Chapter 13. Nico: Dark Thoughts and Evil Deeds.

Somethings should never have to happen.

My mom dying, Bianca and me being abandoned, Bianca's death, the war, and now Percy's disappearance.

I never wanted them to happen. But then you never exactly got what you wanted, did you? Right now would be the perfect example.

I wanted Bianca back. I wanted Percy back. I wanted Vanessa in a way that I couldn't understand. I wanted to be more than 'that scary looking guy' in Camp. I wanted to matter.

All these wishes nibbled the edges of my hurt slowly and steadily. They sent jolts of pain through me when I thought of them. I was painfully aware of them. As much as I wanted them, I needed other things.

I needed answers. Where is Percy? Was that really Bianca at the Lotus Hotel? Who was Vanessa, really? Why were we attacked by so many monsters? What was going on?

As powerful as they might be, our needs always overpower our wants. That's why I'm running after the blond apparition that keeps appearing wherever I go. I needed answers. And now I am going to get some.

I ran through Camp, attracting a few strange looks, which I ignored. It was summer and Camp was at its most beautiful. I remembered Vanessa's expression as I gave her the grand tour. She had been captivated. The memory stirred parts of me that I'd never expected to feel again after Bianca's death. The steady rhythm of my feet hitting the ground had a hypnotic quality and soon I found me swept up in memory.

It was most confusing.

Vanessa stared at the sea, enraptured. Her lips were parted and her eyes sparkled. The sea breeze whipped her hair around and I found myself wondering how it feel like to run my hands over it. Seagulls flew high, high in the sky then gliding in slow, lazy circles down again. Vanessa absorbed all it in, never taking her eyes off it for a second. I should be annoyed that she wasn't listening to me but now I was just perplexed.

I was fully aware of Vanessa. I could see everything about her. And yet I could see something else too. I could see it as clearly as the day it happened.

Bianca stood at the edge of a beach, her stance and and her expression much like Vanessa's. It was the first time we had seen the ocean. That we remembered anyway.

It was a few months after that lawyer, which I now knew was a Fury, came to take us from the Lotus Hotel and Casino. We were in some boarding school in a gods-forsaken town. I couldn't remember the name of the school, much less the town. But I did remember that every weekend the school allowed us to go out on picnics. Bianca and I always went to the beach. Always.

Oh, don't get me wrong, we never actually went in the water. We may not have known about the whole child-of-the-Big-Three thing but I guess our instincts warned us that going in would be a very bad idea.

That was our first picnic of many and we had stared and stared at the ocean until the sun set and we had to go back. It had a hypnotic quality that drew us. The waves seemed to whisper of secrets we would never find out and the sea breeze played with our hair joyfully.

Now it reminded me of Percy, in a way. It had hidden depths that surprises us. It had treacherous waves that could destroy us. It had calm waters that charmed us. I wondered what Percy would say if I told him what I was seeing.

He would probably say that I needed a shrink. Maybe I did. Other people most definitely do not see their dead sister and their friend standing side by side.

Vanessa turned towards me. Bianca did too.

"This is wonderful, Nico!" Vanessa's voice was soft. "Thank you for bringing me here. I never thought I'd see a beach this beautiful again." She smiled.

"Isn't it beautiful. Nico?" Bianca's voice was different. It sounded more big-sisterly. But not unkind. Bianca was never unkind. At least, until she joined the Hunters.

"Yeah," I answered both of them. My voice was a sharp contrast to theirs. It was dull and non-committal. I was talking to a memory.

I definitely needed a shrink.

I was brought back to reality by the sharp sensation of a knife at my throat.

"Oh Nico, my dark angel. You sure are making a lot of mistakes today." A gravelly voice was whispering in my ear. I knew that voice. I frowned, trying to focus my jumbled up mind. It was the voice of that girl. The strange one. My eyes flew open. It was like someone had flicked a switch in a dark room.

The girl I was chasing! My eyes darted around, taking in my surroundings.

