I do not own Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.
AN: I am so sorry for how long this took. I had writer's block on this chapter, and then I went down a Star Wars rabbit hole that spawned a massive AU (which I have started publishing on over on AO3, but haven't put up of FF as of yet). I came back to this chapter around when quarantine started, wrote a few pages, and then went down a rabbit hole on a Harry Potter/Avengers AU. This isn't quite to the point that I wanted, but the whole chapter was getting to be extra long, so you'll be getting two shorter chapters instead of one longer. It means I get to post after thirteen-and-a-half months instead of even longer though.
Chapter Thirty-One: Nico and the Labyrinth
The tunnel he entered would have looked like any subway tunnel in New York – concrete walls, slightly curved, with long lights at event intervals – were it not for the trio of skeletons that weren't much bigger than he was. The bones were bleached white, but the polyester skirts were still hanging limply on their shoulders.
Nico poked one.
"Master?"
"It's weird to think that I'm older than they were," Nico said, poking one skeleton's shoulder and knocking all three over. "Do you think they got trapped down here?"
"Undoubtedly," Minos said. "It can be difficult to escape the Labyrinth if you are unaware."
Nico looked up, alarmed.
"Could that happen to me?" he demanded.
"Of course not," Minos scoffed. "I am the master of the Labyrinth. It cannot keep me inside, and I will not let it keep you, master."
"So, how do we find Daedalus?" Nico asked.
"It will not be easy," Minos admitted. "While I am the Labyrinth's master, Daedalus is still its maker, and it will not be easy to convince us to lead us where we want to go. We will not be trapped as some are – I always know how to find a way out, but traversing the Labyrinth is a trial in itself. Many dark things lurk here. Being lost is not the only danger."
Nico took a deep breath.
"I'm not afraid," he said, trying to be as brave as his mother was, as Percy was. "Let's go."
Fifteen minutes and three different types of tunnel scenery had passed when he faced his first monster attack, when he – quite literally – tripped into an amphisbaena nest.
"Gah!" he yelped, immediately drawing his sword and lopping off the snake head lunging toward him, before immediately lopping off the other head as it tried the same method of attack.
"Oh dear," Minos said calmly. "There's one coming up on your right."
Nico turned swiftly to decapitate another snake, thankful for his mother's training, as exhausting and terrible as it had been at the time. He knew that he wasn't anywhere near perfect, but he could handle killing a nest of double-headed snakes.
Though speaking of his mother, her help would be invaluable about now. Not only could she have simply talked to the snakes and apologized, but snakes almost always obeyed her since she was a Parselmouth, and she was immune to all snake venoms due to the basilisk venom and phoenix tears in her bloodstream. Not that it really mattered, since she couldn't die anyway, but it would have been a helpful addition when being attacked by a nest of snakes.
Unfortunately, she wasn't here, Nico couldn't speak Parseltongue, and this entire adventure was because he wanted to help without her shutting him up in the Underworld for the entirety of the war – or the rest of his life – so he couldn't just call her name into a shadow and wait for her to show up. Besides, she was busy, and he didn't really have time to wait.
Swinging wildly at lunging snakes it was, then.
It only took a few minutes – he thought, adrenaline messed with sense of time even without the ADHD – before he was left with a pile of twice-beheaded snake corpses. He nudged one with the tip of his steel-toed boot.
"Are they all dead?" he asked.
The ghost drifted closer and peered down.
"It looks like it. Did you get bitten?"
"No," Nico replied, running his hand down his other arm. The dragon-skin aviator jacket he wore was pretty much impenetrable, though no one could tell until they tried to pierce it. The amphisbaena hadn't had a chance.
He took a deep breath, sheathed his sword and asked, "Do you see anything else?"
"Nothing, master," Minos replied.
"Then let's keep moving," Nico said, hoping his voice held the confidence he wasn't feeling.
He stepped on the head of a gnome an hour later. The gnome, of course, shrieked and alerted nearly a dozen of its fellows.
Nico used one of the Italian words that he wasn't supposed to know as he drew his sword.
