𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐢━━Nico di Angelo

84

Commotion whirled around under them. Julianna had led them into the heart of the fight.

Ajax could see Reyna and an older girl who looked eerily similar to Reyna. Facing off against them was Orion, there was no mistaking him. He had worked up an image of Orion as a towering ugly demon.

Instead, Orion could have passed for human – a tall, muscular, handsome human. His skin was the color of wheat toast. His dark hair was undercut, swept into spikes on top. With his black leather breeches and jerkin, his hunting knife and his bow and quiver, he might have been Robin Hood's evil, better-looking brother.

Only his eyes ruined the image. At first glance, he appeared to be wearing military night-vision goggles. Then Ajax realized they weren't goggles. They were the work of Hephaestus – bronze mechanical eyes embedded in the giant's sockets. Focusing rings spun and clicked as he regarded Reyna. Targeting lasers flashed red to green. Ajax got the uncomfortable impression he was seeing much more than her form – her heat signature, her heart rate, her level of fear.

"You will die together!" he promised. Two arrows appeared nocked in his bow, the string fully drawn back.

"We should probably think of a plan-" No sooner had Julianna uttered the words, the rooftops exploded with noise.

"DIE!" Hedge dropped directly behind Orion, smacking his baseball bat over the giant's head so hard the Louisville Slugger cracked in half.

Nico shrugged and he too jumped into battle.

Ajax smiled apologetically at Julianna who sighed and muttered , "Boys" And they too joined Reyna on the ground.

Nico dropped in the front. He slashed his Stygian sword across the giant's bowstring, causing pulleys and gears to zip and creak, the string recoiling with hundreds of pounds of force until it whacked Orion in the nose like a hydraulic bullwhip.

"OOOOOOOOW!!" Orion staggered backwards, dropping his bow.

Hunters of Artemis appeared along the rooftops, shooting Orion full of silver arrows until he resembled a glowing hedgehog. He staggered blindly, holding his nose, his face streaming with golden ichor.

Ajax slashed at the giant's leg, causing him to lean on the other leg for balance. The Reyna look-a-like grabbed that leg. She yanked him off balance and tossed him several blocks down the Calle San Jose. The Hunters ran after him along the rooftops, shooting arrows that exploded in Greek fire, wreathing the giant in flames.

Nico, Ajax and Hedge fell in alongside Reyna, all three looking very pleased with themselves. Ajax didn't want to imagine what Reyna thought looking at them, a rag tag group of teenagers with a satyr protecter, all decked out in the ugliest clothes he had seen since Luke had thought a fedora was a nice look.

"Nico," Reyna said, "you look –"

'Not a word about the shirt,' he warned. 'Not one word.'

Ajax bit his lip, Nico looked stupid. He looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him, and if he wanted to, he could easily make it happen. But they had more important things to worry about than Nico (shocking, I know, since Ajax didn't really focus on anything else)

"Why did you come looking for me?" she demanded. "You could have got away free. The giant has been tracking me. If you had just left –"

The thought hadn't even crossed Ajax's mind. Leave Reyna? Was she crazy? First of all, no one was telling them jackshit. Julianna was running around with the hunters, after the giant. She hadn't been informative exactly. They had no idea what was going on, where they were, how they got there.

And she expected them to just leave her?

"Don't be ridiculous" Ajax huffed, "I still have to make you fall madly in love with me"

Reyna laughed at that, and Ajax couldn't help smiling as well. Some of the tension on her features seemed to melt away. The giant would be dealt with by the hunters, for now, she was reunited with her friends.

Nico looked between the two, confused. "Is there something I should know about?"

Oh gods, Ajax couldn't suppress the butterflies in his stomach. Jealousy really shouldn't look that good on someone, especially someone who was wearing a floral red shirt.

"Reyna is falling for me" Ajax nodded. Reyna punched him in his shoulder playfully and turned to look at Coach.

"The horrors I've seen because of these two" The coach grumbled. 'You're the only sane one, we weren't about to leave without you. Now let's get out of..."

He glanced over Reyna's shoulder and his voice faltered.

Reyna turned.

Behind her, the second-storey balconies were crowded with glowing figures: a man with a forked beard and rusted conquistador armour; another bearded man in eighteenth-century pirate clothes, his shirt peppered with gunshot holes; a lady in a bloody nightgown; a U.S. Navy captain in his dress whites; and a dozen more– all of them glaring at her accusingly.

Ajax didn't know what they were saying, but it couldn't have been good.

"No..."

Ajax had never heard her sound so young, so vulnerable.

Ajax took her arm. "Reyna, who are they? What do they – ?"

"I can't," she pleaded. "I – I can't."

"It's all right." Nico gazed up at the balconies. The ghosts disappeared, but Ajax knew they weren't really gone. Ghosts were never really gone. "We'll get you out of here," Nico promised. "Let's move."

Thalia took Reyna's other arm. The five of them ran for the restaurant and the Athena Parthenos. Behind them, Ajax heard Orion roaring in pain, Greek fire exploding.