Circe didn’t look as keen on having me here as Daisy did. She stared at me like I was a piece of trash that had gotten stuck to the bottom of her shoe and just wouldn’t come off. Ava had almost been able to look at me that way, but the difference was that Ava had been split in two the first time we met. I hadn’t cared about her or what she could do, because the youngest Rivera wasn’t advertised as a threat. Caitlyn, however, wasn’t like her younger sister.
I had never come across her before. My problems had been with her father. One thing I did know about her was that Ben had fought her in the past, and I figured that’s why she had a nasty scar going from her throat to her ear, as if he had tried to gut her alive. I said that, because she had never let a vigilante leave as soon as they crossed her. They came and they vanished, and that’s the word that everyone whispered on the streets of Lower Olympus. Was I afraid of her? I didn’t know. Wary, I figured, was a better word. Her eyes were hard and so was her jaw. Her face was a mask that wouldn’t be broken from the steely gaze she’d settled on me alone. That was the face of a woman who had sat down on a hard plastic stool and watched her father show her how to peel the skin of a man’s body strip by strip before she had even finished with middle school. Caitlyn Rivera didn’t glare at me. She looked down at me, her nose turned up at me slightly, as if just being in her vicinity alone was an insult to everything she believed in.
At least, that’s what it felt like as the silence drew on for several very long minutes.
But she was the person I needed. The person that would help me save the city, and kill a Kaiju that was far stronger than any I had faced so far. So now came the hard part: convincing a supervillain to help me do just that.
I took a step forward. “You’re—”
“Quiet.” Caitlyn turned her eyes away from me to stare at Daisy instead, and I would have felt offended if I didn’t see how much Daisy shrank in on herself too. “What have I told you so many times in the past about strays?”
I spoke before Daisy could stutter her way through an explanation. “I’m not a stray, I’m Olympia.”
“And a glorified stray at that,” the woman said, just about loud enough for me alone to hear, still not speaking to me, but to the creature made of swirling green-brown water behind me. “What made you think, Daisy, that bringing someone like her all the way here was an idea worth carrying out? If I needed help with our current set of problems, I would have tasked you in luring Clementine here by any means necessary, force or otherwise, or anyone far more useful than a girl who’s biggest achievement was not being spilled down her mother’s torso.”
Gods above, they’re all the same brand of asshole.
That just made trying to work with her that much harder. I was forced to swallow the biting retort that was just waiting to be spat out from my mouth. Dealing with Riveras, I had learnt, meant knowing when to bite your tongue, because getting into petty cat fights with them meant absolutely nothing at the end of the day if they could just pull themselves back together and continue their smack talk without so much as a care in the world. Besides, there was more to life than arguing with people and fighting them on every personal ground possible. I was, to put it simply, not going to bite into her bullshit. It was about time I started acting like my father’s daughter in more ways than just having his powers. So I folded my arms and waited for Daisy to come up with something to say, because if it was sly bitterness she wanted to give me, to see if I would react, then I was forced to not give a shit.
Not that I wanted to, though—I couldn’t stop tapping my finger against my bicep, trying to make sure I wouldn’t have that same finger burrowing deep inside Cailtyn’s heart in the next few seconds. Chill out, Ry. Relax. I only briefly wondered if she had the same powers as her sister, and wouldn’t that be fun, testing that out right now?
“Circe,” Daisy said, threading her fingers. “She shares the same blood as the family. A sister to me, too.”
“Unfortunately, Daisy, she’s very much not like the others,” Caitlyn mutters. “She’s a pest to our lives.”
“A…pest?” The watery woman glanced at me, then whispered, “But she is a hero, like her father.”
Cailtyn had seemingly heard enough of what Daisy had to say and turned around. “Dispose of her.”
