A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods Read online

  “Sure. If you’re not all fired when your boss realizes you forgot to bring him his morning coffee.” Jude smiled at the slowly dawning horror in Coach Harrison’s face. She could feel the points of her incisors digging into her lip. Damn. She’d allowed too much of her mother’s influence to show through. It would be weeks before she could handle direct sunlight again.

  It was worth it, though, if it meant they all walked away alive.

  Jude turned her back on their protesting coach and walked back to where Colleen and Laurie waited, offering them a reassuring look that kept her teeth covered.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before the unspeakable terror from beyond time and space tears a hole in reality and eats the home team to punish them for their failure.”

  “Okay,” said Laurie amiably. “Can we go for Dairy Queen?”

  Jude—cheer captain, vampire’s daughter, and most importantly of all, Fighting Pumpkin—nodded. “Sure,” she said. “Just…not in Morton, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Laurie.

  There was a mighty cheer from the field as the football team was persuaded of their victory. Jude relaxed a little. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

  “Go Pumpkins,” said Colleen, and followed her to where the rest of their squad was waiting.

  The Icarus Club

  Weston Ochse

  It had once been such a crowded sky with Brandy, Nero, Andi, and all the others who had come before. They used to all fly, high, unlimbered, free to do in the night sky what one could never do in the day. But now Egan is the last of them, grounded and strapped like a human anchor to the impossible. Landlocked, and so far, no longer willing to convince the Old Ones to let him fly as well. Where once he’d been the leader of the Tecumsa School Brokens, now he remains the exclamation point of a grand idea, the anticlimax left behind to something no one really ever believed could happen.

  Everything had started when he’d dreamed of Icarus. It wasn’t a hint of something. There was no whisper of flying through the air, wind whipping his hair. The dream wasn’t his brain twisting something he’d learned into a mind-warping multi-colored live-action Manga. In fact, he’d never heard or read of Icarus or any other Greek mythology before he’d had the dream. No, this was a dream of prophecy and just as every prophet who’d ever walked the earth knew that they’d been spoken to by the divine, he also knew that the Icarus dream was incredibly special.

  It had all begun with a whisper.

  Excerpt from Police Report from 3 August - Tuesday - 0614 Hours:

  * * *

  I then met with Sister Lucretia Santos who’d been present for final lights out. She insisted that all residents of Tremblay Hall had been present, including Nero Panousis and Brandy Scoggins, who are now whereabouts unknown. When asked if they are romantically involved, Sister Santos and the other residents who are interviewed (see addendum) informed this officer of each of the missing persons’ physical issues. Nero NMN Panousis, Age 14, Ward of the State of Tennessee, Cerebral Palsy, able to walk short distances with the aid of crutches. Brandy Renee Scoggins, 15, victim of fire with third degree burns over one third of her body, but able to walk short distances with the aid of canes (crutches reportedly too painful to use). Both missing persons current location unknown. Investigation currently awaiting the results of cellular forensics to see if any local numbers are in use at time of disappearance.

  “Mr. Egan, if you please. Inform us about the relationship between Phaethon and the other children with whom he associated.”

  Egan glances at the other kids in the classroom, but no one dares meet his gaze. They are equally afraid that they’ll be next. Egan’s nemesis for as many years as he’s been going to Tecumsa School, Brother Amos, has a way of asking questions that seem too close to home, almost as if he knows more than he should.

  “Mr. Egan. We are waiting.”

  Sixteen years old last month, Egan should have had a normal life in a normal home with normal parents. He should have been driving a car, friends in the backseat, and a girlfriend in the passenger seat. But that isn’t the way his life has been laid out. His is something different. His is a life with gravitas. He adjusts himself in his wheelchair so he is sitting up straighter and decides to go along for the ride.

  “Phaethon had been told that he was the son of the Greek god Helios, who was responsible for driving the sun across the sky. The other kids didn’t believe him, even though it seemed that every Tom, Dick, and Agamemnon was the bastard of one god or another.”