"Kallikantzaroi!" Minos exclaimed. "I didn't know any of those lived down here."
"I don't know what that is!" Nico exclaimed as he stabbed one of the stunted, black creatures. Each had a long, black tail and burning red eyes that reminded him of his mother's stories of Voldemort. Thankfully, despite his ignorance, Stygian iron worked just fine. The gnome was absorbed into the blade.
"These are kallikantzaroi," Minos explained patiently.
Nico tried to kick at one of the approaching gnomes while he was busy slicing at another, only for it to latch onto his boot, though it's teeth couldn't penetrate the steel toes he was thankful his mother insisted upon. He finished the gnome he was attacking and stabbed the one on his boot through the skull.
"Singular kallikantzaros, they originated in Anatolia before crossing the Bosporus strait and invading almost the entire Balkan peninsula," Minos continued as Nico disposed of the fourth and fifth gnomes. "They live underground, except for the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are the only days they can stand the upper world. I didn't know that they'd invaded my Labyrinth as well!"
He at least sounded grumpy about the last bit.
"The Labyrinth is between the upper world and the Underworld, right?" Nico asked before kicking gnome number seven into the wall while slicing through the outstretched arms of gnomes number eight and nine. The touch of Stygian iron was enough to dissolve them completely.
"And they live underground, so they probably found their way here easily enough," Minos grumbled. Nico stabbed gnome number seven. "It's a good thing that you've Stygian iron though. Since they weren't originally Greek, they're immune to celestial bronze."
The last gnome shrieked in fear before running away from Nico. It had short legs though, even shorter than Nico's, so it wasn't hard to run after it and embed his blade in the gnome's back.
"Those are annoying," Nico grumbled, looking around to make sure there wasn't anything else waiting to attack him before sheathing his blade.
"Annoying, yes, but they're also cannibalistic. Well, maybe not cannibalistic – I don't think they eat each other – but they do eat humans."
"Why didn't you tell me that before now?" Nico asked in horror.
"It wouldn't have made you fight better, master" Minos said pragmatically. "I have known a few people who died after being eaten by kallikantzaroi. Usually babies; they like babies best."
"You judge the souls of babies?" Nico demanded.
"Of course not!" Minos sounded offended. "Those who die as babies are automatically reincarnated. They've no deeds to warrant the Fields of Punishment or Elysium."
Nico looked around at the dust created by the dead kallikantzaroi.
"There has to be a way for me not to walk into monster nests," he said. "I don't want to end up stepping on – I don't know, a baby Hydra next time."
"That would be inadvisable, master," Minos said. "Have you considered animating a skeleton and sending it before you? That way any monsters would react to the skeleton, and you would have the opportunity to either run or prepare yourself to fight."
"I've never animated a skeleton before," Nico said. "I've never animated anything before."
"Your parents have not instructed you how to use your powers?" the ghost asked.
Nico scowled at him.
"They've been a bit more concerned with fighting and shadows and geokinesis. I know how to summon the zombie chauffeur, but I don't know how to summon skeletons. I'm not that good at manipulating bones."
"Well, then we'll find a skeleton and you can practice, master," Minos said. "It will be good for you. Hopefully you won't step into something else before we find a skeleton."
He didn't step into something else before they found a skeleton. They found a somewhat-recently deceased body five minutes later.
"He hasn't been dead very long," Minos announced after poking his finger through the corpse. "A week or two, maybe. The tendons and muscles are still mostly intact, which makes him perfect as your first candidate for reanimation!"
"Why does that matter?" Nico asked, trying very hard not to breathe through his nose. The zombies his parents summoned didn't smell.
"The muscles and tendons are what allows a body to move, master," Minos explained. "While you have the power to animate a mere skeleton, using a corpse that still has its musculature will be simpler and less tiring than a skeleton."
"Okay. What do I do?"
"You have to want it," Minos coached. "Reach out with your power. Feel the corpse. Tell it to get up and walk in front of you."
