Chapter 2: Candles Against the Darkness

Did I wake up just to die?

The thought was a bit morbid by my standards, but it was hard not to think about it while I was between a giant hellhound's teeth. Some part of my brain, the part that was trying to avoid thinking about the fact that one of my best friends was using me as a chew toy, absently noted details about my surroundings.

It was really dark. That was pretty much all there was to notice, because I couldn't actually see anything. I hoped that was because there was no light and not just because I was starting to black out. I wasn't exactly a doctor, but I'd seen more wounds then most army medics and, from what I could self-diagnose, I wasn't doing so well. I was bleeding a lot, I was pretty sure at least half my ribs had snapped, one of my arms was broken, and her teeth had already done who knows how much damage to my…everything. I was betting she'd damaged most of my organs and was making things worse with every grind and shake.

But—and when this was the good news, you know you're a demigod—I still had a hand free. Better yet, it was my right hand, already grasping Riptide's pen form. While being in a monster's mouth was a bad place to be in general, I was in a fairly good position, all told. From here, I could easily reach her eye and a sword to the face could distract anyone. The pain could make her open her mouth, allowing me to roll free and do something.

I could stab her with Riptide, right here and now.

Except…I couldn't. Even while she was chewing on me, I couldn't bring myself to stab her.

Part of that, a big part, was a result of the slowly returning memories, reminding me of how many people I'd lost recently. While I was sincerely doubtful of my current ability to add my dog to that list, it wasn't something I wanted to even try. That wasn't me ignoring the situation, either—at least, not entirely. Let me tell you, the fact that it was one of my friends hurting me like this was almost as painful as the fact that I was being used as bubblegum right now. But because of that, I also knew—knew—that something was wrong. Mrs. O'Leary might have looked frightening and she could be damn vicious when she needed to be, but she'd never do this to me, which meant that something was affecting her, controlling her, and that this wasn't her fault.

Find out whose fault it was immediately went on my to-do list, followed shortly after by stabbing them repeatedly.

Before that, however, I had to snap her out of this. Preferably before she snapped me in half.

I immediately started noticing problems with that. First of all, again, I was bleeding a lot; it was getting hard to think now, to even breathe—though that last one might have been because of the teeth and blood in my lungs rather than the blood loss in general. Worse, I felt more things breaking with every movement of her massive jaws, not that it mattered a whole lot at this point. While my sword arm was still in working condition, pretty much nothing else was. I wasn't in any condition to stop Mrs. O'Leary nonviolently, much less find who was responsible. I wasn't even in any condition to walk right now. I wasn't going to be doing anything but dying unless I got to water soon and I was nowhere near water right now. Even if I stabbed Mrs. O'Leary and she let me go, it wouldn't make much difference unless I did something soon.

No choice, I thought before calling out to the sea.

I haven't done this since, uh…well, since I accidentally caused a volcanic eruption, evacuated a few million people, unleashed Typhon, and nearly killed myself doing it besides. But as a son of Poseidon, I could call out to and control water. In the right circumstances, like if I had access to shells or something else from the sea, I could even call water to myself across great distances. Sadly, I wasn't carrying a bunch of shells on me—something I made a note to correct as soon as possible to keep this from happening again—but even without them, I had one more trick.

I was of the sea. A prince of it, depending on who you asked. I don't know about that, but it counted enough for this.

Also, hurt.

A lot.

I released a hiss that quickly faltered into a groan as it felt like someone had poured liquid fire into my veins. I hadn't exactly had a lot of time to pay attention to what had happened last time I did this—I was burning alive because a bunch of monsters had been throwing lava on me, long story—but this time I saw a bit more. Something gold flashed across my vision, gold like the ichor that served as a god's blood, and I felt my flesh crack. Not split but crack, like broken stone or steel, and water spilt out from the openings instead of blood. It flooded out from me, spilling in a sudden torrent both from her mouth and down her throat. As the unexpected surge made her choke, Mrs. O'Leary reflexively let go of me and started shaking her head, coughing up gallons of icky salt water. Even then, however, I continued to unleash the flood, for all that it felt like someone was siphoning all the blood from my body, primarily because I wasn't sure how to stop.

How did I stop it last time, I tried to think through the pain. But I didn't remember stopping it at all—the volcano had erupted and I'd been shot out of it like a cannonball and sometime later I'd woken up on Calypso's Island. But I could feel the cracks spreading even as my lips, eyes, and skin dried painfully. As Mrs. O'Leary dropped me, I landed with a splash in the water I'd called, and for a moment, I simply laid there, exhausted, bleeding, broken, and still leaking painfully.

