Yo :) Happy Friday! Another fun, action-y chapter comin' up. Enjoy!

XXIII
NICO

Okay, so maybe playing a deadly game of tag with a fifty-thousand-pound Underworld monster wasn't one of Nico's better ideas.

Thank the gods they were in a forest, otherwise he wouldn't have lasted five minutes. The trees weren't exactly immovable objects to the giant hellhound, but at the very least they succeeded in slowing it down. Nico ran through the darkness, weaving in and out of tree trunks and shrubbery, changing direction every hundred or so yards, all in an effort to confuse the hound and make himself more difficult to track. It worked for a while. Oftentimes he'd veer off to the left or right and hear the monster continue straight for a bit before realizing it was going the wrong way. He must have given off a pretty distinct smell, though, because somehow the beast always had a way of finding him again.

A very unfortunate circumstance was that this particular pursuit reminded Nico of the time he'd spent in that Tennessee forest after he'd lost his memories last month, and his similar stalker/prey relationship with the hunter Orion. At the time, he'd been terrified—having no idea who he was or how he'd gotten there, or for that matter why some lunatic with an extensive and obviously illegal firearm supply was so keen on playing horrible game after horrible game of hide-and-seek. It was maddening, feeling as though he ought to fight back but having no idea how or why. Luring the hellhound away from his friends in Indiana was different in that at least this time he fully understood the situation, but still the memories unnerved him. He made a mental note to steer perfectly clear of dark forests once this stupid war was over. He'd had enough of them to last him quite a long time.

His plan for the current situation was to lead the hellhound far enough away from their crash site and keep it occupied long enough for Leo to finish repairing the dragon—however long that would take. Then he would shadow-travel back and they could leave before the hellhound caught back up with them. He thought it wasn't a bad plan, overall, but that was of course notwithstanding exactly how he planned to distract the hound for so long. He couldn't keep running forever. At some point he would have to stop and fight, but all he had to defend himself was Reyna's dagger. He was reluctant to summon anymore undead helpers, as that drained his energy much more quickly than shadow-travel. That, unfortunately, left him with very few options.

After fifteen minutes or so, Nico happened upon a hilled clearing with a forest path crossing through the center. Shooting a glance behind him and seeing nothing—though his ears told him his pursuer wasn't far behind—he sprinted out into the clearing and crossed it at an angle, trying not to spend much time in the open. It was enough for the hound, though, who broke through the trees behind him and immediately pounced, covering the cleared expanse with great speed. Nico looked over his shoulder to see the hellhound in midair, jaws open wide and claws outstretched, and barely had time to skid to a halt and dive out of the way before being impaled. He rolled across the ground and scrambled to his feet as the monster turned to face him, bowing low and growling threateningly.

"Aw, great," Nico muttered as he drew Reyna's dagger and held it tightly. He needed an opening if he planned to run again. Bolting off with the animal staring right at him would be a highly unintelligent move.

When the hound leapt, Nico was ready. He ducked and darted forward, allowing the monster to soar over him, and spun around, sticking it above its back right leg with the dagger when it landed. It growled and turned around, seeming relatively unperturbed by the injury, and made a grab for Nico with its sharp claws. He dropped to his stomach on the ground and rolled out of the way, coming up just in time to miraculously deflect another claw-strike with Reyna's knife. He grabbed a rock the size of a fist from the dirt beside him and stood, chucking it at the hound's face. It smacked it in the eye—the same eye Leo had earlier burned—and it howled and whimpered in pain. Taking his chance, Nico ran around behind the monster and dove back into the trees, hoping this wasn't the direction from which he'd come but really not remembering in the slightest.

The hellhound resumed the pursuit in seconds. Nico heard it knock a tree sideways into another as it left the clearing. He veered to the side and wound around a tree, heading off his left and trying to come up with a way to put more distance between himself and the hellhound without completely losing it—or better yet, a way to injure it and slow it down. Then when a wild idea struck him, he had to pause and consider that he was really going nuts before accepting that he didn't actually have much to lose by trying.

Nico ground to a halt and glanced upward, searching for a tree branch at about the right height. He spotted one roughly thirty feet from the ground and stepped back into darkness without a second thought. When he reappeared on the branch, he had to drop immediately to a crouch to keep from losing his balance and grab onto the wood with his free hand, pulling painfully on his injured shoulder. He could hear the hellhound approaching and hoped it wouldn't have veered too far away. He would have to time this perfectly.

Sure enough, not a second later, the snarling intensified and the monster appeared through the darkness, bounding around the trees in a direction that should—with a bit of luck—land it in the right place. Nico held his breath and waited until the hound was mere feet from his tree, and then took leave of his rationality and jumped. By a stroke of fortune, he landed hard on the hellhound's back, just below its shoulders, and had to latch onto its rough fur to keep from being thrown as it ran across the uneven ground.

