The Blood of Olympus - Next Jump

“You have to leave! NOW!” It was exactly what Hylla had said to her six years ago, the night they escaped their father’s house. “I’ll delay Orion as long as possible.”

Hylla grabbed one of the giant’s legs. She yanked him off balance and tossed him several blocks down the Calle San Jose, to the general consternation of several dozen more cats. The Hunters ran after him along the rooftops, shooting arrows that exploded in Greek fire, wreathing the giant in flames.

“Your sister’s right,” Thalia said. “You need to go.”

Nico and Hedge fell in alongside her, both looking very pleased with themselves. They had apparently gone shopping at the Barrachina souvenir shop, where they’d replaced their dirty tattered shirts with loud tropical numbers.

“Nico,” Reyna said, “you look—”

“Not a word about the shirt,” he warned. “Not one word.”

“Why did you come looking for me?” she demanded. “You could have gotten away free. The giant has been tracking me. If you had just left—”

“You’re welcome, cupcake,” the coach grumbled. “We weren’t about to leave without you. Now let’s get out of...”

He glanced over Reyna’s shoulder and his voice faltered.

Reyna turned.

Behind her, the second-story balconies of her family house were crowded with glowing figures: a man with a forked beard and rusted conquistador armor; another bearded man in eighteenth-century pirate clothes, his shirt peppered with gunshot holes; a lady in a bloody nightgown; a U.S. Navy captain in his dress whites; and a dozen more Reyna knew from her childhood—all of them glaring at her accusingly, their voices whispering in her mind: Traitor. Murderer.

“No...” Reyna felt like she was ten years old again. She wanted to curl up in the corner of her room and press her hands over her ears to stop the whispering.

Nico took her arm. “Reyna, who are they? What do they—?”

“I can’t,” she pleaded. “I—I can’t.”

She’d spent so many years building a dam inside her to hold back the fear. Now, it broke. Her strength washed away.

“It’s all right.” Nico gazed up at the balconies. The ghosts disappeared, but Reyna knew they weren’t really gone. They were never really gone. “We’ll get you out of here,” Nico promised. “Let’s move.”

Thalia took Reyna’s other arm. The four of them ran for the restaurant and the Athena Parthenos. Behind them, Reyna heard Orion roaring in pain, Greek fire exploding.

And in her mind, the voices still whispered: Murderer. Traitor. You can never flee your crime.

[...]

GIVEN A CHOICE between death and the Buford Zippy Mart, Nico would’ve had a tough time deciding. At least he knew his way around the Land of the Dead. Plus the food was fresher.

“I still don’t get it,” Coach Hedge muttered as they roamed the center aisle. “They named a whole town after Leo’s table?”

“I think the town was here first, Coach,” Nico said.

“Huh.” The coach picked up a box of powdered donuts. “Maybe you’re right. These look at least a hundred years old. I miss those Portuguese farturas.”

Nico couldn’t think about Portugal without his arms hurting. Across his biceps, the werewolf claw marks were still swollen and red. The store clerk had asked Nico if he’d picked a fight with a bobcat.

They bought a first-aid kit, a pad of paper (so Coach Hedge could write more paper airplane messages to his wife), some junk food and soda (since the banquet table in Reyna’s new magic tent only provided healthy food and fresh water), and some miscellaneous camping supplies for Coach Hedge’s useless but impressively complicated monster traps.

Nico had been hoping to find some fresh clothes. Two days since they’d fled San Juan, he was tired of walking around in his tropical ISLA DEL ENCANTORICO shirt, especially since Coach Hedge had a matching one. Unfortunately, the Zippy Mart only carried T-shirts with Confederate flags and corny sayings like KEEP CALM AND FOLLOW THE REDNECK. Nico decided he’d stick with parrots and palm trees.

They walked back to the campsite down a two-lane road under the blazing sun. This part of South Carolina seemed to consist mostly of overgrown fields, punctuated by telephone poles and trees covered in kudzu vines. The town of Buford itself was a collection of portable metal sheds—six or seven, which was probably also the town’s population.

Nico wasn’t exactly a sunshine person, but for once he welcomed the warmth. It made him feel more substantial—anchored to the mortal world. With every shadow-jump, coming back got harder and harder. Even in broad daylight his hand passed through solid objects. His belt and sword kept falling around his ankles for no apparent reason. Once, when he wasn’t looking where he was going, he walked straight through a tree.

Nico remembered something Jason Grace had told him in the palace of Notus: Maybe it’s time you come out of the shadows.

If only I could, he thought. For the first time in his life, he had begun to fear the dark, because he might melt into it permanently.

Nico and Hedge had no trouble finding their way back to camp. The Athena Parthenos was the tallest landmark for miles around. In its new camouflage netting, it glittered silver like an extremely flashy forty-foot-tall ghost.

Apparently, the Athena Parthenos had wanted them to visit a place with educational value, because she’d landed right next to a historical marker that read MASSACRE OF BUFORD, on a gravel turnout at the intersection of Nowhere and Nothing.

Reyna’s tent sat in a grove of trees about thirty yards back from the road. Nearby lay a rectangular cairn—hundreds of stones piled in the shape of an oversized grave with a granite obelisk for a headstone. Scattered around it were faded wreathes and crushed bouquets of plastic flowers, which made the place seem even sadder.

Aurum and Argentum were playing keep-away in the woods with one of the coach’s handballs. Ever since getting repaired by the Amazons, the metal dogs had been frisky and full of energy—unlike their owner.

Reyna sat cross-legged at the entrance of the tent, staring at the memorial obelisk. She hadn’t said much since they fled San Juan two days ago. They’d also encountered no monsters, which made Nico uneasy. They’d had no further word from the Hunters or the Amazons. They didn’t know what had happened to Hylla, or Thalia, or the giant Orion.

Nico didn’t like the Hunters of Artemis. Tragedy followed them as surely as their dogs and birds of prey. His sister Bianca had died after joining the Hunters. Then Thalia Grace became their leader and started recruiting even more young women to their cause, which grated on Nico—as if Bianca’s death could be forgotten. As if she could be replaced.


- The Blood of Olympus, Chapters 24 and 29