"All Titans — Hyperion. I have visual. Repeat, I have visual."
The urgency in his tone sparked a jolt of adrenaline inside Sam.
"Hyperion, get to cover," she said. "You too, Oceanus."
"Copy that," said Hyperion. "Already on it."
"You're sure it's them?" said Phoebe.
"Three women with wavy snaky hair strolling along the road like they own the place? I'd say it's a pretty fair guess."
"Hyperion, Oceanus, when you're safe, hold position," said Sam. "All Titans, converge. Prepare to deploy Perseus guns. Phoebe, Rhea, I have you at half a klick south and east of Hyperion and Oceanus. Proceed on a north-westerly heading. If we're lucky, this is a pincer movement waiting to happen."
"Roger that, Tethys."
Sam started to run, Mnemosyne close at her heels. The pace of her pounding feet vibrated her vision, blurring things at the periphery. The visor readout clocked her speed at a little over 30 mph.
Exceeding thirty in a built-up area, she thought. That's a fine and penalty points.
Gunfire stuttered, close by. Sam and Mnemosyne turned a corner and skidded to a halt. Hyperion and Oceanus were a few metres ahead, hunkered behind a parked car. Hyperion was at the engine end of the car, his Perseus gun protruding round the front bumper, cracking off round after round. Distantly, Sam could see three figures silhouetted in the roadway. They were running fast towards the car, down on all fours like lizards, hissing and shrieking to one another as they went.
Grabbing Mnemosyne, she ducked back around the corner. Then she unlocked her Perseus gun, swivelled the hinged barrel to the left at a 60° angle, and poked it out into the street. The digital camera mounted on the business end of the barrel relayed an image to a small LCD screen near the trigger guard. A target sight was superimposed on the image.
Hyperion was still firing, but appeared not to have scored a hit yet. The Gorgons were still coming, enraged, scurrying along with their hair erect and wildly writhing.
Sam took aim, centring the target sight on the frontmost of the creatures. Her first two shots with the semiautomatic pistol missed. The third struck the Gorgon in the shoulder. The monster sprawled onto its belly, screaming in pain. The other two hurried to their sister's aid.
Oceanus laid the barrel of his Perseus gun flat across the car's bonnet and loosed off a couple of rounds. The bullets ricocheted off tarmac. At the same moment the two uninjured Gorgons reared up. Both stared hard at the parked car, bending their heads purposefully.
"Hyperion, Oceanus," Sam said, "you need to move your backsides. Now!"
Both Titans hurled themselves clear of the car, and a split-second later the combined gazes of the two Gorgons ignited the fuel tank and the car exploded, bucking into the air atop a roiling cushion of flame. Hyperion and Oceanus hustled across the pavement to the shelter of a shop doorway, even as the burning vehicle crashed back down to earth on its side, shedding pieces of itself in all directions.
The Gorgons skirted around the fiery wreckage. All three of them were on their feet, upright this time. The one Sam had shot was clutching its shoulder but still eager, it seemed, for battle. They closed in on Hyperion and Oceanus, who were pinned down in the shop doorway, unable to break cover for fear of exposing themselves.
"Tethys, this is Rhea. We are in position."
Sam's visor display placed Phoebe and Rhea on the opposite side of the street, in the mouth of an alleyway. Gotcha. She gave them the command to fire at will. Shots rippled towards the Gorgons. Sam and Mnemosyne, the one kneeling, the other standing, let rip from their own hiding place. The Gorgons were caught in a withering diagonal crossfire. On the screen of her Perseus gun Sam saw the monsters, flickeringly sidelit by the flames from the car, swivelling in all directions, trying to see where the bullets were coming from, where their attackers were, but unable to. Their voices rose in a howl, a wavering ululation of outrage and frustration. Then one of the Gorgons went down, as though poleaxed, raging one moment, spreadeagled and motionless the next. Another of them took a bullet to the head. Gobbets of brain and fragments of snake hair flew. No sooner had this one hit the ground than the third fell too.
