Chapter 20 The Eldest Heir
THE ELDEST HEIR
AUGUSTUS: THAT SAME NIGHT
The night was dark and sinister outside our bedroom window.
Emotions choked me as my skull pounded.
So much fucking rage.
Every second that Alexis refused to talk to me, the madness grew.
Seething inside my chest, the urge to slaughter, destroy, maim was mounting. There was nothing that could put out the fire, and it was becoming harder to pretend that I was a reasonable man.
Kharon stalked inside the room.
His pupils were blown, eyes full of fury, because he wasn’t going to be able to watch Alexis sleep tonight.
We both pretended he didn’t have a problem.
“You ready?” Kharon asked as he stared at my hands. “The plan’s still on?”
I dropped the gasping Olympian doctor to the floor.
The purple owl of the House of Athena was embroidered on his white coat; dark hair was a tangled mess around his withered face; green eyes darted around wildly.
My finger marks were stark around his pale throat.
“Last chance,” I said calmly, as I flexed my knuckles. “What have you heard about why the Titans are mutating? What do the Olympians know?”
The doctor shook his head. “I told you. Nothing. Nobody knows why they—”
I engaged my powers.
His head rocked back—eyes exploding—limbs sprawled as he slumped unconscious.
Kharon arched his brow.
I smiled.
For the first time in weeks, my headache abated, and a sense of peace settled over me.
“Whatever.” Kharon stepped over the Olympian. “Let’s go.”
He held out his tattooed arm—I grabbed it.
“Domus.”
It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the new brighter light.
The sun hung low on the horizon, setting in streaks of vibrant pink. Birds flew overhead, and insects chirped. The air was crisp and scented with wet earth.
Location: trailer park, bumfuck Montana.
I cracked my neck with anticipation. The site was a reminder—Alexis hid from us that she was partially deaf. Someone was going to pay.
My headache started up again, worse than before.
It was time to get answers, and where Alexis grew up was the perfect place to start.
I wiped wetness off my face, my fingers covered in scarlet.
All this time, Alexis couldn’t hear out of one ear. During the fucking crucible, we screamed at her while she—
I needed to stop thinking about it.
Struggling to breathe, to calm myself, to tamp down the madness, I tried to focus on our mission.
Golden hair blowing as she raised a gun and a knife, glaring at the Titans with determination.
Alexis wasn’t weak. She didn’t need my pity.
Kharon palmed a gun. Click. He slid in a cartridge and flicked off the safety.
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
Ignoring me, Kharon stomped down the gravel road toward the row of dilapidated trailers, gun raised and his black cloak trailing behind him.
I stalked after him.
Sighing, I reached down my hand to offer—
Poco isn’t with you anymore.
My heart squeezed.
Kharon banged on the door of a trailer, scoffing at the hand-painted sign hanging above it: Private property, organ harvesters beware.
“Open the door,” Kharon shouted. “Or I’m kicking it in.”
The various metal sheets, patched together to create the front of the trailer, rattled like they were going to fall apart.
The door flew open.
A portly middle-aged man held up a crowbar. “I’m gonna fucking whack you, you goddamned—”
Kharon smiled with his teeth.
“S-S-Spartans?” the man whispered in horror, crowbar dropping as he stumbled back.
Since we stood taller than the peeling door frame, we had to duck our heads to keep him in our vision.
Have humans always been so puny?
I pulled out the pictures of Alexis and Charlie that I’d secretly taken at dinner last week.
“What can you tell me about this girl and boy?”
The man blanched and shook his head, his eyes darting around. “I d-don’t know them.”
“You’re lying.” Kharon held the gun up to his head.
Whimpering, the man’s mouth opened and closed with a wheeze.
A woman appeared.
Gray-haired, wearing hole-riddled clothes, she cleared her throat as she pointed to the picture I was holding. Her arm was covered in fresh bruises.
“Alexis and Charlie,” she whispered. “Those rug rats lived behind the tree line … Good kids. Everyone in town knew about them—especially Alexis … She was a prodigy. We heard she’s a Spartan.” Her voice filled with awe. “Is it true?”
Kharon worked his jaw back and forth. “Why … did no one help her?” he asked.
“Shut the fuck up, Katie.” The man whirled toward the woman. “Don’t say another goddamn word or I’ll—”
Thud.
He dropped to the floor with a splattering sound.
Wincing, because I’d only meant to knock him out, I nudged him with my boot.
Cerebral fluid leaked out of his ears.
Not my best work.
Katie gasped, raising her bruised arms in front of her face protectively as pieces of the man’s brain oozed from his nose.
Fresh rage filled my chest, and I wished I could kill him a second time.
