Chapter Text
Silena woke up on a street. She was very, very cold despite the early August sun rays glaring down at her. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was standing on the Williamsburg Bridge as it gave way beneath her.
She then remembered Alcyone. Her sister was working with Kronos. Her stomach twisted itself into a complicated series of knots that would make a sailor proud. Gods, her sister was working with f*cking Kronos.
Alcyone had led them straight into a trap. And she’d been so very blind. She’d known Alcyone was furious with the gods. She knew Alcyone was a loner. She knew her sister spent most of her time alone at camp. So why hadn’t she seen what was right in front of her? Why hadn’t she been able to see the warning signs of Alcyone being susceptible to the Crooked One’s wiles?
f*ck, why had she failed her sister so spectacularly? Silena pushed the thought down and sat up. She had bigger fish to fry right now. Where in the world was she?
She seemed to be still in New York, thank the gods. And then she found the others. Clarisse was leaning against a nearby streetlamp, as soaked as Silena felt. She didn’t stir, but she was breathing. Aenea was propped up next to her, just as wet and unconscious but also breathing.
Silena turned around. And that was when she found a scene that would haunt her to her dying days. She didn’t see Lee or Chris, but she saw Vi. And she was in poor shape.
The colourful haired teen seemed to have been impaled straight through her left lung by a blunt metal object that vaguely resembled a metal pipe, which was laying next to her, no longer in her chest. Her lips were tinged blue, and her breathing was rapid. Her wet shirt had several blood stains on it. Silena scrambled to her feet, swearing all the while, and stumbled over to Vi.
f*ck, it looked like the object had pierced the lung and caused a pneumothorax. Silena quickly took the daughter of Apollo’s shirt off to get better access to the lung. She would almost certainly need a hospital, but there was no time to find one right now. A pneumothorax is a collapsed lung, caused by air leaking into the area between the lungs and chest wall. It was a relatively rare condition- fewer than 200,000 cases were reported each year in the United States. But it could be critical.
Silena looked for a needle. Needles or tubes can be used to remove any excess air. Silena knew any she could find would not be sterile, and would probably lead to Vi developing an infection, if not sepsis. But she had to do something. She was not going to let the daughter of Apollo die.
She would not let her sister take any more lives. ThankApollo, she found a sewing needle laying discarded on the ground nearby. She grabbed it and prayed to Vi’s dad that this would help his daughter. She took a deep breath. Please work. I can’t let her die. And then she brought the needle down on Vi’s chest…carefully.
A few minutes later, Vi was propped up against the same street lamp that Clarisse and Aenea were. The bluish tinge to her lips was gone, and she was breathing at a much more normal pace. Silena let out a sigh of relief and sat down near the unconscious trio. She really, really hoped that Vi would be fine and not have internal bleeding or sepsis or somehow get f*cking cholera or some sh*t from their swim in the dirty East River. It would be just their luck that they would get typhoid or another disease commonly associated with contaminated water after their nonconsensual swim in the river.
Now that the emergency was over, Silena was free to think. And she wondered where Chris and Lee were. Was whoever had pulled the girls out still looking for them? Were they gone; lost to the dark, cold depths of the river after Silena’s sister had betrayed them and blown them up?
f*ck, Alcyone. Her little sister had just tried to kill them- and nearly succeeded with Vi, and possibly did succeed with Chris and Lee. Her little sister was Kronos’ right hand man, the infamous Scythe who had assassinated outspoken satyrs, dryads, and adult demigods/legacies in the months since Kronos’ return. When Alcyone had vanished for days and everyone had assumed that she was staying in the woods as per her custom, she’d been murdering people.
Silena could barely wrap her mind around it.
How could the girl determined to change the world be part of the force trying to destroy it? How could the girl who had once told Silena ‘Even though blood is the running force of the universe, I hate it,” be the same one who had carried out cold-blooded murders even when she was at Camp HalfBlood? She couldn’t find any of the girl who had idolised JRR Tolkein for changing the world with a pen instead of a sword in the young woman who led an arm of monsters.
But Silena knew that the sister she’d once known was the Williamsburg Bridge Butcher. It had been Alcyone up there, no one else. It had been her sister, who was barely younger than she but who Silena still called ‘little sister’, who had caused Vi’s pneumothorax and nearly killed her. It had been she who’d exploded the part of the bridge Silena and her team had been standing on; sending them tumbling into the murky, dirty depths of the East River. It was Alcyone who had possibly claimed the lives of Lee Fletcher and Chris Rodriguez, and might take Vi’s, if the demigod died from her wounds.
