Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Look, I didn't want to be half-blood.

Being half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it only leads to you being killed in a horrible and painful way. If you think you might be one of us, my advice is: Believe the lie your parents told you about your birth, stay away as long as you can because as soon as you find out, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and then they'll come for you.

Don't say you weren't warned.

My name is Conner Kent.

I'm thirteen years old. Until a few months ago, I studied at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled children. Am I a troubled child? Yes. You could call it that, and it would be the understatement.

I could start complaining about any moment of my short, sad, and pathetic life to prove it. Constant fights, problems everywhere I go—the usual. And yet, there are the other things, though certainly none of it is normal. Constantly seeing things that aren't there for others automatically labels you as a freak, and I've always been able to do that. They always say, "There's nothing to worry about, it's all your imagination." But it always happened again, these unreal things that only I can see, from the stories my grandparents used to tell me when I was little, so real for a moment and then… nothing.

You can imagine that making friends wasn't easy. "Hey, guys, wanna hear about the imaginary things I see?" isn't something you can just say to anyone, so I simply didn't. Or at least not until I met Bart. He was amazing; he was my first real friend. We had so much in common, and it wasn't just that we were both the same kind of mischievous, cool, and misunderstood troublemakers. We really understood each other, and most importantly, he believed my stories! It was me and him against the world. And for me, that was more than enough.

Things started to go really bad in May, when the seventh-grade students went on a field trip to Manhattan: 28 idiot kids and two underpaid teachers on a yellow school bus, headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see Greek and Roman stuff.

It sounds like torture when put like that, and I couldn't agree more that most field trips of that kind were, but Conner hoped this one would be different. Mr. Brunner was leading the trip, after all, his favorite teacher and one of the few adults he'd ever met who wasn't actually a complete jerk, so he was hopeful. Mr. Brunner's classes were the highlight of his week; the man had somehow managed to make learning history interesting, and with his short attention span, that was a Herculean task.

He had put all his faith in that excursion, he was determined to behave himself during the trip and not get into trouble, so it shouldn't have been a surprise when things went wrong.

Obviously, things weren't going to be easy. Throughout the entire trip, I had to put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckled, kleptomaniac redhead who kept throwing bits of peanut butter and ketchup sandwiches at the back of my best friend Bart's neck. Although he didn't seem to mind, most of the pieces, if he didn't discreetly catch them and put them in his mouth, ended up being collected into an amorphous, sticky ball that I was sure would eventually be thrown back at her with twice the force, but that didn't make him like it any more.

I was quite surprised that he hadn't done anything until now; Bart wasn't exactly known for his patience, rather he was known for letting himself be carried away by the impulse at the time, he was very hyperactive (even more so than himself), and his hands were always moving; perhaps that's why they were such good friends, they both had that same rebellious streak. They were the troublemakers, the odd ones out among the other students, which was saying a lot in a school for misfits, but despite everything, they stuck together.

In any case, Nancy Bobofit was throwing bits of sandwich at him, which stuck to his long, dark auburn hair, and I knew I couldn't do anything because I was already on probation. The principal had threatened me with temporary expulsion if anything bad, embarrassing, or even remotely interesting happened on that outing.

"I'm going to wipe that little smile off your face," I muttered.

Bart, to my dismay, tried to calm me down.

"Come on, Kon, it's not that big of a deal. I like peanut butter. More food for me." He grabbed another piece of Nancy's lunch and happily ate it. "See?"

2That's enough” I started to stand up, but Bart pushed me back down into my seat.

"You're on probation, buddy," he reminded me. "You know who they're going to blame if something happens. And you don't want to leave me alone for the rest of the school year. I'd die of boredom!"

His words were enough to calm me down, at least for the moment.

Mr. Brunner led the group in his wheelchair, guiding us through the enormous, echoing galleries, past marble statues and glass cases filled with ancient red and black pottery. I had to admit I was somewhat fascinated by the sheer scale of the exhibition.

She gathered us around a stone column almost four meters high with a large sphinx on top, and began to tell us that it had been a funerary monument, a stele, for a girl our age. She told us the story of the engravings on the stele. I tried to pay attention because it seemed really interesting, but the others talked nonstop, and when I told them to be quiet, the other accompanying teacher, Mrs. Dodds, gave me a dirty look.

From the first day, Mrs. Dodds adored Nancy Bobofit and classified me as a spawn of the devil. I was convinced that she had it in for me; the slightest problem she managed to somehow turn into my fault, even if it had no logic whatsoever. I couldn't even breathe in her presence without it causing her some kind of annoyance.

Once, after forcing me to erase answers from old math workbooks until midnight, I told Bart that I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He stared at me, very serious (which was rather unsettling), and replied, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner continued talking about Greek funerary art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit mocked a nude figure carved into the stele, and I snapped at her: "Will you shut up?" It came out louder than I intended.

The whole group burst into laughter and the professor interrupted his lecture.

“Mr. Kent, do you have any comments to make?”

I shrugged, somewhat embarrassed, and replied, "No, sir. Although Nancy might..."

I felt the girl's gaze glare at me from behind.

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the images on the stele. "Perhaps you can tell us what that image represents."

I looked at the relief and felt relieved because I did recognize it. "That's Cronus devouring his children, isn't it?"

"Yes," he replied. "And he did such a thing because..."

"Well..." I racked my brain. "Cronus was the Titan king, and... and he didn't trust his children, who were gods. So Cronus ate them, right? But Rhea, his wife, hid baby Zeus and gave him a stone instead. And then, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his father into vomiting up his brothers and sisters..."