"Cease fire," Sam announced.
In the silence that followed, the guns' reports could be heard echoing all across the city, pealing between buildings. Closer to, the only sounds were the crackle and pop of the burning car, the twanging of heat-warped metal.
"All Titans sound off," Sam said. "Are you OK?"
Five affirmatives.
"Though for a moment there…" said Hyperion, his voice raspy with emotion. "Ladies, Oceanus and I owe you big-time."
"Let's go and take a look," Sam said. "Confirm the kills. Then we get ourselves the hell out of here."
They congregated around the three bodies. Each Gorgon had a glossy scaly hide and each was identical to its sisters in every respect except colouring — one was greenish, one greyish, one brownish. All three lay still, apart from the slender little snakes which sprouted from their scalps in thick profusion. These were twitching in their death throes. Now and then their tiny mouths gaped in spasms of soundless, shuddering, fang-baring agony.
"Jeez-us," breathed Hyperion. "Those are about three of the most hideous things I've ever clapped eyes on."
"Shouldn't be allowed to exist," agreed Rhea.
"Abominations," Phoebe added, her German accent tripping slightly over the word.
"Well, they're dead now," said Oceanus, "and good sodding riddance, I say."
Sam peered down at the monsters, and for some reason the man-lion from her dream flitted into her thoughts.
"What are they?" she wondered aloud. "Where did they come from? I don't believe they're supernatural beings. Did someone make them? Were they people once?"
"Does it matter?" said Hyperion.
"Quite," said Oceanus. "They're killable. That's all we need to know."
"But they're intelligent," said Sam. "They're more than just animals. And that — "
She was cut short by an abrupt loud yelp from Hyperion. "Whoa! Its eyes are open! Motherfucker's still alive!"
One of the Gorgons, the greyish one, was staring up at the surrounding Titans. Its lips parted in a snarl. Its eyes blazed with hatred.
Sam was closest to it. She knew she had just a matter of heartbeats in which to act. She didn't go for her gun. Her response was instinctual, visceral, a convulsion of disgust. She raised a leg and brought her foot down on the Gorgon's face, stamping with servomotor-augmented strength. Her boot went straight through the monster's head, crushing the midsection of it flat as easily as if she had been stamping on a watermelon. Blood spurted everywhere. The crunch was horrendous but also, at some deep, primal gut level, exhilarating.
"Well," said Hyperion, scanning the mess Sam had made. He took off a gauntlet and wiped blood drips from his visor. "Yeah. Motherfucker was still alive. But I think it's safe to say, not any more."
30. BRUGES
T hen came Bruges.
And the Titans' second casualty.
The elegant little Belgian city had endured a French attempt at annexation in the 14th century and, more recently, Nazi occupation, as well as lengthy periods of impoverishment when the canals that connected it to the coast silted up, meaning the arteries which carried its lifeblood, commerce, were blocked. It had survived all these hardships with its medieval architecture more or less intact and its air of resilience undiminished. Bruges sat in the midst of farmed flatlands like a well-preserved lesson in the art of quietly getting on with business and hoping for a brighter tomorrow.
Except… the good burghers of Bruges had slipped up lately. They'd forgotten their history — neglected the tradition of passive, sedate stoicism that had served them so well in the past. The city had become the hub of a youth movement that was prevalent throughout Europe and particularly in the Benelux: the Agonides, the Children of Struggle.
They were teenagers, mostly, who had grown up knowing little other than the Pantheon
ic rule and who chafed under the yoke of this unasked-for, quasi-divine governance. They were rebels, as passionate in their beliefs as only young people could be. They refused to accede to the Olympians' authority. They would not bend the knee the way all the older folks seemed to, especially the ones in positions of political power. They took it upon themselves to resist by mocking and denouncing the so-called gods at every turn.