Nico didn't think that was the clearest explanation, but he closed his eyes and started to reach out with his senses, just like his father had taught him to do with the earth. It wasn't the earth he was trying to feel though; the earth was all around him. He wanted the dead body in front of him to move. He'd sensed it already – there was no other way they could have found a recently-deceased body so quickly. Now he just needed to control it.
"Just move already!" he ordered, opening his eyes to glare at the corpse.
To his surprise, it did exactly that, rising up on shaky limbs.
"Huh," he said, dumbfounded. "That works, I guess."
"Excellent work, master!" Minos praised. "Now, simply order it to proceed in front of us as we move through the tunnels."
"Uh," Nico said. "Walk that way…until I tell you to stop! Or there's an intersection!"
The corpse didn't blink, or nod, or any other kind of acknowledgment, but it did start walking in the direction he'd instructed.
Nico simply stared at it for a moment, before Minos pointed out, "We should probably follow it, master."
They followed the corpse for several hours, during which it was shot through with spears that spewed from the walls, caught in snare that yanked it up to hang from the ceiling, and set on fire after flames erupted from the floor. It was pretty much down to the skeleton with a few hanging pieces of burnt flesh still clinging stubbornly to the blackened bones.
They paused at what seemed like the thousandth intersection that day.
"Check the left side," Nico ordered the walking collection of bones.
The skeleton headed into the tunnel. Twenty seconds later, a low growl filled the air, followed by the sickening crunch of bones snapping.
"Not that way," Nico said faintly.
"You may wish to run, master," Minos advised. Even the ghost looked worried.
The growls and crunching noises got louder, which was all the urging Nico needed to bolt down the right-hand tunnel. Unlike most of the long, straight tunnels they'd passed through before, with numerous intersections and other corridors, this passage was as curved as a mountain road and had no offshoots to speak of.
He could hear lumbering footsteps behind him.
Nico rounded a curve and almost immediately fell through a wall, into the shadowed light of day.
The first thing he noticed was that he was standing under an overpass – that was topped by another overpass, and another, and another, in a dizzying array of overpasses in what looked like the most complicated interchange ever.
The second thing he noticed was that Minos was no longer beside him.
"Minos!" he yelped.
The ghost didn't respond.
It took a few minutes of panic for Nico to remember that ghosts couldn't come out into the light of day.
"Right," he said to himself. "He won't be back until the sun goes down."
He glanced around. He still had no idea where he was, but plenty of homeless people slept under overpasses all the time and were fine, and he was feeling tired, so he might as well sleep the rest of the day away until Minos could come back and lead him through the maze again.
It had been difficult enough with the ghost's help. He wasn't going to try doing it on his own.
He ducked further into the shadows in the corner of the overpass and closed his eyes. Slowly, carefully, he drew up the shadows to hide his doings from anyone watching. It was a trick his mother had taught him, something that he could use to hide from mortal, immortal, and technological eyes.
He couldn't use it to hide from Mamma, of course, and Papà would see him if he was looking, as would Nyx and Erebus, but they didn't know who he was (though Mamma said they would easily guess), but Mamma had also said that they didn't bother with interacting with things outside of the Underworld very often.
He pulled his backpack off his shoulder and dug through it until he found his sleeping bag, pillow, lantern, and the set of carved stones that Mamma said would create a protected area for him to hide in if he ever needed it. He and Bianca both had a set in their emergency bags…which Nico had co-opted as his going-on-an-adventure bag. It still had everything in it he needed to safely camp out in the non-magical/mortal world, so he was sure it was a good decision.
He set up the stones first, making sure the rectangle they formed was big enough for him to stretch out in his sleeping bag. He then took a deep breath and breathed out onto first stone. The carvings on it began to glow, followed by the carvings on the other three stones.
His safety assured, Nico then unrolled his sleeping bag and laid it out. He set his pillow atop it, and then set up the lantern next to it. Hopefully it wouldn't be fully dark by the time he was done sleeping, but the lantern would be useful for taking everything down again so that he could call Minos. Not even the ghost would be able to find him while he was warded.
