Chapter Text
The firelight was beginning to die the last time Magnus saw his mom. She was sitting opposite him, roasting a marshmallow on a stick at their camp for the night, on one of their usual hiking trips to the Blue Hills.
“I think we need more wood,” said Magnus. Natalie looked at the former pile of firewood, seeing that it was reduced to a single log and nodded.
“Stay here, I’ll go and get us some.” And then she was gone.
Magnus waited, he knew it was hard to find good burning wood on the ground - pine wood was too sticky and smoky to be used if preferable, and they had passed a couple of oak trees on their way up, which was where Magnus could see his mom’s torchlight headed towards. In the distance, the wind howled. It almost sounded like a wolf.
He knew it was unlikely it to be that, it really was but he went into his mom’s bag and pulled out her hunting knife for peace of mind. Just in case. It was getting pretty chilly though, even with the fire. He hugged his ski jacket around him and grabbed his hat and scarf. No one was there to see him look stupid in them anyway.
His mom was taking an awfully long time. And those howls sounded closer. And more animalistic.
It was so quick that he nearly missed it but there was a scream, high pitched and feminine. Oh no .
Magnus didn’t think for even one second. He just ran. The woods were dark and more than once did he run into a tree trunk or stumble over a root. It didn’t matter, he needed to find his mom.
The howls were getting louder, but there was another noise, like tearing flesh. It reminded Magnus of a nature documentary he watched when he was younger where a deer was torn apart by a coyote. His heart wrenched in his throat and his stomach turned itself inside out.
Somehow seeing them was worse than his own, eight year old, imagination. His mom’s torch was still on, thrown to the side but these wolves would’ve been visible in the night anyway, with their glowing blue eyes and Magnus could see them standing over a woman. Eating her. His mom. Eating his mom.
He grabbed behind them, anxious not to be seen, as the biggest one snapped its mouth onto her throat with a sickening squelch and her dark blood poured out, painting the wolf a purplish red.
THWACK!
The wolves all looked up at the sound, and then at Magnus, who was cursing his luck at stepping on a twig. They held his gaze for a moment before he jumped up, hoping to catch a branch from above. Somehow he did, and with a burst of energy, managed to haul himself up onto it and climbed his way further up the tree and out of reach.
It was like a movie with them circling him from below, hoping he’d fall soon. Except in movies, the kid doesn’t start screaming and sobbing when he realises his mom is dead and is half frozen on a tree branch, thirty feet above the ground.
He didn’t know how much time had passed. He didn’t know if he slept at all or if he was hallucinating or if he was completely awake and lucid. His hands were glued to the trunk, his legs straddled on the branch. He couldn’t afford to fall.
The sky was beginning to get lighter though, turning a dark purple from its former deep blue and the stars were fading back to invisibility. Magnus had thrown up three times and the ground below him was spinning and his forehead felt like it was on fire, the one time he touched it.
Eventually the wolves started to go back to their meal when someone showed up. Something showed up.
Magnus had never seen anything so big. He must’ve definitely been hallucinating at this point because a nine foot tall wolf plunged through the trees and frightened the others away.
She ignored his mom though, instead coming to the bottom of the tree. “Magnus Frederick Chase. Come down here or I will wait until you pass out and fall and I will then eat you.” Eat him? Okay definitely hallucinating. What was the thing his mom had told him about? Shock? Was he in shock? Did that even make you hallucinate? Whatever, animals don’t talk and don’t know people’s full names and they aren’t nine feet tall. Maybe this was a park ranger that his head had decided to mess with.
He unlatched his hands, the joints almost frozen during the night, and swung himself down. This isn’t real, this isn’t real.
When he hit the ground, he forgot to bend his knees and a flash of pain rushed up from his ankles. The wolf was there, now surrounded by what must’ve been her pack of ten wolves, mostly young ones.
“Thank you for complying, Magnus. For that, I will not eat you.” She grinned, with coppery coloured teeth and bits of meat stuck between them.
“Thank you?” Magnus patted his pockets. Amazingly, the knife was still there. He pulled it out, holding it away from him, stupidly, at the giant wolf. “What’s going on?” She (she?) chuckled.
“All in good time, young demigod. Just wait and I will explain what you need to know. We should first deal with the matter of your mother.” She turned her head towards where his mom - what was left of his mom - lay, being nosed by the other wolves.
It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Most of her was still there save... a leg, her face, her stomach and other internal organs. She was completely unrecognisable and looking at her in the near dawn light made his whole body seize and clench and Magnus could taste bile coming up from the back of his throat.
That was his mom. That , that thing lying in front of him, yesterday was a laughing living woman. She was smiling, when she left him. She had no idea. Magnus felt a tear bubble up from his eye but refused to let it go. He couldn’t show weakness here. Not with the wolves.
Slowly he realised that the wolves were bringing him wood. For a fire? Magnus looked at the big wolf, “Sorry, do you have a name?”
“I am Lupa, Trainer of Demigods, Wolf Goddess. Among other things.”
