It’s taken a couple of years for me to finally realize how enormous New Olympus’ sewer system was. I’d been flying for the better part of an hour, listening to the echo of Kaiju-Man’s feet smacking against concrete. We were so deep inside them that, all the way here, there weren’t any bulbs, barely any wiring, most of the pipes had rusted into stubs that spat sludge-like water, and the smell? I had to stop myself from breathing through my nose. The waste down here had probably been sitting still for the better part of half a decade, which meant it was thick and putrid, almost like its own concrete mixture. Dead rats. Broken toys. Even a costume hanging loosely off a skeletal arm reaching just above the unmoving water. I skimmed through the air silently, trying to ignore the stench clinging to my skin.

  Lower Olympus had been rotting away years before I ever got to the scene. The bricks had decayed and the metal had rusted, and all that was left of the tunnels was rotting greenery, trash piling up and molding together, and bodies in the sewers that nobody would ever claim. And here I was thinking I could fix this place by teaming up with a supervillain. I guess if I’d refused from the jump, this year would’ve turned out differently. But it was going to have to be one of those things I’d never know about, like what would have happened if mom and I had tried to work things out, if I’d gotten my powers earlier, and if I’d stopped letting the superhero side of my life get in the way of being there for Bianca when she actually needed someone to protect her. I need to check in with Becca when this all wraps up, I thought, squeezing through a gap in the collapsed tunnel. The other side had a lot less waste inside it, and that meant I could give my aching muscles a break and land on my feet. Bianca’s gonna be alright.

  She had to be, and that was what I was going to force myself to believe, because it was all I could do to not lose my mind trying to figure out where I should even start looking. If I could, I would’ve sighed and tried to relax.

  But so far this year, the universe hasn’t liked it very much when I’ve tried to do that.

  The sound of Kaiju-Man’s footsteps had gotten further and further away, and the dulled echo really did a number on trying to find him, but that was almost a second thought to finding Mr Campbell waiting for me. He stared at me, saliva glistening on his teeth, body hunched over and large muscles quaking with power and ready to lunge. A place like this would be a terrible area to fight in. I mean, I’m all about getting my hands dirty, especially if something’s dead in my way, but I also didn’t want to get crushed by a city block’s worth of concrete if he tried to rage and put me through the sewer ceiling. So I put my hands out in front of me, and for a brief moment, I almost thought about shocking him with a burst of lightning. But that thought vanished just as quickly as my vision blurred and my knees buckled. I shook my head, licked my lips, and watched Mr Campbell stagger toward me.

  He got so close I could smell the wetness of the rain still clinging to his fur and his muscles. So close that the darkness gave way and his hulking mass was a deeper, darker, trembling shadow. His muscles sounded like corded steel, the kind that held the bridge between Lower Olympus and the rest of the city up Taught. Coiled. So ready to be violent that it bled into the foamy saliva that spilled out of his maw. The flickers of golden light around my fingers lit the darkness enough to show me where he was. We both barely breathed, barely moved—barely even tried to fight. Then he collapsed, shaking old bricks out of the walls and drizzling dirt over my head and shoulders.

  I let out a shaky silent breath and slowly lowered my hands, thanking the gods for at least giving me some peace for once. I listened to Mr Campbell’s labored breaths quietly echo through the sewer. I crouched but didn’t get close. I got on all fours, but didn’t, for one second, let my guard down. His shoulder quaked when I gingerly touched him. His head lazily snapped around, flinging spit onto my face. He tried to get up. His arm gave out, sending him slumping back down onto the ground. What’s wrong with you? Then I heard it, the sound in his chest.

  The wet, gristly, broken sound of it opening wide, like someone had grabbed both his arms and was ripping him in half. Flesh, muscles, veins and thick arteries splattered onto the floor, spewing steam and hot air that reeked of sulfur as it washed through the sewers. I waved my hand out in front of me, then got a little bit closer.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered. My voice echoed. I reached inside the carcass, plunging my arms up until the bicep in blood and goo and split, pasty flesh, until my hands were underneath him and I could slowly pull him out.

  I put Mr Campbell down on the ground, his lean body shaking and shuddering and covered in watery slime and sticky blood. His head was still his—the same greying, floppy-eared dog, except his eyes were screwed tight and his snout was bent to one side. The rest of his body was littered with bandages, cuts and wounds and holes where syringes might’ve once been. I looked him over, then at the carcass slowly dissolving into watery meat. This is new, even for me. I shook his shoulder. His skin felt hot, as in, the inside of a burning oven kind of hot. The kind of heat I usually created if I put my mind to it and didn’t properly use my powers. His eyes fluttered open when I shook him, followed by a terribly loud groan from deep in his stomach. He rolled onto his shoulder, then puked.

