Chapter 6 The Chase
The chase.
“What attracts the titans? It’s a question we’ve been trying to answer since they rose from their slumber.
Most will hunt humans on sight, either to exterminate or devour us.
But, strangely enough, if they’re fed, they won’t attack other large animals.
The Kraken has been seen ignoring whales entirely but attacking any ship within a ten-mile radius.
It’s been theorized that they react badly to technology.
Something about it seems to send most of them into a murderous frenzy.
Do they see us as their rivals on Earth?
As the enemy to eradicate? We haven’t found the answer yet.
But those who started to call them old gods often came to the conclusion that there must be a divine explanation for their presence on our planet and their awakening. Pile of horseshit, if you ask me.”
STELLAN
We set camp for the night on a hill near the road that Perri took on his way to the city.
This is the best spot to wait for him. If he takes the same itinerary, we won’t miss him.
The surroundings are now crawling with merchants and scavengers heading to his coordinates and the underground lab.
They know to be on the lookout for him. He’ll find his way to us, one way or the other.
The hill is barren and offers an unobstructed view for miles. Leonard and Janice built a small fire in the camping wood burner. It’s enough to reheat the beans and meat they brought from the Market.
I ask for the first watch and sit on the highest point with a blanket and a mug of herbal tea. I’m restless. Until Perri is safely back in my arms, I won’t be able to relax.
I keep my eyes on the road below. He won’t travel in the dark. He would prefer to find a spot to hide and spend the night, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out and make sure we don’t miss him.
The two mercenaries are happy to go to sleep early, and they disappear inside their truck. They’ll get the second watch of the night. Which means the King is the one who’ll keep me company.
Right on cue, Alastair walks back from his truck and sits beside me. He’s so quiet for a big man; I would have missed his arrival had I not kept an eye on him.
“I can already smell the sea,” he says, eyes on the dark horizon.
I wish I could. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the ocean.
I don’t feel like talking, and yet I ask, “Don’t you crave it? The ocean?”
He shares the DNA of the monster of the abyss, so one would expect that he’s meant to spend his time on the coast.
“I do,” he says. “Terribly. That’s why I stay inland. If I get in the water, I find myself unwilling to come back.”
“You could just let it go and never come back.”
Alastair shakes his head slowly, his white locks cascading over his wide shoulders. “The Market is my kingdom and my home. The same way Perri is yours.”
I nod, understanding. I would sooner take a bullet to the heart than leave Perri behind.
I drink my tea, and Alastair watches me. His pale eyes reflect the lamp’s glow. It’s unnerving.
“What?” I say after a while.
Alastair smiles. “I think yesterday and today are actually the first times we really talked.”
I frown. “I don’t talk much.”
“You don’t like me.”
“No,” I say. “But to be fair, I don’t like anyone.” Beside Perri and my mothers.
He chuckles. “That’s a lie. You liked Jude enough to risk my wrath by harboring him and his new lover.”
He’s talking about the time last year when Jude came in the dead of night with his new aircraft and Oliver, then his captive. Jude was still a wanted man for stealing from him.
There is an edge in his voice now. Concealed resentment and icy anger. Our punishment for helping Jude had been to work for free on a few vehicles. Evidently, it hadn’t been enough.
“I thought you forgave him,” I say in defiance. “And I don’t like him. Perri does.”
It’s a lie. I’ve grown fond of Jude and even tolerate Oliver lately. But the King doesn’t need to know that.
Alastair’s smile stays on as he says, “You liked him enough to fuck him.”
My mug stops halfway to my lips. “You know about that?”
It was a long time ago when Jude first came to the Market. Back then, he’d just escaped his family’s clutches. He was craving comfort and wished to forget. Perri and I obliged.
“Jude told me during the short time when he lived with me,” says Alastair.
I sigh. “Perri liked him at first. The three of us had our fun a few times before realizing it wouldn’t work in the long run. We stayed friends.”
Jude is too much of a brat for my tastes, even if he’s a good fuck. And Perri is too sweet for him. Then he met the King, and they hit it off pretty fast. It was a whirlwind until the fateful day when Jude stole supplies and a vehicle before disappearing in the wastelands.
“Did you love him?” I ask to get a rise out of him.
Alastair is still smiling as he says, “I could have with time. But I wasn’t there yet.”
Liar, I almost say. His rage after Jude’s betrayal had been clue enough.
“Would you have killed him if you got your hands on him?” I ask.
“That, I can’t tell,” he says truthfully. “And I thank you for not giving me the opportunity. I certainly would have regretted it.”
They’d have never worked out, I realize. They’d have just killed each other at some point.
“Doesn’t it ever bother you to share Perri?” Alastair asks me out of the blue.
I take a long time to answer. “No. To be jealous, I’d need to feel like he could be taken away from me. That he’d find someone better than me and leave me. But he won’t. What we share is… unshakable. It has always been.”
Alastair watches me with predatory intent. “You seem pretty confident that I won’t be able to seduce him away from you.”
What is he doing? He could be looking for a fight, but somehow it doesn’t feel like it. He seems to be… hinting at something. Although I don’t know what.
“I am,” I say. “I know you’ll never be able to take him from me. Perri’s lovers come and go. But I’m irreplaceable.”