I was in some dark alley formed by two cabins that were particularly close together. At the end of the alley I could see Camp Half Blood in all it's summer glory. Campers laughed as they went about their daily activities. Dusty sunlight illuminated the whole area, giving it a dreamlike quality, A bang echoed through Camp, probably from a prank. It did seem unusually loud for that, though.

The girl pressed the knife harder against my throat. I pulled at her arm and her fingers but they were locked in a death grip around me. I couldn't breathe. Minutes passed by slowly with the two of us locked in a battle of wills, neither willing to yield. Finally, I gave up. I gasped for air, acknowledging my defeat although I hated to do girl let me go, seemingly satisfied. She stepped in front of me, blocking the glory of Camp.

I fell to my knees, still gasping. My throat hurt. My head hurt. The girl smiled like she could sense my pain. I stared up at her.

Her glowing green eyes and ghoulish smile were back.

"Now why is my angel running after me?" Her voice traveled down my spine like cold water. I hated it.

"Stop...calling...me...that" I managed to gasp out. Every time I managed to squeeze a word out my throat constricted with pain. The girl's ghoulish smile widened. It did nothing for her looks.

"Calling you what? Angel? But, my angel, that's what your name means doesn't it? At least that is what my infernal 'siblings' say." She made quotation marks with her fingers when she said 'siblings'. "You're my angel of mystery and darkness. I don't know your role in the prophecy. Not yet. But you will certainly be useful to me in the future." There she goes again with the prophecy.

"What prophecy? Who are you? Do you know where Percy is?" My throat still hurt but the pain was bearable now so I ignored it. The girl threw back her head and laughed. It was a witch's laugh. A crazy laugh. I wanted to put my hands over my ears and block out the sound of the laughter. It brought back memories that I never wanted to touch again. My father's indifference, my sister's abandonment, dark thoughts and evil deeds. I shivered.

"Yes. Of course you'd want answers. But I don't have time to answer them. It was a mistake when my host let you see her like this. She fights. She fights hard. But I am in control of course. I always am. After all, who can resist the power of the Earth? But, I am no longer just a personification of the Earth anymore, am I?." She smiled cruelly. I stared at her, dumbfounded. She seemed to have forgotten my existence completely in her ranting. "In my years of slumber I have gained a new power. A power over memories. A power over you puny little mortal minds. It is now the foundation of my plan. And, I must say, it is working perfectly." She smiled down at me. I struggled slowly to my feet once more.

"Where. Is. Percy?" I growled, pulling out my ring. Instantly my sword was at hand. She eyed it disdainfully.

"I took him of course. What else? And don't bother using that stick on me. You'd only destroy this body, which is hardly my whole being. It is just a fraction of a fraction of my true self." She took Percy. And she possessed the body of a Camper. I have to tell Chiron. Maybe I couldn't harm her, whoever she was. But Chiron and the gods certainly could.

"Don't even bother," her voice was like a caress. She sounded like she was talking to her favorite child which was being a little annoying. "Who would believe you? They are already afraid of you, babbling about possessed Campers will only serve a reason for them to kick you out, won't it ?" I blinked. For a moment, I believed her. They would never believe me. I am insignificant. I am untrustworthy.

I lowered my sword. Insignificant. Crazy. Unworthy. My thoughts slowed to merely a trickle. They were confused. No... there was something I should remember. I strained trying to remember. The harder I strained, the further the memory seemed.

Suddenly, I remembered. Vanessa's open trusting face. Annabeth's prideful anger. Chiron's somber seriousness. Percy, brave and loyal down to the core. They would believe me. The poison from the girl's words faded. My mind cleared. I remembered. I smiled at her.

"Looks like you don't know me very well." I lifted my sword over my head. The girl's eyes widened. I brought it down.

Goodbye, freak.

At the last possible moment, the girl caught the hilt of my sword. It stopped and I stared at her in shock. There was no way a normal person could do that. But then, she isn't normal. The girl glared at me, all smugness gone.

"You will pay for that," she hissed. "But for now I'll deal with the mess my infernal host has left me with." She reached out and grabbed a handful of hair. I yelled out in pain. In a voice that was as thick and gravelly as the Earth, she chanted twisted, old words in Greek. Their meanings were so distorted and corrupted that I could hardly understand them.

