CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

A Meeting of the World's Finest

Perhaps it was the remembrance of ‘Chimera’ that caused Sam’s swing to go wild and miss the banshee’s head entirely.

You keep forgetting lesson number thirty-three, kid, Chiron sighed.

“I know.” Sam ducked to avoid the long, emaciated hand that had reached out for his neck. “I know.”

Luckily, he wasn’t fighting this banshee alone. Jackboot’s kick to the horror’s back disrupted its attempt to let loose another horrifying death wail while allowing Sam to correct his misstep.

He slid underneath the banshee’s reach and then swung Onus up at its exposed chin. The hammer’s cylindrical head smacked hard against the horror’s jaw, causing its head to snap back in a way that would have decapitated a regular human.

“Thanks for the assist!” Jackboot called. “Now, allow me to finish this!”

Sam spared the other hero a glance and saw that Jackboot was now on the other side of the street from where he and the banshee were duking it out. “How’d he—”

Jackboot ran forward and then zoomed across the asphalt at a speed Sam’s eyes could barely follow.

Proportional speed of a hare, kid, Chiron reminded Sam.

Jackboot leaped high and then rammed his foot into the Banshee’s chest, blowing a ten-inch hole in its upper body that, crazily enough, still wasn’t enough to destroy the gamma-level horror.

Sam had guessed this would be the case which is why he was already swinging Onus down on the banshee’s head, nipping its wounded screech in the bud with a well-placed smack on the left cheek. But not even this powerful blow would ensure the horror’s death as it quickly regained its footing so that it could whip its hand forward and catch Jackboot’s foot just as he dove in with a follow-up kick.

“Oi! Get your own boot!” Jackboot complained.

“Don’t worry.” Sam couldn’t help but join in on the banter as it felt refreshing to know he wasn’t the only nervous talker out there. “I don’t think it can afford steel-tipped boots!”

Great, you’re both chatty in a fight, Chiron grumbled.

With both hands wielding Onus, and a cry of “Herculean!” Sam swung for the fences and smashed his hammer right at the very center of the banshee’s emaciated face. Then came a sound akin to a thunderclap, and the horror was blown away. Its back smashed hard against the side of the bus it had recently escaped, causing its windows to shatter from the impact.

“Holy Horus,” Jackboot exclaimed. “I’d heard the rumors, but you certainly are one strong vigilante, mate.”

One of Sam’s eyebrows twitched upward. “Holy...Horus?”

Jackboot bowed his head to Sam in greeting.

“Like most of my fellow heroes from across the pond, I too fight in service of the Egyptian gods,” Jackboot explained quickly.

“You’re British,” Sam realized.

“What gave me away...my dashing good looks or—”

Jackboot was forced to swerve to his left.

“Oi! heads up!” he warned. “That blighter’s coming in hot!”

Even battered, bruised, and heavily wounded, the banshee leaped headfirst for the bantering heroes in what Sam imagined was a kind of kamikaze run. Dark ichor spilled out of its many wounds as it landed between them—and Sam would later swear he’d heard the horror wheeze like a sickly old woman after it had tried and failed to produce yet another death wail.

“Blimey, you’re one persistent bastard, aren’t you?” Jackboot taunted.

Sam had to agree. The fight was clearly over, and only the horror seemed oblivious to this.

“Let’s finish this already,” Sam said, sighing as he did.

Sam and Jackboot were pretty good dance partners—almost in sync like he and Thunder were. Neither hero needed any prompting to jump forward and cut the horror’s next attack short. Sam went high while Jackboot went low in a combined clothesline move that caught the horror around the chest from both directions. And, as the horror was already sporting a rather large hole in that area of its emaciated body, the powerful blows of Sam’s punch and Jackboot’s kick were enough to rip the banshee in half.

“Styx, that’s just...” Sam blurted. It was a sentiment that Jackboot mirrored with, “So bloody nasty...”

