CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Predator, Part 1

The tolling of the bell penetrated their minds despite the Liberty Bell not moving an inch from its display.

“It’s…beautiful,” Thunder whispered.

Sam couldn’t help but agree. The melody ringing in his head was an uplifting beat that helped to lift his spirits and sent hopeful optimism spilling into his chest.

“Could this be the sound of liberty?” Jackboot wondered aloud.

“That’s stupid… Liberty doesn’t have a sound,” Farsight answered. Although she had the same contented expression on her face that the other three had.

Soon enough, the melody in their heads stilled to give way to the appearance of an otherworldly glow spreading out of the Liberty Bell’s metal surface. As if it were proud to finally be revealing its secret to them, a secret that had stayed hidden for over seventy years. The words engraved on its copper surface blazed with otherworldly light and rearranged themselves into a new phrase.

ATOP THE SPIRE LIES A HINT TO POSEIDON’S GIFT, IN A CITY WHERE WINDS ARE CONSTANTLY ADRIFT. THE PATH IS LAID HIDDEN IN ACHELOUS’ TEST, SO LET AEOLUS GUIDE YOU ON THIS DARING QUEST.

“It’s a riddle… Does anyone know what it means?” Jackboot asked.

They all seemed too busy in silent contemplation to answer him, so Jackboot turned to his grandfather’s journal for a solution. However, apart from sketches of things related to the sea, he could find no answer to this new riddle. But Jackboot wasn’t American so he might not have noticed the obvious hint in the clue that the other three had noticed already.

“A city where winds are constantly adrift...I think it means Chicago, doesn’t it?” Sam asked.

“Why do you think that?” Jackboot asked.

“Chicago’s nicknamed the windy city,” Sam answered.

“You could be right, Sam,” Thunder replied. “The god of winds is Chicago’s patron. He and his cardinals have a lot of statues in the city.”

“Let Aeolus guide you on this daring quest,” Sam repeated. “You think this is literal...that a statue of Aeolus will lead us to the Golden Fleece?”

“Or at least to the next clue,” Thunder guessed. “X marks the spot doesn’t it?”

“And Achelous?” Sam asked. “What’s he got to do with it?”

A frown appeared on Sam’s face as the name left his lips. He didn’t quite understand why, but it was a feeling that was a lot like a cold shiver running along one’s spine when they hear ghost stories in the dead of night.

“That might be another clue in Chicago’s favor,” Thunder answered.

Um,” Sam took a moment to repress the shiver that had come with the mention of Achelous before asking, “why?”

“Achelous is a god of freshwater...and Lake Michigan is just east of the city,” Thunder explained.

Just hearing that name again sent another cold shiver running along Sam’s spine. He didn’t understand why, which was why Chiron—who was privy to spikes in Sam’s emotional state—tried to explain what might be causing this strange reaction.

I know what you’re thinking, kid, but your life isn’t so similar to your moniker’s namesake that you’re expected to pick a fight with all of his old adversaries.

“Um, I wasn’t thinking that at all,” Sam whispered.

Although now that Chiron had brought it up, Sam remembered that he had a ‘second labor’ in his to-do list, and he wondered if a fistfight with a god was what that secret labor might be.

Gods, I hope not, he thought worriedly.

“He’s coming…” Farsight, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for a while now, suddenly spoke up in that otherworldly voice she adopted whenever she received one of those visions she’d been complaining about. “For hero’s blood the hunter waits, a challenger unexpected, a duel of two fates…”

Three pairs of eyes snapped toward Farsight’s face, and they all saw that her eyes had gone white, drifting left and right as if she was watching something far beyond the reach of their sight.

“He’s coming,” she repeated.

Her shoulders slackened. Color returned to her irises. Then, as she woke up from her reverie, an expression of fear appeared on Farsight’s face.

“Jack, write that clue down quickly,” she instructed, her voice quivering slightly. “We need to go…now!”

There was barely any time for Jackboot to copy the Liberty Bell’s clue into his grandfather’s journal because Farsight’s sudden premonition was quickly followed up by a second warning. It was the ringing of the building’s alarm.

“Bloody Duat…” Jackboot’s pen hurriedly flew across the journal’s page. “Shouldn’t your premonitions give us more than a few seconds warning?”

“It’s not coming from this building,” Sam noticed, to which Thunder answered with, “The alarm’s coming from the front gate…”

As she was still wrapped in his arms, Sam couldn’t help but notice that Thunder was slightly out of breath.

“Hey, are you—”

“Still getting used to the celestial energy we absorbed,” Thunder admitted.

She had a hard time getting back on her feet even with Sam’s help.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked.

“Our, um, mutual friend helped me absorb the celestial energy more easily,” Sam whispered into her ear.

