Nico's Quest

Chapter 14

"Oh gods . . ."

Nico recovered enough presence of mind when he saw Alyssa reaching for his wound to realize that would not be good. He flung his arms up in front of him, weakly blocking her aid, trying to fend her away from him.

"Don't touch me!" he screamed, his voice shrill with pain. "Don't touch my blood!"

"Nico, calm down!" Alyssa grabbed his hands, which wasn't really necessary, because Nico couldn't have done more. "Shh, shh, easy . . . Gods . . . Someone get Percy in here!"

"Alyssa . . . get . . . back," Nico tried to warn her. "Not safe. Don't . . . touch my . . . blood!" Then he screamed in pain and would have curled in on himself, but his muscles weren't obeying him. It just hurt so much. Worse than anything except the times when he or Anubis had tried to pull his heart scarab out of his chest, and then that pain had only come in a flash, then it had been over with. This pain wouldn't go away.

"Shh, you're going to be okay," said Alyssa.

"Don't touch . . . don't touch . . . blood . . . don't . . ."

"I don't understand. What . . .? Your blood," Alyssa seemed to have finally seen what Nico was afraid of. "It's . . . black."

"Don't . . . touch! Bad . . . power . . . Please . . . stay . . . back . . ."

"Okay, I won't touch you . . . But I can't just leave you alone," said Alyssa. "Hang on. Percy's on his way."

Nico groaned and closed his eyes. He could hear Anubis murmuring prayers to other gods for healing in his mind, and Alyssa making soothing sounds, but it all ran together, and was drowned out by his pain. It seemed like a very long time, but was probably only a few minutes before Percy arrived, and broke through the haze that was obscuring Nico's entire world.

He felt a warm hand on his forehead, then another near his wound, and his eyes flew open again, as he tried to warn whoever was trying to help him. "Don't . . . touch . . . blood . . ."

"It's okay, I know," said Percy. His face was grave and worried, but his presence made Nico feel a little better anyway, even though he was in just as much pain as ever.

They had decided after learning the effects that Nico's blood had on other humans and demigods, that Percy should avoid contact with it if at all possible. His curse of Achilles might protect him, but they'd already learned that Nico's blood could dissolve Egyptian protective enchantments, and didn't see any reason to tempt the Greek Fates. So Percy was very careful as he cut away the part of Nico's shirt around his wound, that had already been eaten away by his corrosive blood.

"I'm going to pull the blade out," warned Percy.

"Are you sure you should do that?" asked Felix. "I've seen stuff like this on TV! They say in some cases it's better to leave whatever injured them in, until they're in the hospital."

"No hospital," rasped Nico. "Can't . . ."

"Nico can't be taken to a hospital," said Percy. "His blood causes spontaneous decay. Any doctor trying to work on him would probably die. Now all of you, get back."

Percy seemed to have an ample amount of gauze on hand, Nico noted in the seconds before his world flared up in even more pain, when Percy pulled the dagger out of his abdomen. Nico screamed and clawed at the air, then sobbed when Percy pressed a heap bandages over the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. He dropped the dagger, or what was left of it, into a bucket that someone must have brought when Nico wasn't paying attention. But Nico was able to get a glimpse of the dagger. It looked like it had been dipped in a vat of chemicals specifically designed to eat metal. The edges had been corroded away, and there were holes burned through the center. The tip of it was actually missing. Under normal circumstances, that would have been a terrible thing, because it would have needed to be removed, but in this case, Nico's black blood would simply finish it off, melting it to nothing inside the wound.