Page 39

Enraged all over again, Hecuba reared like a horse. She took off across the roof. Unfortunately, the other end of her leash was wrapped around my wrist, so I got yanked along, desperately holding on to Nope.

I was pulled off my feet. A dark portal swirled at the edge of the roof, and as Hecuba jumped through it, Nope and I were sucked into the shadow-world.

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 sayNo, 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.