madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-therapist, mother, maid, nymph then a virgin, nurse then a servant-

merry christmas time to people who celebrate! i would've posted a christmas chapter for funnies but i got food poisoning and vomited for 24 hours. still recovering but im okay. enjoy the chapter! 

<3

Naturally, the situation was worse than everyone had expected.

Peering through the olive bushes at the top of the mountain, brushing leaved off herself, Teqi saw what looked like an out-of-control party in her cabin, run buy zombies. The ruins themselves actually weren't that impressive, just a few stone walls and a weed- choked central courtyard.

But spread over the ruins was another layer of reality – a ghostly version of the palaces prime.

A huge fountain and bronze braziers, a dozen banquet tables, ghouls laughing and eating and pushing one another around. Teqi remembered someone saying only a hundred spirits, but twice that many were milling about, chasing spectral serving girls and smashing plates and cups.

Most looked like those ghosts from Camp Jupiter – transparent purple wraiths in tunics and sandals. Others seemed to be regular living mortals – some in togas, some in modern business suits or army fatigues.

In the centre of the atrium, a grey-skinned ghoul in a tattered Greek tunic paraded through the crowd, holding a marble bust over his head like a sports trophy.

The other ghosts cheered and slapped him on the back. Teqi reached up and massaged the scar over her spleen, where an arrow had embedded itself once, when she noticed this particular guy had an arrow in his throat, the feathered shaft sprouting from his Adam's apple. That had got to get uncomfortable after a millennia.

The bust he was holding looked alarmingly like Jason's dad. She looked to her friend, who was frowning.

"Our next offering!" the ghoul shouted, his voice cracking, most likely from the arrow in his throat. "Let us feed the Earth Mother!"

The partiers yelled and pounded their cups. The ghoul made his way to the central fountain. The crowd parted. Teqi turned her head and squinted when she realised it wasn't filled with water. From the three-foot-tall pedestal, a geyser of sand spewed upward, before spilling into the bottom of the fountain.

The ghoul heaved the marble bust into the fountain. As soon as Zeus's head passed through the shower of sand, the marble disintegrated like it was going through a woodchipper. The sand glittered gold, like ichor.

Teqi gulped.

Then the entire mountain rumbled with a muffled BOOM, as if belching after a meal.

The dead partygoers roared with approval.

"Any more statues?" the ghoul shouted to the crowd. "No? Then I guess we'll have to wait for some real gods to sacrifice!"

His comrades laughed and applauded as the ghoul plopped himself down at the nearest feast table. Teqi stared at the god crushing fountain. Jason gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. She turned to her friends. "I wanna go home."

Piper scowled, her light eyeshadow wrinkling. "Who does he think he is?"

"I'm guessing that's Antinous," said Annabeth, "one of the suitors' leaders. If I remember right, it was Odysseus who shot him through the neck with that arrow."

"You'd think that would keep a guy down. What about all the others? Why are there so many?" Piper asked.

"New recruits, probably," Teqi said. There were goosebumps on her arm, and her legs were starting to cramp up from squatting behind the shrubbery for so long. "Party's tend to fill up quickly."