  I let him finish, because the thought wasn’t lost on me—I could kill him right now.

  And very easily.

  But…

  “Miss Addams,” he said weakly. Barely a whisper. Hardly a breath deep enough to make it sound like he was constantly struggling to breathe. He lay back down and shut his eyes, a hand on his stomach and his face pinched tight. “I apologize—” A pause. A deep swallow that came with a whimper of pain. “—for my state. Quite undignified, don’t you think?” He didn’t chuckle. He didn’t laugh. He stayed silent, barely moving. The carcass was entirely gone, leaving behind scattered bones and a smear of steaming blood. “May I… May I ask a question?”

  “Sure,” I said quietly. “But only if you answer the ones I’ve got for you, too.”

  “Did…” He opened his eyes and slowly raised his head, turning to look at me. “Did I harm you?”

  I blinked, then shook my head. “Just a couple of bruises, but that’s normal in a fight, y’know.”

  His throat bobbed as he swallowed more than just saliva. His head rested on the concrete again, and his eyes shut once more. “Miss Avarie,” he whispered, fingers digging into his gut. “Where… I betrayed her, I—”

  I put my hand on his chest. “Relax,” I muttered. “Ava’s fine. At least, as fine as someone like her can be. But I also don’t have the time to stop and catch up right now. I need to find someone, several people, actually, and one of them is probably the reason you can turn into that thing.” Mr Campbell swallowed again, but this time, an even louder whimper broke from his chest, making his entire body jerk. His muscles tensed—tensed so hard I heard his bones groan under the sudden pressure. He moaned and curled into a ball. His spine pressed against his back, more and more until it almost looked like the skin was going to rupture. I grabbed his shoulder and sent electricity through him, and in a tiny bang of golden light, his body relaxed, his muscles unclenched, and the bones that had moved out of place and the mounds of leathery flesh seeped into his normal, pasty skin. I slowly shook my head.

  Because this was a problem I couldn’t always be around to fix, and having that thing around is—

  “Wait,” I said. He peeked at me through his tightly squinted eyes, digging his crooked fingernails so deep into his arms that he ruptured his own skin. “I think I can sorta fix this for you. At least, I can kinda put it on hold.”

  “H—”

  His hand grabbed my thigh, and a shock of pain went through my leg. I groaned, bit down on my teeth, and didn’t move, because if I did, the fingernails that had burrowed through my muscle would tear it to shreds.

  Then he jerked, blinked, and that feral look in his eyes vanished. He stared at his hand, at the blood oozing down my thigh, then pulled away, scampering like a dog that had just been kicked in the ribs. He whimpered again, crouched, and held himself even tighter, as if it would somehow stop the creature trying to break free from getting out again. I got onto my feet. My leg buckled, and I would’ve fallen if I didn’t grab the wall beside me. I internally swore and looked at my thigh, and… The holes haven’t healed yet. That only ever happened if I wasn’t actively using my powers, but I was now—it wasn’t like when I fought Cadaver the first time and had to hide my powers.

  And when the healing finally did start, it felt like someone was trying to pinch my flesh together.

  The muscle underneath knit together in strings of red meat. My skin only healed when that was done. And even then, I couldn’t put weight on my leg. Even then, when I tried to force my leg into working, pain rocketed up my heel, my calf, and my thigh when I kicked my foot against the floor. I swore and massaged my leg, easy enough with blood still slick on my skin. We’ve already been through superpower puberty once, Rylee, this isn’t the time.

  Mr. Campbell, though, was staring at me, my blood still dripping off his fingers.

  I smiled at him, stopped using the wall for leverage, and said, “I’ll be fine. Happens all the time in this business, y’know?” I floated off the ground, getting weight off my leg. “Now, who’s the guy who did this to you?”

  “Miss Addams—”

  “If I knew people were gonna start caring for me now I would’ve started being a nicer person sooner,” I said. His mouth snapped shut. The silence lingered. I sighed, then apologized. “I’m just on edge. I really need to find out a few things and the last thing I want is a check-up. So could you at least respect that for me just once?”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He nodded, then slowly got to his feet. He remained hunched, his stomach bloated and shoulders shaking as if he was either cold, terrified, or a mix of both. “That man,” he said, “was a Kaiju doctor. He birthed many in our community and tended to those that normal hospitals wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.” He kept staring at the blood on my leg. His snout twitched, throat moved—he wiped the saliva off his chin. I watched his eyes as sharply as he watched my weakened, bruised, cut up body. He shook his head, then met my eyes. “He was a…a bastion, a place in himself we could hide from the world and confide our problems to. But, as often happens in this city, the life you knew gets taken from your hands sooner than you’re able to grab hold of it.” His voice had dropped, now so quiet it was barely a whisper. “I…” He put a hand to his head, sliding it over the scars and the patches of shaved fur. “I cannot remember.” His fingers tensed and dug into his scalp. Teeth bared. Voice swelling. “He took…he—”

