PJO: The Age of Heroes | Chapter 12 - The Chase
Okay, so I may have lied a bit; this was still mostly setup, but still plenty of action! And the real climax craziness should come next chapter, eek! jadafja, I have to write it. o.o; Crazy battles are so not my forte. XD (How am I ever going to write the third story; I think it's going to parallel TLO quite a bit...)
PG-13, mostly for fighting, etc.
Leading the telekhines was easy - at least, so long as we were underwater. Since Percy pretty much had the equivalent of a GPS-for-brains while we were in the water, he took off immediately to the west, following the river basin as it turned north. I don’t know how he did it, but the current suddenly shifted in our favor - but only around us. Behind us, the telekhines seemed to be struggling in a current that was trying to push them the opposite way.
We passed under a second bridge way ahead of the telekhines, only to realize that the river ahead of us was dammed. I was starting to worry that we’d have to get out of the river and find some way over the dam when Percy pointed - the lock connecting the basin to the rest of the river was wide open. We could pass right through it unhindered. As we did, I realized it would be the perfect spot to thin out the pack of our pursuers.
“Hang on,” I said, as soon as we were through to the other side. I twisted around underwater so that I could see the telekhines behind us, and with a thought and a gesture I raised a wall of black rock from the silt in front of the lock. I have to say, it was a lot easier than it used to be. The rock formation wasn’t high enough to block the way entirely, but it left only enough room for one or two telekhines to get through at a time.
Turning, I saw that Percy was grinning at me. “Good idea.” Now the telekhines could follow us, but they would be less of a threat than they had been even if they did catch up. I just nodded and we kept going. Behind us, I could hear scraping as the telekhines bottlenecked, clawing at the rock suddenly blocking their way. But when I glanced back, I saw that they had thinned out just liked I’d hoped. We passed under what looked like the supports for railroad tracks, and after that another few bridges that looked like they probably supported highways.
Then we ran into a problem - the new Charles River Dam. This time there were three locks, and they were all closed.
“Great,” Percy muttered, as we hung there suspended and stared at the closed locks. But there was something more than just sarcasm in his voice. I could hear frustration behind his words, and something almost like longing. There was this odd look in his eyes, too - a sort of strained look. When I frowned, he seemed to catch on that I’d noticed. “Salt water,” he said, with a wry smile. He cocked his head. “It’s just on the other side of the dam. I can feel it.”
I guessed that made sense - water in general was Percy’s thing, but his father was the god of the sea. Salt water was like Percy’s own personal nectar. I didn’t blame him for getting that look, especially if it was just out of reach. It was too bad, really. It probably would’ve done him a world of good. I couldn’t begrudge him wanting a little pick-me up. He’d been propelling us most of the way here on a demigod-made current.
I reached out and squeezed his hand as he glanced behind us. Even though they weren’t in a coherent pack anymore, the telekhines were definitely still back there. Percy glanced at me, and then he said out loud what we were both already thinking: “Looks like this is the end of the line. Time to get out.”
I nodded. We made our way over to the shore and clambered out (completely dry - I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to that) near what looked like a relatively new park. Across the oval of grass neatly lined with trees was the only road I could see leading out, following the river east.
We raced across the damp grass towards the Charlestown bridge. Behind us, I could hear the telekhines climbing out of the water to continue their pursuit. Percy and I finally reached the road, the pavement hard and jarring under our feet after the silt of the river’s bottom and the spongy grass of the park, but we just kept going without looking back. I knew the Bunker Hill Monument was still north of here - I could just see the lights lining the shipyards in the dark ahead of us as they traced the northern edge of the remaining Charles River basin before it opened up into the Boston Harbor proper.
We followed the road under the Charlestown Bridge. Behind us, the supports of a very new-looking cable-stayed bridge glowed an eerie white-and-blue. There was almost no traffic and no birds were singing yet, but I hoped that dawn was approaching - it was still dark, but the sky had taken on that bluish-black hue that meant that sunrise was less than an hour away. But even less than an hour was too long - at this rate we’d reach the Bunker Hill Monument way before our reinforcements would. We’d have to deal with our current company on our own.
But right now there wasn’t any time to worry about how we were going to do it. I could hear the telekhines behind us and they were gaining fast. For being sea demons, they could cover an awful lot of land just as fast, if not faster, than two teenage boys. We’d only been leading them for maybe a third of a mile, but they were a lot closer than they had been underwater without Percy’s current pushing us forward and the telekhines away.
As we pounded down the street, I looked down and realized there was a line of red bricks running along the road, coming down from the bridge. As we ran past the corner of Adams Street a minute later, the red bricks veered off to the left.
There was something about those bricks... I stopped almost dead. “Percy!” I called - he skidded to a stop a few paces ahead of me and turned as I pointed up Adams Street. “It’s this way - ” I scuffed one boot along the line of red bricks. “This is the Freedom Trail.”
Percy’s eyes flicked behind me - to the telekhines advancing on us, no doubt - and then he nodded once. We took off up Adams Street, following the line of red bricks. Sure enough, another minute down the road I could see the granite obelisk of what had to be the Bunker Hill Monument rising above the rooftops as the ground started sloping up. With our goal in sight, we put on a last burst of speed. I’d never run a mile test in school, but I figured by now I’d probably be getting an A. There was nothing like a pack of telekhines gaining on you from behind for motivation. Even if you were running uphill.
