Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Book Six
“The Dark Olympians”
Chapter Three: Jack
(re)Meets the Olympians.
It took me
standing off to the side of the throne room on
He was my dad’s son.
The only thing different was the silver band around Jack’s wrist, the same band that now encircled mine—the bracelet Paul gave me.
I probably should explain.
After Jack and Triton defeated the minor Dark Gods, Dad showed up. He was pissed because someone had controlled his seas, like, major-ly, and he wanted answers.
The answer came in the form of Jack—Old-me, as I like to call him. He’s Percy Jackson, Age Thirty-One. He looks like Percy Jackson, Age Twenty. I’m Percy Jackson, Age Seventeen, and I look like Percy Jackson, Age Seventeen.
Anyway, when Dad realized what Triton and I had—before us stood Percy Jackson, God of the Sea—he decided to bring the matter before the Olympians.
The next great prophecy was coming true, and I was, again, at the center of it.
Great.
“You are now…the God of Sea?” Zeus uttered as if trying to comprehend just what was happening.
Good luck.
I shot a look at Thalia, who stood on my right. She met my worried gaze with her own fearful stare. Her dream was right. We had taken our parents’ throne. This bristled the gods.
Jack didn’t
squirm like I probably would have. He met the questions brashly. “Yes, my lords and ladies. Despite the best efforts of the
greatest heroes,
“Are you calling me least powerful, Prancer Johnson?” Dionysus demanded, drinking his diet coke.
Jack nodded. “Yes, my lord. The Dark Olympians did not target you and focused their efforts toward my father, my uncle Zeus, and my uncle Hades. You were spared—at least until the end.”
“We should not be having this conversation,” Ares growled, his shades pushed back upon his dark eyes. “We should just blast them all and be done with it.”
“Including your own daughter, my lord?” Jack demanded. “Would you like the council to blast Clarisse as well? She became the Goddess of War.”
Clarisse stood not far from me, and I watched her entire body tense. Grumbling, Ares sat back in his throne. A soft smile brightened my face at the one that crossed Clarisse’s. Sure, Ares allowed her to drive his chariot on her sixteenth birthday, but this was the first time I saw him actually care about her. I wondered if it was the first time she’d seen it, too.
“What happened, Percy?” Dad demanded of Jack. “What made you become the God of the Sea?”
Jack’s face was grim. “You died.”
He offered no other explanation.
The Olympians did not like that. “Gods do not die, boy,” Zeus proclaimed. “They can be blasted, sliced into a million pieces and thrown into Tartarus, but they do not die.”
“To storm or fire, the world must fall.” Rachel entered, her young, rebellious face twisted in a stern glare. “My lords and ladies, I’m sorry to intrude, but I believed it was in the best interest of all parties involved for me to be here.”
Jack pivoted to see the freckled face and bright green eyes, and he narrowed his own unearthly orbs. “Rachel Elizabeth Dare.”
“Percy Jackson,” she replied curtly. She cocked her head to the side and grinned. “Perhaps I should have thought twice about this whole maiden Oracle thing.”
Annabeth smacked me across the back of the head.
“OW!” I shouted. “What was that for?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like doing it,” Annabeth replied.
Jack returned his glare toward the Olympians as Rachel recited.
“Seven half-bloods shall answer the call,
To
storm or fire, the world must fall.
An
oath to keep with a final breath,
And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.”
Jack closed his eyes, and for a moment, his face looked troubled and worn. I almost thought he might cry, but his eyes flashed open. His rebellious face resurfaced, and he focused hard upon the Olympians.
“The world fell,” Annabeth whispered, her hands rising to his mouth.
“What did you say, Daughter?” Athena demanded.
Annabeth stepped forward, hesitant at the power before her. “If Jack is here, then the world fell already.”
“It did,” he admitted.
“Seven half-bloods answer the call,” Thalia reiterated. “I had a dream that Clarisse, Annabeth, Nico, Luke, you, and I took the position of the fallen gods.”
“But the prophecy said seven half-bloods answer the call,” Rachel insisted.
Jack looked away; shame bled into his gaze. “We never found the seventh.”
“Then the quest was destined to fail from its conception.”
“It was destined since its utterance,” Jack snapped. “The world had to fall. No matter what we did, we were fated to fail.”
“Were,” Clarisse spoke up, her father’s anger edging into her voice. “You were fated to fail, but if you came back, then the prophecy already came true. It means we can win this time.”
