NICO

I've never been to Mexico. Could I say I was looking forward to this trip? Decidedly not. I remember well how my last big trip to save the world hadn't exactly been very enjoyable.

After Sadie texted everyone about our next destination, we all gathered around the dinner table with the iPad in the middle of the table.

The iPad was open on Google Maps while it displayed the map of Mexico. And more or less in the center of the country, a little to the northwest of its capital, what looked like a little round of slightly bright sand magically marked our destiny.

"Finally it's time to test my Spanish!" Will said trying to force an excitement that nobody had there.

"Since when do you know Spanish?" I asked.

""Know" is a very strong word." He explained "We study a little at school. But I didn't learn much beyond "Buenas Noches" and "Hasta La Vista, Baby"."

"I got the reference." Carter said with a small smile.

I found Will's attempt to cheer everyone up there to be laudable. I can't tell if it was quite typical of a son of Apollo, but it certainly was almost as if he was beaming his own light with joy.

Or I was the only one seeing it?

Anyway, with a few taps of Zia on the phone screen, she seemed to gauge the distance between us and Mexico.

"How are we going to get there?" Zia asked. "We cannot throw all count on only one boat."

"It would be nice if we still had the Egyptian Queen." said Sadie, who at the end of the sentence immediately turned to me and Will. "It was a boat we had."

"I don't think that will be a problem." said Anubis looking at Carter. "Every pharaoh is entitled to a boat. You are, by right, the current pharaoh among mortals."

"I think I remember Thoth saying that once ..." Carter said.

"All he has to do then is ask?" Asked Zia.

" Theoretically, yes." said Anubis with a shrug.

For a few seconds everyone was silent staring at Carter as he stared at the map on the iPad. Finally, he then finished to think about whatever he was thinking and stated briefly.

"I'm going somewhere with water to try." Carter said, "If I can't, we have to think of plan B."

A few minutes later, Carter, Zia, Sadie, and Anubis left the house to settle our transport to Mexico. Then I looked at the sofa that was forgotten and unoccupied and threw myself there and laid down.

Maybe I was already being too loose throwing myself like this on others' couch and all that stuff. Like sleeping there, attacking the fridge and things like that. But it wasn't so bad here. Sure, the camp was cool too, but even spending a few days at the Brooklyn House was interesting, too. I couldn't say that it felt normal, because sometimes there was a magical accident, but it certainly seemed more normal than Camp Half-Blood as people kept coming and going all the time here from places like school and shopping.

"Hey." Will said, kneeling beside the couch, resting his arms crossed on the arm of the couch so that his face was just above mine.

"Hey." I said, and he immediately flashed his damn beautiful, bright smile.

"You don't look so excited for this trip." he said.

"Should I be?" I asked.

"We can go to the beach there before we get back." he suggested with a slight laugh. "Sunbathe, swim …"

"You had to be Apollo's son to like toasting around."

"You just need a little sun sometimes. D vitamin! Doctor Solace's recommendations."

"I wish I had all the positive thinking you have." I grumbled as I sat on the couch and he quickly sat next to me.

"Maybe this is better, we stay balanced." he said with a shrug.

I rolled my eyes as what might perhaps be considered a smile threatened to appear on my face. It was then that we also heard footsteps on the stairs. We turned to see, and saw Cleo quietly walking down the stairs and looking around a little lost.

"Carter and Sadie weren't down here?" she asked.

"They left a short while ago." Will explained. "They were apparently calling a boat to take us to Mexico tomorrow morning."

"Ah. Well, since you are here." Cleo said going to the couch and showing us a sheet of paper full of scribbles.

Among her various scribbles, I could see some things written, like the name of an American university that was scratched, some things I recognized as Portuguese, and in large letters and circles emphasizing the word, British Museum. In addition, they had several letters and numbers that combined to form what looked like codes.

" What's in the British Museum?" I asked.

"It's a little guess in the dark, to tell you the truth." Cleo explained. "I've been researching a lot since they attacked here. But I believe there really is some papyrus that has the counter spell of what was done in the obelisks. It is true that I was very worried that some of these papyrus might have been finished in the Alexandria Library, but I really want to bet they can be on the British Museum in London."

