Page 56 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

H azel glared at Pirithous. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “There’s no reason you’d just set us all free.”

Unfortunately, upon hearing the word free , the imprisoned mythics became agitated. A terrible surge slammed her up against the barrier, knocking the breath out of her lungs.

“Let us out!” someone cried.

“He’s freeing us!” shouted another, which only made the crush of bodies worse.

“Back up!” Asterion bellowed. “All of you, BACK UP!”

He planted his feet firmly, pushing against the crowd, which gave Hazel a pocket of space.

She gasped for air. Slowly, thanks to the iron will of Asterion, the crowd of captives began to shuffle backward.

Otherwise, Hazel would’ve ended up flattened against the force field and looking like a demigod drape.

Pirithous watched with obvious pleasure.

“Degenerates.” He chuckled. “I’ll admit, part of me wants to leave all you in there. I do love watching you suffer.”

“ You’re the degenerate!” said Arielle, doing her best to cradle Quinoa and protect him from the crowd.

“You don’t get to be the judge of that,” Pirithous said. “Unlike me, you have neither the experience nor the moral fortitude.”

Then he raised his voice so more of the crowd could hear.

“You have brought this on yourselves, convicts! You have been properly judged and sentenced to death. But I am here to offer you a deal for a pardon! It is not you I want, but the architect of this chaos, this complete deterioration of the natural order! Turn witnesses for the prosecution and join me. You could yet be free!”

Hazel’s rage felt like dry ice—so cold it burned in her lungs. “You’re talking about Pluto,” she said. “You expect to put my father on trial? He would never show his face for you. Not in a million years! And we won’t help you!”

Pirithous sneered, making his evil little beard twitch to one side. “I’m not sure your cellmates agree with you, Hazel Levesque.”

Hazel scanned the crowd behind her. Mythics were muttering to one another, passing word to those in back who hadn’t caught Pirithous’s speech.

Hazel wasn’t an expert at reading mythics’ expressions, but she could see the desperation in their eyes.

They were hungry, thirsty, and slowly suffocating.

And as much as they hated Pirithous, they were starting to waver.

He was offering them a lifeline. It made Hazel remember something Percy Jackson had once told her—that you should be careful approaching a drowning swimmer, because they will grab at anything.

They aren’t thinking rationally. They will drag you down with them.

“You can’t trust him!” she shouted to the crowd. “He’s put us in here to die !”

“Oh, but look around me!” Pirithous countered.

“Look at all those who have joined my cause. Spirits of the dead, monsters just like yourselves, even gods. They all see the wisdom of what I do. Hades—or Pluto, if you prefer—is the real villain here. He has allowed this chaos to happen. We need to return to a world of order !”

The crowd began to press forward again, clamoring to get out.

“CALM YOURSELVES!” Asterion bellowed. He pressed his hands against the barrier, shielding Hazel with his body. “Pirithous, you cannot stand in judgment against the gods. You have lost your senses.”

“And you are the disgraced former Minotaur!” Pirithous said.

“You disrespect your former glory! I have stood in judgment against gods. Behold the ones who are now my allies. They understand the deal I offer. All of you can accept it too! Or you can die. Either way, you serve my purpose. Look around you! The Mist has reached its breaking point. When it does, Hades will have no choice but to appear. Maybe the gods ignore you, but they won’t ignore me ! ”

Hazel looked above her. She wasn’t sure if it was just her oxygen-deprived brain, but white fault lines seemed to be forming across the barrier.

The air outside swirled with coils of shimmering vapor.

She’d thought she was beginning to understand the Mist, but this was new.

Her ears popped. She brought her hand to her upper lip and realized her nose was bleeding.

Pirithous was right. The Mist was pressing down on the entire plaza, building the magical energy to unsustainable levels.

Asterion growled. “I will never help your sham of a court, Pirithous. I did nothing wrong. I merely embraced change. All of us here did. We will not go back!”

Hazel was starting to feel dizzy, but she filled her lungs and shouted to those outside the barrier, “All of you on Pirithous’s side, you don’t have to do this! You don’t have to fear him!”

Pirithous laughed. “But they agree with me, Hazel! By all means, if any of my followers would like to join our prisoners in their cage, you may do so.” He glanced around him expectantly. “Anyone? No?”

One of his Cyclops guards snorted. “We are monsters. We have one purpose in this life. There is no reason to choose anything else!”

