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greenconversesTitle: Death's Dare
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Rachel/Nico, with appearances from the rest of the cast and the gods
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Summary: After an attempt on her life, Apollo decides Rachel needs a bodyguard and who better to take the job than a certain son of Hades? Too bad they're not going to make things easy for each other, especially when it comes to their feelings.
Notes: I'm not going lie, I'm not very happy with this chapter. Almost every scene in this fic was re-written two or three times, and I'm still not completely satisfied with the way it turned out. Oh well. I hope you all enjoy it, anyway.
Chapter Four: Visits
Rachel screamed and stumbled backward, the curtain falling from her hands and hiding the horrible creature from view. She tripped over her feet and fell to the floor, knocking her elbow on her desk as she went down.
Ignoring the brief pain and regaining her senses, she began clawing at the drawers of her desk, trying to find the Celestial Bronze dagger that she had shoved away a couple of days ago. Any second that thing would break through the glass and – and –
“Rachel.”
She screamed again and whipped around. Nico was crouching beside her in the dark, his hair tousled and face lit by the cool, silver glow from his drawn sword. He was just wearing a pair of jeans, but his shirtlessness was the least of her concerns. She hadn’t heard him come in; it was almost as if he had appeared in the shadows beside her.
“There – there’s something – ” Rachel whispered, petrified. Unable to finish her sentence, she pointed a shaky finger at the balcony door.
Nico nodded and rose silently. He motioned for her to get behind the other side of her desk and she did so as quickly as her shaking limbs would allow. She resisted the urge to shut her eyes as Nico raised his sword and pulled back the curtain –
“There’s nothing here, Rachel.”
“What?”
He drew the curtain aside so Rachel could get a clear view of the entire balcony, which, much to her shock, was devoid of any demonic creatures with glowing red eyes.
“B – but it was there! I didn’t imagine it, I swear!”
The demigod said nothing as he lowered his sword to his side. He paused as something caught his eye and then his shoulders tensed.
“There’s something out there.”
In a moment, Nico was on the other side of the balcony door, staring into her room from the outside. Rachel gasped in surprise. How had he done that? Could Nico travel through solid objects, like a ghost?
He motioned at her through the glass. “Will you turn the light on?”
Rachel stood, and flipped the switch to the outdoor light. Nico and the balcony were fully illuminated, revealing streaks of red liquid that had been splattered over the glass. Dread filling her stomach, Rachel glanced a little lower and blanched at the sight of the shredded, bloody mess that had been dumped at the base of her door.
She covered her mouth with her hands and gagged, feeling her terror and the alcohol catching up to her at last. She hurried to her bathroom, fumbling to lift the toilet seat up in the dark, and then retched the contents of her stomach in the bowl.
She flinched as she felt hands brush the base of her neck, but it was just Nico, crouching beside her and pulling her hair away from her face. Distantly, Rachel thought it was rather nice gesture on his part, but then the image of the bloody thing swam to the front of her mind and she heaved into the toilet again.
“You okay?” Nico asked after a little while, once she had stopped vomiting and had leaned forward, resting her forehead against the edge of the toilet.
“No,” she said, her shoulders trembling. She felt Nico’s hand hover awkwardly near the middle of her back, like he wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how. “No, I’m not okay. What kind of stupid question was that?”
Born from her terror and exhaustion, her question lacked any serious bite and came out sounding more scared than sarcastic like she had intended.
“Sorry,” Nico said simply, his hand finally settling between her shoulder blades. “I just…don’t think you get asked that a lot, that’s all.”
Tears pricked Rachel’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She’d already let Nico see more of her weaknesses than any other person and she wasn’t going to allow him to see her completely lose it.
Hadn’t they just been at each other’s throats at the start of the night? How did this stupid boy go from being the biggest prick in the world to being a sensitive, honest human being in the span of mere hours?
“I’m fine,” Rachel said slowly, pulling away from the toilet and sitting back on her haunches.
She glanced over her shoulder. It was hard to see Nico in the darkness of her bathroom, but she noticed his brow was furrowed with worry. “But thank you for asking.”
Why did Nico have the special ability to see what she had been hiding from everyone else, even Percy and Annabeth? And why did the fact that he did see these things make her chest ache so fiercely?
*
Nico was an idiot. A grade-A fucking idiot.
He wasn’t supposed to let monsters get close enough for Rachel to scream. If she saw them before he did, then she was as good as dead.
How could he have let some kind of monster get that close to Rachel without sensing its approach? Had it been because the monster’s intentions hadn’t been malicious or because he just wasn’t paying attention? Or, perhaps it was a worse scenario than that – perhaps he just couldn’t sense what was after Rachel.
Whatever the reason, there was no excuse for Nico’s failure. He was just plain fucking lucky that she was unharmed, let alone still breathing.
Gods, he was so stupid. He had brushed off the balcony within his first hour of arriving, and it had been the first weakness their enemy had exploited. He didn’t know the first thing about keeping someone safe and alive – he only knew death, and that was going to get Rachel killed, just like it had with Bianca –
“What’s that on the door?”
Rachel’s question drew him out of his reverie, and Nico turned in her direction. She looked like shit right now, with her bleary red eyes and hair flying in every direction, but he still felt a faint stirring of desire overcome some of his feelings of frustration.
See, that was what was wrong with him. He’d been letting his dick run the show for the last week, and he needed to get his head on straight already.
He had to focus.
“The blood? From what I could tell, it was probably a dog or some sort,” he replied casually, studying Rachel’s reaction. She kept her facial expression schooled, but he saw her skin pale just a little more.
“I saw that. I meant the markings. I didn’t notice those before.”
Nico looked back at the door. He had noticed the etchings on the glass when he had been cleaning up the mess the monster had left behind, but he hadn’t bothered to see if they had meant anything. Now that Rachel had pointed them out again, he realized that they weren’t random markings. They had a distinctive shape, almost like…
“Is…Is that Ancient Greek?” Rachel asked, moving closer to him. Nico tensed instinctively. How could she stand to be near him after he had failed like this?