"Knowing our luck, they were all in the Alexandria Library..." I said.

"Positive thinking!" asked Cleo, evidently excited. "The British Museum has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts outside of Egypt and literally hundreds of papyri. They are even trying to translate many."

"Which means they don't even know what they have." said Will.

"Don't tell me you want us to look through all those hundreds of papyri!" I completed

"Not necessarily." Cleo said "They put some on the internet, some of those I already deleted of the list. And every museum artifact is cataloged with letters and numbers. They must have lockers or something sorted by number and stuff. Yes, probably still too many to look at, but it's still some filter and better than nothing."

"I have to agree it's better than nothing at least." said Will.

"I know it's still a lot to look for ... but I want at least share that idea." said Cleo. "I'll keep looking while you go to Mexico, but I still think it's good to let you know. Maybe going to England depends on how things are in Mexico."

"Maybe ..." Will said with a shrug.

All the talk of Mexico and England was making me wonder how we were always going to so many places in the world, but we never had much time to really get to know them. After all, many monsters and problems were always after our head.

With the subject dying, Will turned on the television and quickly set it on Netflix. He even asked for my opinion when choosing something, but I just had none. So after going through several superhero series and movie titles, we started to see Jessica Jones.

We were already starting the second episode when Carter, Zia, Sadie and Anubis returned. After they informed us that they had been able to summon a boat to take us to Mexico, everyone then began making preparations to travel early tomorrow. Including me.

I went to where I had left the box with the vials of the underworld rivers and opened it momentarily to face the vials. I was sure it was now that I was going to use those strange waters, and I wasn't looking forward to it at all.

"Do you want to store it somewhere to make it easier to carry?" said Sadie, coming up behind me.

"Any good backpack would be useful." I answered.

"Come. I'll get you one." Sadie said "We usually keep things in Duat but ... since what happened to the obelisks, this "magic pocket" has been a little unstable, as well as many other things."

I followed her into her bedroom and saw Anubis lying there on her bed apparently playing something on her cell phone. Sadie went straight to her wardrobe, and started looking for a backpack to lend me. Looking at that scene of three teenagers, though only one of them had the age they really looked like, and thinking about the magic, the powers, and everything, you could almost forget we had a deadly lifestyle and were preparing to crazy adventures.

Sadie took a navy blue backpack with an English flag keychain from one of the zippers, and began to pull the contents out of it, leaving them on her desk. The backpack had several different papers, some makeup, a forgotten candy, and a few dollars and a few pounds, but mostly pounds.

Before giving me the backpack, however, she looked at Anubis, who was staring concentrated at the game, as if the game was undoubtedly getting the better of it.

"Hey." Sadie said "In ancient Egypt everyone used that eyeliner right? Even the men."

"You know the name is not an eyeliner…" he answered, softening his expression immediately and looking at her with a small smile as if he thought the question was funny "But yes, why?"

"Pff. The idea is the same. This means that you also used the eyeli…. the kohl…" she said correcting at the last minute and smiling a smile that I might define as slightly evil "probably many times. Considering you are an old man and everything."

"Are you developing a secret pleasure in calling me old?" he asked with a sigh sitting on her bed and she took an eyeliner from the makeup kit she took from her backpack.

"That means ..." Sadie said with a defiant smile sitting beside him on the bed and holding out her eyeliner. "That you can use an eyeliner. I want to see. Put it on me."

I stared at the scene for a few seconds, a little longer than Anubis stared at Sadie, probably wondering if she was joking. I think he came to the same conclusion as me that she wasn't kidding.

As he started to open the cap that was over the tip of her eyeliner, Sadie held the backpack out to me.

"It's empty and clean" she said.

"Thanks ... " I said taking the backpack.

The brief seconds it took me to put the box of the vials into the bag were enough for the makeup process to begin. It was clear that Sadie was amusing herself with the situation, for she was clearly holding back her laughter, while Anubis seemed quite focused.

"You know, if you don't laugh, it's much easier." he complained calmly.