Cold water tasting faintly of salt cut a path down Silena’s ashy, dirty face. Oh, Alcyone. What have you become?
**
Jason landed in the spot where he’d left the girls, Lee Fletcher in his arms like a soaked, ash-streaken bride. The twins soon popped up, Chris Rodriguez’s arms over their shoulders as they dragged his limp (but thankfully breathing) body across the pavement. Jason was surprised they hadn’t earned any weird looks as they had weaved their way through various crowds, but then again, this was New York.
And then again, almost every mortal had been asleep. See the world in endless sleep. Jason suspected it was Somnus’ doing. He was on the Titan side, after all. The mortals were lucky to be alive, though. He remembered the story of Somnus killing people who’d fallen asleep at their posts, and shuddered. For a god of sleep, Somnus was a f*cking scary guy.
He set Fletcher down by his sibling Aenea and eyed Vi. The last time he’d seen her, he’d carefully pulled what looked like a metal pipe out of her chest. She seemed to be okay, though- one of the first things that had gone right today.
“Jason!” Silena said, and tackled him in a hug. Jason yelped and nearly fell over. Silena was taller and stronger than him, and at least fifty pounds heavier than he was. It felt like a baby sperm whale being hugged by a giant squid.
“Silena!” He said breathlessly (it felt like she was strangling him). “You’re alright?”
“Yeah,” Silena said, letting go. “Physically, at least.”
That’s right, he thought. That Alcyone person was her sister. Oh, gods, that must have been painful. Rather like being stabbed in the back, I’d imagine.
Silena looked him up and down in a motherly way. “And you?”
“Don’t worry, I’m good. It’s better than that one time I almost got gored by a unicorn.”
The Stolls snorted and Silena gave him a look, clearly hiding a smile. “What?!”
Jason grinned faintly. “We have some, back at camp. Useful for medicine…but they’re a bit, ah, aggressive. Dakota broke three ribs when he was helping the healers gather some horn shavings.”
“You nearly got impaled by a magic horse,” Travis wheezed.
“I’d bet five denarii that you can’t get near one either, Mister It's-So-Easy.”
**
“Nico, you need to shadow-travel and get somebody,” Michael whispered so Leo and Will couldn’t hear, eying the monsters surrounding the building they were in.
Nico was leaning against a wall, eyes closed. He didn’t bother opening his eyes when he replied. “Michael, I have pushed myself incredibly hard with shadow-travelling today. If I do it one more time…I might not step out of the shadows again.”
Michael swallowed, fear showing in his dark eyes. “Then we’re doomed.”
Nico opened his eyes. “Not yet. We still have Iris Messaging, yes?”
“As far as we know. They could’ve blocked it.”
“It’s our only other option.”
“Ah, what the hell. We’re going to die anyway.”
“We’re going to die?!”
“Michael!”
“Sorry! No, Leo, Will. We’re going to be fine. Hopefully…”
“I heard that!”
**
It was just their luck that the first contact they had with other demigods since they left Apollo’s palace was a cry for help. Everyone had woken exceptfor Vi, who was still out like a light to absolutely no one’s surprise. Silena told them of having to poke the colourful-haired daughter of Apollo in the chest to save her from a pneumothorax which had been courtesy of an unidentified metal object (UMO).
Lee stared at the brunette daughter of Aphrodite in an odd mix of horror and what seemed like pride. “You did what?!”
Silena’s pale face flushed. “I’m sorry, I should’ve waited for a medical expert, but I had no choice-”
Lee took her by the shoulders gently. “Silena. You did your absolute best. There’s going to be times in a demigod’s life when properly trained medical professionals aren’t available, and that’s okay. It was an emergency, Silena. I doubt she would’ve made it if you hadn’t acted. You saved her life. You did an incredible thing under severe stress and pressure. You saved my sister, Silena. I…I couldn’t have acted so rationally had I been there. There’s a reason doctors don’t operate on family members. So don’t talk down on yourself. It’s thanks to you she’s still alive, and that is an amazing thing.”
“Yeah,” Jason agreed quietly. “I’ve had a lot of medical training…but I almost killed her by removing the object. You saved her, Silena, even though you’ve had way less. You’ve kept her alive. And that is extremely hard to do even in the best medical buildings. You were under a time restraint, with minimal- almost no- tools, none of which were sterile or equipped to deal with an emergency like this. Yet she’s still alive. And that’s because of you.”