  “I need you to get your act together right now,” I said. “You’re pissed, I get that. I’d be looking for murder if something like this happened to me, too. But this isn’t your fight. Not anymore. He’ll just screw with your head more.” I floated closer. He backed away. “Breathe, keep your eyes focused on mine, and just answer my questions.”

  Mr. Campbell slowly nodded, taking the hand off his scalp.

  It didn’t matter who that guy was, anyway. We could always interrogate him later.

  For now, all I needed to know was his connection to Lucian and why the hell he chose to sprint through a decrepit sewer system that nobody’s been inside since the First Guardians were around decades and decades ago.

  “Has he always been important in Lower Olympus?” I asked.

  Mr. Campbell nodded his head again. “Quite the man.”

  “And how did he manage to afford most of the medical equipment?” Because if he’d been the one making sure Kaiju could be born safely and frequently, if he was the one making sure they all stayed healthy and didn’t die so early in their Evolution like most of them tended to, then he needed some kind of backing, right? And most people in the Upper West would roll his loan application into a ball and toss it over their shoulder in a heartbeat. Helping Kaiju, what, for free? It was kinda hard to imagine he did it just because he wanted to. Heck, a lot of normal, everyday people hated the sight of them, let alone people who actually had to deal with them regularly.

  So what did he even gain from helping them? Because if this year has taught me anything, people do things for themselves, and for what they want to get their hands on, usually damning everyone else in the process.

  “A lot of it was…out-sourced,” he said quietly, still grabbing himself so hard I thought he’d crack his own ribs. “Ill-gotten goods, no doubt, but a lot of it came from the Normals. Men and women who wanted more from us.”

  “Lemme guess,” I said, folding my arms. “It was always in exchange for muscle? Unpaid dirty work?”

  “Not entirely,” he said, scratching a bandage so encrusted with filth it had turned black. “Some of our less desired society members were…” He sighed, shoulders lowering as his body shuddered. I waited, watching the muscle under his skin swell, push, then weaken. He staggered. I put a hand out to catch him. He breathed shakily, beads of sweat clinging to his skin like the blood under his fingernails. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter where they are now, because they’re not in New Olympus anymore. We were crude because we had no other option. An animal with its back to the wall, if I’m to be so harsh.” He managed to stand on his own feet, knees bent and body hunched over. “We had to move forward. Enough grovelling. Enough licking the feet of a humanity which so quickly throws us to the gutter—our children die every day and our adults rot in their own bodies, and yet…yet that man helped us however he could. Tirelessly and endlessly searching for a way to bring our pain to an end.”

  “An end?” I whispered. “A cure?”

  “No,” he said slowly, silently. “Another step forward, Miss Addams.”

  An Evolution, I thought. An even greater one.

  It slowly clicked into place as I stared at him and he stared at me.

  I tensed my jaw and unfolded my arms. “Lucian left you to watch Ava,” I said.

  To screw the entire operation over. False information. Faux confidence amongst her ranks. A camaraderie of bullshit ideas and half-hearted scheming that all culminated in an implosion that left people dead, missing, and most of the city a battlefield. Ava wasn’t a leader anyone looked up to, but she was also surrounded by people who wanted nothing else but her bank accounts, her information, her stock of weapons and her territories. She was an heir to a throne that her father was still sitting on and a lot more people were salivating over the second he stood up.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, massaging my eyes. Mr. Campbell stepped backward, shaky legs letting him down. This time, I didn’t reach out to catch him. He fell onto one knee, looking up at me with nothing but pure, white cold terror in his eyes. The kind of look so many criminals had given me over the past several years that it left me feeling sick inside. Always gonna be a bad apple, I thought, getting closer. He whimpered. I lowered, crouched, put my hand on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes, our faces so close together our noses almost touched.

  “I had to,” he cried softly. Bones shifted under his skin. His back spasmed and tensed. “If our people could just manage to protect themselves, then…then we wouldn’t have to fall to our knees anymore. Lucian was always so good to us. To my people. To everyone in Lower Olympus who followed his orders. I was respected.” The words were weak. His saliva was thick and wet. I watched him lurch forward—the hand on his shoulder didn’t let him move. “Avarie was not to be hurt, just broken—but the young miss is strong, I know,” I shifted, he tried to do the same, but he wasn’t going anywhere; not anymore, “and with you by her side, things only got more complicated. I got desperate, needy, and all I needed was a way for my people to stop having to be slaughtered for such basic—”

  “12th Avenue,” I said, cutting him off. “So many people died that day, Mr. Campbell.”

