'Well,' said Hyperion, scanning the mess Sam had made. He took off a gauntlet and wiped blood drips from his visor. 'Yeah. Motherfucker was still alive. But I think it's safe to say, not any more.'
30. BRUGES
T hen came Bruges.
And the Titans' second casualty.
The elegant little Belgian city had endured a French attempt at annexation in the 14th century and, more recently, Nazi occupation, as well as lengthy periods of impoverishment when the canals that connected it to the coast silted up, meaning the arteries which carried its lifeblood, commerce, were blocked. It had survived all these hardships with its medieval architecture more or less intact and its air of resilience undiminished. Bruges sat in the midst of farmed flatlands like a well-preserved lesson in the art of quietly getting on with business and hoping for a brighter tomorrow.
Except… the good burghers of Bruges had slipped up lately. They'd forgotten their history — neglected the tradition of passive, sedate stoicism that had served them so well in the past. The city had become the hub of a youth movement that was prevalent throughout Europe and particularly in the Benelux: the Agonides, the Children of Struggle.
They were teenagers, mostly, who had grown up knowing little other than the Pantheonic rule and who chafed under the yoke of this unasked-for, quasi-divine governance. They were rebels, as passionate in their beliefs as only young people could be. They refused to accede to the Olympians' authority. They would not bend the knee the way all the older folks seemed to, especially the ones in positions of political power. They took it upon themselves to resist by mocking and denouncing the so-called gods at every turn.
They'd become famous — notorious — for their art stunts, graffiti sloganeering, and internet pranks such as a Trojan horse virus, called the 'Trojan Horse,' which embedded a subroutine in operating systems so that whenever the name or image of an Olympian appeared onscreen, a tiny wooden horse would pop up and disgorge a band of even tinier animated hoplites armed with mops and brushes who would set about scrubbing the word or picture out of existence. Millions of PCs and Macs were infected worldwide before All-Moderator Argus managed to expunge the virus from the Web. The Agonides were also responsible for a number of skilfully organised flashmob events that saw dozens of random strangers flock to some open public space and allow themselves to be arranged, through a cunning piece of mobile-phone GPS trickery, into a pattern that could be best seen by nearby surveillance cameras. They'd remain in place for as long as it took to guarantee the pattern had been recorded on CCTV, but no more than 30 seconds, before dispersing. On one occasion a reasonable likeness of Zeus's face was formed, showing the king of the Pantheon with eyes crossed and tongue sticking out. On another, a hundred or so bodies aligned to spell out the words FUCK THE GODS. Most often, though, the flashmobs adopted the official symbol of the Agonides, a circle representing the letter O — for Olympian — surrounded by a larger circle with a line slashing across it diagonally.
The movement had arisen in the genteel backstreets of Bruges. That was where its spiritual heart lay. Accordingly, Bruges was where the Olympians had chosen to site one of their vilest monsters. If the presence of the Lamia in their midst couldn't deter the Agonides from their adolescent shenanigans, then nothing could.
The Lamia was a vampiric thing, half woman, half snake, that seemed quite at home among the towering spires and torpid canals of the town. Night and day it swam and lolled in the water, lurking under bridges or crawling onto jetties to bask in the sun. Its preferred prey was small children, and as a consequence there were no small children to be found anywhere in Bruges. Everyone under the age of twelve had been evacuated into the surrounding countryside or found temporary lodgings in Brussels and Ghent. The Lamia was partial to the odd adult as well, but its attacks on mature victims were seldom fatal, whereas its attacks on minors almost always were. It was a question of blood volume. The Lamia sucked three or four pints at a single sitting, never any more. Most adults could survive that level of blood loss and the attendant shock, just, if given immediate medical treatment and an on-the-spot transfusion. Small children could not.
The inhabitants of Bruges tried to go about their daily lives as normal, acting as if the Lamia wasn't there. It wasn't easy, though. They could feel their city slowly dying around them. The empty playgrounds, the lack of high- pitched voices yelling, the toy shops, kindergartens and primary schools that had 'Closed Until Further Notice' signs in the window — nobody had realised, until they were gone, quite how much children added to a community and quite how great a void was left by their absence. Without them, there was no tangible evidence of a future, no visible sense of continuum. There were just glum parents, missing their offspring terribly, and the elderly, feeling the cold wind of mortality more keenly than ever.
Also, tourists had stopped coming. Bruges's principal source of income these days were the visitors who were drawn in their droves to the 'Venice of the north' thanks to its art treasures and its stately basilicas with their Gothic and neo-Gothic stylings. But the Lamia had put paid to that. Now the horse-drawn carriages stood idle in the Markt, the cobbles of the Burg were untroubled by the soles of sightseeing and coach-party crowds, and open- topped tour boats sat at their moorings with tarpaulins stretched over them and green slime accumulating on their hulls.
Then, one spring night, a rare event. A group of outsiders did arrive in town, unbeknownst to the residents. Although they had come to explore the place and their visit would ultimately be beneficial to the Brugesian economy, they were hardly tourists. Their reason for being there was, as one of them put it, to 'find that motherfucking leech and blow it to bits.'
Ramsay uttered these words in the back of the van as McCann drove him, Sam and Chisholm into the town. The Chicagoan's sense of humour had been on the wane since they'd left Singapore, and now his face was nothing but a mask of resolute, implacable hatred. His moment had come. Once more he reasserted that nobody else, nobody, would deliver the killing blow tonight. Nobody but him.
'I said it on the plane, I'll say it one more time. The bloodsucker is mine. I'm staking my claim. I've waited five goddamn years for this. You two are welcome to come with. I'll appreciate your support. But so help me, if either of you gets in my way when we have the thing cornered, you better damn well get out of it, or else. It's me and the Lamia, OK? For my little boy's sake. For Ethan. Me and that monster. To the death.'
Sam said nothing, just nodded to show that she understood; Chisholm likewise.
McCann parked in a leafy residential square, and the Titans put their helmets on and powered up. Tethys, Hyperion and Oceanus exited from the back doors, and the hunt for the Lamia began.
Much like Singapore, Bruges was deserted after dark, the streets abandoned by its inhabitants, indoors seeming altogether a safer and more sensible place to be. The belfry of the Belfort-Hallen rang out every fifteen minutes, its carillon playing tunes to parcel out the hours, but it seemed nobody was out and about to hear, other than the three Titans.
'I know that one,' Oceanus remarked, as the bells tolled half past midnight. 'Bugger me, it's 'Danny Boy.'' He joined in. ''The pipes, the pipes are ca-all-ling.''
'Hey,' said Hyperion. 'Zip it.'
'Only having a bit of a singalong.'
'Well, don't.'
Oceanus bristled. 'Now hold on a moment. Who are you to — '
Behind Hyperion's back, Sam made an air-patting gesture. Leave it.
Oceanus jutted his jaw, but relented.
They traversed several low bridges, weapons trained on the canals below. The water was mirror-motionless, black as oil. Mist drifted up from it in thready swirls.
'Come on out, Lamia,' Hyperion muttered. 'Show your face. I got something for you.'
The 'something' was the rocket launcher that he carried slung over his back, a Daedalus special, short enough that the user could flip it forward, slot the rocket in, and assume firing position in one easy manoeuvre. Its effectiveness in the field had been proved twice, first against the Sphinx, then against the Chimera. The projectiles' thermobaric warheads, designed to stop armoured vehicles and penetrate masonry, made mincemeat of monsters. Overkill? Hyperion would argue that under these circumstances there was no such thing.
'Movement,' said Oceanus.