We didn’t quite make it before the first monster reached us. As we ran the last couple of yards toward the stone steps leading up the hill, I heard something behind me and Percy glanced back just in time to yelp out a warning. I ducked and rolled, and not an instant too soon as a telekhine’s blade came crashing down against the pavement where I’d been only seconds before.
As I stumbled back to my feet, fumbling for my sword, Percy tackled the monster with Riptide. He cleaved the sea demon in two, leaving only a pile of dust to scatter on the wind by the time the stroke was complete.
“Thanks,” I breathed, but Percy just nodded grimly and grabbed me by the hand. We ran up the steps and past the brown sign that read “Boston National Memorial Park, Bunker Hill”. Another telekhine bounded after us, but I saw him coming this time and kicked him back down the steps, momentarily thankful that my legs were considerably longer - and stronger - than they had been. The monster went thudding down the steps, yelping the whole way, and bowled over the telekhine just behind him, sending the two tumbling to a stop a few feet away in a groaning, whining pile.
But they were only the first of many. The rest of the pack had advanced up the street and now they were regrouping before they came up the steps after us. It wasn’t a very encouraging sight - two winded half-bloods, nearly doubled over and panting, against a pack of only slightly out-of-breath sea demons with sharp black eyes and vicious, pointed snouts. From here I could count seven of them, plus the two that had fallen at the bottom of the steps. That made nine, and that was a lot.
“Nico,” Percy breathed beside me, hunched low with Riptide held out before him, “I can feel something.”
I glanced at him, but it took only an instant for me to realize what he was talking about. When you’re the son of Hades, you can feel death like it’s palpable, something almost solid. I’d honestly learned to tune it out most of the time, because if I didn’t it would simply overload my senses. But Percy was right - here, where we were standing, the feel of death was stronger than it had been anywhere else in the city; at least, any of it that we’d seen thus far.
A lot of people had died here - and I mean a lot. It was a former battleground, after all, and the spirits of those soldiers who’d died had become intertwined with the land until the whole hill was infused with the spirits of the dead and the fallen. All I had to do was reach, just a little, and suddenly I could feel the soul of each and every soldier who had died here, like there was an invisible thread reaching down into the Underworld and connecting them to this spot.
It was kind of a rush; the feeling was heady and powerful, and for a minute my vision blurred. Percy couldn’t have felt like this - but he must have been able to sense the tail end of it because of the way our powers mixed.
The dead weren’t buried here, so there were no bodies that I could call to our aid. But I could call upon their spirits, just like I had with the lab rats. And what was more, if Percy could feel it - if what we’d joked about under the river was right - then he might be able to help me. And while an army of ghosts wouldn’t do much to actually hurt our opponents, they didn’t need to know that. Even if they figured it out, the ghosts would at least be awfully distracting. Distracted telekhines were a lot easier to fight.
“Okay,” I said quietly, adjusting my grip on my sword as I moved closer to Percy, “I think you can help me out this time. You can feel the barrier, right?” The barrier between life and death was everywhere, spread across all of civilization like a thick, downy blanket. But here, where there had been such a bloody battle, that blanket was worn and threadbare. And for those of us with powers like mine, it was simple to reach between the blanket and pull.
Percy nodded. “I think so.”
“We can bring back the ghosts of the soldiers who died here,” I told him. “They won’t be able to fight the telekhines for us, but it’ll be a great distraction. Like the rats,” I grinned over at him, “only better.”
Percy returned my grin, but his eyes flicked over to the pack of telekhines who’d begun making their way up the stairs, chattering like seals as they hefted their swords. We didn’t have much time. They were sick of chasing us - they wanted a fight. And I was willing to give them one.
“On three, I want you to... to pull,” I told Percy - again, it was hard to put the feeling into words, but I figured he’d get the idea. Working with water was probably just as instinctual; I’d learned that when I’d learned the trick to keep dry underwater. “Just try to reach out to the spirits you can feel and bring them here. Anything you can do to help...”
Percy got the idea. I’d be doing most of the work, but anything he could do would make things easier on me. And that meant I’d have more energy to fight. “Got it.”
“Okay.” We separated again, inching apart so that the telekhines would have to split up. “One... two... three!”
It seemed like the signal had been all the telekhines were waiting for as well. As I planted my feet and reached with my mind past my body and into the earth below us, the telekhines launched their attack. Half of my mind was on defending my body, but I’d drilled so many times that half was all I needed. My sword came up to block the first blow, even as I felt my silent entreaties reach the Underworld. I could feel the effort draining energy out of me like an open wound, and as soon as I knew it had worked I tried to pull myself back together and fight in earnest. As my awareness settled back into my body, I noticed that my arms and legs felt heavy and slow. But everything was still responding and I hadn’t taken any hits yet
It would take a minute or two for the spirits I’d called to find their way back here - unlike the rats, these people had been dead two hundred years. That meant their connection with the earth had faded, but not so much that I couldn’t reawaken it within them. In the meantime, Percy and I were still stuck on a hilltop with angry sea demons who wanted to kill us. Not exactly a fun time, let me tell you.
As I fought off three of the telekhines, twisting and blocking and trying to get into a position to hit any one of them, Percy was doing the same off to my right. I didn’t know if he’d been able to reach any of the spirits like I had, but all of his focus was now on the battle in front of him. He had four telekhines to deal with, but even as I counted the last one it yelped and disappeared into a cloud of dust on the blade of his sword.