Since seeing a makeup session was far from my interest, I grabbed the backpack and walked out. I went straight to the room they had given me to sleep. I dropped the backpack by the bed and I looked out the window.

Through the window, I could see that the sun had long since gone. A strange thought crossed my mind at the thought that my father-in-law was not shining outside at the moment.

Just as if he'd heard my thoughts, I heard two light knockings on the open door, and I wasn't surprised to see Will entering the room. He had decided to sleep there too, since we were leaving so early the next day that his father would probably still be waking up.

"I don't want to sound like a whining child who can't sleep without his parents but ..." Will said. "Can I sleep here?"

I prefer not to go into the details of how my heart pounded at the thought of the proposal. I don't want to imagine how red I must have looked either. Despite all that, I tried to keep up the pose.

"Why the sudden urge to sleep here?" I asked.

"Because we'll be going away tomorrow and… my optimism has limits." He justified "And this bed is a little small, but it fits two people."

I really had no argument to question the proposal. In fact, I didn't even want to try to question it. I simply lay on the bed feeling my face burn as he soon got ready to lie on what was left of the bed and covered both of us.

Kinda embarrassed, we stared at each other. I could see the contrast of the red of his cheeks and his blond hair. I wonder what face I was with. Probably at least as red as his. Will then intertwined the fingers of one of his hands with those of my left hand without taking those blue eyes from my eyes even a second.

" Everything is going be all right in Mexico." said Will, breaking the silence.

"I hope you're right." I said with a heavy sigh "I just think about the last time in all that mess with Gaia for Europe and all."

"The same thing won't happen again. For a start, I promise to not leave you alone for a second."

I really didn't know what to answer. But I think the smile he gave said he understood the words I couldn't find right then. From that moment on, we didn't do much more than talk until sleep overcame us.

The next day, or rather .. the next dawn, as the sun had not yet risen, we were all gathered on Coney Island beach. There was still a cold wind as the sun wondered if it wanted to wake up or not. Floating on the water was the boat that Carter had summoned with his pharaoh privileges.

The boat looked like a mix of past and present. It had a rather old-fashioned shape, and a head of what I think was a goat at the front end (Percy would probably be able to describe the boat in more nautical terms). He had a large red sail, and in the part where the captain was likely to be, there were four golden pilasters that held a ceiling decorated with the design of blue flowers. The boat was certainly not made of wood. It was made of metal or something painted white and even had those circular little windows.

"Look ..." Will said as he climbed into the boat in front of me. "If I were you Carter, I'd see what other perks a pharaoh has."

"I'm really thinking about that," said Carter.

"The Southern Wind." Cleo said, reading the name of the boat, which was written in English and Egyptian. "Egyptian Queen sounded better."

"Sure you can keep an eye on things around here?" Sadie asked Cleo.

"Leave it to me!" said Cleo.

"If you need help protecting everything," said Will, "some people at camp are already aware of what's going on here. Some of my brothers and a Brazilian boy named Paolo, I think you two would get along. I left in the fridge their number."

"Thank you" said Cleo.

" Let's go! Before Drew shows up wanting to come along!" rushed Sadie.

I think everyone considered that as a good argument to hurry up and get started. For, almost in the blink of an eye, I, Will, Carter, Zia, Sadie, and Anubis were aboard the ship apparently being piloted by multi colored fireballs.

"Then…. " I said to Anubis that, nearby, was watching the city of New York slowly moving away "Did you do the eyeliner thing after all?"

"She seemed to like it." he said with a small smile and a shrug.

"It was perfect!" Sadie said and I haven't even noticed that she was passing behind us.

It was all quickly reminding me of the trip on Argo II. At least, for now, only the least bad and the good parts of the trip. At least Mexico was not as far away as Europe. Whether we were in the mood to save the world or not, the city quickly disappeared from view, and the backpack on my back with the vials of water from the rivers of the underworld seemed to grow heavier, as did my sword. Maybe one day this shit constant mission of saving the world will stop. But, while this doesn't happen, is left for us. Maybe I should try to think positive like Will, because I don't have a good feeling about our Mexican adventure.