"Ew!" said a girl behind me.

“So there was a great battle between gods and titans, the Titanomachy? “I continued”, and the gods won.”

A few giggles.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit whispered to a friend, "What nonsense. What use is it going to be in real life? It's not like we're going to put 'Please explain why Cronus ate his children' on our job applications."

"And why, Mr. Kent," Brunner persisted, paraphrasing Miss Bobofit's excellent question, "is this necessary to know in real life?"

"They caught you," Bart mocked.

"Shut your mouth," Nancy hissed, her face even redder than her hair.

At least they'd caught Nancy too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying nasty things. He had ears like radar.

I thought about her question and shrugged.

“I don't know, sir”

"I see." Brunner seemed disappointed. "Well, Mr. Kent, you answered quite well. It's true that Zeus gave Cronus a mixture of mustard and wine that made him vomit up his other five children, who, being immortal gods, had been living and growing undigested in the titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, cut him to pieces with his own sickle, and threw the remains into Tartarus, the darkest part of the underworld. Well, it's lunchtime now. Mrs. Dodds, would you show us to the exit?"

The class started to leave, the girls clutching their stomachs, and the boys pushing and shoving and acting like idiots. Bart and I were about to follow them when the teacher exclaimed, "Mr. Kent!"

Shit.

I told Bart to leave and turned to Brunner.

“Sir?” He had a piercing gaze: intense brown eyes that could have been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," he told me.

“The one with the titans?”

“Real life. And also how your studies apply to it.”

“Ah.”

“What you're going to learn from me is of vital importance. I expect you to treat it with the respect it deserves. I will only accept the best from you, Conner Kent.”

Part of me wanted to feel flattered; I'd rarely received such displays of confidence from anyone. I just wanted to be able to please him somehow; he'd found all the right points to push me. I should be angry, scream for him to leave me alone with those unfounded expectations. Brunner expected me to do as well as everyone else, even though I'm dyslexic and have ADHD, which clearly meant there was something wrong with me. No, he didn't expect me to be as good as everyone else; he expected me to be better. My pride wanted me to prove him right, to show him that I was worth it, that he should see that special something in me, but deep down I knew it would be pointless.

I muttered something about trying harder as he gave a sad look at the stele, as if he had been at the girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and have my lunch.

The class gathered on the steps of the building's facade, overlooking the traffic on Fifth Avenue. A huge storm was brewing, with the darkest clouds I'd ever seen hanging over the city. No one else seemed to care. Bart and I sat on the edge of a fountain, away from the others. We figured that way not everyone would know we went to that school: the school for losers and weirdos who didn't fit in anywhere else.

"Grounded?" Bart asked me.

"No way. Brunner doesn't punish me. I just wish he'd relax a little with me. I mean... I'm no genius."

Bart remained silent. Then, just as I thought he was going to offer some comforting philosophical comment, he asked me, "Are you going to eat your apple?"

She didn't have much of an appetite either, so I gave it to her.

I was about to open my sandwich when Nancy appeared with her unpleasant friends, I suppose she had grown tired of fleecing tourists, and threw half of her half-eaten lunch onto Bart's lap.

"Well, look who's here." She smiled at me with crooked teeth. She had orange freckles, as if someone had spray-painted her cheeks.

Bart narrowed his eyes, then a glint appeared in them that I immediately recognized as trouble. "So that's how it is, then... Food fight!"

And I pulled the stinky ball of peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my right pocket and threw it straight at Nancy Bobofit's face. Chaos erupted instantly.

The next few seconds were a chaotic jumble of punches, yogurt, fruit, cookies, and pudding—like an explosion in the shape of a middle schooler's breakfast. I got punched by someone I couldn't identify, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I tried to stay calm. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, control your temper," but I was so angry I just froze. And then I heard a splash and crash of water. I don't remember touching it, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her bottom in the middle of the fountain, yelling:

"Conner pushed me! It was him!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized beside us.

Some boys were murmuring, "Have you seen...?"

“... the ...wind”

“...he pushed her…”

I had no idea what they were talking about, but I did know I'd gotten myself into trouble again. As soon as the teacher was sure poor Nancy was okay and had promised her a new T-shirt from the museum shop—ignoring the fact that Bart, the redhead's lackeys, and I were all covered in a nutritious breakfast—she turned her attention to me. There was a triumphant gleam in her eyes, as if I'd finally done something she'd been waiting for all semester.

“And now, darling..."

“Look, I don't know what you think happened, but-”

"Come with me," the woman ordered.

"Wait!" Bart interrupted. "I'm the one who pushed her. I started all this."

I stared at him, bewildered. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds had always been afraid of Bart. She looked at him with such disdain that Bart's lip twitched.

"I don't think so, Mr. Allen," he replied.

“But…”

“You-stay-here.”

Bart looked at me in despair.

"Don't worry," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Alright, darling," barked the teacher. "Let's go!"

Nancy Bobofit let out a giggle.

I flipped her the bird and turned around, ready to confront that witch, but she was gone. She was at the museum entrance, at the top of the steps, hurrying me along with impatient gestures.

How had he gotten there so fast?

I often have moments like that, when my brain seems to go to sleep and turn to jelly, then the next thing I know is that I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece has fallen out of the universe and left me staring into space.

Then the strangest thing in the world happened: her eyes began to glow like magma, her fingers lengthened and transformed into claws, her jacket melted into enormous wings... I was stunned. That woman wasn't human. She was a horrifying creature with bat wings, claws, and a mouth full of yellowish fangs, and she wanted to tear me to pieces...

