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Attrition of Peace

Six: Axel

Never Leave Merry and Pax Unattended

By the time Axel was escorted to his friends and little brother, his hands were shaking. Although he knew they would be empty, he tore through his pockets absently, thinking something had to be there.

All the eagles and wolves depicted on everything—Axel had to exhale away the memories and that wasn’t easy with the smell of metal, leather, and Reyna’s honey shampoo in his nostrils.

He was happy to hear the sound of Iris’s relaxed voice say, “I’m sorry, we cannot connect your call as dialed. Please hang up, try your call again, and try one of our delicious simulation cupcakes.”

One of the newer recruits—Erin if he remembered correctly from a prior run-in—was cheerfully leading him into a private room underneath the mess hall. As they passed a bustling kitchen full of noncombat Roman chefs shouting about garum, the smell of roasted fish made his stomach clench. He felt like he hadn’t eaten in weeks… though guessing from the dates on Reyna’s room calendar, he’d been in magical stasis and hadn’t eaten in weeks.

When Axel got into the room, he saw Pax and Merry making a small rainbow using a side sink and light prism. If nothing else, at least they were creative. Kally sat at a side table, with leftovers from last night’s cena.[1] Axel didn’t see Euna or Calex, but Erin assured him that they were still getting a medical look over.

“—enjoy another performance from you and your brother,” Erin was saying.

During their walk, Erin had gushed over the short acrobatics performance that Axel and Pax had given to thank the Romans for their help on a quest. While he appreciated her enthusiasm, he’d been contemplating the best way to tell this Roman that one of his friends had recently die, he’d spent three weeks in nightmare hell with an overtly persistent goddess, and he had just talked to his crush of three years without getting to take a shower or shave beforehand. In other words, he wanted to tell Erin to go punch a Gorgon in the face.

Fortunately, Erin stopped at the doorway, gave a brief, shy wave at Pax, and babbled, “I need to get back to my post.” Then she was gone.

Axel sighed and sank onto the bench beside Kally, grabbing some cold meat to nibble on.

She looked exhausted. Her long, reddish-blonde hair was so knotted in its ponytail, he wondered if she’d have to cut some of it off to get her hair tie out. She gave Pax a half-hearted glare as Pax came to sit on her other side.

“Welp, no multicolored messages back to camp,” Pax said. He wore a T-shirt, likely a donation from Camp Jupiter’s souvenir shop. Originally, it probably said, I love Rome. But Pax had somehow acquired a marker to add a letter and doted the “m” so it looked like, I love BRonies. The water from the River Tiber had washed out whatever gel was left in Pax’s raven hair, so it was back to twisting wildly about his head. His fohawk, courtesy of the Stoll brothers during their last stay at camp, had almost completely grown out. He and Pax really needed haircuts.

“Who else wants to bet our lovely rainbow goddy is in the middle of a kitty fight with another god?” Merry hummed. Her brown eyes were rimmed red from tears, like Pax’s and Kally’s. Axel was so used to Merry being relaxed and content, it felt wrong that she huddled into her parka so much. Something else that he should have been able to prevent.

After a quick shuffle in her pocket, smooth, sad jazz played from the magical music system in her jacket. She gave them an apologetic frown, but he knew she needed some music for comfort.

Kally stiffened and Axel realized the same thing she had: they hadn’t told Merry why all the gods were having petty arguments.

When Pax tried to put an arm around Kally’s shoulder, she shifted closer to Axel, then hesitated. Axel clenched his jaw when he heard the subtle whisper of the Leonis Caput in his head, Trapped between the Snake and the Lion, wait until she meets the Cloven Witchboy.

Shut up, he internally hissed, wondering why the monster would even say that.

“You should have let me tell the praetors what happened,” Kally whispered to Pax.

Merry tilted her head, glancing from Kaly to Pax. She frowned. “Kally, exactly how and when did Mr. Pax get you to swear on the River Styx not to tell his secrets?” she asked. “You don’t usually like to talk to big, bad strangers.”

Kally glanced at Pax, then at the floor.

Pax coughed awkwardly. “Well, you see, Mr. Pax—”

“Say ‘Santiago Pax’ and then finish that sentence sweetie,” Merry said.

