Will gripped the steering wheel of Camp's delivery van so hard his knuckles glowed white. The traffic inched forward and it was all he could do not to veer up onto the sidewalk to skirt around it.

How the hell was he supposed to get out of the city and all the way to Camp in time? Percy had a huge head start on him, even with picking up various demigods along the way.

The cars in front ground to a halt and he thumped the steering wheel in frustration.

His phone was a useless lump of glass and metal and he didn't feel much better himself, except he was made of flesh. What was he supposed to do to help? Like Nico had said, he was an archer without a bow right now. He couldn't summon the dead. He couldn't create hurricanes or tsunamis. The only thing he could do right now was patch people up after they'd already been hurt.

The traffic had snarled up right beside of the southern entrance to Central Park. He glanced over at the Sherman Monument, still glittering gold despite the eclipse's twilight.

Why was there so much traffic? Had people sensed that something was about to go down and were trying to flee the city? Was there some kind of thrill about being out and about during an eclipse that he was missing?

Before he'd left the apartment, Nico's last words to him had been an attempt to extract a promise not to do anything stupid. Will swallowed hard. He'd never actually made the promise, but he still felt as guilty as all Hades anyway for what he was thinking.

It would be betraying the last frantic kisses Nico had snatched from his lips before shoving him out the door to find Percy, but maybe that was necessary. Maybe that's what had to be done.

Everyone had their destiny. Children of Apollo knew that better than most. Maybe this was his. Maybe he'd been born to stop Tartarus' rise and save Percy and Annabeth's baby.

The prophecy was pretty cut and dry — it didn't feel like there were riddles hidden in this one that they were going to have to wrack their brains over. He knew it. They all knew it, really, underneath. Who was he to delay fate?

And anyway, in the unlikely event that they'd got this hideously wrong, that this wasn't his destiny, he couldn't live with himself if he didn't at least try. Not that there'd be much of a life to live if Tartarus ruled the earth, but there'd be a lot of people he'd have to watch die, people he loved, and there was no way he was going to sit by and watch knowing that he could have done something to stop it if he'd just tried.

He took a shaky breath in and exhaled again, digging around in his pocket for his phone and clicking the lock button to open it up. Still no bars, but his wallpaper was a selfie of him with Nico in Times Square last New Years Eve.

Neither of them had seen the ball drop before in person despite living in the city for most of their lives (for Nico casino excluded), so they'd made a date last year to see it.

The crowd had been ridiculous and the night freezing. Their cheeks glowed in the picture and the left hand side of the frame was slightly blurred grey as Will's gloved thumb had protruded onto the lens.

Nico's lips had been cold that night when Will had kissed him to welcome in the new year.

They were just days away from it being a year since that photo had been taken, and unless he did something no one would ever capture that moment again. For anyone. New York would be ground zero in a monster plague that would spread across the country. Across the world.

The traffic started to move. Will ignored it. Angry beeps punctured the air behind him, but he didn't care.

He wrenched on the wheel, gunned the engine and the van shot across the road. With a squeak and an ominous crunch from the suspension it bumped up onto the sidewalk. Killing the engine with a flick of his wrist, Will stepped out of the van, leaving the keys in the ignition.

There wouldn't be any use for them where he was going.

Balling his fists, he made his way towards Central Park. Normally crowded with horses and carriages and wandering tourists, the plaza was eerily empty as he crossed it. An empty takeout box skittered across the sidewalk in an ominous breeze that disturbed the branches of the trees, making them wave and groan.

The darkness beneath those branches was tangible as he crossed the threshold into the park. It was more than just gloom; it had thick, soupy, ink-black tendrils that coiled around him as he entered. It obscured his feet and billowed across his line of vision.

There were whispers in the darkness, hissing at him to turn back, to give up, that he was nothing more than a pathetic failure of a human being.

No wonder the park was deserted.

Ignoring the whispers, he pressed on into the darkness.

From nowhere, a dracaena popped into existence out of the shadows. Will sensed the appearance before he saw it and turned automatically, his hand outstretched. A white-hot blast of light burst from his palm and incinerated the monster before it could take a single step towards him.

Will looked down at his hand. It was bright red and still smoking, but he shrugged and pushed on through the darkness.

Again the gloom roiled and a spear shot towards him. It juddered to a halt an inch from piercing his sternum and bobbed there like a boat in a harbour. He glared at it and it flipped over end and vanished back into the dark. A startled bark confirmed it had hit the telkhine that had fired it.

Fuck this. Fuck everything. It didn't matter if they resorted to throwing kitchen sinks at him, he was going to make it. Nothing was going to stop him reaching the Door of Orpheus and cracking open the entrance to the Underworld — the world couldn't afford to lose any more time.

Underneath him the asphalt was cracked and icy; his shoes slid hopelessly as they tried to maintain grip.

The air was frigid and still. His breath hung in front of him in a cloud. He shivered, dug his fingernails into his palms, and pressed on.

The silence shattered, falling in shreds around Will's head. Squawking almost deafened him; he clapped his hands over his ears as from above a flock of Stymphalian Birds bore down on him. He threw himself onto the ground as one dive-bombed him, slicing clean through his scalp and sending a trickle of warm blood down the side of his head.

Will hissed in pain and rolled over; the air was full of bronze beaks glinting in the gloom, sparking as they snapped closed. He swiped blood out of his eye and as his elbow came up to do so one of the Birds tore into the elbow of his jacket, leaving it in tatters.

"That was expensive," he growled. A flash of fire flashed over his eyes and with a roar and whumph of ignition an arc of flame burst into the sky.

Glowing bronze beaks bounced and clattered to the asphalt; bald, sizzling birds (nicely bronzed) followed with wet thuds.

Will got to his feet and dusted himself off. As he did so, his fingers brushed against the hunk of metal on a chain around his neck. It had fallen out from under his shirt when he threw himself on the floor.

Nico's skull ring grinned up at him, the twin onyx stones in the eye sockets reflecting the orange light of the singed feathers which continued to flutter out of the sky like burning snow.

He should leave this somewhere easy for them to find — no doubt Nico would want it back — because he didn't know what state he'd be in when he was done. There may not even be anything left, and this wasn't his to take with him.

But he wasn't ready to part with it yet. He needed it. He needed to remember why he was doing this. So he wrapped his fist around it like it was a talisman — a monster would have to pry it from his cold dead hands — and stepped further from the light.