The hellhound must have noticed that something had happened because its ears seemed to perk up and its pace slowed. Nico sat up and dug his knees into the grooves in the animal's back before raising Reyna's dagger and stabbing it between the shoulder blades. Had the blade been longer, it might have killed it. But at the very least he seemed to have cause it extreme discomfort, because it howled at once and skidded to a halt so fast that Nico's eyes had barely widened in alarm before he slid from the monster's back and landed flat on the ground, feeling a hard collection of rocks dig into his back.

Nico gave a low groan and grimaced as pain flared in his shoulder again. He pushed himself up on his elbows and realized that he was no longer holding Reyna's dagger. What was worse, it was lying on the ground a few yards away from him, and the hellhound was sniffing at it curiously. The monster may have sensed that the black dust covering the golden blade had come from its own body, because it suddenly bared its teeth in an angry snarl. Then it opened its mouth, reached out with its tongue to lift the weapon, and swallowed the dagger whole.

"Oops," Nico murmured, wincing. Reyna wouldn't be happy about that. And again he was weaponless.

But then another gleam of gold flashed in the corner of his eye, and he glanced to his left to see the Imperial gold sword Reyna had wielded earlier still stuck in the hellhound's back right leg. Well, wasn't that lucky? With a quick glance at the hound's head, which seemed to be sniffing the ground for any more offending snacks, Nico climbed quietly to his feet and crept toward its leg. He gripped the sword's hilt in both hands and pulled, freeing it from the monster's flesh and causing it to growl in irritation. It whipped around toward him, but again he was ready.

The gold sword was heavier than what he was used to, but it was easily better than fighting bare-handed. With some initial difficulty, he raised it above his head and blocked the monster's teeth, casting its head aside. He aimed a slice at its neck but it swung its head too quickly, knocking into him and bowling him off his feet. He rolled across the dirt as the hellhound's front paws leapt for him, then sprang to his feet and succeeded in cutting across its right front leg. As it growled, he vaulted over its paws and started off through the forest, but so many small injuries must have brought on a sudden wave of hyper-intelligence in the monster, because rather than chase after him it turned and shoved over the nearest tree, knocking it straight toward Nico. He turned and saw the trunk plummeting after him and barely had time to yell in surprise and throw himself out of the way before it crashed down, shaking the ground and causing Nico to roll twelve feet across a rocky hill.

Entire body aching, Nico groaned in frustration, shaking dirt out of his eyes and mouth. He started to lean up from the ground but was stopped almost instantly by a rough, heavy, black shadow that slammed him in the chest and shoved him back to the dirt. A sharp, searing pain shot through his right leg and he screamed, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth. The shadow pressed down on him harder, almost knocking the breath from his lungs, and he finally looked up as his vision focused on a pair of angry, red eyes staring down at him above deadly yellow teeth dripping with drool.

Nico was filled suddenly with a powerful sense of dread. His fight was over. The hellhound had him pinned to the ground with no immediate weapon (Reyna's sword had left his hand) and could kill him at any moment. He couldn't even shadow-travel away—he couldn't see to be sure, but judging by the feeling alone one of the hellhound's claws had impaled his leg, meaning that if he tried to use shadow-travel the hound would only be dragged along for the ride—which would: A, defeat the purpose of escaping, and B, probably kill him from the effort of transporting something that size.

There was only one option—one final defense Nico had that might have a chance of saving his life. It was a skill he had only begun learning recently and had yet to perfect, but at this point he didn't have time to think about what could go wrong. It was this or become puppy chow.

Nico locked his eyes onto the hellhound's and reached out with his mind, trying to muster his confidence and assurance. He remembered what his father had told him—they could claim physical or mental control over creatures of the Underworld, but only if they truly believed that they possessed dominance. He had to convince the creature through transfer of emotion that he was in charge, and that it had no choice but to do what he wanted. He'd used the same trick against the Fury Megaera in Death Valley the day before the eclipse, and it had worked for a time—until she'd called her sisters for help, anyway. It had been easier that time, though—he hadn't been completely at the creature's mercy like he was now. Acting tough was a lot more difficult when the thing you're trying to subjugate could behead you with a simple snap of its teeth.

Getting into the hellhound's head was the easy part, but he wasn't entirely prepared for what followed. A hungry wave of murderous intent flowed into his own mind from the monster. The word kill… kill… kill… repeated in a deep growl of a voice. But the harder he listened, he started to hear another voice behind it—higher, cooler, more melodious. It was a woman's voice. He thought he should recognize it, but he was concentrating too hard on the mental connection to give it enough thought. He tried to drown out the woman's voice with ideas of his own—to stop, to calm down, not to kill. The hellhound seemed to blink and pause in confusion, unsure which voice to listen to. It shifted its paws, twisting the claw still piercing Nico's leg, and his focus was momentarily blinded by a white streak of pain.

The lapse cost him. The hellhound growled as the woman's voice continued to repeat kill… kill… kill… in a morbid lullaby. It opened its mouth to strike, and Nico threw all his mental power into one final attempt to break through as the great, sword-like fangs sank in for the kill.

Cliffhangers are the best ;)

I super love the next chapter, so I'll probably put it up Monday. What do you guys think? How 'bout a review, hmm? Hmm? Haha, later days!

-oMM