Percy was a good fighter - one of the best I’d ever seen. Despite the confidence I could see in his eyes, I was still worried about him. But I had my own problems to deal with, as I put all of my concentration into slashing at the telekhines bunching around me, trying not to let them get a hit on me.
But blocking from three directions at once is pretty much impossible. I’d suffered at least two decent hits - nothing serious, but definitely some deep, stinging scratches - when one of the telekhines in front of me yelped even though I hadn’t hit it. Then I realized that it wasn’t concerned with me - it was looking past me, over my shoulder.
I realized that it was starting to happen. The ghostly outlines of men had begun rise from the ground and were drifting forward around us. There were at least fifty ghosts, and more were materializing out of the ground every second. Most of them looked like British Redcoats, and a lot of them looked like officers. Even though they were ghosts, they looked like they had at the moment of death - a lot of them had bloody wounds to attest to the blows that had killed them.
But regardless of who they were and what they looked like, they were frightening and confusing the telekhines just like I’d planned. Two of the demons fighting Percy turned to face the ghosts advancing from all directions, which was their mistake because all it took was one wide swipe of Riptide and there were two less telekhines on Bunker Hill.
The monster that had yelped in front of me was now turning in a circle, confused. I struck him deep in the side with my sword and he went rigid and exploded into a shower of dust just as he tried to raise his sword against one of the ghostly soldiers. The two remaining monsters around me didn’t seem to know which was the bigger threat - the half-blood with the sword or the approaching gaggle of Revolutionary War spirits. They spun back and forth, chattering agitatedly in their half-dog, half-seal voices, until the ghosts had pressed them so close to me that destroying them became almost easy. Two sword-strokes later, I was standing alone in a ring of ghostly men who were all looking at me curiously, as though they could sense I’d brought them here but they couldn’t figure out why.
But the last telekhine fighting Percy seemed to have realized that the ghosts couldn’t do him any harm. He’d turned his back on them and had gone back to fighting Percy, driving him back towards the center of the hill. I cringed as I saw him take a hit to his right arm, where his shield would have been if he’d had one. But the wound only seemed to ignite a new fire in him and, with sword strokes so fast I swear the blade almost blurred, Percy destroyed the last of his attackers, sending the dust scattering away on the wind amongst a hundred or more wounded, long-dead men.
Slumping and breathing hard, Percy looked over at me through the sea of ghosts. I looked back at him, and together we turned our attention back to the steps, where the last two telekhines - the ones that had gone tumbling down the steps before the rest of the pack had caught up - had stayed back nursing their bruises. They were still there, staring up with wide eyes at the hill where Percy and I stood with our legion of British and Colonial ghost-soldiers.
After a long minute, during which the only thing that filled the silence was the whispers of the dead men, the two remaining telekhines turned around and scampered away down the street.
I sagged to the ground as the adrenaline rush of the fight started to fade, trying to make it look like I had wanted to sit down. Percy lumbered over to me, the ghostly soldiers parting for him as he crossed the hill. I glanced up at them - at all the faces of the dead men who’d lost their lives fighting for this hill, and let out a breath, releasing them from our service. You’ve done what we needed. Thank you. Go back. Be at peace.
The figures started to fade just as Percy slid down to the ground beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “Well,” Percy said tiredly, “give those telekhines fifteen minutes to get back, and Kronos will know where we are.” He was favoring the arm that had been slashed, and I stretched my legs out in front of me, watching the cut on my left thigh bleed sluggishly. It was already starting to scab over. Percy pressed his hand to it, glancing up at me as if to ask if I was all right.
“I’m okay,” I said, glancing at his arm. He followed my gaze and nodded, telling me he was okay too.
But okay wasn’t the same thing as being ready to face a Titan lord. I leaned against Percy, trying to clear my mind from this battle so that I could think about how we were going to make it through the next one. Ghosts weren’t going to cut it against Kronos, and I knew it.
I looked up to see the Monument’s obelisk rising from the center of the hill before us. It had to be at least 200 feet high. At the base was a statue whose name was inscribed on a plaque that I couldn’t be bothered to read from here, and on the opposite side of the hill was an exhibit lodge, built to model Greek architecture (well, at least as far as I could tell). I figured if Annabeth were here, she’d have a whole lecture ready on how the Monument and the lodge were built.
But Annabeth wasn’t here - and dawn wasn’t even close to breaking yet. For the first time, I realized just how bad the situation was. Sure, we’d had a plan, but I wasn’t sure that plan even applied anymore. After all, we’d planned on having our forces assembled here and ready to fight before we even thought about giving Kronos the heads-up on where we were.
But now all of that had changed. First there was Cephissus, and now the two telekhines that had escaped. Percy was right - in a matter of minutes Kronos would know where we were, and there was a very real chance that he would get to us before our reinforcements did. Percy and I weren’t in the greatest shape, mostly because we also hadn’t planned on having to run all the way to Bunker Hill and fight off a pack of telekhines once we got here. Things had changed a lot, and suddenly I didn’t feel so great about anything.
“Percy... we might have to do this on our own,” I said, not daring to look at him.
Beside me, Percy took a breath and said, “Yeah. I know.” He shifted around, moving so that he was leaning over me and I had to look at him. “Are you still up for this?”
I didn’t know what the alternative was. Could we keep running? Who was to say Kronos wouldn’t find us again, and I definitely didn’t want to leave when Annabeth might come like we’d asked, only to be met by an ambush at the hands of Kronos. I wasn’t going to let that happen, not to her or any of the half-bloods she’d be bringing with her.
