Titan: An Epic Novel of Urban Fantasy and Greek Mythology (The Gods War Book 1)

by Daniel Mignault

MONSTERS

  I'm out of tricks and out of time. As Ruvo slips into the alley, I swallow my pride and plead with Captain Nessus, appealing to whatever slim shred of mercy might be hiding in that monstrous brain of his. “Please,” I say, “You don't have to do this.”

  Nessus looks at me. Feral. Gloating. It's in his hungry smile, his alien, unfeeling eyes. “Please? Please?” He mocks. “Of course I don't have to do this! I want to do this.”

  “But why? Because it's your job?”

  He stamps a hoof in disgust. “You ask the wrong question. Better to ask why the hawk eats the dove? Because he must! That is his nature. That is my nature, and I give in to it freely, just as Cronus does. Have your teachers taught you nothing?”

  “They taught me your kind were created first, then cast aside by Gods and man. Is that why you hate us? Even though we worship the Titans now, the same as you?”

  The captain's eyes flash, full of malice. “There is your mistake! We hold true to the Titans, yes, but do not presume to think we worship the same. They are our true parents, our family. You humans are adopted bastards at best, made by renegade Gods in their image, not ours. There is no shared blood, no common ground. Humans are worse than nothing! You are the stain that reminds us of our downfall; a stain that can never be removed all at once, but only one drop of blood at a time.”

  His gray-bearded face comes closer. Close enough to smell his brimstone breath, to feel the flecks of sour spittle spray across my cheek. He grabs my tunic with one clawed hand and drags me close as his voice rises. “Do you see the truth now? Have your eyes been opened? That is why we hate you! That is why we will always hate you. You could not even stay true to your own Gods, your own family! Why Cronus and the other Titans allow your kind to live is beyond me, but I honor my father's wishes. And I honor my brothers by killing your kind whenever the law allows.” He snarls, wide enough I can see the gristle between his fangs.

  I wonder if it's the flesh of some other boy like Mark. Like me. I know now I underestimated Captain Nessus: his intelligence, his hate. The anger is building in me again, born of helplessness, born of fear, and this time, I'm not sure I can keep it in check. “You're a monster,” I say, and then because I can think of nothing else, I add, “You don't know any better.”

  Nessus chortles, an ugly sound. “Really? That's what my kind says about you.”

  The earth trembles. The buildings shake. The alley, already dark, grows darker still. Nessus lets go of me as a flock of ravens pour from the alley's mouth. Ruvo drops his harpoon and throws up his hairy arms to protect his face. He's pecked and clawed badly until he bolts, hooves clattering on concrete. A handful of black birds trail behind, cawing loudly, but the bulk of the flock flies straight at us. Nessus and I both duck, hands over our eyes. Then the birds are gone, swooping skyward. The earth stops shifting.

  Nessus glares wildly in all directions, as if expecting an attack, but only distant caws greet him.

  Alarmed, I shout, “It's an earthquake!”

  Nessus doesn't seem so sure. “No. It's an omen.”

  I don't know what he's talking about, or why the captain suddenly looks so worried. New Greece was founded on the ruins of old California. We get earthquakes all the time, and I have no idea why he would think this was any different.

  “We should get going,” I urge, hoping he'll forget about Mark. “There could be aftershocks.”

  Nessus ignores my advice, turning to face the other two centaurs as they return. I'm not happy to see Democ or Ruvo, but breathe a sigh of relief because neither has captured Mark.

  “What of our prey?” Nessus demands.

  Democ shrugs. “I searched, brother, but there was nothing. No sign of him, not even a scent.”

  Ruvo doesn't say anything. Instead, the wounded centaur pulls a cloth from his utility belt and holds it against his scratched and bloody face. His blood is black and oily, almost tar-like. He mutters curses under his breath.

  “And what of you, Ruvo?” Nessus snaps. “Report!”

  Ruvo pulls the cloth away from his cheek and inspects it before answering. “I didn't see him either. I checked the dumpster. It's as Democ says. There was no scent, no evidence.”

  Nessus scowls and paces back and forth. “I know he was there! I smelled him. We smelled him! He couldn't have completely vanished, not without leaving a trail.”

