AN: Thanks to the awesome Reyna Rocks for reviewing this story! So glad you liked it. Your username is extremely accurate, by the way! xD

OK so here's Chapter Three, feat. our favourite (and only) son of Hades...

The Ghost King Arrives

"Ugh."

Nico di Angelo eyed Camp Half-Blood with distaste. He'd been gone looking for Percy for around five weeks now (the kid was lazy, okay?) and hadn't gotten lucky. It was weird. Usually, Nico could tell if someone close to him was alive or dead, but Percy seemed to be completely blocked from him.

He sighed. Annabeth would be so sad. He wasn't the biggest fan of Percy Jackson, but he was his cousin and they'd saved each other's lives a few times, so they had a special kind of bond most cousins didn't have.

Camp was looking good, if you were into the whole sunny and blue skies sort of thing. Nico? He preferred the night in his cabin, curtains pulled closed tightly so not a single ray of light could enter. He didn't get why people found that creepy, though.

Nico sighed again and began making his way down the grassy hill over to Chiron's office.

Before he got there, though, he almost died. Literally.

An arrow went zooming towards Nico's head. Instinct saved his creepy butt, however, and he ducked just in time before looking around coldly.

"Stay calm, Nico," he told himself. "The chicks will love it."

"Sorry! Sorry!"

It was a Latino boy running towards him waving his hands in apology and frustration. He had curly black hair and an elf-like face. "Sorry, man. I wasn't aiming at you, honest."

"Okay," Nico said, staring at him like he was turning the pages of his life story one by one.

Of course, Nico couldn't really do that. But all he had to do was tilt his head a little, widen his eyes and stare. People would think, "Crap. It's like he's staring into my soul and finding out my most secret secrets" or some poetic nonsense like that.

"Hey, are you new here? You should go to Chir-"

Nico silenced him with a wave of his hand. He felt so badass when he did that, like Professor Snape from Harry Potter or something. Snape...Nico's eyes teared up. He was Bianca's favourite character in the series. Before she had died, of course. Nico blinked the tears away and looked at the ground.

"Bianca," he whispered. "Ooh. I don't wanna die. I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all."

"Dude...are you singing Bohemian Rhapsody?" The Latino Elf Boy had raised his eyebrows. "My mom had that record."

Nico was jolted back to his senses and rolled his eyes in a bored, world-weary way. He'd read somewhere that chicks loved that. But LEB wasn't exactly a chick, although it couldn't hurt to try.

"I'm not new here. I'm going to Chiron now, anyway. Tell me, is Annabeth Chase here?" Nico said in a very business-like way.

The Latino Elf Boy - LEB for short, Nico made a mental note of it - nodded quickly.

"Yeah. She's in her cabin, working on some calculations."

"Good." Nico stared into the distance dramatically, radiating enormous amounts of badassery and epicness. "Tell her...tell her the Ghost King is here."

"Dude, you been eating red meat?" LEB asked, but it was too late. Nico was already striding off to his cabin, chortling to himself that LEB so had the hots for him.

-x-

Annabeth was busy studying formulas and calculations for the Argo II, but it was no use. Percy, Percy, PERCY was all she could think about. She missed him. She missed his smile and his eyes and his smell and his tendency to splash little kids with water and then say "Look alive, bitches! LOOK ALIVE!"

She chuckled to herself, fond of the memory. Then Leo burst inside, making her jump.

"Weird emo dude with creepy eyes and creepy clothes and a creepy sword just turned up and said he wasn't new here-"

"Leo, calm down! What are you saying?" Annabeth tucked her curly blonde hair behind her ears.

Leo took a deep breath and said coldly, "The Ghost King is here."

Annabeth gasped.

Leo gasped too and yelled, "What?"

She giggled. "Nothing. I'm just messing with you. The Ghost King, eh?" Her eyes widened. "The Ghost King?" She jumped up and ran out of the cabin, Leo running after her.

"Nico!" Annabeth screamed as she sprinted to Cabin Thirteen. "Nico!"

Leo followed, bemused, and muttered to himself, "I knew that barbecue meat we had yesterday was dodgy."

-x-

Jason saw Annabeth and Leo running towards the new cabins at the end of camp. He'd been cleaning out the stables, and that really sucked. So, curiosity got the better of him and he jogged after the two demigods, hoping wherever they'd been going was fun.

-x-

"Mama," Nico sang. "Just killed a man. Put my gun against his head, pulled the trigger now he's deaaa-"

"Nico di Angelo!"

Annabeth had burst into Cabin Thirteen. Nico shrieked and rolled off his bed, where he'd been listening to Bohemian Rhapsody and slow-dancing with a ghost he'd just summoned. The ghost evaporated as he got back up.

"No!" Nico moaned. "Eliza Marie Jane Antoinette Henryson VII! Why'd you go? We could've had it all...rolling off my bed..."

"Enough singing, Death Boy," Annabeth snarled. "Any news on Percy?"

"No," he snapped, sitting back on his bed and glaring at her and Leo, who'd been laughing silently to himself. "Or yes. Maybe I'm just not telling yo-"

"No games," Annabeth hissed, her hand going to her dagger that was strapped to her belt. Nico gulped.

"Okay. Seriously? No news, Annabeth. Nothing at all. I'm sorry."

Annabeth took a deep breath. "I knew it."

"It's like he's blocked from me completely. I don't know who's doing it, or why, but they're definitely a strong force."

"Hey guys!"

Jason had joined them. Nico eyed him coldly.

"Who's this?"

Jason grinned goofily at Nico and offered him his hand. Nico stared at it like it was made of dead slugs and pegasus crap.

"Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, slayer of-"

"I don't care, man." Nico shrugged. Then his eyes widened. "Wait..."

"What is it?" Annabeth demanded, leaning closer to him.

"I can sense something..."

"What!" shrieked Annabeth impatiently.

Nico ignored her. "Not Percy...not him. It's a girl. A dead girl! I smell death."

"What are you s-saying?" Jason began sweating and looking nervous.

"I'm saying," Nico told him coolly, "that a teenage girl has recently been murdered, right here in this camp."

The shocked gasps of Annabeth, Leo and Jason all echoed down the hills and valleys of Camp Half-Blood.

Of course, Jason's was totally fake.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

AN: TO BE CONTINUED!

Cliffhanger. A really rubbish one. But the next chappy will be the last! Sorreh.

Review This & I'll Love You.

-A