Two halves of the horror lay on the ground between them while guts and blood spilled onto the asphalt, bringing with them a smell reminiscent of a hospital emergency room during an actual emergency. And that wasn’t all. There was something shiny on the ground. A glowing piece of stone Sam hadn’t seen since he’d defeated the cannibal boar back at the healing gardens.

“Is that—”

“A horror’s core, yeah,” Jackboot answered. “Only mid-level horrors and up carry these gems... Beautiful to look at, aren’t they?”

He knelt on one knee and reached out for the core, but then stopped just before his hand plucked the glowing red stone from the ground.

“You go on and take it,” he said to Sam.

“Are you sure you don’t want it?” Sam asked. “Cores are pretty rare, man.”

Horror cores, which were the crystalized essence of a god’s gift, were the most expensive part of the corpse. However, their value was more than mere rarity as these cores were also remnants of powerful gifted—bits of their memories, their experiences, their power—the last piece of them to survive their transformation from a person into a monster.

“Well,” Jackboot spared a glance at the broken-down bus idling in the middle of Logan Square, “it would be poor form for me to claim it when you worked twice as hard to save lives.”

Generosity...heroes give their time, effort, and sometimes even their lives to those who need it to bring the people hope and peace of mind, Chiron recited. That’s lesson number nine by the way.

Jackboot tossed the glowing red stone into Sam’s hand.

“Thanks,” Sam said.

He could feel the horror’s core vibrating between his fingers and sense an aura of power radiating from inside it that had a similar taste to… “It’s life force.”

Yep, that thing’s loaded with life force, kid, Chiron confirmed. The kind you can drain to strengthen yourself.

Sam could feel the life force in the stone like the taste of his favorite ice cream flavor on the tip of his tongue but dipped in extra-hot chili sauce. He likened them to the taste of old memories; emotions so raw and intense that Sam couldn’t help but feel sadness for the human who’d once carried them.

The experience of others adds to your experience, Chiron explained. And in rare circumstances, you might even inherit the gift they’d left behind. Although that’s got a one in a thousand chance of happening.

Fat chance of that happening, Sam thought wryly. I can’t even get these bond abilities to work properly yet.

“I’ll put this to good use,” Sam told Jackboot as he pocketed the horror’s core.

“It’ll sell for loads on the OTC if you’re looking to make some money.” Jackboot wasn’t looking at Sam though. His gaze had drifted over to the broken-down bus. “Shall we see if anyone’s still alive in there?”

The pair of them got on the bus only to discover that only three passengers—teenagers who’d hidden underneath the seats at the very back—had survived this nightmarish ride. The rest had been killed by the horror’s rampage as it was birthed inside the bus.

“This is horrible,” Jackboot sighed.

Sam, his heart heavy with the feeling of failure, added, “Let’s get them out of here...”

They brought the survivors out to thunderous applause from a crowd of onlookers who’d stayed to watch what would have been quite the disaster if it hadn’t been quickly nipped in the bud by these two heroes. Sam wasn’t feeling their love though.

How could he celebrate—how could the spectators—when only three people survived a bus that had been full of passengers?

One of the survivors, a brown-haired teenage girl who looked no older than Farsight, wouldn’t let go of Sam’s hand despite an EMT trying to pry her off him. Her fingers curled around his jacket so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.

“It’s alright now,” Sam promised her. “You’re safe.”

“That thing...it was the girl sitting next to me...she was crying before...before...” Hot tears fell across her face and soaked Sam’s neck. “She killed the bus driver... It happened so fast... It was...it was...”

“Horrifying?” Jackboot supplied.

“Not helping.” Sam frowned at him before turning his gaze back on the teenage girl clinging to his arm. “The horror’s gone. I promise…it can’t hurt you anymore.”

There was something in Sam’s voice—the honest assurance in it—that finally got the girl to look up at him. She stared into his teal-colored eyes for a long moment before relief finally flitted across her face.

Looks like you remembered lesson number eleven, kid, Chiron commented.

“Hope,” Sam whispered.