“Goddess?” Had he eaten something weird?
She stared at Magnus for a minute, “Yes, young one, a goddess. Of Rome. All the old gods are alive and around in the modern era. Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Neptune, Diana. Are these names familiar to you?”
“No.”
“You’re the child of a god, I can smell that on you, you’re a demigod because your mother was a mortal. The gods themselves can be discussed later but for right now you will need to survive. Both my trials and the monsters if you want to make it to Camp Jupiter and New Rome.”
“What’re they?”
“Camp Jupiter is the training camp for descendants of the gods. New Rome is their city. It is a haven for demigods. Monsters cannot touch you there.”
“Monsters?” Were those the wolves from last night?
“Yes. Those are what killed your mother. They hunt demigods to kill and eat. It is not a pleasant fate, although it is the one most common to demigods.” Yay. He’s going to die in incredible pain. Wonderful.
“My mom never said my dad was a god though.”
Lupa’s eyes up close were almost dead inside. Like she was trying to tell him, You think you’re bad? Try me . Magnus did not want to try her . “She may not have known. Believe me, the Roman gods are real and so are their monsters. Now, we must build the pyre soon if we hope not to be caught.”
“Pyre?”
“To burn your mother and rest her soul. It is up to you to build the fire though.”
Magnus got down on his knees. His mom had taught him how to build a fire but this was more than a campfire to huddle around and cook dinner, he supposed, this was his goodbye to his mom. He wanted her to hold him and hug him and tell him it was a horrible dream. He even pinched himself to try and wake up but with no avail. This was it.
Soon the fire was built. Thankfully, Lupa didn’t expect him to carry his own mother’s corpse to it and her wolves dragged it over.
“Check your pocket,” said Lupa. Magnus did and found a silver coin there. “Open her mouth and put it in there.”
He tried not to look too much at it. He didn’t want these memories of his mom to be the ones solidified in his mind forever. Preserved and immortal. He wanted her from any other day. With their trips and impromptu take out dinners because she burned the real food, or her stories and laughs and hugs. He opened her cracked jaw, with bitten away lips and broken teeth, and slipped the coin inside.
Why did it have to be her? Why her and not him? He should’ve volunteered to get the wood! It was his fault. He could’ve prevented this.
He would make it better. He could make it better.
Magnus shook himself. He could deal with that and mourn later. Now? He had a funeral to lead.
He tried not to let his voice crack, “Mom, I’m sorry. it’s my fault you’re dead. It’s all my fault and I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to fix things. I can go to camp. I hope that’ll make you proud, mom.” He dropped a lit match onto the dried leaves that made up the kindling and it all went up in flames.
Magnus collapsed on the ground, eyes trained on the shape that was slowly being eaten away by the fire. He heard Lupa say some words but didn’t make them out.
Weirdly, the air didn’t smell like burning flesh. It smelled like his mom’s shampoo and smoke and dirt, just like she did.
The sunlight came in full force, like a fiery charge of light. In a way, it might’ve made a good painting. The boy at his mother’s pyre with the wolves watching him for a single mistake.
He knew he couldn’t trust the wolves and Lupa. He didn’t know if eating him was an empty threat or not, but he wasn’t about to risk it. Those wolves might come back though. And other stuff. Magnus didn’t know a lot of roman mythology but his cousin had been really into Greek mythology before she ran away and from what he remembered, they were pretty similar and he would not like to meet those monsters. Maybe Camp Jupiter was nice. It was safe at least. That was better than here.
When it was done, and all that was left of Natalie Chase was a pile of ash and charcoal, the wolves went running. Magnus, wanting as far away from the area as possible, followed them, his lungs screaming in the first five minutes from asthma and lack of exercise.
He didn’t stop though, just kept looking at the sun and staying in the trees. For some reason. For some reason, when he did that, it made things so much easier.
They ran for so long though, out of the Blue Hills, headed west, through fields and forests and streets and roads, unseen by any people. They must’ve been going for an hour when Magnus noticed that they’d passed the state line into New York.
It felt like time and space was like bending around them. Maybe Lupa’s magic stuff had something to do with it.
The next time he looked around, they were in Denver. Colorado. At 6am that morning he was in Massachusetts. At 2pm EST he was in Denver? It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. They got water at a stream. Magnus guessed he couldn’t exactly get a bottle from a shop and just shoved his face in the water.
And then they were off again.
When they finally stopped, they were in a place called the Jack London State Park, California, from a sign he saw at the entrance, before diving through the bushes to keep up. It would’ve been 5pm EST but Magnus needed to adjust his watch now that he was on the whole other side of the country.
When he got up, his leg just crumpled beneath him, too tired from running. His lungs weren’t any good either. Every breath he took felt like he had the entire wolfpack sitting on his chest. The younger ones gathered around him, locking him in. They were nice and warm but Magnus refused to let his guard down.
Three hours later, he let his eyes close, surrounded by a pack of sleeping wolves.