Hellhounds! At the Disco
Ah, yes, waterskiing behind a hellhound through a nightmare landscape while holding a pee-prone puppy … Or, as we call it in the demigod business, just another Wednesday night.
I had shadow-traveled before. Mrs. O’Leary had taken me to some interesting places I never wanted to see again. My friend Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, also had the ability. He’d used it once to take me Christmas shopping in Florence. (Long story.)
But as I was dragged along behind Hecuba, I started to think that maybe Mrs. O’Leary and Nico had gone out of their way to shield me from the
worst effects of shadow-surfing.
I didn’t remember the air being so cold, or the ride so bumpy. The shadows wrapped around me, clinging to my limbs like they were trying to pull the leash away. I had a bad feeling that if that happened, I would not be making it back to New York.
My ears filled with static—a scratchy, screeching chorus of noises that almost sounded like voices demanding my attention. Look over here. Come this way. You don’t really need your sanity, do you?
At least Hecuba’s leash was tightly wrapped around my wrist. Otherwise, I might have lost my grip both literally and figuratively. If Nope had tried to squirm free, I wouldn’t have been able to hold on to him, but he seemed perfectly content to enjoy the ride. He sniffed and barked at the shadows with a joyful “Nope! Nope! Nope!”
I’d never understood how shadow-travel worked. Nico once told me that all the shadows in the world were connected like an ocean, but this didn’t feel like any ocean I’d ever been in. My joints were turning to ice. The air was too thin to fill my lungs.
Just when I was afraid I might pass out, we popped back into the real world
—or at least a German nightclub, which I’m not sure counts. Strobe lights pulsed. Music pounded. Pretty people in skimpy clothes and neon body paint packed the dance floor under a heavy cloud of vape smoke.
As Hecuba plowed through the room, we got lots of cries of “Huch! Ach!
Was zum Teuful?” But then the partyers started to cheer and clap, some holding up their phones to capture the moment. I guess that’s what you do when a hellhound hits the dance floor.
Hecuba paused, maybe startled by her new fan club. Before I could get to my feet, she apparently decided she didn’t like techno-pop, and we took off again into the shadows. I wondered if anybody in the club had gotten good footage of me—#GiantDogPullsStrangeKidThroughClub.
Almost immediately, we emerged from the shadows again, this time into an empty desert landscape—dry, hot air, a million stars in the sky, a rolling blanket of dunes that stretched to the horizon. It was beautiful, and just about the last place a son of the sea god would have any kind of power.
As our hellhound tour guide dragged me and Nope up the side of a sand dune, I croaked, “Hecuba, wait!”
She glanced back, her bared teeth gleaming like quicksilver.
“I wasn’t trying to trick you!” I said. “I just want to get you home safely.”
She howled—a mixture of rage and sorrow that would’ve broken my heart if my heart wasn’t so busy trying to climb out of my throat. It was the same sound I’d heard in my fever dream, right when Hecuba turned from human to canine, her whole identity shattered by grief.
“I get it,” I told her. “But Hecate needs you.”
Wrong thing to say. She yanked on the leash, and before I could say No, please, anything but that, she leaped through another shadow, dragging me down like we were plummeting into a mine shaft.
Next floor: swimwear and ladies’ lingerie.
No, seriously. We materialized inside an empty department store—I have no idea where. We charged through racks of clothing, which Nope seemed to find exciting. He yipped and bit at bikinis as we flew past them, while I did my best to get poked in the eye by every coat hanger in our path.
I tried to say “Stop!” but got a mouthful of lacy undergarment for my troubles. Then we plunged back into shadows.
Finally, we emerged on a rural hillside dotted with thornbushes and twisted trees. It was nearly dawn, and this time I could smell the sea. A broken
stone wall stretched across the crest of the hill.
Hecuba stopped. I figured she’d just tired herself out. Then I saw the way she was staring at the wall. Something about it seemed familiar.
In the other direction, the land sloped down past a deserted road to a rocky, crescent-shaped beach. The ocean glinted in the moonlight. The landscape looked different than it had in my vision. Things change over the centuries. But I still recognized it.
“Troy,” I said. Or what used to be Troy. We were in Turkey, on the Aegean Sea.
Hecuba’s eyes glowed orange in the dark, making her look like a sad jack- o’-lantern. It seemed she had found her ultimate destination.
I decided maybe it was time for a peace offering. “I’m going to unhook your leash, okay?”
I wobbled over to her. I felt so nauseated I probably would have thrown up if I hadn’t already emptied my stomach at the souvlaki shop. I’m clever that way. Always planning ahead.
Hecuba didn’t flinch. She just stared at the sea.