Preparations done, Nico sat down on his sleeping bag and began rummaging through his backpack for the snack bag Mamma had enchanted. Each snack bag was enchanted so that any food would remain at the correct temperature, unspoiled, and in perfect condition for when it was opened.
The snack bag was an old-fashioned lunchbox with an image of the Disney's Hercules Hades on it. Mamma had showed him the movie just so they could laugh at all the inaccuracies in it. She'd then turned Papà's hair into blue flames for a week, just for fun.
Papà hadn't appreciated it, but everyone else in the Underworld had spent the week trying not to laugh until they'd left the room. Hecate hadn't bothered leaving the room and had turned Papà's skin blue to match.
Inside, the lunchbox was larger than a refrigerator. Nico grabbed a miniature Tupperware container that grew to full size after he removed it from the lunchbox. Inside was one of his favorite foods from Venice – sarde in saor. Mamma had preferred foods from Southern Italy, but he and Bianca were Venetian born-and-raised and loved seafood. It was still comfort food for both of them, since it was a memory of when life was simpler.
He found a fork, opened the Tupperware, and began eating his perfect-temperature meal. His eyes were drooping by the time he finished eating. He barely managed to stuff the Tupperware and fork back into his bag before curling up in his sleeping bag and falling asleep.
He woke up to someone poking him. He swiped at the hand. It was too early for this.
"Bianca," he groaned, trying desperately to bury his head deeper into his pillow. "Go away."
"I am not your sister, and you are not in your bedroom. Wake up, Nico di Angelo. I wish to speak with you."
Nico's eyes shot open as he remembered where he was. There was a woman kneeling beside his sleeping bag, dressed in an array of dark, gauzy shawls, like an old-fashioned fortuneteller. She had blonde hair and dark eyes, and didn't seem to be wearing shoes under her black, sleeveless gown.
He was pointing the knife he kept under his pillow at her in an instant.
"Who are you and how did you get inside the wards?" he demanded.
The woman looked startled for a moment, before a look of realization came over her features.
"Ah, yes, this isn't the form you would recognize me in."
Before she finished speaking, her appearance changed. Her hair darkened to black while her eyes lightened to green and her gown to white.
Now Nico knew who was before him. "Lady Hecate," he said, shoving the knife back under his pillow and bowing his head. "I'm sorry for not recognizing you."
The goddess waved it off.
"No need, young demigod. I forgot that you'd only seen my in my second form, and wouldn't know me in the first or third." His confusion must have been obvious, because the goddess then explained, "I'm a triple goddess. I have three forms: maiden, mother, and crone, representing morning, noon, and night. As for your wards, young prince, I am the goddess of magic and crossroads. While they are well-built, they are not built well enough to keep me out. Additionally, you chose to sleep in one of the largest crossroads in the country, so you were not difficult for me to find."
Nico waited a long moment for the goddess to say something else, before venturing to ask, "Is there something I can do for you, Lady Hecate?"
Hecate smiled and clapped her hands together.
"I'm so glad you asked! As a matter of fact, there is! I need you to summon a ghost for me."
Nico blinked.
"Aren't you able to enter every realm, including the Underworld, Lady Hecate? Why do you need me to summon this ghost?"
"I need you to summon the ghost of my son," Hecate said. "Since he is my child, I am not allowed to summon his ghost myself, nor am I able to visit him in the Underworld. However, if you summon his ghost and I just happen to be standing there…"
"Loophole," Nico realized.
"Loophole," Hecate agreed. "And as a bonus, I'll teach you how to summon ghosts!"
Nico hesitated only a second before agreeing. It was never a good idea to turn down a god or goddess. And besides, summoning ghosts sounded cool.
"Okay. What do I do?" he asked.
"First, you need a pit in the ground, food, and drink," Hecate explained. "Luckily, there's a construction site with a convenient pit about half a mile that way," she said, pointing to his left, "and a McDonald's right next door!"
"Ghosts like McDonald's?" Nico questioned without thinking about it.