And suddenly things got even stranger: Mr. Brunner, who a minute before had been outside the museum, appeared in the gallery and threw a pen at me.

"Grab him, Kon!" he shouted.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a groan, I dodged it by throwing myself to the ground, feeling its claws swipe past my ear. I caught the pen mid-air, and in that instant, it transformed into a sword. It was Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, the one he used on competition days.

Mrs. Dodds turned to me with a murderous look.

My knees felt like jelly and my hands were shaking so much that I almost dropped my sword.

"Die, darling!" he roared, and flew straight towards me.

Adrenaline surged through me, and instinctively I swung my sword. In a clumsy, desperate movement, I rose just in time to avoid the blow, slashing into the creature's side. The metal blade struck its shoulder and pierced its body as if it were filled with air. Chsss! Mrs. Dodds exploded in a cloud of yellow dust and detonated instantly, leaving nothing but a pungent smell of sulfur, a dying shriek, and a chilling evil all around, as if its burning eyes were still watching me.

I was alone. And in my hand I only had a pen.

Mr. Brunner had disappeared. There was no one there but me. My hands were still shaking. My lunch must have been contaminated with hallucinogenic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined it all?

I went back outside, still trembling.

It had started to rain.

Bart was still sitting by the fountain, a map of the museum spread out above his head. Nancy Bobofit was there too, still dripping from her dip in the fountain, whispering with her friends. When she saw me, she said:

“I hope Mrs. Kerr gave you a good spanking.”

"Who?" I asked.

“Our teacher, idiot.”

I blinked. We didn't have a teacher by that name. I told her what I was talking about, but she just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Bart about Mrs. Dodds.

"Who?" he asked, and when he hesitated for a moment, I thought he was trying to pull my leg.

"It's not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder rumbled overhead.

Mr. Brunner was still sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he hadn't moved. I approached him. He looked up, somewhat distracted.

"Ah, my pen. I would be grateful, Mr. Kent, if you would bring your own writing utensil in the future."

I handed it to him. I hadn't even noticed that I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where is Mrs. Dodds?"

He looked at me with an expressionless face.

“Who?”

“The other companion. Mrs. Dodds, the introductory algebra teacher.”

He frowned and leaned forward, with a gesture of slight concern.

“Kon, there's no Mrs. Dodds on this field trip. As far as I know, there's never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you alright?”

____________________________________________________________________________________

I was used to having strange experiences now and then, but they were usually fleeting. This twenty-four-hour-seven-day-a-week hallucination was more than I could bear. For the rest of the term, the entire school seemed intent on taking me out. The students acted as if they were convinced Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Every now and then I'd bring up Mrs. Dodds, hoping to catch them off guard, but they'd just stare at me like I was a psychopath. To the point where I almost started to believe them.

Almost.

Bart couldn't fool me, even though he was usually a very good liar; this gave him away. When I mentioned the name Dodds, he hesitated for a fraction of a second, a gleam of guilt and discomfort in his eyes, before insisting it didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Something was happening. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the day, but at night terrible nightmares of Mrs. Dodds with claws and wings would wake me up with muffled screams.

I started feeling moody and irritable most of the time. I argued more with Nancy Bobofit and her friends, challenged the teachers more and more often, and ended up in detention in the hallway after almost every class.

Finally, when the English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time how I could be so lazy that I didn't even study for the spelling tests, I snapped. I don't quite remember what I said to him—perhaps something about his obvious wig in a pathetic attempt to cover his shiny bald spot, maybe something about his awful breath, his terrible style, or perhaps all of the above.

The following week, the principal sent a letter to my guardian, making it official: I wouldn't be invited to re-enroll at Yancy Academy next year. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. It had taken months to convince Rex, his temporary guardian, to let him and his little brother, Jon, enroll in boarding schools in a desperate attempt to keep them both safe, at least for the time being. What a fiasco it had been. Despite all that, I wanted to be with my brother in our small Upper East Side apartment, even if it meant going to public school and putting up with Rex's constant ridiculous assignments.

A feeling of nostalgia washed over him at the thought of leaving. He would miss Bart, who had been a good friend, even if he was a bit odd. He would also miss Latin class: Mr. Brunner's crazy competitions and his belief that he could do well.

Exam week was approaching, and I only studied for his subject. Math and science came more easily to me, almost naturally, so I trusted that everything would be fine with the rest. I hadn't forgotten what Brunner had told me about that subject being a matter of life or death for me. I didn't quite know why, but the fact is, I started to believe it.

The afternoon before my final exam, I felt so overwhelmed that I threw my Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across the bedroom. I groaned in frustration, running my hand through my curls that were tumbling in every direction. I remembered Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year stare.

"I will only accept the best from you, Conner Kent."

I took a deep breath and picked up the mythology book.

I had never asked a teacher for help before, but I needed to talk to someone about all this or I felt like I was going to explode.

I went down to the professors' offices. Most were empty and dark, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar and light spilled down the corridor.

I was three steps from the door when I heard voices inside. Brunner asked a question, and Bart's unmistakable voice replied, "...worried about Kon."

I remained motionless.

I don't usually eavesdrop, but who can resist when they hear their best friend talking about them with an adult?

I got closer, centimeter by centimeter.

"...just this summer," Bart said. "I mean, there was a Benevolent girl at school! Now that we know for sure, and they know it too, I have to tell them! I can't stand keeping something like this from them. I don't like this at all!"