Axel wanted to groan. Just once, he wanted Merry’s intelligence to help him and Pax, not work against them.

Merry picked up a fork and aimed it at Axel’s brother. “Pax, you are the one Kally swore to keep the secrets of, not your dad? That’s pretty foul, sweetie. And here I was, shipping you two.” She clucked her tongue in distaste.

“Hey,” Pax protested. “You keep the anchor raised on that ship,” he said before turning to Kally. “And I thought it might not be the best for Euna’s mental health if she was put on trial for slaughtering mortals.”

Axel flinched. “What?”

“Uh, Euna might have gone overboard on the whole justified revenge thing,” Pax said. He and Kally filled in Merry and Axel, telling them about how Euna used her temporary god powers to turn Santiago Pax and his henchmen into a tree park in the middle of one of California’s finest Mayan temples. Then, how Pax’s mother had shown up with her group of friends to kidnap all the Pax children.

Axel felt nauseous when Pax said that the goddess had picked Axel up by the back of his shirt and almost walked off with him. “Wait—did she take Hiro and Lapis?” he asked, realizing Pax had said all of the living Pax children.

Judging from Pax’s soft whimper, he had to assume the answer was yes. Axel awkwardly reached his good arm around Kally to squeeze Pax’s shoulder. Axel should have been awake to help them.

“So, Pax, who’s your loving momma?” Merry asked, poking around at the vegetables on her plate.

“Well—” Pax started with a light tone.

Kally elbowed him. “Actually tell her.”

He choked, glanced at her, and frowned. Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them. “She’s Eris, the Goddess of Strife and Discord—strife like war and deciding which socks to wear in the morning. Or if you should wear socks at all.”

“Socks?” Merry asked.

“Don’t underestimate the small struggles of socks,” he said.

Axel wished he kept a recording device on him. That way, when Pax came crying to him about how Kally rejected him again, Axel could just playback things Pax had said in serious situations.

“Do you think they’re really going to attack Camp Half-Blood?” Kally asked, staring at her plate. She hadn’t touched her food.

“Who?” Pax asked, waving one hand. “A Goddess of Strife, a revenge-bent snake, and a God of Nightmares? No, I think they’re going to use the Golden Net for a picnic blanket.” Pax leaned into the table to see Axel. “How was romancing Reyna into letting us go? Romancy with a chance of stabbing?”

Axel sighed and hoped he was too tired for his face to go red. He wondered if it would be worth pinching Pax’s ear to shut him up. “She’s not going to let you and I go anytime soon. The others maybe. She can tell who we are. She’s not stupid.”

Though not exactly who. When he was in her room, Axel had tried not to glance at the nasty scar on Reyna’s thigh, where he’d stabbed her while leading an ambush against the legion during the Titan war.

“Did you tell her or is she not stupid?” Pax asked. “Because Pax boys have a nasty tendency of blabbering to the people they’re into.”

He must have winked at Kally because she scooted closer to Axel with a grumble.

“Kallydoll, why don’t you come over here, so these two can wrestle and bicker like real adults,” Merry hummed, patting the chair beside her.

Kally got up, quickly walked around the table and sat across from him, making Pax pout.

Axel hadn’t directly told Reyna about their identity, but the praetor must have had a pretty good idea. All the pieces were there for her. Plus, if Reyna did directly asked him about his involvement in the war with Kronos, his pride wouldn’t let him lie.

Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them again, taking Axel’s silence as his response, one he must have found hopeless. He leaned back and stared off at the wall while saying, “I’ve always thought Rome would be a beautiful place to be executed.”

“They’re not going to execute you,” Kally said, reaching over for her plate. Uncomfortably, she added, “Will they?”

Pax gave her a skeptical glance. “Even their ghosts want to kick our asses. Kally, their river just tried to kill me.”

“That’s a pretty impressive feat, ticking off the landscape,” Merry said. “And why exactly was a body of water trying to murder you two? Were you that bad in ye old days?”

Axel frowned. Although Pax had told the others they were members of Kronos’s army, none of them knew what rank or what any of that meant. This definitely wasn’t the location to discuss it. Axel sat up. “Where’s the guard?” he asked.