“It’s a long shot,” Jack admitted, “but I promised someone I would end this. And I will end this.”
A heavy, thick silence reigned in the throne room until Athena spoke, “An oath to keep with a final breath.”
Jack refused to look the gods or half-bloods in the eyes, and suddenly, my blood ran cold. I remembered what I saw in Thanatos’s eyes—my own death, here amongst the Olympians.
Jack had come here—I had come here to die.
Oh, gods.
I averted my eyes. I didn’t—couldn’t look at Annabeth. She would demand me to change this, but if Jack was here, then wasn’t my life already planned? What did it matter what I did from here on out? He was my future.
I thought she would hit me again for avoiding her, but instead, her warm hand slipped into mine. I found the courage to meet her eyes, and there was an unfathomable sadness within them—and an awesome resolve. We would beat this, she promised, just like we had beaten everything else.
How we could, I had no idea, but I couldn’t say no to those eyes that crinkled into a smile.
Athena once more resided over the council. “Perseus, we understand and even welcome your assistance against these Dark Olympians, as you call them, but you must no longer interfere with the lives of these half-bloods. It is against the Ancient Laws.”
“With all due respect, my lady, the Ancient Laws are crap.”
Athena blinked. “Your insolence is not appreciated.”
“No, your ignorance is not appreciated, Goddess of Wisdom.”
Annabeth gripped my hand tighter, like she feared if she let go, her mother would blast me. However, I wasn’t talking, Percy Jackson, Age Seventeen. Jack was, and he was a god.
Ozone sizzled in the air, originating from Zeus’s area. “It would prove you well to treat us with respect.”
“Or what, my lord?” Jack asked innocently. “You will blast me? What you fail to realize is you are no longer in power. You no longer rule the Western Civilization from where I am from, and why? Because you adhered to the Ancient Laws that were outdated. Your own children were hunted and murdered. I saw rivers run with the innocent and mortal blood of demigods not even half the age of my younger self, and you did nothing—because you were forbidden,” Jack spat. “I will not allow it.”
“Perseus, be forewarned,” Athena said, “disobedience of the laws yields certain doom.”
Jack threw up a defiant hand. “Yeah, because adherence to them has just been the Fields of Elysium.”
“Percy…” Poseidon murmured, sounding more like a normal dad than ever before, “what has become of you?”
Jack set his jaw. “I am exactly what you and Triton made me.”
“Triton fed you the Eternal Nectar of the Gods—”
“His own blood, yes, to give me prolonged life, to get me used to the idea of being immortal before I actually became it. I know, and you know what it taught me? Gods will do anything they want for their own selfish desires.”
Poseidon leaned forward. “Are you telling me you have never done anything since becoming a god for own desires?”
I was waiting for a tongue slash, something from Jack to show his defiance. Instead, he looked back at Dad, at all the Olympians, and murmured, “I’m here, aren’t I?”
He left, and we followed.
*^*^*
Chiron called a war council at the Big House a little before dawn. I hadn’t stopped thinking, of hearing, the pain in my dad’s voice. I’ve never spent a lot of time with Poseidon. After all, the last time I saw him was after the last great prophecy came true, and he told me he probably should claim his other sons and daughters. He has yet to, so I guess I’m his only half-blood kid (unless you count my half-bro Tyson, but he’s a Cyclops). Anyway, my dad’s voice when he spoke to Jack—it’s like he really cared, kinda like when Paul spoke to me when I failed that Pre-Calc test before finals.
Anyway, Jack didn’t seem to notice. He stood at the rec room, his eyes staring out the window toward the Long Island Sound. Around the pool table sat Thalia, The Stoll Brothers, James (the new head councilor for the Aphrodite cabin), Freddie Mason (from Hephaestus cabin), Katie Gardner (Demeter’s head), Pollux (from Dionysus), Phillip (from Apollo), Nico, Annabeth, and me. We kept out the minor gods, though I know we shouldn’t have. There was really only a few left at camp anyway, but…
Clarisse
didn’t come. I saw her on
It didn’t sound like a threat, though. It sounded more like a warning—a heads up.
She didn’t come back to camp.
We offered for Vance, Clarisse’s little brother and second-in-command, to join us, but he refused. The Ares Cabin followed Clarisse, and if she didn’t feel it was important to join us, then neither did he.
So we were going into war without our warriors. Things were just looking better and better.
