The Mythniks Saga

by Paul Neuhaus

  As we all gaped at the little Kraken, Keri did something surprising. She picked up one of the knives the waiter had thrown, stepped forward, and jammed it into the Kraken’s forehead. Elijah yanked her back (like any concerned father would), but the damage was done. The mini-Kraken tried to remove the cutlery from its skull, but its arms were too sort. I could tell it wanted to hang around and get Pegasus’ location, but it had a knife in its head and it saw me finally go for the stopper on the pithos. So, it did something smart. It spun and sloshed over the railing.

  I ran to where the creature had been and looked over in time to see it land four stories below. Not only was the mini-Kraken not killed by the fall, it sat upright and ran through the lobby. As it ran, it tossed convention-goers out of its way and screamed. Not incoherent screams, but words. “Die, brony, die!” it said. (I didn’t even know the fucker could talk.) When it reached the center of the vast open space it stopped and began digging through the marble floor. I still had my hand on the pithos’ stopper. “It’s too far away, isn’t it?” I said to Hope.

  “It’s too far away,” she confirmed. Anyway, the point was moot since our enemy had tunneled out of sight through the hole it made in the ground.

  Or was it moot? I squinted and saw something glowing on the floor near where the monster had escaped. “Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

  “If you think it’s Kraken blood, then it’s what you think it is,” Hope replied. “I must be from the knife wound.”

  “Could you track him from that?”

  “Like a bloodhound. If you can get me into the sewers.”

  “I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

  “Sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty.”

  “With poo.”

  “With poo, yes.”

  I turned to check on my friends. Ty looked pale thanks to his experience with the vampire Evil, but he was sure to recover. The rest of them were shell-shocked.

  M.C. Pliny the Elder put it best when he said, “Man. That was fucked-up.”

  We were stuck in the Convention Center for another couple of hours as the police confirmed there was no evidence of contagion and the mini-Kraken had gotten away. They were especially interested in me thanks to my lap around the atrium, but they couldn’t pin anything on me, so they let it go. I was anxious because I needed to get out of there and get down into the sewers.

  During the long wait, we sat on a sectional surrounded by many traumatized bronies. Occasionally, I caught glances of Beardie, but he would divert his eyes when he saw me looking. Once, when he was nearby, I pointed at him and said, “Who’s that guy? Does anybody know?”

  Everyone except Tiresias took a hard look. “Search me,” said Petey.

  “No clue,” Chad added.

  Elijah only needed a brief glance. “Sebastian Squire,” he said.

  Petey took a second look. “Oh. That’s Sebastian Squire?”

  Elijah nodded.

  “Sebastian Squire?” I said.

  “He’s a financier. Venture capitalist. He tried to convince us he represents a group of conscientious captains of industry that wanna put Pegasus in some kind of museum. So, kids can see him. And families.”

  I looked over at Beardie. “Based on your phrasing, I take it he doesn’t represent a group of conscientious captains of industry...”

  “Correct. I did some digging and discovered he represents a Saudi Prince. Guy with a napkin on his head. Wants to buy Pegasus and put him in his private zoo.”

  “Okay. Sure. I could see that.”

  “Only that was bullshit too.”

  “It was?”

  “Yeah, he wanted me to do the digging. He wanted me to find the Saudi dodge. So, I did some more digging.”

  “And?”

  “I found out he’s a Neo-Olympian. A movement to bring back the old gods. Zeus and his posse.”

  “Interesting. I hadn’t heard about that.”

  “That’s because there’s no such thing as a Neo-Olympian. That was a dodge too.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. He wanted me to find that one too. He was testing me.”

  “What’d you do then?”

  “I kept digging. I found out he’s part of a worldwide conspiracy movement. A New World Order kinda thing. It’s called ‘The Consortium’ and they want Pegasus for... God knows what.”

  “Lemme guess. That story was bullshit, too.”

  “No, turns out that one was true. He didn’t want me to uncover that layer, but I did.”

  “How do you know there isn’t at least one more layer?”

  That stopped him in his tracks. He reached up and scratched behind one of his pony ears. “Okay. Well. I hadn’t considered that. I’ll keep an open mind.”

  “What you seem to be telling me is, Pegasus somehow popped up for sale, there was a lot of competition, and Sebastian lost out. How’d you guys end up with him?”

  El brought his hand down from his head and returned it to his lap. He moved the way he always had. He spoke the way he always had. I was conflicted. On the one hand, all of it was strange and new. On the other, it was as familiar as an old shoe. I told myself I needed to be careful of that shoe. “We ended up with Pegasus for two reasons," Elijah said. "Number one: We knew a guy who knew a guy. Number two: Petey’s really, really rich.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “You should see his house. He’s got solid gold sinks. His driver has a driver.”

  I looked over at the music star. He was talking quietly with Ty and Chad. “How does a guy like that end up a brony?”

  Elijah’s eyes grew far away. “He has a hole in his heart. A deep well of sadness that can never be filled.”

  “That sounds serious,” I said, not sure if he was pulling my leg.

  “Oh, it is. It is.”

