Hounded By The Gods

by ST Branton

  CONTENTS

  LMBPN Publishing

  Dedication

  Legal

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Notes CM Raymond

  Notes LE Barbant

  Goddess Scorned

  Also by Raymond & Barbant

  Connect with Us

  Hounded by the Gods

  Forgotten Gods Book Three

  By ST Branton, CM Raymond, and LE Barbant

  www.lmbpn.com

  DEDICATION

  To Gavin, Hank, and Simone.

  May you find magic everywhere and

  causes worth fighting for.

  The Hounded by the Gods Team

  JIT Beta Readers

  Daniel Weigert

  John Ashmore

  Tim Bischoff

  James Caplan

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Paul Westman

  Larry Omans

  If we missed anyone, please let us know!

  Hounded by the Gods (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2018 ST Branton, CM Raymond, and LE Barbant

  Cover by http://www.bookcoverartistry.com/

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact support@lmbpn.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, March 2018

  PROLOGUE

  The black forest spread like a shadow up the side of the craggy mountain, which Lupres had claimed as his own. From his vantage point among the thick Northwestern trees, he could see the entire valley bathed in pale light, and he smiled. He never felt more at home than at moments like this when he stood beneath the very seat of his power.

  The moon, his throne, was almost full. The time was finally upon him.

  Not far from where Lupres kept his nightly vigil, a rushing stream ran over stony banks, winding a silver thread down to the base of the mountain. It fed into a human town nestled in the forest’s embrace, whose twinkling lights were man-made stars against the velvet darkness of night.

  How Lupres hated them.

  Everything warm and bright reminded him of the prison in which he had spent far too long. The golden halls of Carcerum haunted him still and made the bile rise in the back of his throat. It was nothing more than a false paradise designed to torture those more deserving of Kronin’s unjust power.

  Now Carcerum lay in ruins, its god-king slain. And Lupres was free at last to wreak vengeance upon the lesser beings of Earth. Those who survived would be gloriously transformed into the soldiers of his great army. They would begin the purge of this world’s human impurities.

  The water ran cold around his legs as he stood in the brook, bronze eyes fixed on the unsuspecting village in the distance. The white eye of the moon fed him its strength—it coursed through his veins like ice and fire.

  He was ready to perform the rite.

  The sacrificial saber sang a soft tune out of the sheath on Lupres’s belt, catching the baleful glint of the moonbeams on its way into position. His reflection stared up from the flat of it.

  The age of oppression had ended.

  Now began the age of war.

  Lupres filled his lungs with the fresh, cold mountain air, relishing the wild scent. He smelled the humans too, likely asleep in their fragile domains. If he listened hard enough, even their heartbeats filled the stillness of the woods. So weak on their own, but infused with his blood, he could make them unstoppable.

  The saber lifted high and gleaming, then swung downward in a swift, merciless arc. Lupres savored the biting pain, the sudden rush of dark blood from his veins. Dropping to his knees on the rocky bed, his threw his head back and basked in the certainty of the future he’d just created. His severed hand fell into the water, spinning away with the current. For a few moments, it flowed shades of scarlet and wine until the persistent beat of the wound faded away.

  Breathing heavily, the god drew up his brand-new stump and cradled it as an infant in the crook of his other arm. An edge of white bone protruded from the flesh. The blood was growing thick and sluggish. Below the point of amputation, the thick veins in his forearm had gone almost black, as they always did when some measure of the ancient magic was invoked. He traced those lines with his remaining fingers.

  The bloodlines were sacred texts to him.

  He read the stories of his people, his subjects, and his empire as they flowed through him, powered by the beating of his indomitable heart. Long before Kronin had taken away his freedom, Lupres had dreamed of claiming a world for his own. Carcerum had meant to quash his cruel ambitions, but it just stoked their flame. Now the images were clearer than ever in his mind of a kingdom over which he would rule with an iron fist.

  There was nothing left to stop him.

  Fueled by the high of his own ritual sacrifice, Lupres reared up and unleashed his war cry into the depths of the night. His voice rolled down the mountain, through the trunks and over the jet-black canopy. A ghost of his own fierce howl came back to his ears.

  A fair warning of things to come.

  He glanced back at his arm as he turned to retreat to his perch near the summit. The healing process had already started; his work was done for now. A smile curled his lips back from glistening teeth. In a matter of hours, the elixir would reach its new vessels. By dawn, panic.

  By next nightfall, chaos.

  CHAPTER ONE

  You want to know what’s worse than monsters?

  I’ll tell you: airports.

  What’s worse than vampires?

  John F. Kennedy Airport.