Clarisse whistled. “That’s impressive, Beauregard.”
Silena smiled at her friend, still blushing. “Thanks, La Rue. You’re not so bad yourself.”
Chris harked out a laugh. “Clarisse? In a medical setting? Oh, hell no-”
Clarisse whacked her (boyfriend?) friend upside the head gently. As much as she could do anything gently. “Silence, you. Just because I don’t have the world’s best bedside manner-”
“-You’re like Doctor House on steroids-”
“-Thank you, Watson, for your clever insights-”
Clarisse was cut off by Nico’s voice. The son of Hades had Iris Messaged them, and the group turned around to face him, all surprised.
The poor guy looked absolutely exhausted. It was around noon, if the sun’s positioning was anything to go by (it should be, usually), but he looked like he desperately needed a nap.
“Lee,” he said, sounding worried.
“What’s happened?” Lee replied, taking charge and pushing his way to the front of the group, looking up at Nico’s image.
“We need help,” Nico said bluntly. “We’re surrounded by monsters.”
Lee seemed remarkably calm for a guy whose sister was covered in blood and sitting unconscious nearby, and for a guy being told his friends were surrounded by a swarm of bloodthirsty monsters hellbent on killing them. “Alright, we’re coming. Address?”
Nico rattled off the address. “Be careful,” he said, and the Iris Message ended.
Lee whirled around to face the group around him. “Travis, Connor, Aenea, stay with Vi. If she gets worse, take her to a hospital as fast as possible. Everyone else…we’re going to kick some monster ass.”
**
It was an ordinary day in Valhalla. It was a Thursday, so they’d fought some nice and feral dragain. Halfborn got roasted intosmoked lochlannach, which had been a very nice view, Mallory thought. That big oaf had it coming, running around with his stupid abs out on display. TJ had been stepped on by one of the giant beasts, to everyone’s amusem*nt. Mallory was not going to let him forget it for at least several centuries, and she was sure Halfborn wouldn’t let him forget it either.
Well…it had been a normal day. Everyone was eating lunch in the dining hall when it all went to ifreann. Mallory had been keenly digging into some corned beef and cabbage, which was delicious and a taste into her childhood, when the ravens on Odin’s throne cawed loudly. The entire hall went quiet.
Huginn and Muninn. Thought and memory. Most days, they were quiet. The few times Mallory had ever heard them make any noise was when Odin himself was about to appear. The redhead paused, putting her fork down.
And that was why the dining hall was eerily silent right now. sh*te, she thought. Even Halfborn looked up from the salmon he was devouring (that man had a metabolism on par with the teens on Floor Nineteen.). Odin’s appearances were rare, so when he did show up, it was a huge deal and usually meant something was not going well in the mortal world.
Even the thanes looked tense, and they rarely showed fear of any kind. Probably thinking it would make them like argrs. Mallory scoffed. Norse and their stupid focus on manliness.
Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait in tense silence for much longer. With a flash of silver light, Odin appeared at his throne, his good eye staring directly at Mallory. A cold chill ran down her spine. It was bloody terrifying to be singled out in a crowd of thousands. To know that one person has picked you out of the mass with an eye as sharp as a hawk’s.
“My lord,” one of the thanes said nervously (Mallory hadn’t bothered learning their names, all you really needed to know was that they were basically in charge and were often bloody idiots). “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I am here to meet with three einherjar,” Odin said, his voice steady but little more than a whisper for him. Though clearly, everyone could hear him just fine. “I have…something I need done.”
“Oh, then why didn’t you call the Norns-” the thane was silenced by Odin’s firm look.
“The Norns are busy,” he said. “And I could not risk this job being given to anyone else.”
Another thane spoke next. “Yes, my lord. And who are you-?”
Odin smiled. It reminded Mallory of Odin’s wolves; a lean grin that was almost feral in nature and seemed to terrify the thane, who melted into his chair as if he was trying to hide from the god. His eye returned to look at Mallory, and she knew immediately who he was looking for right before he said the names.
“Mallory Keen. Halfborn Gunderson. And Thomas Jefferson Junior.”
**
“My lord, why do you want us?” TJ asked as the four of them stood in Helgi’s office. The manager had said he would be on one of the distant floors, but Mallory had a feeling he was just eavesdropping. “We are not the best to be sent on an important mission.”