There’s no way Reyna would leave them unattended.

Merry pointed behind the doorway. When Axel followed her finger, he saw Dakota in a crumbled heap on the floor. “Taking a nap,” she said cheerfully. “Pax darted him.”

Pax sighed dramatically. “Even though I’m running out of sleep serum.”

Kally gave Axel a serious glance. “This is why these two—” She pointed between Pax and Merry. “—aren’t allowed to hang out.”

Axel had to agree. He could see how Merry could be shortsighted on a matter like this, but Pax knew better. He sighed and rubbed his temple. “They’re going to find an unconscious centurion suspicious.”

Merry gave a sad smile. She rested an elbow on the table and her face on her hand. “Dakota? Nah. He gets so hyped up on sugar, he collapses all the time after a rush. If there’s one thing my lovely siblings are known for, it’s partying until we drop. Now, back to my question, Mr. Stoic and Evasive.”

As she said it, Calex stepped through the doorway. He frowned at Dakota, and turned to glare at Pax. Pax grinned and raised his hands in an innocent, open-palmed gesture.

“Dodgy prick,” Calex muttered.

“Where’s Euna?” Kally asked as he took a seat beside Merry.

Axel frowned at the thought of Euna by herself. The guilt clenched his stomach.

None of them should have ever been in Santiago’s temple. Axel should have known they were being followed. He should have been able to do more than sit there when Santiago pulled a string of thorns through Pax’s tongue and shoved Joey into the fire.

Axel slipped his hands into his pockets again, vainly hoping upon hope he’d find something to calm his nerves. Although he didn’t find a box of cigarettes, like he had hoped, he did find some chewing gum that hadn’t been there before.

He ruffled Pax’s hair in thanks. His pick-pocketing little brother gave him a small smile.

“She’s still being examined,” he said, “She hasn’t talked for a bit.”

Like everyone else, Calex’s grey eyes looked red-rimmed. His ebony skin contrasted harshly with the limestone walls. Although Axel had never seen Eros himself, he’d been told Eros’s face was hard to look at, because his beauty was so harsh. Axel wasn’t much for looking at men in that way, but he could see where girls and boys like his brother would have a difficult time looking at Calex for the same reason.

Calex put a hand on the doorframe, frowning distantly. “She looks like the teenagers that came into Mum’s clinic. One of me Mum’s mates is a Nigerian peacekeeper that she met during the First Civil War. He said you could tell which teenager had been recruited by LURD and Taylor as children soldiers by looking into their eyes…”[2] Calex shook his head and swallowed. “Euna’s still in shock.”

Axel knew Euna wasn’t the only one in shock. He wanted to tell Calex to sit down and eat something, but—after thinking about Euna—Axel didn’t have much of an appetite either. And he didn’t have any right to tell them what to do after failing them as a leader. And Roman garum, fermented fish guts, could make anyone lose their appetite.

Calex looked Axel directly in the eyes, something that made most people uncomfortable. The Mist could only alter so much about the feel of a predator.

“Is Joey gone for good? Has anyone come back from those turquoise flames?” he asked

Axel could feel Kally and Merry’s hopeful gaze on him. Pax whimpered and started to construct a building out of his rainbow colored carrots.

Axel clenched his jaw. “No. She’s gone. Her blood belongs to the deity she was sacrificed to, as a payment for giving her blood in the first place.” He wasn’t sure what that meant if Santiago sacrificed her to himself and he was now dead. Axel sacrificed blood to the original deities, like the ones that created modern humans, not madmen that wanted to become gods.

He was just happy they hadn’t seen Santiago rip Joey’s heart out or decapitate her, two rituals Axel and Pax were much more familiar with. None of the others had seen that type of violence. He knew Merry had physical altercations with her step-father, Kally’s Irish Catholic thug of a brother had tried to kill Pax—a laughable incident—and Calex had seen his mother and brother wither away to the Ebola Virus. Every type of violence came with its own nightmares and regrets, but this would have been new.

All of it makes you feel helpless, he thought, remembering the times he’d been too weak and pathetic to save those he loved from brutality.

