#empousai

The pain intensified with every passing second.

He was going to die; he was sure of it. He just didn't know if it would be from being crushed or torn apart.

'Just what do you think you're doing?' The shrill voice cut sharply across his fractured consciousness.

Everything halted. The pain didn't exactly recede, but it stopped increasing, and that was respite enough.

'Hey, Eileithyia,' rumbled a second voice. 'What's up? How's the delivery going?'

'The delivery,' hissed Eileithyia, 'is getting messed up because of you.'

'What do you mean? I'm just doing my job, like always.'

A quick flare of pain burst across his senses, red-hot and sudden, like a determined shove from a razor-clawed hand.

'Stop that!'

The pressure around him loosened slightly as the giant hand trying to force him into a too-tiny space relaxed its grip. His skin felt less like an exposed blister. He managed to draw one shaky, shuddering breath into lungs that stubbornly resisted expansion. The flow of air through his trachea stung like it was scraping against a raw wound. Red spots danced before his eyes. Through them, he could make out two vague figures: a pair of heads leaning over him.

He got the impression that the two were arguing over him and his life hung in the balance between them.

He had no idea who they were—heck, he didn't even have a clue who he was, though he hoped that was because his head was too clouded with pain at the moment—but he hoped the girl, Eileithyia, would win, if only because his agony abated when she told the other guy to back off.

'You're not putting this soul into my birth, Attis,' Eileithyia said crossly. 'He's not clean!'

He blinked. Was she talking about him? What did she mean, clean?

'Of course it’s clean,' Attis protested. 'Straight from Lethe—'

Eileithyia snorted. 'Don't pretend you're not having trouble with the insertion. He's resisting—oh yes, I can tell it's a he. You didn't do your work properly, Attis.'

'Hey, don't look at me! You know full well that I don't do the cleaning. I just bring 'em to you. S'not my fault if someone screwed up down there. Bet it was Lethe. You know how forgetful she is.'

'I don't care who screwed up. Take him back to the Underworld.'

The forms of the two speakers grew clearer. Eileithyia, a round, matronly-looking woman, had her hands-on her hips as she faced down Attis, a skinny dude whose face was dominated by a curly moustache. Nothing about their conversation made any sense, though. Lethe? The Underworld? Was he supposed to know what they were? He had a feeling he ought to, but the words were practically gibberish to him.

At least the paradoxical pain of being simultaneously squashed and torn in half was definitely easing up.

'Oh come on, can't you just let it be? I don't wanna mess up my schedule. I've got a long list of souls waiting, you know. Rebirth's the new "in" thing down under.'

Eileithyia sniffed. 'That's not my problem. I've got my reputation to keep as the goddess of childbirth.'

Rebirth, he thought with a stab of panic. Did that mean he was dead, then? Dead and about to be reincarnated?

Except Eileithyia was refusing to allow it, so, what—was he going to go back to being dead? And why did it have to hurt so much? Wasn't the point of death that everything was supposed to stop, pain included?

Unless this was his eternal punishment or something. Oh crap.

'…and I'm not going to be held responsible for a birth with a spirit that's still hanging on to who he is,' Eileithyia continued. 'I mean, I can see his identity, clear as Hemera. It's still written on him! Are you sure he was even dead to begin with?'

Attis sighed. 'Look, I don't know. I just take the spirits. Fine. So you won't take him. What am I gonna do, then?' He sounded defeated.

Eileithyia's tone softened. 'Okay, look, I have to finish this delivery first. Poor woman's been labouring long enough. But I'll think of something. Just hang on—and don't even think of trying to sneak this soul past me!'

She vanished. His pain dissipated like she'd taken it away with her. He no longer felt like he was being impossibly compacted or quartered. There was an odd lightness instead, like he was floating, or maybe made of mist.

Attis sat on the ground next to him and rubbed a weary hand over his face.

'"Be the god of rebirth and reincarnations,"' he muttered darkly. '"It'll be fun," they said. "Magical." Hmph. It's all fun and games until somebody screws up a soul wash.'

There were two soft pops. Eileithyia reappeared, accompanied by a lean, well-built man with curly salt-and-pepper hair.

'Sure,' the new guy said to her, 'I owe you for helping out with Melissa.'

Attis sprung to his feet. 'Lord Hermes!'

'Attis is in a bit of a bind,' Eileithyia explained. 'He's made a mistake.'

'I didn't make the mistake!'