I looked at Daisy, who looked at me, too. She didn’t have the eyes of someone who wanted to kill me, but the eyes of someone who wanted help. I had seen it in so many eyes before. A part of me wanted to respond to it, but another part of me was thankful that not everyone wanted to see me dead a few moments after meeting me in person. By the time Caitlyn had reached the end of the bridge, I was in front of her, hovering slightly off the ground, not because I was shorter than her, but because I just didn’t like having to look up at someone who would rather spit on me than actually talk to me. My arms remained folded, and if she was surprised, it didn’t show on her face. She stopped just a few inches away from me, and the scent of soil and greenery, like a bouquet of wildflowers had somehow formed into a person, shoved away any of the remaining smells Daisy had stuck on me. I might smell like ozone, like a rainstorm about to happen, but the woman standing in front of me reeked of nature in all its glory.
Whatever glory that was, being attached to a supervillain.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” I said flatly. “I came because I heard you know where Kaiju live.”
Her cat-like eyes narrowed, hazel irises almost glowing in the dark. “And however did you learn that?”
“How I did doesn’t matter,” I said. “But what I need is your help, and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
Cailtyn looked at me the same way you would a child that just made a stupid demand. And she would have walked right past me if I hadn’t put my hand on her shoulder, stopping her dead. She glanced at me, not turning her head, but flicking her eyes my way. “I suggest you let go of me, Olympia. I’m not very friendly.”
I wanted to shove her back down the bridge, or onto her knees so she could find out that neither was I, but I needed her more than she needed me, so pissing her off wasn’t the way to go about this. She looked way harder to crack than Ava ever did, and I could probably hurt her as much as I wanted and still get nothing out of her mouth except swear words and insults so colorful they would make her father blush. But if there was one thing that I did know, it was that Daisy wanted help, and Caitlyn didn’t want it. They had a problem, and I’m a great problem solver, if I do say so myself. Sure, Rylee, help the supervillain. I’m sure we haven’t done this one before either. But I was in a tough spot right now, and information, seemingly, only came from the people who wanted me dead most.
But even from where I was now, I could smell the lie sitting on her lips. You get pretty good at finding out what dying humans smell like when you’re around them so often. The entire cavernous area reeked of saccharine rot and the very fetid decay of flesh. At first I had thought it was Daisy, and you couldn’t blame me for thinking otherwise, but that hadn’t been the case. Caitlyn hadn’t been ripped apart recently, so she wasn’t the one dying.
“I smell it, you know,” I said to her, dropping my voice so only she could hear me. “Through the plants and the flowers and the stench of sewage, there’s someone very, very sick down there in that darkness. Deathly sick.”
Caitlyn said nothing, only stared at me.
“And I’m guessing that you’re masking it, just in case something that likes that smell catches wind of it.”
“Do enlighten me, Daughter of Zeus, about what kind of creature likes the scent of death.”
“Well, you’re down here, for one,” I said, and I saw a flicker of something in her eyes. I had been expecting rage, maybe hate, but that had been a glint of amusement, like I was still a novelty to her. “But I also know a few things, maybe a few Kaiju, that like the smell of human remains.” Just like the one that had nearly killed me, and just like the dozens of others that had been filmed deep in the emergency wing of hospitals as they dragged body after body into their fold of organs and appendages. I didn’t want to think she was harboring that thing down here, but I also had my fears, my worries, that the Devil’s Daughter could have made friends with one of the only things on this planet that could rip me apart limb-from-limb. “So don’t lie to me, Caitlyn. You need help, and I can give you the help you need, maybe save whoever you’re trying to care for, but you also need to help me out in return.”
She waited for a moment before answering. “When I was a child, heroes used to be noble. Selfless. Willing to make sure people got aid even if they didn’t stand to benefit. The apple seemingly has fallen far from the tree.”
I feigned a flat smile, trying not to spit back at her. “Things changed, because when I was a kid, your dad never went into hiding, not even with Zeus in the sky above his Guild. And now here you are, hiding in the dark.”
“I stand corrected,” she said quietly. “You’re just as arrogant as the Lord of the Sky once was.”
“And you’re only good for your information, just like your father was, too.”
