Chapter Text
I didn't want to be a half-blood. Nor did I want to be fighting another demon bat sent straight from Hell."
I looked up at the monster and wondered—not for the first time—if monsters held weekly meetings somewhere in Tartarus.
Maybe they sat around a giant conference table, drinking lava or whatever passed for coffee down there.
Agenda Item One: How do we ruin Percy's life this week?
Agenda Item Two: Make it weird.
Because honestly, a six-foot-tall demon bat with black wings, glowing red eyes, and a sword the size of a surfboard felt pretty weird.
"Why does this keep happening to me?" I asked.
The monster answered by swinging its blade at my head.
Not very helpful.
I threw myself backward.
The sword sliced through the space where my face had been half a second earlier. The tip clipped a lock of my hair.
A few dark strands drifted to the ground.
I touched the side of my head.
"Thanks for the haircut."
The demon hissed.
Apparently it didn't appreciate sarcasm.
Great.
Just great.
Rain hammered the cracked asphalt around us. Water pooled in potholes and reflected the yellow glow of streetlights. Every time lightning flashed overhead, the monster's silhouette stretched across the parking lot like something out of a horror movie.
Across the ruined parking lot, Annabeth rolled beneath another swing of the monster's tail.
Yeah.
It had a tail too.
Because apparently wings and a giant sword weren't enough.
She came up smoothly, knife already in hand.
"Percy!"
"I'm busy dying!"
"You're doing it wrong!"
"Thanks! Very helpful!"
"You're welcome!"
Even while fighting monsters, Annabeth somehow sounded completely calm.
I was pretty sure if the world ended tomorrow she'd spend the apocalypse organizing emergency shelters and correcting everyone's grammar.
The monster screeched.
The sound was so loud it rattled nearby windows.
A flock of birds exploded from the trees bordering the parking lot.
They vanished into the storm.
I pointed Riptide at the creature.
"See? Even the birds think you're annoying."
The demon bat roared.
Then it charged.
Its claws dug trenches into the pavement as it lunged.
I ducked.
The monster sailed over me.
For one glorious second I thought I'd actually done something smart.
Then the demon crashed into a lamp post.
The lamp post bent sideways.
The concrete base cracked.
The entire thing toppled over with a metallic scream.
The lamp post lost.
Honestly, they usually did.
The demon untangled itself from the wreckage and looked even angrier than before.
Which was impressive.
Its eyes glowed brighter.
Smoke drifted from its nostrils.
Bits of broken concrete fell from its wings.
"Okay," I muttered. "Now it's personal."
So overall?
Not the best week.
All I wanted was a normal life.
Or at least something close to normal.
Pass math.
Finish my homework.
Maybe spend a quiet evening with my incredibly smart, beautiful girlfriend.
Maybe go an entire month without discovering some nightmare creature that had crawled out of Tartarus specifically to ruin my day.
Apparently that had been too much to ask.
The demon ripped itself free from the twisted metal.
Chunks of concrete scattered across the parking lot.
"Annabeth!" I called.
"Give me a hand!"
"Which one?" she shouted back.
She ducked under a claw swipe and stabbed at the monster's leg.
"Left or right?"
"You know I can't tell my left from my right!"
"That's because you refuse to learn."
"It's a system that's failed me for years and I'm sticking with it."
"That's not how directions work."
"Agree to disagree."
The monster screamed again.
This time it spread its wings.
A gust of foul-smelling air blasted across the parking lot.
The smell hit me like a truck.
Imagine rotten eggs.
Then imagine those rotten eggs had died.
Then imagine something had eaten those rotten eggs and died too.
That was about half as bad as the smell.
"Gods," I gagged. "Do demons not believe in showers?"
The monster lunged again.
"Percy!"
"Yeah?"
"It's behind you!"
I spun.
The sword missed my face by approximately one panic attack.
The blade carved through the air so close I felt the wind from it.
My survival instincts finally clocked in for work.
I jumped backward.
The sword smashed into the pavement.
Cracks spread through the asphalt.
"Whoa!"
The monster yanked the blade free.
Before it could swing again, Annabeth leaped onto its back.
For a second she looked like some action-movie hero.
Then the monster started thrashing.
"Percy!" she yelled.
"A little help?"
"Working on it!"
I sprinted forward.
Rain splashed around my shoes.
Riptide gleamed silver-bronze in the storm.
The demon turned toward me.
Bad move.
I planted my foot.
Jumped.
And drove Riptide upward.
The blade connected.
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
The monster's red eyes widened.
