Blood of Hercules (Villains of Lore Book 1)

Alexis: Year 2091

The energy in the trailer was contentious at best and treacherous at worst.

Wind howled outside as winter dumped snow furiously.

The February storm cast everything in shadows. The green light in the corner flickered weakly, barely sustained by the small amounts of electricity allotted to the trailer.

It was the dead of night, which was why Nyx was outside hunting. She said the dark made it easier to kill.

I took her word for it.

“We need to act now,” Mother whispered to Father in the trailer kitchen.

What are they talking about? My stomach twisted as a bad feeling scoured my chest.

They thought they were the only ones still up.

Charlie was asleep beside me.

I was wide awake.

Charlie had been with us since the summer, and he was already the best brother I could ever have asked for.

He was quiet and shy, but I didn’t mind, since he hung out with me every day and let me help him with his math homework. He never made fun of my stutter or called me stupid.

Actually, he hadn’t spoken a word more than the single sentence he’d said when we first met. But I didn’t mind.

For the first time ever, I wasn’t lonely.

Mother whispered something inaudible, and her tone was dark.

The only problem was—things were not great with the foster parents.

There were fewer provisions than ever at the local food bank. Half the food stamps they received for Charlie and me weren’t redeemable, since there was no meat and dairy to be had in the winter.

We were all starving.

Even worse than usual.

The icy conditions also meant fewer neighbors left their trailer to buy the foster parents’ “special drink.”

Mother spoke softly, and I strained to listen.

“We need to,” she whispered, “get rid of Charlie. No one will know.”

Father grunted in agreement.

I froze with fear.

No.

They can’t.

But they could.

We hadn’t had school in weeks because the roads were too icy to drive on, which was probably why they were making plans now.

A few kind teachers gave us their scraps of food. It was what usually kept us alive. Things were getting more desperate for us with each snowstorm.

Out here in rural northern Montana, in the middle of winter, you could do anything to anyone, and no one would know until spring.

Gently, I shook Charlie awake.

Bright-yellow eyes stared up at me with confusion. He shivered, condensation from our breath lingering in the air. His pale skin was almost translucent.

“Go hide in the bathroom—now,” I mouthed. “Lock the door.”

Charlie’s eyes widened with horror as he took in my tense expression.

“Whatever you hear, do not leave the bathroom,” I whispered quickly. “If things get . . . serious—and there’s no other option, only then do you use the phone and call the first responders. Dial 777.”

The phone was attached to the bathroom wall in a glass case labeled, “For Emergency Use Only.” Every house was mandated to have one in case of a Titan attack.

Mother had installed ours in the bathroom because she said she didn’t want to “see the ugly fucking thing all day.”

She also said the same thing about me.

Charlie’s breath caught as he realized what I was saying.

The phone line connected to local first responders, but they dealt with crises after they unfolded. The Titans were the only threat that warranted immediate intervention; for everything else, everyone was on their own.

After all, there were only ten Chthonic Spartans in existence, and only five were currently qualified to hunt down dozens of monstrous Titans.

The Assembly of Death was short-staffed.

Since the Great War, only five Chthonic children had been born. Everyone knew who they were.

Augustus, Kharon, Patro, Achilles, and Helen.

Technically, there was another child—Medusa—but she was incarcerated in the underworld, which was the infamous maximum-security Spartan prison.

There were also a handful of creatures, who fought for the assembly alongside the Chthonic leaders, but they rarely had children.

Also, since Chthonics didn’t join the assembly until immortality at twenty years old, there was only one Chthonic male heir—full-blooded Chthonic—who was of age right now to fight with the leaders.

Augustus, heir to the House of Ares.

He was the twenty-three-year old son of Ares and Aphrodite.

The next child to come of age would be Kharon, the eighteen-year-old son of Artemis and Erebus.

Augustus’s half sister, Helen, was the eight-year-old heiress of the House of Aphrodite.

Not much else was known about them because heirs and heiresses were infamous for being reclusive.