She leaned in close—her breath tickling his earlobe—and whispered, “Then you get to deal with whoever’s coming. I’m tapped out,” in such a teasing way that Sam’s heartbeat spiked for a few seconds afterward. He was glad it was so dark inside Liberty Hall or Thunder might have seen how red his cheeks had gotten from her proximity.

“Um, yeah, I’ve got this… You’ve done more than enough,” he replied.

“Seriously,” Farsight, who’d suddenly appeared between them, let out an exaggerated sigh, “Flirt later. Run now. Come on.”

She reopened the probability of there being no glass wall between them and the open yard beyond Liberty Hall and then hurriedly led everyone back into the main building with all thought of stealth gone from their minds. It certainly didn’t feel like a time for hiding as the screams were getting louder and louder the closer they got to Independence Hall’s front gate. And, when they burst through that final door—Farsight still in the lead—they found themselves witnesses to a carnage Sam had seen only once before.

A vision of a hospital wing littered with corpses flashed across Sam’s mind as his eyes took in the sight of that front gate and the three dead security guards lying on the ground around the man whose hand was now wrapped around the neck of a fourth guard. Well, calling him a man might have been a stretch as there were very few men as tall or as large as this one.

The man’s muscular red-skinned chest was bare and seemed unaffected by the chilly night air. It was, in Sam’s opinion, the only part of him that seemed human. He wore a lion’s head like a hood that served to magnify his savage countenance which was a face disfigured by many scars. The cape draped over his shoulders was made of lion fur similar to the baggy pants he wore. His feet were bare—probably because no one made shoes in his size—and the nails on his toes were sharp like a beast’s.

“Styx,” Thunder cursed. “Not you… Not now.”

Of course, she knew who this man was. They all did. They’d seen this villain in the news enough times. Thunder had even fought him off once during her prime, and she’d only managed it because her cousin had been around to back her up.

“This is bad, right?” Sam asked.

No, kid...it’s worse, Chiron whispered. You’re not ready to face this monster…

Superion, America’s number one hero, was one of only four omega-level superpowers of this age, and yet even he had difficulty fighting this particular beta-level strong man whose prodigious physical strength was further enhanced by the ancient relic draped over his shoulders.

Honestly, he looks more like Hercules’ spiritual successor than you do, Chiron added.

“I never asked for that name,” Sam grumbled.

Hearing Sam’s voice, the villain turned an icy glare on him. And it was a death stare so menacing that it would have made anyone else shiver in their boots. Thankfully, Chiron’s training helped to fortify Sam’s mental state so that he could now manage his fear enough that it no longer showed on his face.

“Release that man, Apex”—Thunder shoved her way past Sam and Jackboot—“or I’ll ram a lightning bolt down your throat!”

Sam had never heard Thunder threaten anyone before. Not even the Trickster. The villain didn’t seem to mind though. He even grinned back at her.

“You couldn’t beat me at your best,” Apex answered in a low, rumbling voice. “And you can’t beat me now that you’ve become so weak.”

Thunder bristled at the mockery in his voice. Her hands balled into fists.

“I’ve got more than enough in me—”

But Sam moved to stand in front of her. He wasn’t about to let her expend even more of her strength than she already had. And, as Thunder had said earlier, this new threat was Sam’s responsibility now.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Nice one, kid… I didn’t hear an ounce of fear in your voice, Chiron said approvingly.

Lesson number eight, Sam thought, before adding, in a much lower voice than he usually had, “Why are you even here?”

Apex sent Sam another icy glare, one that carried a hint of recognition in it.

“Are you the one?” The giant of a man dropped the unconscious guard on the ground as if to say he was done playing with a broken toy. “The pretender who uses my ancestor’s name.”

“Your…ancestor?” Sam’s brow furrowed. “You mean—”

Sam began to recall an old true-crime documentary that had been a smashing success on Olympus+ which told the tale of how the last of Hercules’ living descendants were murdered by one of their own. Every single member of that family tree—from the old patriarch to the child who’d just been born that same year—was killed for the pride of one who believed only he deserved to inherit the legacy of the Lion of Olympus.

“Are you”—Sam’s brow creased—“here for me…?”

There was a low, cold rumbling laughter that differed vastly from the Trickster’s crazy cackle, but also felt quite similar in how they both raised the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck.

“You’re not powerful enough to interest me, pretender,” Apex spat.

The villain paused suddenly, his head tilting slightly to the left as if he were listening to someone whispering in his ear.

“Yes, yes, you’re right,” Apex said to the empty air. “They must know something. They wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Sam wondered if Apex didn’t have his version of Chiron whispering in his ear. He didn’t get to ask though because Apex’s golden cat’s slit eyes snapped back on Sam and his friends, and the intensity in his gaze unnerved Sam.

The villain searched their faces and saw the truth in their expressions. “I’m here for that which you’ve uncovered…the path to the Golden Fleece.”