  The night before had been full of last-minute internet trawling for information that might support the incident Namiko told me about, so I was bleary-eyed and waiting for the caffeine to kick in—not to mention a little on edge.

  But still, I couldn’t get the content that my favorite tech-blogger sent me out of my head. “Hey, Marcus,” I murmured, resisting the urge to shield my eyes against the harsh fluorescent lights. “What do you think? Conspiracy theory or legitimately shady government shit?”

  It is difficult to ascertain either way, but I think it is worth the journey, at least.

  “Just to see?” I nodded slowly. “You just want to fly again. You’re becoming quite the fan of modern technology. I
should set you up on Twitter.”

  All tools are on the table in the war against the gods. Even this “twitter.”

  I smiled. “You could do some definite damage there, trust me.”

  The question is, why do you seem so hesitant? Do you disagree with this strategy?

  A sigh escaped my lips. “I don’t know. I’m just sick of running down bogus leads that turn out to be nothing. We haven’t found a single new clue since Palo Alto. It’s been, like, a month.”

  It had been three weeks almost to the day, but I felt entitled to a little exaggeration. Talk about going from a hundred to zero in the blink of an eye. In those three weeks, I had crisscrossed the country twice, including a stop in Austin for what came on my radar as a possible harpie sighting, which turned out to be just some kinky, underground swingers club.

  Keep Austin weird, right?

  It wasn’t that I missed being in constant mortal danger, or that I had a ravenous desire to watch more people die. But I was finally settling into my role as a sword-wielding, god-fighting badass, and in some ways, it didn’t seem fair that as soon as I became more or less okay with the whole deal, I had no more bad guys to fight.

  This silence is quite conspicuous. I agree. There must be a great shadow on the horizon.

  I frowned. “Well, can it hurry up? I thought we were on a schedule here. Or have they forgotten about the inevitable war?”

  Marcus chuckled. Whatever happens hereafter, I hope you never lose your sparkling charm, Victoria.

  “Nothing’s happening. That’s the problem.” I adjusted the backpack on my shoulder as I followed the sign around to security. “It’s making me nervous.” The line for the checkpoint came into view and I felt myself die a little inside. “Guess I’ll have a while to think about it.”

  Always look for the silver lining, my armor-clad conscience said helpfully.

  “Which is what? Getting to spend more quality time with you?” I was only half-ragging on him. As much as he knew how to annoy the hell out of me, Marcus provided a solid counterbalance to the ever-present sensation of beating my head against a supernatural wall. As long as he and the sword were there, I knew it was all real. Every crazy bit of it had happened.

  Do not sound so enthusiastic, he quipped. I might think you were becoming immune to my many charms.

  That one got a little laugh. I ran my hands through my hair and stood on the tips of my toes to try and see to the end of the line. No dice. A girl somewhere behind me loudly discussed her latest one-night stand. Up ahead, a baby wailed ferociously. I groaned. “Should have stayed in bed.”

  Chin up, Victoria. It was most generous of Namiko to provide the funds to secure your passage. The least you can do is honor her gift.

  “I know, I know.” I had told Namiko she didn’t have to pay for the plane ticket, but she told me to stop being an asshole and take it. After what happened in Palo Alto, I needed to do my best to keep out of the spotlight for a while, and we both knew it.

  “Besides,” she had said, “my dad’s loaded, remember? The least I can do is spread the wealth a little—especially if it’s for the sake of saving the world.”

  It was a salient point, though I was reasonably sure the whole mess had been swept under the rug after Monk’s funeral. My daily scouring of Mac’s newspaper stand produced no mention of either Silicon Valley or San Francisco, apart from speculative stories on the state of the industry after the death of its brightest star.

  No harpies, no vampires, no nine-foot-tall goddess.

  News about the ongoing supernatural conflict sure had a way of disappearing, which was why we couldn’t completely discount Namiko’s findings. The case seemed, on the surface, like nothing more than one of those ghost stories circulating through the weirder parts of the internet.

  A remote town in the woods of northern Washington caught some kind of strange plague, some of the townsfolk had gone missing, and then apparently, the Feds came in and shut everything down. Radio silence ever since.

  Deacon might know more information than the couple articles Namiko had dug up, but I didn’t want to push my luck with him. And I didn’t want him to know I was heading back out west after the California catastrophe. He would never let me hear the end of it.

  No one knew about this little trip except me, Marcus, and Namiko, and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. Experience had taught me that information had a way of getting around, and I promised myself to be extra careful this time. Lay low, stay quiet, level up my stealth. That was the plan.

  I really hoped it was going to stick.

