Die, Brony, Die

by Paul Neuhaus

  Having been involved in the most recent events, I knew what had happened. Medea had betrayed Hermes and Adrestia and stole the plan for herself. Why the Olympian and his daughter had trusted Medea in the first place was beyond me. Medea’s defining characteristic was treachery so, of course, she went rogue. But desperation makes strange bedfellows. Hermes and Adrestia knew that Medea had the power to forge a key to the gate of Tartarus, so they allied with her. Medea, acting without her two partners, forged the key and made it all the way to the gate before she was murdered by her own children—which was only fair since she’d murdered them first. Now, with Medea gone, Adrestia was trying to pick up the pieces—and she was so single-minded she’d sacrificed the one person who’d stood by her through the centuries. I knew she’d stop at nothing to get the key and open the gate to release the Titans. Her appetite for justification was never-ending.

  Despite a feeling of weary deja vu, I knew I couldn’t sit this one out. I couldn’t let the Titans run rampant over the earth since I lived on the earth and was reasonably fond of both it and some of the people on it.

  Once I’d taken the memories in, they dissolved around me and my vision un-blurred into the corral at Acadine.

  I was still kneeling, and I still had my hand out as if Hermes was still with me.

  I stood and looked around me. Everyone was inside the broken corral. The bronies stood together in a loose clump while Squire and his people formed another group. I spoke, addressing all of them at once. “How long was I gone?” I said, worried about what kind of lead Addie might’ve built up.

  Elijah spoke up. “About a minute and a half. Look,” he said, pointing.

  I turned. Behind me were Keri and Pegasus. The horse’s bum wing was fixed. Keri, her hands still glowing with healing energies, stood back, a huge grin on her face. “That is fucking awesome,” I said. “Here, give me a hand...”

  I dropped the bridle, so its entire length hung loose in my grip. Meanwhile Keri stepped in again and took the animal’s neck and flank in her gentle hands. “This is Auntie Dora,” she said. “You don’t need to be afraid. Auntie Dora’s good people. She won’t hurt you.”

  The horse snorted, but he didn’t back away. He heeded whatever power the bridle had over him and allowed me to slip it over his head. With the gear in place, he was as calm as I’d ever seen him.

  “Can I have a turn after you?” Petey said, awestruck.

  I shook my head. “We’ll see. This ain’t the Dumbo ride at Disneyland.”

  I started to throw my leg up over Pegasus’ side, but Keri stopped me with a cough.

  “What?” I said.

  “Are you, um, wearing anything under that robe?”

  “No.”

  “You’re gonna go bareback on a flying horse with your coochie out?”

  I grinned at her as I mounted the horse. “It’ll be the most action I’ve had in years.” I wasn’t worried about the robe, but I didn’t have a saddle or any harnesses to put my props in. I looked around for a moment, afraid I was going to have to dismount and get better prepared. Two of Squire’s men ran around him. One had saddlebags which he threw over Pegasus’ back. Into the bags, I put my pithos and my severed head. “You’re a lifesaver,” I said to Sebastian.

  “The gladius is optional,” he replied.

  I looked at the second helper and, sure enough, he was carrying a golden sword. I took it eagerly. “No, it isn’t,” I replied gratefully. With that, I gave Pegasus a gentle nudge with my bare heels and we were airborne.

  Before the horse’s back hooves left the ground, Keri did a superhuman vault and landed just behind me. Without saying a word, she clamped her hands around my waist and buried her face in my back.

  Right off the bat, Pegasus angled himself along the cliff face which meant we were in a near-ninety degree drop. I almost lost my cookies, but the horse was right to do it. He was taking us along Adrestia and the Kraken’s path. That path was well-marked with broken boulders and enormous claw marks. I wasn’t sure what my mount was going to do once we reached the Pacific. Tracking people over a body of water is notoriously problematic.

  It didn’t really matter, though, since I knew exactly where Addie was headed.

  When we were right above the water, Pegasus pulled another ninety-degree turn to flatten out our trajectory. Again, I nearly ralphed. It was a good thing I hadn’t had anything to eat beforehand.

