Disclaimer: I do not own anything besides the basic plot.

Main Pairing: Nico/Percy

Summary: AU: Percy likes comic books and when one shows him how to summon a demon he tries it. It was supposed to be a fake ritual but when it works and summons not only a real demon but the prince of demons dubbed the Ghost King he's not sure whether to cry or check himself into the loony bin. Little does he know of the full consequences of summoning this demon is and it's way more than he bargained for.

Chapter 1: Blood Magic

PERCY

He was meeting Leo at three and then they were going promptly to the comic book store. It was their monthly ritual when their favorite comic series had a new release. They'd meet up at the bookstore that doubled as a coffee shop, buy the comic, sit down after they'd ordered some highly caffeinated and tooth-rottingly sweet to drink and read. After they were finished they would compare notes. It was nerdy but they'd been doing it since they'd meet each other in their middle schools comic club.

This was one of their favorite series because it depicted serious relationships with the bad assery of fighting evil and defending the weak. It also didn't hurt that the hero was gay and had a loving boyfriend who was both in the dark about who his alter-ego was as well as coincidentally worked on the same superhero team. It was more of an X-Men group than the Justice League team. Percy was a committed fanboy even while he was fangirling.

He checked his watch and decided it would be a good time to leave and it never hurts to be early. The weather hadn't been good lately and even though it was only a five minute bus ride (which meant not getting pelted with as much rain) he preferred to walk the 20 minutes it took. Before he left he made sure to leave a note for his roommate even though Annabeth new where he was going by now and insisted that he could just use his phone for these things but Percy was never a technology enthusiast and he swears that everything electric had a vendetta against him.

Once outside his opened his bright Aquaman umbrella and turned down the street as it began to spit fat droplets of rain from the ominous gray sky. Percy also made sure he brought his cursed cellphone. It was a touch screen and autocorrect was a bitch but his mum insisted he have one since he was living in a different city and she called at least once a day. He still needed a case for it; he'd have to ask Leo where to get one.

Twenty-five minutes later he was opening the door to the bookstore and went to the comic section which took up most of the store. He waited another five minutes and Leo showed up his curly hair as messy as always.

"Hey man! So excited for the next issue." Leo was gushing and jumping around excitedly and his enthusiasm was very contagious.

"I know! I can't wait. It's supposed to be the big reveal where the hero and his boyfriend found out they've been working together all this time. AAHH I can't wait!" Percy level of excitement went up and they were both jumping up and down in the middle of the bookstore like dorks but it was ok because by this point the staff knew them well enough to know that they weren't crazy and going to burn the place down. It didn't hurt that they were both very adorable.

"Oh and not to mention they're going to have a showdown with the Shadow Man and all bets are off." They both squealed and blushed when they noticed a little girl staring at them. Leo then pulled Percy to the counter.

They'd been going there every month since middle school so the staff always reserved two copies for them. Malcolm was behind the counter today and he rolled his eyes when they came up.

"I heard you two girls squealing over there. I've got something special too. Not just two copies of the next issue but two signed copies. The boss sent in a letter and told them about you two and for whatever reason the artist signed these just for you. Oh and there's t-shirts." Malcolm had pretty much become some sort of mystic deity at this point and was about to bestow some all-powerful gift on the two lowly mortals in front of him.

"Oh I could kiss you." Leo leaned across the counter and made smacking noises with his lips.

"I'd rather you not, you know girlfriend and all." Malcolm shoved the comic into Leo's face and the shirt in the package and effectively distracted the imp.

Percy rolled his eyes and paid for the both of them while Leo was murmuring something about his precious in a strange voice and no doubt stroking the t-shirt. "Thanks again Malcolm and sorry for you know," Percy made a wide gesture that included him and Leo.

"Don't worry about it and come again." Malcolm waved them off as they headed to the coffee shop.

"Alright Gollum go sit down it's my month to pay." Percy rolled his eyes, again, while Leo stuck his tongue out then continued to walk to their table in grouched position while stroking the packaged shirt.