Odin chuckled. “Oh, mister Thomas. You are. You have overcome impossible odds, young one. You were the first in your family to be born free on American soil. You joined the Union army to protect the innocents of your country, even after all they did to you and people like you. You, Halfborn Gunderson, are just as worthy. You were born in a small fishing village, now known as Flåm. But you became a fierce fighter, fierce in intellect as well as strength. You died in East Anglia, far from home, desperate to prove yourself. Few living people remember you, mister Gunderson. But I do. I remember the little carved wolf you made when you were five, under your father’s watchful eye. I remember how you helped your mother when she was in labour with your youngest sister. I remember your sacrifices, big and small. I remember your kindness.”
And then Odin turned to Mallory.
“As for you, Miss Keen. You are far stronger and kinder than you will admit. You survived a broken home. You died rectifying a mistake you made. You owned your choices, the good and the bad. You saved those school children. Few would admit where they have gone wrong, Miss Keen. And even fewer would try to rectify it if it meant their life. It is an incredibly selfless decision; one I remember every time I think of humanity’s wrongdoings. You, daughter of Frigg, are among the bravest mortals I have had the honour to know in my lifetime. And I know you three will continue to do good, even years after your deaths.”
Mallory was flabbergasted. She could see that Halfborn and TJ were too. She tried to remember when an adult, let alone a god, older than her had ever said something so kind to her. All she could think of was that woman, by the corner store when she was alive. Her hair was as red as fire, and she had scars on her face that resembled chemical burns. But she’d always been incredibly kind to Mallory.
Wait…had he said daughter of Frigg? As in, his wife, Frigg? Queen of Asgard, who ruled from Fensalir? The daughter of Fjorgynn, goddess of motherhood, prophecy, clairvoyance, marriage? Also known as Frigga?
When she’d arrived at Valhalla, all those years ago, the Norns had said she was a demigod. But they hadn’t said anything about seeing boerc, Frigg’s rune. But Odin was the god of truth. Why would he lie about this?
Her feelings on her mother were complicated. So she pushed the thought train down into the dark recesses of her mind, to be thought of after the mission, if ever.
Odin leaned forward. “The mortal world is in disarray and faces destruction. I need you three to go down and help.”
“Help with what?” Halfborn asked. “My lord?”
“Another pantheon faces destruction,” Odin said simply, as if that didn’t turn the world- worlds- upside down. There’s other pantheons out there? Mallory wondered, and then nearly facepalmed. Of f*cking course there were.
“What do you know of Greece?”
**
So, the situation was even worse than what Nico had said. As per usual, what can go wrong, will go wrong. Looks like John Paul Stapp and Edward Aloysius Murphy Junior (who names their kid Aloysius??) were right. There were around two hundred monsters surrounding the building that Nico had said that he, Michael, Leo, and Will were sheltering in.
Clarisse swore under her breath. These were some of the worst odds she’d ever seen, and she’d played Capture-The-Flag against Luke and Annabeth. What were the chances of seven-ish (including Nico and Michael) managing to fight off two hundred? Not very likely, she reckoned.
Gods, this was going to be a bloodbath. First off, they had the whole building surrounded, and seemed to be in the process of starting a siege or breaking into the building. Maybe both. How the heck would Clarisse, Lee, Jason, Chris, and Silena manage to get in, grab Nico, Michael, and the kids, and get out without being slaughtered by the monsters?
“So…suicide run?” Chris muttered.
Jason was extremely pale, closely resembling a corpse of someone who’d died of blood loss. Clarisse felt for the poor kid. He looked terrified, and she couldn’t blame him. They were quite literally a suicide squad with all those monsters.
But then the monsters got distracted. They were distracted by three people. A tall, shirtless man with messy auburn hair wielding two axes charged at the monsters, screaming bloody murder, quickly followed by a hot as hell redheaded woman wielding what seemed like two daggers, and a dark-skinned guy dressed in a Civil War uniform who wielded a f*cking bayonet. Clarisse couldn’t blame the monsters for being distracted, she was too.
Somehow, the trio cut a sizable swath in the monster swarm, working together fluidly like they’d trained together for years.
Clarisse saw that one of the windows was now unguarded and she seized the opportunity. “Come on, come on,” she told the others. “Let’s go. Here’s our chance!”
