Hades met Poseidon on the banks of the River Acheron. The sea god had come alone. That was surprising, given the old enmity between the Big Three sons of Kronos. Then again, ever since Hades and Poseidon had showed up to save the day at Olympus, all of the Olympian Gods had been getting along much better. Now Poseidon was meeting him in his own realm, without so much as a single guard to make sure Hades didn't have him chained in Tartarus. If they weren't careful, they'd soon be wearing tights and carrying rapiers and translating "All for one, and one for all" into Greek to use as their motto.

It was a scary thought. Hades decided that when the current situation was over, he was going to send something nasty to bother Zeus' youngest demigod daughter. Maybe a pack of hell hounds. Of course, that would have to wait. He had more pressing matters to attend right now, and might actually need Zeus' aid. There would be time for stirring up havoc later.

"Hades," Poseidon greeted his brother with a deep nod that was almost a bow, showing proper respect for the master of the underworld while in his domain.

"Poseidon." Hades returned the gesture. "I thank you for coming."

Poseidon looked behind Hades, like he was searching for something specific, something that he didn't find. "No contingent of horrors to intimidate my guards?" he asked, a teasing note in his voice.

"No guards for my contingent of horrors to intimidate?" returned Hades. Then he paused, realizing that he was engaging in almost friendly banter with his brother and felt disgusted with himself.

"I didn't believe that your invitation held any ill intents," Poseidon told him, "and as such came alone."

"I would thank you for your trust, if I didn't think it was a sure sign of stupidity on your part," growled Hades. "You should take nothing for granted in my realm, brother, not even your own safety from me."

"I don't think you're too anxious to have the underworld flooded," remarked Poseidon with a benevolent air. "At least not as anxious as you are to discuss whatever you called me here today to discuss. I might be mistaken, but in your message you sounded worried."

"I'm the god of death! I do not worry!"

Poseidon raised his hands. "Then I was mistaken. But what did you want to talk about, brother? In all the millennium we've ruled our domains, I have never before gotten so much as a birthday card from you before. Now, all of a sudden, you send me an Iris message and request a face to face meeting, and at the very least, you showed signs of urgency."

Hades scowled, but gave Poseidon a straight answer. "The House of Life has kidnapped my son."

One of Poseidon's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Your demigod son?"

"How many sons do I have that aren't demigods?" demanded Hades. He grimaced. "Yes, my demigod son. My only living son. His name is Nico, you might remember, since he is good friends with your precious progeny, and since his very existence was cause for so much concern seventy years ago."

Poseidon nodded. "Nico di Angelo. If I remember correctly, he had a sister –"

"Deceased," said Hades in a clipped voice.

Poseidon said nothing. He just waited for Hades to continue.

"Of all the gods, I have the least children," Hades said through clenched teeth, since this was something of a sorepoint for him. "No godly children, or monsters like you and the rest of my beloved siblings. Only humans have enough life to bear my children, and more than nine times out of ten they're dead before they're even born. Those who survive . . . I feel a certain responsibility for."

"There's no shame in admitting you love your son, brother."

"I do not love my son!" spat Hades. "He is naïve and idiotic, and quite possibly touched in the head! But he is an embodiment of my power in the human world and I will not have him in the hands of those mad magicians who tried to kill all their own gods! I am getting him back. One way or another they will return my son, even if I have to kill them all and make their reanimated corpses hand him over!"

"Your minions are certainly suited to the task of a massacre and extraction," noted Poseidon. "Unless he is being held under water? Or on one of my sacred islands? If that is the case, I give you permission to retrieve him by any means necessary."

Hades almost stumbled over his speech. That was a very generous offer. A very, very generous offer. One that he was sure Poseidon would never have made before the Battle of Olympus. He almost couldn't believe that Poseidon had made that offer. Perhaps it is because his spawn has befriended my son, he thought. Poseidon has always indulged his children.

"Thank you," he grated out, "but that is not why I asked you here. I do not know where my son is being held."

Poseidon looked surprised. "You cannot connect with him mentally?"

Hades shook his head. "I have been blocked. No mere magician has the sort of power to block a god's connection with his offspring."

This made Poseidon look grim. "You believe that a godling is holding him?"