"If we pressure him, we'll only make things worse," Brunner replied. "We need the boy to mature more."

“That's not what I mean, and you know it. I don't like lying to him, not about this. He has a right to know!”

“It's not that simple, Bart. We'll have to figure this out without Kon. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he can.”

“He saw her... We'll only put him in more danger if!”

"It was a product of his imagination," Brunner insisted. "The fog hanging over the students and staff will be enough to convince him."

“I wasn't part of any of this, I can't lose someone else like this, not if I can prevent it” His voice wavered, as if he were holding back tears.

"That won't happen, Bart," Brunner replied kindly. "I should have known what it was. Now let's just worry about keeping Kon alive until next fall..."

The mythology book slipped from my hands and clattered to the floor. The professor broke off abruptly and fell silent. My heart pounding, I picked up the book and backed down the corridor. A shadow crossed the illuminated glass of the office door, the shadow of something much taller than Brunner in his wheelchair, holding something that looked suspiciously like a bow. I opened the door next to it and slipped inside. After a few seconds, I heard a soft clap, like muffled hooves, followed by the sound of an animal sniffing, right outside the door. A large, dark figure paused for a moment in front of the glass, then moved on.

A drop of sweat trickled down my neck.

At some point in the corridor, Mr. Brunner began to speak again.

"Nothing," she murmured. "My nerves aren't what they were like after the winter solstice."

"Mine didn't either..." Bart replied. "But I would have sworn..."

"Go back to the dorm," Brunner told him. "You have a long day of exams tomorrow."

“ Agghh, don't remind me.”

The lights went out in the office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, I went back out into the hallway and returned to the bedroom. Bart was lying on the bed, studying his Latin notes as if he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said sleepily. "Are you ready to ace your exams?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful." She frowned. "Is everything alright?"

“I'm just... tired.”

I turned away to hide my expression and lay down on my bed.

I couldn't understand what I'd heard down there. I wanted to believe I'd imagined it all, but one thing was clear: Bart and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The following afternoon, as I was leaving my three-hour Latin exam, satisfied with my reasonably decent performance, Mr. Brunner called me over. For a moment I feared he had discovered I had overheard them talking the night before, but that wasn't it.

"Kon," he told me, "don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's... for the best."

Her tone was friendly, but her words hit me like a slap in the face. Even though she was speaking softly, those finishing the exam could hear her. Nancy Bobofit smiled at me and blew me sarcastic kisses.

"Okay, sir," I murmured.

"What I mean is..." He rocked his chair back and forth, not seeming sure of what he was saying. "You see, this isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

I clenched my fists tightly. There was my favorite teacher, in front of the whole class, telling me I couldn't do it. After repeating all year that he believed in me, now he was telling me I was destined to fail.

"Okay," I muttered reluctantly.

“No, that's not what I mean. Oh, you're getting everything mixed up. What I mean is... you're not normal, Kon. It's okay if…”

"Thank you," I blurted out. "Thank you very much, sir, for reminding me."

“If…”

But I had already left.

The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Bart, but then I didn't have to worry: he'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound bus as me, so off we went, back to the city again. Bart kept scanning the aisle the whole way, watching the other passengers. I noticed then that he always acted nervous and restless when we left Yancy, as if he was afraid something bad was going to happen. I used to assume he was worried about being bullied, but there was no one on that bus who could bully him.

Finally I couldn't hold back and I said to him:

“Are you looking for Benevolent Ones?”

Bart almost jumped out of his seat.

“What... what do you mean?”

I told he I had overheard them talking the night before the exam. One of he eyelids twitched.

"What did you hear?" he asked.

“Oh... not much. What's the deadline for the summer solstice?”

"Look, Kon... I was just worried about you. You know, because you're obsessed with these devilish math teachers..."

"Yeah, sure."

"I told Mr. Brunner that maybe you were under too much stress or something, because there is no Mrs. Dodds, and..."

"Bart, you've told much better lies than this."

He muttered something unintelligible in an unknown language.

"Look, I'll tell you later, okay? Just not here. It's kind of complicated."

"Bart" I said ",what exactly do you think you have to protect me from?

Bart didn't have time to answer when there was a sudden, screeching screech of brakes and black smoke started pouring from the back of the truck. The driver cursed loudly and barely managed to stop. He jumped out and started banging and fiddling with the engine, but after a few minutes he announced that we had to get out.

We were in the middle of the road; on our side there were only maple trees and the trash thrown up by cars. On the other side, across the four lanes of asphalt hot from the afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The merchandise looked fantastic: crates of blood-red cherries, apples, walnuts, and apricots, jugs of cider. There were no customers, just three old women sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I've ever seen. I mean, they were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The one on the right was knitting one; the one on the left, another. The one in the middle was holding an enormous basket of bright red wool. All three were old women, with pale faces wrinkled like dried fruit, frizzy hair tied back with white ribbons, and bony arms peeking out from threadbare cotton robes.

The strangest thing was that they seemed to be staring at me.

I turned to Bart to tell him and saw that he had gone pale. He looked like he was about to panic.

"Bart?" I said. "Is everything alright?"

“Tell me they're not watching you. They're not watching you, are they?”

“Well, yes. Weird, huh? Do you think they'd want to give me those socks? I've always said old ladies love me.”

“It's not funny!”

The old woman in the middle pulled out a pair of enormous scissors, made of silver and gold, with long blades like a pair of lawnmowers. Bart held his breath.

"Let's get on the bus," he said, grabbing my arm with a strength I didn't know he had. "Come on."