"It's alright Precious the stupid Percy just doesn't understand us." Leo pathetically tried to imitate Gollum as he found their favorite spot wasn't taken this time.

Three hours later they were in a heated discussion about what had happened in the last couple of pages. The panels had depicted Shadow Man drawing a summoning circle on the ground in a church and chanting something to raise a demon from hell and send it to kill the main couple. They weren't really sure they liked the religious overtones.

"I mean it's ok but demons aren't even real… not that having abilities like they do is real either but I wish not everything was you know religious." Percy sighed as his eyes lingered on the page where the summoning circle was drawn out in great detail.

"Yeah but who cares anymore. It adds so much for the story I mean one of the guys on the team does have angel wings and a very mysterious past. He could be for all we know an angel." Leo tried but Percy wouldn't really have it.

"I know it's just a story but it seems like everything these days has religious undertones in it." He was mildly annoyed with it, it wasn't the angels it was the summoning of the demon that was putting him off. Oh he still loved the series to bits but he didn't like this particular part.

"Come on I know you're not going to hate it for this little part besides lots of other things have religious undertones and you love them so it's really not any different. Besides you watch Supernatural and that has a tone of religions and crap in it so your argument is invalid." Leo did have a point.

"Yeah you're right I suppose." Leo grinned at that.

"Aren't I always though?" He winked and blew a kiss which Percy dodged. "Why does he dodge us Precious, why!?" Leo held the shirt to his face and glared playfully at Percy.

"You're such a dork… isn't he Precious." Percy held his shirt possessively as the two had a laughing fit.

After about another half hour they parted ways when Leo's Ironman watch started beeping like it was possessed… no on the fritz.

It wasn't really religion more of the demon part. His ex-boyfriend Octavian was a little more than obsessed with demonology. The guy found them around every corner. Needless to say after about a month of dating him it got old very fast especially when he began spewing some self-righteous mumbo jumbo about how he was chosen to defeat such vile creatures. That relationship didn't last long and personally Percy thought he should be put into a padded cell. A couple of times he found Octavian ripping out the stuffing in plushies because he was getting signs… yeah crazy wasn't his cup of java.

It drove him crazy. The summoning circle in the comic had been well beautiful. Percy didn't really understand why something so beautiful could summon something so vile. Yeah demons were supposed to be ugly he supposed but the thing was hideous more of a zombie than a demon.

Thinking about the entire ritual from the comic kept his heart rate up and for some reason he had the crazy idea to actually perform the ritual. He hated it but he needed to check it out for himself. It wasn't real but that's no reason not to scare himself senseless. He'd have to call Leo for this and of course Annabeth since they'd be doing it in their living room. Jason and Piper most definitely would enjoy this mostly because it would be happening in low light and the two could make kissy faces at each other in the corner.

Really he hoped he wouldn't come off as crazy considering he always stayed away from stuff like this. Annabeth would say it's a step in the right direction into forgetting Octavian and how crazy and controlling he was. Weirdo didn't even want sex so Percy had left that relationship with his v-card intact.

Sometimes he was glad he mother forced him to buy a phone. He pulled it out of his pocket as he walked and slide his finger across the screen and punched in his four-digit passcode. Now if he could only figure out how to send a group text it would make this a whole lot easier.

He finally got the last texts out to Piper and Jason and he realized he hadn't even moved from his spot in the middle of the sidewalk. Of course everyone else could walk and text but him. He still held the phone in one hand and jabbed at it with his other hand, it hurt more than anything. He supposed he looked like an eighty year old grandma trying to text but it got the job done.

Annabeth was the first to reply and as he stepped into their apartment mostly everyone else had agreed to it as well with the exception of Leo because if his boss caught him texting again he's live to regret it. So he'd have to wait for his until six.

"Well what supplies do we need?" Annabeth smiled at him as he came in shaking his Aquaman umbrella out.