“Yeah,” he replied, bending closer to get a look at the glass. “Really shitty Ancient Greek, but that’s definitely it. You can’t read it, can you?”
“No. That’s one super power I didn’t gain when I became the Oracle.”
As the crude letters began to take shape in his mind and form words, Nico suddenly wished he couldn’t read Ancient Greek either because this message was making him furious. His hand found the handle of his sword and gripped it tightly as he read on, his anger rising with each word. When he found whoever was behind this, he was going to do something much worse than kill them –
“What’s it say?”
“O – oh,” Nico said, feeling his cheeks flush with mixture of embarrassment and anger. “Roughly, it translates into a request for a prophecy, complete with an offering, which was probably that carcass.”
She didn’t need to hear the rest of it – the litany of insults, the vicious threats, the promises of what they would do to her if she didn’t comply. He wasn’t going to add to her list of worries by repeating them.
“An – an offering?” she repeated, puzzled. “Why would I want an offering like that?”
“That’s how people used to consult the Oracle in ancient Greece. They’d bring a sacrificial animal and some money before her, and if it was approved, she’d answer their question,” he explained, straightening again. “But it didn’t leave any question, so it must be a warning of some sort…”
Nico didn’t like what this meant for the both of them. He’d been told by the gods that someone was trying to kill Rachel – not that something out there was interested in a prophecy and keeping Rachel alive for their own nefarious purposes. Killers were easy to understand, easy to predict; Nico understood the nature of death and those who reveled in it all too well.
But those who delighted in torturing the living…well, that was something much different.
“So that means they’ll be back,” Rachel said, her voice solid and unwavering.
“Most likely, but they won’t get this far the next time,” he replied, reaching for the curtains to pull them back into place. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“I know.”
He had been sure she once she had recovered from the scare, she would’ve been ragging on him for being the most incompetent bodyguard in the world, so this quiet affirmation of her belief in him was rather surprising. Who was this and what had they done to the real Rachel Elizabeth Dare?
Nico looked at her again. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her mouth set in a firm line. There was no fear in her green eyes, only clear understanding. While most girls he knew would’ve been terrified out of their wits by what had happened, Rachel was full of pure determination – the determination to stay alive at all costs.
Rachel, Nico was beginning to understand, was a lot different than most girls.
“They won’t try anything else tonight. It looked like they were more interested in scaring you than anything else,” he continued. “I’m going back to my room, unless you need anything else…”
She shook her head, a long strand of red hair falling free from her pony tail and into her eyes. Before Nico quite knew what he was doing, he had reached up to tuck it behind her ear. Her eyes widened in surprise, but not dislike, as his fingers brushed her cheek and desire once again stirred in his belly.
He had to stop this.
“Sleep well, all right?” he said, swallowing thickly.
“I will.”
He was going to get her killed if he didn’t pull himself together and concentrate on his job.
*
In fact, Rachel did not sleep well for that rest of the night.
It was understandable, considering the circumstances, but annoying nonetheless, especially once she had sobered up after a few hours. She’d stared at the ceiling in her studio (because there was no way she’d sleep in her room after that), tossing and turning on her little cot until the orange glow from the sunrise began to peek through the windows. Her eyes began to droop closed sometime after that, as if her body had decided that just then it was finally safe to go to sleep.
And why wouldn’t it be? Their enemy would have to a death wish to attack her while Lord Apollo was out, watching over everyone. Nothing would hurt her while he was around.
Her sleep wasn’t easy and it didn’t last long, full of nightmares about shadowy creatures with glowing red eyes and other monsters Rachel had long forgotten. It all combined into a painful, colorful swirl that might’ve been scenes from the future instead of just her imagination and, unable to take it anymore, she crawled out of bed a little later that afternoon, head pounding and limbs utterly exhausted.
She was extremely thankful that it was a Sunday so she didn’t have to go anywhere and wouldn’t have to deal with anyone besides Nico. She didn’t know what kind of mood he’d be in today – he had mumbled something about messing around with security last night before storming out of her room to fume somewhere else – and she was hoping he wouldn’t do anything stupid today because she could not be held accountable for what her massive hangover had her say in response.
Unfortunately for him, that happened to be the case.
When she had finally stumbled into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, hissing as the light flooding in from the windows hit her eyes, she’d been a little surprised to hear voices coming from the living room. One was definitely Nico’s low tone, but the other was a female’s high, giggly voice that made Rachel’s head pound. She ignored her cup of coffee for the moment in favor of finding out just who was giggling with Nico in her living room.
Sitting rather close to him on the leather couch was a young girl, maybe about sixteen or seventeen, dressed from head-to-toe in some ridiculous black lace get up that looked like it had been pulled out of Dumpster and artistically sewn together with fishing wire. Rachel probably would’ve liked it had it been on anybody else but this stupid girl, who was currently leaning into Nico’s personal space a bit too much for her liking.
She was annoyed for Nico’s sake, of course. It’s not like it mattered to Rachel how close another girl got to Nico’s face or that her hand was on his upper thigh or that he was smiling at her in a ridiculously soppy sort of way –
“I didn’t realize my place had become your new seduction den, di Angelo,” Rachel snapped, causing the two pull away from each other and glance in her general direction. Nico at least had the decency to color in embarrassment; the girl glowered at her like she was something particularly scummy stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
“Who’s this, Nico?” the girl asked with a thick Irish accent. She had multiple piercings on her face and ears, and her blonde hair was streaked with green and blue dye. She definitely seemed like someone Rachel would’ve normally hung out with, had it not been for the “holier than thou” vibe she was giving off in spades. “Your cleaning lady? You should tell her that her job is to take out the trash, not to look like it.”
Oh, they were so not going to be friends after that. Nico choked back his bark of laughter as Rachel’s glare zeroed in on him.