They were modern-day Spartan elites, more important and powerful than any human royal could ever have dreamed of being.

The last of the Chthonic children were two rare half humans called mutts: Patro and Achilles.

Patro of the House of Aphrodite was thirteen years old, and Achilles of the House of Ares was fourteen.

They were the future of the Assembly of Death, but until they came of age, there were barely enough monsters to fight Titans.

Humanity was still in grave danger.

The federation kept civilization running, but everything that wasn’t a necessity fell through the cracks.

Charlie and I were below the cracks.

We were in the dirt.

“Go—now,” I whispered to Charlie, then leaned forward and gave him a big hug. “It’s going to be okay.”

Both of us were shaking as we embraced.

When I pulled away, Charlie nodded and crawled silently into the bathroom next to where we slept.

Emmy and Carl fought to become pioneers of mathematics. Emmy dealt with evil in her time and stayed strong.

Be like her, Alexis.

I wanted to pretend I hadn’t heard Mother, but I had.

I can’t do this.

There were two of them and one of me. I was tall for my age, but not that tall. They were still much bigger than me.

Yes, you can.

I took a shaky breath and stood up.

Wrists tweaking with phantom pain, I rubbed at the hair ties that covered the raised skin of old scars.

There would be consequences if I acted—there always were in hell.

You need a plan.

Slowly, I walked out into the kitchen where they were standing sipping their drinks, and I spread my legs wide.

I had no plan.

It took me a dozen tries before I finally found the courage to speak. “If you t-try and h-hurt Charlie, you’ll have to g-go through m-me,” I said. “I’ll tell e-everyone what y-you tried to do, and they’ll l-lock y-you up f-forever.”

No matter how much I concentrated, my stutter was always at its worst when I spoke to them—Charlie and Nyx were the only ones it completely disappeared around.

As if in slow motion, they turned toward me.

Their eyes were wide and unfocused. Black pupils fully covered their irises. Liquid clung to their lips. Shadows covered the emaciated planes of their wrinkled faces.

“What the fuck did you just say to us, girl?” Father asked slowly.

Mother smiled, flashing rotting gums and three teeth. She threw down her empty glass. It shattered loudly across the cracked tile floor.

I jumped and swallowed a scream.

“How about we just kill you both?” Mother laughed. “We’ve got nothing to lose—we’re fucking starving to death anyways.”

Sweat streaked down the side of my face, then froze in the frigid temperatures. Every bone in my body wanted to turn and run.

I held my ground, turning frantically for a weapon—I grabbed the busted metal toaster off the counter and chucked it at them.

Father groaned as it hit him, and he stumbled back.

There was a shocked moment of silence.

Bad plan.

He kicked it aside.

“How . . . fucking dare you?” Mother demanded. Then they charged at me in a blur of screams and fists.

Far away, glass shards bit into my soles as Mother shook my shoulders back and forth while screaming obscenities. Her breath reeked of chemicals.

Father slammed his fist into my left eye, but I didn’t feel anything.

Time distorted.

After a lifetime of pain, the brain learns how to suffer. I knew how to stay conscious through a beating. I’d had years to perfect my technique.

The key was tensing your core and buttocks.

Humming.

And nihilism.

Also, role-playing as a tortured nineteenth century musical prodigy in the imaginary throes of writing a violent opera helped.

A haunting melody started playing in my head.

Only I could hear the music.

I dodged, and Mother clipped my left ear with a punch. “You lazy, ungrateful whore, threatening us after everything we’ve fucking done for you . . .” A loud ringing sensation cut off her words (a shame; she was making some intriguing points).

I staggered and turned.

Another punch caught the left side of my head.

The kitchen was narrow, and Father was pushed back as Mother kept attacking.

In my scramble to avoid the violence, her fist hit the same spot—everything went blurry, and I couldn’t hear or see.

Classical music—delusion—filled the darkness.

Dim light filtered through my abused corneas—half the field of vision was black, and in the other half, I clawed blindly at Mother’s face and neck with bloody nails.

