Nico's Quest

Chapter4

"Anubis!" Nico leapt to his feet and pulled out his switchblade. He hit the button that turned it into a three foot long sword of pure Stygian iron and hurried toward the water's edge, trying to discern what was happening. The violent splashing of the water made that difficult but as Nico got closer he was able to get a better idea what was going on.

Anubis was in his jackal form, fighting something massive. Nico couldn't get a good look at it, but he could tell that it was bigger than Anubis and in the water it seemed to have the advantage. In fact, it seemed to have latched onto the back of Anubis' neck by its teeth and was worrying at the scruff of his neck, trying to bite through deeper and reach his spine. Nico felt his blood start to boil as he launched himself into the fight.

He landed on the monster's back and immediately sunk his sword between two of its vertebrae, severing its spinal cord quite neatly. The monster made a horrible gasping noise as its hind legs went limp and it released Anubis from its grasp.

"How do you like it?" Nico growled and twisted his sword savagely. Energy began flowing through the sword as the Stygian iron drained the monster's life force. The monster gave a scream and thrashed, falling backwards, and Nico, still on its back, went under with it. Thankfully he managed to inhale before being submerged but he didn't manage to hold his ground on the monster's back. Its skin was too slippery and the facts that he was upside down, underwater, and weighed less than the monster were all against him managing to stay on. He used his fall (even though it wasn't quite a fall since he was . . . well, falling up) to his advantage, however, and held onto his sword, dragging it through the monster's belly as he made for the surface.

The water turned red, like a sea of Kool-aide, as Nico's head broke the surface of the water. Something caught the back of his jacket and Nico started to twist, ready to slice whatever was attacking him, but stopped himself when he realized that it was just Anubis. The jackal snapped its neck back and tossed Nico into the air and slightly backwards. Nico flipped and this time when he landed, it was on Anubis' back. That was good, since he would have been at a disadvantage trying to fight the monster while swimming. Even Anubis had been at a disadvantage of it in the water, before Nico severed its spine, and Nico wasn't the greatest swimmer.

"What in Dad's name is that?" Nico wanted to know.

"A minor goddess," Anubis told him. "Reret. Hold on."

Nico had just enough time to brace himself before Anubis darted in for the kill. The giant jackal's jaws snapped down on the monster's neck, severing the vital arteries and windpipe.

"Damn it, Anubis!" shouted Nico. "You stole my kill!"

"It was my kill."

"My kill!"

"I saw it first!" growled the death god. Then he had to shut up for a minute as he grabbed Reret's carcass by the back of her neck and dragged her onto the shore.

"Couldn't you see I was in the process of carving my name on it?"

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better." Anubis stepped away from the corpse and knelt down so that Nico could slide off.

"So . . . you said he . . . I mean she . . . or it . . . is a goddess?" asked Nico, inspecting their defeated foe. She was some sort of hippo-crocodile-hybrid, but didn't really look anything like Ammit, who was small but fierce and cool looking. Reret seemed to be put together from the rejected parts of the two animals, sporting a crocodile's stubby legs and tail, and a hippo's bulky body. Its head was a little like a crocodile's near the eyes and neck, but it had a hippo's not-so-fierce-looking mouth. All in all . . . lame. No wonder they never made a Mythomagic card of it. Or her . . . or whatever.