When she was done, she released me and I fell to the ground for the second time in so many minutes. My head felt light and woozy. I couldn't remember what was I doing here. I couldn't remember who was the girl before me. I couldn't remember anything she had been saying. My eyelids felt oh-so heavy. As they slowly closed, I saw the green glow leave the eyes of the girl before me and the last thing I remembered was a 'thump' as she hit the ground too.

Then, there was only darkness.

When I came too, I had the strangest feeling that I was forgetting something important. I had a few strange flashes of memory. Glowing green eyes. A prophecy. Percy. My sword flashing as I brought it down on... something.

I woke up and rubbed my sore head. I groaned at stood up, my knees creaking. I felt a thousand years old. I stopped short when I saw what was before me.

A girl sat there. She glared at me angrily. I had a feeling that I had seen her before. She had green eyes. Glowing green eyes. But the eyes that were looking at me so angrily were blue. Just normal blue. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"How do I know, you freak? I woke up in this horrifying mess, you were sleeping like the dead and my ankle's busted." And so it was, I saw. It was pointed at an awkward angle. The girl clutched it, her knuckles white and her face screwed up in pain.

"Uh-oh." I had a horrible feeling I wasn't going to get any rest any time soon. The girl grinned nastily.

"That's an understatement sucker." I groaned.

That was how, a lifetime of shrieking and crying later, I was standing in the Big House. I had to standing while the girl was probably getting a nice bed in the infirmary. I had managed to drag the girl to Chiron in the Big House and made up a wild story about us getting into a fight. To my surprise, the girl went along with it.

"Are you sure that is really what happened?" Chiron frowned. The were huge gaping holes in my story, I know, but I was too tired to even bother trying to cover them up. All I needed was a nice rest.

Vanessa was looking at me worriedly. Some other time I would have been pleased at the attention but not now. My throat hurt. My head was spinning. My stomach was doing somersaults that made me queasy. My body ached. I was swaying on my feet.

"Nico, Nico, are you alright?" A sweet, sweet voice was calling my name but I was already gone.

Darkness swooped me up for the second time. This time I hoped I get a nice, long rest.

"Look at his neck. What do you think happened there." Vanessa said worriedly. She was worried about me. I felt like smiling for some insane reason.

"Red marks. Like someone tried choking him," replied another voice. This voice was more analytical and harder than Vanessa's sweet, warm one. Annabeth. Of course, she had probably been eavesdropping on Chiron. I resisted the urge to laugh. Poor Chiron. "Oh look," Annabeth was saying. "He's coming around."

I opened my eyes. Two girls stared back at me. Annabeth's long golden curls tickled my nose and I sneezed. Vanessa laughed, relieved. I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair and looked around. I was in the couch in Chiron's office.

"You're alright!" She beamed.

"Yeah, we thought you were in a coma or something. What happened?" Annabeth's voice was dry but there was a flicker of worry in her eyes.

"I was just tired, I guess." My answer was casual but I had a feeling something was happened. I felt like I had lost some time. It was the same feeling I got when I thought about the years I had spent in the Lotus Hotel. I felt... disorientated. Lost.

"You're tired from a fight with an Aphrodite girl?" Annabeth raised a skeptical eyebrow. Vanessa was quiet, I noticed. Unusually so. Glancing over at her, I noticed that she had a crease between her forehead and her lips were pursed.

"Aphrodite girl?" I asked, confused. The crease between Vanessa's eyebrows deepened to a sharp 'V', and I remembered. That girl I had to carry to the Big House. The one I had no memory of meeting. "Oh, yeah. I mean, no. I was tired before that." I watched at Annabeth warily, wondering if she could see through my lie. But she was looking over my head, with a faraway look in her eye. I was careful not to look at Vanessa, it would only give away the lie. "Annabeth?" I shook one of shoulders slightly. She jumped.

