Percy will be discussing everything that just happened in therapy. He should probably send Cletus a muffin basket ahead of time, or better yet, a container of his mom's cookies. Cletus won't know what hits him after Percy unloads a quest, a missing person, two incidents in which Percy compromised his morals, and a crisis somehow both romantic and sexual in nature.

Maybe he should tell Cletus to clear his whole day. This story could take a while to tell, and he hasn't even found Nico yet.

According to the concierge, Mr. di Angelo and his guest checked out of their room a couple of hours ago, which doesn't really make sense to Percy, but the drunkenness has yet to wear off. Nothing makes sense right now.

After paying a fee for checking out late, Percy fills a backpack with his and Annabeth's things and then hits the road.

Nico can't have left the city already. Besides, hellhounds are pretty good at hiding when they don't want to be found. The only thing that could summon a hellhound is a dog whistle, and that's only if the dog is properly trained like Mrs. O'Leary is.

Something tells Percy that Nico is quickly learning how hard training hellhounds is. Mrs. O'Leary was trained by Daedalus, a guy known pretty much only for being a genius and a sub-par father. Training helllhound puppies is a labor worthy of Hercules.

Percy sticks his hands in his shallow pockets and sighs.

There's a miracle in his pocket.

He picks up the dog whistle, letting the chain it's laced through run between his fingers. Nico gave this to him before he ran off to find his hellhound, Raphael. Percy was supposed to help, but instead, he ran into a bar and drank vodka-cranberries until he started to see oceans in other people's eyes. Percy doesn't even like cranberry juice! He's scarred after that time Annabeth forgot to pee before they had victory sex in his cabin after another successful game of capture the flag. The amount of cranberry juice consumed that day was ungodly.

Percy holds the dog whistle parallel to his eyes. Has Nico used this thing before, or is it magic and can only grant one use?

He chooses to believe it's the second option because something about sharing germs with a guy who swaps saliva with hellhounds is a little offputting.

The metal is cold between his lips when he blows through the whistle. He can't hear the high-pitched sound it makes. That has to be magic because Percy is not old enough for his hearing to be damaged, is he?

He looks down into the alleyway behind him. That's where Raphael would come from if he were shadow-traveling.

Nothing's happening.

Percy squints. When he used to care for Mrs. O'Leary more often, she'd usually come out of the shadows when he least expected it. Then again, she had experience sneaking up on people and scaring them. Raphael probably doesn't since he's just a puppy. If Raphael heard the dog whistle, he would have shown up by now.

Thankful to not have just shared germs with Nico and his dogs, Percy puts the broken pieces of the enchanted dog whistle back into his pocket. He'll discard them when he finds a trashcan, or preferably, a recycling bin. Percy cares about the planet like that. Being best friends with a satyr and having a marine biology degree will do that to a person.

And then he hears the pounding of feet against the pavement. It's too strong to be any human and way heavier than Raphael. It's sort of like someone put legs on a garbage truck and let it run through the city.

He reaches into his other pocket, ready to draw Riptide, and turns around only to find the one and only Mrs. O'Leary running at him with the force of at least four Raphaels.

"Mrs. O'Leary!" Percy shouts. He pats his thighs with his hands, ready to pet his favorite hellhound.

Mrs. O'Leary does not stop running.

"Wait, no! Slow down! Mrs. O'Leary!" And then Percy finds himself head over heels, his back flat against the sidewalk and the front of his shirt wet from Mrs. O'Leary's excited nose. At least it doesn't make that much of a difference when she presses her tongue against him, coating him completely in dog drool.

"Okay, okay!" he giggles against her pink tongue. "I missed you too, big girl! Now listen. Siddown!"

A vibration courses through the pavement and into Percy's back when the hellhound finally sits down. Her tail thumping against the sidewalk warns that she is nowhere near over her excitement. One sudden move and Percy might become a human chew toy.

Percy wrings the drool out of his crewneck sweatshirt from Will and sits up. "We need to find Nico and Raphael. Can you sniff them out?"

In hindsight, Percy's thankful that it's Mrs. O'Leary who somehow came to his rescue because there is just no way Raphael would have gotten all of that. She all but nods her head when Percy climbs aboard and loops his legs through her rhinestone collar. Mrs. O'Leary has more class than wearing fake diamonds. What happened to the collar Beckendorf made for her?

"Look," he says to the hellhound. "I haven't shadow-traveled in a while—well, except for yesterday—but can you take it easy on me?"

Mrs. O'Leary sniffs the ground, looking for just the right shadow to jump through. It seems like the one cast in the entire alleyway isn't enough.

