Chapter 27

Nico di Angelo

Return from the dead

We switched off the news show, overwhelmed with shock. They all were frozen with a mixture of worry and fear on their faces. Finally Ashton said, "Garnet, go to bed. We need to talk."

Garnet huffed. "I can handle the information, you nerd."

Nicky stifled a laugh. "She's not wrong."

Ashton glared at his brother. "Garnet, now. Or I'm letting dad put Rodrick on a diet."

She stalked off, muttering under her breath.

"Nico, I take it you know him. In a negative way?"

"Yeah. He-Wait, Snow. Check and see if Garnet's eavesdropping."

Snow left and urged Garnet upstairs.

Once she was safely in her room, Snow returned.

"Okay, anyway, close to the end of the giant wars, I was on a quest with a Roman praetor and a satyr to get the Athena Parthenos to Camp Half-Blood to help fight...the Roman demigods. Long story. They sent a guy named Bryce Lawrence, Aurora's cousin, after us. He was a mean guy. Made Octavian look like a saint. He talked about how he tortures animals, his dad was the one who directed the Fields of Punishment, by the way-"

"Wouldn't that make you, like, his master? How has he not been put down by PETA? Or arrested? What happened to the satyr? What-"

"Nicky, don't interrupt," Topaz scolded.

"Bitch, you interrupted me to say that."

"If I hadn't, you would've kept going past the limit of her ransom."

He scowled. "There is no ransom. Just family drama or incestful lust."

"Nicky, she's bait. Isn't that obvious?" Snow pointed out.

Nicky glared at her, and motioned for me to continue.

"Anyway, he was supposed to take Reyna, the praetor, back to the Romans, for her trial and execution. He even cut her face," I paused, trying to slow my anger. I was unsuccessful until I remembered how he died.

"And he was going to...test Hedge's...PAIN TOLERENCE. The creep! And I...turned him into a ghost. I withered his body away until only his soul remained, and I sent that to the Underworld. I have...no idea how he could possibly be alive. It's kind of scaring me."

"Do you think he gained any special powers after being brought back from the dead?" Topaz asked.

"I've never known anything like that to happen. Unless...he came out as a demon."

"Well, isn't that a cheerful thought!" Ashton sneered.

"We are going to save her," Nicky said firmly. "But we don't know where he's keeping her."

"She's the bait, so he would have taken her someplace he knew we would have been able to find. Something of importance to her or us. Maybe someplace isolated? Any ideas?" Snow asked.

"I think it's either the Cemetary or the Katrina wreckage." I said.

"The Cemetary gates are locked at night to keep the homeless out. He wouldn't expect us to go there. Is the wreckage important to any of you?" Ashton asked us.

I felt my cheeks go red. "I go there to think...sometimes. That could be it."

"Okay, let's try there. Someone tell Jared to look after Garnet."

Ashton left to go do that.

After a while he came back and we left in Nicky's red Maserati, and he told us about how many girls he picked up with the car, until Ashton told him to shut up and they argued for the rest of the way there.

When we finally got there Snow made them apologize to each other, and we started looking around. We were in one of the lower class neighborhoods, which had been almost completely destroyed due to it being on low ground.

"What are we gonna do? Yell 'Here Bryce! Here Bryce! And wait for him to come to us?" Nicky said sarcastically.

"He will come to us," Snow said confidently.

Sure enough, we found Bryce Lawrence nearby, chilling on a pile of rubble. Below him was Aurora, tied up and gagged, with tears streaming down her face.

Then I noticed 3 others, a guy with dark hair who looked annoyed, a girl who looked like the Disney princess Belle, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, and girl with white blonde hair and silver eyes.

"Let them go!" I yelled.

"What do you want Bryce?" Snow asked calmly.

"An interesting question. What do I want?" He mused.

"Cut the crap, Lawrence. Stop trying to act like a deranged psychopath and tell us what you want!" Nicky yelled irritably.

"Very well. I was brought back from the dead by the Titan Prometheus, using a ritual. He said I would be able to kill you, ghost boy, and how could I refuse that," He laughed in a way he must have thought was sinister. "And I needed to bring him those...gorgeous twins, there. And if possible, he wanted me to get rid of the demigods trying to find the Titan offspring and destroy them. I'm not sure how I'll pick them off, they're at Camp Half-Blood, but I'll give it my best shot."

He grinned with his crooked yellow teeth.

"You really think you'll be able to do that? There are 5 of us, and one of you. And each of us is 20 times more powerful than you, on our own. You're just the son of a minor god, and we are superpowerful immortals and a son of one of the most powerful gods." Ashton boasted.

"Well don't you have a big ego!" He laughed. "But I know what you're thinking. None of you want any of them to die, do you?."

"How did you decide who to take?" I asked to stall.

He grinned again, happy to talk about his accomplishment. "Oh, well, with Snow, she and Scarlett are closer. However, Aurora is easier because she knows me, and is easier to take. Also, I didn't really want to mess with Scarlett because of her parantage...And the rest of them are significant others, and Nicky's best friend because his girlfriend dumped him and he wouldn't care," he snickered.

"Yeah, like you'll ever get a girlfriend you ugly son of a-"

"Nicky, let's try to be diplomatic," Snow chided.

"What exactly-are-your-demands?" Topaz said with gritted teeth.