"Ghosts like anything that reminds them of real food and drink," Hecate said. "Typically, the proper sacrifice was animal blood and wine, but you're not old enough to buy alcohol, and the ghosts don't care that much anyway."
That was how Nico found himself at McDonald's, buying half-a-dozen Happy Meals. He ended up using his credit card; his father thought he was in Elysium and wouldn't be paying attention, and his mother was off doing something important and thought his father was watching him, so she wouldn't be paying attention. He felt comfortable enough that no one would figure out he was in Los Angeles for the next hour or so, especially considering he hadn't know he was in Los Angeles until he passed a sign on the way to the McDonald's.
"My little brother has a bunch of friends over," he told the cashier in the best long-suffering tone he could muster. "My mom sent me inside while she keeps them all in the car. They're kinda wild."
The cashier – a girl a few years older than Percy with pink streaks in her hair – said, "That's rough, kid. Good luck with that." She even gave him a large bag to carry all the Happy Meals and two different drink carriers for the drinks.
Hecate was waiting inside the construction zone, which was thankfully empty at twilight.
"No one will see us," she said when Nico glanced towards the chain-link fence that did nothing to hide them. "The Mist conceals us."
Necromancy ended up being…surprisingly simple. All he had to do was dump food and drink into the pit while saying the ritual words, then chant in Ancient Greek – mostly about calling forth the dead to speak, but with a few other phrases that Hecate had admitted only were added so that it would rhyme.
"The words aren't the important part," the goddess said. "It's the intent that's necessary. As a son of Hades, you will never have as much difficulty as another demigod. For them, the ritual will always be completely necessary. For you…when you're older, and have more experience, you may be able to call ghosts forth as easily as your father and mother do."
"Is that because I'm the son of both Hades and Leuke, or just because of Papà?" Nico dared to ask.
Hecate considered it.
"Both of your parents would contribute to your ability," the goddess finally said.
The ritual went off without a hitch. In less than twenty minutes, the ghost of Alabaster Torrington stood before them.
"Hello, Mother," the ghost greeted.
"Hello, Alabaster," Hecate replied, her voice gentle.
The ghost raised an eyebrow.
"Why have you summoned me? Or rather, why have you recruited a child to summon me, since the Olympians" – he sneered the name the same way Nico had seen Mets fans sneer Yankees – "won't allow you to summon your children yourself?"
"I wanted to speak with you," Hecate said calmly.
Alabaster gave her a well, duh look.
"The last time we spoke, you urged me to join Kronos in order to seek justice for you and all of your siblings who were maligned and dismissed by the Olympians and their children simply because, for all your power, I am not one of the Twelve. I wished to know if your opinions remain constant, or if your death has changed your mind."
"Why would dying change my mind?" Alabaster scoffed.
"You were killed while protecting someone, in a manner that convinced the judges to grant you Elysium despite being part of Kronos' army," Hecate said.
Something flashed across Alabaster's face.
"You know about that?" he asked neutrally.
"That is all I know," Hecate said. "The judges would reveal no more, and Leuke is currently…unavailable…to tell me more."
The ghost was quiet for a long moment, before he finally said, "Krios. Krios killed me. Lou left one of her pig balls out, Krios tripped on it and got hit, and he went after Lou as soon as he reverted. He tried to kill her. She's just eleven. Just a kid. I jumped between them, shoved a transport spell at Lou, and got stabbed for it. I just hope Lou got away."
"She is alive," Hecate stated, "but I do not know more than that. I will check on her in her dreams tonight."
"Can you make sure she's okay? As much as the law will allow?" Alabaster asked.
"I will do what I can," Hecate said firmly.
"Mamma can help," Nico blurted out as soon as the thought popped into his head.
Both the ghost and the goddess turned to look at him. Nico did his best not to duck his head at the attention, and tried to explain what he was thinking.
"Mamma's not bound the same way the gods are, since she's still stuck in-between," he pointed out. "If she's your daughter, Lady Hecate, she can use magic, and Mamma knows plenty of magical families that could take her in so that she's behind wards and away from monsters. And if she's eleven, you could send her to Hogwarts with me so she's out of the country and even further from the Titan Army. Mamma said that Britain was pretty light on monsters, overall, and they can't get in the wards unless they're brought in. She'd be safe there."