She's eating leftover spaghetti out of a takeout container.

"Oh, gross," Percy mutters. "Mrs. O'Leary, no! Leave it!"

She looks back at him and huffs through her nose.

And then she proceeds to not take it easy on Percy, instead diving into the shadow cast by a couple of trashcans.

She's faster than little Raphael—way faster than Percy remembers her being. He closes his eyes for fear of them falling out of his skull. The ride through the shadows is like an extreme facelift, except he hopes the effects won't last.

It's freezing; he sort of remembers this from yesterday, but his wet clothes probably aren't helping.

They've been going at this for at least a minute now; Nico couldn't have gotten that far, could he have?

Apparently, he could have because when Percy and Mrs. O'Leary emerge from the shadows, the crowds around him are no longer speaking French. The language sounds familiar, although he can't quite place it...

"Woah," he says, almost slipping off Mrs. O'Leary's back. He pulls his legs out from under her collar and slowly descends through her thick fur, which is definitely all throughout his now mostly dry clothes.

He's not ready for his legs to turn into jelly when he hits the ground. "Oh, gods." He grips Mrs. O'Leary's leg to keep himself from falling over. He can't really walk right now, but there's no fucking way he's about to get back on that hellhound.

"Where the hell... Shit." He bends over and barfs onto the pavement. It tastes like... Well, he's not exactly sure how to describe the burning sensation in his throat and mouth right now, but he's certainly sobered up. The only lingering feeling from his mistake is a slight pounding in his head. He can handle that. He can manage a little headache.

"Alright," he says, suddenly feeling much better. "So much for going easy on me, huh, girl?"

Mrs. O'Leary snorts as if to say, What a wimp.

"Fine, fine," he says, opening Google Maps on his phone. Mrs. O'Leary may know where they are, but Percy does not.

It's loading.

Is that Annabeth's location? What is she doing over in-

Nope, that's just Piper McLean, who for some reason, shares her location with Percy. He hopes she's having a good time at... the Grand Canyon? Alright, good for her then.

He zooms in to her little blue dot. Is she inside the canyon?

Mrs. O'Leary barks.

"Right. Sorry. ADHD." Percy finds his little blue dot, which is apparently in Italy, somewhere in Rome. "Bingo."

That certainly makes things easier. The Vatican can't be far from here, and neither can Nico.

CRASH!

Percy uncaps Riptide, not that he needs it with a hellhound that can shadow travel at ungodly speeds. It's a good thing his outfit is already ruined because if this is one of Pothos's monsters, things are likely to get a bit messy from here.

A green dumpster is tipped on its side.

Percy sneaks around the back of the scene, slowly and cautiously. The element of surprise is crucial.

"Woof! Woof!" Mrs. O'Leary once again knocks Percy off his feet before sticking her head into the dumpster, leaving no space for her son, Raphael, to get any more food for himself.

"Good to see you're teaching your kids values and common sense," Percy quips, receiving a face full of her furry tail in response.

But they found Raphael, so that means Nico must be nearby.

"Raphael," Percy calls. "Where's Nico?"

Raphael stares blankly, his butt on the sidewalk.

"Find Nico," Percy says.

Raphael cocks his head to the side. It's like talking to Siri.

That's right. The puppies only speak Italian. If Percy can't find Nico because of a language barrier with this damn dog, it's Nico's fault.

Mrs. O'Leary finally wedges her head out of the dumpster and sniffs around the alleyway. The whole place smells like a combination of trash and deli sandwiches. If Percy hadn't just seen Mrs. O'Leary with a face full of expired lunchmeat, he'd be craving a sandwich.

She sniffs around the pavement and over to a couple of cardboard boxes angled just so, only to knock the roof off some poor homeless guy's makeshift shelter.

Apology on his tongue, Percy rushes over to help fix what barely qualifies as a structure.

"I'm so sorry, man, my dog is just..."

Mrs. O'Leary is eating the guy's panini.

"Cazzo! Lascia! Mrs. O'Leary, lascia!" the guy shouts, clearly startled from his nap.

That's not a homeless man. That is Nico di Angelo.

"You couldn't have gotten a hotel?" Percy asks.

"Annabeth took the credit card!" Nico shouts, waving his arms around. He scrambles to his feet and combs out his hair with his fingers, tying it back in a ponytail. "What the hell do you think you're doing bringing my dog here? Mrs. O'Leary just had puppies, for crying out loud!" He smacks Percy in the arm.

