Immortal Fury (Hercules Must Die #1)

Chapter 1

Lyssa

“Do we have a problem, Captain Lyssa?”

Shit, I have more problems than I can count. But right now, she’s the biggest.

I fucking hate vampires. And I hate them even more when they’re standing on the deck of my ship.

“I believe we do, Lady Lamia,” I grit out, the forced politeness almost killing me. I bite down hard on my lip and eye the Cyclops guards surrounding her.

“I’m sure we can work it out.” Lady Lamia’s silky-smooth voice comes from behind a dense black veil, and only the red shine of her eyes and lips can be seen behind it.

Her headdress and long gown glitter with gems and metals that are intricately woven into the blue fabric, and looks like liquid when it moves.

If the rumors are true, the expensive and demure outfit is hiding a form nobody has ever laid eyes on and survived to describe. If the rumors are true, she only eats living flesh and takes enormous amounts of pleasure in cruelty.

I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job. I fucking knew it.

I should have listened to my gut. Turned the work down. But desperation leads to stupid decisions, and we’re flat broke, with the ship in urgent need of repairs.

Smuggling goods in Olympus doesn’t allow for much honest work, obviously, but we have a code, and so far, we’ve never broken it. But this time, we’ve been tricked.

We would never have knowingly stolen cargo for this creature.

“What’s in the crate?” I load as much command as I can into the question.

I know I don’t look like much of a threat, a slightly shorter-than-average human woman whose only standout feature is my mass of flame-red hair.

Epizon, on the other hand, is well over six and a half feet, built like a Minotaur, and has skin the color of onyx.

Remarkably, he’s human too, though I’m sure there must be some giant in his ancestry somewhere.

He hulks beside me, leaking seething anger into the air.

The six Cyclops guards fan out behind Lady Lamia. They’re large, slow creatures with one amber eye in the center of their forehead, and sharp protrusions erupting all over their hairless skulls.

A small figure in a hooded cloak and chains around his ankles stands behind her, holding an open box of silver drachmas.

“What is in the crate is my business, not yours,” the vampire says.

I swallow down my anger. It’s with myself, for allowing this clusterfuck of a situation to have come about.

We can’t afford to fight. If she takes much more damage, I’m not sure the ship will recover. That’s the only reason we took this on in the first place.

I thought the job had been to steal the crate from a wealthy family who wouldn’t miss the contents, and deliver it to a well-known criminal who dealt in nothing more than strong alcohol and the occasional magical hallucinogen.

Not the kind of client I favored, sure, but he was paying well, and he doesn’t have a reputation for causing people harm.

But it wasn’t him who stepped onto my deck to collect the crate at the rendezvous point.

Instead it was a creature who eats living people.

“The deal is off.”

“Excuse me?” The singsong voice rings through the air, edged with danger.

Epizon tenses beside me.

“Unless you open the crate, the deal is off.” I try to make eye contact through the veil and pray that the rumors are exaggerated.

After a pause, Lady Lamia replies, “I’ve already paid you half of the fee. An exceptionally generous fee.”

“Obviously, we will return the money.”

I’ve already spent the money on hull repairs. Hades only knows where we’ll find enough to return the fee.

“But wouldn’t you be out of pocket? You have been all the way to Leo and back.”

“The deal is off unless you show me what is in that crate.”

“Why do you want to know what is inside?” There’s a smile in her voice. “If I can show you thirty bottles of wine and some silks, you’ll hand it over?”

“Sure.”

My stomach churns. Please, gods, let the crate be full of wine and silks, I pray. Please don’t make me complicit in feeding an evil sadist.

“No.”

I grind my teeth, and turn my back on the vampire.

“I’m going to open this crate,” I say, moving to the box. It’s ten feet wide on every side, and has been an absolute bastard to move in and out of the cargo deck, it’s so heavy. “For the sake of diplomacy, I suggest you let me, and then we can have a discussion.”

“If you open that box, both of you will die.”

Epizon growls, and I smile.

“So be it.”

I yank a small dagger from my belt and ram it between two tight planks. I hear the Cyclopes start to move, but Lady Lamia’s voice stops them.

“The young captain has made her choice. We may as well meet our new friend early.”

I almost stop pulling at her words.

Unease flows through every part of me, from my twisting gut to my prickling skin. Epizon appears at my side, wrapping his huge fingers around the wood and pulling.

“Her new friend?” I whisper to him.

“If there is a living being in this box, then we tear each and every one of them limb from limb,” he rumbles back. “I would rather die than be a part of that.”

“Well, that’s lucky, because we probably will die. The chances of getting out of this with no damage are slim to none.”

Epizon shrugs as he yanks harder on the planks. “Cost of doing the right thing, captain. Besides, we’ve taken on worse things than her and her Cyclopes.”

“Not in a—”

My answer is cut short as my plank finally gives way, and takes another two with it.

“Zeus’s balls!” I leap backward as two massive green eyes appear in the gap. Epizon wrenches off another plank with a furious growl.