  The line shuffled forward one excruciating inch at a time, up and down interminable queues. The kid in front was still crying. I wished I had a mute button for the entire world. All I wanted to do was get through this urban hellscape and find my gate.

  I knew shit was dire when sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair was unquestionably the better option.

  Are these intensive security measures typical of your day?

  I froze for a second, unsure how to explain 9/11 and the resulting TSA requirements to a soldier from the Roman Empire. “It’s been like this for sixteen years. You saw it when we flew to San Francisco, remember?”

  I did not realize it was simply commonplace.

  “There was an attack on New York City involving a couple of hijacked jets. They really cracked down in airports after that.” I paused. “Wait, did you think there was something extra special that needed guarding in Frisco?”

  Does Silicon Valley not sound like the site of an artifact?

  “I guess technically it was. But no, this garbage happens every time you want to fly, unless you live in some backwater place with a tiny airport. And even there, you have to take off your damn shoes.”

  I see. It is a pity that the basic warring nature of human beings has yet to change.

  “You could argue it hasn’t; it’s just evolved—or devolved.”

  We finally made our way up to the agent at the checkpoint, and I presented the only real identification I still had from my old life: my driver’s license. He looked at it, looked at me, looked at my boarding pass. A few seconds of silence passed, during which I did my absolute best not to look suspicious.

  “You’re all set, Victoria,” he said, scribbling his mark on my pass. “Have a safe flight.”

  “Thanks.” I took my stuff back and scooted into one of the conveyor belt lines. My heart thrummed in my chest, but I knew the hard part was almost over. As long as no one said anything about the sword hilt, I’d be home free. “Alright, buddy, see you on the flip side.” I took off the medallion and put it in a bin next to the hilt, my shoes, and my phone.

  “Ma’am?” The TSA agent manning the start of the belt spotted it immediately. “That’s not a weapon, is it?”

  Keeping all the curse words inside my head, I smiled at her. “Nope. It’s just an ornamental hilt.”

  She looked puzzled. “Just the hilt? There’s no blade?”

  “No blade. You can see the slot for it, but it was probably taken out a long time ago.” I shrugged. “I just didn’t want to check it because it’s pretty important to me, and I’d be heartbroken if something happened to it in cargo.”

  The agent picked up the Gladius Solis, examining it with both hands. I had never been so thankful that it looked completely innocuous when it wasn’t activated. She still looked mildly bewildered when she put it back down, but she waved it through. “Now I’ve seen everything,” she told me, smiling. “Go ahead.”

  “Thank you.” I stepped up to the scanner, held my hands above my head, and stepped out on the other side. No one patted me down, and as soon as my bin and backpack came down the belt, I grabbed them and found an empty bench.

  Shoving my feet back into my shoes, I noticed someone watching me. He had his arms outstretched for the secondary detector wand, but his eyes were glued to me, full of a familiar predatory expression. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Our gazes met bri
efly.

  He smiled.

  Yeah, definitely a vamp.

  “Damn it to shit hell,” I muttered, slipping the medallion over my head and throwing on my backpack. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him clear security and head toward me. His hungry eyes looked me up and down. I was going to play it cool, but if he wanted to start shit, he wouldn’t leave me much of a choice.

  As he gained ground, I spotted a family bathroom ten yards off. A perfect place to hide out.

  “Here we go,” muttered under my breath.

  Well at least the trip won’t be a complete waste.

  The door shut behind me. I turned to face it and reached for the lock, but before I could swivel the chrome hardware, the door pushed open.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” he said, standing in the doorway grinning. He was so pale, I swore I could see his internal organs. “I was hoping you’d invite me somewhere private.”

  I lunged for him. Grabbing the vamp by the shirt, I spun and pinned him up against the baby changing station with my elbow at his throat. “I don’t think I invited you anywhere,” I sneered. “You blood-sucking son of a bitch. How many of you did Lorcan send?”

  His eyes went wide, their glint of malice replaced by fear. “Whoa. Shit. What the hell are you talking about? I—I thought we were on the same page!” He tried to raise his arms in defense, but I pinned them to his sides.

  “On the same page about what, exactly? I don’t think we’ve ever spoken.” My knee threatened his junk in no uncertain terms. “And I don’t appreciate unwanted company.”

  “Okay, okay! I’m sorry! Look, I was checking you out in the security line, and then you kept looking at me like that, so I thought you were into it. You know, a little airport fun. That’s all, I swear!” He was sweating, which was not a good look for his already slimy complexion. Tears brimmed at the corners of his eyes. “Don’t hurt me. I’ll never do it again. Just please don’t hurt me.”