“Talking wolves,” Andie said. “Just another fine day in godland.” She stepped closer to Henry, and he put an awkward hand on her shoulder.
“It’s weird knowing one of those things is right underneath our feet,” he said.
According to Odysseus, Athena had brought the wolf home in a sack, like a huntsman. He said that she and Achilles had looked positively triumphant.
“What’s the rush all of a sudden?” Henry asked. “None of us are ready.”
“She won’t say,” Odysseus replied.
Across the room, Hermes fidgeted and cleared his throat. “Maybe she just sees an opportunity,” he said quietly.
“For what? A new pet?” asked Cassandra. “Someone needs to talk to her.”
“Why not you?” Achilles asked. He came out of the kitchen with a metal bowl and held it out. “Here. You can take this down for me.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Raw, room-temperature hamburger.”
“Gross.”
Cassandra walked down the hall and opened the door to the basement. The red wolf’s growl reached most of the way up the stairs, a jittery, unearthly sound that made her shudder. But when she saw it chained in the corner, crouched down on all fours and shaking, she almost felt sorry for it.
“Staring contest?” she asked Athena, and the goddess turned, surprised.
“Something like that,” Athena said. “You might not want to get too close.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not right now. Can I have that?”
Cassandra handed over the bowl. It sort of smelled, a little bit bloody, rotten, and unpleasant. Or maybe that was the wolf. There wasn’t much ventilation in the basement.
“Are you hungry, Panic?” Athena asked. “Of course you are. You’re always hungry. So tell me where your dad is, and you can have some uncooked burgers.” She wafted the meat under Panic’s nose and waited.
Nothing. Not even a whine. She tossed the bowl onto the floor, and the wolf dove on it, swallowing the meat in huge, mushy chunks.
“I think you’re supposed to withhold the food longer,” Cassandra said.
Athena sighed.
“I don’t want to torture it,” she said. “I’ll figure something else out. But it will lead us to Hera and Ares, one way or another.”
Panic finished eating and began to pace back and forth, fast. Its red brush tail twitched with a maddening lack of rhythm.
“Why don’t we just let it go and follow it?” Cassandra asked.
Athena glanced at her.
“You’re in as big a hurry as I am,” she said.
“Well, yeah. You think I don’t know that where we find Ares, we find Aphrodite?”
Cassandra cocked her head at Panic.
“It looks plenty scared,” she said. “It’d probably run right home.”
“Yeah,” said Athena. “It looks pretty scared. Except it knows exactly what you’re saying and can stand up on two feet and talk. It’s not a regular wolf, Cassandra. It’d be more than happy to lead us on a merry chase all the way to Indonesia.”
They’d held the wolf hostage for two days. Long enough for Calypso’s cuts to almost completely disappear, and long enough for Athena to run out of patience.
“Speaking of hurries,” Cassandra said, “why are you in such a hurry all of—” She paused. Her nose tingled, like she was about to sneeze. But instead the tingle turned to a burn. Smoke rushed into Cassandra’s eyes, and she doubled over, coughing, her eyes watering buckets. The basement cement burned up in flames and ash. All the walls. Even the floor. Someone screamed. Not her. Not Athena, either. The voice was raw and full of panic. On fire. Cassandra whimpered, and Athena caught her as the flames ate the last of the oxygen in the room.
*
Cassandra woke up on the living room sofa smelling like a campfire, and underneath that, like burnt human flesh. Her clothes were ruined. All the Febreze in the world wouldn’t take that stench out.
“Here,” Hermes said to Athena, and handed her a steaming mug.