Page 36 of Wrath of the Triple Goddess

My grief turned to rage. I snarled at my captors. I frothed at the mouth. My eyes started to burn, flames singeing my eyebrows. My teeth elongated into fangs. The iron shackles slipped from my wrists as my hands narrowed into the paws of a black hound.

I was about to lunge at the nearest soldier when Annabeth’s voice broke through my nightmare. “Percy!”

“KILL THE GREEKS!” I yelled, sitting up in a daze.

The dreamscape was gone. Annabeth and Grover had dispatched the last of the undead warriors. Nope licked my face, trying to help, but rage and grief clung to me like a bad case of motion sickness.

“I…ugh.” I crawled to the curb and threw up, as you do when you’re a hero.

Even Nope didn’t want any part of that. He hid behind Annabeth’s legs.

Grover put his hand on my shoulder. “You okay there, buddy?”

I shuddered. “Did we get them all?”

“The Trojans? Yeah. But Hecuba got away.”

“What happened to you?” Annabeth asked me. No judgment in her tone, just concern.

I told them what I’d seen and felt. “I was Hecuba,” I said. “I don’t think she’s trying to kill anyone. She just wants to make them feel her pain.”

Annabeth frowned. “Thousands of years of grief, thinking about how her children died. Poor Hecuba—”

“Who is presently terrorizing Queens,” Grover said. “And wasting perfectly good food.”

“You’re a vegetarian,” I reminded him.

He looked offended. “There arevatsof innocent tzatziki sauce in that restaurant! Tzatziki sauce!”

I was too weak to argue. Annabeth and Grover helped me stand. Nope supportively peed on my shoe.

“So we failed,” I said. “We didn’t even get to try our cute puppy bait.”

Nope whimpered. I guess he didn’t like the wordbait.

“The night’s not over,” Annabeth said. “I get the feeling Hecuba won’t stop until she’s worn-out or—”

Right on cue, from a few blocks over, a new round of screaming shattered the evening calm.

“Can you walk?” Grover asked me.

I replied by running toward the screaming, as you do when you’re a hero and you’re done throwing up.

Our next lucky winner in the Terrorize a Greek Establishment contest was Papou’s Pastries.

Papou himself was out front. At least, I assumed he was the owner. He was a grandfatherly guy with a helmet of white hair, a splotchy apron wrapped around his belly, and meaty arms swinging a push broom toward a mob of dead Trojans while he screamed at them in Greek.

Grover stumbled to a stop. “Looks like he’s got things under control.”

“Rats!” Papou howled at us in English, maybe looking for sympathy. “I can’t have rats in my bakery!”

He had a point. The undead come and go, but the New York City Department of Health is forever. Rats would get his kitchen shut down immediately.

“We’ll take care of it, sir,” Annabeth promised.

She pulled out her dagger and started weaving among the undead, stabbing them one by one. This was impressive and all, but it made it difficult for me to help her. My sword was better at slashy-slashy than stabby-stabby, and I did not want to slashy-slashy Annabeth. That would make her mad.

Grover waded in with hooves of fury. Nope barked and bit undead ankles. After my last experience, I didn’t want to touch any cursed flesh, but I used Riptide’s hilt to bash some Trojan noses (which sounds like the name of a really bad punk band).

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