“I have to be,” I said, looking at Percy’s eyes as they flickered over my face. “You are.” I could see it in his eyes - he wasn’t going to leave. And if he wasn’t, then neither was I.
He smiled at me, but it was a grim smile as he settled back against my side, resting. There was no point in standing when there wasn’t anything to face just yet. “Yeah, I am. With or without reinforcements.”
I nodded slowly. “With or without - wait. Wait.” I stood abruptly, nearly causing Percy to fall over before he caught himself and pushed himself up off the ground, staring at me.
“Nico...?”
“Wait,” I said, holding up one hand. I took a breath, trying to clear my mind, closing my eyes briefly before I opened them again, looking out at the view from the top of Bunker Hill. To the east, I could see out over the shipyards and into the Boston Harbor. Across the river basin was the city itself, visible behind the white and blue cable bridge and what had to be a sports stadium with a huge Boston Bruins logo on the side lit up with spotlights. The city itself just looked like a tiny cluster of skyscrapers inside a larger group of medium-sized brick buildings, with the gold dome of the Massachusetts State House nestled among them. At the top of the tallest building, a lone blue light flashed steadily. I wondered if it meant anything important. The Charles River seemed to slash through the city like a ribbon of pure black, a wide swath where there were no lights. On the far side of the river, back past the bridges we’d swum under, I could see a red, white, and blue neon CITGO sign flashing in the night, the light reflecting off the black surface of the river.
But right across from us, just across the black expanse, was what I was looking for. Now that I knew what I wanted, I could feel it with all the certainty of the fact that my feet were still planted on the ground. “Percy,” I said, finally turning to look back at him, “I have an idea.”
He watched me for a minute, chewing on his bottom lip. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m not really going to like this idea?”
I sighed. “Because you might not. But it’s our best chance.” Percy simply stood there and waited for me to go on, so I did. “Remember how I told you I can re-animate bodies as well as spirits?” He nodded. “Well, there are a whole lot of them in Boston. I can feel it - there are at least three graveyards only a couple of miles away.” I pointed across the river to where my gut was pulling like a compass needle.
There, in the middle of the city, were graveyards filled with bodies. Thousands of them. They were old bodies, with old spirits - some older than those that had come to our aid on the battlefield. But at least some of them wouldn’t be completely decomposed. And I could bring them all here.
“Wait,” Percy said, finally picking up on my train of thought. “You want to bring all of those corpses here? To fight for us?”
I nodded. “Look - right now, it’s just you and me against whoever Kronos has with him. We don’t even know how many people - or monsters - that could be. What if he really does have an army? You said he didn’t know what kind of forces we had, but we don’t know what he has, either. And right now we don’t have any forces. I don’t know if Annabeth is going to get here in time, and neither do you.” I paused, looking at him. “Kronos will be on his way soon, if he’s not already. This might be our only chance. He’s not going to be afraid of ghosts, like the telekhines were.”
Percy frowned. He was quiet for a long moment. “So let me get this straight. You want to raise a zombie army to march across Boston and help us hold Bunker Hill?” He’d actually started to crack an incredulous smile, and I couldn’t help but return it
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” It sounded ridiculous, but it could work. It could work.
And Percy realized it, too. His grin grew wider, before he finally said, “Well, I always did like zombie movies.”
I let out a breath, grinning back. But then he raised a hand to my arm. “Are you gonna be okay if you do that? I get the feeling you’re talking about raising a lot of dead bodies, here. And you just did the thing with the ghosts... Nico,” he said quietly, shifting to move his hand to my face, “Don’t overdo it. You’re already hurt - we both are. And I don’t think I can help you with this. If you put yourself out of commission, I don’t... I don’t know...”
He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. I knew what he was going to say. I don’t know if I can fight and protect you from Kronos at the same time.
“You won’t have to,” I promised, looking him in the eyes. I wasn’t as sure as I sounded, but that didn’t matter. I was determined not to go out before I’d even gotten a chance at Kronos. Besides, what good was being a sixteen year-old half-blood if I couldn’t put it to good use? I would have the power to do this. I had to. “I’ll be okay.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Define ‘okay’.”
I tried not to grimace. I’d raised single bodies before, even a handful at the same time once or twice. But never thousands. “I’ll be tired. Probably pretty sick for a few minutes. But,” I went on, before he could get any protests in, “I think I’ll have enough time to recover before Kronos gets here. If,” I said, “I do it now.”
Percy’s grin faded, his mouth returning to a grim, worried line. “Now,” he echoed, and he looked up at the sky, where the east was bluer than the west, but there was still no sign of the sun. Dawn still had to be half an hour away, at best. He heaved a sigh, looking back at me. Then he flipped Riptide around in his grip so he could grasp me by the shoulders and press a soft, lingering kiss to my lips. I wanted time to stop right then; I wanted to forget that we were about to go into battle, that I was probably about to make myself sick, that the world was against us and help might not get here in time. I just wanted that moment to last forever, when Percy’s lips were warm against mine and all I could taste and feel and breathe was him.
But of course it couldn’t last. He pulled away and nodded up at me. He flipped Riptide back around and his eyes moved to the horizon, scanning. I realized he was in a guard position - he was guarding me. Now I could turn my full attention to the task at hand. “Okay,” he said, nodding to me, “do it.”