Hades nodded.

Poseidon issued several colorful curses in ancient and modern Greek. "That filthy parasite pantheon," he swore. "Around the time they fell to the Roman Empire, I had to send a toxic algal bloom into the Nile because they kept kidnapping my children and trying to infect them with their water gods. They killed seven of my sons and four of my daughters."

A sickening feeling stirred in Hades at that thought. He hadn't even had eleven demigod children total, in his existence, and Poseidon had lost that many in a single generation. He remembered the incident Poseidon spoke of. It was not often back then that he was able to lay claim to any Egyptian souls, but Poseidon's actions had marked thousands of them, destined them to the Greek underworld when they died of poisons inflicted by the Greek pantheon's sea god.

"I will not let them have their way with my son," said Hades flatly.

"Is it the House of Life holding him though? Or a rogue-magician-turned-godling?" asked Poseidon. A good question, considering that the House of Life had beaten the Greek pantheon to the punch in declaring war on the Egyptian pantheon so many centuries ago. They had turned their back on their gods, blamed them for their own military shortcomings, and sealed them all way, but recently a great number of them had broken out of their prisons. Hades did not know, or particularly care, if the House of Life had accepted their gods back.

"I do not know," he confessed to Poseidon. "And it does not matter. Whoever has my son will return him to me or they and anyone who aids them will die. I don't care if I have to wage war against the House of Life while they're united with their parasite pantheon! If they harm Nico I will kill them all!"

Thanks to recent events, Hades was strong. Maybe stronger than he'd ever been before. The entire Greek pantheon had gotten a boost in strength since so many of their children had become war heroes. Once, if the House of Life and their parasite gods had presented a united front, they might have been able to destroy the Greeks. But now they wouldn't have a chance. It would be a slaughter of the very best kind.

"I have never asked a thing of you, brother," Hades appealed to Poseidon. "You or any of the other Olympians. I have never tried to seize or infringe upon what is yours or Zeus's, even though my lot was the worst amongst us three. I am content with what is mine, but now something of mine has been taken and I want it back! I want him back! My son. If they do not return him then I will start a war."

"And I will go to war alongside you, brother."

An emotion that Hades couldn't place surged through him. Comraderie maybe? Gratitude? It was similar to the affection he felt for his own children when he was at his most indulgent, and Hades decided that whatever it was, really was not important. What mattered was that one of his brothers would be on his side in the coming conflict. Even if he had no other allies, two of the Big Three would crush any who stood against them. But of course they would have allies. Ares was in by default. Athena would rationalize out some way to convince herself that joining them would be wise, which would of course have nothing to do with her war goddess powers singing in her blood. Apollo had quite a bit of vendetta against the Egyptians, and though Artemis acted as though she hated her twin, she would never let him go to war without her.

If his son was not restored to him in less than two days now, there would be hell to pay.

----------------------------------------------

The moment Percy saw the door of their motel room he knew that something was very wrong. Doors blown off hinges usually were bad signs. Riptide was in his hand in an instant and he sprinted forward, dropping the stack of Styrofoam food boxes he'd been carrying.

"Nico!" he shouted bursting into the room. Aside from the door, not much was wrong with the room, except for the fact that his cousin and Carter's sister were missing. "Nico!"

"Sadie!" Carter and Bast were right behind him.

"They're gone." Percy knew that he was stating the obvious but he didn't know what else to say.

"Sadie!" Carter dropped to his knees to check under the beds, then ran to the closet. "Sadie! Nico? Where are you?"

"Magic did this," said Bast from the remains of the door.

"Egyptian magic?" asked Percy, just to make sure they weren't dealing with some new problem that shouldn't have existed outside of scifi novels, like some Romanian vampire ghost with a magic boomerang of ultimate doom.

"Yes. House of Life magic in particular," Bast said, looking around the room like she could see something he couldn't. "Each magician has their own signature of magic. This one belongs to the woman who led the attack on our house."

"Aziza," Percy remembered. He also remembered her eyes taking on an even crueler gleam every time they fell on Nico. The thought of his cousin in her hands was not a pleasant one.