When the war council commenced, Chiron sat in his magical wheelchair. “The camp has come under siege. It is time we fight back.”
“Well, what do these Dark Olympians want?” Annabeth asked.
“Seems to be like they’re out for total domination, right?” I asked. “The end to the Olympians. Same stuff we fought before.”
“Not quite,” Jack interjected. Dude totally liked to make me look like an idiot. “They want to replace the Olympians. They believe darkness should reign over the Western Civilization, and they will stop at nothing until night consumes all.”
I thought the wording was a little weird, but no one else seemed to notice—except Annabeth. She notices everything, but she didn’t say anything this time. I could tell she wanted to, with her teeth biting down on her lower lip, but she kept silent as Jack continued.
“Their Big Three are Eris, Thanatos, and Hypnos—Strife, Death, and Sleep. They believe they can replace Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. The others are Nemesis, Momus, Moros, Ate, Dysnomia, Lethe, Ponos, and Algos.”
“Divine Retribution, Blame, Fate, Ruin, Lawlessness, Oblivion, Toil, and Pain” Nico added.
“That’s eleven,” Annabeth breathed. “Who’s the twelfth?”
Jack crossed his arms and leaned back against the windowsill. He let out a soft sigh but refused to answer.
“Now isn’t the time to be coy, Perseus Jackson,” a spiteful voice sneered, and in the doorway stood Mr. D, his suit a dark purple velvet. Still, he walked into the room like he was entering a disco bar, though he held a can of diet coke. “The world is ending. Either we need to fight or we need to party. Either way, I’m ditching my hundred year ban.”
A smidge of a smirk crossed Jack’s face, and he sat up straighter. “Annabeth—my Annabeth—” he added quickly. “—believed the seventh child of the prophecy to be the twelfth Dark Olympian, but we could never figure out just who that was.”
“Then perhaps that should be our priority,” Chiron assessed. “Annabeth, as the daughter of the Goddess of Wisdom, would you like to lead the quest?”
“No.” Jack rose to his feet. “I’ll make that my priority. Right now, the camp’s priority should be uniting the six other members of the prophecy before the Dark Olympians separate them for good.”
Chiron’s eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared. That didn’t happen often, but it usually meant “STAMPEDE!” to us campers. This time, he bowed his head in respect and nodded. “All right…Jack. I’ll allow it.”
“But what can we do?” Freddie demanded, his stumpy arms crossing over his chest. “Sit back and watch as you fail to save the world again?”
Yes! One for my side. Oh, wait…
“We have to fortify the camp,” Thalia asserted, and I could hear the Hunter Lieutenant within her. “Katie, why don’t you and the Demeter cabin grow some flowers about the perimeter of the camp.”
“Absolutely.”
“Flowers?” I scoffed. “You want to fight the Dark Olympians with flowers?”
“Flowers are bright, cheerful,” Annabeth replied, her know-it-all tone directed toward me. “We can use those against Strife and Doom.”
“What’s next? We have the Apollo kids on security since their dad is God of the Sun, and they should ward off the Dark Olympians?” I spat.
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized that actually was a good idea. Of course, Annabeth realized it earlier than I had and kissed me on the cheek. “Good one, Percy.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and fought pass the dark red coloring of my cheeks. “Well, y’know, I get it from hanging around you all the time.”
Connor Stoll made kissing noses. “Percy and Annabeth, sitting in a tree—guk!”
The tip of Thalia’s silver arrow rested just under Connor’s chin. “Finish that, and I’ll finish you.”
I blinked, wondering what got Thalia all Zeus-ozone-smelling angry—and then I looked at Jack. His face was twisted in a bitter scowl, deadly and dangerous, but he wasn’t angry. He was hurt and trying to hide it.
I looked over at Annabeth, and I felt my heart ripped from my chest.
In the future, Annabeth was dead.
No. I wouldn’t allow that to happen. I would never allow that to happen.
“All right, settle down everyone.” Chiron resituated himself in his chair. “So, we have security and counter-assault.”
A snide smirk crossed Pollux’s dark features. “Why don’t I throw an all-camp bash? Get some good feeling going on in the camp, something the Dark Olympians can’t take from us.”
“There’s my little whippersnapper,” Dionysus offered. “Don’t forget the wine!”
“Mr. D,” Chiron admonished.
Dionysus’s eyes narrowed. “No need to be a party-pooper.”