  I noticed the tightness of Keri's grip and the strength with which she burrowed her head in my back. “Why did you come with me?” I said to her. “Are you scared of heights?”

  I couldn’t see the girl, but I’m sure her eyes were shut tight. “I am terrified of heights, but I would’ve kicked myself if you needed help and I wasn’t there.”

  I smiled slightly. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’ll be fine. All I’ve gotta do is lure the Kraken away from civilization and get him into the pithos.”

  Keri had to shout over the whipping wind. “We’ll see,” she said. “I’m still expecting a dose of Murphy’s Law.”

  “I can’t argue,” I conceded.

  Like I say, I’ve never been much for horses. I rode them, of course, when they were the only game in town, but I was far from an expert. I could steer, I could go, and I could stop. I knew the basics, but I was never particularly simpatico with them. They always seemed flighty and inscrutable to me. The funny thing was, even though I’d gone to the trouble of getting the fancy bridle, I wasn’t doing a whole lot. More than once, I saw Pegasus’ nostrils flare and then he’d change course. Between me knowing where to go and his having caught our quarry’s scent, things were looking good.

  I decided to throw Keri a bone. I looked over my shoulder and said, “You were right about my outfit. My ass and coochie are getting rubbed raw.”

  All the girl could manage was, “That’s super-gross.”

  Despite my sore nether regions, the ride was absolutely amazing. Pegasus flew above the ocean’s surface and I could feel the spray on my legs and face. For you daredevils out there, I can’t recommend riding a winged horse at breakneck speeds over a calm Pacific highly enough. “This is stunning,” I said to my passenger. “I know you’ve probably got your eyes closed, but you should open them.”

  “I’m good,” was all she would say.

  To our right was both the coastline and the rising sun. I looked over my shoulder and I could see the lights of Santa Monica winking off behind us. We were headed north. I decided to break the ice between Pegasus and myself. “Can you smell him, boy? Are you tracking the Kraken?”

  Pegasus did one of those snorts that’s also a nod, so I took that as a good sign.

  “We’re headed up the coast,” Hope said from inside her saddlebag. There’re no major cities between Los Angeles and San Francisco. For the time being at least, Adrestia isn’t looking to pull an Argos.”

  Hope didn’t yet know where we were headed, but her observation was reassuring nonetheless. We wouldn’t have to watch the Kraken turn any coastal towns into wreckage and froth. Then again, we might get to see him turn some non-coastal cities into wreckage and dirt clods. I decided to let Hope in on what I’d learned. “Addie was part of the plot to release the Titans. Along with her dad and Medea. Medea highjacked the plan and now Addie’s trying to salvage it.”

  Hope sighed. “She’s steering the Kraken toward Bronson Caves. She wants to get to the Underworld and steal the key.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’ll take them across the San Fernando Valley. America’s suburb. It’s chock full of Dairy Queens and malls and apartments and people.”

  “Right again.”

  Keri stirred behind me. “We can’t let that happen,” she said.

  “Hey, I’m on your side.”

  Fortunately, Addie didn’t have a tremendous lead, so we didn’t have long to wait—it turns out eighty-foot sea monsters are easy to spot even when they’ve only got their head and shoulders above water. There was the Kraken a ways i
n front of us. I could even see the little dot that was Addie holding on for dear life. The two of them were angling in which meant they were likely to make landfall soon. That would put them a little north of Malibu. What was just north of Malibu? Not a whole lot, but it perfectly positioned them to move inland into the Valley.

  “What’s Bronson Caves?” Keri said over the noise of the wind.

  “It’s caves, but it’s also an entrance to Hades. The Underworld.”

  “Bullshit,” the teenager said reflexively.

  “You just found out you’re a demigoddess, you’re riding on a horse with wings and you’re gonna call bullshit on the Underworld?”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  The Kraken had made landfall and was standing looking down on the PCH. That caused a lot of confusion on the ground as cars slammed into one another or pulled one-eighties and sped back in the direction they’d come from.