"Yeah? Oh, yeah sure." She turned to Vanessa, her face getting a sharp, businesslike look. She opened her mouth to say something but we were interrupted by the noise of hoofs at the door. We turned around to see Chiron standing at the door. He looked even more serious than usual. Which means bad news. Chiron walked, uh, trotted in. His hooves sounded unusually loud in the quiet room. He looked at Vanessa expectantly.

"Um, I have to go... do something important." She fled from the room and I resisted the urge to laugh. Very subtle. Chiron and came in and sat down on his wheelchair, which sat at a corner of the room, abandoned. It was summer after all.

Chiron did not even try to be subtle. "We have received a prophecy," he boomed in his voice. I half expected his voice to echo around the room.

"Yeah. I figured." Chiron continued like he hadn't heard me.

"Annabeth, if you'd please." Annabeth cleared her throat and began to recite the prophecy. Not, I noticed, before throwing Chiron a dirty look.

"They shall begin at the lady who watches,
And travel east along Earth's trail,
It shall end at the coil which catches,
There the three are destined to fail.

Mind and heart shall break the cage,
With the ghost king the hero is freed,
With it comes The Mother's rage,
And through the traitor's tale, sorrow shall breed."

I jumped at the mention of my name. Well, not exactly my name. The Ghost King is more of a title.

"It's my quest?" I couldn't believe it. My very own quest. And a better one than the quest that my dad gave me. Thinking about my father made me remember something. I think he mentioned something about one. I dawdled on the ghost of a memory for a while. Then, I pushed it aside.

Chiron nodded.

"I get to choose who goes right?" I knew I did but I just wanted to make nodded again. I smiled slightly and mentally recited the prophecy. The hero. That had to be Percy. Mind and heart. I frowned. Mind and heart. Then, I knew.

"Vanessa." Annabeth and Chiron looked at me curiously. "Vanessa and Alva. They are supposed to come on the quest." Chiron frowned.

"The unclaimed demigods? I would rather someone with more training followed your lead." My lead. I liked the sound of that. Vanessa was coming with me. On I quest. I brightened even more. The rest of the prophecy seemed insignificant compared to that fact. Annabeth looked uneasy.

"Nico, if I could... volunteer, for this, I mean-" I cut her of with a shake of my head.

"No, Annabeth. I've a got a good feeling about this." Annabeth blinked.

"Fine." She sounded a little mad. For a moment I was worried. Never mind. She'll cool down soon. She turned around and stomped to the door. "I'll get the girls."

That left me alone with Chiron. It was a awkward few minutes. Chiron and I never really bonded. I guess I left Camp to early for that to happen. We spent the time in silence, avoiding each others gaze. Then, Annabeth returned, Vanessa and Alva on each side. Someone else came with them too but I barely managed to get a glimpse of them before Annabeth slammed the door on her way out. Chiron winced.

"I must apologize. She has been rather touchy these past few days." None of us said anything. Vanessa looked a little confused and nervous. Alva, her friend, looked like she always did, like she barely cared about anything. Her scar stood out in the dimly lit room. It ran down her face in a pale white line. I compared her careless attitude to Vanessa's charming ways and wondered how on earth had these two became friends.

Chiron spent the next few minutes talking about quest, dissecting the meaning of each word, blah blah blah. He stopped when he saw that none of us were really paying attention.

"Really," he began in a ... contemptuous tone. " one would think you would pay more attention to this. It could be life-saving!"

"Chiron," I replied, bored. "I spent most of my demigod life outside Camp." Alva nodded in agreement. Chiron shot her an odd look. I sensed a little tension between them.

"Oh?" He sounded sarcastic now. "And what of you?" he asked Vanessa. She looked up at him, her gaze unwavering.

"I can do it." I smiled, proud of her.

Chiron sighed. "You may be very confident of your abilities but I need to see some proof of them before sending you out on a quest." I stood up angrily.

"Oh, c'mon Chiron! Percy's out there!" Chiron only looked at me. His eyes were dark and unusually sad.

"Would you rather you go with some training and rescue Percy or rush out with none at all?" he asked quietly. I had no answer for that.

But I did know one thing.

Chiron knew more about this than he was letting on.