Page 62 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

“W ill?” Nico called out.

An orange tabby meowed and pawed at his boot.

“No,” he said. “This is not happening.”

He realized that Dolus and Apate had vastly overcompensated with the Mist. His senses had gone from fully prepared for Mist, to overexposed with no Mist at all, to completely unprepared for extra-heavy Mist. His brain had Mist-lash.

Was that a thing? All he knew was that when you have to guess which cat is your boyfriend, you have a problem.

Nico , Semele said, I know I told you to lose your Puff. Now I think you should find your Puff.

“Yeah…yeah, you’re right.” His hands trembled, but he started walking around the pavement, picking up cats. “Defiance?”

“Meow.”

“Defiance?”

“Meow.”

How was this possible? Was everyone in the park seeing the same illusion?

Nico looked very human to himself. What did he look like to everyone else?

Maybe they were all wandering around, picking one another up and wondering if this kitty was a friend or an enemy.

Or maybe the fight was still going on and Nico just couldn’t see it.

Finally, he hefted a huge black Maine coon. “Defiance?”

The fluffy sack of fur bared its fangs and hissed.

All around Nico, the change was instantaneous. The cats vanished. Now he saw a park full of mortals, mythics, and minor gods standing around and looking confused. Many were grabbing at the air or dodging unseen threats, like each person was wearing a VR headset and playing a different game.

Defiance, once again a toothy ball of darkness, purred proudly in Nico’s arms.

“Demigods!” Nico called out. “If you can hear me, grab a Cocoa Puff!”

Everybody just kept playing their virtual-reality cat games.

He spotted Will, leaning over Lavinia, combing through her pink hair like something important was hidden in there. Nico grabbed Loneliness and pressed the Puff into Will’s hands.

Will gasped. His eyes cleared. “Nico? What—”

Duck! warned Semele.

Fortunately, Nico had a mental connection to her. He understood that she meant Hit the deck and not Look out, there is an actual duck attacking you , because either scenario was genuinely possible. He tackled Will and they dropped to the ground as a harpy swooped down at them, her talons extended.

Whether the harpy actually meant to attack them or was lost in some illusion, Nico wasn’t sure, but she flew on, screeching in outrage.

“What the actual Hades?” Will grumbled.

“You okay?” Nico asked.

“Yeah. I mean…under the circumstances? I think Dolus and Apate went too hard on the Mist.”

“Just a bit.” Nico scanned the crowd. There—hovering over the biggest fountain—the twin gods were waving their arms like symphony conductors, laughing as confused mythics ran into one another or tried to fistfight with lampposts.

“Can you get the Puffs paired off with our friends again?” Nico asked. “I have some gods to strangle.”

“On it,” Will promised.

Nico ran for the plaza, dodging and weaving through hallucinating crowds and holding his Puff like a football.

A telkhine rushed at him, snarling and snapping its teeth, but Nico bounded out of the way. He didn’t want to attack anyone he didn’t have to. He couldn’t be sure which mythics were friends. For all he knew, the poor telkhine just thought Nico was a particularly vicious house cat.

He stumbled, trying to leap over the baby drakon. Defiance tumbled out of his arms. The world shimmered. Nico lost his balance and slammed sideways into a tree. When the yellow spots of pain faded from his eyes, he found himself in a nightmarish new illusion.

Standing next to him was a lady in the most stereotypical witch costume he’d ever seen—long black cloak, pointy hat, warty prosthetic nose, and a straw broom in one hand. She was yelling at a guy in a cheap plastic Superman outfit.

“Hello?” she screamed.

“What?” Superman screamed back.

“Hello?”

“What?”

It was scintillating conversation, but Nico left them to it. He pushed past a person in an inflatable T. rex costume, and then a zombie with fake blood on his face.

The entire plaza was now a Halloween party.

“Defiance!” he called out. “Where are you?”

Defiance didn’t answer, probably because it was being defiant.

We must keep going , said Semele. I will do my best to help you focus.

Nico growled in frustration, but he knew she was right.

He turned toward the central fountain. Floating over it now were a couple in elaborate Day of the Dead costumes—La Catrina with her lacy hoopskirt and floppy hat bedecked with flowers, El Catrin with his rhinestone-studded black mariachi suit, both with their faces painted like jewel-encrusted skulls.

They were dancing a waltz in midair, singing to each other as the world around them disintegrated into a series of psychedelic nightmares.

Dolus and Apate. Obviously.

Nico sprinted toward them, determined to end the gods’ reverie.

Hazel gasped.