  Democ points his weapon at me. “Maybe we could eat this one,” he suggests hopefully.

  Ruvo grins and wipes a thread of drool hanging from his beard. “The boy looks chewy enough…”

  Nessus hesitates, seeming to consider their words.

  “Think on it, brother!” Democ argues. “If we get rid of this one, who can contradict us? We won't even need to mention failing to catch the other human in our report―or those damn birds.”

  “Less questions mean less paperwork,” Ruvo agrees. “Less paperwork means more time to drink and rut.”

  “You forget who commands here,” Nessus says. “I decide what is worth reporting. Go now! Widen the search.”

  His brothers grumble but move toward the alley, Ruvo first pausing to pick up his harpoon. The wounded centaur casts a backward glare in my direction.

  “We have all night,” Nessus assures me. “Your friend can't hide forever.”

  No, I think to myself. He can't. Unless he got away during the earthquake using the birds for cover. Which seems awfully convenient, and I'm wishing now I'd used that distraction myself, but it was like I'd been rooted to the spot at the time. Not from fear, from something else…

  Before I can think what, Captain Nessus says, “You have won a small victory, but no triumph! The Titan's justice will not be denied. If we cannot find your lawbreaking friend now, then you will give me his name. A feast delayed is a feast to be anticipated all the more.”

  “I won't.”

  Nessus takes a threatening step toward me.

  “I mean, I don't know! I can't tell who he is because I just met him. I've never seen him before.”

  “Lies!” Nessus growls. “Do you mistake me for some dimwitted harpy? I know something is wrong, and either you or your friend is responsible. What just happened was magic! I know, because I am magic. I can smell it, the same way I can smell you…” He pauses to sniff the air. “I cannot put my hoof on this mystery―not yet―but when I do, rest assured I am going to crush it. I pray you will be the guilty one, Andrus Eaves! I pray it shall be your body to be ground under, broken open, and your clever brain my feast!”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” I protest. That's the one thing I'm sure of, maybe the only thing. “Besides, I have an amulet. You can't harm me.”

  Nessus considers that, then breaks into a sly smile. “I can if you're guilty of the right crime.” His grip on his harpoon tightens. He prods the weapon forward so I have to shrink back from it.

  “No, you cant! All I'm guilty of is breaking curfew. The amulet protects me from being punished.”

  Something dark and terrible shifts behind the centaur's eyes. “Does it?”

  “Of course it does! You saw it.”

  “Did I? Funny, I don't remember you having an amulet, only that you said you lost it.”

  I hold up the amulet as if that can save me.

  Nessus knocks it aside with his harpoon. “The name,” he growls. “Give me the name, or I eat your brain. Here, now!”

  I can't give Mark up. Desperate, I look to each side, but there's nowhere to run the centaur can't catch me.

  “If you won't tell me with your mouth, then I'll tear the name from your brain with my teeth!”

  I scramble back, but the centaur presses forward, raising his right arm, the one with the harpoon in it, the one he's going to destroy me with…

  Time slows, my pulse races. There's a thunderous flapping, a croaked battle cry from a hundred black beaks. The ravens return, and a girl's voice whispers in my mind. It's one word, the only one I need:

  “Run!”

  Adrenaline
crashes through me. There's no girl by my side, no footsteps except my own, but that doesn't matter. I run, leaving Nessus to fend off the ravens. His hooves strike the pavement in a wild, confused dance. He's not following. For now.

  The darkness takes me. My vision strains, seeking cross-streets, alleys. If only there were streetlights. If only the buildings didn't blot out the moon.

  I have to find Mark. I have to get home.

  Two conflicting goals that war in my head. There's what a hero would do, and what a sensible person should. My parents can protect me. The walls of my house and the money that built them can protect me. But Mark has none of these things. If I save myself, can I live with the consequences?

  Give it a few more blocks, I tell myself. If I can't find Mark by then, I can go home. No one can accuse me of not having tried… well, no one but me.

  But that's not good enough. I have to do better. I have to find Mark. But how? He could be anywhere! And it's not like I can just start shouting his name―not without alerting the centaurs.