"Oh just a second," he put his umbrella away and fished out the comic. "This probably isn't all that accurate but we need some interesting items like dried jellyfish."

"We're not doing this half assed Jackson so I took the liberty of looking up an actual summoning circle from an occult website. Says it's 100 percent accurate." She pushed her glasses up and showed him the picture of the summoning circle on her computer screen. It looked less complicated than the one in the comic but no less beautiful.

"I love you." She grinned as Percy ruffled her blond curls which earned him a glare.

"I know." Her storm-gray eyes turned back to the screen and she began rapidly typing. Percy still only used two fingers to type. "Oh here we are, we've got ourselves a shopping list. Game to go?" She looked away from the screen.

"Sure, I'm not working today so I've got free time."

"Great let's go then." She grabbed his hand and lead him to the door. Annabeth grabbed her owl umbrella and threw Percy's at him.

"I swear you're more hyped up about this than I am." He rolled his eyes at her.

"Of course I am. Octavian was a weirdo and he messed with your mind so I see this as a step to healing." She smiled at him her gray-eyes matching the heavy clouds above.

SUMMON

A day later and everyone was arrived at 11 and began setting things up. The girls were setting up the summoning circle and black candles on a large piece of paper in the middle of the room while the boys prepared the ingredients in a medium silver bowl.

Leo spilled about half the little bag of dried fish eyes into the bowl while they needed only three but they didn't bother taking them out. The girls couldn't draw part of the circle properly so they just drew swirls. After all this was only for fun it's not like it would be successful or anything.

Jason and Piper lowered the lights while Leo held one candle, Annabeth the other and Percy held the last candle along with the bowl and he had a knife in his pocket for later use in the ritual.

"You know I just realized I have some pretty weird friends." Piper spoke fondly as she closed the curtains. "The things I do in the name of friendship."

"Really now you're just as curious as I am to see if this works." Annabeth smiled at her.

"Ready Percy?" Jason stood by the stereo ready to press the button to turn on some white noise.

"Yup as I'll ever be." All eyes turned to him as the static came out low from the speakers.

To his left Leo couldn't stop giggling as he held the lighter in his other hand and his black candle that was shaped into a skull and on top it sat a Roman soldiers helmet, the black wick standing up from the top and its eye sockets had two red rubies (they were fake) set into the wax.

To his right was Annabeth, her black candle had lines of silver and gold running up the sides. At the base of the candle were two dogs painted lightly in flaked gold and silver. In her other hand she held a twig with leaves on it. Her job would be to light the twig on fire after Leo had lit everyone's candle and throw it into the bowl that Percy held while he chanted over it and cut himself to drop blood then the knife would be handed over to her and then she would pass it to Leo.

Percy held the last candle and the silver bowl. The knife in his pocket felt like it a thousand times heavier than it actually way. It was probably because he was scared shitless thinking that this stupid idea might invite some unsightly creatures into the world and then kill them all in some cheesy horror flick kind of way.

He cleared his throat. "Ok umm, Piper if you would?"

"Sure thing Perce." She held the sheet of paper in front of him so he could read the words to the ritual while Jason lit incense in the four corners of the room and Leo and Annabeth began to chant the same word over and over again. It was Latin or something.

"Summantis uhh crosmus um tonisium bab Guardasmas sicklus por tod… oh and frotium crux matalius." He winced at how butchered he made the short line of speech sound.

He set the bowl in the middle of the circle as Leo lit his candle. "Cratum." Leo said as he set the candle down on one of the three points within the inner circle and the flame burned black then he lit Annabeth's and Percy's.

Annabeth repeated the same line as Leo and set her candle down and lit the twig and placed it into the bowl while Percy had already set his candle down in its correct spot and began chanting. Smoke curled up from the bowl and it smelled awful, it reminded Percy of sulfur from when they made rockets in fifth grade science class and the teacher passed around a bit of sulfur. It was nasty.

