The Blood of Olympus - Lycaon Wounds

Lycaon broke free of his bone cage with a triumphant howl. “You will suffer, son of Hades!”

What else is new? Nico thought.

He palmed the pocketknife. “Come get me, you mutt! Or do you have to stay like a good dog until your master shows up?”

Lycaon sprang through the air, his claws extended, his fangs bared. Nico wrapped his free hand around the rope and concentrated, a bead of sweat trickling down his neck.

As the wolf king fell on him, Nico thrust the silver knife into Lycaon’s chest. All around the temple, wolves howled as one.

The wolf king sank his claws into Nico’s arms. His fangs stopped less than an inch from Nico’s face. Nico ignored his own pain and jabbed the pocketknife to the hilt between Lycaon’s ribs.

“Be useful, dog,” he snarled. “Back to the shadows.”

Lycaon’s eyes rolled up in his head. He dissolved into a pool of inky darkness.

Then several things happened at once. The outraged pack of wolves surged forward. From a nearby rooftop, a booming voice yelled, “STOP THEM!”

Nico heard the unmistakable sound of a large bow being drawn taut.

Then he melted into the pool of Lycaon’s shadow, taking his friends and the Athena Parthenos with him—slipping into cold ether with no idea where he would emerge.


[...]


AT LEAST THEY DIDN’T END UP ON ANOTHER CRUISE SHIP.

The jump from Portugal had landed them in the middle of the Atlantic, where Reyna had spent her whole day on the lido deck of the Azores Queen, shooing little kids off the Athena Parthenos, which they seemed to think was a waterslide.

Unfortunately, the next jump brought Reyna home.

They appeared ten feet in the air, hovering over a restaurant courtyard that Reyna recognized. She and Nico dropped onto a large birdcage, which promptly broke, dumping them into a cluster of potted ferns along with three very alarmed parrots. Coach Hedge hit the canopy over a bar. The Athena Parthenos landed on her feet with a THUMP, flattening a patio table and flipping a dark green umbrella, which settled onto the Nike statue in Athena’s hand, so the goddess of wisdom looked like she was holding a tropical drink.

“Gah!” Coach Hedge yelled. The canopy ripped and he fell behind the bar with a crash of bottles and glasses. He recovered well. He popped up with a dozen miniature plastic swords in his hair, grabbed the soda gun, and served himself a drink.

“I like it!” He tossed a wedge of pineapple into his mouth. “But next time, kid, can we land on the floor and not ten feet above it?”
Nico dragged himself out of the ferns. He collapsed into the nearest chair and waved off a blue parrot that was trying to land on his head. After the fight with Lycaon, Nico had discarded his shredded aviator jacket. His black skull-pattern T-shirt wasn’t in much better shape. Reyna had stitched up the gashes on his biceps, which gave Nico a slightly creepy Frankenstein look, but the cuts were still swollen and red. Unlike bites, werewolf claw marks wouldn’t transmit lycanthropy, but Reyna knew firsthand that they healed slowly and burned like acid.

“I’ve gotta sleep.” Nico looked up in a daze. “Are we safe?”

Reyna scanned the courtyard. The place seemed deserted, though she didn’t understand why. This time of night, it should’ve been packed. Above them, the evening sky glowed a murky terracotta, the same color as the building’s walls. Ringing the atrium, the second-story balconies were empty except for potted azaleas hanging from the white metal railings. Behind a wall of glass doors, the restaurant’s interior was dark. The only sound was the fountain gurgling forlornly and the occasional squawk of a disgruntled parrot.

“This is Barrachina,” Reyna said.

“What kind of bear?” Hedge opened a jar of maraschino cherries and chugged them down.

“It’s a famous restaurant,” Reyna said, “in the middle of Old San Juan. They invented the piña colada here, back in the 1960s, I think.”

Nico pitched out of his chair, curled up on the floor, and started snoring.


[...]


GIVEN A CHOICE between death and the Buford Zippy Mart, Nico would’ve had a tough time deciding. At least he knew his way around the Land of the Dead. Plus the food was fresher.

“I still don’t get it,” Coach Hedge muttered as they roamed the center aisle. “They named a whole town after Leo’s table?”

“I think the town was here first, Coach,” Nico said.

“Huh.” The coach picked up a box of powdered donuts. “Maybe you’re right. These look at least a hundred years old. I miss those Portuguese farturas.”

Nico couldn’t think about Portugal without his arms hurting. Across his biceps, the werewolf claw marks were still swollen and red. The store clerk had asked Nico if he’d picked a fight with a bobcat.

They bought a first-aid kit, a pad of paper (so Coach Hedge could write more paper airplane messages to his wife), some junk food and soda (since the banquet table in Reyna’s new magic tent only provided healthy food and fresh water), and some miscellaneous camping supplies for Coach Hedge’s useless but impressively complicated monster traps.

Nico had been hoping to find some fresh clothes. Two days since they’d fled San Juan, he was tired of walking around in his tropical ISLA DEL ENCANTORICO shirt, especially since Coach Hedge had a matching one. Unfortunately, the Zippy Mart only carried T-shirts with Confederate flags and corny sayings like KEEP CALM AND FOLLOW THE REDNECK. Nico decided he’d stick with parrots and palm trees.


(This is the last mention of the wounds going forward, so we can assume theyv'e healed.)


- The Blood of Olympus, Chapters 16, 21, and 29