“That’s a bit rich, coming from the girl wearing a trash bag,” she snarled, turning her back on the two of them and walking into the kitchen. “Gods, I need some serious caffeine before I can deal with bratty teenagers.”
She heard the couch creak as at least one of them got up, and the heavy footsteps on the tile a few moments later indicated it was Nico. He stood beside her, watching her as she played with the coffee machine, and Rachel was hardly bothered by it.
Having him around was comforting, in a completely baffling and annoying sort of way.
“You sleep okay?” he asked as she reached up to open the cupboard door.
“Of course not,” she replied shortly, frowning as she noticed her favorite mug had been moved to one of the highest shelves. “Okay, first thing that’s going on our list of boundaries… Under pain of death, you shall not move my mug from the low shelf.”
Rachel stood on her tiptoes and made a grab for the mug. Her fingers brushed the handle, but it wasn’t enough to grab it. She huffed and tried again, but Nico reached up and pulled the mug down with ease. He handed it to her, amused, and she stuck her tongue out at him, exasperated.
“I suppose you haven’t slept yet, have you?” Rachel asked, noticing the dark circles under his eyes and his rumpled clothes.
“No. I waited until the sun rose to go and get Kate – ” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the girl in the living room. “ – and that took much longer than I thought it would. I just got back, actually. Once she’s done, I’ve got to take her back to Dublin and then I’ll probably crash, if that’s okay with you.”
“Dublin?” Rachel repeated, wondering if she had heard him right. “Like Dublin, Ireland, Dublin?”
“Yeah, that’s where she’s from.”
“But how did you…” Rachel paused, staring at him thoughtfully. She tapped her finger on the side of her mug, and then pointed it at him. “That’s how you pulled that disappearing act in my room last night. I was going to ask you about that. Is that one of your freaky powers?”
“I believe you told me that if it was incriminating, you didn’t want to hear about it,” Nico replied with a grin. “Creatures of the Underworld can shadow travel, meaning I can pass through the shadows and end up somewhere else entirely. Little stuff like I did last night is easy, but traveling long distance wears me out pretty fast.”
“Huh. So why did you have to go to Ireland to get Kate the Pierced Fiend?”
“Yes, Nico,” Kate interrupted, leaning over the kitchen counter and glaring at the both of them. Rachel winced as the large crystal hanging from her neck scraped along the countertop. “Please tell me why you absolutely had to drag me to New York so I could watch you flirt with your pathetic mortal girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said in a pained voice, as this conversation often came up in Kate’s presence. Which, considering the possessive way she had clamped her hand on his elbow, it probably did.
“Yes, and I pity the girl who actually gets his attention one day,” Rachel said as the coffee maker beeped. “Nico couldn’t flirt if his life depended on it.”
“Well, he clearly hasn’t been trying with you then,” Kate said haughtily, throwing her hair over her shoulder. Even though she looked like a punk, she reminded Rachel an awful lot of her prissy classmates from Clarion Ladies Academy. “You’re too old for him anyway. What are you, like 30?”
Rachel gritted her teeth, willing herself not to pour the entire pot coffee on Kate’s colorful head. It’d be a waste, and she’d still be grumpy after the fact.
Nico seemed to recognize the warning signs of her growing ire because he said, “Look, Kate. I just need your help with some protection spells for Rachel’s apartment. We had an intruder last night, and I don’t want anyone getting close to this place again.”
This piqued Kate’s attention for another reason entirely.
“An intruder? What kind?”
“A monster. I didn’t get a look at it, but it could probably fly or at least climb since it got onto the balcony.”
“That’s unusual,” Kate said, pursuing her lips into a concentrated pout so her piercing stood out a little more. “Most monsters aren’t allowed in domestic spaces by default, and it definitely goes against their screwed up code of honor to attack someone in their sleep.” She glanced between the two of them, and her gaze settled on Rachel. “What are you not telling me about her, Nico? Her aura is…different from most mortals.”
Nico said nothing, glancing at Rachel cautiously. She realized he was putting the ball in her court – it was up to her whether or not Kate would know about the whole Oracle-assassination plot.
Rachel thought about not telling the other girl briefly, but decided it against. Despite her attitude problem, Nico obviously trusted her enough to bring her to her place with no warning to the contrary. And if Nico trusted her, it would have to be good enough for Rachel. She had to start thinking of him as her bodyguard instead of her bratty roommate.
“That would be because I’m the Oracle,” Rachel replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I suppose my aura would look a little funky.”
“You’re fucking with me,” Kate said with disbelieving laugh. “Last I heard, the Oracle was a dried up mummy at Camp Half-Blood…unless they were talking about you after all.”
Gods, she didn’t look that bad, did she? She tried to discreetly check her reflection in the metal of the coffee pot as she said, “I really as much the Oracle as Dead Boy over there is the son of an Olympian god. What I don’t know is who you are and what you’re doing in my apartment.”
“Shouldn’t you know such things if you’re the Oracle?”
“Do you want to know what I see in your future? My foot getting shoved up your – ”
“She’s a priestess of Hecate, goddess of witches,” Nico interrupted, sounding agitated. He glared at Rachel in disapproval. “She’s going to help out without security; she’s the best in her coven with protection spells and once she’s finished, nothing mystical will be able to get anywhere near here.”
Kate flushed at Nico’s compliment, and Rachel felt resentment stir within her again. She was absolutely not jealous of that teenager. No way. What was there to be jealous of, the fact that Kate and Nico seemed to have a history together that he and Rachel didn’t? Or maybe the fact that Kate could have a romantic relationship with Nico and Rachel couldn’t?
All right, that was something to be jealous of, but it wasn’t like she wanted a relationship with Nico. She just wanted him to kiss her…and maybe do a few other things to her, if he felt so inclined. Considering he had never looked at her like the way he had been looking at Kate on the couch, that was a highly unlikely possibility and that was just fucking fine with her.
