Age of Heroes

by James Lovegrove

  “Enough,” said Chase. “You know as well as I do what the outcome’s going to be. Let’s get this over with.”

  The chupacabra growled in response, saying in its bestial language much the same as he had.

  It pawed the ground. Chase tensed, muscles quivering.

  Now!

  They hurtled at each other simultaneously.

  There was a jet of blood, a shriek of pain.

  They had passed each other, and Chase crouched, down on one knee, knife held backhand, while the chupacabra stood, head bent, very still. They stayed in this tableau, back to back, for four, five, six seconds...

  Then Chase turned his head, and the chupacabra did the same.

  They shared a look: plangent, fatalistic, resigned.

  The blade of the Voron-3 was coated in blood and little shreds of flesh.

  The chupacabra let out what sounded like a sigh, as if it had needed to see the knife to confirm what its body was already telling it.

  Then, all at once, its innards tumbled from its unsealed abdomen in a huge, wet, yellow-and-purple clump.

  A heartbeat later – a last heartbeat – the creature keeled over, utterly dead.

  CHASE SANK TO a squat, elbows on thighs, and for quite a long time just stared at the deceased cryptid. The stink of its eviscerated bowels was pungent, almost nauseating, but he was too tired even to think of moving away. He studied the corpse, every hideous inch of it, from pugnacious muzzle to skinny tail tip.

  He felt, as he often did in the aftermath of a slaying, both elated and sombre. He wanted to whoop. He wanted to weep.

  In the end, sore in a dozen places, clothing tattered and torn, he stirred himself. He rose stiffly and stood over the chupacabra, bowed his head, and offered up a small prayer.

  “Zeus, father, this beast’s death I dedicate to you, for your glory, and to you, Hermes and Athena, who guided and aided me in a time of need. My triumph is yours. Hear me on Olympus and know that you are respected and honoured.”

  Finishing, he waited. The rainforest echoed with liquid sounds. There was nothing else. No reply. No sign. Not a hint of divine acknowledgement. Silence, only, from the gods.

  No great change there, then. Ever since the Age of Heroes passed, the gods had been conspicuous by their absence. They had withdrawn from the Earth, no longer involving themselves in the lives of men. No more intervention. No more interference. Nothing but lofty indifference. They had relinquished all responsibilities and duties. Their secession had been absolute, even to the point of ignoring their own half-human offspring.

  Chase shook his head, grin lopsided.

  Then, with his knife, he commenced hacking out a shallow grave for the chupacabra.

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, he was aboard a Copa Airlines Boeing 737 travelling from San Juan to Panama City, where he would catch a connecting flight to Buenos Aires and from there a third plane down to Malvinas Argentinas Airport at Ushuaia. He had patched up his wounds with bandages, gauze and antiseptic ointment, given himself a tetanus shot, and bought some super-effective painkillers from a pharmacy. A high dose of codeine and a couple of rum and Cokes from the drinks trolley were making him feel very happy indeed, as far above his aches and pains as the airliner was above the Caribbean.

  His thoughts were now fixed firmly on Aeneas, a.k.a. Anthony Peregrine. While hunting the chupacabra, he had not allowed himself to give head-space to anything except finding and killing the creature. Able to relax at last, cushioned in a first-class seat, buzzing on booze and pills, he wondered what he would find when he got to Patagonia.

  As Theo had said, Aeneas couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible. But if this was him making the transition from one identity to another, ending a life that had outworn its usefulness and embarking on a brand new one, then why was he doing it so publicly, so traceably? Did he reckon, just because he was faking his death in a remote little city at the ass-end of the world, he was more likely to get away with it? Was he hoping some hillbilly Argentinian coroner was simply going to rubber-stamp the cadaver and not perform a proper inquest? Was that the plan? Did he think no one would consult dental records, cross-check with international databases, and do whatever else due diligence required, and spot discrepancies? You couldn’t expect to pull off a trick like that, not in the interconnected, information-rich twenty-first century, where every fact about every person was only a mouse click away.