They'd become famous — notorious — for their art stunts, graffiti sloganeering, and internet pranks such as a Trojan horse virus, called the "Trojan Horse," which embedded a subroutine in operating systems so that whenever the name or image of an Olympian appeared onscreen, a tiny wooden horse would pop up and disgorge a band of even tinier animated hoplites armed with mops and brushes who would set about scrubbing the word or picture out of existence. Millions of PCs and Macs were infected worldwide before All-Moderator Argus managed to expunge the virus from the Web. The Agonides were also responsible for a number of skilfully organised flashmob events that saw dozens of random strangers flock to some open public space and allow themselves to be arranged, through a cunning piece of mobile-phone GPS trickery, into a pattern that could be best seen by nearby surveillance cameras. They'd remain in place for as long as it took to guarantee the pattern had been recorded on CCTV, but no more than 30 seconds, before dispersing. On one occasion a reasonable likeness of Zeus's face was formed, showing the king of the Pantheon with eyes crossed and tongue sticking out. On another, a hundred or so bodies aligned to spell out the words FUCK THE GODS. Most often, though, the flashmobs adopted the official symbol of the Agonides, a circle representing the letter O — for Olympian — surrounded by a larger circle with a line slashing across it diagonally.
The movement had arisen in the genteel backstreets of Bruges. That was where its spiritual heart lay. Accordingly, Bruges was where the Olympians had chosen to site one of their vilest monsters. If the presence of the Lamia in their midst couldn't deter the Agonides from their adolescent shenanigans, then nothing could.
The Lamia was a vampiric thing, half woman, half snake, that seemed quite at home among the towering spires and torpid canals of the town. Night and day it swam and lolled in the water, lurking under bridges or crawling onto jetties to bask in the sun. Its preferred prey was small children, and as a consequence there were no small children to be found anywhere in Bruges. Everyone under the age of twelve had been evacuated into the surrounding countryside or found temporary lodgings in Brussels and Ghent. The Lamia was partial to the odd adult as well, but its attacks on mature victims were seldom fatal, whereas its attacks on minors almost always were. It was a question of blood volume. The Lamia sucked three or four pints at a single sitting, never any more. Most adults could survive that level of blood loss and the attendant shock, just, if given immediate medical treatment and an on-the-spot transfusion. Small children could not.
The inhabitants of Bruges tried to go about their daily lives as normal, acting as if the Lamia wasn't there. It wasn't easy, though. They could feel their city slowly dying around them. The empty playgrounds, the lack of high-pitched voices yelling, the toy shops, kindergartens and primary schools that had "Closed Until Further Notice" signs in the window — nobody had realised, until they were gone, quite how much children added to a community and quite how great a void was left by their absence. Without them, there was no tangible evidence of a future, no visible sense of continuum. There were just glum parents, missing their offspring terribly, and the elderly, feeling the cold wind of mortality more keenly than ever.
Also, tourists had stopped coming. Bruges's principal source of income these days were the visitors who were drawn in their droves to the "Venice of the north" thanks to its art treasures and its stately basilicas with their Gothic and neo-Gothic stylings. But the Lamia had put paid to that. Now the horse-drawn carriages stood idle in the Markt, the cobbles of the Burg were untroubled by the soles of sightseeing and coach-party crowds, and open-topped tour boats sat at their moorings with tarpaulins stretched over them and green slime accumulating on their hulls.
Then, one spring night, a rare event. A group of outsiders did arrive in town, unbeknownst to the residents. Although they had come to explore the place and their visit would ultimately be beneficial to the Brugesian economy, they were hardly tourists. Their reason for being there was, as one of them put it, to "find that motherfucking leech and blow it to bits."
Ramsay uttered these words in the back of the van as McCann drove him, Sam and Chisholm into the town. The Chicagoan's sense of humour had been on the wane since they'd left Singapore, and now his face was nothing but a mask of resolute, implacable hatred. His moment had come. Once more he reasserted that nobody else, nobody, would deliver the killing blow tonight. Nobody but him.