“Fine. Whatever you think will work,” she said, grabbing her mug off the counter. “I’m going to go take a shower, and then I’m going to lock myself in my studio. Don’t let me keep you.”
She didn’t quite catch Nico’s expression as she turned around, but she thought he might’ve looked a little relieved. Whether that was because she wasn’t giving him any trouble about the security or because he wanted to have some alone time with Kate, she didn’t know.
The two of them were gone again by the time Rachel got out of her shower, and she furiously threw herself into her painting. At least when she was lost in the art, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting killed or obsessing over a stupid boy she couldn’t have, and painting calmed her down better than anything in the world. She’d always be able to paint, no matter how tired, hung over, or scared she was.
Nico didn’t show up in her studio for another few hours, and she felt his presence behind her before she saw him. She put the finishing touches on the area of canvas she had been working on for the past hour before she turned around.
“Everything work out okay?” she said as she pulled earbuds out and let them dangle down her shoulders.
“Yeah,” Nico said with a yawn, leaning on one of the canvases with one arm. He was so exhausted that his hair was beginning to wilt. “Your apartment is officially monster proof. We even went to go find some creepy crawly to test it out while you were busy.”
“That’s good,” she replied, feeling a little relieved. “And you got back to Ireland without any hassle…?”
“Other than Kate putting up a fight about me staying with her overnight, no. Nice girl, but in case you couldn’t tell, she’s kind of got this idea that I’m going to be her boyfriend,” Nico said, rolling his eyes. “If I had a dollar for every priestess of Hecate who thought they were going to marry me, I’d be rich enough to buy this apartment.”
Rachel smiled, both amused by this fact and secretly pleased that Kate had been shot down hard. “Have a little fan club, do you?”
“I don’t know what’s in the water across the pond, but whenever I met anyone in Europe who knew who I was, they just went apeshit. It’s like I’m Elvis’s clone or something,” he said, holding up his hand and pointing to a jagged white scar on the palm of his hand. “I got this when two of Kate’s coven members got into a magical cat fight about who deserved me more. I usually try to avoid them as much as possible because they’re positively psychotic, but I had to make an exception for you.”
“I’m sorry I make your life so difficult,” Rachel said sarcastically. “So how close was I to getting turned into a toad?”
It worried her a little bit that Nico didn’t take her comment as a joke and actually paused to think about it.
“Probably fairly close. I think the only thing that stopped her was her curiosity about your aura,” he said. “Even if she had tried, her magic probably wouldn’t have worked on you anyway.”
A lot of things didn’t work around Rachel – most electronic devices if she was about to have a prediction, for instance – but this was the first she’d heard about magic.
“Why’s that?”
“The spirit of Delphi has her own protection. That’s what kept my father from blasting your predecessor to bits after my mother died anyway. I suppose that’s why whoever’s after you is sending monsters instead of appearing in person. Delphi will protect you against most godly magics.”
“Huh,” Rachel said, tapping her finger thoughtfully against her chin. “So I could go mouth off to old Zeus himself and not get zapped into oblivion?”
Nico’s gaze darkened, and Rachel swore she heard thunder rumble outside. “I wouldn’t recommend it. And fat chance doing something that stupid while I’m around.”
Rachel scoffed. “Like you could stop me. Remember, you’re talking to the girl who tried to fly into the city during the Battle of New York.”
“Tried being the key word,” he replied, wagging his finger at her and Rachel laughed.
She wasn’t sure why their usual banter was so different today. It certainly lacked the animosity and the anger from the previous week, and she hadn’t found Nico half as annoying as he had been. Had one simple scare been enough for them to put aside their differences and act like adults?
“Oh, before I forget,” Nico muttered, reaching into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out a small, tissue wrapped package. Her tossed it at her and she caught it clumsily. “This is for you.”
She unwrapped the tissue, careful not to smear the paint on her fingers and hyperaware that Nico was pretending to be disinterested while he watched her unwrap it. She pulled back the last layer of tissue, and her eyes widened in surprise at the sight.
Nestled in the white tissue was a simple, but very pretty, necklace. A small, shimmering white-blue moonstone hung from a short silver chain, the colors changing with the light as she shifted the package to examine it closer. Rachel didn’t wear much jewelry, but this necklace was exactly her style.
“It’s…it’s very pretty,” she said, hoping she didn’t like a typical girl gushing over jewels. She frowned, and looked up at him. “But why are you giving it to me?”
“It was a gift from my father to my mother when they first met. They found it in her things after she died, and my aunt gave it to me before I left Italy,” Nico explained, his tone casual but his stance stiff. “Moonstones are receptive to extreme emotions, particularly female emotions, and if you know how to use them right, you can use them as a monitor of sorts.”
“Kind of like an ancient GPS locator, huh?” Rachel said, grasping the necklace by the chain and holding it up.
“If you’re wearing this while I’m wearing mine,” he held up his right hand and she noticed a new silver ring on his thumb. “We’ll have a tiny connection. I’ll know the instant you’re in trouble, even if you’re not quite sure of it yet. That way, I don’t have to follow you when you decide to leave the apartment.”
“But you will anyway,” Rachel said pointedly, undoing the clasp and slipping the necklace around her neck. It was a little cold and heavy, but nothing terribly uncomfortable.
“Probably,” he said. “I just thought I’d make an effort to respect your independence and…you know. Stuff like that.”
He looked uncomfortable saying that, enough for Rachel’s suspicions to be aroused.
“Percy got to you last night, didn’t he?”
Nico scoffed. “No. Whatever gave you that idea?”
The tips of his ears were turning red as he talked, so Rachel made a mental note to send Percy a nice thank you present later in the week.
“Thank you,” she said, fixing the clasp around her neck. “For the necklace, and everything else. I really do mean it.”
“You’re welcome, I suppose,” he said, letting out another huge yawn.” Anyway, I’m going to go sleep. Please try not to get yourself in trouble for the next eight hours, all right?”
“No promises,” Rachel said with a smile, and turned back to her painting, the moonstone bumping against her breastbone.