  “Careful, Mr. Egan.”

  He nods, inner smiling knowing he’d gotten away with one.

  “Why do you think the other kids didn’t believe him?” Brother Amos asks.

  “He had no proof.”

  “Can a son of a god have proof?” Brother Amos paces to the chalkboard, then spins, his robes sweeping around him. “Does a son of a god even need proof? Or do you think the son of a god should show proof? After all, if he’s the son of a god, does he need to?”

  Egan considers the question, “To set him apart. To make him feel important, maybe? In Phaethon’s case, he stole his father’s chariot and drove the sun across the sky. One doesn’t always know who their parents are—even back then—so to know yours is a god definitely gave you bragging rights.”

  “Tell me this, Mr. Egan. If you are the son of a god, would you keep your powers secret, or would you feel the need to prove it? To act out?” Brother Amos presses.

  “I don’t think using powers is acting out. Just because a human doesn’t understand what a god has done doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for doing it.”

  Just as Brother Amos seems ready to ask another question, the bell rings. Everyone averts their gazes, grabs their books, and leaves.

  “Why does Brother Amos have it out for you?” Zane asks, an hour later, shoving the second half of a bologna sandwich into his mouth. The food makes a ball in his right cheek that bobs up and down as he chews.

  That’s a question Egan has been asking himself for years. “Maybe he’s jealous of my mad wheels,” he says, deflecting, gesturing towards his wheelchair.

  Zane, and another of the newly arrived Brokens, sit on the grass leading up to Coolidge Hall—one of the three buildings used for classrooms and administration by the Tecumsa Home for Wayward Children, or as it was renamed by a committee of forward-thinking, grant-leaning donors, The Tecumsa School.

  Zane, who has cerebral palsy like Nero had, sits beside his crutches on the grass. A half-eaten sandwich lay in his lap.

  The girl is another thing. Her name is Andi and there’s something about her that makes Egan nervous. She has a wandering eye and a clubfoot that makes her limp and look like a hunchback, but if she sits still and her eyes manage to focus, she is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in a purely organic sort of way.

  “Anyway, the bell rang, so I wasn’t able to finish talking about it,” he says.

  “Do you really believe that?” Andi asks. Rumor has it that she’s been tossed around schools in New England for a time which explains the razor edge to her speech. “What you said about gods acting out?”

  He scoffs. “Are you asking if I believe that there are gods and goddesses who fly about and cause things to happen?”

  “You seemed so certain.” She pauses. “You have conviction about you when you talk.”

  Her innocence makes him smile. “I don’t believe that there’s a pantheon of gods waiting around to do things. But I do believe that we all have the potential to be like gods.”

  She glances sidelong at his wheelchair.

  “Ever want to do something greater than yourself? Ever want to belong to something greater than you ever dreamed of?”

  “I wanted to join the Boy Scouts,” Zane says, “But my fosters wouldn’t let me.”

  Egan nods to Zane, then turns back to Andi. “Have you ever wanted to fly?”

  A brief millisecond glance at her foot says it all. She’
d probably give up the world just to walk straight so the idea of flying is preposterous. If she’d had parents and a decent healthcare plan she wouldn’t have her problems anyway. Both of her issues are correctable, which probably infuriates her.

  “I’m serious. Have you ever wanted to fly?” he presses.

  Her face turns red, but she eventually looks at him. “Fly. Like with wings and stuff?” she asks.

  He leveled his gaze and lowers his voice, summoning the same authority he’d had in the classroom. “You don’t need wings to fly.”

  Just then, Crespo runs up, out of breath, eyes wide with excitement. He is one of the few who’ll associate with the Brokens, but only because he knows his escape is so narrow. “D-d-did you hear? They f-f-found crutches on t-t-top of the water tower. They’re N-n-nero’s and Brandy’s and n-n-no one can figure out how in the h-h-hell they made it up there.”

  The mystery of it is impossible. Two kids on crutches just gone with the only evidence as improbably as the explanations.

