"First question," said Nico. "What is melanin?"

Landin looked at him oddly. "A pigment."

"Excuse me?" asked Nico. He glanced at Jason to see what Jason made of this.

Jason punched Landin in the stomach. "May I remind you, Landin, that you're now a prisoner of war. You will answer our questions or suffer the consequences."

Landin doubled over. "I did answer your question!"

"You called me a pig!" said Nico indignantly.

"I said pigment! It's a chemical that causes coloration!"

"Oh. Well why didn't you say so?" asked Nico.

"You would have saved yourself a punch in the stomach," added Jason.

Landin glowered at them. "It seems you really weren't completely truthful with me, Mr. di Angelo."

"Detective," corrected Nico.

"What?" Landin seemed confused.

"Detective di Angelo," said Nico. "I've decided that I want to be a detective when I grow up. Seems like your school did give me a bit of life guidance after all, but don't think that will get you a pass. You have to answer for what you've done here."

"Most definitely," agreed Jason. "Next question: what were you hoping to accomplish? Why have you been torturing demigods and driving them mad?"

"I wasn't trying to torture them," said Landin. "I was trying to free them."

"Then why are they in cells?" demanded Nico.

"An unfortunate side effect of the procedure we've been developing to free all demigods from our fate," said Landin.

"What fate are you trying to save us from?" asked Jason angrily.

"The fate of forever being a slave to your godly parent's will!" said Landin. "The fate of being a pawn in their big game, to be broken, or cast aside the moment you're no longer interesting or useful enough, and knowing that when they're done with you, you'll have helped them move the world one step closer to its destruction at their hands. Because the games they play are cruel and senseless. Take a look at the world, boys! You think it just got that way because of the senselessness of humans? No! It's the gods' fault!

"Every war since the dawn of Greek civilization was ultimately their fault! Every civil war fought since then has been because they sprouted new personalities and allowed themselves to be known by different names, and gave birth to demigods who were uniquely Roman rather than Greek, then set their two groups of children to fighting with one another over every petty slight or grudge imaginable!"

"Wait, what?" Jason looked shocked. "What do you mean . . . two groups of demigods? Is that really true?"

"It is," admitted Nico. This wasn't how he would have preferred to let Jason know, but trying to hide it anymore was too risky with Landin blabbing his big fat mouth.

"I'm sorry. I should have told you the truth earlier, Jason."

Jason looked surprised, but also a little bit like something he'd suspected had just been confirmed. "You're Greek?"

Nico nodded. "I'm the son of Hades. Not Pluto."

Jason stared at him, then finally nodded. For a second he looked a little bit scared, then started to ask. "At your camp is there anyone . . . I mean, I assume you guys have your own camp . . . but is there anyone there named -"

"Thalia Grace?"

"You know her?" Jason's voice cracked.

"Yes. And I swear to you, after we got this mess with these idiots sorted out, I was going to tell you and her both," said Nico. "I swear it on the Styx."

"She's alive?" asked Jason, like he couldn't believe it.

"Alive and well," Nico told him. "I'll take you to meet her as soon as we're done here."

Jason nodded and seemed to try to pull himself together. "Right. We've got a job to do."

"You think it's going to be that easy?" asked Landin. "Whenever Greek and Roman demigods meet, they fight and kill one another. I guarentee you the minute you leave this compound, one of you will stab the other in the back."

"I guarantee you're wrong," said Jason.

"We've already eaten at McDonalds together plenty of times without shedding any blood," added Nico.

"But now that you know -"

"I already knew before," said Nico.

"And I suspected," said Jason. "A little. Okay, a very, very little, but that doesn't matter. We're cousins. My dad's Jupiter."

"Ha!" laughed Landin. "You're sons of the Big Three! That would be the Elder Three, to you, Roman boy. You're slaves to your fathers' natures. Their rivalry is yours -"

"Actually, my best friend is the son of Poseidon," said Nico, "and there is no rivalry between us. Oh, but fair warning, he kind of saw what was happening in the optics room and he's on his way here for your blood. Just saying."

Jason snickered.