I clutched at her shirt.

She screamed something I couldn’t hear.

Her fist caught my mouth, and my blood sprayed across Mother’s scratched face as I held on for dear life, desperate to stop them from getting to Charlie.

Just keep them occupied. They’ll get tired, then go for an opening.

“Let me in, Alexis—let me in NOW!” Nyx’s voice hiss-screamed from outside. She must have returned from her hunt and heard the commotion.

She can help me protect Charlie.

I lunged for the door to let her in, but Father lunged with me. He dragged me back into the kitchen (hell) and threw me toward Mother (a demon from said place).

Her punishing blow caught the side of my head—everything burned. I clawed at her as she grappled.

“Kid, let me in right now!” The trailer rocked as Nyx slammed against it.

Mother’s fist once again caught my left eye, and lights exploded. Black ringed my vision.

Blood was everywhere.

She screamed in my face—I screamed back. Oh, look, we’re harmonizing. Mozart would have loved this.

Another blow slammed against the side of my head, and my fingers loosened as everything spun faster.

Stay focused. You’re losing it, Alexis. Concentrate.

Panic welled, sharp and hot, like I’d been stabbed straight through the heart. Charlie’s in danger. Don’t you dare pass out.

CRASH!

The world exploded—the window next to us shattered into a million pieces.

Glass rained. Oh, look, it’s a crescendo.

I staggered backward, slipping on blood and glass as I struggled to catch my bearings.

Shards were everywhere.

The trailer was painted in streaks of red because something had come through the window from the outside.

Father pointed at me, then he was pointing at Mother, and they were screaming at each other. I pointed at the sink and screamed.

They shrieked and jumped back, pushing at each other to get away from the imaginary sink monster. Their pushing turned into shoving, then a fist was thrown. They fought each other.

That diversion was more successful than expected.

Chest pain randomly skewered my sternum.

Great, I’m having a heart attack at eleven. Any other day, and I would have welcomed a cardiac embolism with open arms. But not now. Not when Charlie was depending on me.

Mother grabbed a knife off the butcher block and swung it wildly, and she yelled something garbled about a red devil as she stared at me. Her expression was wild.

She’s lost it completely.

Her mind was poisoned.

I tripped over something solid on the floor as I dodged her swings, and landed on my butt.

She backed away from me.

Shards bit into my palms as a frozen object slapped against my leg, and I stilled in horror. I lunged forward and groped the space, grabbing onto an invisible body.

“I will protect you,” Nyx hissed.

Nyx had thrown herself through the window to save me. She was the reason I’d gotten away.

The panic in my chest tripled. No, she can’t get hurt. I groped blindly at my best friend, wrangling her icy scales with every ounce of strength I had.

“Stay beside me,” I whispered desperately. “We need to protect Charlie. Not me,” I gasped.

She hissed.

I hummed a frantic tune inside my head.

Evolutionists were wrong; humans hadn’t evolved from primates—we’d devolved from them.

With my hands tangled around Nyx’s icy scales, I dragged us both backward across the floor.

Grabbing at the bathroom handle for purchase, I started to haul us up. The door opened, and we fell inside.

He left the door unlocked for me.

I locked it behind me quickly.

Mother and Father shouted something about a devil as they yelled at each other.

Inside the cramped space, Charlie was curled up in a ball in the corner.

His emaciated body was wedged between the toilet and the wall. Overly large tear-stained eyes looked at me with horror, then he shook harder and ducked his head like he was trying to hide.

Nyx yanked in my hands. “Release me,” she hissed. “I need to kill those bastards for hurting you.”

Charlie didn’t react, and I wasn’t surprised. I’d long ago accepted that I was the only one who could hear Nyx.

Everyone just assumed I was a loser who talked to herself.

The loser part was still up for debate (it wasn’t; I authored Emmy Noether and Carl Gauss fanfiction in my free time).

I gasped shakily as the pain in my sternum intensified. “Let’s protect Charlie from here—let them hurt each other first.”

