'Where?' said Hyperion.
'Your eleven.'
'Got it.'
The Titans had just crossed yet another bridge, having performed almost a complete circuit of the central part of the city. On the corner of a narrow street up ahead, Sam could see what looked like an arm — waving? Reaching up? She could also, now, detect an intermittent hissing noise.
Hyperion swung the launcher, already loaded, onto his shoulder and advanced. Back at Bleaney, Landesman advised caution. Sam followed Hyperion, machine gun at the ready. She kept to his left side, steering well clear of the launcher's rear end. Thanks to her battlesuit the backblast wouldn't kill her but it would certainly knock her off her feet.
The hissing continued, reminding Sam of the sound the Gorgons had made. Perhaps they and the Lamia were related, members of the same composite woman/snake species. But the Lamia was a stealth predator. Its modus operandi was to creep up on its prey and latch on, injecting them with a venom that served as a muscle relaxant before it took its fill of their blood. Why would it be making any noise? Why alert anyone to its presence in this way?
Hyperion rounded the corner, adopting a feet-spread firing stance.
'Ah shit,' he said. Angry, disappointed. 'One of them.'
Sam joined him, and found a scared teenage boy cowering before him. The teenager's face was covered with a balaclava, and in his hand was an aerosol can. On the wall beside him, part of the facade of a chocolate shop, were two freshly painted concentric O's. He hadn't yet managed to add the diagonal line that would complete the Agonides symbol.
'Please, don't shoot!' the teenager begged. 'I am good kid. No threat. Just doing my thing.'
'I'm not going to shoot,' Hyperion assured him. 'What do you mean, your thing?'
'I must paint ten of these, ten logos around the city, then I am able to join Agonides as full member. It's my — I'm not sure of the word.' The teenager's English carried a Flemish accent, not dissimilar to a Netherlands accent. Word came out voord.
'Initiation.'
'Yes! Initiation.'
'It's dangerous out here at night,' Sam said.
'True,' said the teenager, 'but in daytime police would try to stop me. At night, no police.'
'You'd rather risk death than being arrested.'
He shrugged. 'What we do — it is worth dying for.' Through the balaclava eyeholes Sam saw his gaze turn inquisitive. 'But who are you people? Not army. Not proper army.'
'We're no one,' said Hyperion. 'Ghosts. We don't exist. Got that? Now run home and forget you ever saw us.'
'Ghosts…' A light of comprehension dawned in the teenager's eyes. 'I know! I know it! You are them!' he exclaimed. 'The ones. The monster killers. That is right, no? The ones who do the Griffin, the Sphinx… The Sirens also, I think. It is on the news today. And now the Lamia. You're here to kill her too.'
'It,' Hyperion corrected him. 'Kill it. Now what part of 'run home' did I not say clearly enough for you to understand, son?'
'Please, I must shake your hands. You are heroes to us. We Agonides, we are talking about you the whole time. We love you. Many people love you. You are big buzz online. Go to the chat rooms, the forums, you'll see. Our leaders do not like you. They say you are bad. You are too much making waves. But the people, they know you are doing good thing. And the Olympians next? First the monsters, then the assholes who say they are gods but are not? That is the plan?'
'I'm not going to tell you,' said Hyperion. 'And I'm not going to be shaking any hands either. Just scram, kid. I mean it.'
The teenager produced a mobile phone from his back pocket. 'A picture. So I can post it online and show everyone who you are. Proof that you exist. The world needs to see you.'
'For God's sake don't let him,' said Landesman.
'Gimme that.' Hyperion reached for the phone.
'Um, Tethys, Hyperion…' came Oceanus's voice, quaverily over the comms. 'Help.'
They turned.
'I'm sorry,' Oceanus croaked. 'Came up from behind. Didn't see.'
The Lamia had him. A glistening trail of canal water led from the parapet of the bridge to where the monster now was, draped around Oceanus. Its snakelike lower half enveloped him to the waist like the coils of some immense boa constrictor. Its womanlike upper half clutched his torso, pinning his arms to his sides in a muscular embrace. He was helpless. The Lamia had torn off the rubberised gorget which protected his neck. Now its mouth was latched onto his exposed throat, and its venom was already taking effect. Oceanus writhed feebly in its clutches but, even with the added strength from his battlesuit, his efforts were in vain. The Lamia's head bobbed slightly as it drank deeply from his jugular.
Without hesitating, Hyperion sighted the rocket launcher on the monster.
'Hyperion!' Sam snapped. 'What the hell are you doing?'
'What needs to be done,' Hyperion said, off-comms. Launch lever down. Finger on trigger. 'He's as good as dead already.'
'No he is not.' Sam raised her submachine gun. 'Back off and leave this to me.'
'The Lamia's mine, Tethys. You can't have it.'
'That isn't your decision to make,' Sam replied. 'And besides, I don't recall asking your permission.'
She darted towards the Lamia. Hyperion was yelling at her, pleading with her — she ignored him. The situation being what it was, his choice of weapon had put him out of the running.
'Hey!' she shouted at the monster. 'Hey! Over here! Look at me!'
The Lamia broke off from its feasting and looked up. Its mouth was round and fringed with needle teeth like a lamprey's. Gore trickled from the puckered, sphincter-like orifice, dribbling down the monster's chin onto its bare flaccid breasts. Orange-irised eyes fixed Sam with a look of gluttonous glee. Oceanus now hung slack in the Lamia's clutches. His jaw drooped and his head was starting to loll.
Sam drew a bead on the Lamia's face and fired. Quicker than she'd anticipated, however, the monster swivelled. The shot ricocheted off Oceanus's shoulder, zinging into the stonework of the bridge. Next moment, the Lamia relaxed its hold on Oceanus, loosening its coils, but not completely, and not for long, only for the couple of seconds it took the monster to slither to the bridge parapet and over the side. It dived headlong into the canal, taking its victim with it.
Sam was at the parapet before the Lamia was even fully submerged. The canal was shallow, no more than a couple of metres deep. She switched to thermal imaging. Within the water a dim red blob appeared, roughly the shape of Oceanus and the Lamia entwined. Sam fired and fired again. The Lamia flexed its tail and lanced off through the water, dragging Oceanus along. A turbulent wake swelled up from below.
Then a rocket pierced the surface of the canal, its small splash followed swiftly by a tremendous subaquatic detonation that flared white in Sam's visor and raised a ten-metre-diameter blister of water. Hyperion reloaded and fired the launcher again. A second blister of water overwrote the tumultuous ripples left by the first.
'I got it,' Hyperion breathed. 'Tell me I got it.'
The canal churned, waves slapping and slopping against its embankments. Gradually the tortured water subsided to calmness. Moments passed. Then, with a slow, sinister grace, two bodies broke the surface. They bobbed up side by side like a pair of synchronised swimmers, Oceanus face down, the Lamia rolling over onto its back, its thick tail uncoiling. Outwardly both looked more or less intact. The blasts hadn't killed them directly, the hydrostatic pressure had.
'Ah goddammit.' Hyperion sounded sick and weary all of a sudden, drained of all energy. 'Shit.'
'Yes,' said Sam. 'Quite. Shit.'
'I didn't… I mean, he was a goner the moment — '
'Save it for later. Police'll be here soon. Those bangs will have woken up half of Belgium. Let's get down there and retrieve Oceanus's body, then scarper.'
'Sam, I — '