  “Anyone ever consider that they might have left them there?” Egan asks.

  Crespo scoffs. “How would they even g-g-get up there to leave them?”

  Which is the wrong question, but Egan lets it sit there and fester. He merely nods and wheels away. A better question would have been where did they go?

  Historians never understood the reasons man needed to be higher. They turned man-made rockpiles into places of unnecessary mystery. The great pyramids of Egypt—Khufi, Khafre, and the Red Pyramid—became mausoleums by short-sighted and tone-deaf historians rather than the stairways to the gods that they’d been meant to be. Modern Buddhists utterly failed to learn the obvious lessons of their worshipful ancestors, pretending that they actually heard something while sitting in the lotus position on mats in Iowa, Oklahoma, or California, fingers touching thumbs as they made noises together. They forgot that the original Buddhists lived in the mountains. The Maya Devi Temple in Nepal is the oldest of them all. Rongbuk Monastery rests on the back of Mount Everest at sixteen thousand feet. The Tiger’s Nest hangs on the edge of an eleven-thousand-foot cliff in Bhutan.

  Theologians would have one believe that it is the remoteness that is the governing principle of their foundings. Except the remoteness is but a symptom of those who’d built the places and their need to go higher and higher to find places where they could constantly hear the voices that are ever-present in the clouds. The deep thrumming words that made bones hum and organs quiver, words like N-Ver and Hammom repeated over and over, until the monks joined them in a multioctaved chorus that echoed and endured through the ages.

  Egan had first heard the words at thirty thousand feet during a thunderstorm. He’d been a mere boy of seven, moving from the Cascades in Washington to a home in Western Kentucky before he made it to the Tecumsa School. One more shake of the dice. One more roll of the bones. His young heart sent from one more foster family to another, forever in search of someone or something that would claim him as their own. Perhaps that is why he’d been so keen to hear the words—his need. Or perhaps it is because he is chosen—a reason he more firmly believed, shoving the embarrassment of not belonging aside, relegating it to an inadequacy he had no power over, like walking.

  The first crack and sizzle of lightning snapped across the portside wing. Passengers screamed as a fist of thunder enveloped them. Lights flickered. The plane shuddered. Overheads opened, spilling luggage and jackets into the aisle. Almost everyone had their eyes closed, hands white knuckling their armrests.

  But Egan’s eyes are wide and searching, wondering who’d said the word and made his body tremble.

  Then it came again.

  A sizzle and crack.

  A fist of thunder.

  And the words—N-Ver, N-Ver, N-Ver—repeated over and over by a voice that felt far older than anything he’d ever known.

  It isn’t until they landed in Lexington that he’d stopped listening and by then, he’d understood, nodding to himself, nodding to the unseen, that yes, he would do as he’d been asked. He’d be their messenger. He’d explain their needs to the world, even if it took one person at a time.

  The next morning is Saturday. They didn’t have any classes until after lunch, so Egan spent the day as near the water tower as he dared to go. Yellow police tape still fluttered in the breeze. Even the bright sun couldn’t destroy the memory of the others flying, their arms wide, eager laughter falling from their lips, as they did only what they’d dreamed. This is what Egan’s life has become and he is proud of it. He is a messenger. He is a giver of the air. If only they’d listen, he’d send them high, pirouetting, swooping, diving above the water tower, into and out of the clouds, the words powering them, the wind propelling them, the—

  “Hubris,” comes a voice from behind him.

  Egan’s memory melts as reality burns through. He’s been caught daydreaming, returning to the scene of the crime. He grabs his wheels and turns around.

  Brother Amos stands with a hand up to shade his eyes, staring towards the top of the water tower.

  “What did you say?” Egan asks.

  “I said hubris.” Amos lowers his hand and levels his gaze at the boy in the wheel chair. “I was trying to get you to understand hubris. You do know what it means, right?”