"I want you and your sister to come, willingly, no struggle, to the Titans lair, and I want the son of Hades to die. If you agree to that, I won't kill them."

"If you really think we're going to just-"

"Nicky. I'll go with him. But you are not killing Nico, and you are not taking Topaz."

He sneered. "That's not what I was told to do or what I'm going to do."

"Really? I'm pretty sure killing Nico was just optional, and what he said to persuade you to do this. But if you fail, he will kill you, no questions asked. He won't care too much if you take Topaz, they're not on very good terms with Atlas right now. And if you lay a-single-finger, on ANY of them, I'll have you tortured and killed by Kronos, and no one will care. Not-one-bit."

He moistened his lips, thinking it over. "Okay. Come here." He tied her wrists Behind her back, and cut the rest of them free. I noticed there was a large hole in the ground, half covered by Katrina debri. He was walking toward it.

But before he had even gotten three steps away, Snow was free, and she had him in a chokehold, and was kicking him in the face. His squashed nose was even uglier now. She lifted him in the air, and he erupted in flames.

Once he was nothing but ashes on the ground, she came over and said, "He shouldn't have taken my word for it." I threw my arms around her and kissed her. "Honestly, Nico, did you really think I wouldn't be able to get out of that?"

I felt ashamed with myself, I really thought she was gone. "Yeah. I guess you used magic to get out of those ropes."

"No. I just have flexible wrists. I'm really good at getting untied."

"Oh. I thought he would have put some kind of charm or something."

"No, he's just that stupid," Snow said with a pretty smile.

"Uh, what are we going to do about those mortals?" I asked.

"Oh, they're not mortals,"Ashton said.

I knitted my eyebrows. "Huh?"

"Aurora is a Roman demigod, my friend Brendan Pierce," Nicky pointed to the dark haired guy, "Is the son of Ares. Alice White, Ashton's girlfriend, the blonde, is a demigod. Not sure about her parent, though. And Juliet Lane," he motioned toward the princess, "Topaz's best friend, we will have to wait for her to be claimed," Nicky explained.

"Should we get them to Camp-Half Blood?" I asked.

"Probably. But...I don't think you're going to be able to go to school, Nico," Snow told me gently.

"I know that. We have to stop Kronos' demigods blah blah blah."

"Uh, yeah. Are you guys okay?" Snow asked them.

Aurora looked like she was in shock about watching her cousin die, even though he had tried to kill her. Alice looked relieved, and Brendan looked satisfied.

"Yeah, we're fine," Brendan answered. "That was cool what you did. I always knew there was something weird about your family."

They all laughed, and he asked "Will I be able to do that when I get to Camp Half-Blood?"

"Well, no, but you'll learn how to fight," Topaz answered.

"Do children of Ares have any powers?"

"No, but they're really good at combat," Snow reassured.

"Well that's a bummer," He said sadly.

"Yeah," Nicky admitted.

"What about Aurora? Do we take her to Camp Jupiter?" I asked.

"We take her home," Ashton said, looking at me like I was an idiot.

"Oh, so do we just go now?"

"Yeah," He said, making me feel more stupid.

"Should we bring Scarlett?" I kept going. "He said she was a demigod. A powerful one."

"Yeah. We can pick her up on the way," Snow said, clearly happy that her best friend was coming with us.

We crammed into Nicky's car, and dropped and dropped Aurora off at her house, which was a gated 4 story house painted light blue with lots of balconys that was somewhere in the Garden District.

She said 'thank you' and got out and sprinted across the lawn and rang the doorbell multiple times until someone opened it.

We drove off, and went back over to the house. Nicky explained the situation to their parents, and they all packed their things. We got a bigger vehicle this time, so as to avoid the clown car incident, picked up Scarlett, who had a house slightly smaller than Aurora's, then let the rest of them get their stuff from their huge houses, and speeded to Long Island.

Finally Snow yelled at Nicky to slow down before he killed someone or got us pulled over.

"Sheesh, calm down, sis," He muttered."Don't call me 'sis' Nicky."

"Kay, Snowball."

She rolled her eyes and started talking to Scarlett.

Even at a slightly slower speed, we got there in about 2 hours, probably because of some charm Nicky was doing. Nicky dropped us off at the hill, and drove away as fast as he had before Snow told him to slow down.

It was about 3 AM when we got there, so it was dark and everyone was in their cabins. We had to wake up Chiron to tell him that we had new campers.

"Oh, dear, this is so sudden. Where do we put them?"

"Well, they said Brendan was the son of Ares," Juliet suggested. "Your cabins are arranged by what god is their parent, right? Put him in the Ares cabin."

Chiron chuckled. "Enjoy your innocence while you can, dear girl. If we sent him to the Ares Cabin at this time of night, he would be mutilated before breakfast. No, best just to let them stay in the here, in the Big House until they are claimed."

"Oh, you have bedrooms above?" Alice asked.

"Ah, well, there's only one available, so why don't we let you three girls take that, and Brendan can have the couch in the living room."

"Sure," Brendan said, though he didn't look happy about it.

"Oh, and be careful of Seymour. Keep your limbs as far from him as you can," Chiron advised.

"Who is Seymour," Brendan asked, looking around as if there was an enemy to fight.

"The stuffed leopard on the wall," Chiron explained.

"What?" Brendan looked disappointed.

"Well, you'd better get some rest. You've had a long night, and you have a big day ahead of you!"