Landin seemed tongue tied for a moment as his arguments were being torn apart. "No matter! You may be able to resist now, but it is in your nature. As you grow older you'll have no choice but to bow to the will your godly parent has forced on you."

"Wrong again," Nico told him. "I was born in the 1930's. I'm like twice as old as you, and I'm not a slave to my father's will. I've argued with him . . . defied him . . . and I was the one who convinced him to march his undead armies to defend Olympus during the Battle of Manhattan."

"You're eighty years old?" asked Jason.

"It's a long story," said Nico. "I'll explain later."

"That should be good," laughed Jason. "Alright, Landin, got any more arguments for us to dissect?"

"You may be amongst the rare demigods capable of resisting their parents' curse, but for every one of us who can resist, there are a hundred who cannot," said Landin. "Why do you think the world is in such a sorry state now? It's because of the gods."

"I don't get how driving every demigod you can get your hands on completely insane is going to help anything," said Nico.

"If anything, wouldn't that make things worse?" asked Jason.

"Yeah," agreed Nico. "If you're blaming the state of the world on us and our parents and the things we did when we were sane, what do you think is going to happen when we're all completely crazy and our parents are all pissed at you for it?"

"That is what the procedure is for," Landin told him.

"Making us completely crazy?"

"Putting a stop to the gods' influence over the world. And demigods' influence too."

"What do you mean?" asked Jason sharply.

"The procedure can do it," said Landin. "Sever a demigod's ties to their parent."

Nico and Jason both stared at him in silence for a moment. Jason seemed stunned, but Nico was merely grim. The theory he'd come up with had turned out to be right.

"I don't believe you," said Jason finally.

"I saw his notes," Nico said. "And I had a hunch. I think he's telling the truth."

"But . . . but . . ."

"Yeah, I know."

The idea that someone could take away their powers permanently was a scary one. Nico didn't like it anymore than Jason did.

"What I don't know though," said Nico, "is why they'd want to do that? And don't feed me that BS about trying to spare us from our fate. No one goes to this much trouble just for humanitarian efforts."

"You're sharper than I gave you credit for, Mr. di Angelo -"

"Detective," corrected Nico again.

Landin sneered at him. "The why though is quite simple. Demigods are the main source of the gods' power here on earth. They don't even have to be the children of that god, so long as they worship them on occasion. If we can sever all their links to their main power source, then their control over the natural world order diminishes and we can take back our world! Make it in our own image! By breaking the children of the gods we break the gods themselves!"

Nico and Jason both punched Landin at the exact same moment. Nico slugged him in the face. Jason punched him in the stomach again. Landin made a very interesting noise that sounded kind of like a duck being run over.

"I don't know about you," said Nico, "but I've heard enough."

"Same," said Jason. "Let's secure this prisoner and withdraw."

Nico opened his Duat locker and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. "You have the right to remain silent," he told Landin as he cuffed his hands behind his back as tight as the handcuffs would allow. "Anything you say will probably result in us hitting you again. You have the right to an attorney . . . or something. I don't know the rest of it, but it doesn't really matter. You're kind of screwed no matter what happens in a trial up here, because when you die you'll just end up getting another trial, and I guarantee you that what you've done here has earned you a spot in the Fields of Punishment."

"We need to do something about the dampener," said Jason. He pointed toward the weird looking machine in the corner. "Assuming that is the dampener. Should I blast it?"

"I wouldn't," said Nico. "It might explode."

"You're right. I guess I'll look for an off switch then. I don't suppose you want to tell me which button it is, Landin?"

Landin snorted.

"Is there a plug connecting it to the wall?" asked Nico. "If you kill its power supply . . ."

"That should shut it off," finished Jason. "Good thinking." He looked behind the machine and found the plug. But as he started to reach for it, Nico saw a sly smile cross Landin's face.

"Wait!" he said, realizing that this wasn't a good idea, and that somehow the plug had to be booby-trapped, but Jason had already grabbed it.

Electricity crackled over Jason's body, freezing him in place. A pained expression twisted his face.