  How did Mark escape? Did the ravens help him? Or was it that girl? Or maybe he bailed before all that. Not like me. I'm just a rich idiot.

  I slow and try to get my bearings. The buildings are shadows, but if I look closely, they aren't as tall or modern as when I started. I have to be close to Loserville. And that's good, because Mark will come this way if he can.

  There's a light in the alley ahead. No, not a light exactly. More like a gray fog. A girl-shaped cloud with one wraith-like arm extended toward me. Beckoning.

  It could be a monster trying to trick me, but it could also be her―the girl who saved me. I hesitate, but only long enough to hear the distant galloping of angry centaurs. The Night Patrol are heading in this direction. I can't stay on the street, so I run toward the alley.

  The cloud becomes less girl-shaped as I get closer, and when I pass through it, I smell fear and pain and death, the rotting sadness of a million years and a million more to come.

  And then the smell is gone. I'm through the cloud, and when I cast a wary backward glance, the cloud has taken on my form. It's moving away, out of the alley, into the street, picking up speed.

  What the hell was that thing?

  Not that it matters, because whatever it is, it's not after me. At least not anymore. I head down the alley, having to pick my way carefully between dumpsters and debris.

  “This is the most messed-up night ever,” I mutter.

  “Tell me about it,” a voice says from the dark. “I've been waiting for you.”

  8

  SAVED

  A shadow detaches from the alley wall.

  I take a step back and raise my fists. “Mark?” I whisper. “Is that you?”

  The shadow stops in a thin sliver of moonlight. It's him, all right―even more nervous and pale than usual. “She told me to stay here. That she'd bring you.”

  “She? You mean the cloud-girl?”

  “Yeah,” Mark says. “Whatever she is, she also told me to get out of the alley just in time. The centaurs―”

  “Ssh!” I hiss. I cock my head, listening. Hoofbeats drum by. They're heading away from us. We both breathe a sigh of relief. “That was close,” I say. “I think they're chasing the cloud. She took on my form.”

  “She did more than that,” Mark says. “She took on your scent. That's why the Night Patrol will keep chasing her, not us.”

  I look back over my shoulder, listening for hoofbeats, but the night is quiet. “Is your house far?”

  “No,” Mark says. “Come on, I'll lead the way.” And with that, he leads me into Loserville.

  The first thing I notice is the stench. It's awful, an airborne soup of burning tires, sweat, and urine that gets in my nose and tries to strangle me. The streets here are narrow and trash-filled, the buildings old. They're hanging on, but barely. Crumbling. Powerless to change or grow, like the people who live in them.

  All my life, my parents told me, “There's no escape from Loserville. Those people belong there because they don't know how to live in our world and couldn't, even if we let them. They're not blessed by Cronus. They exist to serve.”

  “Like slaves?” I'd asked. Our family had many slaves. They made life easy, and the more you owned, the more status you had.

  My parents had looked at each other, smiling. “No, not like slaves,” my mom said, “They're different. They don't know their place. And that means they're dangerous. That's why you must avoid them, Andrus, and promise you'll never go to Loserville, even though a lot of your friends might.”

  My father had given me a sly wink, adding, “Slumming might seem fun at first, but the thrill quickly fades. Some Losers will do anything for you, but others will do anything to you if they think they can get away with it. They'll rob you, injure you, anything to make their squalid little lives better, even for a moment. They don't understand our lives are worth more than theirs.”

  Mom nodded. “It's sad, really. Sometimes, I think they'd all be better off as slaves. At least then they'd be taken care of. They wouldn't have to fight for scraps… but who am I to question the will of the Titans?”

  When I'd asked why the Losers weren't all slaves, Dad sighed. “The Titans need people like us to worship them, but they need Losers to feed to the monsters. Without them, the centaurs and harpies would have to eat people like us, and then who would be left to worship the Titans?”

  That answer had satisfied me at the time, but that was many years ago. Before I met Mark. Now I'm not sure if Mark is an exception or if it's all a lie.

  What if everyone deserves something better, or at least a chance?