"I said it on the plane, I'll say it one more time. The bloodsucker is mine. I'm staking my claim. I've waited five goddamn years for this. You two are welcome to come with. I'll appreciate your support. But so help me, if either of you gets in my way when we have the thing cornered, you better damn well get out of it, or else. It's me and the Lamia, OK? For my little boy's sake. For Ethan. Me and that monster. To the death."
Sam said nothing, just nodded to show that she understood; Chisholm likewise.
McCann parked in a leafy residential square, and the Titans put their helmets on and powered up. Tethys, Hyperion and Oceanus exited from the back doors, and the hunt for the Lamia began.
Much like Singapore, Bruges was deserted after dark, the streets abandoned by its inhabitants, indoors seeming altogether a safer and more sensible place to be. The belfry of the Belfort-Hallen rang out every fifteen minutes, its carillon playing tunes to parcel out the hours, but it seemed nobody was out and about to hear, other than the three Titans.
"I know that one," Oceanus remarked, as the bells tolled half past midnight. "Bugger me, it's 'Danny Boy.'" He joined in. "'The pipes, the pipes are ca-all-ling.'"
"Hey," said Hyperion. "Zip it."
"Only having a bit of a singalong."
"Well, don't."
Oceanus bristled. "Now hold on a moment. Who are you to — "
Behind Hyperion's back, Sam made an air-patting gesture. Leave it.
Oceanus jutted his jaw, but relented.
They traversed several low bridges, weapons trained on the canals below. The water was mirror-motionless, black as oil. Mist drifted up from it in thready swirls.
"Come on out, Lamia," Hyperion muttered. "Show your face. I got something for you."
The "something" was the rocket launcher that he carried slung over his back, a Daedalus special, short enough that the user could flip it forward, slot the rocket in, and assume firing position in one easy manoeuvre. Its effectiveness in the field had been proved twice, first against the Sphinx, then against the Chimera. The projectiles' thermobaric warheads, designed to stop armoured vehicles and penetrate masonry, made mincemeat of monsters. Overkill? Hyperion would argue that under these circumstances there was no such thing.
"Movement," said Oceanus.
"Where?" said Hyperion.
"Your eleven."
"Got it."
The Titans had just crossed yet another bridge, having performed almost a complete circuit of the central part of the city. On the corner of a narrow street up ahead, Sam could see what looked like an arm — waving? Reaching up? She could also, now, detect an intermittent hissing noise.
Hyperion swung the launcher, already loaded, onto his shoulder and advanced. Back at Bleaney, Landesman advised caution. Sam followed Hyperion, machine gun at the ready. She kept to his left side, steering well clear of the launcher's rear end. Thanks to her battlesuit the backblast wouldn't kill her but it would certainly knock her off her feet.
The hissing continued, reminding Sam of the sound the Gorgons had made. Perhaps they and the Lamia were related, members of the same composite woman/snake species. But the Lamia was a stealth predator. Its modus operandi was to creep up on its prey and latch on, injecting them
with a venom that served as a muscle relaxant before it took its fill of their blood. Why would it be making any noise? Why alert anyone to its presence in this way?
Hyperion rounded the corner, adopting a feet-spread firing stance.
"Ah shit," he said. Angry, disappointed. "One of them."
Sam joined him, and found a scared teenage boy cowering before him. The teenager's face was covered with a balaclava, and in his hand was an aerosol can. On the wall beside him, part of the facade of a chocolate shop, were two freshly painted concentric O's. He hadn't yet managed to add the diagonal line that would complete the Agonides symbol.
"Please, don't shoot!" the teenager begged. "I am good kid. No threat. Just doing my thing."
"I'm not going to shoot," Hyperion assured him. "What do you mean, your thing?"
"I must paint ten of these, ten logos around the city, then I am able to join Agonides as full member. It's my — I'm not sure of the word." The teenager's English carried a Flemish accent, not dissimilar to a Netherlands accent. Word came out voord.
"Initiation."
"Yes! Initiation."
The Age of Zeus a-2 Page 17