"Oh. I must have forgotten to tell you," said Landin. "Our power dampener is specifically designed to draw energy from any available source that it comes in contact with. I wonder how many watts a son of Jupiter can crank out before -"

Nico spared only one second to punch him in the jaw to shut him up, then ran toward Jason. He knew what he was about to do was stupid. He knew that electricity could be dangerous to humans as well as demigods, and especially children of Hades/Pluto and Poseidon/Neptune because Zeus was a jerk and would stick it to them any way he could. But he also knew that whatever was happening to Jason wasn't good at all, and didn't want to find out how long Jason could stand getting his power sucked directly out of him like that.

So he drew his sword and cleaved through the power cord, and prayed to his father that his sword would absorb rather than conduct whatever power there was, or else he was going to get electrocuted.

An ominous buzzing sound replaced the crackling of electricity as Jason was freed, but Nico didn't have time to feel either relief or worry.

Something popped. No, exploded. Nico just hadn't been able to tell at first, standing at point blank range. And something also . . . shattered. He felt the force of the explosion lift him off his feet and send him crashing into Jason, even as multiple tiny shards dug painfully into his skin. Those shards were agony. The pain they caused went beyond normal physical pain. Nico could feel a pulling at his very life energy, and wondered if this was how every monster he'd ever slayed with his Stygian iron blade had felt when his sword had drained their souls.

He and Jason hit the floor, with Jason cushioning his landing, but even if the relatively older boy hadn't been there, Nico probably wouldn't have felt a thing. The pain of the crash would have been nothing compared to the agony those shards were causing. He tried to scream, but couldn't tell if he actually managed to or not. All sound was growing dim, and Nico wondered if he was dying, except . . . his chest had grown warm, where his heart was supposed to be . . . where that stone scarab was now. And it felt like . . . it felt like there was some kind of magnetic force there, pulling back the pieces of his soul that he'd lost to the shards. Suddenly Nico felt very sleepy. Keeping his eyes open was way too much trouble. It would surely be okay to close them, just for a few seconds.

Little did he know that would be the last time he opened them himself for a very long time.

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

Jason rolled Nico off him and tried not to scream out in pain. His face, it felt like it was on fire. And his arm. Gods, his arm hurt like someone had stabbed it with a power drill and turned it on. When he looked at it he saw why. Kind of.

There were two shards of the glowing crystal-ball thing that had been part of the machine. It must have shattered when Nico slashed the machine with his sword. Cutting the power cord must have caused some kind of reaction that blew it up.

The shards were pulsating with light. Jason would almost swear he could see them sucking out his life energy. He wasted no time in yanking them out, and when he did the pain dulled down to the standard amount of pain that was usually caused by getting glass shards embedded in your arm. Jason quickly pulled the piece out of his face.

Only then did he become aware of the face that someone was screaming bloody murder. Landin, it turned out. And from only one shard of the glowing glass that had flown across the room and embedded itself in his cheek. One shard and he was screaming like that. He really could have used legion training to cure him of that wussiness. Nico had to have gotten hit with more shards than Landin had, and Jason didn't hear him squealing like a stuck pig.

He turned to ask his new friend if he was okay, then froze in horror. Nico had gotten it a lot worse than Jason. He'd shielded Jason from the blast, or else Jason would have ended up with a whole lot more shards than he had, but Nico had taken the brunt of the attack. Dozens of shards were embedded into his face, throat, and hands. His shirt and jacket seemed to have protected his chest, but what he'd gotten was bad enough. Blood was running down his skin in thick dark streams. Jason started to reach for him, to try to help, but remembered Nico's warning about touching his blood at the very last second.

But he still couldn't just leave those shards stuck in his friend. Not when he knew what kind of agony they caused, and when he didn't know what kind of lasting damage they caused. He thought frantically, trying to figure out a way to get the shards out of Nico without touching his blood. He didn't have any tweezers or anything . . . He was about to tear apart his own shirt and use that to cover his hands, and hope that it would hold up long enough, when he saw that it wouldn't be necessary.

Nico hadn't been kidding when he said his blood burned through glass. It seemed to have dissolved whatever bits of the shards were inside his skin. The pieces that had been outside started falling away from the cuts, mixing into the streams of his blood and dissolving themselves, like sugar cubes in warm water.