"We have to get them back," said Carter. "If the House of Life turns Nico over to his father then Hades will see he's possessed by Anubis. And Sadie might get hurt too, if not by Hades then definitely by Desjardins and his henchmen."

"They'll have taken them to the First Nome," said Bast. "That's the safest place for the House of Life to keep anything, and I doubt they have anything they want to protect more than their son of Hades hostage."

"The First Nome's in Egypt?" asked Percy to make sure he remembered what Carter had told him right.

Bast nodded. "I can get there faster on my own and try to scout things out and see where they're keeping them. Carter can open a gate to get the two of you there."

"Will it work on me?" asked Percy. "I'm pretty sure I don't have any blood of the pharaohs, and this whole mixing of Greek and Egyptian powers seems more and more dangerous the more we learn about it. I don't want to end up getting blasted into molecules and spread from here to Gaza."

"Giza," Carter corrected him.

"You should be okay," said Bast. "I think."

"Has any demigod ever traveled that way before that you know of?" asked Percy.

Bast's silence told him everything he needed to know.

"What if I use the all-rivers-become-one spell?" asked Carter. "That's safe enough, I know. Sadie and I used it to get Nico from Central Park to the mansion."

"Then do that," Bast told them. "We need to move quickly. We don't know if the House of Life has a way of contacting Hades or if they have to wait until the time he set down for them."

---------------------------------------------

When Sadie woke up she was lying on a grimy stone floor in what appeared to be a prison cell. The hieroglyphics for "light" had been inscribed on the wall outside the cell and were lit up, providing a dim glow that allowed her to see. And there was a cold hand resting on her throat. Not choking her, just resting there. Her eyes widened as she realized how cool its flesh was. No human could be that cold and still be alive.

She shrieked and flung the corpse hand off of her, rolling and scooting backward to get away from the body. Then she stopped as she realized who it was. Nico stared up at her from the floor through exhausted, tortured eyes. He didn't bother moving his arm which was now stretched out on the ground. He didn't bother moving at all except to close his eyes.

"Nico?" she asked, moving closer to him again.

"Are you okay?" asked Nico, his voice very soft like he was fading away.

"Yes. I'm fine. They only put a sleep spell on me. And put these on me too, I guess," she said, noticing the handcuffs that bound her wrists. There was a decent length of chain between the two cuffs that let her move, not as freely as she was used to, but they could have been much worse. She moved closer to the demigodling, who now was resting with his face in the dirt. Carefully, she rolled him onto his back and dusted off his face with the back of her hand. "Are you okay? Your skin is as cold as ice."

"I know," muttered Nico. "It always is. You thought my hand belonged to a corpse when you woke up?"

"Yeah, sorry." Sadie faked a laugh.

"Didn't mean to scare you. Anubis was worried. Told me to check your pulse or he'd do it himself. I was checking."

"You being cold, is that one of your demigod powers?"

"More of a side-effect," Nico told her. "I'm not . . . I'm not as alive as normal people are. Not warm blooded. No body heat."

"Sounds bloody inconvenient," said Sadie. "Are you cold?"

"Usually."

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. If I had a jacket I'd give it to you." Sadie only had on the t-shirt and jeans she'd fallen asleep in. And her socks. Her combat boots were missing. Nico's too, it looked like. He was missing his jacket as well. Sadie could see a slight bulge beneath his shirt in the center of his chest. It looked like he was wearing some kind of amulet or a medal under his shirt but Sadie knew better. It was that stupid stone that had somehow replaced his heart. "They haven't noticed that yet, have they?" asked Sadie.

Nico blinked at her, confused.

"You know. I don't want to say it out loud in case our conversation is being bugged."

"Oh. No," said Nico. "They didn't search me. They didn't see a need to. I can't fight them. I can't even sit up."

"Because of that collar?" asked Sadie.

"Mmm." That seemed to be a yes.

Sadie started twisting the collar, rotating it around Nico's neck and looking for a clasp to remove it.

Nico's eyes went unfocused for a moment then seemed to sharpen as he looked at Sadie. When he spoke it was in Anubis' voice. "I'm sorry Sadie, but it's no use. This collar is magic, as are your handcuffs. The only one who can undo them is the person who put them on you."