“Really?” Kharon looked at me.
I focused on Katie. “Madam, you’re safe now. This man can’t hurt you anymore.”
Slowly, she lowered her arms, wide eyes staring up at me in disbelief. “Why … why would you help me?” She looked confused.
Alexis’s admission about her ear echoed in the back of my mind.
“Men who hurt women don’t deserve to live.”
Katie made a strangled noise.
Gazing around the decrepit trailer, I patted down my empty pockets with increasing frustration. “I’ll come back with some healing paste and money so you can—”
“Here.” Kharon pulled a Spartan gun out of his holster. “You should be able to pawn this for money. Right? Also, you can use it to protect yourself if anyone else tries to hurt you.”
Katie blinked in disbelief as Kharon placed the gun in her hand.
Kharon wiggled it. “Careful—don’t shoot yourself.”
Katie jumped.
I slapped Kharon across the back of the head. “Sorry, madam, he doesn’t get out much.”
“It was just a joke,” Kharon grumbled, but he stepped back and gave the woman space to hold her new weapon.
“Do you have anything else you can tell us?” I asked her, letting my desperation show on my face.
She shook her head no, and stared down at the gun with awe.
I tasted bile.
Her face morphed into Alexis, then Helen, then back to Alexis.
I left as quickly as possible, needing to get out of the trailer. Kharon followed without a word.
“Wait!” Katie yelled from the door.
We stopped.
I couldn’t look over at her.
“The rug rats—we couldn’t help them, because rumor was …” She lowered her voice. “Someone threatened to make grizzly food out of any folk who helped them—that’s all I know. Swear to God.”
“We appreciate it,” Kharon said calmly, even though his eyes flashed with wrath.
Katie disappeared inside her trailer.
Both of us scowled.
Dark emotions were rising between us—killing wasn’t enough—we needed to hold Alexis as she told us every bad thing that had ever been done to her, then avenge it all.
“When she said grizzly—” Kharon bit out. “Does she mean the antique semiautomatic weapon I was researching for our initial prototype bodies and—”
“It’s a type of bear,” I said.
Kharon made a face.
An hour—and four dead men—later, we’d learned Alexis and Charlie had once lived in a trailer with two supposed parents, but the father was arrested for killing the mother, and they were homeless orphans.
Also, this trailer park had a problem with men hurting women.
The only men who seemed nonviolent in the park were a group of elderly guys who lived at the edges, and a young man named Paul who wouldn’t stop talking about birds and … government drones? He wasn’t well.
“I can’t believe someone threatened them to let kids live in the fucking woods, and they all did nothing.” Kharon kicked a rock, and it shattered against a distant tree. “Why the fuck would anyone do that? Do you think it was their foster father?”
I clenched my teeth. “The scars on Alexis’s wrists and her ear.”
“They’re old injuries.” Kharon stilled. “She must have been a child because her Spartan healing hadn’t kicked in yet … We need to pay a visit to the prison.”
I nodded in agreement. “That one woman said something about a tattooed man helping them—let’s find out.”
The last trailer, positioned at the edge of the forest, was maintained better than the rest.
As we moved toward it, Kharon’s face became blank, the whites of his eyes filling as he activated his Chthonic powers. He stopped walking.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Seconds stretched into minutes as I waited for him to do or say something.
Just when I was convinced he needed medical help, the blood receded and his blank expression disappeared.
His expression was livid. “We have a problem,” he said darkly.
I pointed to the last trailer we needed to investigate. “Save it—we need to finish what we started.”
Kharon looked like he was going to argue, but he eventually nodded and stalked forward.
“Open up or we’ll shoot!” Kharon kicked at the front door.
The door swung wide immediately. “How can I help you gentlemen?”
The man who answered was about our age, slightly shorter, and his face was covered in satanic symbols.
He smiled pleasantly.
Without preamble, I stabbed my powers into his mind.
Solid darkness greeted me. He had mental defenses, extremely strong ones.
I pressed against them, searching for weak points, but they were heavily fortified. Animalistic growls echoed in my head each time I pushed against the solid rock. The only minds I’d ever felt that were somewhat similar were—
I withdrew from his mind. “Shoot him,” I ordered.
Kharon fired, but it was too late.
Smoke billowed and there was nothing but empty space where the man had been standing.
He’d leapt away.
“What the fuck?” Kharon turned to me. “Who was that?”
“Not who—what.”
Kharon stomped into the trailer, opening drawers and pulling shit apart as he searched for a clue. “Was it an Olympian?”
“He was primordial—ancient.” I shook my head. “I think … I think he was part creature. His defenses were animalistic, but he was strong. Extremely so.”