The Boy of Shadows and Sin

Chapter 15

The fire was burning, burning, burning everything within him—and this time it wasn't healing him. The river Phlegathon had failed him.

He had failed Percy.

I can do this, he had thought. I am the Ghost King, the son of Hades, the ambassador to Pluto. I control this underworld.

But that had been before he fell into the pit. It was only then that he realised how arrogant he had been, thinking that he could walk through Tartarus like he could with the rest of the underworld. There was a reason they had cast Kronos's remains into there.

And now Nico was there. Alone. Surrounded. And he hated to admit it, but he had no hope that he would walk out alive. The ground pulsates beneath his feet and the world glowed a menacing red.

A blessing—and a curse.

As the son of the God of the underworld, Nico was able to see all different levels of Tartarus's being, his very consciousness. It made it easier to navigate. It made it almost impossible to stay sane.

Monsters were everywhere, waiting to tear him apart piece by piece and devour his screams. Bianca was there, with them—one of them.

The burning feeling receded, leaving Nico weakly holding his pathetic sword. No, he definitely wouldn't be making it out alive. One hideous, terrible, unnamed thing lunged at him and he slashed at it. It didn't die. The creature glanced down at the Stygian blade in its side and laughed, before. It yanked it out and threw it to the side.

I will not be afraid, Nico told himself firmly. My name is Nico di Angelo and I will not be afraid.

And then Bianca stepped forwards. His hands started shaking. What was she doing in the depths of Greek hell? She had chosen rebirth.

"You disgust me, Nico," she said simply, harshly. He reeled back as if she'd slapped him. "I can't believe what you've done."

But before he could ask what part of it she meant, there was a groan. Nico spun around and Will was standing there, sillhoutted by the river of fire.

"Will?" Nico asked cautiously. "You shouldn't be here."

"You're right," the medic said, looking concerned. "But you've put me here, Nico." All of a sudden, blood blossomed on the front of his white surf shirt. Withholding his gasp the son of Hades ran over to him—and all of a sudden Will was ten feet away.

"You did this to me, Nico," Will said again, gesturing to the injury on his front. "You brought me here, and you abandoned me."

"No," Nico gasped, but when he looked down at his hand he was holding his sword once again. The blade was covered in blood.

"You belong here, Nico," he said as he collapsed to his knees, clutching his stomach. "I don't deserve to be here, but you're a monster just like the rest of them."

Nico screamed, "I didn't do this to you!" He dropped his sword and kept running towards the medic but the closer he got, the further away Will seemed. "You're the one person I could never hurt!"

When Will looked up again there was nothing but hurt in his eyes. "Why, Nico?" He asked desperately. "What did I do to you?"

"I'm sorry!" cried Nico, falling to his own knees helplessly. "I'm so godsdamned sorry, Will." He couldn't do anything but watch the blood spread. It was everywhere, dying his shirt, staining his long blonde hair the colour of an Afremov sunset.

"I should have told you," he said, trying to make the most of his last moments with Will. "I am a curse, OK? I'm not cursed—I am the curse. Anyone who I care about dies." There were bitter tears of anguish streaking paths down the grime coating Nico's face. "My mother and sister died. Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus. Hazel—she's been through enough already and I don't want her to deal with anything worse. The Seven lost Leo. And now you: you were the one perso, Will," he whispered. "You were my big mistake. The stupidest, stubbornest person I had ever met. I knew that I was hurting you, Will, and for that I can never forgive myself."

He hated how those bright blue eyes stared blankly at him, dimming bit by bit.

"Dammit, Will!" Nico screamed, climbing to his feet once more. "Now do you understand why I was going to leave camp? But you, you stubborn ass, you had to keep trying. Well, I stayed. Are you happy now, Will? Are you content knowing that I'm the one who killed you?!"

There was no response from Will and Nico couldn't take it. He started screaming and swearing at Will, throwing away his sword but it would always reappear in his hand and no matter how fast he ran, Will was always just out of reach.

Nico spun around, ready to kill anything, anyone, who came even remotely close to him.

It killed him to know that Will was beyond help, even his own. It was a curse of a different nature, he thought bitterly, that his power enabled him to kill but when they were at their strongest all he needed was to be able to heal.

"Don't be mad at our father, Nico," Bianca said. He whirled to his left, but his sister was nowhere to be seen. She continued in a singsong voice. "After all, the only person you have to blame is yourself."

"I didn't do any of this!" he screamed, but the voice carried on like it hadn't heard him.

"You did this to us, Nico. You're the one who killed our mother." A petite Italian lady was lying prone on the ground, unblinking. "I'm dead because of you. Will died by your sword. If it wasn't for you, Percy and Annabeth and Jason and Piper and Leo and Frank and Hazel and Reyna would all be alive." The bodies around him kept multiplying. All of the faces were ones that he knew well.

"No!" Nico shouted and ran towards them, throwing his sword as far away as possible. Before he covered any significant distance, though, an invisible hand picked him up by his aviator jacket like he was nothing more than a fly.

Despite the part of him they knew it was a lost cause, Nico struggled, fighting and beating at the phantom fingers. He hated it, hated being so utterly helpless as everyone he cared about slowly died right in front of him, hated that this was all his fault and that he had known but he had done this to them anyways. My fault, he thought as he screamed curses at the hand holding him. It wouldn't surprise him if his was the end of him. It was a fitting torture for a murderer like himself.

"I hope you're happy with yourself," a giant voice rumbled. The face of Hades materialized in front of him. "I had hope that you might be the child of mine that made a different name for future children of the underworld, but apparently I was working. And to make matters worse, not only are you a murderer, but a damned coward as well. You will never be as good as Bianca was. You aren't half the person that Hazel is. Hell, I would rather have that piss-poor excuse of a demigod Clovis as a son. Instead of facing your choices you run from them and throw your sword away. Even Hazel took responsibility for raising Alcyoneus again."

The faces on Hades's robes shimmered and screamed, reaching out to him, begging for mercy. All of a sudden one of the faces did reach or of the black fabric and grabbed Nico by the collar of his shirt.

"No!" Nico screamed again, partly out of fear of the fabric of torture, but mostly because he recognized the face that was pulling him in. There was a rush of darkness, and then pure, unadulterated pain. He looked to his left and there was Bryce, the ex-legionnaire he had killed while with Reyna and Hedge.

"Hello, di Angelo," the boy said, and Nico drew back in horror.

"No—you—how?" he stammered through the pain.

Bryce gave him a cruel, toothy grin. "Don't you know? This is what happens to those who are killed by underworld magic. Welcome to the party."

Nico tried to move, but it hurt too damn much. "I didn't want this!" he yelled. "I didn't want this for you or anyone else, and I'm sorry! I'm sorry I'm so damn sorry and if I could then I would go back and fix this, but I can't and I'm sorry!"

Bryce laughed, and suddenly it seemed like the whole world was laughing at him—for being a coward, for being weak, for being gay, for not being good enough, for being an underworld child, and it was too much, too much, too damn much.

With a gasp, Nico emerged from the vivid hallucination. Ricky was standing above him, and it took every ounce of willpower he had to not break down and start sobbing.

She tsked. "My, my, Nico," she said. "And I had had such high expectations for you."

Ricky spin on the heel of her shitkickers and slammed the door behind her as she left, leaving Nico alone, strapped to the table.

Helpless.