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chapter fourteen
( HUNTER OF ARTEMIS )
"Wolves," Piper said. "They sound close."
Jason rose and summoned his sword. Leo and Coach Hedge got to their feet too. Katherine pull out Pyra and it's glowing with fire. Piper tried, but black spots danced before her eyes.
Then, just outside the firelight at the entrance of the cave, she saw a pair of red eyes glowing in dark.
More wolves edged into the firelight—black beasts bigger than Great Danes, with ice and snow caked on their fur. Their fangs gleamed, and their glowing red eyes looked disturbingly intelligent. The wolf in front was almost as tall as a horse, his mouth stained as if he'd just made a fresh kill.
Piper pulled her dagger out of its sheath.
Then Jason stepped forward and said something in Latin.
Katherine didn't think a dead language would have much effect on wild animals, but the alpha wolf curled his lip. The fur stood up along his spine. One of his lieutenants tried to advance, but the alpha wolf snapped at his ear. Then all of the wolves backed into the dark.
"Dude, I gotta study Latin." Leo's hammer shook in his hand. "What'd you say, Jason?"
Hedge cursed. "Whatever it was, it wasn't enough. Look."
The wolves were coming back, but the alpha wolf wasn't with them. They didn't attack. They waited—at least a dozen now, in a rough semicircle just outside the firelight, blocking the cave exit.
The coach hefted his club. "Here's the plan. I'll kill them all, and you guys escape."
"Coach, they'll rip you apart," Piper said.
"Nah, I'm good."
Then Katherine saw the silhouette of a man coming through the storm, wading through the wolf pack.
"Stick together," Jason said. "They respect a pack. And Hedge, no crazy stuff. We're not leaving you or anyone else behind."
The wolves parted, and the man stepped into the firelight. His hair was greasy and ragged, the color of fireplace soot, topped with a crown of what looked like finger bones. His robes were tattered fur—wolf, rabbit, raccoon, deer, and several others Piper couldn't identify. The furs didn't look cured, and from the smell, they weren't very fresh. His frame was lithe and muscular, like a distance runner's. But the most horrible thing was his face. His thin pale skin was pulled tight over his skull. His teeth were sharpened like fangs. His eyes glowed bright red like his wolves'—and they fixed on Jason with absolute hatred.
"Ecce," he said, "filli Romani."
"Speak English, wolf man!" Hedge bellowed.
The wolf man snarled. "Tell your faun to mind his tongue, son of Rome. Or he'll be my first snack."
The wolf man studied their little group. His nostrils twitched. "So it's true," he mused. "A child of Aphrodite. A daughter of Hestia. A son of Hephaestus. A faun. And a child of Rome, of Lord Jupiter, no less. All together, without killing each other. How interesting."
"You were told about us?" Jason asked. "By whom?"
The man snarled—perhaps a laugh, perhaps a challenge. "Oh, we've been patrolling for you all across the west, demigod, hoping we'd be the first to find you. The giant king will reward me well when he rises. I am Lycaon, king of the wolves. And my pack is hungry."
The wolves snarled in the darkness.
Out of the corner of her eye, Katherine saw Leo put up his hammer and slip something else from his tool belt—a glass bottle full of clear liquid.
Katherine racked her brain trying to place the wolf guy's name. She knew she'd heard it before. Lycaon glared at Jason's sword. He moved to each side as if looking for an opening, but Jason's blade moved with him.