The rest of Pirithous’s forces roared in approval.

“But are you not tired ?” Asterion bellowed. “Are you not sick of the cycle—death, rebirth in Tartarus, death again? We just want to choose differently and be left alone . This is not a crime!”

“What losers you are,” said a new voice.

An empousa stepped forward from Pirithous’s lines.

As if things weren’t weird enough already, she wore a black-and-red cheerleader’s outfit with TEAM PIRITHOUS stitched across the chest and matching pom-poms clipped to her skirt.

Her fiery hair blazed a dark shade of crimson.

She locked her eyes onto Arielle. “You’re only here because you’re broken . ”

“Kelli,” Arielle snarled. “I should have known.”

“Hey, sis.” Kelli smiled, showing her fangs. “How’s it going with your misfit band of rejects and defunct monsters?”

“Watch your tongue,” warned Asterion.

“Or what, bull-boy?” Kelli shot back. “You’re gonna knit me a sweater to death?”

Asterion snorted and raked the ground with one of his hooves.

Arielle put her hand on his arm. “Don’t let this suck-up rile you. She’s not worth it.”

Kelli laughed. “You don’t get it, do you? We want to be monsters. We enjoy terrifying the world.”

“How boring!” said Quinoa. “You are just tools Pirithous is using until he has no purpose for you. Then he’ll throw you away, like Gaea did with the karpoi! That’s what the powerful always do!”

“Oh, honey,” Kelli said. “You’re lucky Pirithous is offering you one last chance to join us. I wouldn’t be so kind. I’d eat you up with a side of steamed broccoli!”

“Enough,” Pirithous said, scanning the Mist, which was swirling ever faster around the plaza, bursting against the force field with a muffled crackling sound like snow thunder. “We are out of time.”

Then Pirithous shouted for the benefit of the imprisoned crowd. “Final offer—join us or die! Testify against the god of the Underworld, and you will be pardoned. Once the Mist breaks, it will be too late. You will be slaughtered as enemies, and you will never regenerate again!”

Pirithous’s circle of monsters moved in, closing ranks all around the plaza. They looked hungry, eager for blood. They weren’t as numerous as the prisoners, but Hazel suspected that wouldn’t matter—not after the mythics inside had been so weakened from days of starvation and thirst.

Hazel’s head throbbed. The pain spread behind her eyes. Blood trickled from her nostrils.

She felt like she was missing something important. If she could only think…

Her eyes came to rest on the covered wagon in front of the museum.

She noticed how the minor gods had positioned themselves as far away from the wagon as possible—Laverna on the right-hand side of the plaza, the three di inferi on the left.

Even the monsters on Pirithous’s side seemed to avoid looking at that wagon.

She thought about the pitch Pirithous had made to the prisoners: It is not you I want. Turn witnesses for the prosecution …

“You’ve been trading up,” she realized, fixing Pirithous with a disgusted stare.

“All these mythics, all these gods who are supposedly on your side…you trapped them, just like you’ve done to us.

You released them on the condition that they help you catch even bigger prey.

You’ve been working your way up to Hades—using the so-called ‘secret weapon’ you’ve got in that wagon.

Whatever it is, you can’t really believe it will be powerful enough to imprison Hades himself. ”

On either side of Pirithous, Mary Tudor and Tantalus suddenly looked nervous.

“Pirithous,” said Mary, “tell me she is wrong. I’m tired of life here on the surface.”

“This had better work,” Tantalus agreed. “You promised we would be lords of Erebos. I never want to come back to this world again.”

“Have a little faith, friends,” said Pirithous, his voice tinged with warning.

Hazel turned to Asterion. “As soon as we’re through the barrier, we have to destroy whatever is in that cart. That’s the source of Pirithous’s power.”

Asterion nodded grimly. “I will be happy to. Preferably over Pirithous’s dead body.”

Pirithous stepped back. For the first time, he looked shaken. “You have no idea who you are dealing with. I offered you a second chance. You chose death.”

He raised a hand and called out to his followers, “When the barrier falls, kill them all!”

There was another surge from behind Hazel as the captives shouted and screamed and jostled one another.

Hazel’s throat was so dry she couldn’t even sob. She despised what Pirithous was doing and how he viewed the world. No one here deserved to be imprisoned simply for choosing how they wanted to live.

“Courage!” Asterion shouted to his fellow mythics. “Do not despair!”

And then the whole world shattered.