"What?" I replied. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Let's go!" He opened the door and went upstairs, but I stayed behind for a moment.

Across the road, the old women were still staring at me. The one in the middle cut the thread, and I swear I heard the snip of the scissors despite the four lanes of traffic. Her two friends made a ball out of the electric blue socks, leaving me wondering who they were for.

At the back of the bus, the driver ripped a smoking piece of metal from the engine compartment. Then he turned the key. The vehicle shuddered, and finally, the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Damn it!" exclaimed the driver, and hit the bus with his cap. "Everybody on!"

As soon as we started moving, I began to feel feverish, as if I had caught the flu. Bart didn't look any better: he was trembling and fidgeting with his leg. “Bart.”

“Yeah?”

"What is it that you haven't told me?"

He dried his forehead with his shirtsleeve.

“What did you see at the fruit stand?”

“You mean old ladies? What about them? They're not like Mrs. Dodds, are they?

”

Her expression was difficult to interpret, but I got the feeling that the women at the fruit stand were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.

"Just tell me what you saw," he insisted.

“The one in the middle took out some scissors and cut the thread.”

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that could have been the sign of the cross, but it wasn't. It was something else, something like... older.

“Did you see her cut the thread?”

“Yes. Why?” But even as I was saying it, I knew something was wrong.

"Shit, shit," he muttered and began to nibble at his thumb. "This is really bad."

“Bart, I don't understand you. What's going on?”

“I must be an idiot, I should never have listened to that horse…”

"Bart," I replied, starting to get really scared, "what the hell are you talking about?"

“Let me walk you home. Promise me.”

It seemed like a strange request, but I promised.

"Is it like a superstition or something?" I asked.

I received no response.

“Bart, the thread the old woman cut... does that mean someone is going to die?”

Her gaze was filled with grief, as if she were already choosing the flowers for my coffin.

____________________________________________________________________________________

I had to admit I wasn't thrilled about Bart seeing my house. It was nothing like the stories he'd told me about his family: his loving aunts and uncles and his amazing cousin who took care of him and showered him with love. Meanwhile, I had a complete charlatan who was exploiting me while he was in charge of my care.

"East, 104th Street and First," I told the driver.

A few words about my brother before you meet him.

His name is Jonathan Samuel Kent, and he's the most adorable boy in the world, proving my theory that the best people are the unluckiest. He was the best little brother I could have ever wished for, with a heart of gold and a smile that made everything worthwhile just to see him happy. He was little when we lost our mother in a car accident and doesn't remember much about her. We both ended up in the foster care system, with the explanation that our grandparents were too old to take care of both of us. Those first few nights, he was terrified of being separated, desperate at the thought of losing him too. I prayed with all my might that it wouldn't happen, and maybe someone heard my prayer because from then on, our social worker made sure that we were always together, no matter which home we were in.

And if I was honest, it didn't make much difference after losing our mother. Before that, I had always been the one who took care of him; from a very young age, I had to take responsibility in our house if I didn't want our home to collapse. Our mother had been unstable long before Jon was born. From a promising young actress with a bright future, she had become a ticking time bomb, ready to explode, and when she finally did, she left the two of us to fend for ourselves.

I said goodbye to Bart at the reception of my building; he mentioned something about coming back later to tell me everything or something like that, but honestly I wasn't paying attention to this point.

I walked into our small apartment hoping my brother would already be home from school. Instead, I found Rex in the living room, frantically talking on his phone. The TV was blaring ESPN. Potato chips and beer cans were scattered all over the carpet.

Rex was a businessman through and through, a shady con man who was also his mother Berly Kent's manager, and as soon as he saw potential in me as an actor, he had done everything he could to keep me from going back into the system as soon as he had me in his hands, on the condition that I had to have Jon with me. It had worked for us so far, but that didn't make me like the guy any more.

“Conner! It's so good to have you here, kid. We're going to have a very busy summer. I've got plans for you already—big plans! And don't worry about school! Next year you'll be homeschooled and—”

"Where's Jon?" I interrupted; I wasn't in the mood for that.

"On the way," he replied. "Roxy went for him, but enough of that! We need to get to work on your next script immediately. The auditions are coming up soon, and I need you to start learning it."

I grimaced and reluctantly took the booklet he offered me, muttered something about giving it a quick read, and escaped to my room shared with Jon.

In my absence, it had become cluttered with all sorts of equipment, cheap merchandise from the last series I'd been in, and other things of dubious origin that I didn't want to think about. I threw myself on the bed, wanting to sleep for a thousand hours and disappear under the covers, but there was no way I could do that, so I just screamed, muffling the noise with the pillows.

Somehow, I'd managed to keep this part of my life buried while I was at Yancy Academy. Most people either didn't acknowledge it or didn't seem to care much. In an academy for the wealthy like Yancy, it was quite normal to find all sorts of celebrities. However, I never truly belonged there; heaven forbid I ever thought I was part of their social class. And the few who did seem to care weren't anything a couple of favors or bribes in the form of autographs from other actors couldn't hide.

You might be thinking, "Oh, Kon! Why do you hate being an actor? Fame sounds amazing!" And it is, don't get me wrong, I love being the center of attention, how all eyes are on me because my And my talent, however, everything related to show business made me nauseous ever since my mother's death. During her last years, I had watched as that lifestyle slowly robbed her of everything, turning her into a shadow of her former self. They had transformed his once loving mother into an obsessive, erratic, and violent woman. Conner didn't like to think about it. He knew that woman hadn't been a good mother by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn't like to remember her like that, or think about how she had reached that point. Although, ironically, he also couldn't imagine leaving it all behind completely. In a way, this was the only connection he had with Berly Kent.