The symphony played faster.

She slithered up my body and wrapped herself loosely around my neck and shoulders like an invisible scarf.

Charlie sobbed harder in the corner.

I would have cried too, but I was too amped up on adrenaline.

Also, I had felt nothing in eleven years.

So, there was that.

Heaving for breath, I staggered over to the toilet and took off the heavy porcelain top. Repositioning beside the door, I raised my makeshift weapon and closed my eyes.

When they walked through, I’d bludgeon them and Nyx would bite them.

No one will hurt Charlie. No one will take him from me. Ever. He’s safe. I’ll keep him safe.

Pain stabbed my chest.

A panic attack had never felt so sharp.

G-sharp at a crescendo.

With labored breaths, I forced my shaking arms to stay raised while Charlie rocked back and forth in misery.

For him, I can do anything.

We might not be related, but as Father John preached, “The blood of a covenant is thicker than the water of any womb.”

Day and night, Charlie and I survived in this hellish trailer together. We shared a cardboard bed. We starved together. Besides Nyx, he was the only person I had in my life.

“What’s your plan?” Nyx asked, her invisible tongue brushing against my cheek.

“If they enter,” I said, cracking my neck. “We kill them.”

Cymbals crashed.

Agony skewered my sternum.

Charlie sobbed louder.

A lot was happening.

“Brilliant plan,” Nyx hissed.

The foster parents had won; they’d made a murderer out of me.

On the other side of the door, Mother let out an unholy scream, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The sound was so heinous that my panic quadrupled. I gasped with fatigue as my chest ached.

Heavy footsteps pounded.

My arms shook with exhaustion as I raised the yellowed ceramic higher—ready to fight.

Father’s voice was close as he screamed, “Kids, help—quick . . . something is hurting her!”

I stilled.

What had he just said? Had he just asked us for help? The ones he was planning on killing? This man cannot be serious right now.

Charlie whimpered and curled tighter in on himself.

I closed my eyes and didn’t move.

The wails harmonized.

“Children, call 777, a Titan has your mother!” The bathroom door rattled like he was trying to get in. “Alex, do something.”

I hated that nickname.

We didn’t have a mother.

Not really.

A stomach-curdling shriek sounded in the kitchen.

Titans were drawn to blood and violence, but the misery in this trailer was an almost daily occurrence. Why would one suddenly attack now? It doesn’t make sense, unless . . .

I gasped—the window was wide open after Nyx had broken through it, so the trailer wasn’t locked up like usual.

A beast had gotten in.

The lid in my hand shook unmercifully. Icy scales slid against my neck like Nyx was repositioning herself to attack.

“Something invisible is tearing her apart—it’s—it’s—it’s one of them . . . it has to be . . . please call . . . please help!” Father pleaded through the door.

The door creaked as he slammed against it and tried to get in.

I doubled over with chest pain.

Mother screamed louder, and Father sobbed as he clawed at the bathroom door. “Please, call the Spartans now. Please, children. Her mouth is foaming, it’s . . . horrible.”

She was being attacked, and he was at the door. It was really happening—the Titans were here.

I squeezed my eyes tighter.

Charlie sobbed louder.

The orchestra played their final act.

Fists banged against the door, a desperate man pleaded brokenly, and my hands trembled harder.

Blood rolled down my face and dripped onto the floor.

The door rattled.

The dying screamed.

Haunting classical music played.

“You are strong,” Nyx whispered. “You are brave.” Scales slid across the side of my face like she was nuzzling me. “You can handle anything—the universe is yours to command.”

Tears joined blood and dripped down my face.

I didn’t move and didn’t open my eyes.

The phone on the wall remained untouched.

There was an awful gurgling noise, then . . . silence. The only sound was Father sobbing brokenly.

The musicians put down their instruments and bowed.

I held my breath as I waited. Waited for him to start making the same sound Mother had made. Waited for the door to break down. Waited to fight a Titan. Waited for death.

