Chapter 5

Family council, in the living room.

Sound's familiar? It's not.

Chapter 5

Tribal Council

This is not Survivor

The man turned to Lin. "Kaiserin, are you all right?"

Lin nodded. "I feel find, but I heard what you were saying. I deduced that Mrs. Prentiss is my mother. Is that true?"

"Kaiserin, it'll take a while to explain it. Yes, it is true." The man replied, smiling reassuringly at his daughter, Lin.

"Excuse, me, trespasser," I said. "If you're not going to explain this, then you ought to leave, or I'll call the cops."

"Whenever you can handle it, kid." The man leaned against the couch. His feet were propped up on the coffee table.

"Start by saying who you are and where you came from." I prompted, a bit impatient.

"I am Nico di Angelo. I used to live in Los Angeles, and before that, where ever I could. I am Lin's father; you can get a paternity test. I am fully capable of taking care of her, so there's no use calling the social service."

"How do you know my mother?"

"We've known each other for years, but we drifted away twenty years ago." He answered, looking calm and competent. I wanted to smash his face in.

My mother beckoned me next to her on the couch. "Tsarevich, I know this is hard for you to understand, but Nico and I, we had a child together…"

I reeled back in shock. "How could you? I know that father's not around, but that doesn't mean you can just cheat on him. And whose kid am I?"

"I didn't cheat on him, tsarevich. That was before I married him." My mother smiled weakly. "You are the son of Minerva and Jonathan Prentiss, you can get it tested if you don't believe it. But Lin…She's your half sister."

LIN WAS MY HALF SISTER!? I liked her, and not in that brother sister way. That was incest, I had incestuous thoughts, and I didn't even know! She had kissed me! MY OWN FREAKIN' SISTER KISSED ME ROMANTICALLY!! Oh dear, this was terrible.

Lin's head shot up. "How? Dad always said that my mother was dead."

Nico's hand gripped the arm rest tightly. "You were never really old enough to understand the truth, Lin. And I didn't want to hurt you."

"I am old enough, father." Lin said in icy tone. "I'm almost eighteen. I have a right to know."

"I know," Nico said resignedly. "Fine, here's the truth. Minerva Harmand died when she was sixteen, from strangulation. I was the one who killed her." He glanced at Lin and me sharply, cutting off our protests.

"Since I am the son of Hades, Lord of the Dead…" He turned to me. "The Greek myths are real, boy, just like your mother taught you. I went to Hades to rescue her, but my lord father always has a price."

"Father never told me his price right out, and he never told you mother at all. He was the beginning, the source of all those child stealers. Have you heard any of them?"

Nico ticked them off on his fingers. "Let's see…Rumplestiltskin, that German folk tale. He wanted to take the maiden's first born child. And the Ballad of Tam Lin. I know you know it Lin, but does your little half brother know?" He looked at me, his eye brow raised in question. I knew that he was testing me.

I remembered learning about ballads in literature, so long ago. I flipped through my mother's book shelf. There were some books…Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean! It had been dreadfully boring, those college kids never interested me, and the last forty pages were the only good parts. I remembered that there was a copy of the ballad in the beginning.

"It's a Scottish ballad, isn't it? Janet, that girl who wears the green kirtle and lives at Carterhaugh gets knocked up by a guy named Tam Lin. But he belongs to the Unseelie Court, and the fey queen wants to take him to live with her forever at Halloween. And the only way to save him is to pay the queen with a baby." I remembered the plot

Nico nodded. "Yes, the price was the first born. Lin. My father gave the baby to me, to raise. I don't think he knew that she was his own grand daughter. I never told him. He didn't deserve to know; he would have just taken the baby for himself and raised it underground, away from everyone else."

"Lin, I did it to protect you. Forgive me, but it was for your own good." Nico looked incredibly sad for a moment, then his face cleared and he showed no emotion, not an ounce, once more.

Lin sat there, silent as a rock, taking it all in. "Mrs. Prentiss is a mother…my mother…" She finally said, after a few minutes of nothing but silence.

"Lin, I'm so sorry about all of this…" My mother began, a bit hesitantly. She wrung her hands. "Nico, your father…he took the baby. I never saw you again. I didn't know your name, what you looked like. I tried to forget. But there was something about you, when I first met you at the stands in Belmont Park. I thought it was just old lady superstition or something."

"Mrs. Prentiss…mom. It's okay. There's nothing to forgive, and let's not try to forget." Lin looked hopeful. "Maybe we can just be a family now."

Nico cleared his throat. "We can't be a family. The pieces of the enemy are regrouping. We lost so much last time, and I think that we might have to fight and lose much more. The monsters are gathering, slowly, over twenty years. You may over look them, but they're still there."

"What do you mean, monsters? That Greek myth stuff again?" I asked. This was another bombshell being dropped. How many could a person take before he dons a black trench coat and guns everyone down at school?

"Yes, boy. The monsters – you might have heard of them - are rising again. Look in the newspaper." Nico picked off the New York Times from the coffee table. "'Killing spree in Seattle'" He read, off the front page. "It says here that the victims have been rent apart, and their blood drained. It must be the work of the vampires, those filthy parasites."

"There's nothing we can do about it this infestation," Nico said, his voice stony. "We have to just try and fight it, hoping for luck and what ever victories. We are spread thin, especially so, after the last battle. So many lost, the halls of Hades were deluged, flooded with lost souls. We try and fight as hard and as much as we can, but we're failing. Our blood is spread thin."

"What do you mean?" I asked, curious. "What blood?"

"The demigod blood, the blood of immortals is in my veins. The Greek gods, they sire children. But they have stopped having so many. It has been the god blood that started this war, and it is god blood that will finish it. It has been a blessing and a curse, this prophecy. I am a half blood, and our blood is running thin. Lin can help as much as she can, but she's only quarter blood. Her Sight is weaker, her reflexes are slower. She's almost mortal." Nico said this contemptuously. "Mortals are fleeting and ephemeral, but they come in such huge numbers. Enough to conquer any enemies. Only if they join together, which has never happened in the history of human kind."

My mother gasped. "Nico! You can't drag our kind into your battles!"

Nico snarled at her. "Minerva, you know the prize. Western Civilization. It's falling apart, and we need all the help we can get. Why should we, the children of the gods, shed our blood to save such undeserving people? The children of the titan Prometheus, human kind, should help too. Otherwise, all is lost."

"We can't make all the humans join together." My mother stated, bluntly. "It's simply not possible. Mortals are violent and aggressive, and even I don't have enough money to buy them off."

"We don't need to buy them off. I think I may have an idea…" Nico trailed off, thoughtful.

Author's Notes: So, how did you like it? Seriously. Review. I think it's a bit weird that both Nico and Min named their kids after each other, and have pet names that are each other's.  Pretty weird, right?

I'm getting fed up with all you losers not reviewing. You notice that this story is on the edge of a knife, with two separate pathways. Will Nico's idea work? Or will Western Civilization be lost?

And I can make it fall off the blade in anger, and it won't be able to be changed. This is the way to go, I think. I could kill off everyone with one fell swoop. All four birds with one single stone, launched from the keyboard of a furious author.

I'm getting tired of you. That's what Herbert the Pervert from Family Guy said to Lois's dad. And that applies to this situation.

So hurry up, and why should only my three faithful reviewers be the only ones to review? This is in the story, about half bloods fighting for mortals.

REVIEW OR EVERYONE DIES.