Shelter (Solangelo)

Chapter 34

Nico stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He hardly recognizes himself. The dark circles under his eyes are nearly gone, and his lips seem to turn up on their own. Even when he tries to scowl, they creep back up at the corners and he looks ridiculous, but it's the changes to his hair that intrigue him most. It's thicker, longer, and healthier than it ever was before. He wonders if Will's been spiking his food with vitamins, but even that thought doesn't upset him. It's something Will would do. Not out of wanting to heal a patient, but out of love because it's something Nico wouldn't do for himself. He rolls his eyes at himself and tugs the hem of his T-shirt. He must be growing or something, the damn thing used to hang loose and shapeless, and now it barely covers his belt.

He shakes his bangs out of his eyes and walks the short hallway to the bedroom. "What's the plan?" he asks as he enters, anything to avoid revisiting Will's relationship with Nico's awful shirt.

Lou Ellen's sitting on the bed, one knee up, tying her high tops. Nico has to force himself not to flinch at the sight of her shoes sprinkling dirt on the quilt. She looks up, grinning. "First thing we need to do is eat. I'm starving."

The mention of food makes Nico's stomach growl like it's trying to digest itself. He glares at Lou Ellen as if she purposefully suggested eating to make him hungry, though there's no real malice in it.

Will digs around in his backpack, pulls out three wrapped bars, and hands one to each of them. "These don't taste great, but they pack enough nutrition to get us through the day."

"Ugh," Lou Ellen says, even as she rips her bar open with her teeth. "Survival bars? Fine. But after we kill this snake I want some real food. Cheeseburgers and clam chowder, something to stick to my ribs."

Will doesn't say anything. He takes a bite of his own bar and chews as if lost in his thoughts.

Nico takes a bite of his bar, barely tasting it. It's food; he'll eat it. He glances at the garbage can beside the bed. It's full to the brim with discarded syringe wrappers from Will's doctor's bag.

"Will, you've gotta tell us. What is your plan exactly? When I woke up, you were tearing the heads off your arrows, and the garbage can is full of syringe wrappers …"

Will takes a deep breath and exhales. "I'm going to shoot him with the antitoxin. I've loaded my syringes with it, but since it'll be hard to get close enough, I figured I'd attach them to my arrows and let the impact depress the plungers. I sacrificed and prayed to Artemis while I prepared them. They'll work." Despite his determination, Will sounds nervous.

Nico raises an eyebrow, looking him over. He's stopped talking again in favor of devouring his survival bar as if having his mouth full will get Nico and Lou Ellen to stop asking questions. Nico swallows the last of his bar. "The antitoxin isn't going to kill him, is it?" he asks. He should have seen this coming. How many times has Will told him he can't bring himself to kill monsters.

Will's face goes red. He swallows quickly and washes the bar down with water from his canteen, then breathes out heavily through his nose, his expression darkening. "Killing him isn't going to solve anything." His voice is low enough Nico has to strain his ears to catch it.

"Wait, what?" Lou Ellen says, jumping off the bed. She puts her hands on her hips and the look she throws Will is enough to make Nico shiver. Her eyebrows are high and sharp, her lips pursed, her eyes glaring daggers. "What are you thinking, Will? You're not planning to kill Python?"

Will swallows under Lou Ellen's glare, but gets to his feet, meeting her eyes. "I have a plan. I just need to get him away from the Oracle. He's blocking her spring with his body and it's the toxin in his skin that's poisoning her." He takes another deep breath, closes his eyes as if imagining how it will play out. He opens them again, shouldering his bow. "Lou Ellen, you use the Mist to make him think the cave entrance extends farther than it does. I'll draw him out, but I want him to think he's still safe inside. Nico, I'll need you to shadow-travel Lou Ellen to safety if things go wrong."

Nico frowns. Strangely, it feels weird to frown. The memory of what Anteros told him about Will needing to find the power of the sun inside himself is the only thing keeping him from speaking his mind. Will's plan, as Nico understands it, sounds like a recipe for disaster. "The snake can talk," he says after a long pause. "We need to be careful not to listen to it. It will try to trick us, to convince us to come close enough to devour us."

Will's hands twitch at his sides, his mouth working as if he wants to say something, but doesn't.

"I think we all know better than to listen to a giant snake," Lou Ellen says. She slips on her jacket and hands Nico his. He puts it on.

Will walks to the door. He's wearing a Camp Half-Blood T-shirt and jeans, though, thankfully he's chosen to wear boots instead of his flip flops. Nico thinks it must be an Apollo thing, the denial of cold weather. "We're wasting time. Let's go."

Nico recognizes the determination in Will's voice and posture, like he's already chosen his course of action – and it's going to counter what Nico and Lou Ellen think he should do. Nico's done the same thing often enough himself. He and Lou Ellen follow Will out of the guest house and down to the beach, though his mind is back in the midst of the final battle.

He recalls the evil he saw in the six loaded onagers aimed at their camp, and his determination to assassinate Octavian by shadow-traveling into his command tent to prevent the order to fire from being given. It would have been his last stand if Will hadn't stopped him. But following Will now, knowing him better than he's ever really known anybody, he realizes Will is not suicidal. He wouldn't throw his all into a course of action if he didn't think it would work. Still, Nico sees the world from a different angle than Will, a more realistic one. If it looks like Will's plan won't work, he'll open a hole into the Underworld and swallow the whole damn snake before he lets Will get himself killed.

"What do you want to know? I'll answer anything you ask."

"That's a pretty dangerous statement."

"I trust you not to abuse it."

Will trusts him. Funnily enough, Nico thinks he trusts Will, too.

They reach the beach. It's unusually still. The wind should be blowing, shouldn't it? And it's too quiet. The never ceasing sound of the ocean lapping at the shore is still present, but there are no sounds from the town, no cars driving by on the highway, no background noise at all. Nico's not sure he's not just imagining the lack of sound, but it's disorienting.

There aren't any people on the beach either, but how many would be present at this time of year anyway? Nico's not sure. He looks out at Face Rock. Her still, enormous profile ever-focused on the sky. He blinks. A mirage shimmers on her cheek. A goddess? No, a nereid in a white dress. He can see the rock and the ocean through her, as if she's not really there, but projecting her image. She waves at him and his fears vanish like vapor. He understands now, the stillness. It's her magic that's keeping the sound from distracting them, and holding back mortals from intruding on the beach.

He turns back and jogs to catch up with Will and Lou Ellen. They stand twenty feet before the cave entrance. Lou Ellen's hands are blurred. She's calling the Mist to herself.

In the space of a blink she's no longer standing next to Will, but is a good forty feet down the beach and the cave entrance itself seems drawn out, like a piece of gum, chewed and stretched. When he tries to focus, the cave entrance seems to move with him, until he's not sure he could find it if Will wasn't facing the real one.

Nico brushes Will's hand with the back of his own hand, unsure what Will's plan is to draw Python out.