Death's Daughter

Chapter 12

Nico's head dipped ever so slightly. "Father."

Hades barely batted an eye at his son. Instead, he kept his steely gaze on me. "Franchesca. What a pleasant surprise. But why on Olympus did you bring him?" He was pointing to Leo, who was frozen with his eyes wide with fright.

I stared into my father's blue eyes. Unlike mine and Nico's, his seemed more like an abyss than the night sky or the depths of the ocean. His eyes looked almost black.

"Leo's my friend, so he came with me."

Hades smiled coldly. "That prophecy of yours begs to differ. Unless, your brother over here is your enemy. In that case, I hate sibling spats."

I clenched my jaw. This wasn't how I envisioned our reunion. Instead of embracing each other and talking, we were bickering like children.

"No one is my 'enemy'. Leo and I were fighting at the time. Now we're good. That's not what we came to talk about. I wanted-"

"Yes, yes. I know," he said with a wave of his hand. "You want to know about your mother. Well, I cannot tell you anything you do not already know. So, just go back to your little Camp and say you failed."

"No!" I yelled. "You're a liar! You know exactly what happened to my mom and why! You told Dominque to tell me lies! After a lifetime of lies, I finally get the truth, only to find that was a lie as well!"

Hades leaned forward in his throne. "And what makes you say that?"

"I've been having dreams. And I know that demigod dreams are real. Either they show you what happened or what will happen. And I know the truth."

He raised his eyebrows. "And what do you know?"

"That my mom died because I was born. That having me wasn't allowed, for whatever reason. That my mom did know who you were. And no one tried to kill me. Everything your Fury told me was a lie. Now I want the truth."

My dad smiled that cold, creepy grin again. "Are you sure you want the truth? Sometimes lies are what people want to hear. They prefer them to facts."

"Oh, I'm ready. Tell me what happened to my mom."

"Very well." Hades rose from his chair and approached our little trio. "If you wish for the truth, then that is what you will get." He paused as if waiting for me to stop him. I folded my arms and raised my eyebrows. Hades sighed. "Your mother, Elizabeth, was a wonderful woman. I was so distraught after what happened. Some of my brethren, all they care about is their children, never their partner. But it is different for me, I truely did love your mother. I stayed with Elizabeth for as long as I could and stayed away as little as possible." He glanced at Nico. "I did the same for Maria."

"The oracle, she, uh, she said that you two knew it was 'forbidden' to have me. What did she mean?"

"I am sure you are aware of the pact of the Big Three. Am I correct?" I nodded. "Well, it goes a lot deeper than that. You see, at the time, the Romans and the Greek were not permitted to interact, due to the fact they slaughtered each other every time they met. So, the gods had to do the same: we were not permitted to engage with our children from our other forms."

"Wait," I interrupted him, holding up my hand, "you're saying my mom was a Roman demigod?"

Hades nodded. "Yes, she was a daughter of Venus."

Leo exhaled beside me. "Whew, I thought you were saying you had a kid with your own kid." My dad glared at him and he shrunk back.

"As I was saying, Elizabeth was a daughter of Venus. But I had already fallen in love with her. When I found out, I told her who I really was, but she did not care. We both knew who the other was, and we knew of the pact. Yet it did not matter. Then, we had you, and I stayed for as long as possible. We were just delaying the inevitable, though. The oracle, she killed her, and it was all my fault." He hung his head and pressed his palm to his forehead.

"Dad-"

"No, just go. You have your answers, so leave." When we didn't move, he raised his head and looked at our group.

"GO!"

The boys turned and left, leaving me alone with my dad. I looked at him with pity in my eyes as he stared at me with a bit of loathing, maybe because I survived and not my mom. I sighed and left the obsidian throne room.

I met up with Leo and Nico outside the gates. My brother smiled kindly at me.

Leo bit his lip. "You got the answers you wanted, right? That completed the prophecy, so we can go back to Camp."

I shook my head. "I still haven't faced my biggest fear."

"You still haven't told us what that is," Nico pointed out.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. "I'm not exactly sure what that is, though."

"It couldn't have been talking to your dad?"

"No. I spent the longest time believing he was dead. No, that's not it."

We walked on, discussing what my fear could be. Soon, the boys were talking, and I was just lost in my thoughts. We were almost at the Doors, but a small river was in the way. It was shallow, so I was just going to wade through it. Just before my shoe touched the current, I felt two pairs of hands stop me. Right. River Lethe. I turned and smiled at my boys, thanking them for saving me. Leo rebuilt his bridge and in a few minutes, we were standing by a pile of rocks in Central Park.

I sighed. "I'm starving. Who wants McDonald's?"

We walked to the nearest McDonald's and sat down to eat. It felt so weird to do something so normal after spending what seemed like the past week in the land of the dead. We sat in silence for the longest time, just eating our meals: A McWrap for Leo, McNuggetts for me, and, oddly, a Happy Meal for Nico. I was drinking my tea when Leo spoke up.

"So, I'm just going to condense the past couple days in a few sentences. We shadow traveled to a door of rocks that opens when it hears music it likes. Frankie passed out, so we took her to a cave where we spilled our guts about our lives. Hades told us why Frankie's mom died then kicked us out, right before Frankie almost stepped in the Lethe, almost forgetting everything. And now were in McDonald's." Nico and I nodded. It was a pretty good summary of our quest. "Fantastic."

"I have a question. Why aren't they all freaking out because we have all these weapons?"

Nico started playing with his Happy Meal toy. "The Mist makes the mortals see things differently. Your dagger is just a belt, your bow is just a softball bat, Leo's sphere is just a soccer ball, my sword is just a lacrosse stick, and our backpacks are sports bags. We're probably in uniforms too."

I grinned. "Cool." We all were quiet for a second before I asked, "Ready?"

We only got a few feet out the door when we were cornered into an alley by these people. Only they weren't people.

"Cyclops," I heard Nico mutter. Sure enough, they only had one eye in the center of their foreheads.

I had seen Percy's brother, Tyson, at Camp very briefly, but these guys were different. They were bigger and meaner looking. Tyson was friendly; these looked murderous.

As if struck by the same thought, Leo pulled out his sphere, Nico unsheathed his sword, and I knocked an arrow in my bow. It was three small demigods compared to six huge Cyclops with weapons of their own, but that didn't stop us from attacking.