Killing Olympia

Before Lower Olympus became a hellscape, it was an organized hellscape. When the Olympians were still around, it was a slightly grimier version of everything on the other side of the river. It had its own baseball team that never won anything, a football team with a diehard fanbase that only ever won two games a year, and even its own small pockets of grass you could squint at and call a park. Most of those things were nothing but stories and ruins and taped-off buildings so run down they sometimes collapsed in on themselves without anyone even touching them. Time chewed up the memories and spat out the crumbling remains, and now most of this place was a hollow reminder that it wasn't always bad. Where the little Kaiju was taking me is exactly one of these places—a stadium.

The first stadium in New Olympus, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from the outside, and definitely not from the smell that lunged down my throat the second I got within a city block of it. For the lack of a better way to put it, the entire place smelt like unwashed animals. A little raw. Very raunchy. The heat of the midday sun wasn't making it any easier to swallow, but I didn't really have a choice except to stomach it. Besides, the Kaiju had found themselves a new home after the fires had consumed most of Old Town along the river. Tarps, tents, any kind of tiny shelter they could put together with plastic and rebar and concrete had been shoved inside the football stadium.

"Holy shit," I whispered, floating in the sky above the stadium. The vast parking lot outside it was a market of its own, just as noisy and unkempt as you might think it would be. Kaiju bartered and shouted, parents yelled at kids to stop running around, but nothing food related was being sold. Clothes. Off-brand and expired medicine. Shoes that didn't fit their feet. What food there was had been thrown inside a large pot to simmer over a fire. Watery, smelt rank even from up here, and no wonder the kid was so desperate to steal half a loaf of bread. The lines to the pot were so long they almost doubled back on themselves. I looked at the little Kaiju. "This is home?"

He nodded, his arms wrapping a little tighter around mine, as if he was afraid I'd drop him.

"Where's your mama?" I asked him. He shook his head. "Or your dad?"

Another shake of the head, then he pointed to the ground again, right where the stew was being served up in mugs and cracked bowls. It wouldn't feed everyone. You didn't have to be a genius to figure that part out either.

I slowly lowered toward the ground, and that's where my problems started. Ears flicked upward, noses twitched, tongues darted out of mouths—then, collectively, they looked up at me as I descended through the sky. Silence spread through the lot outside the stadium, so loud it was almost deafening. I landed gently and let the kid go—or I would have, if someone didn't snatch him from me and press him to their chest so hard that he gasped.

They stared at me, and I could hear every pound of strained muscle twitching to make a run for it.

"I found him a couple of blocks away," I said, gesturing at the kid. A few of them flinched. I rocked on the balls of my feet and nodded slowly. Alright, then. "I just wanted to check out how you guys were holding up aft—"

"Intruder!" a voice screamed from above. I looked up to the sound of wings beating through the sky. The air got churned. Dust got kicked up. I held up my hand to stop the sun from going directly into my eyes. Ravens. Eagles. Hawks. Hell, you name it, they were up there, some with wings on their backs, some with wings in place of where their arms should be—whatever they case, none of them looked happy to see me. A man with a crooked yellow beak swooped to the ground and landed in front of me, and when he straightened, I had to look up at him. Man these guys are huge. His eyes narrowed as his head tilted. Then they widened. "Oh, my! The mighty Olympia!"

He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, which straight away made me feel weird. The rest of the men and women in the sky fell around me, all kneeling. What the hell's going on? I slowly turned around, then looked at the little cat boy for some help. But he was staring at me as well, clutching onto the tiny, smashed-up loaf of bread.

"Uh…" I said intelligently. "You guys don't have to kneel, I'm not royalty."

The hawk looks up at me, still kneeling. "Yes, Torchbearer." He stands, and so do the others. I should really start paying more attention to what people say about me. "If I may, why have you come here? We are undeserving."

I put up my hands. "Relax, dude. I was just making sure that kid gets back here safely. He got caught trying to grab some bread for himself and a group of guys wanted to teach him a lesson. I made sure they backed down."

The hawk spun around and grabbed the boy's shoulder. "You went beyond the fence? Are you—"

"Relax," I said. He froze, then stiffly let go of the kid. "He didn't mean any harm."