Time stretched.

I kept waiting.

“I think it’s gone,” Father said despondently, then there was a crash like he’d tripped. The front door slammed, and his voice was muffled as he screamed and begged the neighbors for help.

I didn’t lower my weapon.

Charlie sobbed quietly.

The excruciating sensation in my sternum slowly drained away, and everything blurred.

Noises, sounds, movements—it was all a jumbled haze.

Time warped.

Charlie nuzzled sleepily against my side. I blinked into awareness.

Dim green lights flickered above, and a familiar ratty couch was beneath me. Night had fallen in the trailer, and snow fell softly outside in the darkness.

The storm had passed.

Charlie was asleep under my arm, and Nyx was wrapped tightly around my torso, invisible beneath my sweatshirt. The trailer was full of strangers buzzing with energy. One of them said something about the neighbors calling it in.

Two of the strangers turned to me.

I flinched and tried to scoot back on the couch, to put distance between us.

The male and female medic didn’t care. They leaned closer and invaded my personal space, the gold lion of the House of Zeus flashing on their ID badges.

If I’d had any energy, I would have screamed.

I barely mustered a grunt.

They dabbed something along the largest cuts on my face, hands, and feet, and I shivered.

“Stay still,” the female medic snapped. “This is extremely expensive Spartan healing gel. There’s only a small amount left. Once it’s gone—you’re out of luck.” Her lips pursed with disgust.

The problem isn’t the medicine; it’s that you’re touching me.

“You should be grateful we’re using it at all,” the male medic scoffed. “This bottle is expired. Otherwise, we’d never waste it on you. Olympian Spartan laboratories take years experimenting and designing to create these miracle drugs.”

I wished it hadn’t expired.

With a deep breath, I hummed a classical tune and focused on the positives—a few feet away, Mother was being zipped into a body bag by people in white hazmat suits, and Father was outside in the snow arguing as he was questioned.

Good times.

The trailer door slammed.

“Stay still,” the male medic snapped as he squeezed my cheeks and dabbed at my left eye.

He’s probably never taken math above calculus. Carl Gauss would never speak to me like this.

A tall policeman—dressed in black with fancy Spartan guns on both hips—knelt in front of me, and the wild horse of the House of Artemis flashed on his ID. It had feral bloodred eyes.

The policeman clicked on a recorder and spoke in a low voice like he was talking to a skittish animal. “We just need you to tell us what happened. Did you get these wounds from your father? Did he hit you?” he asked softly, like it mattered.

We both knew it didn’t.

Battery and assault weren’t prosecuted anymore—there was only one crime the Spartan system expended resources to combat.

“Not my father,” I corrected, and my voice sounded strange. “Foster father, and yes. He hurt m-me.”

The policeman’s eyes narrowed with interest. “And who hurt your mother? Who killed her, do you rem⁠—”

“Tell them what happened, Alexis!” Father’s voice bellowed from outside. “Tell them it was the Titans, you know I was—” He grunted like someone had hit him.

My brain finished the sentence for him. —sobbing at the bathroom door, begging you to call the Spartans.

“Ignore him,” the policeman said. “Who killed your foster mother? You can tell me the truth. She was . . . drenched in blood and foaming at the mouth . . . it was a particularly . . . brutal attack.”

I opened my mouth to say it must have been a Titan, but the words didn’t escape.

Charlie could have died tonight. Nyx could have gotten hurt. I rubbed at my wrists and looked the policeman dead in the eye.

“Father killed her,” I said calmly.

Red devil eyes flashed accusingly on his badge.

The policeman clicked off the recorder.

“Thank you, that was all I needed. The system will handle this quickly. He’ll be transferred tonight to the Spartan Federation Penitentiary—he’ll serve life with no parole.” He nodded at me. “He’s out of your hair.”

He stood up and walked out of the trailer.

Outside, Father started shrieking obscenities about killing me (greedy, if you ask me, since he’d already had his shot), but a car door slammed shut and he was silenced.