I fell asleep shortly after. That afternoon I had a very vivid dream.

There was a storm on the beach, and two magnificent animals—a white horse and a golden eagle—were trying to kill each other in the surf. The eagle swooped down and tore at the horse's muzzle with its spurs. The horse turned and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the earth trembled, and a monstrous voice erupted in laughter from somewhere underground, goading the beasts into a fiercer fight. I ran toward the shore; I knew I had to stop them from killing each other, but I moved in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive, ready to pluck out the horse's terrified eyes, and I screamed, "Nooo!" I woke with a start.

Outside, a real storm had broken out, the kind that topples trees and houses. There were no horses or eagles on the beach, just lightning flashing across the sky. When the next clap of thunder roared, a knock on my door followed shortly after. It was Jon who came into my room in his dinosaur pajamas, looking worried, that finally snapped me out of my daze.

“ Kon, can I sleep with you? I can't sleep with all the noise. Rex said the hurricane is only getting worse, so I thought…”

That was absurd. Hurricanes never reach this area in early summer. But the sky seemed to have forgotten. Above the roar of the wind, I heard a distant howl, an enraged and tortured sound that sent shivers down my spine. Then a much closer noise, like screeching metal. And a desperate voice: someone was screaming and pounding on my window.

Jon reacted faster than I did, running to the window and opening the curtains to see where the noise was coming from.

Bart appeared framed in the doorway against the downpour, his enormous mop of red hair now falling across his face in the rain. However, there was something strange about him…

"Let me in, man!" he gasped. "I'm getting soaked out here."

Jon looked at me puzzled, as if he were silently asking my permission to do it; I nodded, still dazed.

"Kon!" she shouted when he finally entered. "We have to go! He's right on my heels!"

I was too dazed to ask how he'd gotten there on his own, in the middle of the night. Too dazed to ask about the little wings fluttering on his sneakers.

Jon took my hand, searching for answers, even more lost than I was, if that was possible. "Kon, what's going on?"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand and about Mrs. Dodds.

“You know what! Forget it! We have to go, now! We're in danger! Conner, you have to trust me, it's not safe to be here now, Wally's waiting for us down there to go to camp.

A feeling told me he was right. For a moment my gaze met Jon's, then against all reason, I finally gave in. "Only if Jon comes with me too."

"Made."

We drove through the night on dark country roads. The wind whipped at the Camaro. Rain pounded against the windshield. We didn't have time to change or bring anything for Jon or me except an old jacket from the closet for each of us. I didn't know how Wally, Bart's cousin, could see anything, but he kept his foot on the gas. Every time lightning flashed, I glanced at Bart, sitting next to me in the back seat, who was looking at me nervously.

“So... are you going to explain to me what's going on?” I blurted out.

Bart's eyes kept looking in the rearview mirror, even though there were no cars behind us.

"Haven't you told him anything yet, Bart?" Wally asked, still keeping his eyes on the road. "I mean, under these circumstances, I don't think there's any point in hiding it."

"It's all that stupid hair's fault! I force myself to hide it and..."

“What does a horse have to do with all this?”

“It doesn't matter, you'll understand later.”

“Doesn't it matter? My best friend is some kind of fairy godfather with wings on his legs…”

"It's the sneakers!" he shouted.

“That?”

“I don't have wings on my legs!”

“So this isn't a hallucination? Am I not losing my mind?”

“Were the old women at the stall imaginary? Was Mrs. Dodds?”

“So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!”

“Of course there was a Mrs. Dodds!”

“Then why...?”

“The less you know, the fewer monsters you’ll attract,” Bart replied, as if it were obvious. “We cast a fog over the eyes of mortals. We hoped you’d think the Benevolent One was a hallucination, though, to be clear, I didn’t like that idea at all. But it didn’t work because you started to understand who you are.”

“Who...? Wait a minute. What do you mean?”

I heard that tortured howl again, somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us, it was following our trail.

Jon looked at me nervously, he was much quieter than usual, it was obvious that he was scared by the situation, I would like to say that I had words to comfort him, but at this moment I myself was not much better.

"Conner, right?" Wally said, glancing at me for just a moment before looking back at the road. "There's too much to explain, and we don't have time. We need to get you somewhere safe."

“Safe from what? Who's following us?”

"Oh, hardly anyone," he blurted out, still annoyed by my comment. "Only the Lord of the Dead and some of his most bloodthirsty creatures."

“¡Bart!”

“Excuse me, Wallman. Could you please drive faster?”

I tried to grasp what was happening, but I couldn't. I knew it wasn't a dream. I didn't have this kind of imagination. I'd never have thought of something so bizarre. Wally swerved sharply to the left. We sped off down an even narrower road, past gloomy farms, wooded hills, and "Pick Your Own Strawberries" signs on white fences.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To the summer camp I told you about," Bart said.

“The one you go to every year, where is that boy you keep talking about?”

"That doesn't matter now!" I protested, my face as red as my hair. I could see Wally chuckle.

“You know what, never mind! On another note, an important question I probably should have asked earlier. Are you sure you two are full siblings, you know, with the same father?”

His question seemed perplexing to me; my gaze must have reflected my confusion, because Bart made a face.}

“I'm just making sure!”

"Yes, we are," Jon murmured, finally speaking after being silent the whole way. "We don't look much like Mom, so we probably got most of our dad's traits."