"Ow! Good to see you too, I guess!" Percy shouts back.

"Hai una testa di cazzo!"

Percy caps Riptide since clearly, the only threat in this garbage-filled alleyway is an angry Italian man. He backs away slowly, with his palms out in front of him. "Nico," he says calmly, "I have no idea what that means."

Nico stumbles his way out of the alley, tripping over an empty pizza box as he does so. "Accidenti! Dov'è il mio cane? Mrs. O'Leary?"

"Yeah, funny story," Percy explains. "I blew your dog whistle and then-"

"Cazzo!" Nico cries as he slips on a banana peel in typical Mario Kart fashion. Something tells Percy that he wouldn't appreciate the reference.

Instead, he tries to play the situation off with, "How is it that we're always in alleys? I feel like I'm constantly washing up in alleyways."

Nico doesn't answer. He just stomps to the end of the alley, saying some words in Italian that Percy's not so sure he wants to be translated.

Raphael eagerly follows after, a panini in his mouth and not a single clue of what his owner is saying.

If dogs could give side-eyed glares, Mrs. O'Leary would seriously be judging Nico.

"Nico," Percy calls. "Watch out for the-"

"Cazzo!" Nico does that thing from those classic cartoons where the character steps on the front of a rake and sends the pole into his face.

Percy bites his lip to keep from laughing while Raphael sniffs the rake that just clattered against the ground. That is one loyal dog.

Nico swears again when an old lady hits him with her purse and starts berating him in Italian. She's short—even shorter than Nico—but she has the arm of a major league pitcher.

"Mi dispiace! Mi dispiace!" Nico cries out, waving his hands around wildly.

Percy rolls his eyes and calls for Mrs. O'Leary. Never has he seen such judgment on a dog's face.

"Come on, Nico, we're leaving now," he says, putting an arm around Nico. The way he groans makes it look like Nico was the one who spent an embarrassingly long time drinking vodka cranberries.

He shrugs his way out of Percy's grasp. "Don't touch me, Jackson."

Percy throws his hands up in defense. "Look, man. Mrs. O'Leary and I are going to rescue your boyfriend. You can either pull yourself together and come with us or go back to your pizza hut."

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" he shouts. "Raphael tried to make the jump the whole way to the Vatican, but that didn't work out because... because..."

"Because Catholicism?"

"Because Catholicism!"

Turns out Zebediah was right about Catholic and Greek magic being like oil and vinegar; they don't mix, but they can make a pretty solid salad.

Percy scratches Mrs. O'Leary behind the ear to thank her for putting up with Nico's shit and says, "Can we walk it?"

"The dogs can carry us, but I don't know if they can get into the Vatican City," Nico says. "Besides, we'd never be able to get in undetected with two hellhounds, even if the Mist works overtime."

Percy can't disagree with that. Of course, two demigods riding into a major tourist spot on hellhounds would be a dead giveaway. The Mist really does its best to obscure them to mortals—Raphael and Mrs. O'Leary probably look like bicycles or oversized mastiffs right about now—but there's only so much it can do, especially if Pothos and his henchmen are expecting them to come after Will.

Oh, gods, poor Will. If he wasn't terrified when he woke up in Annabeth's body this morning, he probably is now.

Nico, on the other hand, is surprisingly calm for someone whose boyfriend has been captured by the god of unfulfilled desire. Annabeth is more than likely okay and Percy's worried sick about her... not that that's the same thing, or even remotely comparable because Nico and Will are boyfriends. Percy and Annabeth are not dating. He does not get to worry about her the same way that Nico gets to worry about Will.

Yet for some reason, he worries anyway.

"Percy? You coming?" Nico asks from several feet ahead. "I thought I was the slow one!"

"Yeah, yeah," he says. "Just lost in thought. If we can't bring the dogs into the Vatican, how are we supposed to get in unnoticed?"

Nico raises a finger and then reaches into his backpack. He digs through its contents, collecting some candy wrappers in his hands. His face fills with a pleasant surprise when he finds a McDonald's gift card, and then-

"You guys forgot this back in New Rome." In Nico's pale hands is Annabeth's Yankees cap. It hadn't granted the gift of invisibility in years, but for some reason after the battle at New Rome that set fire to a minigolf course, its magic was restored—but only for Percy and Annabeth. What's even weirder is that if one of them wears the cap, the other can see.

Percy takes the cap and turns it over in his hands, vaguely able to make out the Sharpie on the brim where Annabeth must have scribbled her name years ago.

Nico waves him and the dogs forward. "Andiamo!"