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Helen stowed her shock, planted her left foot, and booted the monster with all her might. It didn’t seem to hurt the hellhound at all. Instead, all the kick managed to do was get the beast’s attention. Helen stumbled back. The monster turned its glowing red eyes on her. She squeaked in terror as the beast dove at her.
“Helen!” Orion said fearfully, snatching the monster by the tail and pulling it away.
The salivating jaws closed just inches away from Helen’s face and, as she covered her head with her arms to protect herself, she heard the hellhound shriek in surprised pain as Orion drove his blade into the back of its skull.
Helen shook herself awake, her arms reaching out and her legs kicking as if she were trying to crest a great wave. She was back in her bedroom.
“No way!” she shouted into the dark.
Helen couldn’t believe it had happened again. She had to learn how to control her passage into and out of the Underworld, or she was never going to be of any use in the fight against the Furies. Especially now that she had found Orion. She couldn’t just disappear on him whenever there was danger.
Helen didn’t waste a second. She called her mother immediately, intending to ask about Orion, but as usual, she was sent to voice mail after two rings. She left her mother a message, but instead of telling her about Orion, Helen got so annoyed she wound up asking if Daphne was avoiding her. She hung up, disgusted by the whiny tone in her voice. Daphne had never been there for Helen. She didn’t know why she had even bothered to call.
Helen scrubbed her hands over her face. She was okay, but she couldn’t say the same for Orion. She would never forgive herself if something had happened to him. Helen wanted to climb under her covers and send herself back into the Underworld, but she knew that it would be a wasted effort. Time and space moved differently down there, and even if she descended immediately, she wouldn’t arrive in the same place or the same time as when she had left.
She folded her arms in consternation, and as she did so, she realized that she was still wearing Orion’s jacket. She patted the pockets and found his wallet. After about half a second of moral quibbling, Helen opened it and riffled through, curious.
Orion had two driver’s licenses—one from Canada and one from Massachusetts. Both said that said he was eighteen years old and legally allowed to operate heavy machinery, but neither of his licenses listed his last name as Evander, the name he had given her. His American driver’s license said his last name was Tiber, and in Canada his last name was listed as Attica. He also had a student ID from Milton Academy, a well-known prep school on the south shore of Massachusetts, that said his name was Ryan Smith.
Smith. Yeah, right. Helen wondered if all Scions were creativity impaired when it came to aliases, or if “Smith” was the running joke among demigods.
She looked for any other bit of information she could find in the remaining pockets of his jacket, but all she came up with was four dollars and an old paper clip. She paced around her icebox of a bedroom, thinking of her options. She was desperate to know if Orion was okay, but she wasn’t too sure it was a good idea to go poking around in his life. With four different last names, Orion was obviously a secretive guy. Helen couldn’t go looking for him without blowing whatever cover he was trying to create for himself.
She briefly wondered
why he needed all the aliases, then almost immediately answered her own question. The Hundred Cousins had tried to kill off all the other Houses, and until they discovered Helen and her mother, they’d believed that they were the only Scions left in the world. As Head of the House of Rome and Heir to the House of Athens, Orion had probably spent his whole life on the run, hiding from the Hundred Cousins, the largest faction of the House of Thebes. They made it their mission to hunt down Scions from the other three Houses and kill them. If Helen went looking for Orion, she knew that she would only give him away. Like she had Hector, she realized suddenly.
It hadn’t occurred to her before, but now Helen was certain that it was her fault that Hector had been found. Cassandra had foreseen that the Hundred weren’t actively trying to kill her at the moment, but Cassandra had also said they were still keeping tabs on her—probably watching her every move. And Hector had been discovered as soon as he made contact with her. If Helen went looking for Orion, she would lead the Hundred straight to him.
Helen shivered, partly from the cold and partly from fear. She wrapped Orion’s jacket a little tighter around her shoulders and decided that she was not going to be able to fall back to sleep right away. She went downstairs and heated up some of the casserole her dad had left her and then sat down at the kitchen table to eat, get warm, and think about what she should do next.
When she had finished her late meal she went back up to bed, still debating whether or not she should tell the Delos clan about Orion. A part of her was starting to believe that the farther she kept herself away from Orion, the better off he would be.
“Kneel, slave,” Automedon said, and faced the rising sun.
Zach did as he was told. He heard his master mumbling something in Greek and saw him take a beautiful, jeweled dagger out of the sheath on his hip. Automedon finished speaking, kissed the blade, and turned to face Zach.
“Which is your strong hand?” he asked almost pleasantly. That frightened Zach.
“My left.”
“The mark of Ares,” Automedon said with surprised approval.
Zach didn’t know how to respond to that. He hadn’t had any say in which hand was stronger, so how could it be a compliment? He decided to hold his tongue. His master usually preferred it when Zach was silent.
“Hold it out,” Automedon ordered.
Zach extended his left hand, trying to keep it from shaking too much. His master hated any signs of weakness.
“Do you see this dagger?” Automedon asked, not expecting a reply. “This was my blood brother’s dagger. His mother gave it to him before he went to war. Pretty, isn’t it?”
Zach nodded solemnly, his outstretched hand trembling underneath the beautiful blade in the cold dawn.
“Did you know that a part of a warrior’s soul is kept inside his weapons and his armor? And when you are killed in battle, and your opponent takes your armor and your sword, he owns a bit of your soul?”
Zach nodded. In the Iliad there were several heated fights about who got whose armor. More than one of the great heroes died in dishonor over armor. He knew it was a really big deal.
“That is because we all swear on our arms. It’s the oath that puts our souls inside the metal,” Automedon explained intensely. Zach nodded to show he understood. “I swore my loyalty on this dagger once, as did my brother before me. I swore to serve or die.”