  Egan regards the brother. About thirty and a dozen or so pounds above two hundred, he wears his usual black cloak. Black sandals adorn his feet. The hair on his head is closely shaved. Even if he hadn’t shaved, it is clear he is already going bald. But it is his eyes and mouth that consistently grab Egan’s attention. The man seems to always be in the middle of a smile, as if there is a joke for which only he knows the punchline.

  “It means bragging about something, right? We were talking about the young gods. None of them could keep their power secret. Is that what you meant?”

  “Hubris is more than that. It’s more than foolish pride. It’s more than arrogance. It’s doing something knowing that it will bring down the ire of those around you. Even the gods sometimes can’t appreciate hubris.”

  “The gods were once young themselves,” Egan says. “They probably bragged when they were young.”

  “Some gods were never young, Mr. Egan. Remember that. The gods are older than anything we know.” He resumes looking at the top of the water tower. “Where do you think they went?”

  Egan stares at the brother, wondering at his response. Then he realizes he’s been asked a question. “Do you mean the gods?”

  “The gods haven’t gone anywhere. I was talking about dear Brandy and dear Nero. Where do you think they went?”

  Which is the right question. Egan smiles. “Don’t you mean how did they get up there? That’s what everyone wants to know.”

  “We know that’s not the most important question.”

  “But they are broken. Not even regular people,” Egan says.

  “Come now, Mr. Egan. I know you’ve created this whole mythology that you and the other kids with disabilities are broken, but we know that’s far from the truth. I have a feeling you can do very much whatever you want to do.”

  Egan doesn’t know what to say. No adult has ever addressed him with such aplomb. He ignores it. “The police think that the crutches and canes were left on the tower as a decoy.”

  Brother Amos grunts and shrugs. “Interesting speculation. Did they say a decoy for what?” he asks. He turns on his heel without answering. “Decoy,” he says to himself. Then he chuckles and walks away.

  The next day is the fourth Sunday of the month which means a field trip. They leave in three busses for Lookout Mountain to learn about its rich history during the Civil War. Egan and the Brokens ride on the handicapped bus. He’d hoped Andi would have ridden with them, but she is still trying to assimilate with the normal students. When they arrive, he makes sure to find a place beside her for Sister Santos’ presentation, who begins by telling of the Nickajack Expedition against the Cherokee Indian, then moves on to talk about the major Civil War
battle in 1863. Behind her, the Tennessee River meanders lazily in an arc past Chattanooga and around a spit of land called Moccasin Bend—where the Tecumsa School once threatened to send him to a mental health facility.

  He has little time for the presentation, instead, watches the way Andi tilts her head as she listens as if she is an animal trying to understand a different language.

  He is just getting up the nerve to speak to her when she leans towards him and asks, “Why do you want to be called Broken?”

  He hesitates, then answers, “It’s not what we want to be called, it’s who we are.”

  She flashes her eyes at him, then resumes watching Sister Santos. She says, “Bullshit,” and nothing more.

  Egan stares at her. No one has ever called him on this before so he doesn’t have a frame of reference to argue. Luckily, she saves him.

  “No one calls you that except you. Why do you want to be a Broken? It’s such a derogatory term.”

  “Maybe I just want to call us something before others get the chance,” he says. “They could call us gimps or something worse.”

  “Do they?”

  “No.” But then he adds, “but there is this one boy who did. He used to make jokes about me like, What do you call Egan when he’s sitting on the front porch?”

  She glances at him and when it became apparent that he is waiting for her to ask the question, she raises an eyebrow instead.

  “Matt. As in door mat. You call him Matt.” When this gets no response, he says, “Or what do you call Egan when he’s floating in the pool? Bob. Get it? Bob? Or what do you call Egan when he’s nailed to a wall? Art. Get it?”

  She grins a little, but it isn’t what he is looking for. “Those are dead baby jokes,” she says. “Like, what is red and sits in a corner playing with razor blades? A dead baby. What’s red and green and sits in a corner? The same baby two weeks later.”