  What the hell was Aeneas playing at?

  When Chase caught up with him – and he would – he was going to give his nephew a piece of his mind.

  FOUR

  Republic of Vanuatu, South Pacific

  THE TIGER SHARK was getting interested.

  Too interested.

  At first it had hung off at a distance from the tour group, little more than a grey shark-shaped silhouette in the water, some fifty metres away. It had been curious about them, but had decided that the eagle rays that swarmed about the reef were more alluring. The rays were what the dive tourists had come to see; they were also what the tiger shark had come to eat. It had seemed as though everyone was going to get their wish and there would be no confrontation, no conflict of desires, no overlap.

  Then the shark changed its mind. It stopped turning smooth figures-of-eight at the reef’s edge and began finning towards where the divers hung in the water in a cluster. It didn’t swim directly at them, but patrolled back and forth in front of them, coming that little bit closer with each pass.

  Isaac Merrison clutched his spear-pole, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it.

  The shark was five metres long, a sizeable specimen, though Isaac had seen larger. He estimated its bite radius at fifty centimetres, give or take. This was a fish that would have no trouble taking off a person’s arm or leg, and no qualms about doing so either, if provoked. An apex predator that big had no natural enemies, except maybe orcas, and they would challenge it only in numbers, never one-on-one. It certainly wouldn’t be scared of a handful of humans in wetsuits.

  The divers would be all right as long as they didn’t give the shark a reason to feel threatened, and it was Isaac’s job, as tour leader, to make sure that didn’t happen. He turned to the group and performed a patting motion with one hand, the signal for “Take it easy, relax”. The other divers formed “okay” signs with thumb and forefinger to acknowledge. Their expressions, judging by what he could see of faces mostly hidden by wraparound dive masks and primary regulators, were calm and collected.

  Isaac turned back to watch the shark. It was still being inquisitive, but it wasn’t behaving erratically or aggressively – yet. The moment it dipped its pectoral fins, arched its back or pointed its head downward; that was when it was time to intervene. Isaac had no wish to hurt the beast. It was just a tiger shark, doing what tiger sharks did: scoping out potential meals, assessing danger in the environment, living its blamelessly primordial existence. He would bring the spear-pole into play only as a last resort.

  As far as he was concerned, all the inhabitants of his father’s realm were sacred, not least sharks. He felt veneration even for the marine creatures he ate. Squid rings, mahi-mahi steaks, Lobster Thermidor – these dishes were a kind of Eucharist for him, a delight for the soul as well as for the taste buds. Treating himself to the Vanuatu speciality, coconut crab, had become a weekly act of worship, one Isaac had indulged in every Sunday lunchtime since he took up resident on the archipelago’s main island, Efate, in the early ’noughties. Poseidon received a small vote of thanks both before and after he tucked in.

  The shark would only be attacked if it attacked. And that would not occur if everyone in the tour group kept their heads.

  ISAAC WAS CONFIDENT they would; back on land they had struck him as a bunch of capable and unflappable individuals. Usually his tour groups were a mixed proposition, a few experienced divers and an assortment of eager newbies who had only just gained their PADI open water qualification. In each instance, he would assess the ratio of old hands to first timers, make a j
udgement, and set the dive difficulty accordingly. It wasn’t always easy. No one liked to feel mollycoddled, or that they weren’t getting their full money’s worth. Equally, a single diver who couldn’t cope if things got hairy posed a danger to the entire group.

  With this lot, Isaac had been comfortable with pushing the safety envelope. They were, all six of them, in fine physical trim. They were all still in their thirties, meaning the chance of some sudden, unexpected health complication was minimal. Each had produced a certificate attesting to advanced scuba skill. Even their forenames sounded solid and reassuring: Hans, Gavin, Sean, Travis, Roy, and the sole woman, Jeanne.

