just because he had almost no body heat that he didn't feel the cold, but there was a reason that he always wore a jacket. He liked being warm. But what annoyed him was that since he'd fallen asleep on the sofa, this meant that someone (and the someone was probably Percy) had picked him up and carried him again, like he was a helpless baby who couldn't do anything for himself. That really annoyed Nico.

Dinner wasn't too bad on Nico's health scale. Sally fixed carbonara pasta and didn't say anything when he drowned his salad in Ranch dressing. For desert there was homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream, which made Nico think that perhaps, if Sally offered to adopt him, he might seriously consider her offer.

When the sun started to go down he finally felt normal again. No, not normal, actually. Better than normal. Stronger than before. His old demigod strength and powers felt like they'd been restored and then some. The change must have been obvious from his appearance too, because Percy finally stopped looking at him so worriedly.

"You look like you're feeling better," commented his cousin once the sun had set all the way.

"I do feel better," Nico told him. "Better than normal."

It's because you have my power flowing through you, Anubis told him.

"Anubis says it's because I have his power in me," echoed Nico for Percy's benefit. "Though I'd rather have privacy inside my own head than a foreign god's power."

I'd rather not be in your head to be honest, Anubis told him. I prefer to mind my own business and deal with the dead rather than the living.

Liar. I know you've been sneaking looks at my Mythomagic strategies. You think I can't tell which of my thoughts you're digging through?

Your strategies border on lunacy and are of no use to me. I would destroy you in a match.

Is that a challenge? Nico looked to Percy who was looking knowingly at him. He seemed to be aware that his cousin was having a silent conversation with his parasite god. "Sorry," he told his cousin. He hadn't intended to leave Percy out. "So, apparently now I have access to a different kind of power. The same kind of magic that Sadie, Carter, and those House of Life freaks used. But using this kind of magic, and hosting a god in general will make me really hungry."

Now who's spying on other peoples' thoughts?

You started it.

"And your old powers?" Percy asked.

You should still have access to those, Anubis told Nico. They might even be enhanced by the power that you get from me. It's possible that they'll tire you less but make you as hungry after using them as if you'd been using Egyptian magic.

Nico relayed this to Percy who considered it. "That would be good for you, at least," said Percy after a few moments. "It's a bit easier to carry you since I've grown some and you haven't –"

"Hey!"

"It's a fact, not an insult," Percy told him. "In the three years I've known you, you've only grown about two inches."

"Bianca said I'd gotten a lot taller that first time I summoned her," protested Nico.

"The dead often are mistaken where things that indicate the passage of time are concerned," said Anubis, accidentally taking over Nico's mouth. Oops. Sorry.

"Stupid jackal. Mind your own business!" snapped Nico

Percy seemed to have picked up on the fact that something had just happened. Anubis had different inflections, Nico realized, and their accents were differed, with Nico's hinting towards an Italian upbringing and Anubis' hinting of an odd, ancient dialect. And Percy had noticed the difference.

"Was that Anubis who just spoke?" Percy asked.

"It was," Nico told him. He used past tense to let Percy know that he was the one who was in control now.

"So he's awake in your head right now?"

"He's always awake, since gods don't sleep. He just keeps most of his consciousness elsewhere most of the time," explained Nico.

"I've got something to say to him." Percy squared his shoulders and fixed Nico with such a stern look that it made Nico want to shuffle his feet and look away. "If you get Nico hurt there's going to be serious trouble for you. I'll make sure of it."

Nico expected Anubis to give a mental equivalent of rolling his eyes, and to remain unimpressed, but he surprised Nico by asking to address Percy directly. After a brief hesitation Nico gave his permission.

"It's not my intention to hurt your cousin," Anubis said to Percy. "Except for the times when we're figuring out how to untangle our souls, I'll keep my presence in his life to a minimum."

Percy gave a curt nod and Anubis withdrew back into Nico's consciousness. "So do you have any idea what to do next?" asked Percy. "Any god friends that might know how to unstick your soul from Nico's?"

"He thinks that Thoth might know how to help," Nico relayed when Anubis spoke inside his mind. "But he doesn't know where Thoth is. Thoth left the Duat and is somewhere in our world now, so he can't easily get ahold of him. But . . . but he knows someone who knows where he is. Two someones. Two someones who stole my jacket."

"Great," groaned Percy. "I'm sure they'll be real happy to see us after me and my horse broke their window and held them at sword point."

"They've got my boots too," Nico remembered. He looked down at his sock clad feet. He was wearing his own clothes again, except on his feet he still had Percy's socks. On Percy they probably only came up a few inches past his ankles, but Nico had to pull them up halfway to his knees so that they didn't flop loosely around is toes. There was no way he would be able to borrow a pair of Percy's shoes. Not unless he wanted to break his neck by tripping over them all the way to Brooklyn. Not that they really needed to walk to the Kanes' place . . .

"When should we go?" asked Percy.

Nico gave him an impish grin and began bending the shadows around them with his mind. It was time to test out how strong his powers were now that they were boosted by an Egyptian god. "How about now?"

AN: I'm always bugging people for book recommendations, so I figure it's only fair if I share one now and then. So if anyone's looking for a good book to read this summer and wants something along the lines of the Kane Chronicles, I recommend The Pharaoh's Secret by Marissa Moss. It's a modern day mystery about ancient Egypt, with some magic thrown in. I read it over the winter and just remembered it when a friend who just finished The Red Pyramid asked me for a similar book to borrow.

In the next chapter: Bast learns what the Kanes have been up to while she's been gone, Nico gets his jacket back, Aziza and Hakim return, and Percy gets insulted because for once, everyone's not trying to kill him. Please review and tell me what you think!