I turned to face the river - and the graveyards that lay across it. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath as I grasped my sword in both hands. As I exhaled I stabbed my sword blade-first into the ground. Then I reached out with my mind, to every body that I could feel had been buried beneath the soil of the city of Boston, and I called them all to me.
PG-13, mostly for fighting, etc.
Leading the telekhines was easy - at least, so long as we were underwater. Since Percy pretty much had the equivalent of a GPS-for-brains while we were in the water, he took off immediately to the west, following the river basin as it turned north. I don’t know how he did it, but the current suddenly shifted in our favor - but only around us. Behind us, the telekhines seemed to be struggling in a current that was trying to push them the opposite way.
We passed under a second bridge way ahead of the telekhines, only to realize that the river ahead of us was dammed. I was starting to worry that we’d have to get out of the river and find some way over the dam when Percy pointed - the lock connecting the basin to the rest of the river was wide open. We could pass right through it unhindered. As we did, I realized it would be the perfect spot to thin out the pack of our pursuers.
“Hang on,” I said, as soon as we were through to the other side. I twisted around underwater so that I could see the telekhines behind us, and with a thought and a gesture I raised a wall of black rock from the silt in front of the lock. I have to say, it was a lot easier than it used to be. The rock formation wasn’t high enough to block the way entirely, but it left only enough room for one or two telekhines to get through at a time.
Turning, I saw that Percy was grinning at me. “Good idea.” Now the telekhines could follow us, but they would be less of a threat than they had been even if they did catch up. I just nodded and we kept going. Behind us, I could hear scraping as the telekhines bottlenecked, clawing at the rock suddenly blocking their way. But when I glanced back, I saw that they had thinned out just liked I’d hoped. We passed under what looked like the supports for railroad tracks, and after that another few bridges that looked like they probably supported highways.
Then we ran into a problem - the new Charles River Dam. This time there were three locks, and they were all closed.
“Great,” Percy muttered, as we hung there suspended and stared at the closed locks. But there was something more than just sarcasm in his voice. I could hear frustration behind his words, and something almost like longing. There was this odd look in his eyes, too - a sort of strained look. When I frowned, he seemed to catch on that I’d noticed. “Salt water,” he said, with a wry smile. He cocked his head. “It’s just on the other side of the dam. I can feel it.”
I guessed that made sense - water in general was Percy’s thing, but his father was the god of the sea. Salt water was like Percy’s own personal nectar. I didn’t blame him for getting that look, especially if it was just out of reach. It was too bad, really. It probably would’ve done him a world of good. I couldn’t begrudge him wanting a little pick-me up. He’d been propelling us most of the way here on a demigod-made current.
I reached out and squeezed his hand as he glanced behind us. Even though they weren’t in a coherent pack anymore, the telekhines were definitely still back there. Percy glanced at me, and then he said out loud what we were both already thinking: “Looks like this is the end of the line. Time to get out.”
I nodded. We made our way over to the shore and clambered out (completely dry - I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to that) near what looked like a relatively new park. Across the oval of grass neatly lined with trees was the only road I could see leading out, following the river east.
We raced across the damp grass towards the Charlestown bridge. Behind us, I could hear the telekhines climbing out of the water to continue their pursuit. Percy and I finally reached the road, the pavement hard and jarring under our feet after the silt of the river’s bottom and the spongy grass of the park, but we just kept going without looking back. I knew the Bunker Hill Monument was still north of here - I could just see the lights lining the shipyards in the dark ahead of us as they traced the northern edge of the remaining Charles River basin before it opened up into the Boston Harbor proper.
We followed the road under the Charlestown Bridge. Behind us, the supports of a very new-looking cable-stayed bridge glowed an eerie white-and-blue. There was almost no traffic and no birds were singing yet, but I hoped that dawn was approaching - it was still dark, but the sky had taken on that bluish-black hue that meant that sunrise was less than an hour away. But even less than an hour was too long - at this rate we’d reach the Bunker Hill Monument way before our reinforcements would. We’d have to deal with our current company on our own.
But right now there wasn’t any time to worry about how we were going to do it. I could hear the telekhines behind us and they were gaining fast. For being sea demons, they could cover an awful lot of land just as fast, if not faster, than two teenage boys. We’d only been leading them for maybe a third of a mile, but they were a lot closer than they had been underwater without Percy’s current pushing us forward and the telekhines away.
As we pounded down the street, I looked down and realized there was a line of red bricks running along the road, coming down from the bridge. As we ran past the corner of Adams Street a minute later, the red bricks veered off to the left.
There was something about those bricks... I stopped almost dead. “Percy!” I called - he skidded to a stop a few paces ahead of me and turned as I pointed up Adams Street. “It’s this way - ” I scuffed one boot along the line of red bricks. “This is the Freedom Trail.”
Percy’s eyes flicked behind me - to the telekhines advancing on us, no doubt - and then he nodded once. We took off up Adams Street, following the line of red bricks. Sure enough, another minute down the road I could see the granite obelisk of what had to be the Bunker Hill Monument rising above the rooftops as the ground started sloping up. With our goal in sight, we put on a last burst of speed. I’d never run a mile test in school, but I figured by now I’d probably be getting an A. There was nothing like a pack of telekhines gaining on you from behind for motivation. Even if you were running uphill.
We didn’t quite make it before the first monster reached us. As we ran the last couple of yards toward the stone steps leading up the hill, I heard something behind me and Percy glanced back just in time to yelp out a warning. I ducked and rolled, and not an instant too soon as a telekhine’s blade came crashing down against the pavement where I’d been only seconds before.