'He tried to rebirth a soul that hasn't been cleansed of his identity,' Eileithyia continued smoothly, as though Attis hadn't spoken. 'I thought since you're an Underworld guide sometimes—'

Hermes snorted. 'You need to keep up with the times, Ellie. I haven't done it in millennia. You realise Thanatos is probably better suited to dealing with something like this? Collecting souls is his business now, after all.'

Eileithyia pouted. 'Don't be like that. You know I don't get along with old Death.'

'Plus he's so unbearably smug all the time,' Attis muttered. 'Just 'cos he got the good looks in the family…'

'True, that,' Hermes said. 'So—er, this spirit here—'

'Attis didn't wipe his slate clean. The identity's faded, sure, but I can still read who he was—who he is. Perseus Jackson.'

Perseus? Was that his name?

If it were, surely he should feel some recognition, some connection to it. He realised with a panic that he was still drawing a blank on who he was.

'How many times do I have to tell you,' Attis snapped, 'I don't do the washing—'

'Wait,' Hermes cut in. 'Did you say Perseus? As in Percy Jackson?'

'Uh huh.' Eileithyia squinted at him. He could see her eyes, wide and round and a piercing blue-grey. It occurred to him suddenly that he wasn't even sure what form he had for her to examine. His body still felt smoky and insubstantial, as ghostly as the spirit they kept calling him. But it was unmistakably him they were discussing.

Perseus. Percy. Huh.

Sure, why not? It wasn't like any other name was coming forth to claim him.

Hermes's handsome face went pale. 'He's not supposed to be dead. Or did I miss something?'

Well, that was a relief. Now if they could just get to the part where he could get back to the life he was supposed to have—preferably one where he actually knew who he was—that would be great.

'That's what I told Attis! He's not a reborn soul!'

'You did not say that. You're just as clueless about what went wrong.'

'At least I guessed that—'

'Can it, you two,' Hermes said sharply. Eileithyia and Attis fell silent as though he'd sewn their mouths shut. 'We have a serious problem.'

There was a long silence. Then Attis said timidly, 'Can't you fix it, Lord Hermes?'

'I wish I could.' Hermes's voice was pained. 'There are rules—limits to our interference. But maybe…if I hide him well enough… Yeah, I think I could sneak past Dad. First, though…'

A light, feathery touch flitted over Percy's eyes. They shut, and his world went black.

OoOoO

The darkness was heavy and sticky, like it was made of cloying black sludge. It smelt like burnt sugar and smoking rubber. Hot, oozing tendrils curled around him in a viscous embrace even though he didn't seem to have a physical form for them to encircle.

In the blackness, someone laughed, a deep rumble that seemed to shake all around him.

'Who's there?' Percy demanded. His formless fingers opened and closed compulsively, searching for a handle to grip. 'Show yourself!'

'But I am everywhere.' He felt, rather than heard, the voice reverberating in every atom of his being. 'I am all things and everything.'

'Who are you?'

'I think the real question is, who are you?'

Percy hated to admit it, but the voice was right. He didn't know who he was. Heck, he wasn't even certain about his own name.

Laughter again. The solid black around him lightened to a smoky grey. Wispy clouds of white swirled past him. He caught glimpses inside them here and there: faces, places, all moving too fast for him to get a clear look. Did they belong to him? Were they the memories that eluded him?

Percy tried to reach out and grab hold of one, but his arms were as insubstantial as the images. The darkness thickened again.

'I am where all that is lost resides. Everything begins and ends…in chaos. Come, Perseus Jackson. Come and I will swallow you, too.'

Percy stumbled back. His foot met a ledge, and then he was falling through endless darkness as taunting laughter echoed in his head.

Then he felt a tug. Like a string connected to his abdomen, it pulled him up through the small of his back. He stopped falling and floated instead, drifting through space.

He heard a girl's voice, thick and husky, cracking with emotion but filled with determination all the same: 'I didn't give up on him then and I won't now!' It wrapped around him and he imagined it as the cord holding him fast, drawing him out of the darkness.

Someone was looking for him. All he had to do was find her.

His mind remained a complete blank, so he focused on the echo of her voice, trying to soak it into his skin.

The words that came to him seemed to travel up through the nerves of his spinal cord. They weren't quite a thought, more a sensation, the last thing to touch him before unconsciousness overtook him.

But they made no sense at all.

Princess curls.

OoOoO

Bump. Bump. Bump.

Percy's head hurt.

He opened his eyes groggily. He was in the back of a truck, speeding along under an open sky. The sun glared down so intensely that he had to squint against the brightness. Stacked around him were crates of different sizes—some wooden, some metal, others made of a curvy white material that he really hoped wasn't bones. A few of them thumped threateningly at intervals, making him wonder just what was in there. The crates had labels painted on them, but the alphabets swam before his eyes so that he couldn't read what the contents were. The few he managed to make out didn't put him at ease: DANGER, THIS SIDE UP, MAY EXPLODE.

