Chapter 38 Caelus #2
Thank the Furies, Nyssa wasn’t here to witness this.
Dragging its many scaled legs over the stones, clacking and clawing at a leisurely pace, was some hideous malformation of a spider — or a lizard — some nauseating combination of both.
With blistering black scales covering every inch of its body, interspersed with the hairy hide of an arachnid, its enormous reptilian head lunged at us.
I dropped into a roll, growing increasingly agitated with every second of delay, while Evie swung her nameless sword at the creature’s gaping maw.
Its many legs skittered backwards when she struck true, reeling and screeching in raucous cacophony.
When it roared again, it did so with venom.
The creature’s hiss was accompanied by the sharp snapping outburst of a leathery fan around its face — a hairy, frilled neck covered in streaks of blood red.
“What in Tartarus is that?!” Aros exclaimed as he and Athena rejoined us.
“Something Tartarus chewed and spat right back out,” Evie grumbled, taking another swipe at it. She successfully cleaved leg from abdomen twice, and delved beneath its rearing body while the second beast was finally spurred into action.
If I’d thought the spider-lizard was horrific, then this one was even worse. A gigantic cockroach the size of a horse hissed at us, flaring its transparent wings in preparation to join Nike in the sky.
“Mine!” Athena called, twirling her golden spear with something like excitement scrawled across her features. “Come on, Blade, let’s see what else you’ve got.”
Aros groaned, shooting me a wink as he tossed and caught Flameless one-handed. “Oh, Ath, I thought you’d never ask to see what my blade can do.”
Evie gagged as Nike swooped past giggling.
“Sorry buddy — she’s spoken for,” she said, before blowing Athena a kiss and slashing through one of the beast’s fluttering wings, halting its upward path.
Meanwhile, impatience clenched my teeth so hard they could crack — the wall between my bonded and I weighed far too heavily upon my shoulders.
What was being done to her while I remained blissfully, obtusely unaware?
I needed to get to her now.
Thankfully, Evie seemed to be similarly minded and used the opportunity to drive her sword up through the arachnid’s gut. Gore rained down upon her as she pulled it back out, and for a moment, my mind flicked back to a similarly drenched goddess of death after a duel with a hydra.
“Go!” Aros called. “We’re right behind you!”
I did not hesitate.
Time seemed to pass agonisingly slowly as we forged our way across the battlefield.
Corpses were strewn about — the majority being innocent bystanders of Hellespont simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the warriors of Athenos who fought and died to save them.
My heart ached, but I could not give them more than a second of thought because I had one goal, and one goal only: save her.
And that was the mantra that played through my mind, over and over again as I ran, ducked, rolled, dove, leaped, and slashed my way through the rest of the burning city.
With every footstep — right, left, right left — ‘save her’ became the beat of my war drum. The rhythm of my march.
Save her. Save her. Save her.
The fact that I could no longer feel her pain did little to reassure me. In fact, it only added to my relentless drive to reach her, if only so I could see for myself the extent of the damage done, and how exactly to repay it tenfold to her assailant.
Even if it was a fool’s errand.
And so, when I rounded that last corner and found the goddess who made my heart skip a beat, the sight of her held captive on the ground by a being I had only heard stories about, stopped its beating altogether. I lost all coherent thought and melded into one ugly thing: blind rage.
Hyperion straddled her hips, leaning over her in the most damning of positions, and my lightning rushed to the surface, assuming the worst. Pain danced across my skin as minute bolts of electricity feathered over it.
Aros’ wordless bellow behind me indicated his mind followed the same path. Together we dove at the Titan, and with the advantage of surprise combined with our joint strength, tore him off of her.
Fire and lightning attacked in tandem, writhing together, thoroughly enjoying their shared work.
Hyperion put up no fight. He seemed infuriatingly content to lay sprawled in the ash-covered dirt.
Cackling. His laugh grew louder, madder, with every passing second, as we stood over him, bewildered.
He laughed so hard he had to wipe at his eyes; laughed so heartily, his voice broke and it ended in a fit of barked coughs.
“Youre — too — late,” he managed to bite out between hacks. “Time is on our side. Time is our side.”
Aros and I exchanged a loaded look.
“What do we do with him?” he asked.