As I stumbled back to my feet, fumbling for my sword, Percy tackled the monster with Riptide. He cleaved the sea demon in two, leaving only a pile of dust to scatter on the wind by the time the stroke was complete.
“Thanks,” I breathed, but Percy just nodded grimly and grabbed me by the hand. We ran up the steps and past the brown sign that read “Boston National Memorial Park, Bunker Hill”. Another telekhine bounded after us, but I saw him coming this time and kicked him back down the steps, momentarily thankful that my legs were considerably longer - and stronger - than they had been. The monster went thudding down the steps, yelping the whole way, and bowled over the telekhine just behind him, sending the two tumbling to a stop a few feet away in a groaning, whining pile.
But they were only the first of many. The rest of the pack had advanced up the street and now they were regrouping before they came up the steps after us. It wasn’t a very encouraging sight - two winded half-bloods, nearly doubled over and panting, against a pack of only slightly out-of-breath sea demons with sharp black eyes and vicious, pointed snouts. From here I could count seven of them, plus the two that had fallen at the bottom of the steps. That made nine, and that was a lot.
“Nico,” Percy breathed beside me, hunched low with Riptide held out before him, “I can feel something.”
I glanced at him, but it took only an instant for me to realize what he was talking about. When you’re the son of Hades, you can feel death like it’s palpable, something almost solid. I’d honestly learned to tune it out most of the time, because if I didn’t it would simply overload my senses. But Percy was right - here, where we were standing, the feel of death was stronger than it had been anywhere else in the city; at least, any of it that we’d seen thus far.
A lot of people had died here - and I mean a lot. It was a former battleground, after all, and the spirits of those soldiers who’d died had become intertwined with the land until the whole hill was infused with the spirits of the dead and the fallen. All I had to do was reach, just a little, and suddenly I could feel the soul of each and every soldier who had died here, like there was an invisible thread reaching down into the Underworld and connecting them to this spot.
It was kind of a rush; the feeling was heady and powerful, and for a minute my vision blurred. Percy couldn’t have felt like this - but he must have been able to sense the tail end of it because of the way our powers mixed.
The dead weren’t buried here, so there were no bodies that I could call to our aid. But I could call upon their spirits, just like I had with the lab rats. And what was more, if Percy could feel it - if what we’d joked about under the river was right - then he might be able to help me. And while an army of ghosts wouldn’t do much to actually hurt our opponents, they didn’t need to know that. Even if they figured it out, the ghosts would at least be awfully distracting. Distracted telekhines were a lot easier to fight.
“Okay,” I said quietly, adjusting my grip on my sword as I moved closer to Percy, “I think you can help me out this time. You can feel the barrier, right?” The barrier between life and death was everywhere, spread across all of civilization like a thick, downy blanket. But here, where there had been such a bloody battle, that blanket was worn and threadbare. And for those of us with powers like mine, it was simple to reach between the blanket and pull.
Percy nodded. “I think so.”
“We can bring back the ghosts of the soldiers who died here,” I told him. “They won’t be able to fight the telekhines for us, but it’ll be a great distraction. Like the rats,” I grinned over at him, “only better.”
Percy returned my grin, but his eyes flicked over to the pack of telekhines who’d begun making their way up the stairs, chattering like seals as they hefted their swords. We didn’t have much time. They were sick of chasing us - they wanted a fight. And I was willing to give them one.
“On three, I want you to... to pull,” I told Percy - again, it was hard to put the feeling into words, but I figured he’d get the idea. Working with water was probably just as instinctual; I’d learned that when I’d learned the trick to keep dry underwater. “Just try to reach out to the spirits you can feel and bring them here. Anything you can do to help...”
Percy got the idea. I’d be doing most of the work, but anything he could do would make things easier on me. And that meant I’d have more energy to fight. “Got it.”
“Okay.” We separated again, inching apart so that the telekhines would have to split up. “One... two... three!”
It seemed like the signal had been all the telekhines were waiting for as well. As I planted my feet and reached with my mind past my body and into the earth below us, the telekhines launched their attack. Half of my mind was on defending my body, but I’d drilled so many times that half was all I needed. My sword came up to block the first blow, even as I felt my silent entreaties reach the Underworld. I could feel the effort draining energy out of me like an open wound, and as soon as I knew it had worked I tried to pull myself back together and fight in earnest. As my awareness settled back into my body, I noticed that my arms and legs felt heavy and slow. But everything was still responding and I hadn’t taken any hits yet
It would take a minute or two for the spirits I’d called to find their way back here - unlike the rats, these people had been dead two hundred years. That meant their connection with the earth had faded, but not so much that I couldn’t reawaken it within them. In the meantime, Percy and I were still stuck on a hilltop with angry sea demons who wanted to kill us. Not exactly a fun time, let me tell you.
As I fought off three of the telekhines, twisting and blocking and trying to get into a position to hit any one of them, Percy was doing the same off to my right. I didn’t know if he’d been able to reach any of the spirits like I had, but all of his focus was now on the battle in front of him. He had four telekhines to deal with, but even as I counted the last one it yelped and disappeared into a cloud of dust on the blade of his sword.
Percy was a good fighter - one of the best I’d ever seen. Despite the confidence I could see in his eyes, I was still worried about him. But I had my own problems to deal with, as I put all of my concentration into slashing at the telekhines bunching around me, trying not to let them get a hit on me.