I unclipped the leash and put down Nope. He sniffed the dirt, shook off a bra that had gotten wrapped around his back leg, then went exploring. I hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake, letting both hellhounds roam free, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
“This is where it happened,” I said to Hecuba. “Where you lost your children.”
She didn’t look at me, but her nostrils quivered. She licked her lips, swallowed, and made a deep rumbling sound in her chest.
I sat next to her. I remembered something about dogs feeling less threatened if you were lower than they were. I couldn’t imagine a hellhound of Hecuba’s size being threatened by me even if I stood on tiptoes, but I thought it might put her at ease if I looked vulnerable.
Also, I was vulnerable. I was so tired and shaken from all the shadow- travel, my choices were to either sit down or pass out.
Nope nosed around, weaving in and out of the bushes. He startled himself when he found a pink bra we’d dragged with us from the department store. He barked at it. Then, having shown the undergarment who was the boss, he continued his explorations.
“My mom is having a baby,” I told Hecuba.
I’m not sure why that bubbled up in my mind, but it got Hecuba’s attention. She turned toward me, her eyes bearing down like heat lamps.
“I grew up an only child,” I continued. “I was a lot of work for my mom. You know how it is. Demigods.”
Those hellhound eyes were giving me a sunburn.
“I can’t imagine how much courage it took for her to have another kid,” I said. “I’m worried for the baby. I mean, this kid won’t be a demigod, but still … I’ve seen how dangerous the world is. I’ve lost friends. One time I lost my mom—thought she was gone forever. That was the worst feeling in the world.”
I was rambling, but Hecuba hadn’t bitten my head off yet. I decided maybe that was progress.
“Every time I lose someone,” I said, “I get so angry … I want revenge.
But then I remember what my friends would want. The same thing my mom wants for me—to be happy. To find people who matter and hang on to them for as long as I can.”
I picked up a smooth, round rock. For all I knew, it was a slingstone from the Trojan War.
“I can’t go back in time,” I said. “I can’t recover the people I’ve lost. So I have to concentrate on the family I’ve still got. Not just my mom and stepdad, or the new baby. But also Annabeth. Grover. All my friends at Camp Half-Blood.”
Nope padded up to Hecuba, sniffed her, and flopped down between her front paws.
Hecuba looked at the puppy, who was doing what puppies do best— radiating sweetness, sending out a message on all channels: I am adorable. Take care of me.
“You’ve got family, too,” I told Hecuba. “I know Hecate’s not perfect. It must get annoying the way she treats you like a pet. But I’ve also seen how she looks at you. You mean a lot to her. And Gale—I think she’d be really sad without you. And now there’s Nope ….”
Hecuba sniffed the pup’s head. Her demeanor was still sad and grieving, but she seemed calmer—no longer interested in destroying Greek restaurants or rampaging through discos.
“I can only imagine what you went through when Troy fell,” I confessed.
“But you can scare all the Greeks you want … It won’t heal the grief. It’s just chucking more wood into the fire. I think it’s better to find your pack and protect it.”
Hecuba growled.
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe pack isn’t the right word. I don’t know why Hecate turned you into a hellhound. Gods are weird. I have a friend whose
dad once turned her into a tree. Maybe Hecate saved you the only way she knew how. It’s not perfect, but it’s still love.”
Hecuba gazed at the ocean—a view she’d probably seen thousands of times when she was a mortal. She’d watched the Greek ships anchor off that coast, ready for war. She’d watched her children die in battle on that rocky beach before the walls of her doomed city.
Finally, she pressed her nose against the top of Nope’s head. She inhaled his scent like she was committing it to memory, making it a part of her.
Then she looked at me and tilted her head.
“Ready to go home to New York?” I asked. “You’d make a lot of people happy. And selfishly, I’d appreciate Hecate not killing me because I lost you.”
She put her paw on the leash.
“That’s fair,” I said. “No leash. When Hecate gets back, I’ll try to convince her to give you more freedom. We won’t mention the whole terrorizing-
Astoria thing.”
Hecuba grunted. Maybe she was agreeing with me. Or maybe she was just saying They deserved it.
I managed to get to my feet. I gathered up the sleepy puppy. Hecate knelt and allowed me to climb onto her back.
“Let’s go home,” I said.
I’m not sure how we made it back. As soon as we passed into the shadow- world, I lost consciousness, but Hecuba must have made sure I didn’t fall off. The next thing I remember, I was staring at the glittery ceiling in the great room of the manse and Annabeth was tucking a blanket around me.
“Good job, hero,” she said. “I’m not even going to ask why you have a bikini bottom wrapped around your ankle.”
She kissed me on the forehead, breathing in deeply as if to memorize my scent like Hecuba had with Nope. I blacked out and dreamed of puppies, which was a lot better than my usual dreams.