The female medic stared down at me with disgust, her voice warped as she said, “There was nothing we could do about your eye or ear. You aren’t qualified for hospital treatment.”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

She walked away with her partner.

I was going to miss her positive energy. Not.

Distantly, I was aware that someone was tracing yellow tape that read “contaminated zone” along the walls of the trailer, while another person boarded up the broken window.

People shuffled out.

Time passed in a daze.

I blinked.

The trailer was empty and reeked of sterile disinfectant. It reminded me of the “special drink.”

Neon-green lights cast shadows over the walls as the line of white electric Spartan trucks drove away into the storm. Snow gathered gently on the windowsills.

The three of us were alone.

It was a dream come true; it was a nightmare.

Shaking, teeth chattering, I pulled Nyx off me and jerkily repositioned Charlie on the couch, then I staggered over to the trailer door.

It took me multiple tries to turn the three locks.

With trembling arms, I dragged the old armchair across the floor and shoved it in front of the door as a barricade.

Dim lights flickered in a green haze.

Only after I’d tugged the worn patched blanket off the bed, that none of us had ever slept in, did I lay down beside Charlie on the couch and pull Nyx into my arms.

I couldn’t sleep.

When the blinking digital clock said 5:00 a.m., I gave up trying to rest and stumbled into the bathroom.

The pipes groaned as well water sputtered out of the tap. Splashing freezing water on my face, I looked up into the small mirror above the sink.

My mouth opened in an o of horror.

Curls stuck out around my head in every direction, and my golden skin was covered in welts, bruises, and cuts.

That wasn’t the problem.

Slowly, I closed my right eye.

The world went fuzzy and dark even though my left eye was still open. I opened my right eye, and vision returned.

Pink water dripped slowly down my face.

Mismatched irises stared back at me in the mirror. It wasn’t an illusion—I no longer had two dark eyes.

The left iris was white.

The right iris was black.

The best part—that wasn’t all.

Feeling like I was underwater, I lifted my shaking hand up to my right ear and spoke aloud. The sound was warped and staticky. I dropped my hand and repeated the action. This time, I could hear my voice.

I was blind and deaf on my left side.

With a deep breath, I splashed more freezing water, patted down my hair, and pushed my shoulders back.

The girl in the mirror looked calm. Covered in cuts, with eerie mismatched eyes, she was intimidating. Powerful. To her right, the emergency phone hung untouched on the wall.

“Who is she? I must know her name,” Carl Gauss would say if he saw her walking down the street in Brunswick, Germany. “That girl will be my prodigy!”

I smiled.

My abusers were gone.

I was free.

In those early hours, I befriended the second monster I’d ever met—myself.

At least, I thought I did.

Later I’d come to understand that I was both very right and very, very, very wrong about that assessment. Monsters were tricky like that; by the time you saw them for what they truly were, it was already too late.

Later that day, there was a loud knock on the trailer door.

A middle-aged man with deep mouth wrinkles stood outside in the snow.

“The federation—” In a display of pure class, he spat out a thick wad of mucus. “—has identified this trailer as a crime scene and thus uninhabitable.”

He pointed to a large white truck with a fancy silver rig on the back.

“I’ve been ordered to take it away.” His voice was warped, and the high-pitched ringing in my left ear worsened.

Snow flurried, and his eyelashes frosted over.

“Where are w-we supposed to live?” I asked on numb lips.

“Not my problem. All inhabitants need to evacuate—now,” he said, expression blank. “I’m authorized to use force.” His hand rested on a riot stick, which was strapped to his belt.

A few minutes later, Charlie, Nyx, and I stood on the empty patch of dead lawn with the parents’ blanket wrapped around our shoulders. A few measly possessions were in a box at our feet.

The truck towed the trailer down the ice-covered road.

“Let’s find shelter,” I whispered and led my family toward the nearest trailer to beg for help.

We were officially homeless.

That was the thing about living in dark times—life got progressively worse.

Always.