"You can't use your powers and take them off?" asked Sadie.

"I cannot." Anubis gave his strange smile that looked odd, but somehow right on Nico's face. "This collar is a particularly nasty piece of work."

"What kind of spell is it?" asked Sadie as she looked at the hieroglyphics carved into the stones on it.

"A healing spell," said Anubis wryly. "It's emitting essence of life, and a lot of it, much like the Ribbons of Hathor did. It negates Nico's powers. Not just his powers. It's . . . hard to explain, but . . . the children of Hades aren't completely alive. The power that they use to animate corpses also animates them."

"So that thing is killing him?" asked Sadie, horrified.

"Gradually." Anubis' expression made it clear that he was trying to sugar coat it. Sadie wasn't quite sure how she was able to read the death god so well, but she could tell that he was very sad. "But I think he has a few days. Percy, Carter, and the stupid cat will have you out of here by then."

He's lying. Sadie tried to smile reassuringly, to make him think that she believed the lie, but she knew it didn't reach her eyes. Nico's got a day at the most. Maybe not even that.

"Don't count him out yet," Anubis told her. "And you know how resourceful his cousin is. Or at least you have a general idea. I hope I am around to see your expression when you hear of some of their real exploits."

I don't want Nico to die. Sadie turned her face away and wiped tears from her eyes, hoping that Nico and Anubis wouldn't see them. She cringed as she realized the side of her hand had a long scrape on it, like whoever had carried her made it a point to let her hand drag on the ground. Red blood oozed slowly from the cut. Red blood . . . .

"Black blood!" said Sadie out loud. She crawled quickly to Nico/Anubis' side. "I know how to get that collar off you!"

"Sadie," said Anubis patiently, "it's not possible. I'm sorry."

"It is possible," insisted Sadie. "I know how. I don't want to explain it in case they're recording us and can either hear or lip read, but I can do it. It will hurt a little, but I know it will work. Do you trust me?"

"It's your body," Anubis said, but not to Sadie. She guessed that he was having a conversation with Nico in his head and had lost track of what he was supposed to say out loud, just like Nico tended to do.

When he spoke again, it was in Nico's voice. "Do it," Nico told her. "If you think you can, do whatever it takes."

Sadie got to her feet and grabbed Nico under his arms and from behind. She pulled him into a corner so it would be impossible for any cameras to see what she was doing, unless they were positioned right above her, looking down. Then she lifted Nico's hand, wondering what the best way to do this was. It would have been easier if she had a knife or something to cut with, but she didn't. She didn't even have fingernails.

As she realized what she had to do she grimaced. "I really am sorry about this," she told him, leaning down over his hand. "If we both get out of here alive, I promise I'll buy you a Happy Meal to make it up to you."

Nico blinked at her, confused. His eyes went even wider when Sadie pulled his left hand up to her mouth and bit down on one of his fingertips, hard. "What in Dad's name are you doing!"

Sadie didn't answer. She concentrated on getting her teeth to pierce his skin, just his skin. She was careful not to crunch down on the tiny bones in his fingers. Broken fingers was the last thing he needed right now. She just needed to draw blood.

Seconds later, she felt her teeth start to fizzle, like a calcium tablet dropped in acid. She drew back immediately and wiped her teeth on her sleeve, then spat a few times, hoping that her saliva would wash away the traces of Nico's black blood. It must have because her teeth stopped making that fizzling sound, and she didn't feel pain like she was pretty sure she would have if they were being dissolved.

Blood was streaming freely from Nico's finger by the time she was finished with that. She frowned when she saw that she'd dropped his hand so that it lay over his lower torso, and that he hadn't had the strength to move it. Already she could see that his blood had burned a hole in his shirt. Oddly, it didn't seem to have any effect on his skin, though she supposed that made sense. He wouldn't still be alive if his skin couldn't hold the blood inside of him.

She carefully lifted his hand again, making sure that she didn't get any blood on herself, because she doubted that her skin had the same immunity. Nico watched her with glazed eyes as she used his fingers wipe the blood onto the collar.