For a moment, a jazz remix from Merry’s jacket sang the only distinguishable words out of the din of the mess hall:

We’ll meet again.

Don’t know where.

Don’t know when.

But I know we’ll meet again.

“There would have to be divine intervention to have saved her. And Greek gods aren’t known for saving their children,” Axel muttered. As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to bite them back. Calex’s father had intervened to save him from an eternal life of undeath with Thanatos.

For a morbid moment, Axel could envision Calex’s mother giving Eros and other Greek gods a quick session in parenting, labeled How Not to Let your Child Die When You Can Totally Stop It.

Calex closed his eyes and exhaled. When he opened them, he had a shaky smile. “How’d it go with Reyna, mate?”

Somehow, Axel knew Calex’s question wasn’t about the political side of the conversation. Axel frowned and cleared his throat. “That doesn’t feel—”

He was going to say appropriate, but Merry nudged his foot under the table. “Give a dog a bone, hun,” she whispered.

He wanted to snarl at her, but one glance around the table and he understood what she meant. Kally had perked up and blushed a little, Calex’s smile became a bit more genuine, and Pax paused in building his carrot tower. Everyone wanted something else to talk about, so they could pretend nothing had happened.

“Um—we’re—” He thought about the feel of Reyna’s fingers when she stroked between his ears. The heat rose in his cheeks. “—I’m training with her tomorrow morning,” he blurted, “And some of her more skilled fighters.”

“And?” Pax teased.

Axel scowled at Pax. “And loser of the match owes the other hot chocolate.”

Calex and Merry made sounds of approval.

Kally tapped her lower lip nervously. “Can you fight like that?” she nodded at his shoulder.

Axel’s shoulder throbbed from his confrontation with the Little Tiber. The river hadn’t just wanted to drown him, but to cut him apart with each wave. As such, his body felt like he’d decided to have a water balloon fight with Percy Jackson.

He could fight, but he couldn’t win. He and Reyna were on par when he was in top condition and using magic, something that would immediately give away his identity.

Axel shrugged. “I just need to drop by the van to pick up—” He choked. All their money had been in the Paxmobile, which was gone.

Pax glanced innocently at the ceiling and slid his hand across the table to deposit a modest stack of denari in front of him. “I’ve heard hot chocolate and sweets are pretty expensive in New Rome.”

“When did you have the time to nick that?” Calex asked and glared at Pax.

Pax shrugged. “I’d rather look at it like a communal donation box to Reyna’s happiness that the Twelfth Legion would willingly contribute to.”

Axel wasn’t sure if he should tear Pax’s ear off for stealing from their captors or hug him for saving Axel an embarrassing “IOU” to Reyna. When he thought about Euna, he frowned. “I shouldn’t be doing this…” he muttered. He should have been looking for a way to help Euna, or to get them to Camp Half-Blood faster.

Pax sighed. “You haven’t stalked Reyna for three years to back out now.”

“I didn’t stalk her!” he snarled. Axel knew exactly what Pax was referring to, but that was an unfair, uncontextualized simplification of the situation.

“Riiiiight, you sent me to stalk her,” he said, waving the comment off.

“You were spying for military intel,” Axel hissed, thinking about smashing Pax’s face into his carrot tower.

“Knowing her favorite book sure was important for fighting the war,” Pax agreed. He cautiously removed one of the corner carrots, like he was playing Janga, and stuck it in his mouth. “Did you tell her there’s a Labyrinth entrance in her room?”

Axel grabbed Pax’s ear and twisted hard, inciting Pax’s standard, “Aye! Aye! Aye! Don’t hurt me! I paid for your date!”

Pax knew Axel hated talking about that entrance. When he’d walked past the ajar door to Reyna’s bedroom that morning, he could see the mark of Daedalus on a wall inside. He remembered being on the other side of that wall years ago, the rest of the Triple A Chimera waiting for his cue behind him.

“What are you waiting for?” the Cloven Witchboy had hissed. He twirled a set of hexed marbles in his hands, ready to disarm and destroy the two automaton guard dogs deactivated in the corner. Although the labyrinth should have been black with shadow, the dark corridor gleamed with his armor’s green runes.