The tunnels seemed to groan once more as she angled her head toward me. The stones above us shifted, showering me in fine dust. It’s like this entire place is alive. Some of the plants broke free from the stones they were growing through, splitting them apart and sending rubble skittering into the foul river underneath the bridge. I had to wait to see what she could do. Had to figure if she was going to finally play ball, or keep making this situation worse for the people who reeked of illness and decay somewhere in the shadows behind me, and the uncountable number of people on the surface who were dying the longer this went on down here. I didn’t want to fight Caitlyn, that wasn’t my priority. Find the Society, get whatever information I could about the virus infecting dozens of people throughout the city, and deal with the problem. Supervillains like Caitlyn would come a lot later on.
“It’s a shame that we aren’t our fathers then,” she said, “because I have no need to shake your hand.”
“You’ve got a problem that needs to be fixed. I’m the one that can help you with that.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I highly doubt it.”
“Try me.”
Cailtyn shook her head slowly. “You’re so self-important that it’s a miracle you allow yourself to get this filthy for whatever you need. Your help is not wanted here, and your time would be better spent elsewhere, child.”
I’ll ignore that last part.
I sighed through my nose, then said, “I’m guessing putting you through a wall won’t change your mind.”
Cailtyn hardly looked at me as she walked past, shouldering me aside. “If it’s information you want, then I can give you this: be careful finding your way out. This place was created so that people like you never escape.” The sound of her bare feet slapping against the platform echoed in my ears. She was only getting further away, and she was taking one of the only shots I had at saving the city with her. I wouldn’t know how to start searching for the Kaiju. Wouldn’t even know where to begin in a city filled with millions. The Society was a secret because it knew if humans found out where they were hiding, then it would very easily be a bloodbath, and that’s why it was so hard trying to find so much as a whisper about them. In truth, I was just hoping they knew something about what was going on, because there were several other people who probably knew an answer but weren’t my biggest fans.
Cassie had said that Kaiju turned into that thing when Ambrosia was introduced into the mix. The only problem with that was I didn’t trust her word, because what would that mean for everyone who was already turning into those creatures? Hundreds of people were taking Ambrosia? Hundreds of people were secretly Kaiju and were somehow keeping their identities hidden? And what about Alice? She hadn’t looked like a Kaiju to me until she had vomited her guts out onto the counter. It had to be something else, something more, and Caitlyn would know.
My biggest problem with that was that Cailtyn probably wouldn’t care. Just isn’t her problem
“At least tell me this,” I said over my shoulder. I heard her stop walking. “Why did you run away?”
Caitlyn laughed dryly under her breath. “You think I’m running away? From what?”
“From who,” I said, turning around. I had wondered where she had come from, and now that I could vaguely make out her slender form, she was standing in the opening of a wall thick with thorny vines. They opened wide as if to hug her, only slightly revealing the stairwell that led into the dark. “You know, when I was flying around lost in this maze of a sewer tunnel, I kept asking myself: what the hell would make Caitlyn Rivera run away from New Olympus? I mean, let’s be honest here. Your brother couldn’t win a spelling bee even if the only question was his first name, and leaving your little sister behind to take over the family business was just plain stupid to me. I mean, you were meant to be the queen of Lower Olympus. Gods knew you were probably gonna run for may—”
Cailtyn turned to face me, her eyes narrowing as she asked, “Ava took charge of the Triad?”
I shrugged one shoulder, trying to act calm, but I had finally broken the nonchalant look she had plastered on her face. “Yeah, but not anymore. You should have seen what she did to the Guild, and the gang war she lost? Fuckin’ priceless. She kept thinking she was this really big shot mob boss, totally smarter than everyone around her, but she got her face dragged through the freaking street, tell you what, but now the Triad doesn’t even exist.” And just to pour salt in the wounds. “Last I checked, some other gang had cozied up inside the Guild. Found some guy tugging it as he sat on your old man’s chair. Don’t worry, I folded him nice and neat for you. Think I left him in your old closet, but I couldn’t really tell. Every single room is like a moshpit of humans and their rank fluids.”