  What had impressed Isaac most about them, however, was the thoroughness with which they had checked the scuba equipment they were renting from him. He serviced the gear himself regularly and knew it was good quality and in full working order. Nevertheless, first at his dive shack and again aboard his boat just before they took the plunge, the six tourists had gone through the inspection routine – buoyancy compensator, weight belt, releases, pressure gauge, cylinder, regulator, dive computer – methodically and efficiently. They had divided up into buddy pairs without being asked to, and each half of each pair had helped the other person suit up and then looked for missing items, tangled air hose, loose-dangling straps, and all the rest. Isaac had not felt so relaxed about a tour group in ages. They knew what they were doing, which meant he didn’t need to be quite as vigilant as normal. He could enjoy the dive himself all the more because of that.

  If the group had a spokesperson, it was the one called Roy, and Roy had told Isaac that he and his friends were keen to see the eagle rays out on Chapel Reef, which lay some ten kilometres due west from Port Vila. Isaac was aware that Chapel Reef boasted some of the best growths of staghorn coral and sea plume in the region, and was home to anemones, nudibranchs, porcelain crabs, leaf scorpionfish and more, marine life in a bewildering, entrancing range of shapes and colours. Even if the rays didn’t show, there would be plenty of beauty to gaze at. But the reef was also situated beside a steep seabed drop-off, and the currents there could be complex and hazardous. It all depended on tidal strength and direction. He did some calculations, factored in the group’s level of ability, and reckoned there wouldn’t be a problem.

  EVEN A FIVE-METRE shark wasn’t, Isaac thought, a problem. Everybody in the group seemed to be keeping their wits about them. They clustered close together, presenting the shark with what it would perceive as a larger entity, something to be avoided.

  There was still a tiny part of Isaac that wanted to attack the shark, just on principle. He could feel the urge inside him. He was tracking the creature’s every movement with his eyes – eyes which had once been blinded, then healed, and were still as sharp as any hawk’s – and gauging its weak spots. The shark’s own eyes, of course, were a good place to drive a spear tip into, as were its gills and its ventral area. Alternatively, he could toss the weapon aside and take the creature on bare-handed, if he felt that way inclined. Wrestle a tiger shark to death? Not impossible, not for him. Flipping it onto its back would paralyse it. Then he could prise apart its jaws until they split at the hinges and leave it to bleed out, or else take the less gory but more stamina-demanding option of holding it still for fifteen minutes so that, with water no longer flowing through its gills, it suffocated to death.

  But that was the old him. That was Orion. He no longer killed needlessly, just to prove his greatness. He was not a hunter any more. Not the Hunter. He was just a guy called Isaac Merrison who ran a dive tour business on a holiday-destination island in the South Pacific, and lived in a modest beachside bungalow with views across the sea to several of the other, smaller islands that made up the Vanuatu archipelago. The days of his braggart youth, when he repeatedly proclaimed that there was no wild beast he could not catch and slay, and when he repeatedly got into trouble for his arrogance, were far behind him. He hardly recognised any more the man whom Hesiod and blind Homer had written about in their poems. Was that him? Had he really raped King Oinopion’s daughter Merope, just because her father welched on a deal? Had he really let Oinopion get him drunk, giving the king the opportunity to blind him in revenge? And Merope wasn’t the only female he had forced himself onto. There’d been the Hyperborean virgin, Opis, whom he had ravished mercilessly, and he dimly recalled attempting to do the same with Opis’s mistress, none other than Artemis, the only being in all creation whose hunting prowess matched his own. The goddess, of course, had rebuffed him easily, and had almost killed him in a fit of anger by sending a giant scorpion after him to sting him to death. That had been a close shave.

  He thought of that part of his past only with shame. What a puffed-up, thrusting prick he had been – in every sense. Age had definitely mellowed him. Nowadays he hardly ever looked at a woman in a lustful way, let alone touched one. He was content, instead, to help strangers explore Poseidon’s domain and show them its wonders. This was his life. He sometimes thought of himself as an aristocratic heir, taking paying guests through the ancestral home and pointing out its treasures.

  The tiger shark continued to veer closer, and Isaac turned to the group again, intending to signal them to terminate the dive and go back to the boat. He still didn’t think there was any danger, but it paid to be cautious.