“While I’m the biggest fan of ruining plans, that little gift that I left for the guards outside might not keep them busy much longer,” the Silver Tongued Snake agreed. He tapped a sleep dart against his bronze breast plate, in case Reyna woke up. Whenever Pax wore Hecate’s helm, he sounded more like a snake, his voice taking on a raspy quality.

But Axel hadn’t been able to move. He saw that Reyna’s Queen Mattress was there for show—she slept in a cot, probably similar to what she slept in on Blackbeard’s ship. The cot had wrapped around her so much, he could barely make out her form, but he could smell her scent.

He’d already withdrawn his obsidian blades, the ones he always used for assassinating Roman Senators. It had taken them months to map the way to the praetor’s house, and weeks of planning. Now, he couldn’t signal for the attack.

Killing politicians in their sleep was one thing… but a warrior? Especially one he’d admired so much on the battlefield. He could kill her in combat, in a contest of skill with the sweat and intimacy of a fight, but not here, in the dark and outmatched with trickery. She deserved better than this, at least a warrior’s death.

Fool! The Leonis Caput snarled in his head, What are you doing?

For the first time in Axel’s career as the leader of Kronos’s Triple A Chimera, he shook his head. “Abort the mission.”[3]

Axel often wondered if that would have changed the events of the Second Titan War. As his little brother struggled under his grip, Axel clenched his jaw.

“You can see Labyrinth entrances? So, you’ve got true sight. That’s what Pollux called Rachel’s gift of Mist-looking,” Merry said, raising an eyebrow at him. “That’s a fancy skill you conveniently never brought up before.”

That was how Axel had snuck Rachel Elizabeth Dare out of Camp Half-Blood, but he figured that explanation wouldn’t give him or Pax any shiny stickers towards looking like good guys. Since all of his magic, exterior to true sight, required blood, and Pax’s required strife and pain, neither liked to go around espousing their might.

Footsteps sounded over the jazz music. Axel was hoping Pax had a backup explanation about why there was an unconscious child of Dionysus in the corner until Euna stepped in.

Her expression was hollow. Like the others, the Romans had given her dry clothing from the souvenir shop. Her long black hair lay in tangles around her shoulders. Axel frowned when he saw Kronos’s blade, Backbiter, still hung at her side. It was only a matter of time before someone recognized the two-toned metal. He needed to get it away from her.

An idea struck him, one that might help balance keeping Euna distracted and getting to know Reyna. “Hey Euna,” he greeted with a nod of the head. “We should train tomorrow morning at 5:00.”

Euna’s gaze slowly narrowed. “You want me to wake up at 5:00 in the morning?”

At least it was a response.

Last time Axel tried to wake up Euna for a quest, she’d punched him in the face. He figured mornings would, in fact, be the best time to train with Euna.

“Actually,” Pax said. “More like 4:30 in the morning, since he won’t want to be late for Reyna and the others, as he is a punctual jerk.”

Axel twisted Pax’s ear again. Pax whined and clawed at him.

Axel released him. Euna hadn’t said no. Maybe, after their training, he could get her to open up a bit and get Reyna to let them go back to Camp Half-Blood, hopefully before Reyna and the other Romans realized they should be putting Euna on trial for manslaughter and Pax and Axel on the execution block.

[1] Dinner

[2] Calex’s mother, Tiwa, was a refugee from the First Liberian Civil War who fled to Britain. After the Second Civil War’s fighting calmed down, she returned over summers to run a clinic in her father’s hometown, Kakata, to provide reduced-cost medical care, sex education classes, and drug addiction treatment, especially for the child soldiers that were hooked on cocaine and khat. Eventually, her two sons (by Eros and Winston McKenzie) Calex and Tom, came with her.

Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor had possession of the Liberian government when LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy) rose up to overthrow him. A lot of other countries got involved in the First and Second Liberian War, including Nigeria, Guinea, Sierra Leone, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

[3] Soundtrack time! Something I can Never Have by Nine Inch Nails. The lyrics are perfect for their relationship.

Thanks for reading guys! Sorry I'm running late-I just got back in the country and am a little sleep deprived and behind on everything XD Regardless, I hope you enjoyed :D Poor Axel is so far out of his comfort range.