Next
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Rachel/Nico, with appearances from the rest of the cast and the gods
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Summary: After an attempt on her life, Apollo decides Rachel needs a bodyguard and who better to take the job than a certain son of Hades? Too bad they're not going to make things easy for each other, especially when it comes to their feelings.
Notes: I'm not going lie, I'm not very happy with this chapter. Almost every scene in this fic was re-written two or three times, and I'm still not completely satisfied with the way it turned out. Oh well. I hope you all enjoy it, anyway.
Rachel screamed and stumbled backward, the curtain falling from her hands and hiding the horrible creature from view. She tripped over her feet and fell to the floor, knocking her elbow on her desk as she went down.
Ignoring the brief pain and regaining her senses, she began clawing at the drawers of her desk, trying to find the Celestial Bronze dagger that she had shoved away a couple of days ago. Any second that thing would break through the glass and – and –
“Rachel.”
She screamed again and whipped around. Nico was crouching beside her in the dark, his hair tousled and face lit by the cool, silver glow from his drawn sword. He was just wearing a pair of jeans, but his shirtlessness was the least of her concerns. She hadn’t heard him come in; it was almost as if he had appeared in the shadows beside her.
“There – there’s something – ” Rachel whispered, petrified. Unable to finish her sentence, she pointed a shaky finger at the balcony door.
Nico nodded and rose silently. He motioned for her to get behind the other side of her desk and she did so as quickly as her shaking limbs would allow. She resisted the urge to shut her eyes as Nico raised his sword and pulled back the curtain –
“There’s nothing here, Rachel.”
“What?”
He drew the curtain aside so Rachel could get a clear view of the entire balcony, which, much to her shock, was devoid of any demonic creatures with glowing red eyes.
“B – but it was there! I didn’t imagine it, I swear!”
The demigod said nothing as he lowered his sword to his side. He paused as something caught his eye and then his shoulders tensed.
“There’s something out there.”
In a moment, Nico was on the other side of the balcony door, staring into her room from the outside. Rachel gasped in surprise. How had he done that? Could Nico travel through solid objects, like a ghost?
He motioned at her through the glass. “Will you turn the light on?”
Rachel stood, and flipped the switch to the outdoor light. Nico and the balcony were fully illuminated, revealing streaks of red liquid that had been splattered over the glass. Dread filling her stomach, Rachel glanced a little lower and blanched at the sight of the shredded, bloody mess that had been dumped at the base of her door.
She covered her mouth with her hands and gagged, feeling her terror and the alcohol catching up to her at last. She hurried to her bathroom, fumbling to lift the toilet seat up in the dark, and then retched the contents of her stomach in the bowl.
She flinched as she felt hands brush the base of her neck, but it was just Nico, crouching beside her and pulling her hair away from her face. Distantly, Rachel thought it was rather nice gesture on his part, but then the image of the bloody thing swam to the front of her mind and she heaved into the toilet again.
“You okay?” Nico asked after a little while, once she had stopped vomiting and had leaned forward, resting her forehead against the edge of the toilet.
“No,” she said, her shoulders trembling. She felt Nico’s hand hover awkwardly near the middle of her back, like he wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how. “No, I’m not okay. What kind of stupid question was that?”
Born from her terror and exhaustion, her question lacked any serious bite and came out sounding more scared than sarcastic like she had intended.
“Sorry,” Nico said simply, his hand finally settling between her shoulder blades. “I just…don’t think you get asked that a lot, that’s all.”
Tears pricked Rachel’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She’d already let Nico see more of her weaknesses than any other person and she wasn’t going to allow him to see her completely lose it.
Hadn’t they just been at each other’s throats at the start of the night? How did this stupid boy go from being the biggest prick in the world to being a sensitive, honest human being in the span of mere hours?
“I’m fine,” Rachel said slowly, pulling away from the toilet and sitting back on her haunches.
She glanced over her shoulder. It was hard to see Nico in the darkness of her bathroom, but she noticed his brow was furrowed with worry. “But thank you for asking.”
Why did Nico have the special ability to see what she had been hiding from everyone else, even Percy and Annabeth? And why did the fact that he did see these things make her chest ache so fiercely?
*
Nico was an idiot. A grade-A fucking idiot.
He wasn’t supposed to let monsters get close enough for Rachel to scream. If she saw them before he did, then she was as good as dead.
How could he have let some kind of monster get that close to Rachel without sensing its approach? Had it been because the monster’s intentions hadn’t been malicious or because he just wasn’t paying attention? Or, perhaps it was a worse scenario than that – perhaps he just couldn’t sense what was after Rachel.
Whatever the reason, there was no excuse for Nico’s failure. He was just plain fucking lucky that she was unharmed, let alone still breathing.
Gods, he was so stupid. He had brushed off the balcony within his first hour of arriving, and it had been the first weakness their enemy had exploited. He didn’t know the first thing about keeping someone safe and alive – he only knew death, and that was going to get Rachel killed, just like it had with Bianca –
“What’s that on the door?”
Rachel’s question drew him out of his reverie, and Nico turned in her direction. She looked like shit right now, with her bleary red eyes and hair flying in every direction, but he still felt a faint stirring of desire overcome some of his feelings of frustration.
See, that was what was wrong with him. He’d been letting his dick run the show for the last week, and he needed to get his head on straight already.
He had to focus.
“The blood? From what I could tell, it was probably a dog or some sort,” he replied casually, studying Rachel’s reaction. She kept her facial expression schooled, but he saw her skin pale just a little more.
“I saw that. I meant the markings. I didn’t notice those before.”
Nico looked back at the door. He had noticed the etchings on the glass when he had been cleaning up the mess the monster had left behind, but he hadn’t bothered to see if they had meant anything. Now that Rachel had pointed them out again, he realized that they weren’t random markings. They had a distinctive shape, almost like…
“Is…Is that Ancient Greek?” Rachel asked, moving closer to him. Nico tensed instinctively. How could she stand to be near him after he had failed like this?
