Breaking the Gods

chapter 11

The worst thing about whatever was on the dart Nico had been shot with was that it didn't knock him out. It only paralyzed him. He tried to fight against it, but all his limbs suddenly felt like they were made out of lead.

He fought back his panic as he heard Landin radio someone to come collect him, then used all the control he had over the muscles in his face to narrow his eyes at the bastard when Landin knelt down in front of him.

"That was a nice trick you did. That little disappearing act of yours. I have to admit, I was beginning to worry that you'd actually slipped away."

If Nico could have talked he would have spat out a few curses in the bastard's face. Hades, he would have spat in his face literally.

But paralyzed, he was helpless to do anything as those two people he'd heard go into the creepy eye room came and lifted him off the ground.

You have no idea who you're messing with . . . what your messing with, Nico tried to tell them with his eyes. Even without my demigod powers I'm far from helpless.

"Take him to optics," said Landin to his lackeys, and they both draped one of Nico's arms over their shoulders and started carrying him out.

Optics? Is that where they do their freaky laser eye-surgery thing? Nico felt panic well up. A-Anubis? You there?

He didn't feel any sort of response from the god. That could only mean that Sadie and the others still required his full attention, and Nico would be damned if he took that away from them. If they required all of Anubis's attention that meant at least one of them, probably Sadie, was most likely in mortal danger. Nico wasn't. He would deal with this himself. He wasn't sure how yet, but he'd manage somehow.

Think. There's got to be a way out of this. Nico took a mental inventory of what he had at his disposal. His black blood seemed to be his best weapon now. It would burn through anything. And he had a limited amount of Egyptian magic at his disposal. Now he wished that he'd paid more attention in the classes at Brooklyn House. He'd been a fool to think he'd always be able to call on Anubis to do his spells for him.

I can get into my Duat locker on my own. I have stuff in there I can use. Firecrackers. My staff. More Stygian iron weapons, and some celestial bronze stuff too. But if I can't move, I can't use them. Or can I?

A plan began to form in Nico's mind. It was devious. A little dangerous. Okay, more than a little dangerous. But it was necessary. He couldn't come up with anything else on such short notice. He tried, but couldn't. And screaming in his own mind for Anubis to help him wasn't a real plan. It might work, but Nico would not resort to that. He would stand on his own two feet this time. Metaphorically. Paralyzed as he was, he couldn't stand at all, but that didn't matter. He didn't need to move a single muscle to make his plan work. This would be all about getting the magic right.

He wished that he could have sneered at Landin's lackeys as they drug him into the creepy eye room and strapped him into an examination chair. They were right to take precautions with a son of Hades . . . but those precautions wouldn't be enough. Not for a host of Anubis. Not by a long shot.

You fools are going to regret this.

Even with a plan, it was difficult to fight off his fear as they clamped these . . . things over his eyelids. Things that held his eyes open and made it so that he couldn't blink. Then they brought this big machine forward with these two scope looking things . . . or maybe they actually looked more like twin muzzles of some sort of gun. Nico was willing to bet his Mythomagic collection that those were where the laser would be coming out of. They moved it right up so that it was directly in front of him and adjusted the laser nozzles so that they were right in front of his eyes, and Nico felt unbridled panic start to rise up in him because if they kept the machine right there his plan wouldn't work . . . or maybe it could, but it would have some really horrible consequences for him.