  “I…” He choked. “I was never in control of them. It was never my wish for it to happen.”

  “But you knew it would,” I said, “and you knew when, and where, and how, and that was the beginning of the end for Ava’s little plan, right? Because after that, we were playing catch up, making bad decisions, and then the Triumvirate didn’t even have to keep focusing on us anymore. The Jericho Triad was on its deathbed before Ava even knew about it. And all because the devil made you sit and shake and sell your soul to his bullshit ideas.” I looked him over, shaking my head slowly. “Look what he’s turned you into, and this is meant to keep your people safe? Do all those kids back there need something like this?” I took my hand off his shoulder and stood. “I’m not gonna pretend like I fully know how badly you all have it. And the old me would’ve killed you. Violently.” I put a hand out, killing the sparks of golden light dancing on my fingertips. “But I also know it’s something I’d do if I was desperate.” Hell, I wouldn’t have thought twice just at the beginning of this year, either. “So here’s the deal: you either work with me and make my life easier, or I kill you, because the Kaiju don’t need you running around and making their lives worse. What they need is a symbol. Someone who’s gonna put the word out that you’re worth saving.” Mr. Campbell slowly reached for my hand. I grabbed his forearm and jerked him onto his weak feet.

  “But that’s not gonna be you,” I said. “You’re a monster now, and one that’s strong enough to come close to killing me, and if you can do that, it means you can hurt a lot of people. People I care about, people I hate—but people I watch over, because that’s my job as a superhero. So we’re either gonna fix you, or you’re done here.”

  Mr. Campbell swallowed, then smiled weakly. “Judge, jury, and executioner. Just like your—”

  “Zeus is dead,” I said flatly. “And so will the entire ecosystem of people who still believe it’s your Golden Decade. It isn’t. You fucked up once and now you’re getting swept off the map, because times have changed, and it’s because of people in your bracket that keep making things worse for everyone coming after you.” I squeezed his forearm hard enough for him to moan in pain and try tug it free. He might as well have tried pushing me. “Choose.”

  “Get your hands off my boy!” a shrill voice wailed. I flinched, then moved Mr. Campbell aside. Kaiju-Man was standing just a few feet away from us, breathing heavily, his eyes wild and mouth wide and wet. “You’ve no right to touch him! You’ve no right to sully his flesh with your grimy, filthy”—spit flew from his mouth, his hands waved in wild arcs, as if he was trying to bat me away—“human fingers off my precious God-given creation!”

  “So,” I said, keeping Mr. Campbell in place but easing the pressure. “Your boss didn’t call back?”

  “UNHAND HIM!” he shrieked even louder.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Or what?”

  “You were never one to listen to others, were you?”

  Behind me.

  Not far, not arm’s length.

  Close enough for his breath to roll down my neck. Frigid. Cold. Minty. One half of my body jerked, coiled, wanted to spin around on reflex and throw a punch so hard it would shatter my hand and arm and back on impact.

  But I didn’t move—I didn’t dare move.

  When I breathed out, the air rolled out of my mouth, silvery, frigid, and short. My muscles tensed. My gut clenched. Slowly, very, very slowly, a slender hand slid down my shoulder, fingertips warm, skin smooth, until they unwound my fingers and let Mr. Campbell go free. The hand rested on my shoulder, followed by my other shoulder. I didn’t move, because I knew if I did, it would be over very quickly, very violently, and very, very thoroughly.

  Two men had felt like this in my life—two beings had felt like this in my life.

  I had tried to forget how the third made me feel, because there was feeling powerless.

  And then there was feeling human.

  “Hello, Olympia,” he said quietly.

  My throat went dry, my tongue fat and lazy and thick in my throat. The silence sat between the milimeters worth of space between his chest and my back, feeling like pins and needles burrowing deep, deep into my skin.

  Finally, through the silence, I found my voice.

  “Hey, Lucifer,” I whispered. “Long time no see.”

  “Indeed,” he said, taking my chin and slowly tilting my head, making sure my eyes were on him and nothing else. Just him. Always him. A silhouette of a rigid jawline, a sharp nose and piercing eyes so dark they rivalled the simmering, shifting, whispering shadows that clung to his red and black suit. Then the devil smiled.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Lucian said. “Shall we, Daughter of Zeus?”