“Yeah,” he replied, bending closer to get a look at the glass. “Really shitty Ancient Greek, but that’s definitely it. You can’t read it, can you?”
“No. That’s one super power I didn’t gain when I became the Oracle.”
As the crude letters began to take shape in his mind and form words, Nico suddenly wished he couldn’t read Ancient Greek either because this message was making him furious. His hand found the handle of his sword and gripped it tightly as he read on, his anger rising with each word. When he found whoever was behind this, he was going to do something much worse than kill them –
“What’s it say?”
“O – oh,” Nico said, feeling his cheeks flush with mixture of embarrassment and anger. “Roughly, it translates into a request for a prophecy, complete with an offering, which was probably that carcass.”
She didn’t need to hear the rest of it – the litany of insults, the vicious threats, the promises of what they would do to her if she didn’t comply. He wasn’t going to add to her list of worries by repeating them.
“An – an offering?” she repeated, puzzled. “Why would I want an offering like that?”
“That’s how people used to consult the Oracle in ancient Greece. They’d bring a sacrificial animal and some money before her, and if it was approved, she’d answer their question,” he explained, straightening again. “But it didn’t leave any question, so it must be a warning of some sort…”
Nico didn’t like what this meant for the both of them. He’d been told by the gods that someone was trying to kill Rachel – not that something out there was interested in a prophecy and keeping Rachel alive for their own nefarious purposes. Killers were easy to understand, easy to predict; Nico understood the nature of death and those who reveled in it all too well.
But those who delighted in torturing the living…well, that was something much different.
“So that means they’ll be back,” Rachel said, her voice solid and unwavering.
“Most likely, but they won’t get this far the next time,” he replied, reaching for the curtains to pull them back into place. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“I know.”
He had been sure she once she had recovered from the scare, she would’ve been ragging on him for being the most incompetent bodyguard in the world, so this quiet affirmation of her belief in him was rather surprising. Who was this and what had they done to the real Rachel Elizabeth Dare?
Nico looked at her again. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her mouth set in a firm line. There was no fear in her green eyes, only clear understanding. While most girls he knew would’ve been terrified out of their wits by what had happened, Rachel was full of pure determination – the determination to stay alive at all costs.
Rachel, Nico was beginning to understand, was a lot different than most girls.
“They won’t try anything else tonight. It looked like they were more interested in scaring you than anything else,” he continued. “I’m going back to my room, unless you need anything else…”
She shook her head, a long strand of red hair falling free from her pony tail and into her eyes. Before Nico quite knew what he was doing, he had reached up to tuck it behind her ear. Her eyes widened in surprise, but not dislike, as his fingers brushed her cheek and desire once again stirred in his belly.
He had to stop this.
“Sleep well, all right?” he said, swallowing thickly.
“I will.”
He was going to get her killed if he didn’t pull himself together and concentrate on his job.
*
In fact, Rachel did not sleep well for that rest of the night.
It was understandable, considering the circumstances, but annoying nonetheless, especially once she had sobered up after a few hours. She’d stared at the ceiling in her studio (because there was no way she’d sleep in her room after that), tossing and turning on her little cot until the orange glow from the sunrise began to peek through the windows. Her eyes began to droop closed sometime after that, as if her body had decided that just then it was finally safe to go to sleep.
And why wouldn’t it be? Their enemy would have to a death wish to attack her while Lord Apollo was out, watching over everyone. Nothing would hurt her while he was around.
Her sleep wasn’t easy and it didn’t last long, full of nightmares about shadowy creatures with glowing red eyes and other monsters Rachel had long forgotten. It all combined into a painful, colorful swirl that might’ve been scenes from the future instead of just her imagination and, unable to take it anymore, she crawled out of bed a little later that afternoon, head pounding and limbs utterly exhausted.
She was extremely thankful that it was a Sunday so she didn’t have to go anywhere and wouldn’t have to deal with anyone besides Nico. She didn’t know what kind of mood he’d be in today – he had mumbled something about messing around with security last night before storming out of her room to fume somewhere else – and she was hoping he wouldn’t do anything stupid today because she could not be held accountable for what her massive hangover had her say in response.
Unfortunately for him, that happened to be the case.
When she had finally stumbled into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, hissing as the light flooding in from the windows hit her eyes, she’d been a little surprised to hear voices coming from the living room. One was definitely Nico’s low tone, but the other was a female’s high, giggly voice that made Rachel’s head pound. She ignored her cup of coffee for the moment in favor of finding out just who was giggling with Nico in her living room.
Sitting rather close to him on the leather couch was a young girl, maybe about sixteen or seventeen, dressed from head-to-toe in some ridiculous black lace get up that looked like it had been pulled out of Dumpster and artistically sewn together with fishing wire. Rachel probably would’ve liked it had it been on anybody else but this stupid girl, who was currently leaning into Nico’s personal space a bit too much for her liking.
She was annoyed for Nico’s sake, of course. It’s not like it mattered to Rachel how close another girl got to Nico’s face or that her hand was on his upper thigh or that he was smiling at her in a ridiculously soppy sort of way –
“I didn’t realize my place had become your new seduction den, di Angelo,” Rachel snapped, causing the two pull away from each other and glance in her general direction. Nico at least had the decency to color in embarrassment; the girl glowered at her like she was something particularly scummy stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
“Who’s this, Nico?” the girl asked with a thick Irish accent. She had multiple piercings on her face and ears, and her blonde hair was streaked with green and blue dye. She definitely seemed like someone Rachel would’ve normally hung out with, had it not been for the “holier than thou” vibe she was giving off in spades. “Your cleaning lady? You should tell her that her job is to take out the trash, not to look like it.”
Oh, they were so not going to be friends after that. Nico choked back his bark of laughter as Rachel’s glare zeroed in on him.
