Death and Madness|| Nico di Angelo

I'm a telepath

When we reached the house, Eurytion tied us up like rodeo animals, with our ankles and wrists roped together and our mouths gagged. It was even worse when Geryon started preparing for a barbecue, because I love barbecue.

Nico kept looking at me as if he wanted to say something, but we couldn't do much except wiggle and grunt.

Then I heard his voice in my mind, as clear as day. Are you okay?

"How the hell are you talking in my mind?"  I thought back. 

"Maybe it has something to do with Dionysus' powers over minds?" 

"Maybe" I thought back. 

I decided to try something. I looked at Annabeth and imagined the conversation with Nico had ended so it was only me and the blonde. 

"Hey" I thought. 

She jerked weridly and almost fell over, but then she looked at me with wide eyes. 

"Yeah I can talk inside your head, I don't know how either"

"Hey" She though back. 

"I need some answers" I thought. "Like maybe something about you and Percy, also why do you hang out with a cyclops? Aren't they evil?"

"Tyson is Percy's little brother!" 

"Okay, my bad" I apologised. 

So the next few minutes she spent telling me their adventures and to me they didn't sound like the bad guys. To me it seemed that Nico was blinded by rage. But I felt for Nico too, he had been through too much. 

"Do your eyes always glow purple like that?" Annabeth asked at last. 

"What?" Now I knew my eyes were purple, but I had no idea my eyes glowed! Which was awesome. 

"Yeah, when you used your powers, it looked scary but also cool"

I focused on closing off the conversation with Annabeth and instead decided to speak with Nico. "Did you know my eyes glowed purple when I used my powers?"

"Finally" He thought. "I've been trying to talk to you for so long"

"Sorry, I was talking with Annabeth"

I don't know what Nico was feeling, but it felt like jealousy. 

"But did you know my eyes glowed?"

"Yes, I thought you knew too"

"No, I didn't know" I told him. "Holy mother of rectangles, that's awesome"

"Why are you so weird?" Nico groaned. "Can't you swear like a normal person?" 

"I would if you didn't say- language every time I said a bad word"

Soon though, Percy was walking towards us.

The deck was set up for a party. Streamers and balloons decorated the railing. Geryon was flipping burgers on a huge barbecue cooker made from an oil drum. Eurytion lounged at a picnic table, picking his fingernails with a knife. The two-headed dog sniffed the ribs and burgers that were frying on the grill.

"Let them go!" Percy yelled, still out of breath from running up the steps. "I cleaned the stables!"

Geryon turned. He wore an apron on each chest, with one word on each, so together they spelled out: KISS—THE—CHEF. "Did you, now? How'd you manage it?"

Percy was pretty impatient, but he told us how he summoned water from seashells. That was probably the coolest thing I had heard.

Geryon nodded appreciatively. "Very ingenious. It would've been better if you'd poisoned that pesky naiad, but no matter."

"Let my friends go," Percy said. "We had a deal."

"Ah, I've been thinking about that. The problem is, if I let them go, I don't get paid."

"You promised!"

Geryon made a tsk-tsk noise. "But did you make me swear on the River Styx? No you didn't. So it's not binding. When you're conducting business, sonny, you should always get a binding oath."

Percy drew my sword. Orthus growled. One head leaned down next to Grover's ear and bared its fangs

"Eurytion," Geryon said, "the boy is starting to annoy me. Kill him."

Eurytion studied Percy. 

"Kill him yourself," Eurytion said.

Geryon raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Eurytion grumbled. "You keep sending me out to do your dirty work. You pick fights for no good reason, and I'm getting tired of dying for you. You want to fight the kid, do it yourself."

Geryon threw down his spatula. "You dare defy me? I should fire you right now!"

"And who'd take care of your cattle? Orthus, heel."

The dog immediately stopped growling at Grover and came to sit by the cowherd's feet.

"Fine!" Geryon snarled. "I'll deal with you later, after the boy is dead!"

He picked up two carving knives and threw them at Percy. He deflected one with his sword. The other impaled itself in the picnic table an inch from Eurytion's hand.

Percy went on the attack. Geryon parried my first strike with a pair of red-hot tongs and lunged at Percy's face with a barbecue fork. He got inside his next thrust and stabbed Geryon right through the middle chest.

"Aghhh!" He crumpled to his knees. We waited for him to disintegrate, the way monsters usually do. But instead he just grimaced and started to stand up. The wound in his chef's apron started to heal.

"Nice try, sonny," he said. "Thing is, I have three hearts. The perfect backup system."

He tipped over the barbecue, and coals spilled everywhere. One landed next to Annabeth's face, and she let out a muffled scream. Tyson strained against his bonds, but even his strength wasn't enough to break them. 

Percy jabbed Geryon in the left chest, but he only laughed. Percy stuck him in the right stomach. No good, he might as well have been sticking a sword in a teddy bear for all the reaction Geryon showed.

I thought of a mind connection between me and Percy. 

"Sup" I had to give Percy credit, he didn't even react. As if he had experience of people being inside his head. 

"Hey" He thought back. 

"I have an idea" I told him. "Stab the middle chest again and I'll try to stab the other two. 

"Good luck, on three" He thought. 

"One...." I thought. Their sword fight was still going on. And Percy would have won several times over if Geryon didn't have three hearts. 

"Two" Percy thought. 

"Three! Now!" 

Percy thrust his sword forward again and it passed straight through Geryon's middle chest. While he didn't die, he did falter. And that was perfect for me because two thick vines appeared behind him and stabbed through his other hearts.

Geryon dropped his swords. He turned and stared at me. "They told me you weren't even that good-"

I gave him my deluxe- Never-underestimate-me look.

His face turned a sickly shade of green. He collapsed to his knees and began crumbling into sand, until all that was left were three cooking aprons and an oversized pair of cowboy boots.