  Between where we were on the coast and the San Fernando Valley, there was a fair amount of hilly terrain. To me, that was a good thing. “Okay, you two, look alive. Keri, I’m gonna need you to open your eyes because shit’s about to get real. If you’re here to help, now’s the time. We need to get them before they can get into too populous an area. For lack of a better plan, Keri, you’re gonna control the siren head and I’m gonna control the pithos.”

  “I’m gonna control the siren head?” Keri said. “What siren head? What does that even mean?”

  “I’ve got a siren’s head. Sirens were those singing bitches that lured sailors into the rocks. The Kraken’s supposed to be especially susceptible. When the wind blows through it, it sings and lures people in whatever direction it’s pointed.”

  “What about us?” the teenager asked. “Will it lure us in whatever direction it’s pointed?”

  That, I had to admit, was a really fucking good question. If memory served, Perseus had had something stuck in his ears when he stopped the Kraken from wrecking Argus. Unfortunately, we were a little short on cotton balls. On the up side, I had a sword and a terrycloth robe. “Here, take this,” I said, passing the gladius back to Keri. The transfer was clumsy, but we managed it.

  “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “This is gonna be weird, but just trust me, okay? I want you to cut off a chunk of my robe near the bottom then, if you can, cut that into strips we can jam into our ears.”

  “Oh, fer fuck’s sake. It’s been ages since I took home ec,” the girl complained. She immediately set about doing what I asked her to do, though.

  Pegasus had pushed us inland but, rather smartly, he stopped a ways in and flew in circles. He didn’t want Addie and the Kraken to become aware of us. I was starting to get the idea he was a sacred animal for a reason. He was smarter than most of the people I knew.

  Sure enough, the Kraken stepped right over PCH and headed roughly eastward toward the Valley. Given his stride and his pace, I tried to figure out how long it would take him to get from where we were to Griffith Park—but then I remembered I suck at math, so I gave up. Anyway, it didn’t matter because the kind of casualties the monster’d rack up along the way were completely unacceptable to me. We really, really needed to stop him before he got to where the people were.

  It occurred to me then that I wished I had a cellphone. If I’d had a cellphone, I could’ve called Amanda Venables—my friend and the new Queen of the Underworld. I could’ve warned her we were coming. Then I realized Keri had a cellphone. “Do you have your phone with you?”

  She was still cutting terrycloth behind me. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

  “Could you call a friend of mine and let her know what’s going on? I think she can help.”

  “Sure. Do you have her number?”

  I was flustered so I said something stupid. “Oh. I need her number?”

  Keri laughed. “Yeah, you need her number. I mean I could call at random until I got her, but that could take a while.”

  “Alright, alright. Nobody likes a smartass.”

  “That’s not true in my experience.” After another moment, she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Here.”

  I took two strips of cloth from her. “Perfect. When I tell you, jam yours in your ears good and tight. I have no idea how powerful this singing head is, so we gotta be careful.”

  “What’s the plan? What’re we gonna do exactly?”

  “First we’re gonna jam the cloth in our ears. Then we’re gonna take out the head and we’re gonna get it singing. I don’t know if it needs to warm up first or what. Once it’s singing, I’m gonna have Pegasus fly in circles around the Kraken. Hopefully, that’ll drive both the monster and your mom crazy, at which point, I’ll unstopper my jug and suck them both into it.”

  “Okay,” the girl replied. “I think that makes sense.”

  A thought occurred to me. “Are you okay putting the whammy on your one and only mother?”

  I could feel her shrugging behind me. Her voice had only the tiniest bit of ambivalence. “She is my mom and all, but she only had me to get even with you, and then she unleashed a giant fucking monster on the world, and then she straight up murdered my grandpa before I got a chance to get to know him. So, you know, that kinda sucked. All things considered, I don’t think she’s a nice lady.”

  “Okay, good. Just thought I’d check because there won’t be any going back. Once I capture her, there’s no way I’m letting her out again.”

  “Fair enough. I appreciate your asking.”