Jason quickly pulled out his flask of unicorn draught and dripped it over Nico's cuts. He didn't have enough to use it as liberally as he would have liked to, but there was still enough to do the trick. He smiled as Nico's cuts healed, turning into pink scars that stood out against his pale skin, but would vanish with another dose of unicorn draught.

He glanced at Landin to check and make sure the prisoner hadn't managed to escape, but Landin was still screaming his head off. So then he did a quick check around the room for something to help him clean Nico up. A mostly full bottle of water sat on the desk. Jason grabbed that and splashed it over Nico's face, throat, and hands to wash away the trails his black blood had left.

Even diluted, it seemed that his black blood was still pretty dangerous. It burned grooves into the floor, so Jason kept his distance until he was pretty sure it was safe.

He'd expected the water to wake Nico up, but the boy remained still.

"Nico?" he asked, and reached out to shake Nico by the shoulder. Nico's head kind of flopped to the side a bit but he didn't stir at all. "Nico? Nico, wake up."

Nothing. No fluttering of the eyelids, no movement at all . . . not even near his chest. It was then that Jason realized Nico wasn't breathing.

Jason forced his hands to remain steady as he pressed two fingers against Nico's throat, checking for a pulse. It was hard to quiet the thundering of his own heartbeat that was pounding away at his temples, to make sure he didn't mistake his own pulse for Nico's. But Nico was frighteningly cold to the touch, and Jason couldn't feel his heartbeat.

Not completely trusting his own evaluation, he grabbed Nico's wrist and tried to find a pulse there, but again, there was nothing.

"No, no, no," he growled, and grabbed the front of Nico's shirt. He tore it open, to make it easier to give the younger boy chest compressions, but as he reached to position his hands directly over Nico's heart, he froze. Because embedded in Nico's chest, right overtop of his heart, was a black stone scarab, and Jason could clearly see that it wasn't just stuck to his skin. The thing was actually a part of him. A very thin, translucent layer of skin had actually grown over the edges of it, and a spider web of black veins radiated outward around it. "What the . . ."

Jason wasn't sure what to do. He'd been planning on trying to restart Nico's heart, but now he wasn't sure if Nico even had one. Or if the scarab thing was some sort of magical replacement for it. Or if he ever even had a pulse to begin with. All Jason knew was that he didn't want to lose anyone else on this assignment, even if Nico hadn't officially been working for him.

He tried to steel himself and focus and think like a commander, and a warrior. This wasn't the first time he'd knelt over a dying or dead friend, and fate wasn't kind enough for him to think it would be the last time either, but it never, ever got any easier.

"Nico?" he asked, because the stone scarab in place of his heart meant that the usual rules for having a pulse might not apply. "Can you hear me? Nico?"

Nico gave no indication that he'd heard Jason, or that he was conscious.

"I was going to give you CPR, but I'm not sure if it will work, considering you might have a stone heart," said Jason. "I'm going to try anyway, because I don't know what else to do. If this is the wrong thing, I'm sorry. And if this doesn't work . . . I'm sorry."

He could almost see Nico scowling at him, reminding him that he was doing what he wanted to do, and not doing any favors for Jason, except maybe telling him what he learned inside the complex, but that didn't make Jason feel like it was any less his fault. He should have tried harder to keep tabs on the kid. But it was too late now, and stewing over it wasn't going to help him.

Jason positioned his hands over the stone scarab, and prepared to start chest compressions, but the sound of rushed footsteps reached his ears. He tensed and was about to reach for his sword, but another teen was already rushing into the room. Another demigod, Jason realized with relief, and one who wasn't one of the poor, broken half-bloods that the complex had been torturing. That much was apparent at just a glance.

This new demigod wore a few pieces of old fashioned armor over an orange T-shirt, and carried a bronze sword, that he clearly knew how to use. His wrists were thick with muscle and he had the graceful, balanced step that only a trained warrior could manage. Several pieces of tousled dark hair fell into, but did nothing to obscure a pair of furious sea green eyes that zeroed in on Jason with deadly intent.

"Get away from my cousin!"