CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE

The Hand of Mercy, Part 2

Jackboot leaped forward to meet the Nemean Lion in a midair collision that even Sam thought was freaking cool. A well-placed kick parried one of the monster’s sharp-clawed paws while a second timely heel strike on the Nemean Lion’s other paw let Jackboot vault over the great beast’s head. Then, after using the momentum of his leap to twirl him around in the air, Jackboot sent his leg smashing down on the Nemean Lion’s spine, forcing the great beast to crash back onto the bridge right where Thunder was waiting for it.

Sam could tell she was already winded—she’d used up a lot of her power against Rick the Hound—but Thunder’s back was never broader in Sam’s eyes than the moment she plunged her lightning bolt between the Nemean Lion’s jaws.

“Shock!” she roared.

Bright blue elemental energy exploded inside the Nemean Lion’s mouth, causing a cascade of disruption across its entire form powerful enough to reveal the villain howling underneath it.

I guess it wasn’t just Herculean’s energy that could disrupt Apex’s enchantment… As long as it’s a powerful enough force of energy, that’ll probably do the trick, Sam realized.

“Doc,” Thunder called, “get in here!”

Dr. Hearthstone appeared on one side of the Nemean Lion’s flickering form, and with arms that glowed like molten steel, he grabbed a chunk of the lion’s fur in each of his hands and began to pull them apart.

“Jackboot, I need an assist!” Dr. Hearthstone called.

Jackboot landed on the Nemean Lion’s other side. He grabbed what bit of fur he could hold onto and began to pull on it too. Meanwhile, Thunder continued to channel [Shock (α)] inside the monster’s mouth—and the three of them just barely managed to keep the Nemean Lion from fully reforming itself.

“Sam!” Thunder yelled. “Now!”

While he waited for his moment, Sam had gathered as much of his life force into the aura wrapped around his form. So much of it, in fact, that there were forks of energy streaking out of his body. He was ready.

With another hard, asphalt-cracking stomp on the ground, and a whisper of, “When a hero seeks to achieve the impossible,” Sam launched himself forward.

It was only a second or two, but even those two seconds were harrowing to watch, because, despite their efforts, Sam’s friends were failing to keep the Nemean Lion’s form from reshaping. It was already beginning to close up—with Apex silently screaming inside of it for all to see—when Sam whirled past Thunder and dove into the monster’s enchantment to tackle Apex’s body out of the relic’s grasp.

“That’s when hope springs forth!” Sam yelled through gritted teeth.

Tackling Apex at the velocity of a speeding bullet was just barely enough to pull the villain off the tendrils of magic that kept him tethered to the Nemean Lion’s form. Just barely. Although it might not have worked at all if [Hope’s Essence (Lesser)] hadn’t shifted the possibility in Sam’s favor.

ALERT! A small portion of [Hope’s Essence (Lesser)] remains within you. Possibly enough to grant you a very low probability of achieving one more miracle. You have less than fifteen minutes left to use it all up.

Because of the reckless speed at which Sam tackled Apex, he had no control of their landing, and they were rolling on the ground on the other end of the Golden Gate Bridge—both of them smashing through abandoned cars like pinballs in a pinball machine—before they came to a stop by the bridge’s railing.

“Ugh,” Sam gasped. “That…wasn’t…fun…at all.”

He groggily pulled himself to his feet just as Apex’s hands found his throat.

“What have you done, you fool!” the villain snapped.

“Didn’t I just… save you?” Sam asked, half-choking. “Wait… weren’t you… asking for help?”

A mixture of doubt and guilt passed over Apex’s angry face just before he let Sam go, which Sam hadn’t expected at all. He expected a vehement denial on Apex’s part. Perhaps more punching and kicking too.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Apex said.

Sam was surprised by how defeated the villain sounded.

“The lion’s fur was the only thing keeping the Savage One’s power contained,” Apex admitted.

“The Savage One?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

[It is a well-known moniker of [AGRIUS], the Giant of Slaughter and Lord of Werebeasts. The progenitor of horrors born from the guilt of murder.]

Sam didn’t have time to react to the information Triple-A just dropped on his head because that’s when the shadow underneath Apex began to expand almost as if it belonged to something much bigger than this oversized man who now stood before Sam with shoulders sagging.

“Oh, no…” Sam’s brow creased. “You didn’t…”

Apex’s silence was deafening.

The monstrous shadow slowly rising from the ground—causing cracks to appear on the bridge floor—was proof enough for Sam that this was indeed another case of a villain who’d made a deal with—

“Giants—again?!” Sam snapped. “Are you freaking kidding me?!”

Apex’s strange actions and mood swings—the sight of him listening to some unseen voice—now made sense to Sam. There really was someone on the other line. Rather, something old and terrible had reached out to his cousin from within the Shadow Veil and guided Apex’s hand.

“Why would you do this?!” Sam asked, exasperated.

A flicker of defiance flashed on Apex’s face. “I sought a strength to rival our ancestor… a strength the fickle gods denied the Heracleidae!”

Sam realized then that Apex couldn’t have defeated all of Hercules’ descendants on his own. Not if they were all like Sam’s mother. Apex needed a backer, someone to provide him with enough power to at least take down his father and claim the Nemean Lion’s fur for himself. Moreover, Apex wouldn’t have known how to steal Hercules’ power from the others without someone providing him with this information.

“It made you kill your family,” Sam deduced.

“The Savage One made me slaughter many things…” Apex’s hands balled into fists. “But I was no mere puppet.”

His murderous glare was back, and they were like icy daggers piercing into Sam’s chest.

“I chose my fate and carved a bloody path across the Earth to achieve my desire to become a worthy heir,” he spat. “I do not require your pity.”

Sam wanted to condemn Apex for what he’d done. To deny the villain and his wish to be worthy. But he couldn’t do that. For to do so would be to deny Adele’s final moments when she too had given in to an elder giant’s corruption, a fact Sam only discovered recently with the help of Apollo.

“One more thing, Sam… Don’t get too hooked up on hope… Hope is the greatest temptation of all…” Hope had said earlier, and now Sam understood.

His mother had lost hope while Apex’s hope—his desire—had been all-consuming. Because of that, both of their fates turned dark.

The rumbling intensified. The cracks on the asphalt grew, spreading out in every direction like spider webs crisscrossing along the surface of the Golden Gate Bridge. As for the shadow, it had grown large enough now that its shape became noticeable. It was a bear. One so large that it might soon grow to stand shoulder to shoulder with the arches of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“The lion’s fur kept its power contained within me”—Apex was glancing over his shoulder, a wan smile on his face—“but you’ve set its shadow free of its seal, cousin… and it is hungry.”

“Styx,” Sam cursed.

He knew it would be only a matter of time before the waking shadow would destroy the bridge, taking Sam and everyone still on it down into the San Francisco Bay below. Sam had no choice. With a final glance over his shoulder—his eyes locking onto Thunder as she ran toward him—Sam whispered an, “I’ve got this,” and then he faced forward and tackled Apex right into the railing and over it.