The Dogs of Athens Read Free

answer. They don’t like the change that they sense in her. She, who has been changeless since the beginning.
    â€œYou said we would hunt,” she says instead. “Where? In the hills?”
    Something ripples through the pack. Something that not even Artemis can hear.
    â€œStay,” Daphne says. She goes around the corner of the building. The other dogs whine. But it is only a moment before she returns, a human.
    Artemis holds her breath. It has been a long time since she’s seen Daphne as the girl she once was, the white-armed, raven-haired beauty in a short tunic and sandals. Daphne spares the pack a glance, and then moves off into the crowds.
    â€œWhat is she up to?” Artemis asks. But the moment she sees Daphne slide into the center of the group of boys, she knows. The boys are drunk and excitable. It will not take long for them to rise to the bait.
    â€œWe could go north,” Artemis says softly, “and fell bear. We could run them down and cling to their shoulders and dodge their claws.” In the center of the boys, Daphne has her hands everywhere, running along their jawlines and tracing their chests. There are five of them, and they are perhaps twenty or twenty-one, but they are still just boys, not men like they would have been once, at that age.
    â€œWe could go south, after antelope. We could tumble a dozen and carve up the best cuts. We could eat beside lions and jackals.”
    The pack does not listen. Their eyes and ears are on Daphne, and their prey. Iphigenia growls.
    â€œWe should not have come here,” Artemis whispers.
    *   *   *
    The boys are loud; easy to track around the corners of the darkening Athens streets. Artemis doesn’t know what Daphne has promised them; a party, perhaps, or some grand adventure; but they laugh and hoot innocently, casting pale, open-mouthed shadows on the walls.
    These boys have done something, she thinks. Committed a crime, or a sin to be punished for.
    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.
    â€œHelp 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.
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œThis 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.
    â€œOh,” the boy whimpers, and Artemis sighs. The boy is not Actaeon, but that doesn’t matter. All Artemis knows is that she