Dark Omega

CHAPTER 43 - NEVER SEE ME COMING

Winter dragged on, stubbornly refusing to turn into spring. It was the same as every year since the invasion. The boy had heard it had to do with soot in the atmosphere or some such. From all the bombs and the burning cities. He didn't care. Bad weather was like a friend, covering his back.

He was fourteen or fifteen years old—a man grown by some standards. By his own reckoning, he had become a man—or something else entirely—when he killed the scavenger girl whose name he never knew. It was the one defining moment of his life—before or after he cut the girl's throat and watched her die. It wasn't the first time he had killed, but it was the first time he had done it for himself. Before, he had sought vengeance, had been doing the right thing—the girl the boy had taken because he wanted to, because he could.

The act transformed him, turning him from a weak, lost child into a savagely independent and bloodthirsty creature. Before the transformation, he had been content with mere survival. Now he craved more from life; he wanted blood, he needed death.

He became a predator, stalking the ruins of Thira—they called it Athens now as if the goddess Athena would look twice at the place—looking for human prey. Vaxandii or Akakian, it mattered not. Twenty-nine, all told, sent to Hades throughout the dark months of winter. He could have killed many more. Dozens. Hundreds. With the rifle, he could have slain them all. But shooting people held no pleasure. This the boy learned after shooting two patrolling Vaxandii in the head from a rooftop. He needed no scope to call them to account. Four hundred meters over iron sights was nothing—like shooting fish in a barrel.

No, the rifle he would not use. It was no more satisfying than painting graffiti. It had to be up close and personal, had to be bloody, had to be blade work: the boy, the surgeon's blade, and an artery. He had to look them in the eyes as they died, had to dip his right hand in their blood as their soul's light faded. It was the only way he could endure what remained of his life.

After the first handful of murders, they started making stories about the boy. He was the Shadow of Thira, a terrible demon stalking the ruins of the fallen city. Summoned by the many deaths and the atrocities committed. They were not far off the mark. His infamy grew with every passing week. Many more deaths he wasn't responsible for were added to his legend. It was no mean feat to be noticed in the hell-hole that was Athens.

His not-quite-a-friend Himilco was the only person to realize who the killer was. The boy could see it in his eyes the last time he visited the Cold Market. He had murdered a dozen by then—and been attributed with many more. They had greeted one another the same way they always did, with a nod and few words. Their eyes met, and the boy knew the slave knew his secret. And Himilco knew that the boy knew that he knew. And so forth, ad infinitum. The boy also knew the old apothecary would never rat on him. He could see it in the man's eyes—his soul was no more challenging to read than a book.

But their equilibrium had been upset by the boy's transformation into an apex predator. It was time for the Ghost of Athens and an old slave to part ways. They didn't say their goodbyes in the traditional way. Instead, Himilco gave the boy a free run of the place, while he, for the first time as long as Haides had known him, partook in some of the blueweed.

When the boy was done plundering the apothecary's cabinets, he slashed the old man up a bit. Good enough to be convincing, but not so much as to be life-threatening. He overturned a cabinet, sending it crashing into the floor, and flowed into the shadows—his only true friend—under the stairs leading up to the second floor.

Himilco's owner, a former sub-officer of the Vaxandi 112th, came downstairs to check what the fuss was about. As he neared the bottom of the stairs, the boy lashed out from the darkness, quick as a snake, cutting the hamstrings on his left leg. The old soldier screamed—fear and pain mixing into a cocktail the boy couldn't get enough of—and crashed into the floor at the base of the stairs. The Ghost of Thira could have cut his throat as easy as he'd cut a pie, but he didn't. Instead, he pretended to be startled by the blood-drenched apothecary feebly trying to come to his master's aid. The boy grabbed his satchel—now full of loot—and jumped out the window.