"Great, great, now we have two of the Big Three kids, fantastic." I heard Wally mutter, his jaw clenched, though I was sure only I could hear him.

“Okay, then you won't have any problems getting in.”

“Why couldn't I come in?”

"Guys!" Wally said. He spun sharply to the right and saw just in time a figure he managed to dodge; a dark, fleeting shape that disappeared behind us into the storm.

"What was that?" I asked.

"We're almost there," the older boy replied, ignoring my question. "Just a couple more kilometers. Please, please, please..."

I didn't know where we were, but I found myself leaning forward, hoping to get there as soon as possible.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness: the kind of desert landscape you find at the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds morphing into that thing with sharp fangs and leathery wings. I shuddered. It really wasn't a human creature. And it had wanted to kill me. Then I thought about Mr. Brunner... and his pen-sword. Before I could ask Bart about it, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. There was a flash, a sudden explosion, and the car exploded.

Instinctively, I gripped Jon tightly. I remember feeling weightless, as if I were being crushed, fried, and washed all at once. I lifted my forehead from the back of the driver's seat and exclaimed, "Ow!"

"Kon!" Jon shouted.

A deep sense of relief washed over me when I heard his voice. I tried to shake off the shock. I wasn't dead, and the car hadn't actually exploded. We'd ended up in a ditch. The driver's side doors were stuck in the mud. The roof had ripped open like an eggshell, and rain was soaking us. Lightning. That was the only explanation. It had knocked us off the road. Next to me, in the seat, Bart was motionless.

“¡Bart!”

Lying forward, a thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his lips. I shook him gently, desperate to see if he was still alive.

"Agggh," he groaned, and I knew there was hope.

"Guys," Wally said, "we have to..." His voice failed him.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us around the bend in the road. The sight gave me goosebumps. It was the dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His upper half was bulky and hairy. With his arms raised, he looked like he had horns.

I swallowed.

“Who is it...?”

"Kids," Wally said, deathly serious. "Get out of the car."

He tried to open his door, but it was stuck in the mud. I tried mine. It was stuck too. I looked desperately at the hole in the roof. It could have been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Get out the other way!" Wally urged. "Jon, Conner, you have to run. See that big tree?"

“That?”

Another glow, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw what it indicated: a thick Christmas tree the size of those at the White House, on the summit of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line, the camp," he insisted. "Go up that hill and you'll see a large farm below in the valley. Run and don't look back. Shout for help. Don't stop until you reach the gate."

“I can't leave them alone like this, Bart is hurt. We have to help him.”

"We won't leave without you!" Jon said.

“Ahhgh” Bart groaned again.

The man with the blanket over his head kept approaching, huffing and puffing. When he was close enough, I realized he couldn't have been holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—enormous, fleshy hands—were hanging at his sides. There was no blanket. Which meant that this huge, bulky, hairy mass, too big to be his head... was his head. And the points that looked like horns...

"He doesn't love us," Wally said. "He loves you. And probably Jon too, if I'm not mistaken."

“But…”

“We don't have time. Go, quickly!”

Then I got angry: I got angry with Wally, with Bart the boy with wings on his sneakers, and with that thing that was coming at us, slowly and inexorably, like a bull.

I climbed over Bart and opened the door in the rain.

“We're going together. Let's go, Jon!”

“Kid, look…”

“I don't care! I'm not leaving them. Help me with Bart.”

I didn't wait for his reply. I crawled outside and dragged Bart along. He felt too light for his size, but I wouldn't have gotten very far if Wally hadn't helped me. We slung Bart's arms over our shoulders, with the older boy leaning slightly on Jon, and began stumbling up the hill through waist-deep, damp grass.

Looking back, I saw the monster clearly for the first time. It was about two meters tall, its arms and legs somewhat like those of a bodybuilder on steroids: biceps and triceps and a whole lot more biceps, all encased in skin crisscrossed with veins like baseballs. It wore no clothes except for its underwear (white briefs), which would have been funny if the upper body weren't so terrifying. A thicket of brown fur started at its navel and thickened as it rose toward its shoulders. Its neck was a mass of muscle and hair leading to an enormous head with a snout as long as my arm, haughty nostrils from which dangled a shiny metal ring, cruel black eyes, and horns: huge black and white horns with points sharper than you could ever get with an electric pencil sharpener.

Suddenly I recognized it. That monster appeared in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner had told us. But it couldn't be real.

I blinked to clear the rain from my eyes.

"That thing is scary," Jon squealed.

“Is…”

“The son of Pasiphaë” Wally said”. Of all the damn things.”

“But it's the Min…”

"Don't say his name," he warned me. "Names have power."

The tree was still too far away: at least thirty meters up the hill.

I looked back again.

The bull-man leaned over the car, peering through the windows. Actually, he was sniffing around, as if following a trail. I wondered if he was stupid, since we weren't more than fifteen meters away.

"I'm hungry," Bart complains.

"Psst," I whispered. "Wally, what are you doing? Can't you see us?"

"He has terrible vision and hearing. He relies on his sense of smell. But he'll soon figure out where we are."

As if Wally had given him permission, the bull-man howled furiously. He grabbed the car by its ripped roof, and the chassis creaked and cracked. He lifted the car above his head and hurled it onto the road, where it landed on the wet asphalt and skidded, throwing sparks, for over a hundred meters before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

"Man, Barry's gonna kill me," Wally said. "Guys, listen, this is important. When he sees you, he's gonna charge. Wait until the last second and jump out of his way. He doesn't change direction very well once he charges. Got it?"