A glass tank filled with water contains a creature I’ve never seen before. It has a torso and head that is humanoid, but it has no legs, a tail-like limb there instead. Its whole body and face are covered in iridescent white scales that glisten pale purple when it moves.

“What the…”

“She’s beautiful,” breathes Lady Lamia.

I stare, transfixed, and it stares straight back, gaze unnervingly steady.

Guilt, and rage, flow through me. This thing has been alone in the dark for weeks in the hull of the Alastor.

And I’m responsible.

The vampire speaks again, and I snap my attention back to her. “Such a shame.” There’s a movement under her gown, and the hooded figure steps forward, holding out the box of silver. “A ship of this poor condition would benefit from all these drachmas, would it not?” she asks softly.

The adrenaline I can feel flowing through me spikes, and I tense involuntarily.

“There is nothing wrong with my ship, Lady Lamia, and I politely request that you get the fuck off it.”

I meant what I said to Epizon about a fight not being in our favor, but now it’s coming, I can’t stop the excitement trickling through my body.

“Captain Lyssa. This is not a being as you or I know it. It requires nothing to live and cannot communicate. It is barely sentient. Think of it as purely decorative.”

Epizon growls beside me. I look over at the creature’s unsettlingly piercing green eyes, fixed on the blue-robed Lady Lamia. There’s no way it’s barely sentient.

“You’re not taking it. Leave.” My voice rings with disgust.

Lady Lamia lets out a bark of laughter and glides back, behind her guards. They move steadily toward us.

“You don’t really have any choice. You cannot afford to fight this fight.

” Her voice is getting louder as she continues to glide backward across the deck, the guards advancing.

“I’m surprised you can afford anything, to be honest,” she continues.

“In fact,” Lady Lamia says, now a safe distance from the imminent violence, “how do you afford this monster of a man?” She gestures at Epizon. “How much do you want for him?”

Epizon bares his teeth and widens his stance. I move a few feet away from him. My skin is throbbing with energy, the muscles in my face and neck twitching as I try to keep control of myself a little longer.

“Do you know what lyssa means in the ancient language?” I ask, as I focus on the two guards now turning in my direction. The other four continue on toward Epizon.

Lady Lamia doesn’t reply.

“It means ‘rage,’” I say quietly, and let the coursing energy overcome me as I open my eyes.

The throbbing in my skin becomes a steady flow of power that I can feel surging through every part of my body.

As the first Cyclops puts his head down to charge at me, I drop to a crouch. The second he’s within my reach, I launch myself upward, my fist catching the creature in its low, bent cheek. A sickening thud precedes the creature’s wail, and he flies up and backward into the air.

I’m aware of a roar from Epizon as I run toward the second guard.

I find the confusion and indecision on his face grimly satisfying.

He chooses to stand his ground too late and has no time to brace himself for the kick I plant squarely under his chin.

His face crumples, and he sinks slowly to the floor.

My momentum takes me over the top of his prostrate body, and I stumble onto my hands and knees.

I look toward Lady Lamia and jump to my feet when I can’t see her.

“Shit!”

I whirl to the tank, relieved to see the being is still there. It’s hovering, showing no emotion, staring at Epizon. I follow its gaze. Three of the Cyclopes lie dead or unconscious behind where he stands.

The last dances around the huge man, head down, moving backward and forward jerkily, like a boxer.

It has clearly reached its goal a few times with its sharp horns, as bright trickles of blood stand out on Epizon’s dark bare arms. He holds them both out wide, goading the creature, a massive machete in his right hand.

The Cyclops snarls, and drops his head and charges. With a smooth movement, Epizon sidesteps it and brings the blade down on its neck.

“Where did she go?” he asks, turning to me as the head hits the planks.

Another voice answers, inside my head. My medic’s voice. “She went back to her ship. I disabled the plank-bridge, but cap, she’s got way more of those things.”

I move fast to the railings and look over at her ship. The plank-bridge that had been connecting our ships is indeed gone, but six more Cyclopes are carrying a new one across the deck on their shoulders.

“She’s got serious firepower—we can’t outgun her,” says Epizon.

My eyes land on the blue-robed figure on the deck of her ship.

“Time to run, then,” I say, projecting the thought as well as the words.

My ship lurches at my mental command, and then we’re moving, Lady Lamia’s ship becoming smaller.

“We’re about a league high. Do you want to stay here or try to lose her closer to the ground?” asks Epizon.

I shake my head. “We’re faster than her up here.

These need pitching overboard,” I say, moving toward the dead Cyclopes.

“Then we need to work out what to do with… that.” I gesture at the tank.

Epizon turns toward it, but before he can speak, the ship shakes violently.

We both fall, me cursing loudly as my leg scrapes down one of the dead Cyclopes’ head spikes.

“Ugly fucking brutes!” I kick at the dead creature as I scramble back to my feet.

“Storm ballistae, cap!” My medic’s shrill voice enters my mind.

Shit. If she’s got cannons that good, my ship is going need some help to outrun her. Adrenaline pours through my body, my vision darkening with red. “I’m coming.”