"Give me that," a woman with pigeon wings hissed, taking the bread from him. She looked it over, pecked it once with her beak, then shook her head and spat it out. "It's bad. A pointless excursion. The humans will come."

That sent a wave of panic through the crowd. They started jostling and questioning, scared to their teeth. You know, back in the day when I thought dad was the gold standard, they had all kinds of Cape programs you could enlist with—Olympus U bred so many Capes it was almost unfair, but that was the reason we were the Cape capital of the world for a while. They taught shit like this, crowd management. I don't do great with this many people shouting all at once. My head rings and my ears try to make sense of things that don't make sense. Put yourself in my shoes for a second—I don't sleep for days on end because, when I finally do, I can sleep so deeply I won't have to hear every single thing going on inside the city. Every murder. Ever suicide. Every villain and thug and gods know what else is going on behind closed doors. It used to drive me nuts when I was younger. Guilt came with it naturally. You wake up wondering why you can't hear that same person screaming anymore after they kept you up all night long. This is kind of the same. It's overwhelming, it's hellish, and I really, really fucking hate it.

I stuck my fingers into my mouth and whistled sharply. So sharp it split the air and made them all cringe. Once they were quiet again and staring at me, I said, "They won't, alright? They would've killed him if I didn't find him, and it's not his fault he was hungry. People are desperate, so they do desperate things. Now, who's in charge?"

The little cat boy pointed toward the stadium. Then he wrapped his arms around himself, now tiny.

A stillness settled through the crowd, as if they'd all become standing corpses.

"But Torchbearer," the hawk said, voice quaking. "You cannot… It's easier to relay a message."

I picked up the cat, letting him sit on my shoulder. I had other things to do today, and bickering with a bird (all due respect, of course, just sayin') wasn't going to get me anywhere. If I was smarter, I would've sweet-talked and negotiated my way through the crowd. But I wasn't. Heck, I signed a deal with a possible dark entity without reading the fine print. So I let the kid guide me toward the stadium and over the crumbling outer walls. The messy encampment wasn't empty, but it wasn't lively either. It stank of something sickly, something rotting and meaty.

A shock of icy sweat ran down my spine, stopping me from getting closer. My skin stung as I breathed in the stench coming from below. My saliva soured. I spat to my side and swallowed. I know that smell. And I could almost feel it react to me, even from all the way up here. Something was…there. Right there underneath the tarps and the rubble and the concrete pillars. Something festering. Something decaying. Something that squelched and churned and poured through the encampment's cracked stadium walls and held the entire structure up on its own.

I slowly breathed out, shaky and dry. "That thing," I said quietly to the boy. "What is it?"

He didn't respond. Only stared at the stadium.

The legion of birds I'd left behind suddenly flocked around me. The hawk was the first to speak. "Please," he said, getting closer. "A message is much easier to communicate. On my soul, I will not mince any of your words."

I took the kid off my shoulder, then handed him to the pigeon woman.

"How long?" I whispered.

"Please, Torchbearer—"

"How. Long?" I asked.

Even from up here, I could see those tiny, fleshy, violet worms slithering through cracks in the pavement. It reeked of sulfur, of the bodies I'd first seen it consume whole and the guts it infested with itself. I swallowed hard.

Then squared my shoulders.

Doesn't matter how long, Rylee—all that matters is exterminating it.

"Wait!" the hawk said, grabbing my arm before I could send arcs of golden lightning from my hand. Energy crackled and burned, singing the air and making it taste like ozone. He breathed heavily and got closer. I didn't lower my arm, I didn't let the lashing gold light die out between my fingers. "If you must, then please first understand." He slowly let go of my forearm, then looked down. "I will, for all of our sakes, take you to see him."

I wanted to ask who 'he' was, but I relented and lowered my arm, killing the light. I jerked my chin. You first. He swooped closer to the stadium, and one by one, they followed, including the pigeon and the small cat boy now clutching onto her back, tiny nails digging into her blouse. I sighed from my nose and swallowed whatever dormant fear was bubbling up inside me. Then I fell through the sky and cracked the brittle plastic of the highest bleachers. I let the dust settle before my skin prickled. I know you're here, and you know I am, too. My eyes saw it first, the first tiny sliver of purple flesh oozing out of the cracks at my feet. I watched it crawl toward me, getting so close it grazed the rubber of my soles. I lit the shade with golden light. The air hummed with violent gold energy.