"Please let this work," she prayed, though she wasn't sure to who. Perhaps to her parents, though in her experience they'd never come through for her before so they probably weren't the best choice. Nico's dad didn't seem like such a great choice either at the moment, and if Anubis could do anything to get the collar off Nico he would have already done it, so he was out too. Thoth, maybe. Good old Jahooty. If this worked, then it was a good idea, which made her smart. Wise even, so Sadie figured that this fell under his category of prayers.

The metal of the collar started to hiss and smoke. Tears sprang to Sadie's eyes and a fierce grin lit up her face. "It's working! Thank you, Jahooty!"

It took less time than Sadie thought it would. In less than a minute Nico's black blood had melted right through the metal clasp that kept him enslaved by the collar. She twisted the contraption off of him then smashed it against the floor as hard as she could.

"Useless piece of garbage!" she spat at it, glad to have something to vent her anger on. "Trash! Camel shit! You're lucky I don't have a volcano to throw you in! Now die!"

When she was finished with it, the only thing it could have possibly resembled was an ugly piece of modern art, all twisted and warped beyond any recognizable shape. She threw it against the far wall in case there was any life left radiating out of it to poison her friend, or friends since Nico and Anubis both had to be considered, even if they were sharing the same body.

"You killed it good," said Nico, smiling up at her tiredly, but looking stronger already.

"It got off easy," huffed Sadie. "What I'd really like to do is melt it down and then drip it in Aziza's eyes. Do you think the hot metal would burn through them and sink into her brain?"

"Anubis says it would, and it's been done before, but not enough to be clichéd," reported Nico dutifully.

Sadie chuckled. "You're feeling better? You look like you're feeling better."

Nico nodded. "Everything was heavy before . . . fuzzy . . . now it's lighter and clearer. I think I can sit up –"

"Don't," Sadie told him. "Not yet anyway. Save your strength."

She was kind of surprised that Nico obeyed, since she would have tried sitting up just to spite anyone who gave her that order. She guessed that Nico was too tired, or maybe was more obedient than her. Whichever it was, she decided not to hold it against him.

"Chain."

Sadie looked down at Nico confused. "Sorry, mate, what was that?"

"Chain," Nico said again. "Handcuffs." He raised his still bleeding hand.

"Oh. Good thinking." Sadie held the chain out to him and let him wipe some of his blood onto one of the links. Seconds later, she was able to twist the link apart. The metal bands remained on her wrists, with a short length of chain attached to either one, but they didn't obstruct her movements anymore.

"Best I can do right now," Nico told her. "I'll get the rest of it off later, but I don't want to burn you."

"Yeah, they're fine like this for now," replied Sadie. "If I backhand anyone it'll be more likely to make them bleed."

"I'm not ready to make a jail break yet," Nico told her. "Still too weak. But . . . I'm getting stronger."

"Rest," Sadie said to him. "Hopefully they'll feed us. That'll do you good, right?"

"Mmmm." Nico closed his eyes. "I wish Percy was here."

Sadie shifted so that she was laying next to Nico. "You two seem really close. If I didn't know better, I'd really believe you two were brothers."

"Nah . . . if you knew me you wouldn't think that. We're not really that much alike."

"Sure you are. You're both demigods. You both have dark hair. You're both freaky-good fighters."

"He's a good person. Much better than me."

"How so?" Sadie wanted to know.

"He's just . . . good. Righteous. Like light. I'm dark and cold. The best thing that can be said about me is that Percy's my friend."

Sadie sighed. She'd never been very good with words or at comforting people, let alone demigodlings. Normally she probably would have ignored Nico and let him keep talking pitiably, but after thinking she was going to be sharing her cell with his corpse she had a little more compassion for him than she normally would have.

She rolled over so that she was leaning into Nico and flung one arm over his chest, kind of hugging him, and thinking that if they were both a year or two older, that this would be really awkward. But thankfully, adolescence hadn't set in for Nico yet and he was enough of a kid that she could hug him like this, and try to keep him warm, and he wouldn't get any weird ideas. "If you're cold you should let your friends keep you warm. And if you pair that dark thing up with mysteriousness you'll get more dates. And Percy does seem like the kind of person anyone would be proud to call their friend, but there are better things that can be said of a boy who will defend two other kids he just met from a magician with murderous intent."