After the EMTs had taken the survivors out of Sam’s and Jackboot’s hands, the latter placed a shoulder over Sam’s shoulders and dragged him toward the gathered crowd which now included several reporters. The sight of all those cameras caused Sam to pull away.

“This kind of thing isn’t really my scene,” he blurted.

“What, taking a bow after a successful hour of heroics?” Jackboot chuckled.

“Yeah, they think I’m a—”

“Vigilante,” Jackboot supplied. “Yes, mate, I know, but it’s the coppers who think you’re a menace. These citizens just see a bloke who put himself in front of a rampaging bus to stop it from hurting more people... That’s bloody heroic if you ask me.”

Rabbit-Ears has a point, Chiron chimed in. No harm in taking a bow every once in a while.

“Come on.” He reached down for Sam’s hand and then lifted it high in triumph. “It gives people hope to see their heroes triumph over evil.”

The cheers got even louder. Almost as loud as the beating of Sam’s chest which at that moment was as loud as a drum solo at a rock concert. All those flashing lights and excited faces—the sight of them was honestly giving Sam anxiety. Although, admittedly, a tiny part of him thought it didn’t feel too bad to finally be recognized for his efforts.

Sam’s elation had been fleeting, however, because he didn’t feel like he deserved these cheers. Not when so many lives had been lost on his watch. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t around when the horror had been born because he should have been. At least, that’s what Sam believed.

“Sorry, I…I’ve got to go,” Sam insisted. “But I might need to talk to you later...”

“What about?” Jackboot asked.

“A rabbit hole,” Sam said as he retreated toward the bus. “Come find me at the top of the Rocky Steps at midnight...we’ve got some things to discuss.”

“You’re just going to run away from a square full of our admiring public?” Jackboot called after him.

Sam jumped onto the roof of the bus before he put on the gauntlet he’d been hiding in his backpack.

“I really should have put this on earlier,” he sighed. “Where’s a phone booth when you need one...”

Before he could make his escape, however, new notifications popped up around him with information that Sam had never seen before. Surprisingly, several of these notifications carried the golden glow of messages that came directly from the gods.

Congratulations! You have helped to defeat a powerful horror, not only earning you the trust of the citizens of the city of Philadelphia but also fame among the pantheons. Fame with the Olympian Pantheon increased by 500. Because you used Onus against [Banshee (Γ)], fame with the Olympian Pantheon increased by another 300. Current fame: 800 Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, looks upon you with interest. Your patron, Apollo, God of the Sun, looks upon you with favor. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, approves of your actions. Hephaestus, God of Fire, appreciates your use of a relic made by one of his apprentices.

Sam had heard of heroes earning fame and favor from the gods before, but this was the first time for him. “Um, master, what exactly does this mean?”

It means the gods are now taking great notice of your actions, kid… It can either be very good or very bad, Chiron answered.

“What happens when I earn more fame?” Sam asked.

Fame is a kind of currency exclusive to heroes which you can use to trade favors with the divine, Chiron explained. Here’s an example…you can get a second patron if you earn about five thousand points with a single pantheon.

“Seriously?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

Yeah, but earning fame’s no walk in the park, kid. There’s more to it than just beating bad guys, or you would have already earned a lot when you beat the Trickster, Chiron reminded Sam.

Despite Sam’s interest in this new development, he wasn’t really in a place to fully understand what this meant for his future as a hero because Sam was too busy trying to escape the scene of the crime.

He took one final glance at the crowd, allowing himself a moment of reveling in their cheers, and then he raised his arm toward one of the low-rise buildings on his right.

Listen, kid. You did well today. You saved all these people. Don’t let what happened inside the bus take that from you, Chiron said.

It was good advice, Sam knew, but he was just that kind of self-deprecating hero. Chiron knew that too, which is probably why he chuckled almost immediately after he’d given his advice.

Sam aimed his grappling hook up at the building’s roof, and with a final word of, “I’m never going to get used to this,” he vanished into the air vigilante-style — and the cheering only got louder.