Goading Caitlyn was a very, very dangerous game. Ava was the lesser known kid, the child who had a mouth full of silver before she even had the teeth to chew it. Caitlyn grew up being hunted down by people like Lucas and superhumans like my father knowing where she went to private school, where she slept, and the entirety of the Olympians knowing very well where she lived and what her family did for a living, too. She was a spitting image of her father as she stood there in the darkness, with only her eyes reflecting enough light to make her out. Gods only knew what those eyes had seen, the friends she’d seen get killed by rival gangs. The times she had been swept up by heroes she had been forced to leave as a name on a tombstone, but gods, I needed her to stop thinking, to stop mulling over what I had just said. Time was running out, slipping through my fingers. The longer I waited, the more people died, but if I was being honest, letting that ungodly creature get stronger day-by-day meant one thing for me, and that was death. Gods only knew how much worse that damned creature had become by now.
“So,” I said quietly. “What the hell made Cailtyn Rivera a runaway? Who made the Devil’s Daughter run?”
“You’re bluffing,” she hissed at me. “My father wouldn’t have let Ava run the Triad. Now leave.”
“Well, with Lucifer being dead and all, I doubt he’s got much of a say being in a casket.”
And now I had her full attention.
She took two steps toward me, then stopped. “Blasphemy,” she spat.
I waved my hand and turned around, heading over the bridge. “See you around, I guess.”
The vines hanging above me erupted from the ceiling, threading together and threading into one thick vine that smashed the bridge apart. I remained hovering in front of the wall of thorns and sickly-sweet flowers as wooden panels flowed down the river, picked up by a very timid Daisy. My back was still turned to her so she got the clue that toying with a few plants didn’t really excite me as much as she would probably have liked to think. But there was another reason I kept my back to her. Another reason I kept one of my hands folded shut and half my body turned to the shadows. A vine had cut through the air behind me like a dagger to join the wall in front of me, and one of the thorns had nicked the back of my hand. Not a big cut, not compared to what I’d gone through this summer, but…. I’m bleeding. I glanced at the thorn inches away from me, the one that carried just a droplet of my blood on its tip. My hand stung as it healed, and suddenly, dealing with Cailtyn wasn’t a cat-and-mouse anymore.
I didn’t want to believe that someone else could also kill me. Someone else I didn’t even know about.
But as my hand healed, so did the tiny lightning bolt on my chest begin to feel like it was burning. Just briefly, for a few seconds, we remained in silence, and through that quietness, the mark on my chest ached like hell.
The thorns also reeked of poison. The pungent kind that would rot someone inside and out. My eyes reflected the sheen of it dripping down the vines and running off the tiny barbs, like a thin sheet of foul water.
“Tell me how you know that about my father,” Caitlyn demanded.
“I’m a superhero,” I said slowly. “I kinda tend to know when villains die around these parts.”
The next question came as a whisper, one that bordered on a serpentine hiss. “You killed him?”
I could very easily say yes to that and make her more than angry. Make her want to kill me, but I could see it in her eyes and the way she stood—Cailtyn wasn’t going to kill me or fight me right now, because it would be a waste of her time. She wanted to know more about her father, and a woman who wasn’t running away from the surface would have been able to go up there and check. She should have known about her father already, known that Ava was the one in charge of the family nine to five, but she didn’t know anything at all. I would have smiled if it wasn’t for the dull ache of pain pulsing on the back of my hand. She was still very much a threat to me, even if she didn’t know it. I figured, like the genius I was, that I should keep it that way for the sake of my own survival.
“I’d like to say I did,” I muttered, “but what kind of hero takes the glory for someone’s work, y’know?”
The tunnel shifted, and so did the ropy plants surrounding us. Her hands remained tight by her sides as Caitlyn raised her chin and said, “I need proof that what you’re saying is true, because if you’re lying to me, Olympia, then I’ll make it very clear why my mother was forced to step down.” Her voice remained flat, but echoed loud enough for the entire tunnel to shudder with her voice. “Now speak, or I’ll teach you how we make every Supe spill their guts. It’s not very pleasant, but it is very uncomfortable. I suggest you choose to be smart about this.”