He powered through the chant and the shakily pulled out the knife and before he could chicken out slide his palm and squeezed some blood into the bowl then he handed the knife off in the wrong direction but this was just for fun. Leo and Annabeth added their blood and if at all possible the smell got worse and the candles seemed to burn brighter.

The speakers crackled and popped and Jason gave an unmanly yelp and went to stand by Piper who held his hand. Percy smiled apologetically at them since it was his idea. They waited with their breaths held.

After a few minutes and nothing happening Percy was about to call it quits but the speakers popped loudly and then the power went out. He gave a yelp and he wasn't the only one. The air seemed to get colder and Percy swore something grazed his cheek but when the low lights flickered back on nothing had happened everything looked the same. It was kind of disappointing.

Piper let out a nervous chuckle. "That was… interesting." Jason nodded in agreement.

"Nothing happened so I guess we can rest easy knowing we can leave with our souls." Leo grinned and in the dark light it made his face look a little more malicious than normal.

Percy broke the circle and turned on the lights. "Well I guess that's all folks, can't say that I'm disappointed though I'm kind of glad it didn't work. Can you imagine if it did?" There was a low hum of agreement.

"Some freaky shit would have come through that circle. Not like the movies though not even the circle was broken." Leo scuffed the toe of his shoe on the marker drawn circle.

"Let's get this cleaned up and get the living room back to normal." Annabeth did like order and first thing first was getting the room back to normal. Percy did notice she looked a little spooked, hell all of them did but he wondered if she felt something touch her like he did.

Everyone complied and soon the things they used to summon a bogus demon were dumped into the garbage and the furniture was back to normal.

"I'm going to go home and since Jason's my ride he's going with me. Sorry we can't stay this time…" No one said a thing about it being one in the morning they just waved and wished them well.

Leo was the next one to go and Percy never said a word even if he and Annabeth made eye contact over the strange triple shadow Leo was sporting. Percy tried to convince himself that it didn't work but the candles were blown out and the ingredients in the bowl were gone.

"I'm going to bed Percy. Goodnight." Annabeth gave a short awkward wave and rushed to her bedroom.

Damn something totally came out of that circle or perhaps it just took his sanity away.

NICO

He was bored and was currently sitting upside down in his fathers' throne. The only other people with him were his closest friends and his youngest sister everyone else wasn't allowed to enter under pain of death or prolonged torture. He preferred torture but for some reason they always chose death, weird.

"He was giving me trouble so I knocked him around a bit. Put him on the rack for a while he shut up after that the little leech." Frank was regaling them with a story of an insubordinate underling.

Hazel was hung on every word he said and secretly the Ghost King, Nico, was jealous. For a while he'd been feeling his single status weighing heavily on him. At least he and Reyna had something in common. She promptly gave him a nasty look like she knew what he was thinking about, probably did.

"But the sucker didn't believe I would show up." Nico spoke up from his awkward position. "When I did the fucker didn't stand a chance. Now we're one idiot less in the realm. Yay."

"Should have seen his face, that piece of scum was dirt under our feet by the time he realized what was going on." Frank shared a smile Nico.

"Boys, sometimes I don't get them. Why didn't you torture him first make him learn his lesson, you know then you wouldn't have to look for someone to replace him in the ranks. It's also a lot less paperwork" Reyna crossed her arms from beside Nico. She wasn't supposed to be she was sitting in the Queens chair. Needless to say they were all pretty informal.

"I don't know Rey, it seems little cliché to me." Frank said. "Torture is last century, kill'm and grill'm. We just sent him back to Purgatory is all and besides it's not like I do the paperwork anyway." Nico grinned at him.

Hazel rolled her eyes. "I'm glad you two get along so well to exchange killing methods."

"You make it sound like they're two little girls passing their dairies back and forth… huh guess they are." Reyna and Hazel chuckled.

"Never going to let me live it down even though it happened when I was fucking five years old, gee you guys way to make me feel all warm and fuzzy here." He rolled his eyes.

