𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜

Fighting Wolves? No Problemo

"WOLVES," PIPER SAID. "THEY SOUND CLOSE." Jason rose and summoned his sword. Leo, Coach Hedge, and I got to our feet too. Piper tried, but almost fell over.

"Stay there," Jason told her. "We'll protect you."

Piper gritted her teeth.

Just outside the firelight at the entrance of the cave, a pair of beady red eyes were glowing in the dark and 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.

I shuddered at the sight, readying my reflexes to pull out my bow when needed. Piper also pulled her dagger out of its sheath. Then Jason stepped forward and said something in Latin. I'm not entirely sure what he said, 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.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Nah, I'm good." Then, I 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. 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."

Faun, I thought, this guy's Roman, of course.

"So it's true," he mused. "A child of Aphrodite, a son of Hephaestus, a son of Apollo, 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 my eye, I saw Leo put up his hammer and slip something else from his tool belt—a glass bottle full of clear liquid. Lycaon, I thought. Isn't that the guy who tried to treat Zeus to human meat to see if he was the real Zeus? I don't remember too much about this guy, to be honest.