Its mouth opened in surprise.
The demon bat exploded.
Golden dust erupted outward in a blinding cloud.
The shockwave knocked me backward.
I landed hard on the wet pavement.
The dust swirled through the rain.
Then slowly faded away.
Silence settled over the parking lot.
The storm continued.
Water dripped from broken lamp posts.
Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm started going off.
I lay there staring at the sky.
Annabeth walked over and offered me a hand.
"You alive?"
"Barely."
She pulled me to my feet.
"You know," she said, "for someone who's been doing this for years, you're surprisingly bad at not getting almost killed."
I brushed golden dust off my shirt.
"To be fair, I didn't get killed."
"You came very close."
"Close only counts in horseshoes."
"And monster fights?"
"Especially monster fights."
Annabeth shook her head.
Despite everything, she smiled.
I smiled back.
Around us, chunks of ruined asphalt and a very dead streetlight smoked quietly.
For a few seconds, neither of us moved.
Then Annabeth pointed.
"Your car."
I turned.
My stepdad's blue Prius sat crooked across two parking spaces.
One side mirror was missing.
A claw mark across the door complemented the old hoof marks beautifully.
The windshield had somehow survived.
The gods worked in mysterious ways.
"That's new," I said.
"The mirror?"
"The claw marks."
"The mirror is gone, Percy."
"It was a good mirror."
Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"Come on. It's late."
She was right.
The fight had taken longer than we thought.
The mortal world had mostly settled down around us again. The Mist was already doing damage control.
A few people were staring at the broken streetlight.
Nobody seemed concerned about the giant bat that had just tried to kill us.
Normal Tuesday.
I capped Riptide and watched it shrink back into a pen.
Annabeth sheathed her knife.
Which left us looking like two tired college students standing next to a car that looked like it had been in one too many accidents.
The exhaustion hit me immediately.
"Food?" I asked.
Annabeth yawned.
"Sleep."
"Food first."
"Sleep first."
I considered arguing.
Then I remembered she was usually right.
Usually.
Not always.
Definitely not about pineapple pizza.
We climbed into the Prius.
The engine started on the second try.
A personal victory.
The drive back to Annabeth's dorm was quiet.
She rested her head against the window.
Gods, she looked cute when she was tired.
Streetlights slid past outside.
The city glowed.
For once, there wasn't an emergency.
No prophecies.
No monsters.
No gods demanding favors.
Just the road.
I reached over and squeezed her hand.
She squeezed back without opening her eyes.
"Thanks," I said.
"For what?"
"Helping me not die."
"You're welcome."
A pause.
"You still owe me twenty bucks."
I sighed.
"Right."
Eventually, we reached her dorm.
I pulled up to the curb, parked the car, and walked her up to the door.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Annabeth hugged me and kissed my cheek.
"Get home safe, Seaweed Brain."
"Have a good sleep, Wise Girl."
She smiled, opened the door, and disappeared into the building.
I watched until I could see the lights in her dorm come on.
Only then did I pull away from the curb.
The city slowly emptied around me.
Traffic thinned.
Buildings became warehouses.
Warehouses became stretches of lonely highway.
I should have gone home.
Instead, I kept driving.
Not because anything was wrong.
Just because after weeks of quests, monsters, and near-death experiences, I wanted ten minutes where nobody needed anything from me.
The radio played softly.
The road stretched ahead.
Dark.
Empty.
Peaceful.
Then the GPS died.
The screen flickered once.
Twice.
Static filled the display.
"What now?" I muttered.
Every dashboard light flashed at the same time.
The radio cut out.
The engine sputtered.
Then everything went dark.
The car coasted silently forward.
I gripped the wheel.
Okay...
The headlights came back on.
But the highway was gone.
I slammed the brakes.
The Prius skidded to a stop.
My heart nearly followed.
Ahead of me stood a diner.
Warm yellow light glowed through wide windows.
Neon buzzed softly overhead.
A sign stood beside the road.
DINER BETWEEN WORLDS
I stared.
The diner stared back.
Behind it stretched absolute darkness.
Not night.
Something larger.
Stars moved beneath the black like fish beneath deep water.
My hand drifted automatically toward Riptide.
The pen felt reassuringly solid in my pocket.
A bell rang somewhere inside.
Ding.
The front door had opened.
And for reasons I couldn't explain, I suddenly smelled hot chocolate.
And pancakes.
And fries.
My stomach betrayed me immediately.
I sighed.
Of course.
Then I got out of the car.
The bell above the door rang.