Suddenly, the world made sense again. One minute, she’d been surrounded by cute, whimpering puppy dogs. Now the puppies were gone, turned back into confused-looking people. She was holding a Cocoa Puff in her hands, and Frank was grinning at her.

“Welcome back,” he said. “I gave you Anger. He’s a good friend of mine.”

Sure enough, Hazel felt supercharged with rage. Of course, she’d felt that way ever since she’d met the accursed Court of the Dead, so it didn’t bother her much. Her senses were all on high alert—like ADHD-plus-twelve-espressos high alert.

“I am really angry,” she announced. “But also, I really love you.”

Frank laughed. “Same. Will ran off to help Nico. Give me a hand distributing more Puffs?”

Hazel surveyed the plaza. The mythics seemed be having varying degrees of success seeing through this new veil of superthick Mist. Some were standing around in a daze like they were trying to remember where they’d parked their chariots.

Others were still fighting, although a few were locked in mortal combat with trees or park benches.

Asterion seemed to still have his wits about him. He continued to herd the mythics away from danger, stopping only long enough to fling an aggressive gigantic ant into an abandoned hot dog cart.

Hazel spotted Nico racing toward the central fountain, where Dolus and Apate were dancing a waltz in the air. Will was trying to catch up to him, dodging and weaving through a flock of hallucinating harpies.

Then she remembered who had started this chaos in the first place: Pirithous. Where was that pompous pile of…? There. Running away, of course, with his two skeletal guards trailing behind him. And they were headed straight for Camp Jupiter’s Chevy van, which Frank’s crew must have driven here.

“Oh, Hades, no,” she muttered. “Frank, keep at it with the Puffs. I have a judge to catch.”

Before he could protest, she sprinted off, Anger barking its approval in her arms.

Even with the Cocoa Puff heightening her senses, the Mist was harder to navigate than she’d ever experienced. Her skin tingled all over like she was running through a cold fog.

It kept throwing illusionary obstacles in her path—puppies to trip on, brick walls to crash through, fiery pits to jump over—but she forged ahead, ignoring what her eyes tried to tell her.

She knew the Mist. She could navigate these currents of weirdness.

Come on, Hazel! she told herself. You can do this.

With a cry of determination, Hazel shoved the Mist away, creating a small radius in front of her where reality shifted back into place.

She heard the flutter of leafy wings behind her, and Quinoa perched on her shoulder. “Hazel, why was everything and everyone a dog just now?”

“Mist,” she said, sweat pouring down her face. “Sorry. I need to concentrate. This is so much more powerful than what I’m used to.”

“No problem!” said the karpos. “But I’m sticking with you. I much prefer cats anyway. What’s the plan?”

Hazel pointed up ahead. “Pirithous.”

“Oh, yeah.” Quinoa cracked his tiny knuckles. “I’ve got some things to discuss with that— LOOK OUT!”

Kelli the empousa pounced from out of nowhere, landing on Hazel and knocking her to the ground.

Hazel managed a wild slash with her spatha, cutting clean through Kelli’s cheerleader jersey.

The empousa screamed “NOT AGAIN!” as she exploded into dust and pom-pom tassels, but the back of Hazel’s head slammed against the asphalt.

Anger was thrown from her arms. Quinoa shrieked as he catapulted off her shoulder.

Hazel wheezed, struggling to sit up. She’d lost her hold on the Mist.

The world had changed again. The scent of freshly popped popcorn hit her nostrils. She heard the whimsical melody of a carousel. A tall man nearly crashed into her, his view obstructed by an enormous stuffed teddy bear.

She was in the midst of a fully functioning carnival.

Nico weaved around a ghost—not a real one, but someone wearing a sheet with eyeholes.

He did his best to push his panic down, but even with Semele’s help, his brain was having trouble piercing the Mist. The plaza still looked like a Halloween party in which everyone was sleepwalking through different nightmares.

“Dolus! Apate!” he screamed. “You have to stop this!”

If the twin gods heard him, they didn’t respond. They just kept waltzing and singing to each other in their fancy skeleton costumes.

“Nico!” said a muffled voice. Someone grabbed him by the shoulder from behind, making Nico yelp. He spun, his sword ready to run through whoever it was, but he froze as he found himself facing…a giant banana.

At least, it was someone in a very realistic giant banana costume, with oversize sunglasses covering the eyeholes.

“Nico, it’s me!” the banana said, the voice muffled behind layers of yellow foam padding.

“Me who? I don’t know any bananas!”

“It’s Will!” he said. “Wait, I’m a banana?”

“It’s the Mist,” Nico said. “And I lost my Cocoa Puff.”

Banana Will offered him a regular-size banana. “Here, take mine! You need it more.”