The worms slithered back through the cracks, vanishing from sight.

"Torchbearer!" the hawk called. He was in the middle of the football field with the rest of them. I took my time getting there, walking down each step, feeling it, hearing it crawling and festering and reaching out for my feet, and then it would dart away into the cracks and the dark spaces underneath the bleachers. Spray-painted stone pillars, graffiti-covered walls, the smell of dust and the sound of crumbling. The entire place was a giant mess.

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With a god-forsaken monster of a Kaiju underneath it. No, not underneath it.

Everywhere. It was the reason this place was still standing.

I walked past canvas tents, and I'd been right, they weren't empty—Kaiju, normal Kaiju, lay on rigid green cots, groaning quietly. The place reeked of blood, vomit, and just about every other bodily fluid imaginable. And each one of them had the same worm-infested, squelching, fleshy purple masses of flesh pouring into their mouths and noses. Sometimes a body would jerk, tense, and the tentacles would get a little larger, easing their tense bodies.

I wanted to puke just seeing the thing. My body was so ready to fight that my hair crackled with loose, violent energy.

I scratched the back of my neck, a rash forming from simply just being here. I tasted blood and swallowed it. Don't need these guys thinking Olympia could bleed so easily. As far as they knew, I was their Torchbearer, or whatever that meant. I finally got to the group, and found a boy standing in the middle of them, staring at me. I stopped walking a few feet before I got close, because—how do I put this and still make sense—he felt…cold. Not icy, but hollow, almost not there. I stepped back out of reflex, body tensing. He reeked of candle wax and mildew, and that oversized bomber jacket he was wearing wasn't clean enough to comfort my nose. Unlaced black boots. A t-shirt with holes burned through it. A necklace hung from his through, the pendant glowing softly like a flame.

It was his face that put me off most. It made my skin crawl. Sunken eyes. Pale, almost see-through skin. He kinda looked like he was glowing, the same way dull silver did under the sun. He looked so young, but not with eyes like those. In some way, he kinda looked like Wraith—except this guy was somehow even grungier, a lot more messy, and wore fingerless gloves with some kind of weird candle sigil symbol drawn into the palms. The only reason I knew that was because he stuck his hand out and waited, a thin smile on his lips not reaching his eyes.

We stared at one another for several seconds. Something inside me wanted to run. Or put my fist through his chest. An old feeling, something I'd buried deep, deep down by now. I've spent so long being high-strung that I didn't know what to expect from people anymore. I wanted to listen to my gut. It's gotten me through bad choices and even longer nights. But that was the Arkathian part of me speaking. The part that didn't like feeling threatened by something my body couldn't recognize. I wanted to puke. I wanted to shove him away. I wanted to shake his hand, because that's what good superheroes did—they stomached whatever they felt and made peace their habit.

I fought my base instincts and grabbed his hand.

Then gasped as an icy chill shot up my arm. Shards of ice filled my brain. I reeled back and shook out my hand. My palm smoked, but not with anything I could smell. Something I could feel. Something lacy and vapid.

"What the—"

"Your soul was withering," he said. His voice was a whisper, but he might as well have shouted right into my ear. "Bad things were eating it. I pushed them away. For now. I suppose that makes us friends now, doesn't it?"

Great, another weirdo.

But…

He was right. I couldn't hear that thing whispering in my ears so loudly anymore. It was still there, but a lot more subdued, a lot more silent, almost more of a memory than the biting hiss I'd gotten so used to from that thing.

I flexed my fingers, then said, "And who the hell are you?"

"Lastlight," he said. I waited for more. Nothing came.

"And you're the Kaiju's new leader?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No."

I waited some more, but he stood there, waiting just the same. "So who is?"

"Good question," he said, then looked at the hawk. "Liam, who's your leader?"

"Well, I suppose we don't directly have a leader," Liam said, then gestured around us to the tents and the beds filled with bodies. "Mother Gaia keeps her children alive. She isn't our leader, but she protects and heals us."