Ding.
Warmth hit me immediately.
Not magical warmth.
Not divine warmth.
Just warm.
Like someone had bottled up the feeling after a terrible day and pumped it through the air conditioning.
The smell was even better inside.
Coffee.
Pancakes.
Fries.
Burgers.
Fresh pie.
My stomach immediately decided I hadn't eaten in approximately twelve years.
The diner seemed busy.
Not normal busy.
Weird busy.
Every booth seemed occupied.
Every table had someone sitting at it.
And absolutely none of them belonged together.
I stopped just inside the door.
Okay...
A guy with a metal arm sat in one booth, drinking coffee and staring out the window like he had personally declared war on happiness.
At the counter, a blond kid in an orange jacket with what looked like whiskers on his face was inhaling ramen with enough determination to qualify as a superpower.
At another table sat a girl surrounded by enough books to collapse a small library.
She was scribbling notes faster than I could read. Which, considering my dyslexia, wasn't saying much.
Near the jukebox sat a guy with white hair, one red eye, one black eye, and a bunch of tentacles for some reason.
Which concerned exactly nobody.
Even though it definitely should have.
At another table, a kid with messy black hair and a straw hat was somehow asleep.
Somehow asleep while sitting straight up and balancing a burger in one hand.
Nobody questioned this.
I was beginning to suspect I was the weird one here.
When the bell jingled, no one looked up.
Which was somehow worse.
A person stood behind the counter, drying a mug.
I hadn't seen them move.
One second they weren't there.
The next they were.
"Welcome."
"Thanks."
They had a nametag on that read Avery in messy handwriting.
Avery nodded like that was a completely normal response.
"Sit wherever you like."
I looked around.
The diner was crowded.
Not noisy.
Just full.
Conversations drifted through the room.
A few laughs.
Silverware clinking.
Coffee pouring.
It felt less like a restaurant and more like a waiting room for people who had fallen through the cracks of reality.
The orange-jacket kid looked up from his ramen.
"Haven't seen you before."
"Uh..."
I pointed at myself.
"Me?"
"Pretty sure I wasn't talking to the ketchup bottle."
"Fair."
He grinned.
"I'm Naruto."
Before I could answer, the girl buried in books looked up.
"Hermione."
Then immediately returned to reading.
I wasn't sure she'd even blinked.
Everybody here acted like arriving in impossible diners was completely normal.
I hated being the new guy.
Avery appeared beside me.
Again.
Without walking.
I was starting to suspect they teleported purely to make people uncomfortable.
A menu appeared in front of me.
"Anything catch your eye?"
I looked down.
There had to be fifty different pancake options.
"...You have a section called Emotionally Supportive Breakfast."
"We do."
"Why?"
"We found there was demand."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"That's actually kind of concerning."
Avery shrugged.
"People have difficult lives."
"Fair enough."
A laugh escaped me.
The first real one all day.
For some reason, that made Avery smile.
Not a huge smile.
Just enough to notice.
The tension I'd been carrying since the monster attack loosened slightly.
Not gone.
Just lighter.
Like setting down a backpack you didn't realize you'd been carrying.
Avery gestured toward an empty booth.
"Go sit."
I slid into it.
The cushions were dangerously comfortable.
The sort of comfortable that made you forget your responsibilities.
I glanced around.
Hermione was reading three books at once.
Naruto was ordering a fourth bowl of ramen.
The guy with the metal arm was still contemplating existence.
The straw hat kid had somehow fallen even further asleep.
Nobody looked worried.
Nobody looked ready for battle.
Nobody needed saving.
For the first time in what felt like forever, neither did I.
Avery appeared beside my booth.
Not walked.
Appeared.
I was definitely filing that under Things To Be Concerned About Later.
"What'll it be?"
I glanced at the menu.
Then at the pancakes.
Then back at the pancakes.
Avery looked like they already knew.
"Stack of blueberry pancakes?"
Avery nodded.
"Good choice."
Five minutes later, a mountain of blue pancakes landed in front of me.
"How did they—never mind."
Steam curled upward.
Blueberries.
Melted butter.
Maple syrup.
Blue perfection.
I took one bite.
The world immediately became thirty percent more tolerable.
Maybe forty.
The last thing I remember was deciding to eat one more pancake before figuring out where I was.
A decision that would later prove catastrophic.
Because the booth was warm.
The pancakes were warm.
The hot chocolate was warm.
And I hadn't slept properly in three days.
My eyes drifted shut.
And I face-planted straight into the syrup.