What was this, some smuggling operation?

In the cab up front, he could hear the driver talking on the phone as he drove.

'Yeah, I've got him in back—of course he's safe enough back there! Look, I can't very well disguise him as cargo if he's sitting up front with me, can I?'

A raspy, reptilian voice interrupted the driver, although Percy couldn't see anyone else in the cab: 'Your brother's on line omicron.'

The driver must have switched lines, because he growled into the phone, 'What do you want?'

There was a pause as he listened to the new caller on the other end. Then—'Great Zeus, Ares, I'm taking care of an important delivery—wow. Blackmail, really?' The driver threw a quick, furtive glance towards the back of the truck, giving Percy a glimpse of his slyly handsome face. It was Hermes, the guy from his dream. The one who'd called him Percy Jackson.

And from the sound of things, whatever Percy was doing in the back of his truck, it didn't sound legal.

'Oh, all right. You're lucky Phoenix is en route.' The truck made a sharp left and Percy swayed right, bumping painfully into the skeletal crate. Something inside whined. He quickly pushed himself away from it.

A shadow fell over him and he looked up. He blinked in amazement. Where a moment ago there had been open skies and desert terrain, there was now a landscape of haphazardly-spaced buildings. Some were low, flat structures, others towered to skyscraper height.

How had they gotten into the middle of a city so quickly?

He crawled to the side of the truck to get a better look at his surroundings. They passed a tall beige stone building, a bunch of skyscrapers with mirror-like walls that reflected the cloudless blue sky, then turned down a boulevard lined with palm trees. At the next junction, Hermes took a sudden right and braked hard to avoid slamming into an illegally parked van on the roadside. Thrown off balance, Percy tipped over the side of the truck.

He toppled out onto the asphalt, slamming his head hard against a sign post. His vision exploded into stars. By the time it cleared enough for him to get his bearings, the truck was already moving off, swerving out from behind the double-parked van.

'Hey, wait!' Percy croaked. Maybe it wasn't the smartest idea to call after someone who could have been kidnapping him, for all he knew. But Hermes might be the only person who could offer him an explanation as to who he was and what he was doing here.

Unfortunately, the truck zoomed off with Hermes oblivious to the fact that he'd just lost his cargo.

Percy groaned and sat up, trying to make sense of his surroundings. The building on the opposite side of the street looked like an ancient temple, with a set of stone steps leading up to a doorway framed with two round columns on either side, and a triangular roof. Inscribed in the archway over the doors were the words DUMMIES TARTS AND SEANCES.

He frowned, sure that couldn't be right. After squinting at it for a minute, he decided it probably said DOMESTIC ARTS AND SCIENCES. Some kind of school, maybe.

The sidewalks were teeming with people—probably students, judging from the books they were toting around—but none of them paid him any attention. It was like they'd completely missed the fact that a guy had just fallen out of a moving vehicle right in front of them. In fact, the eyes of the nearest passers-by skipped over him as if he wasn't there.

Disconcerted, Percy got up and headed down the street. He wasn't sure where he was going, only that moving felt better than sitting invisible on the sidewalk with no memory and no plan.

The air in the city was dry and scorching. Heat radiated off the concrete around him, giving him the sensation of being baked in an oven. He hadn't gone five minutes down the street before his throat begged for an icy can of soda.

'You lost, sugar?'

Finally, someone had noticed him. He turned around gratefully and his jaw dropped when he saw who was addressing him.

Sashaying out of a side alley, her hips swaying sensually, was a drop-dead gorgeous redhead with caramel-coloured skin. She gave him a coy smile and beckoned him closer.

Goosebumps erupted along his arms. A shiver ran down his back in spite of the heat. Percy swallowed hard. 'I, um—'

Suddenly, the woman was right in front of him, so close he could smell her thick perfume: a strange combination of vanilla and freshly mown grass. The heat must be addling his brain. He had to have spaced out momentarily—there was no way she could have moved that quickly.

'Um,' he said again. He swayed a little, suddenly dizzy. The woman's face swam before him. She caught him as he collapsed, finally overcome by the heat.

'Well, now,' she cooed, 'isn't this my lucky day? Aren't you a gift from the gods, sugar? Weak, lost, and alone!'

'There you are, Dilys!' Another female voice rang out. 'And you've found us a man…excellent!'

'Shove off, Marcy. He appeared to me. I call dibs!'

'Oh no, you called dibs on the last one—I get to kill this one!'