“That’s a bit rich, coming from the girl wearing a trash bag,” she snarled, turning her back on the two of them and walking into the kitchen. “Gods, I need some serious caffeine before I can deal with bratty teenagers.”
She heard the couch creak as at least one of them got up, and the heavy footsteps on the tile a few moments later indicated it was Nico. He stood beside her, watching her as she played with the coffee machine, and Rachel was hardly bothered by it.
Having him around was comforting, in a completely baffling and annoying sort of way.
“You sleep okay?” he asked as she reached up to open the cupboard door.
“Of course not,” she replied shortly, frowning as she noticed her favorite mug had been moved to one of the highest shelves. “Okay, first thing that’s going on our list of boundaries… Under pain of death, you shall not move my mug from the low shelf.”
Rachel stood on her tiptoes and made a grab for the mug. Her fingers brushed the handle, but it wasn’t enough to grab it. She huffed and tried again, but Nico reached up and pulled the mug down with ease. He handed it to her, amused, and she stuck her tongue out at him, exasperated.
“I suppose you haven’t slept yet, have you?” Rachel asked, noticing the dark circles under his eyes and his rumpled clothes.
“No. I waited until the sun rose to go and get Kate – ” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the girl in the living room. “ – and that took much longer than I thought it would. I just got back, actually. Once she’s done, I’ve got to take her back to Dublin and then I’ll probably crash, if that’s okay with you.”
“Dublin?” Rachel repeated, wondering if she had heard him right. “Like Dublin, Ireland, Dublin?”
“Yeah, that’s where she’s from.”
“But how did you…” Rachel paused, staring at him thoughtfully. She tapped her finger on the side of her mug, and then pointed it at him. “That’s how you pulled that disappearing act in my room last night. I was going to ask you about that. Is that one of your freaky powers?”
“I believe you told me that if it was incriminating, you didn’t want to hear about it,” Nico replied with a grin. “Creatures of the Underworld can shadow travel, meaning I can pass through the shadows and end up somewhere else entirely. Little stuff like I did last night is easy, but traveling long distance wears me out pretty fast.”
“Huh. So why did you have to go to Ireland to get Kate the Pierced Fiend?”
“Yes, Nico,” Kate interrupted, leaning over the kitchen counter and glaring at the both of them. Rachel winced as the large crystal hanging from her neck scraped along the countertop. “Please tell me why you absolutely had to drag me to New York so I could watch you flirt with your pathetic mortal girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said in a pained voice, as this conversation often came up in Kate’s presence. Which, considering the possessive way she had clamped her hand on his elbow, it probably did.
“Yes, and I pity the girl who actually gets his attention one day,” Rachel said as the coffee maker beeped. “Nico couldn’t flirt if his life depended on it.”
“Well, he clearly hasn’t been trying with you then,” Kate said haughtily, throwing her hair over her shoulder. Even though she looked like a punk, she reminded Rachel an awful lot of her prissy classmates from Clarion Ladies Academy. “You’re too old for him anyway. What are you, like 30?”
Rachel gritted her teeth, willing herself not to pour the entire pot coffee on Kate’s colorful head. It’d be a waste, and she’d still be grumpy after the fact.
Nico seemed to recognize the warning signs of her growing ire because he said, “Look, Kate. I just need your help with some protection spells for Rachel’s apartment. We had an intruder last night, and I don’t want anyone getting close to this place again.”
This piqued Kate’s attention for another reason entirely.
“An intruder? What kind?”
“A monster. I didn’t get a look at it, but it could probably fly or at least climb since it got onto the balcony.”
“That’s unusual,” Kate said, pursuing her lips into a concentrated pout so her piercing stood out a little more. “Most monsters aren’t allowed in domestic spaces by default, and it definitely goes against their screwed up code of honor to attack someone in their sleep.” She glanced between the two of them, and her gaze settled on Rachel. “What are you not telling me about her, Nico? Her aura is…different from most mortals.”
Nico said nothing, glancing at Rachel cautiously. She realized he was putting the ball in her court – it was up to her whether or not Kate would know about the whole Oracle-assassination plot.
Rachel thought about not telling the other girl briefly, but decided it against. Despite her attitude problem, Nico obviously trusted her enough to bring her to her place with no warning to the contrary. And if Nico trusted her, it would have to be good enough for Rachel. She had to start thinking of him as her bodyguard instead of her bratty roommate.
“That would be because I’m the Oracle,” Rachel replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I suppose my aura would look a little funky.”
“You’re fucking with me,” Kate said with disbelieving laugh. “Last I heard, the Oracle was a dried up mummy at Camp Half-Blood…unless they were talking about you after all.”
Gods, she didn’t look that bad, did she? She tried to discreetly check her reflection in the metal of the coffee pot as she said, “I really as much the Oracle as Dead Boy over there is the son of an Olympian god. What I don’t know is who you are and what you’re doing in my apartment.”
“Shouldn’t you know such things if you’re the Oracle?”
“Do you want to know what I see in your future? My foot getting shoved up your – ”
“She’s a priestess of Hecate, goddess of witches,” Nico interrupted, sounding agitated. He glared at Rachel in disapproval. “She’s going to help out without security; she’s the best in her coven with protection spells and once she’s finished, nothing mystical will be able to get anywhere near here.”
Kate flushed at Nico’s compliment, and Rachel felt resentment stir within her again. She was absolutely not jealous of that teenager. No way. What was there to be jealous of, the fact that Kate and Nico seemed to have a history together that he and Rachel didn’t? Or maybe the fact that Kate could have a romantic relationship with Nico and Rachel couldn’t?
All right, that was something to be jealous of, but it wasn’t like she wanted a relationship with Nico. She just wanted him to kiss her…and maybe do a few other things to her, if he felt so inclined. Considering he had never looked at her like the way he had been looking at Kate on the couch, that was a highly unlikely possibility and that was just fucking fine with her.
“Fine. Whatever you think will work,” she said, grabbing her mug off the counter. “I’m going to go take a shower, and then I’m going to lock myself in my studio. Don’t let me keep you.”
