The Dogs of Athens
Page 2
Haven’t they all? Haven’t all mortals offended in some way? And isn’t it always her pleasure, to dispatch them?
But there is something different about this hunt. It’s in the hunch of her dogs’ shoulders and the eager foam on their lips. They look savage. They tremble, and look mad.
The pack darts around the corner at some unknown signal from Daphne. There is a gentle, collective gasp. The boys are surprised, but not afraid. They’ve seen many packs of roving, friendly strays. They don’t start to scream until they see the teeth. Some don’t scream until they feel them.
Dog kills are noisy. They’re full of movement: paw pads and claws scratching across the stone of the alley, the sound of snapping jaws growing wetter with blood. Clothing pulled until it tears. Flesh pulled until it rips. Shouts for help. Cries. A growl so deep that it is almost a purr.
When it grows quiet, Artemis rounds the corner. Whether the boys tried to stand together she can no longer tell. They’ve been dragged apart and lie shredded, faces slack and eyes already glazing. One boy for each dog, and perhaps that was the only reason they were chosen in the first place.
“Help me.”
Artemis glances at two dead faces before she sees him. He’s still alive, facing her, and facing Daphne, who stands with fingers hooked into talons, unable to decide in which of her forms to kill him, maiden or dog.
“It’s you,” Artemis says. “The boy who looks like Actaeon.”
His hands shake, useless, at his sides. Loxo stops tugging at his friend’s intestines and growls at him with a red muzzle.
“This one is mine, Goddess,” Daphne says. She sinks back down onto all fours. Her fangs return with her shiny black fur. They are longer, and sharper, than Artemis has ever seen them.
“Oh,” the boy whimpers, and Artemis sighs. The boy is not Actaeon, but that doesn’t matter. All Artemis knows is that she cannot stand in an alley of corpses and watch that face be torn again to pieces.
“Come, Daphne,” she says. “Leave him.”
She gives the command, and Daphne’s hackles rise. The muscle of the big hound’s haunches stretch beneath her skin.
“Daphne,” Artemis says, and the disbelief in her voice is plain.
Daphne snarls. She lunges, straight for the boy’s throat.
Artemis has no bow, or arrows. Not even a knife. She’s come unarmed into the city, except for her fists and her wits. She leaps and gets hold of Daphne around the ribs. The dog scratches and snaps. She twists in Artemis’ arms, the two of them rolling and kicking up dust. Artemis hears her own breath. She hears the whines of the pack as they watch nervously. She was never as good at hand-to-hand as her older sister Athena, but she manages to kick out and send Daphne rolling.
Daphne strikes the wall of the building beside them and yips. She lies still in a dusty black heap. Artemis rises. The pack looks unsure. Iphigenia’s wide, yellow eyes move back and forth between the goddess and the fallen dog.
The boy is gone. He cleverly used the commotion as a distraction to escape, and Artemis is thankful. If he’d been standing there shivering, she wouldn’t have saved him twice. She walks to Daphne and kneels, stroking her soft black fur.
“Daphne. Are you hurt?”
The fur beneath her hands trembles. The black dog twists around and bites. Her fangs sink deep into Artemis’ hand.
Artemis jumps back. Dark red blood wells in the holes and runs out onto the ground. Daphne licks it off of her teeth. The pack laps it out of the dirt. The wounds do not heal.
Phylonoe’s tail is low, but wagging. One of the dogs growls but Artemis cannot tell which. They sniff at her blood as it continues to run.
“It’s not healing,” Artemis says.
Daphne shoulders through the pack and lowers onto her belly. Her ears are tucked, and her tail thumps the ground, contrite.
“Forgive me, Goddess,” she says. “I don’t know what came over me.”
The pack edges closer, their noses twitching. A voice in Artemis’ head says, Run.
It sounds like Apollo.
“You were overtaken by the hunt. It was my fault, for keeping you out of the wild.”
Daphne’s tail thumps harder. Her brown eyes are soft. She licks her jaws, and her fangs are long.
The pack shoves red noses into her hand and licks the wounds. Their tails wag excitedly.
“We’ll go after game again,” says Artemis. “We’ll go to the jungle.”
Run, sister.
But she cannot run. She strokes their sweet heads, and scratches Erigone’s lopsided ear. She could never run from them. They are her companions. They are her dogs.
In the back of her mind, the voice comes again, the one that sounds so very much like her long-lost brother.
They are not your dogs anymore, Artemis.
They are beasts.
About the Author
Kendare Blake holds an MA in creative writing from Middlesex University in northern London. She is the critically acclaimed author of Anna Dressed in Blood, Girl of Nightmares, and Antigoddess. She lives and writes in Lynnwood, Washington. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Begin Reading
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Kendare Blake
Art copyright © 2015 by Goñi Montes