But blocking from three directions at once is pretty much impossible. I’d suffered at least two decent hits - nothing serious, but definitely some deep, stinging scratches - when one of the telekhines in front of me yelped even though I hadn’t hit it. Then I realized that it wasn’t concerned with me - it was looking past me, over my shoulder.
I realized that it was starting to happen. The ghostly outlines of men had begun rise from the ground and were drifting forward around us. There were at least fifty ghosts, and more were materializing out of the ground every second. Most of them looked like British Redcoats, and a lot of them looked like officers. Even though they were ghosts, they looked like they had at the moment of death - a lot of them had bloody wounds to attest to the blows that had killed them.
But regardless of who they were and what they looked like, they were frightening and confusing the telekhines just like I’d planned. Two of the demons fighting Percy turned to face the ghosts advancing from all directions, which was their mistake because all it took was one wide swipe of Riptide and there were two less telekhines on Bunker Hill.
The monster that had yelped in front of me was now turning in a circle, confused. I struck him deep in the side with my sword and he went rigid and exploded into a shower of dust just as he tried to raise his sword against one of the ghostly soldiers. The two remaining monsters around me didn’t seem to know which was the bigger threat - the half-blood with the sword or the approaching gaggle of Revolutionary War spirits. They spun back and forth, chattering agitatedly in their half-dog, half-seal voices, until the ghosts had pressed them so close to me that destroying them became almost easy. Two sword-strokes later, I was standing alone in a ring of ghostly men who were all looking at me curiously, as though they could sense I’d brought them here but they couldn’t figure out why.
But the last telekhine fighting Percy seemed to have realized that the ghosts couldn’t do him any harm. He’d turned his back on them and had gone back to fighting Percy, driving him back towards the center of the hill. I cringed as I saw him take a hit to his right arm, where his shield would have been if he’d had one. But the wound only seemed to ignite a new fire in him and, with sword strokes so fast I swear the blade almost blurred, Percy destroyed the last of his attackers, sending the dust scattering away on the wind amongst a hundred or more wounded, long-dead men.
Slumping and breathing hard, Percy looked over at me through the sea of ghosts. I looked back at him, and together we turned our attention back to the steps, where the last two telekhines - the ones that had gone tumbling down the steps before the rest of the pack had caught up - had stayed back nursing their bruises. They were still there, staring up with wide eyes at the hill where Percy and I stood with our legion of British and Colonial ghost-soldiers.
After a long minute, during which the only thing that filled the silence was the whispers of the dead men, the two remaining telekhines turned around and scampered away down the street.
I sagged to the ground as the adrenaline rush of the fight started to fade, trying to make it look like I had wanted to sit down. Percy lumbered over to me, the ghostly soldiers parting for him as he crossed the hill. I glanced up at them - at all the faces of the dead men who’d lost their lives fighting for this hill, and let out a breath, releasing them from our service. You’ve done what we needed. Thank you. Go back. Be at peace.
The figures started to fade just as Percy slid down to the ground beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “Well,” Percy said tiredly, “give those telekhines fifteen minutes to get back, and Kronos will know where we are.” He was favoring the arm that had been slashed, and I stretched my legs out in front of me, watching the cut on my left thigh bleed sluggishly. It was already starting to scab over. Percy pressed his hand to it, glancing up at me as if to ask if I was all right.
“I’m okay,” I said, glancing at his arm. He followed my gaze and nodded, telling me he was okay too.
But okay wasn’t the same thing as being ready to face a Titan lord. I leaned against Percy, trying to clear my mind from this battle so that I could think about how we were going to make it through the next one. Ghosts weren’t going to cut it against Kronos, and I knew it.
I looked up to see the Monument’s obelisk rising from the center of the hill before us. It had to be at least 200 feet high. At the base was a statue whose name was inscribed on a plaque that I couldn’t be bothered to read from here, and on the opposite side of the hill was an exhibit lodge, built to model Greek architecture (well, at least as far as I could tell). I figured if Annabeth were here, she’d have a whole lecture ready on how the Monument and the lodge were built.
But Annabeth wasn’t here - and dawn wasn’t even close to breaking yet. For the first time, I realized just how bad the situation was. Sure, we’d had a plan, but I wasn’t sure that plan even applied anymore. After all, we’d planned on having our forces assembled here and ready to fight before we even thought about giving Kronos the heads-up on where we were.
But now all of that had changed. First there was Cephissus, and now the two telekhines that had escaped. Percy was right - in a matter of minutes Kronos would know where we were, and there was a very real chance that he would get to us before our reinforcements did. Percy and I weren’t in the greatest shape, mostly because we also hadn’t planned on having to run all the way to Bunker Hill and fight off a pack of telekhines once we got here. Things had changed a lot, and suddenly I didn’t feel so great about anything.
“Percy... we might have to do this on our own,” I said, not daring to look at him.
Beside me, Percy took a breath and said, “Yeah. I know.” He shifted around, moving so that he was leaning over me and I had to look at him. “Are you still up for this?”
I didn’t know what the alternative was. Could we keep running? Who was to say Kronos wouldn’t find us again, and I definitely didn’t want to leave when Annabeth might come like we’d asked, only to be met by an ambush at the hands of Kronos. I wasn’t going to let that happen, not to her or any of the half-bloods she’d be bringing with her.
“I have to be,” I said, looking at Percy’s eyes as they flickered over my face. “You are.” I could see it in his eyes - he wasn’t going to leave. And if he wasn’t, then neither was I.