  We grew quiet for a while. He broke the silence again. “Do you realize we just had a whole, extended conversation and it wasn’t weird. I thought it would be weird, but it wasn’t weird.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t weird because we weren’t talking about us. We were talking about the situation. If we’d been talking about us, I guarantee it would’ve been weird.”

  “I guess you’re right.” He grew silent again, but only for a moment. “I’m sorry I knocked Addie up. I may’ve told you that before.”

  “You did.”

  “I don’t even remember it. They tell me I was drunk, but I have no recollection of the deed at all. I mean Keri’s great, but I don’t even remember the sex. With Addie.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  “I mean I have no idea whether the sex was even good. You know what I mean?”

  “I’d like you to shut up now.”

  “It’s a complete goose-egg. You could say to me, ‘Hey, remember when you knocked-up Addie?’ and I’d be like, ‘No. No, I do not.’”

  “Yes, I see.”

  “Usually, I have a memory like a steel trap. Especially when it comes to getting my freak on.”

  “Elijah, please shut your mouth.”

  More and more, the elder Wiener was reminding me of the junior. “I think that’s ‘cause I never got much sex, so the times I did get it really stands out, you know?”

  “If you’re wondering why you never got much sex, go look in a mirror.”

  My old flame smirked. “You’re referring to the pony costume. I’ll have you know there’s a whole class of chicks that get off on this particular look.”

  “Yes. They’re called ‘mental patients’.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “Of the mental patients? No.”

  El looked up at the glass ceiling. At the heavy downpour bouncing off the panes. “Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Sleeping with Addie. You know, there hasn’t been much sex since then either. In fact, I’d call her ‘avoidant’. Just sitting here, I can’t even picture her naked.”

  “I really don’t need to hear this. In fact, if you don’t stop,
I’m going to punch you in the throat.”

  He stopped. But, again, only for a moment. “You were, by far, the best I ever had. Sexually. I mean it’s not a deep bench, but no one else even comes close.”

  “Do you want me to yank out your tongue and eat it in front of you?”

  He nodded and was quiet for a time. “I made it weird, didn’t I?”

  “You did.”

  “Okay, I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m discombobulated by seeing you again and, as much as I wanna talk to you, I don’t think I know how. There’s so much I wanna say. So much I shouldn’t say and, because of the way my brain is, I don’t know the difference. I’m gonna give myself a time-out. That’d be the best thing right now. I’ll be over there if you need me.” He got up and went over to a seat by the window.

  As soon as he was gone, Keri scooted over and took his place. “You and my dad were talking.”

  “We were,” I conceded.

  “Was it awkward? Was it not awkward? Was the spark still there?”

  “It was awkward. I got no hint of a spark.”

  “I was thinking... Hear me out on this... I don’t like my mom very much. Hell, my dad doesn’t like my mom very much. What if you—on the down-low—were to suck her soul into your jug thingy and slide into her slot.”

  I sighed and rubbed my temples. “You want me to murder your mom and take her place?”

  “It’s not really murder, right? Her ghost goes into the jug and stays there for all eternity. That’s not murder.”

  I sighed. “What makes you think I’d be a better mom than your current one?”

  “Half a day’s observation. Although, to be fair, it wasn’t a high bar to clear.”

  I rubbed my temples. “As flattered as I am by your thoughtful and not at all morally ambiguous offer, I’m afraid I can’t kill your mother and take her place.”

  “You can’t, or you won’t?”

  “I can’t. In order for me to suck Addie into the pithos, she’d have to be evil.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’re gonna have a problem there.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Not gonna do it.”

  “Alright. You think it over. I’m gonna go check on dad.”

  “Yes. Please do.”

  As soon as she was gone, Petey slid over and took her spot on the sectional. I sighed, desperate for the craziness to stop. “You and my boy used to be an item...”

  “He told you that?”

  The rapper pushed his hoodie down around his neck and rubbed his sweaty bald head. “Oh, yeah. He talks about you all the time. How his life got derailed when he knocked up the Ice Queen. How things should’ve been different.”

  I flushed. “Yeah, well, I know what he means.”

  “I’ve been watching you. Not creepy watching, just looking. I’m good that way. With my eyes. It’s part of why my rhymes’re so good. I don’t talk about big booties and Benjamins. I'm more like a journalist.”

  I wasn’t the world’s biggest Pliny the Elder fan, but I felt there was something to what he was saying. “Sure,” I said. “I buy that.”

  “I look at you and I see a strong, beautiful woman. A little soft around the middle, but...”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. Where was this going?

  “But I also see stoicism. I see you’re in a bubble of your own making. You stand off to the side. Apart.”

  The conversation was getting a little familiar for my taste. “What’re you getting at, M.C. Pliny the Elder?”

  He smiled, realizing he’d maybe crossed a line. “I’ve got me a family. I got an old lady and I’ve got two kids. Boy and girl. She’s seventeen. He’s at UCLA studying to be a podiatrist. Why he’s into feet I dunno. That’s his trip. Anyway, the point I’m making is my family’s the only reason I’m still alive. The field I’m in, let’s be honest, can be full of stupidity and pointless violence. I was always more grounded than a lot of the fellas I came up with, but I’m just a man. I coulda been persuaded to do some of the stupid shit going on around me. I never did though. Not once I had me a missus. I always thought about what would them two little kids think if I landed in jail or, to lean on an old cliché, had a cap put in my ass. Thinking that got me un-stupid in a hurry.”