I shrugged, perplexed. “We have no cuffs. Leave him there for a minute — but watch him.” I growled, knowing that if Hyperion was going to act, even Aros at his best would not be enough to restrain him.
I dropped to the ground in front of Nyssa, who was whimpering in the arms of Athena with Evie standing guard over both of them. She mumbled incoherent sounds that were an attempt at words but neither the goddesses nor I could make any sense of them.
I held my arms out and she deposited Nyssa into them gently. My heart sank at the feeling of her violent trembles. This strong, brave woman had been tortured beyond her limits — beyond the scope of any imaginable, bearable pain — and yet, I could detect no wounds on her body.
What has he done to her?
“Aros? Castrate him, would you?” I growled, more beast than man.
“What—” Hyperion jerked. His sentence cut off abruptly with an agonised howl, half the tenor of my own when I felt a mere echo of Nyssa’s earlier pain.
“Gladly,” Aros smirked, wiping his dagger on the Titan’s own periskelis.
“Nyssa?” I dared whisper into her ear.
She jerked back, squeezing her eyes shut, then froze. She inhaled tentatively.
Do I stink? I bet I reek.
You do, Lykos murmured from somewhere nearby.
Hush, you old goat.
I’ll—
Shhh.
A faint growl was all the response he gave.
Nyssa leaned in, sniffed daintily again, her nose creasing in the most adorable way. “Caelus?” she asked, barely audible past the cracks in her voice. Every snag sent another dagger through my heart.
“What did he do to you, Nightshade?”
She shook her head increasingly emphatic.
A gentle hand gripped my shoulder. Athena. “Let’s—”
Whatever the goddess was going to say was interrupted by a fierce howl — a shriek so side-splitting I almost dropped Nyssa to clamp my hands over my ears.
Instead, I jerked her head to my chest and covered her other ear with a palm until the sound ended abruptly.
My ears rang so badly I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined the creature’s silence.
“Right on time,” Hyperion sneered. “You’re all dead now. Except her. Her, he wants for himself.”
“Over my dead body,” I growled.
A creature, as black as the darkest depths of night, and as horrifying as a demonic bull circled overhead once, snapping at Nike like an errant pigeon.
She dove at the earth, barely escaping its fangs and landed roughly.
A puff of dirt exploded around her ankles as Athena immediately pulled her close.
But it was nothing compared to the jarring thud when the nightmare-beast landed nearby.
The ground rattled its dissent as the beast shrieked again and bowed its head, giving view to its cargo.
Upon the creature’s back, in the dip between its neck and shoulder, sat a figure whose face turned my blood to ice. The last time I’d seen him, he had murdered my brother right before my eyes.
I clutched Nyssa tighter unthinkingly and she moaned again, earning the hungry gaze of the Titan of Time. Kronos’ upper lip curled, his red eyes gleaming with appraisal.
“That can be arranged,” Kronos drawled, his voice scraping at me like a dagger to the brain.
Hyperion reacted by storming forward and sweeping Aros aside with one swipe of his bulbous arm.
Aros roared as he skidded across the ground, then rolled and popped up on his feet in one smooth motion — ready for battle.
He launched himself at the Titan, Flameless swinging in a neat arc aimed for Hyperion’s right arm.
Just as the axe made contact, effortlessly swiping through the outstretched limb with little more than a slight snick quickly followed by the dull thud of severed flesh hitting the dirt and a deafening, pain-filled roar.
Hyperion dropped to his knees clutching the stumpy limb to his chest, even as gleaming ichor spewed out of it like a macabre waterfall.
Kronos growled, his brows slashing downward as he raised one hand, twisting his fingers as though turning an invisible doorknob.
I knew where this was headed next.
I’d seen this play before.
“Say your goodbyes,” Hyperion hissed through clenched teeth.
I cracked my neck, slammed a hand to the ground, and smiled. “Goodbye.”
Between blinks, we fell — like the earth opened up and swallowed us whole. I guess, in a way, it had. I’d opened a shadowgate below us — a semi-circle wide enough to encompass all seven of us in our various positions on the ruins of northwest Hellespont.
Nike squealed as we fell, her velvety wings catching in the updraft, slowing the descent of both her and Athena, locked in each others’ arms.
With a wild jerk of my fingers, I closed the doorway now above us. My last glimpse of battle was a pair of haunting scarlet eyes glaring down at us.