Panic flooded through him. Were these ladies, like, literal man-eaters? He tried to crawl away from Dilys, but his limbs felt like jelly. His vision was completely blurry. Sun spots popped before his eyes.

'No! Stop it, both of you. I sense something special about this one. What if he's the one—'

'Enough about the one,' snapped Dilys. 'You lost us our last two victims with your stupid gamble. We don't even know if that old myth is real.'

'And I'm hungry,' Marcy complained. 'We haven't had a man in weeks.'

'I said no!'

'Who made you the boss?'

There was a loud, screeching clang, like the clash of two steel blades. A metallic ripping noise followed, like a machine being torn apart. The air filled with the tang of rust and sulphur. In a few short seconds, the arguing ceased, leaving only the sound of someone panting heavily, as though they had just emerged from a rough fistfight.

A shadow loomed over him. Outlined against the bright desert sun, it looked like a monster with ferocious fangs and misshapen legs. Then he blinked and it resolved into the vague form of a slender girl.

'Hey,' she said, holding her hand out to him. 'Thank Hecate I found you.'

Percy let her pull him to his feet. She handed him a bottle of water, which he downed gratefully. A million questions flew through his mind: What just happened? Where am I? Who are you? Do you know me? But the one that actually came out of his mouth was, 'Who am I?'

A strange flurry of emotions danced through the girl's eyes, which seemed to change colour with her expressions. For a second, Percy even imagined that they glowed red, but he blinked again and it was gone.

It was probably a trick of the light. Or some leftover hallucinatory effect from all the weird dreams he'd been having. If he closed his eyes, he could still see red spots dancing behind his eyelids.

She pursed her lips at last and said, 'Let's not talk about it in the open. Come on.'

He followed the girl through dusty streets, past more towering buildings, palm trees, car parks, and through a fenced park. Sweat trickled down his forehead as the sun beat down on them. As they walked (or in his case, limped), he tried to place his surroundings. Did he know this city?

The best answer he could come up with was maybe. The feel of the dry air tugged at the corners of his brain, but he couldn't identify any of the places he was seeing.

They finally arrived at a run-down building made of red brick. They climbed five flights of steps to the top floor, where there was only one door. His new companion unlocked it and ushered him in.

'Okay,' she said, bolting the door behind her. 'You'll be safe here.'

'Er, thanks, I guess?'

He looked around. It was one of those studio apartments: a single room with only one partition for a bathroom. The walls were a drab grey. The only splash of colour in the room came from a set of velvety curtains drawn across a tiny square of a window. They were a deep red that gave the place a slightly sinister glow when backlit by the sun.

The room was probably decent-sized, but Percy couldn't help thinking of it as cramped when it had a queen bed, dresser, closet, couch, and coffee table, as well as a kitchenette with a dining table all squeezed inside. Add to that a weird collection of shiny prosthetic limbs lying scattered about and there was hardly space to swing a club.

Something about that seemed familiar.

Well, maybe not the prosthetics. He turned to the girl, wondering if she was maybe a medical student or something, and found her studying him intently.

'What?' he asked.

She waved her hand in front of her face like she was fanning herself. A wave of vertigo overtook Percy without warning. The room tilted alarmingly. The air thinned like it was being vacuumed out. He lurched forward and she caught him.

'Perseus!' she said in alarm.

She knows me, he thought hazily.

Then the room righted itself again, but he had the strangest feeling that his surroundings had been completely replaced, even though it was still the same room with the cluttered furniture and weird fake-body-part décor.

He concentrated on the girl. Did she look different? Her eyes were a warm, honeyed amber. Her thick brown hair fell about her shoulders in curly ringlets that gave her a regal appearance.

Princess curls.

A shiver ran along his spine and lodged itself in the small of his back.

'I know you, don't I?' he ventured.

A slow, hopeful smile spread across her face. She nodded encouragingly.

Her name was on the tip of his tongue now. He scrunched his eyebrows, thinking so hard it felt like an army of woodpeckers was trying to drill information into the inside of his skull. Were memories supposed to feel like this?

In contrast to the dreams he'd had, the thoughts slipping into his head were devoid of any sort of emotional attachment, like a list of plain facts he might have memorised from a school book about some boring historical figure's life: Perseus Jackson, age 20, lived in Phoenix, Arizona.

Shouldn't he feel some sort of connection to his name, his life? He wasn't entirely certain what some of the things he was now remembering even meant. He was attacked by dangerous demigods in an alleyway and rescued by—

'Beth?' The name rolled off his tongue. He knew it was quite right, though.