“So what are we going to do?” Annabeth asked, looking directly at Jack.
Jack inclined his head toward her;
if I wouldn’t have known better, I would have sworn he was ready to bow to her,
perhaps even kneel. “You, Percy, and Thalia shall go
to
By this time, I’d had enough with the guy’s attitude—and his feelings for my girlfriend. “Oh yeah? Who died and made you head of the gods?”
Yeah, that probably wasn’t the best thing I could have said.
Thalia and Annabeth were too wide-eyed and giddy to have noticed my embarrassment. Thank the gods.
“
“It’s not possible, is it?” Annabeth cried.
This cracked Jack’s hardened exterior. “Yes. Luke’s alive.”
*^*^*
I honestly could have cared less about Luke being alive. Okay, that’s wrong. Luke died a hero. The guy committed suicide to stop the Titan Lord Kronos from rising (of course, he helped Kronos rise, but we won’t go there), and he saved everyone’s life, mine included.
Still, you can understand my hesitation, right?
Annabeth was completely stunned, yet somehow managed to keep mumbling about Luke and his fight skills. Wouldn’t they help us in the war.
Don’t get me started on Thalia and how she gazed into the lightening sky from the beach, listening to Annabeth ramble on and on.
I finally had enough and went to the Hades cabin. To be honest, I didn’t go there much. It kinda freaked me out with the skeleton guards and the bones on the exterior, but Nico was one of my best friends. I liked to look out for the kid, and I even felt a little responsible to him like a little brother.
I also noticed how little he talked in the war council, and if you knew Nico, you’d know that wasn’t a good thing. It wasn’t that he was a chatter head, but when he wasn’t talking, that meant he was in deep thought. The son of the Lord of the Dead—not a good thing.
The skeletons let me pass, and I knocked on the door. “Nico? You in here?”
“What do you want?” he demanded, and I stepped inside. The dark, silver hearth along with the fountain of fire on either side of the room were…weird. It was a twisted version of my own room. I’m sure you understand how heat and fire unnerve the son of the sea god, seeing how they can dehydrate me.
Anyway, I wasn’t as worried about me as I was Nico.
Draped in shadows with a pirate long-sleeved T-shirt, he glared up with me with those abysmal eyes. I swear I was looking into the pit of Tartarus. “Well, what do you want?” he pushed.
I shrugged and stuffed my hands in my pockets. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay…y’know, since the meeting.”
The cabin seemed to heat up a thousand degrees.
“How do you think I’m doing?” he spat and thrust to his feet. “How would you feel if all the gods of the rivers and freshwater started a rebellion against your family?”
Probably not very good. “I guess a little wet behind the ears.”
He got in my face, though he was still a good four inches shorter than me with the less weight to match. “Is that all this is to you? A joke? Maybe that’s why you failed and now need a second chance.”
Oh, screw this. “Fine. Whatever. I didn’t come here to be insulted.”
I was halfway out the door when Nico called back, “Wait! I’m sorry, okay, Percy? It’s just…they’re Dark Olympians, and well, so’s my dad.”
“So what?” I turned around. “Your dad’s one of the, y’know, regular Olympians.”
“Who’s not accepted.” Nico collapsed to his bed and shook his head. “My dad’s only allowed up there during the Solstices. What…What happens if he decides to join the Dark Olympians, maybe even rule them?”
I hadn’t even thought of that, but I wasn’t going to let Nico know that. “Then you’ll have a choice to make. Either you’ll side with him or you’ll side with us.”
He looked at me, really stared, and
for a moment, I could see the innocence in his eyes again, like back at the
military school in
“You…You’re not worried I’ll turn and fight you?”
If I wasn’t afraid he’d kill me, I would have laughed. “Nico, you’re my friend. I’ll support whatever decision you make, but I know which one you will.”
“But what if I don’t?”
“You got your dad to come and save all the Olympians when we fought Kronos.”
That fear that plagued all demigods surfaced in Nico once more. “That was luck. My dad…I don’t even think he likes me very much….or at all,” he muttered. “I don’t think he would listen to me again.”
“But he listened to you, Nico, and you got him accepted as much as the Lord of the Dead could ever be, and more importantly, you’re accepted here at the camp.”
He snorted.
Then I did something I never thought I would. I sat down on his bed—the son of the Lord of Dead’s bed. “I accept you. Annabeth accepts you, and so does Thalia. Look, I know we’re not technically cousins.”