  He noticed straight away that one of the group was missing. Where there had been six, now there were five.

  What the hell...?

  A swift once-over told him the absent diver was Roy. He, of all of them, was the one Isaac had thought least liable to panic. Roy was English, with that kind of imperturbable good humour, as though nothing could ever get past his veneer of irony and diffidence. For him to have turned tail and fled – it was hard to fathom. Yes, the tiger shark was menacing, but he must have realised that the greatest safety lay in sticking with the group. Haring off on his own was asking for trouble. The shark would be attracted to a lone swimmer, particularly one thrashing through the water, as Roy doubtless was. No human stood a chance of outswimming a shark. Roy was more or less committing suicide.

  Where was he?

  Isaac scanned past the depleted group, looking for him. The water was crystal clear, visibility at 100 metres at least. He could see no sign of Roy. Isaac had turned his back on the group for half a minute. There was no way Roy could have swum out of sight in that time. Unless, that was, he had descended into the thickets of coral with a view to hiding out from the shark down there. Again, futile. The tiger shark’s eyesight was extraordinarily sharp, and it could detect bioelectric fields and muscle contractions. If it went looking for him, it would find him.

  Damn idiot.

  Isaac gave one last glance over his shoulder to check on the shark’s position. He would have to leave the group to their own devices while he went in search of Roy. They should be able to manage by themselves, even with a shark prowling. As long as none of them had a sudden brainfart and decided to follow Roy’s example...

  A column of air bubbles wobbled up from below, bursting around Isaac’s flippers.

  Roy was rising from the reef, kicking upwards at speed.

  He was lugging some sort of weapon.

  Isaac felt hands grab him from behind. The other members of the tour group swarmed around him. They were holding his limbs, forcing them backwards, pinioning him. He fought against them, but suspended in the water, with no leverage, it was hard. He couldn’t bring his full strength to bear.

  Up Roy came, and the weapon was a double-bladed battle-axe with a metre-long haft. It sheared through Isaac’s torso, slitting him open from solar plexus to Adam’s apple. As it cut into him, he thought he heard a massed battle cry, a thousand warriors bellowing at once as they charged towards the foe, a howl of fear and exhortation. His own howl of agony hooted into his regulator and resounded through his skull.

  Then he was floating, no longer held by hands, helpless. The water reddened around him, and he could feel three thousand years of life seeping away, ebbing like a
tide, like waves from shore.

  Orion the Hunter was dying, and another hunter, the tiger shark, shimmied in to take advantage, drawn by the blood in the water. Its jaws were open wide, dark gullet fringed with a corona of teeth. It took a first tentative bite, then another... then feasted.

  FIVE

  Gramercy Park, New York

  IT HAD BEEN a week since Chase called, and Theo was finding the waiting difficult. He tried to work, but couldn’t seem to concentrate. He had a book to write, the first of the two he had just signed a contract for, and there was research to be done, a plot skeleton to flesh out, characters to dream up backstories for. Novels didn’t just happen. They didn’t pop fully-formed from your brain, the way Athena had from Zeus’s brow. They had to be seeded, nurtured, watered, encouraged. You couldn’t do that if the soil you were planting in was disturbed.

  He still did not believe that Aeneas was dead. But believing it and knowing it to be true were not the same thing.

  Waking early on a weekday morning, unquiet, he decided to go out for a run to clear his head. Running was brain-in-neutral time. Once you got a decent, steady pace going, it became difficult to obsess on any one thing. You became a body in motion, nothing more. Your thoughts free-wheeled and you just ran.

  Day had not yet broken, but New York was already astir; of course, famously, it never slept. Traffic rolled by, commuters getting the jump on rush hour. Garbage trucks growled like hungry bellies. From Gramercy Park, Theo cut through Stuyvesant, then headed south, crossing FDR via the overpass to the East River Park, where he followed the promenade. There were a few other early-morning runners out and about. Theo knew a couple of them by face, well enough to nod to.