  “That makes good sense. Why’re you telling it to me, though?”

  “Alls I’m saying is every ship needs a port. No port equals ‘lost at sea’.”

  “And I’m the ship?”

  “You’re the ship. All of us are the ships.”

  I sat back and soaked that in. It turns out Petey was a soulful guy. I’m not sure I appreciated the unsolicited advice, but I couldn’t fault the place it was coming from. “Hey, can I ask you something? Unrelated to what you were just talking about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why ‘Pliny the Elder’? Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you know who Pliny the Elder even was?”

  He grinned a big toothy grin. “Pliny was a general. A naval commander. A naturalist. He was friends with Emperor Vespasian. He was a renaissance guy way before the Renaissance. Motherfucker was tight.”

  I sat back, impressed. I’d known Pliny the Elder, and Petey’s encapsulation was accurate.

  Still grinning, the hip hop star raised one eyebrow. “Just so you know, I got a Masters in Classical Roman Studies from Dartmouth.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  I decided I liked M.C. Pliny the Elder.

  4

  Adrestia

  By the time I got to the Firebird, I was soaked through. The ferocity of the downpour was unusual for Los Angeles, especially for that time of year. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. I hadn’t been wearing any makeup and my hair was too short to go scraggly. Still, I looked bad. Pale with big purple circles under my eyes. “Are you alright?” Hope said to me from the passenger seat.

  “No,” I replied. “Remember how I sat on my ass for more than a decade? How I was pretty much a vegetable?”

  “I remember.”

  “I’m thinking it might not be healthy to do that and then have as much stimuli as I’ve been having.”

  The girl in the jug made a sympathetic “mmm” sound. “All you can do is all you can do. So far, you’re playing it right. Do the best you can to get through then go somewhere quiet to process.”

  “You think I’ve got my ducks in a row?”

  “I do. You’ve stayed as cool as you can under the circumstances. Right now, tracking the Kraken is your smartest play. Telling the others to go to Pegasus and wait for you was good. Having Elijah tell me where Pegasus was rather than having him tell you was, frankly, inspired. The Kraken can’t read my mind, and I can steer us to the others after we’ve dealt with the monster. That was solid thinking. If I was in your position, I wouldn’t’ve done as well.”

  I appreciated the vote of confidence. I was running on fumes, and the positive reinforcement helped. I put the car in gear and pulled out of the spot. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “Any time, sis.”

  I drove us to a flood control canal near the Convention Center and, with Hope and a gladius strapped to my back, I climbed over the chain-link fence. The rain hadn’t let up one bit so not only was I drenched, so was the canal. Usually there’s barely a trickle in those things, but on this day, there was a raging torrent. “I wish I’d known we were doing this,” I said. “I would’ve worn my rubbers.”

  “You know what you need to do?” my jug-bound friend said. “You need to go into Bourne mode. You think Jason Bourne worries about a little water? The man’s a machine. His environment, his opposition, they’re irrelevant as long as his goal’s in sight.”

  By then we were at the bottom of the canal and I was walking toward an opening leading into a tunnel. “I feel like maybe we let a genie out of a bottle up at Vasquez Rocks. I had no idea you were so espionage-obsessed. Are all your metaphors going forward gonna be Bourne-related.”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “S
well. Maybe, before all this is over, we’ll get to fight Matt Damon hand to hand.”

  Hope squealed. “Is it possible for a disembodied spirit in a jar to have an orgasm?”

  I scrunched up my face. “If it is, don’t tell me.”

  By then, we were out of the rain and standing over a grate. I pulled the gladius and used it to pry up the covering. Under it was a ladder leading down into the dark L.A. County sewers. As I re-sheathed the sword and climbed onto the ladder, Hope said, “My money’s on Damon, by the way.”

  I sighed as I descended. “What’re you trying to do, reverse the pep talk from the car? I’m very fragile right now.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” There was a pause. “What’re you fragile about?”

  “Oh, I dunno... Seeing my ex-boyfriend who ended our relationship after sleeping with a stranger which caused me to lapse into a years-long depression.”

  “Oh. That.”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “I guess I can’t relate. I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

  “Well, I don’t know why. You’re cute as the dickens. Maybe, when we get some downtime, we can get you hooked up with a boy anthropomorphized emotion. Who do you think you’d like? Maybe Angst or Nonspecific Ennui.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “Yes. I am teasing you.” I dropped down onto the slick ground and unfastened the flashlight I had hooked to my belt loop. I moved the beam around in a slow arc and got exactly what you expect in that situation: a scattering of rats. Disgusting, filthy rats. I shivered and pointed us toward the Convention Center (or the underneath of the Convention Center which would be where the Kraken escaped to). “Keep your eyes peeled for glow-y blood,” I said.

  “It’s probably not glow-y anymore. It gets less glow-y as it dries. That doesn’t matter, though, since I can smell the stuff.”