The girl's smile faltered. 'Bella,' she corrected him. 'I'm your girlfriend.'

Her voice did sound more familiar now, deeper and warmer than his first impression of it. Or had it been like this all along? She did sound like the voice he'd dreamed of, the one searching for him. That kind of made sense.

Besides, why would a girl who looked as hot as she did claim to be his girlfriend if it wasn't true?

'Oh,' he said. 'Sorry, I—I guess I hit my head real hard or something when I was…I was attacked, right? Some of it's coming back to me, I think, but my memory's kinda like a big black hole.'

Bella nodded. 'It was horrible! The demigods ganged up on you, the monsters.'

'Demigods.'

'Half mortal children of the gods. They're our enemies. Always have been.' She said it like the two of them were something else not quite human either.'

'And we're…'

'Well, I’m an empousa. A servant of the goddess Hecate, brought into the world with the first woman. But unlike mere women, we are blessed with unsurpassable beauty and the powers of our mother goddess. As for you—well, you're special—only one in a million mortals can know who we are and accept that we mean no harm. Most people are scared of our magic. They don't even try to understand.' She stepped closer to him. 'That's what I love about you, Perseus. You're so non-judgemental.'

Gods. Mortals. Her words sounded far-fetched, yet there was something convincing about them. Percy had a hazy memory of three beings arguing over him—wait, had that happened twice?—and there had been a ride in a truck, right? It was all so fuzzy, like half-formed sketches of someone else's life. He wasn't sure any of it was real.

A fight, though. That sounded right. His mind supplied images of fearsome men and women looming over him, wielding spears and swords. He didn't know why the demigods wanted to kill him and Bella, but he believed they did. It made sense somehow, like he'd clicked two puzzle pieces together, even though he still didn't have a clue where they fit in the context of the whole jigsaw.

If he managed to match enough pieces, maybe the full puzzle might start to come together. So far he had his name and age, a vague idea about his enemies, and a girl with princess curls who was probably Bella. That last combination felt slightly off, like two pieces whose edges had been forced together, except after you made them fit, it felt more and more like they should be a match.

'Right. Okay.' He ground his teeth. Nothing else was coming into his head, factual or otherwise. 'Man, this sucks, not being able to remember stuff.'

Bella patted his hand. 'You've got me,' she said. 'I'll help you out.' She crossed over to the kitchenette and pulled a glass from a cabinet. 'You must be thirsty after our walk. Here, I've got just the thing.'

Now that she mentioned it, his mouth did feel dry. He took the glass, filled with a clear, sweet-smelling liquid, and brought it to his lips. It was disgustingly lukewarm, but once it hit his belly, he was filled with a comforting sense of ease. It didn't seem to matter quite as much that he had gaping holes in his memory. After all, he had Bella. Right?

Bella leaned in close to him. 'I'm so glad they didn't take you away from me.'

Her face was inches from his.

Percy swallowed. He wondered if he should feel some kind of thrill. Excitement, maybe. A gorgeous girl—his girlfriend—was closing in on him, her lips tantalisingly close, and the only response he was getting from his body was confusion.

He drew away. Bella pulled back, disappointment in her eyes. 'What's wrong?'

'Sorry,' he said. 'I just—everything's kinda overwhelming right now.'

She sighed. 'Of course. Um, I guess you want to clean yourself up?'

'Yeah, sounds great.'

Bella nodded and pointed to the left. 'Bathroom's that way.'

In the bathroom, Percy splashed his face with water and stared at the reflection in the mirror. The face in it looked completely unfamiliar: glassy green eyes peering out from under a shock of messy black hair, thin cheeks sloping down from high cheekbones that framed a pointed nose. Around his neck was a leather cord with a bunch of painted beads, like some Native American fashion statement. His shirt was tattered, the letters faded so that he couldn't make out what they spelt—there was an 'N' and an 'M' in the first line and a couple of vowels in the second, but that was all he could decipher. His jeans weren't in much better condition. He reached into his pockets, thinking he might have some change, but all there was in them was a capped pen.

He ran his fingers along his arms and noticed something really strange. Tattooed on the underside of his left arm was a picture of a three-pronged fork, one vertical line, and the letters SPQR. He traced them slowly, trying to imagine what they might stand for.

After a while, he gave up. Nothing he could see provided him with any clues.

He was just going to have to hope his memory would return on its own.

@supernaturally-percyjackson​ totally gets the credit for TARTS. If you enjoyed that bit, kudos goes to her!

Eileithyia is the goddess of childbirth, and Attis is the closest I could find to a god of rebirth. Ain't the Greek pantheon fun?