“Land the boat,” Athena said.
“Where? Near that?”
“He’s not a ‘that.’ He’s a dog.” She pointed toward him again, and Cassandra reluctantly maneuvered the boat toward shore.
“Dog,” Cassandra muttered. “He’s the size of an elk.”
And a large elk at that. Cerberus was two thousand pounds of muscle and shining black fur, with fangs just a size too large for his mouth.
“He doesn’t seem dangerous,” said Athena. “His tail’s wagging, for Pete’s sake.”
“Yeah,” Cassandra said. “But wagging why? Maybe he’s happy to see us because it’s been a long time between meals.”
The belly of the boat scraped against the rock and sand bed of the river. Athena used the other oar to push them in hard, and wedged the bow in deep. As they landed, Cerberus stayed back, watching with alert black eyes in both heads, tail still wagging softly.
“Cerberus.” Athena held one hand out and slipped her other, sock-wrapped hand into her pocket, for her knife. Just in case. The dog’s heads bobbed and licked their jaws. If he decided to bite with both sets of teeth, she’d lose most of an arm.
“Well,” she said, “will you sniff? Or strike?”
He did neither. The left head darted forward and ducked under her hand. She grinned and let go of the knife to pet the other head.
“Is it safe for me, too?” Cassandra asked.
“I should think so.” Athena scratched Cerberus’ ears as Cassandra got out of the boat, careful to keep her feet dry. In seconds she was also stroking and patting the dog’s massive shoulder.
“He’s sort of … monstrously cute.” Cassandra leaned away from his teeth and looked at the fallen head, lying limp and furless in a string of bones. “That’s either disgusting or the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Maybe it was both. Athena couldn’t help noticing the meticulous cleanliness of the bones, as if they’d been picked clean of meat, skin, and fur. She looked at the remaining heads suspiciously, but he was a dog. That was what dogs did.
She turned the left head back and forth. The fur was smooth and the eyes bright, the gums and tongue pink and wet. The middle head looked much the same, except for a little cloudiness in one of the eyes. Even sadder than the thought of two heads eating the remains of the third was the thought of one head, the last head, doing it alone.
“Is he going to die, too?” Cassandra asked.
“Not after we take back Olympus,” said Athena. “I’ve always liked Cerberus. And who knows? He’s Hades’ dog, the dog of the lord of the dead. Maybe this is as far as it goes for him.” She scratched his chins thoughtfully. “One dead head.”
“This is … interesting and everything,” Cassandra said. “But what now? Where is Aidan?”
Athena patted both heads and tried to look into both sets of eyes.
“Cerberus. Be a good boy and take us to Mommy and Daddy.”
24
CORPSE ROYALTY
They walked behind the massive black dog through the caverns of the Underworld to the gates of Hades. Cassandra barely blinked, taking in the mass and fire of the place. The starkness of it, the lack of change. She had thought that it would smell like decay or sulfur, that there’d be tiny, dancing demons. But the only smell was the faint metallic scent of the river behind them.
The underworld. So few living mortals had seen it. She couldn’t believe she wanted to be there.
She walked closer to Athena, who was as usual solid and steady as stone, and so familiar compared to everything else. She wanted to take Athena’s arm. But of course she didn’t actually do it.
“Where are the dead?” she asked. “Where’s Aidan?” She tried not to sound so disappointed. But her heart had hoped she’d be able to sense him the moment they arrived. Her foolish heart had hoped he’d be there to meet the boat.
“They’re everywhere and nowhere,” said Athena. “They barely exist unless someone has need of them. Like dusty books in a boarded-up library. Like stuffing in the walls.”
Cassandra stopped in her tracks. She didn’t want to see him that way. A shade, no more substantial than a hologram.
Athena touched her shoulder.
“I didn’t mean that’s what happened to Aidan,” she said. “He’s my brother. He’s different. To get him out, we first need to speak to Hades. My uncle. This is his turf, and you don’t take anything without permission.”