"That's what friends are for sweetie. We're to make fun of you free of charge, steal your food, make you uncomfortable, you know friend things." Reyna put on her best Cheshire cat grin and aimed it at Nico.

"We should go topside, I hear they now sell frozen yogurt." Reyna looked up to stare at Hazel.

"Wait let me get this straight, frozen yogurt? They do that? Oh man I've gotta get me some of that maybe they have little chocolate and almonds or something." Reyna hopped off the Queens throne her two gold and silver dogs following her at her heal.

"Yup and many more kinds oh but sorry Nico they don't serve death with sprinkled torture." He stuck his tongue out at her and tumbled from his oh-so-comfortable, not really, position upside-down on his father's throne.

Hazel and Reyna snickered as he stood up and dusted his clothes off. "Oh shut it you hyenas."

"Topside will have to come later someone's doing some heavy hocus pocus up there." Frank squinted as he held a note that had magically appeared in his hands. "Says here… whoa, whoa, whoa that's… These guys must be into witchcraft really heavy. For Hell's sake if they are at this level you'd think we would know about them already."

Nico snatched the note from his hands and quickly read it over. It read that what someone was attempting topside and it detailed the summoning ritual.

"Calm you pants Frank it won't work. There are so many mistakes in this thing that the most it will do is make the room smell bad. Who informed you of this?" He wondered why it wasn't given to him specifically but he figured because the lesser demon was smart enough to know this ritual would never work.

Reyna snatched it from him and read through it as well then passed it to Hazel. Her golden eyes moved from line-to-line.

"You know sometimes I wish the people who tried this shit weren't I don't know, weird or crazy. You know what I mean?" Hazel made eye contact with Frank. "You know like a cute boy with dimples, maybe curly hair and brown eyes, like the one who managed to summon us for all of ten minutes some years ago. What was his name… Valdez or something like that." Frank couldn't agree more.

"Oh dear lord we're going to hear about the missed opportunity for days now." Reyna grumbled looking petulantly to the side.

"Don't even remind me. Remember who took the brunt of the moping and had to do ice cream runs all the time. Those two simpering imbeciles didn't even think to just I don't know go topside and jump his bones." Nico didn't want to hear another ten years of moping and regrets.

"Well I wasn't allowed remember dad freaked out when someone actually managed to summon not only Frank but me as well. So he put me on lock down and sent his underlings to collect anything that could possibly be used to bring me topside." Her golden eyes were shimmering with sadness as Frank silently wrapped her in his arms.

"Ugh gag." Hazel glared at Reyna.

"You two are just mad because you don't have someone. You're still single and dads been bugging you both to find someone." Reyna had an interesting relationship with the lord of the Underworld. He was like a strangely caring distant uncle, sort-of, if you squinted really hard. Frank was smart and kept out of these kinds of fights.

"Yeah, yeah; alone forever and all that shit. Don't need to hear it from you princess." Reyna growled out.

While the rest of them continued to bicker Nico felt a strange surge in the pit of his stomach. This was a feeling that had only happened once before when he was a child and ran away to the topside. His father had used a summoning spell to get him back which, for the record, is totally cheating.

He put his hand out to cease the bickering. "Guys, we might have a serious problem. That not-so-dangerous summoning spell is working. It's fuck'n blood magic, the vilest of kinds too. Whoever this is they're going to suffer at my hands."

He felt the binding magic slither around his skin and then worm its way under. Judging from the irritated groans it was happening to them too. "See you guys' topside." Frank was going to fillet whoever summoned him alive.

The magic wormed its way to his strangely still beating heart and curled around it nearly suffocating it before it poured out the summoners blood into his body, his heart. In effect it married them and oh did he want a divorce.

"Yeah see you there." He closed his eyes and let the magic pull him where it needed. This was going to be so much fun.

….

A/N: Umm the ritual is totally bogus. =D

Oh and did anyone get what I did with the candles? Huh, huh anyone?