And then, all of a sudden, I felt strength flow back into me. The pain was brushed aside as if it weren't important and I felt my wounds, gruesome as they were, begin to close. Bones slipped back into place in seconds, pieces coming back together as they did, and muscles shifted and reattached. Open wounds pressed closed, starting from the worst of my injuries and spreading out from there. After a few seconds, what should have been lethal injuries were nothing but scars. After a few more, even those had begun to fade. Slowly, the flooding cracks closed and ceased to spill water, and though the exhaustion that came with that didn't fade, I managed to ignore it somewhat.

I shook my legs once to confirm that they were working, rolled over, and stood up as quickly as I could. It was dark still, but with the amount of water present, it didn't matter—I could see the same way I saw in the depths of the sea, in shades of heat and cold. It wasn't like normal vision, but I could tell where everything was, including Mrs. O'Leary.

"Mrs. O'Leary," I said with a cough, turning my eyes towards the massive creature watching me warily even as it continued to hack up water. Crouching slightly, she released a rumbling growl—as in, loud enough to make the ground rumble. She was a lot of dog. "Mrs. O'Leary, it's me."

She leapt at me and though I quickly brought up a shield of water, I nearly staggered when she hit it like a truck. Immediately deciding that blocking it directly was a bad idea, I shifted the water to make myself slide quickly to the side and released the shield, letting her drop just short of my previous position where she whirled towards me again.

"Mrs. O'Leary, it's me!" I shouted, making the water flood forward in an attempt to mess with her footing. "It's me, Percy!"

There was a slight hitch in her growl at the sound of my name and though it wasn't much, it was enough to give me hope.

Hope…heh. I guess I had some left after all.

"Remember the Labyrinth?" I urged, trying to press my advantage. "Daedalus? The whistle? How we played Get the Greek together? Remember the bronze bones that B—"

My voice faltered for a moment. Mostly because of the exhaustion.

"That Beckendorf made?" I asked. "Come on. You and me, we've been to Hades and back. Twice."

Mrs. O'Leary shook her head with another snarl and leapt at me again, but I dodged out of the way just in time, rolling quickly through the water.

"I don't know what happened to you," I continued. "Or who did this, but I swear to every god there is that I'll fix it if I can. But…Mrs. O'Leary. I don't know what's happening right now. That's why I called you—I needed your help. I'd probably have died if you hadn't shown up, but you did. When I called, you came. Whatever else, you recognized the sound, right?"

I whistled again and Mrs. O'Leary shook her head, as if to shake something that was buzzing around her head away. Seeing that it seemed to be working, I did it again, drawing out the sound until she drowned it out with a bark like a tank firing and charged at me. This time, instead of dodging to the side I leapt straight up, twisting to land on her shoulders as she passed beneath me.

She slid to a halt at once, throwing up waves as she skid through the water, and then began to writhe in an attempt to throw me off. She jumped up and down and bucked like a bull to try and dislodge me, but I held on tight even when it seemed like the teeth would shake from my head. Finally, she lowered herself and made to roll over, and only then did I jump away.

As she turned over in the water, however, I caught her with it. A sudden rush of waves flipped her around an extra time and then clung to her, slipping into her fur and then binding her with liquid chains. The water slid into the shape of two massive hands that I lifted quickly, grasping her sides and lifting her into the air such that her struggling limbs couldn't get any traction.

I grunted at the weight—even if I wasn't lifting her with my own arms, she weighed more than a semi-truck. Even so, I approached her, something she noticed at once and began growling about.

"Easy," I said, slowing but not stopping even as the strain of holding her in the air, on top of everything else that had happened to me today, started to push against my limits. "Easy. It's me, okay? It's me."

She continued growling but I approached unflinchingly until I stood right in front of her. She did her best to press forward, snapping her jaws at me, and a whole lot of razor sharp teeth clicked together all of an inch away from my nose. Even then, I held my ground.

"Easy," I said soothingly, reaching out a hand to pet her nose. Her growls increased in pitch but I stayed calm and continued gently. "It's me."

She continued to growl but didn't snap at me again even as I kept stroking her muzzle. After a minute, her growls lowered in volume and—mostly because of that but mostly because I was dead tired and she was a lot of dog to hold up in the air indefinitely—I left the water arms slip away, lowering her slowly back to the floor. I carefully didn't show any sign of worry or concern as I continued to pet her and was enormously relieved when she didn't eat my face.

"Do you remember me?" I asked quietly, meeting her eyes.

Mrs. O'Leary sniffed at me for a long, long minute before licking me. And just as I was wondering whether that was a 'yes' or a 'you seem tasty', she followed it up by nuzzling my chest—my whole chest—with the tip of her nose.

I sighed quietly in relief and smiled, hugging her muzzle.

"Thata girl."