I scoffed and folded my arms as I turned to face her, not because I wanted to cover the half of me not wearing my costume, but because I wanted her to know that I didn’t really give a fuck about her threats. She was smarter than her sister, and I was banking on that fact very, very hard. “Go on. Just so you know, I’ve got hay fever, so ease up on the pollen, and maybe it’ll be a fair enough fight for you to beg me to stop pulling you apart, Cat.”
Oh, she hated that name, and probably hated my words even more, but here came the part when she realized what I was after, and knew she wouldn’t get it if we fought. Ava, by now, would have kept threatening me, or choosing to call me names to degrade me to the point that I was too angry to focus on whatever it is that she wanted to get done. Caitlyn, on the other hand, relaxed her shoulders and sighed through her nose. I watched her force her own hands open as she slid them into her coat. The wall of vines behind me curled in on themselves and vanished into the darkness of the ceiling. The tunnel, though, didn’t stop groaning and rumbling and shaking, as if it had digested something foul that it couldn’t get rid of. We stared at one another, not particularly looking like bastions of warmth and acceptance in this dingy little tunnel, but one thing was clear: Caitlyn wasn’t willing to risk a fight with me, and I’ll be honest here, neither was I. She probably didn’t know she could hurt me, but hey, like Lucas said, secrets are what make this business what it is, and as for the proof she wanted of her father’s apparent murder…
Well, I couldn't give it to her, but there just so happened to be a small pain in my side called the Triumvirate that needed to be dealt with, and who else would have evidence of the blood of a man like Lucifer than the one gang that had wiped his off the map? She would have to go find it for herself, because I figured she would be more willing to hunt down a group of villains who had supposedly killed her father and thus helping me, than me showing her a bloody t-shirt and some pictures and hoping for the best. Besides, releasing a force of nature on them would be awesome.
Because it means I can watch the supervillains kill each other and come in after for clean up duty. Look at me, civilians, stopping a turf war. You're welcome. Get Witchling in on this, and it could be a very, very good day for me by getting these S-Grades into a bucket of gore or boring old jail.
And if she didn’t believe me about the Triumvirate wiping up the Triad, then she could always ask Ava.
Or the heaps of dead bodies the Triumvirate left in the Guild of men she had probably grown up with.
“Your arrogance is frustrating,” she muttered. “But I’ll commend you for being smarter than I thought.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cat. I’m just a superhero trying to get things done.”
“You’re extorting information from me for the price of knowing my father’s wellbeing.”
“Technically, no, I’m not. Extorting is what your sister did to me.”
“Ava?” Caitlyn said, curious. “She had both the gaul and the strategy to extort the Daughter of Zeus?”
I shrugged. “Not my proudest moment, but she scurried off somewhere before I could get her.”
Caitlyn said, “It seems like we are no longer anything we used to be. You included, girl.” She turned and walked toward the wall of thorns and glowing plants, and I watched as it opened in front of her, like barbed fingers grasping for the shadow lingering in her wake. “If it’s information you want, then it’ll come at a price. We’ll talk, but not here. This place still lingers with the eyes and ears of a man who would very quickly kill us in seconds.”
I flew toward the thorn-threaded wall, toward the musk of poison, and the stench of death and strips of flesh still rotting somewhere in the barb mess that was suffocating me. “Mind telling me who made this place?”
“Saying his name will only alert him of my presence,” she said. “Understand that he made this for you.”
I paused mid-flight, making her stop before she took the first stare down into the dark. “Me?”
“Not quite,” Caitlyn said, and for the first time, her smile glinted in the dark. “But for your people.”
“Us specifically,” a voice said from far, far below us, lost somewhere in the blinding darkness. And with those words came the faint light of glowing eyes, like two tiny golden embers burning away the darkness engulfing us. And not just one pair of them, but dozens more of them. "Glory's Blessings, Ry'ee, and by the gods, you've grown so much, and you finally smell just like uncle."