"How do you know all that?" Jon asked.

“A friend of mine has faced him in the past.”

“That thing? What the hell…”

Another furious howl and the bull-man began to stomp up the hill.

He had smelled us.

The lone pine tree was only a few meters away, but the hill was getting steeper and slipperier, and Bart was getting heavier. The monster was bearing down on us. A few more seconds and he'd be right there. 

“Run! Get away from us! Remember what I told you.”

I didn't want to do it, but he was right: it was our only chance. I ran to the left, holding Jon's hand in mine to pull him along, turned, and saw the creature lunging at us. Its dark eyes blazed with hatred. It stank like rotten meat. It lowered its head and charged, its razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

Fear urged me to run, but that wouldn't work. I'd never be able to run away from that thing. So I stayed put and, at the last moment, I pushed Jon to one side and jumped to the other.

The bull-man stormed past like a hurricane, like a freight train. He let out a frustrated howl and turned around, but this time not toward me, but toward Wally, who was setting Bart down on the grass. That's when I finally noticed his bleeding leg; it looked bad. I swallowed hard.

We had reached the crest of the hill. On the other side I could see a valley, just as Wally had said, and the lights of a rain-battered farmhouse.

But it was about three hundred meters away. We'd never get there.

The monster growled, pawing the ground. It kept looking between me and Wally, who was starting to retreat down the hill toward the road, trying to get it away from Bart.

"Run!" Wally shouted. "Inside!"

But I stood there, paralyzed with fear, as the beast charged in a third direction. Jon tried to move aside, as he'd been told to, but this time the creature was smarter: it reached out a hideous hand and grabbed him by the neck before he could escape. Though he resisted, kicking and throwing punches, it lifted him off the ground.

"Jon!" I screamed so loudly I felt my throat tear. "Hold on!"

He looked into my eyes with terror; I could see tears falling from his eyes in pain. Then he managed to utter one last word that would haunt my nightmares forever: "Brother!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster tightened its grip around my little brother's neck, and he dissolved before my eyes, becoming light, a radiant, golden form, like a holographic projection. A blinding glow, and suddenly... he was gone.

“NOOOO!!”

Anger replaced fear. I felt a searing force surge through my limbs: the same rush of energy that had gripped me when Mrs. Dodds grew claws.

The bull-man turned toward Wally and Bart, who lay helpless in the grass, and my anger at the world only increased. He approached them, ready to charge. 

I wasn't going to allow it.

I took off my leather jacket.

"Hey, you! Hey!!" I yelled, shaking my jacket as I ran toward the monster. "Hey, you deformed idiot!"

"Brrrrr!" He turned towards me, shaking his fleshy fists.

I had an idea; a stupid idea, but it was the only one I could think of. I stood in front of the thick pine tree and waved my jacket at the bull-man, ready to leap aside at the last moment.

But it didn't happen that way.

The monster charged too fast, its arms outstretched to cut off my escape routes.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. Since I couldn't jump to the side, I leaped upwards and, bouncing onto the creature's head as if it were a trampoline, I spun in the air and landed on its neck. How did I do it? I have no fucking idea.

A microsecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree, and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out. The bull-man thrashed about, trying to knock me down. I clung to his horns to keep from falling to the ground. Lightning and thunder were still in full swing. The rain blurred my vision, and the smell of rotting flesh burned my nostrils. The monster thrashed about, spinning like a rodeo bull. I should have backed up against the tree and crushed myself against the trunk, but apparently, that thing only had one gear: forward.

"Conner!" Wally shouted, throwing a small, shiny object at me which I caught by pure luck with one hand.

The bull-man turned toward him, snorted again, and prepared to charge. That object—a ring with a lightning bolt and a caduceus engraved in the center—transformed into a halberd, but the shock and the shift in weight made it slip from my hands. I heard Wally cursing in the background. I thought about how I had strangled Jon, how I had made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane gasoline. I grabbed the creature by the horns, yanking its head to the side with a strength I didn't even know I possessed. The monster staggered. Then I released one horn and grabbed the other with both hands, trying to tear it off with all my might. The monster tensed, let out a surprised growl, and then…crack! It howled and threw me into the air. I landed face-first in the grass, my head hitting a rock. I sat up dazed and with blurred vision, but I had a piece of splintered horn in my hand, a weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged once more.

Without thinking, I stepped aside, crawled on the ground until I was on my knees, and when he passed by me like a whirlwind, I plunged the broken horn into his side, upwards, right into his hairy ribcage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He thrashed, clutched his chest, and at last began to disintegrate; not like Jon, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand. The wind carried him away in handfuls, just as it had Mrs. Dodds.

The creature had disappeared.

The rain stopped. The storm was still thundering, but far away. I reeked of cattle, and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it had been split in two. I was weak, scared, and trembling with a mixture of pain, anger, and confusion. I had just seen my brother collapse. I wanted to lie down and cry, but Bart and Wally needed help. Wally had fainted at some point, either from the pain or from blood loss, so I managed to pull them both along and stumble deeper into the valley, toward the farm lights. I was crying, calling for my brother, but I kept dragging them both along: I wasn't going to leave them lying in the ditch.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, staring at a ceiling fan spinning overhead, moths fluttering around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a bearded man with a familiar expression and a handsome boy with black hair and dreamy gray eyes.

“It's him. It has to be him.”

"Silence, Tim," the man replied. "The boy is conscious. Take him inside."