Alastair tilts his head to the side. “That you are.” He leans closer. Even sitting on his ass, he’s taller than me. It pisses me off. I’m not used to it. “And what would it take to seduce you?” he asks, close to my lips.
I haven’t moved an inch, refusing to give him any ground.
“You’re not my type,” I say with a straight face.
“Oh, really?”
I don’t give him an answer to that and just stare at him defiantly. Then I add, “If you’re trying to get me flustered, your efforts are lost on me. I’m not Perri.”
His eyes search my face for a second too long before he pulls away. “And yet, I can hear the fast beating of your heart, Stellan.” He still has an infuriating smile on his face.
I offer him my best withering look.
We spend the rest of our watch in silence, and I’m entirely too aware of his presence by my side.
By the end of the next day, I’m starting to realize that we’ve either missed Perri, or he found some trouble before reaching us.
My fears are confirmed when we receive a message by radio about an abandoned truck left on a hilltop near the city. My truck. A traveling merchant recognized it immediately.
By the time we reach the coordinates, I’m in a state of internalized panic.
The truck’s windshield and windows are a spiderweb of cracks, but the rest is still in good enough shape.
One of the tires is flat—pierced by something sharp, but the spare one is still at the back.
It could have been replaced easily. Why would Perri leave the truck behind?
Most of his belongings are still inside, including a purple octopus plushie I’ve never seen before.
The food and supplies we usually keep in the trunk are gone, either taken by Perri or by someone else.
I get a hold of the plushie and crush it to my chest.
There is a ghastly trail of blood in the dust a little farther away from the truck.
So much blood. But it leads to the carcass of a horse, already swarming with flies under the sun.
It looks like it’s been dead for less than a day, considering the absence of maggots.
Someone—certainly the killer—carved good chunks of meat from the poor beast.
“What the hell happened here?” asks Janice, circling the horse.
“I have no fucking clue,” answers Leonard.
Alastair is watching me. He points to a smaller bloodstain in the dirt a little farther away. My heart jumps into my throat.
“It looks like someone was on the ground here, bleeding from their leg,” he says.
By someone, we all know he means Perri. Who else could it be so close to the truck?
“There isn’t much blood, so it must be a minor wound.
They dragged him in this direction.” He walks back towards the dead horse.
There are long tracks in the blood. “It looks like they threw him into a caravan of some sort. They’re heading north. ”
“Then we’re going north,” I say, walking back to the King’s truck.
I take the wheel while Alastair sends a radio message offering a hefty reward for whoever brings my truck back to the Traveling Market. Presently, I couldn’t care less about my vehicle, but I’ll certainly be happy to have it back once all of this is over.
Perri has been taken. He would never leave all his things and my truck behind willingly. And there is no trace of his robot friend, Vex. It might have been a trap after all. If she betrayed him, I’ll take pleasure in dismantling her piece by piece when I get my hands on her.
I put my foot on the pedal, and we’re off.
The journey is slow; we often have to stop and check the tracks to be sure we aren’t losing the trail.
We counted five caravans. They’re all heading north, following the train tracks along the San Francisco Bay and towards the San Pablo Bay.
Every few miles, we find strange rock formations with the horse meat left on top, like an offering.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Leonard voices out loud on the third discovery.
I’m confused too, until Alastair says, “Do you know who dwells in those waters?”
Icy dread slithers down my spine. I rarely leave the Traveling Market, except to visit my mothers south of Nevada. I’m not aware of most gods’ territories, aside from the ones that might cause a problem for us. San Francisco is usually too far away for me to care.
Until now.
“Scylla,” says Janice.
The shelled monster. Unlike the Greek mythology, she’s not a many-headed creature, but I’ve heard that she has enough legs to make up for it.
“Shit,” says Leonard. “Do you think they’re trying to attract her?”
Alastair stays quiet for a moment, his eyes on the calm waters. I wonder if he feels the need to take his clothes off and dive into the bay. “Let’s go,” he says at last. “They’re much slower than we are. We’ll catch them before nightfall.”
But before we can make it to nightfall, our fears turn into reality. Scylla attacks.
She rushes out of the bay, moving faster than a creature her size should be able to.
Leonard and Janice have been driving in front of us, leading the way through the ruins of a small town.
One second they were there, and the next, the old god had caught their truck in her giant pincers.
I have enough wits to swerve and avoid a collision with the deep-blue shell of her underbelly.
Our tires slide into the water she has brought out of the bay in great waves with her sudden attack.
I put my foot down on the gas to take us away.
“Don’t stop,” Alastair tells me as I check in the rearview mirror.
She’s breaking the truck roof with her strange legs.
“The others?” I ask.
“We can’t help them,” he says grimly.
He’s right. In the first years after the Rise, armies could do nothing against the old gods. The two of us are powerless.
I obey and keep driving, following the bay inland until we reach the strait.
The middle of the bridge was destroyed a long time ago, but it gives us a view of the terrible scene on the faraway shore.
Scylla has broken into the mercenaries’ truck with her pincers.
She’s devouring the soft meat she found inside. Our friends.
There will be nothing left of them to bury.
She’s bigger than a building, and her long abdomen is longer than a soccer field. I would have slept better at night not knowing what she looks like, but it’s too late now.
“Fuck…” I say.
We need to reach Perri before his captors are stupid enough to get him killed.