He smiled at me, but it was a grim smile as he settled back against my side, resting. There was no point in standing when there wasn’t anything to face just yet. “Yeah, I am. With or without reinforcements.”
I nodded slowly. “With or without - wait. Wait.” I stood abruptly, nearly causing Percy to fall over before he caught himself and pushed himself up off the ground, staring at me.
“Nico...?”
“Wait,” I said, holding up one hand. I took a breath, trying to clear my mind, closing my eyes briefly before I opened them again, looking out at the view from the top of Bunker Hill. To the east, I could see out over the shipyards and into the Boston Harbor. Across the river basin was the city itself, visible behind the white and blue cable bridge and what had to be a sports stadium with a huge Boston Bruins logo on the side lit up with spotlights. The city itself just looked like a tiny cluster of skyscrapers inside a larger group of medium-sized brick buildings, with the gold dome of the Massachusetts State House nestled among them. At the top of the tallest building, a lone blue light flashed steadily. I wondered if it meant anything important. The Charles River seemed to slash through the city like a ribbon of pure black, a wide swath where there were no lights. On the far side of the river, back past the bridges we’d swum under, I could see a red, white, and blue neon CITGO sign flashing in the night, the light reflecting off the black surface of the river.
But right across from us, just across the black expanse, was what I was looking for. Now that I knew what I wanted, I could feel it with all the certainty of the fact that my feet were still planted on the ground. “Percy,” I said, finally turning to look back at him, “I have an idea.”
He watched me for a minute, chewing on his bottom lip. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m not really going to like this idea?”
I sighed. “Because you might not. But it’s our best chance.” Percy simply stood there and waited for me to go on, so I did. “Remember how I told you I can re-animate bodies as well as spirits?” He nodded. “Well, there are a whole lot of them in Boston. I can feel it - there are at least three graveyards only a couple of miles away.” I pointed across the river to where my gut was pulling like a compass needle.
There, in the middle of the city, were graveyards filled with bodies. Thousands of them. They were old bodies, with old spirits - some older than those that had come to our aid on the battlefield. But at least some of them wouldn’t be completely decomposed. And I could bring them all here.
“Wait,” Percy said, finally picking up on my train of thought. “You want to bring all of those corpses here? To fight for us?”
I nodded. “Look - right now, it’s just you and me against whoever Kronos has with him. We don’t even know how many people - or monsters - that could be. What if he really does have an army? You said he didn’t know what kind of forces we had, but we don’t know what he has, either. And right now we don’t have any forces. I don’t know if Annabeth is going to get here in time, and neither do you.” I paused, looking at him. “Kronos will be on his way soon, if he’s not already. This might be our only chance. He’s not going to be afraid of ghosts, like the telekhines were.”
Percy frowned. He was quiet for a long moment. “So let me get this straight. You want to raise a zombie army to march across Boston and help us hold Bunker Hill?” He’d actually started to crack an incredulous smile, and I couldn’t help but return it
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” It sounded ridiculous, but it could work. It could work.
And Percy realized it, too. His grin grew wider, before he finally said, “Well, I always did like zombie movies.”
I let out a breath, grinning back. But then he raised a hand to my arm. “Are you gonna be okay if you do that? I get the feeling you’re talking about raising a lot of dead bodies, here. And you just did the thing with the ghosts... Nico,” he said quietly, shifting to move his hand to my face, “Don’t overdo it. You’re already hurt - we both are. And I don’t think I can help you with this. If you put yourself out of commission, I don’t... I don’t know...”
He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. I knew what he was going to say. I don’t know if I can fight and protect you from Kronos at the same time.
“You won’t have to,” I promised, looking him in the eyes. I wasn’t as sure as I sounded, but that didn’t matter. I was determined not to go out before I’d even gotten a chance at Kronos. Besides, what good was being a sixteen year-old half-blood if I couldn’t put it to good use? I would have the power to do this. I had to. “I’ll be okay.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Define ‘okay’.”
I tried not to grimace. I’d raised single bodies before, even a handful at the same time once or twice. But never thousands. “I’ll be tired. Probably pretty sick for a few minutes. But,” I went on, before he could get any protests in, “I think I’ll have enough time to recover before Kronos gets here. If,” I said, “I do it now.”
Percy’s grin faded, his mouth returning to a grim, worried line. “Now,” he echoed, and he looked up at the sky, where the east was bluer than the west, but there was still no sign of the sun. Dawn still had to be half an hour away, at best. He heaved a sigh, looking back at me. Then he flipped Riptide around in his grip so he could grasp me by the shoulders and press a soft, lingering kiss to my lips. I wanted time to stop right then; I wanted to forget that we were about to go into battle, that I was probably about to make myself sick, that the world was against us and help might not get here in time. I just wanted that moment to last forever, when Percy’s lips were warm against mine and all I could taste and feel and breathe was him.
But of course it couldn’t last. He pulled away and nodded up at me. He flipped Riptide back around and his eyes moved to the horizon, scanning. I realized he was in a guard position - he was guarding me. Now I could turn my full attention to the task at hand. “Okay,” he said, nodding to me, “do it.”
I turned to face the river - and the graveyards that lay across it. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath as I grasped my sword in both hands. As I exhaled I stabbed my sword blade-first into the ground. Then I reached out with my mind, to every body that I could feel had been buried beneath the soil of the city of Boston, and I called them all to me.