Hecate looked surprised, but she finally chuckled.
"An excellent idea, son of Hades. Leuke is indeed knowledgeable in this sort of matter, and she has a soft spot for children. Britain would also make an excellent hiding space. I will ask my daughter her opinions tonight, and I will speak with your mother on the Solstice. Now, Alabaster," she said, turning back to the ghost. "Do you still feel I should support the Titans in this war?"
"I still don't think the Olympians are the best choice," Alabaster said, still sneering. "But…the Titans are just as bad."
Hecate's face looked soft.
"Thank you, Alabaster," she said. "I have been debating for some time. The Olympians no longer respect me as they should, and the Titans…I was born a Titan, but I fought against them in the first war, and there are still many things I disagree with that they support. I suppose I shall do as I did before: I will not follow the Titans, nor the Olympians, but I will follow Leuke. She and Hades have never forgotten my power, nor have they ever granted me any less respect than I deserve. If Leuke aids your sister, I shall stand at her side once more."
"All I know of her are the stories they tell in Kronos' army," Alabaster said slowly. "They say she's a traitor, an assassin, and the one Kronos hates and loves the most."
"All of that is true, though they failed to mention that Kronos betrayed Leuke first," Hecate said. "Above all else, she is utterly loyal to those who earn it, but she will repay any betrayal thrice over." The corners of her mouth quirked up. "She also has the incredible ability to always get what she wants, and is the original shadow ruler. While she has never had much interest in ruling, she has always used her influence to make sure that the ruler behaved to her liking. She always served as the check against Kronos' and later Zeus' power, something that Kronos forgot and suffered for. Zeus has spent several centuries without her influence, but he's begun to improve in the past few years since her return."
"If you think she can make things better for everyone – all the forgotten gods and demigods," Alabaster said quietly, "then you should support her. She'll need it. Kronos – Kronos hates her."
"Leuke will be fine," Hecate said firmly. "Thank you for your assistance, Alabaster."
"You're welcome, Mother," the ghost replied.
Hecate nodded to Nico. He reached out with his power and ordered, "Go. Return to the Underworld."
The demigod's ghost disappeared.
"Thank you for your assistance, young one," Hecate told him. "In return, I will not inform your mother that you are not in the Underworld where you are supposed to be."
Nico hadn't thought of that. He felt himself pale even as he bowed and said, "Thank you, Lady Hecate."
The goddess cackled before disappearing in a puff of smoke, which seemed all too dramatic to Nico, but it was better than her going full-goddess and burning his soul out.
Probably burning his soul out. Makaria had theorized that he and Bianca would actually be capable of seeing a god's true form without dying, since in their souls they were the children of two gods. God and Titaness. Whatever. Anyway, Mamma had refused to let them test that theory.
Nico looked over the pit he'd used to summon Alabaster Torrington. It was still twilight, and Hecate hadn't mentioned he couldn't use the same pit twice. The McDonald's was still open. And his mother's conversation with Professor McGonagall months ago had left burning questions that his mother didn't seem inclined to answer.
It didn't take too long to get more Happy Meals.
"Those kids are like starving hyenas," he told the same cashier upon ordering again.
In ten minutes, he was standing back at the construction pit, dumping Coke and cheeseburgers into it.
"Let the dead taste again," he murmured, reaching out with his power towards the Underworld. It wasn't a specific direction, per se, but it was the core of his power. "Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember. Adelina di Angelo, mother of my mother, I summon you!"
Dark liquid bubbled in the pit, growing close to the edges of the pit as he chanted in Ancient Greek. The chanting held the ghosts at bay, ghosts that were not summoned to him.
"Adelina di Angelo, appear!" he ordered again.
The spirits murmured restlessly, but none of them stepped forward to drink. Nico continued to chant, hoping that just a little more time would bring his nonna forward.