  I reached down and opened one of the saddle bags. From it, I withdrew the siren’s head, holding it by its long gray hair. I plopped it into Keri’s lap and said, “Okay, you’ve got head duty. We’ll fly around a little bit and see if we can wake it up.”

  Quite understandably, Keri said “Ew,” but she wasn’t too much of a girlie-girl to do the work. I appreciated her ability to roll with the punches.

  “Now. Jam in your earplugs. Remember: good and goddam tight.”

  We both put the cloth in our ears and I said. “Hey, gimme back that sword. I want the sword.”

  Irritated, Keri took out one of her plugs and said, “What? What’re you saying?”

  Feeling sheepish, I also took out a plug and repeated my request for the weapon.

  “Why wouldn’t you ask me that before we did the earplug thing?”

  “I forgot,” I replied. “At least we know the earplugs work.”

  “Is there anything else you wanna talk about before we do this? Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

  I grinned. “I do need to go to the bathroom, but it’ll have to wait.” We nodded and put the terrycloth back in our ears. Pegasus took us further inland in a wide arc. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’d been listening to my plan about revving the siren head up. Maybe he had. Like I said, he was a damn smart horse. It hit me all of a sudden: If Pegasus had been listening, wouldn’t he also be listening when the siren started to sing? The Perseus legend didn’t say anything about stopping up the horse’s ears, so I had to assume we were gonna be okay. Anyway, there was nothing we could do about it at that point. I wouldn’t begin to know how to stop up a horse’s ears.

  We didn’t have long to wait for results. As soon as Pegasus built up a good head of steam, the whipping wind went through the creepy, mummified head and out came a mournful song. I had just enough hearing to know the head was doing what we needed it to do, but it was dampened enough not to drive me fully crazy. (Which is not to say I wasn’t driven crazy at all. I could hear the song just enough to know that a full dose would’ve made me kill my own mother.) With that bit of the plan working, I leaned forward and said, “Alright, Pegasus. You know what to do. At least I think you do.” Immediately, the flying horse shot toward where Adrestia and the Kraken should be. We had plenty of open terrain between us and the heavily populated San Fernando Valley to do what we needed to do. I started to get optimistic—which was odd for me, I admit.

  As soon as the monster came into view, I flipped open the othe
r saddlebag, took out the pithos and placed it firmly in the crook of my right arm. In my left hand, I held Sebastian Squire’s golden gladius. (I wasn’t even bothering with the bridle anymore—Pegasus had already proven himself to be the world’s best self-driving car).

  We went high above the Kraken and began to do wide orbits around him. Now that I had a good view of him in broad daylight, I didn’t think he looked especially aquatic. In fact, I thought he looked a lot like the Rancor from Return of the Jedi. That ugly brown thing under Jabba’s palace that tried to eat Luke Skywalker. He had long arms, huge clawed hands and stubby little legs that moved him overland at a surprising clip. (He wasn’t completely free of nautical accoutrements. Despite the fact he’d only been in the ocean a short time, he had crusty barnacles all over his legs.)

  Once he had the Kraken at the center of his wide orbits, Pegasus both progressively tightened his circles and slowly descended. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better mode of transport. The horse was totally teeing me up. If we missed the shot, it was on us.

  We missed the shot.

  Given Pegasus’ orbit, the Kraken was always on our left side. Keri wisely shifted the severed head to her left hand and pointed the gawking, singing face at her mother and the sea monster. Beyond a doubt, the plaintive keening of the ex-siren was having the desired effect. The Kraken had stopped mid-stride. If he’d been a cartoon character, his eyes would’ve turned into pinwheels. Adrestia was similarly distressed. Her expression was too far away to see but she had her arms up and her hands covering her ears in a doomed attempt to block the sound. She did have something neither Keri or I factored in, something that helped her more than even the odds. She had a ranged weapon. Being the demigoddess she was, she had the ability to use a kind of magic. Really what it was was an ability to manipulate the natural forces around her. She could, for instance, superheat the air and direct it in a beam.