She didn’t quite catch Nico’s expression as she turned around, but she thought he might’ve looked a little relieved. Whether that was because she wasn’t giving him any trouble about the security or because he wanted to have some alone time with Kate, she didn’t know.
The two of them were gone again by the time Rachel got out of her shower, and she furiously threw herself into her painting. At least when she was lost in the art, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting killed or obsessing over a stupid boy she couldn’t have, and painting calmed her down better than anything in the world. She’d always be able to paint, no matter how tired, hung over, or scared she was.
Nico didn’t show up in her studio for another few hours, and she felt his presence behind her before she saw him. She put the finishing touches on the area of canvas she had been working on for the past hour before she turned around.
“Everything work out okay?” she said as she pulled earbuds out and let them dangle down her shoulders.
“Yeah,” Nico said with a yawn, leaning on one of the canvases with one arm. He was so exhausted that his hair was beginning to wilt. “Your apartment is officially monster proof. We even went to go find some creepy crawly to test it out while you were busy.”
“That’s good,” she replied, feeling a little relieved. “And you got back to Ireland without any hassle…?”
“Other than Kate putting up a fight about me staying with her overnight, no. Nice girl, but in case you couldn’t tell, she’s kind of got this idea that I’m going to be her boyfriend,” Nico said, rolling his eyes. “If I had a dollar for every priestess of Hecate who thought they were going to marry me, I’d be rich enough to buy this apartment.”
Rachel smiled, both amused by this fact and secretly pleased that Kate had been shot down hard. “Have a little fan club, do you?”
“I don’t know what’s in the water across the pond, but whenever I met anyone in Europe who knew who I was, they just went apeshit. It’s like I’m Elvis’s clone or something,” he said, holding up his hand and pointing to a jagged white scar on the palm of his hand. “I got this when two of Kate’s coven members got into a magical cat fight about who deserved me more. I usually try to avoid them as much as possible because they’re positively psychotic, but I had to make an exception for you.”
“I’m sorry I make your life so difficult,” Rachel said sarcastically. “So how close was I to getting turned into a toad?”
It worried her a little bit that Nico didn’t take her comment as a joke and actually paused to think about it.
“Probably fairly close. I think the only thing that stopped her was her curiosity about your aura,” he said. “Even if she had tried, her magic probably wouldn’t have worked on you anyway.”
A lot of things didn’t work around Rachel – most electronic devices if she was about to have a prediction, for instance – but this was the first she’d heard about magic.
“Why’s that?”
“The spirit of Delphi has her own protection. That’s what kept my father from blasting your predecessor to bits after my mother died anyway. I suppose that’s why whoever’s after you is sending monsters instead of appearing in person. Delphi will protect you against most godly magics.”
“Huh,” Rachel said, tapping her finger thoughtfully against her chin. “So I could go mouth off to old Zeus himself and not get zapped into oblivion?”
Nico’s gaze darkened, and Rachel swore she heard thunder rumble outside. “I wouldn’t recommend it. And fat chance doing something that stupid while I’m around.”
Rachel scoffed. “Like you could stop me. Remember, you’re talking to the girl who tried to fly into the city during the Battle of New York.”
“Tried being the key word,” he replied, wagging his finger at her and Rachel laughed.
She wasn’t sure why their usual banter was so different today. It certainly lacked the animosity and the anger from the previous week, and she hadn’t found Nico half as annoying as he had been. Had one simple scare been enough for them to put aside their differences and act like adults?
“Oh, before I forget,” Nico muttered, reaching into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out a small, tissue wrapped package. Her tossed it at her and she caught it clumsily. “This is for you.”
She unwrapped the tissue, careful not to smear the paint on her fingers and hyperaware that Nico was pretending to be disinterested while he watched her unwrap it. She pulled back the last layer of tissue, and her eyes widened in surprise at the sight.
Nestled in the white tissue was a simple, but very pretty, necklace. A small, shimmering white-blue moonstone hung from a short silver chain, the colors changing with the light as she shifted the package to examine it closer. Rachel didn’t wear much jewelry, but this necklace was exactly her style.
“It’s…it’s very pretty,” she said, hoping she didn’t like a typical girl gushing over jewels. She frowned, and looked up at him. “But why are you giving it to me?”
“It was a gift from my father to my mother when they first met. They found it in her things after she died, and my aunt gave it to me before I left Italy,” Nico explained, his tone casual but his stance stiff. “Moonstones are receptive to extreme emotions, particularly female emotions, and if you know how to use them right, you can use them as a monitor of sorts.”
“Kind of like an ancient GPS locator, huh?” Rachel said, grasping the necklace by the chain and holding it up.
“If you’re wearing this while I’m wearing mine,” he held up his right hand and she noticed a new silver ring on his thumb. “We’ll have a tiny connection. I’ll know the instant you’re in trouble, even if you’re not quite sure of it yet. That way, I don’t have to follow you when you decide to leave the apartment.”
“But you will anyway,” Rachel said pointedly, undoing the clasp and slipping the necklace around her neck. It was a little cold and heavy, but nothing terribly uncomfortable.
“Probably,” he said. “I just thought I’d make an effort to respect your independence and…you know. Stuff like that.”
He looked uncomfortable saying that, enough for Rachel’s suspicions to be aroused.
“Percy got to you last night, didn’t he?”
Nico scoffed. “No. Whatever gave you that idea?”
The tips of his ears were turning red as he talked, so Rachel made a mental note to send Percy a nice thank you present later in the week.
“Thank you,” she said, fixing the clasp around her neck. “For the necklace, and everything else. I really do mean it.”
“You’re welcome, I suppose,” he said, letting out another huge yawn.” Anyway, I’m going to go sleep. Please try not to get yourself in trouble for the next eight hours, all right?”
“No promises,” Rachel said with a smile, and turned back to her painting, the moonstone bumping against her breastbone.
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