The boy turned to look at me. "They vote collectively. The creature provides them safety."

"That thing keeps them safe?" I asked, folding my arms. "Yeah, sure, and I'm Zeus."

His eyes widened. "I didn't know Zeus could change forms."

"I was being sarcastic."

"I know," he said. "I have been working on my own sarcasm, and I think it has just worked."

He grinned at me, but again, it didn't reach his eyes. Man, this guy is creepy. I rubbed my bicep, trying to make him feel less comfortable as he stared at me. He was Asian, a little tall, but that was all I could really tell. Pale and kinda lanky like Wraith, but I haven't spent enough time with Wraith trying to figure out what his deal was.

"Whatever your deal is with that thing—"

"Mother Gaia," Liam added helpfully.

"I don't care what it's called," I said. "It needs to go. Now."

The boy said, "I'm sorry, but… May I silence your shadow? It's extremely loud and quite irritating. It doesn't seem very happy that I pushed it away from your soul." I looked over my shoulder. Nothing was there. I slowly turned back around and shrugged, albeit uncomfortably. He waved his hand, and the little pulsing flare on his necklace brightened. "There," he said, lowering his hand. "Dimensional Imps. Always annoying." He made a symbol using his fingers, whispered something silent, then nodded and smiled. "It should be gone. For now."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What're you playing at?"

"I don't know how to play many games, sorry."

"Dude, I—" I swallowed my words, breathed out, and forced myself to calm down. It was the fucking Kaiju getting to me. My entire body felt like it was being slowly turned over a fire as I got skewered by a rusted spit. I almost spat bloody saliva, then decided to swallow it again. Olympia doesn't bleed in front of people, at least, not when she can help it. "Just give it to me straight so I can leave and let you guys keep doing your thing: what the hell is going on, what's up with the Normals not wanting you on their turf, and how the fuck is that thing even alive?" Because last I checked, the entire city nearly threw Adam a goddamned party because he defeated it.

Unless, of course, it was just one more monster that Cassie made disappear to make Adam look better. Maybe she was done learning what she could from it. Maybe she shrugged and said, Sure, yeah, fuck it—I'll let it die off on its own somewhere, because she knew damn well it wouldn't be her problem anymore. Gods, I could almost hear her in my head right now. All she'd say was, Well, you're the one who caused this mess in the first place—I had them in cages before you came along. I cursed quietly. I had plenty of reasons not to like her, but she was very surely and very rapidly climbing to the top of the list of people I didn't like. Lucian was in her way now.

And dad, too, if she ever managed to do the impossible and bring him back.

Liam scratched the back of his head. "Unfortunately, I can only answer one question truthfully."

"I'll take it," I said. "Hit me."

"The humans are threatened by us," the pigeon woman said, now cradling the cat in her arms. I didn't know if she wanted to, or because the kid was holding onto her so hard, but regardless, he wasn't going to leave her anytime soon, judging by the grip he had on her. "There was a time when our masses became bitterly divided."

"It was a matter of survival," Liam said. "We either find our own means, or…"

"You go out there and take it from people who couldn't stop you," I finished, my voice quiet.

They all nodded.

"We've suffered enough," a large guy muttered at the back. "We barely even know what peace is. We've got kids running around who don't understand why they can't play with other kids, just because they've got a tail or a pair of freaking wings." He scoffed a little, then spat on the ground. "Then they clap and dance for Supers."

"What happened when you guys split in two?" I asked them.

"A pride was formed," Liam answered. "And the humans were murdered, their flesh eaten, their children stolen. Their leader brought back his spoils and threw them at our feet. It's natural for some of us to lean one way more than the other in terms of what we eat, but all he did was tempt those hungry and foolish enough to join his cause. He wants a section of Lower Olympus for himself. When the city is finally rebuilt, he wants Kaiju to have their own space. Wonderful in theory. Bloody in practice. Unforgivable through his means. We suffer enough."

"And all we'd be doing is starting a war we just cannot win," one of them whispered.

"But…" the pigeon-woman said. "If you helped us—"

"I can't," I said, cutting her off. "I'm not—"

"But you are," Liam said, getting closer. "You're the Torchbearer."

