𝐱𝐱𝐱𝐢. tourist attraction

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CALL YOUR MOM

ACT TWO: i am just
a freak

chapter thirty one. tourist attraction

MITCHELL HAD NEVER BEEN SCARED OF THE dark

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MITCHELL HAD NEVER BEEN SCARED OF THE dark. But normally the dark wasn't forty feet tall. It didn't have black wings, a whip made out of stars and a shadowy chariot pulled by vampire horses.

Nyx was almost too much to take in. Looming over the chasm, she was a churning figure of ash and smoke, as big as the Athena Parthenos statue, but very much alive. Her dress was void black, mixed with the colours of a space nebula, as if galaxies were being born in her bodice. Her face was hard to see except for the pinpoints of her eyes, which shone like quasars. When her wings beat, waves of darkness rolled over the cliffs, making Mitchell feel heavy and sleepy, his eyesight dim.

The goddess's chariot was made of the same material as Nico di Angelo's sword — Stygian iron — pulled by two massive horses, all black except for their pointed silver fangs. The beasts' legs floated in the abyss, turning from solid to smoke as they moved.

The horses snarled and bared their fangs at Mitchell. The goddess lashed her whip — a thin streak of stars like diamond barbs — and the horses reared back.

"No, Shade," the goddess said. "Down, Shadow. These little prizes are not for you."

Percy eyed the horses as they nickered. He was still shrouded in Death Mist, so he looked like an out-of-focus corpse — which broke Mitchell's heart every time he saw him. It also must not have been very good camouflage, since Nyx could obviously see them.

Mitchell couldn't read the expression on Percy's ghoulish face very well. Apparently he didn't like whatever the horses were saying.

"Uh, so you won't let them eat us?" Percy asked the goddess. "They really want to eat us."

Nyx's quasar eyes burned. "Of course not. I would not let my horses eat you, any more than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will kill myself!"

Mitchell didn't feel particularly witty or courageous, but his instincts told him to take the initiative or this would be a very short conversation. "Oh, don't kill yourself!" he cried. "We're not that scary."

The goddess lowered her whip. "What? No, I didn't mean—"

"Well, I'd hope not!" Mitchell looked at Percy and forced a scoff. "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"

"Ha, ha," Percy said weakly. "No, we wouldn't."

The vampire horses looked confused. They reared and snorted and knocked their dark heads together. Nyx pulled back on the reins. "Do you know who I am?" she demanded.

"Well, you're Night, I suppose," said Mitchell. "I mean, I can tell because you're dark and everything, though the brochure didn't say much about you."

Nyx's eyes winked out for a moment. "What brochure?"

call your mom                                                 ⭢ percy jackson ²Where stories live. Discover now