  Mark leads me to a broken-down shack at the end of a broken-down street. “This is it,” he says. Even though it's after dark and after curfew, even though the Night Patrol could find us at any moment, Mark seems reluctant to invite me in. His head hangs down, his shoulders slump, and he stands there, helpless in the moonlight. “It isn't much,” he explains. “Now you know why I spend so much time at the Academy, why I stay in the library as much as I can.”

  “Look, I know you don't live like I do. I get that. But this shame you feel? There's no time for it. Not now.”

  As if to make my point, there's a distant scream, followed by animal-like cries of pleasure. The scream is definitely male, so it can't be the cloud-girl the Night Patrol has caught. The scream comes again, closer.

  “What are you waiting for?” I demand. “You want them to find us again?”

  Mark swallows hard, fear fighting shame, until fear wins. He knocks on the door. Softly, repeating a certain pattern: one long, two short. He does this three times, then stops.

  We wait―what feels like forever―then we're greeted by the sound of locks un-clicking. A lot of them. The door opens, just wide enough to show the face of a haggard, middle-aged woman behind a rusty metal chain. Her hair is thin, gray, and wiry. It hasn't been brushed in weeks. Her eyes are bleary, red-rimmed, and I'm not sure which she's been doing more: drinking or crying.

  “Mom!” Mark says. “Quick! Let us in.”

  “Who's that?” she shrills, and her eyes latch suspiciously on me. “He's not a monster, is he? He's not making you trick us to get inside?”

  “No, Mom! This is Andrus. He's a friend from Axios. He was helping me get home when the Night Patrol found us. We barely got away.”

  From inside, another female calls out, “Who is it? Is that Mark?” This voice sounds much younger.

  Mark says, “Mom, we don't have time for this. I swear this isn't a trick. Andrus is just as human as you and me.”

  “Prove it,” his mom says. She tosses a small paring knife out. “Cut him. Let's see if his blood is red or black.”

  Mark bends down and picks up the knife, staring at me apologetically. The blade glitters in the moonlight. “Humor her, OK? Monsters have black blood, like oil. She'll see yours is red, and then everything will be fine.”

  “What the hell, man? I'm not letting you cut me! You've seen
me in the daylight. You know I'm not a monster.”

  “I know that,” he says, “and you know that, but my mom… Look, let me just make a little cut.” He steps toward me.

  “Are you crazy?” I back away. Everything my parents ever told me about Loserville flashes through my mind, and even though I know Mark isn't trying to hurt me, I can't let him do this.

  Mark stops, then reverses the blade and holds it out to me. “Fine, cut yourself. Just enough to show her you're human.”

  I take the knife, but make no move to use it.

  Behind the door, the two women argue. The younger one wants to let us in, the older one says it's not safe, that she won't lose another child to these damned monsters.

  “I'll do it,” I say. “Just tell them to shut up before they alert every monster in the neighborhood.” I raise the knife, holding it over my forearm, letting the blade hover.

  This is stupid, I think to myself. I shouldn't have to prove myself to Losers. They're crazy!

  The chain rattles and the door flies open. There's a girl there. Blonde. Beautiful. Wearing a simple pink tunic, and not much younger than Mark and me.

  “Get in!” she says.

  Mark rushes in.

  When I hesitate, she adds, “You too!” She motions me inside, then slams the door behind me. The chain clicks into place, then she busies herself resetting the rest of the half-dozen locks.

  I look around the house. No wonder Mark was embarrassed. It's a dump: dingy, mismatched drapes and carpet, rickety furniture. A bottle of cheap wine sits on the table with two clay cups. One of them is chipped and bears the inscription, WORLD'S BEST MOM.

  Mark's mother gets up from the floor with a resentful look on her face. “You didn't have to hit me!” she says sourly. “I had to keep us safe, didn't I? It could have been a trick…”

  “It's not a trick,” I say, then stare at the knife in my hand. “I'm not a monster.” I give the knife to Mark. I'm grateful he doesn't hand it back to his mom.

  “This is my sister, Lucy,” Mark says. She comes over and gives her brother a fierce hug, then turns to me as he introduces us. “Lucy, this is Andrus Eaves. We have classes together at the Academy.”