The spirits began whispering more avidly, shifting. They whispered Danger. He is coming. The ground began to shake.
Nico didn't know who he was, but considering all the effort his Mamma was putting into war preparations, he could guess. He immediately stopped chanting, drew his sword, and slashed its black blade across the surface of the pool.
The liquid melted into the ground, the spirits dissipated, and the earth stilled.
Nico sagged, using his sword to prop himself up. Maybe two ghost summonings in an hour was not the smartest idea.
"Food," he told himself. "Back to the maze entrance, and food. Minos can come find me there."
He'd managed to eat another serving of sarde in saor under the overpass before the ghost showed up.
"There you are, master!" the ghost exclaimed, startling Nico as he popped out of the overpass wall. "I apologize, I was distracted by the sense of a necromantic ritual a few blocks away. Were you summoning ghosts, master?"
"I was, yes," Nico said. "Lady Hecate asked a favor, and…and then I tried to summon my grandmother. I couldn't get her to come."
The ghost frowned.
"As Lord Hades' son, you should have no trouble summoning a particular ghost, master," the ghost said. "It is others who face difficulties. Did you use the ghost's true name?"
Nico started. True name…that was the same thing that Professor McGonagall had needed at Hogwarts.
"I don't know," he said. "I used the name I know for her, but Mamma may have been using a different name when I was born, so I don't know if I know her real name."
"That would be the difficulty," Minos said. "Do you know anyone – besides your lady mother – who would know your grandmother's true name?"
Nico thought about it.
"Zio Duce might," he said. "He was my uncle – well, we called him our uncle, but he's actually my older half-brother. Papà's son. Mamma and Papà met because of him. He helped Mamma hide, so he should know."
"He sounds like a good place to start, master," Minos said, "but if you have already performed two summonings today, a third would be unwise. Doing too much will drain you, and I have no hands to bring you nectar and ambrosia."
"No draining," Nico confirmed. "I have nectar and ambrosia, but it's supposed to be for emergencies. And I wouldn't be surprised if Mamma has an alarm on it so that she knows if I open the bag."
He looked over at the entrance to the maze.
"If we enter here, will whatever was chasing us be right there to catch me?" he asked.
"Unlikely," Minos said. "While the maze entrances don't move once they've been placed, the tunnels that connect to the entrances do. I doubt whatever chased you is still there, if it's there at all."
"Okay," Nico said, taking a deep breath. "Back into the maze we go. Hopefully we'll find another skeleton to bait the traps soon."
They didn't find another skeleton, but they also didn't run into any more traps. They'd been walking for hours without incident – well, without major incident, he'd tripped over a metal pipe after his flashlight had gone out and was forced to stop and bandage his skinned knee – when he heard it.
"Nico," a familiar voice called.
"Bianca?" Nico asked, startled.
"Master," Minos began, but Nico was no longer listening, already picking up his pace as he moved toward the voice.
"Nico," she called again.
"Bianca, where are you? What are you doing here?"
He was full on running now, his backpack thumping against him with every stride as he hurried to find his sister – she was supposed to be safe, with the Hunters, in Montana! What was she doing down in the Labyrinth?
Though, he supposed, the Labyrinth probably went to Montana. It went everywhere else in the US.
"Nico, where are you?" she asked, sounding almost begging.
"I'm coming, Bianca!" he called.
He rounded a corner, only to smack into something and fall back onto the ground. The gravel skinned his hands as he landed.
Nico looked up to see a monster looking down at him with a terrifying grin. Despite the dim lighting, he could still see the mishmash of animals that made up the monster – a stag's backside, a lion's tail and chest and neck, a badger's head and cloven feet. The most terrifying part was the wide grin that stretched – literally – from ear to ear, with teeth than looked to be carved out of bone.
"There you are, Nico," Bianca's voice came from the monster's mouth. "I've been waiting for you."
AN: I am making no promises on the next chapter, considering how long this one took. However, I will say that the next chapter should cover the rest of Nico's adventures into the Labyrinth, leading up to Geryon's ranch.