DNA-speaking.
“…but I look at you like that, and I think Thalia does, too. Annabeth—you’re like her own little brother.”
“Her own hell-raising little brother,” he mumbled.
I laughed. “Doesn’t everyone have one of those?”
He laughed a little, too, and I smiled gently. “Look, no matter what, you’ve got a family here, okay?”
I knew better than to mess with his hair. He’d
probably light my hand on fire or something, but I still patted his shoulder.
“We cool?”
Nico
smiled a dark grin. “Yeah, we’re cool.”
“Good because I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ve got a dead guy to meet tomorrow. You want to come along? That sounds right up your alley.”
Nico shook his head. “Nah. I think I’m going to help Pollux with the party.”
I blinked. I could not have heard that right. I told Nico that.
He snickered. “You haven’t partied until you’ve partied like the Underworld.”
I didn’t know what that meant, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to. I waved and headed out, only to stopped by Nico once more.
“Percy? …Don’t trust Jack, all right?”
I didn’t, but I asked anyway, “Why?”
Nico’s lips pursed, and he finally spilled, “He’s dying, Percy. I can feel his soul slowly slipping away, and…and he’s a god. It doesn’t feel good. It’s…unnatural, and it hurts me to be around him. I don’t want it to hurt you, too.”
*^*^*
Sleep? For a demigod? Yeah, right.
You’ve heard me complain (Annabeth calls it “whine”) about half-blood dreams, and even though it took me forever to fall asleep, I saw a boy, a little older than me when I first came to Camp Half-Blood, kneeling in a darkened cave. He had honey hair that I just knew would gleam in sunlight and a kind face that was made for laughing. He looked…familiar, like I’ve met him before, but I was sure I hadn’t.
What disturbed me most of all was the hand that emerged from seemingly nowhere to caress his cheek. “Ah, my little godling. It is almost time. Soon, they’ll all be plunged into darkness.”
“Yes, Mistress,” the boy replied as sharply as Riptide’s blade.
“You like the darkness, don’t you?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“You like it here with me, don’t you?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Yet…something troubles you.”
The boy looked up at her, his sky-blue eyes light like the middle of the afternoon. “My brother. I wish him to join me.”
She smiled—even though she didn’t have a body. I could just feel her warmth, motherly and kind, but perverted in a sick, twisted way. “He will soon, my child. Do not despair. He is coming.”
“No.” The boy looked directly at me. “He’s here.”
Suddenly, I was no longer in front of the boy but in front of Jack. He stood at the precipice of the pits of Tartarus, like I’d seen Luke in many of my visions. His sea-green eyes were locked in the darkness, like he was having a staring match with it—and winning. His muscles rippled like he was angry or defying his own moral compass, and he averted his eyes rebelliously.
“Those are my terms,” a thundering voice rumbled from the abyss.
I immediately knew that bastard. Kronos, Titan Lord and my grandfather.
Jack was making a deal with the devil himself.
“They are too much,” Old-me reputed.
Kronos laughed demonically. “They are not for the Lord of Olympus, are they?”
“What you
ask for—the oath cannot be undone. I swore upon the
“Ah, but oaths are to be broken as your father’s was when he sired you.” Kronos’s seductive voice wrapped Jack in a blanket of willpower, demanding but waiting for submission. “You only limit yourself by your admission. You can achieve the greatness you so richly deserve if you would trust me. You know you want to.”
For the first time, I saw Jack’s strong front falter. “N—No.”
“Yes,” Kronos purred. “Give yourself to me, Perseus, and you will have what you deserve.”
Jack hesitated, his feet firmly planted on the ground.
“Perseus…you have no choice. You are mine.”
Jack screwed his eyes shut. “Yes...” he whispered.
“NO!” I shouted, but he couldn’t hear me.
“Yes…what?” Kronos pushed.
Jack fell to his knees, his fists flat upon the cliff. “I pledge myself to you, Lord Kronos.” He raised his teary eyes and stared into the darkness below. “Save me…”
Dark tentacles snapped up from the abyss, slithering about Jack’s neck, arms, and knees before dragging him into the darkness below.
I darted awake.
I slowly drew my knees up my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around them. A fierce trembling took control of me, and I couldn’t break away.
Jack—Old-me—went to Kronos.
I gave myself to Kronos.
To Be Continued…