"What does that even mean?" I asked, spreading my arms. "I'm Olympia, not whatever that is."

They stared at me, then almost all frowned at once—including the little kid.

"The night of the fires," Liam said. "You held up a torch of light, did you not?"

"What?" I said. "I didn't…"

I paused, then swore.

"Torchbearer," the boy said, still smiling, as if he'd spent so much time practicing it this morning that he couldn't let all those hours go to waste. "Some hear it. Some might not. Regardless, without you, night is dark."

Rylee Addams what the fuck did you get yourself into this time.

I scratched the back of my head. "It was kinda a spur of the moment thing. I didn't really…" They were looking at me way too hard to keep going with that, so instead, I decided to make up a lie—was that bad? Maybe. Would it get these guys' spirits a little higher? Hopefully. And that was my job at the end of the day, even though I had no clue at all how to deal with any of this. And was it kinda bad that I liked the attention? "No, you're right. I just didn't know how big it would get after that night. How about this—I go out there beyond your fences and talk to the people living closest to you and try to figure something out. I'm not promising anything, and I'm maybe not the greatest negotiator in the world, but I'll make sure I come back here with at least a bit of good news for you."

The ones who could grin did just that, and the rest of them threw their fists into the air.

The backs of their hands were dashed with bright yellow paint. Several flew into the sky and over the stadium's bleachers, probably on their way to spread the news. I'd wanted this day to be nice and easy. Fight a few bad guys. Fix a couple of water problems. Grab myself a mystery meat sandwich from downtown Lower Olympus where the meat was probably made out of roadkill, and then get ready for tonight's hunt with the coolest aunt.

Now I had to figure out how to bring together Kaiju and Normals like one big happy family.

Superheroes hated me, a superhero. Supervillains were at each other's throats.

I had no idea what to do with these guys.

"You do," the boy said. I startled, because he was suddenly very close to me. "You aren't mentally intelligent. Maybe not very cunning. Or considerate." I stepped away from him. He patted my shoulder, which sent another shard of ice through my veins. "But you are willing, you are able, and you impose your goal on this city so thoroughly we all feel it. Good will come from your struggles. It is fate. However tragic the road leading there is."

"Did you just read my thoughts?" I asked him.

"Your soul is loud," he whispered, getting closer. I didn't like the breach of personal space. This guy was freaking me out in ways my body wasn't familiar with yet. "Like…a flame. A flame that just cannot be contained."

"What are you?" I asked him quietly. They were all gone now, including Liam and the little cat boy.

Now I was left with the Kaiju that nearly ripped me apart, and a boy who could see the dead.

"Your friend," he said, smiling once more. Not any better this time either.

"I don't want any more of those. I'm good, thanks."

"You trust few." I stopped walking away, but that didn't matter, because he wasn't behind me, but instead right here in front of me. No, I did not startle again. I darted back out of instinct. Get with the program. "But that's OK. I don't trust a lot of people. The dead don't tell secrets easily. The living do. But us meeting was always fate."

"I'm sorry?"

"Yes," he said, sticking out his hand again. "And it is a pleasure to be your new teammate."

"Who said I wanted a teammate?"

"Your soul did," he said simply. "You crave affection. Care. Love. That's what the spirits are telling me."

"I thought you said they don't spill secrets," I muttered. "And false ones at that."

"Oh, they don't," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "You are also easy to read."

"Listen—"

"Good thing my ears work."

I stared at him. He giggled dryly.

Where do I even find these people?

"Whatever," I said, turning around. "If you wanna hitch along as I try to talk these guys down, then fine, but keep your mouth shut and don't be weird, dude—if you give me the creeps and I've seen a bunch of shit, you'll scare the hell out of everyone else." Then I cleared my throat. Blood sprung into my mouth, nearly choking me. I coughed onto my palm, and didn't bother looking at the droplets on my fingers as I wiped it off against my thigh.

"Are you alright?" he asked from below me. "No, you're not. The spirits—"

"Fuck the spirits," I said. "Are you coming or not?"

"Certainly," he said. "In the Torchbearer I trust."

I hated to admit this, but…

Man, sometimes I miss Ava.