Guardian of Mortals

Catia’s heart raced in her chest as she ran through the forest, the fallen leaves and sticks crunching under her feet. Low-hanging branches whipped across her face, leaving a stinging pain behind. Her breath puffed from her lungs in quick gasps. She came to a stop in a clearing and took a moment to gaze at her surroundings.

“Heat signature 800 meters to your left and closing fast. Caution advised.” The cool, robotic voice of GAIA, Catia’s artificial intelligence, spoke into the silence.

With her advanced hearing, Catia listened closely. Heavy footsteps crashed through the underbrush to Catia’s right. For now, it was still a little way away. But it was closing fast.

“Gods,” Catia muttered under her breath. She needed time to think.

The thick, humid heat of the early South Carolina summer made the sweat roll down her face. She licked her lips, which tasted of salt. Her skin-tight suit clung to her skin, squeezing uncomfortably as she tried to steady her breathing. The monster was closing in fast, and she needed time, even if it were mere seconds, to gain an advantage.

Strapped to her thigh, a simple hunting knife hung. Its handle gleamed darkly in the low light. Its blade, made of steel that had cooled in the river Styx, was razor sharp.

She slipped it out of its sheath, then sliced it across her palm. It wasn’t pleasant, especially since she’d need her hands. But the thick material of her suit, imbued with magic, would take too long to hack through with the knife. Even with the knife’s sharp edge, the suit protected her.

Her blood dropped onto the ground, coating the greenery in scarlet. Her palm stung, but there was nothing to do about it now. The healing magic that coursed through her veins was already stitching the wound back together. Soon, there wouldn’t be any sign of the injury.

Satisfied with the amount of blood on the ground, Catia turned and scaled the closest tree, wincing as her hand smarted in response. But there was no time to think about that now. Her life depended on her staying one step ahead of her enemy.

Resting on a low-hanging branch, Catia surveyed her surroundings. It was just high enough that she had a good view of the small clearing below her. The tree wasn’t the best of positions, but with that beast nearing with every second that passed, she wasn’t taking any chances. The high ground and the blood she’d spilled would give her a minor advantage over the beast that tracked her through the woods.

In one smooth motion, Catia flicked the silver ring off her finger and caught the bow as it expanded in her hands. Catia balanced the bow in her hands and casually sighted the ground.

“Distance?” Catia asked GAIA as she steadied her breathing. Her heart still pounded from the run and the effort to climb the tree. Her wound pulsated with pain. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it now.

“300.”

With another deep breath, Catia pulled back the string on her bow. The arrow, made of pure aether, gleamed brightly in the forest’s shade. She held her position, the arrow of light aimed towards the direction GAIA found the heat signature of the hellhound that was tracking her. She took a deep breath and steadied her grip, ignoring the pain in her hand.

“100.”

For a moment, the world was utterly silent. Then there was a sound of wild, pulsing footsteps as they rushed across the forest floor, snapping branches and leaves under massive feet. It was like an avalanche. The sound grew as it cascaded closer and closer, bringing a deadly force to meet her.

Catia waited, her breathing even, her fingers brushing against the smooth, silver metal of her bow. Her back pressed into the trunk of the tree, her feet carefully balanced to keep her aim steady. She didn’t dare to move in case she would lose her balance and fall to the forest floor below. Because that would mean certain death.

A second passed and then another.

Then, with all the grace of an elephant, a large, black creature burst through the trees. Even with some distance between them, the hellhound’s rotting breath made bile rise in her throat. From this distance, Catia could see the matted black fur of the beast, speckled with blood of its latest kill.

Whatever that had been would be the last life it ever took.

The beast didn’t notice her in the tree, but it focused on the blood that she’d left behind. Its wild red eyes went wide with bloodlust as it breathed in the scent.

With a practiced eye, she aimed down the beast as it pawed the earth, leaving deep gouges from its claws. A sharp twang sounded as she released the string, the arrow flying true. It was an arc of white light as it flew.

It landed between the hellhound’s crimson eyes, which sputtered out like a snuffed candle. At first, nothing happened. Then, the black and matted fur melted away, blown away by the faint May breeze. While the leaves rattled through the trees like the clinking of bones, the hellhound faded into nothing. The sound of the dust pelting against the ground was like a burst of rain, though the smell of brimstone filled the air.

Catia breathed a sigh of relief, though the nauseating scent of the hellhound still lingered in the air.

“GAIA, is the area clear?” Catia asked the AI.

After a few seconds, her calming voice spoke. “No heat signatures detected.”

The Guardians, demigods like Catia, weren’t sure why monsters turned into dust when they died. No matter the breed of beast, it always turned to ash once killed. Though mysterious, it was also convenient. Catia wasn’t sure what she would do with the giant corpse of a hellhound once she killed it.

Then again, thanks to the Shade, humans couldn’t see the monsters that stalked them. Created by Zeus, the King of the Gods, the Shade provided a mystical barrier between the human world and the world of the Guardians and monsters.

But more than preventing the mortals from seeing too much, it also acted as a locked gateway between this world and the realm of monsters, Tartarus.

Tartarus is a dark and dangerous place that crawls with every sort of beast imaginable. Catia guessed that this was where the monsters truly went when they died, only to come crawling back later through some hole ripped into the Shade’s magic. She wondered how many monsters she’d killed more than once.

Catia’s watch beeped at her, drawing her out of her thoughts. A message from her adoptive father and superior, Connor, popped up. Mission complete?

She pressed a button on the side of her watch and sent her reply, “Mission successful. Headed back to HQ now.”

As her tense muscles relaxed, Catia pressed a small button on her bow, forcing it to shrink back down into her slender silver ring. She admired the tiny crescent moon as she placed the ring back on her finger. The ring had been the only contact she’d ever had with her godly birth mother. The gods were notorious for their lack of care towards their children, but other than the ring, there had been no contact from Artemis.

It wasn’t common knowledge that the gods walked among the mortals, but when a human was in the presence of a divine being, it was hard not to tell. There were claims across much of the world that spoke of the gods gracing humans with their presence. And yet, Catia’s own godly mother had never bothered.

Other Guardians claimed that their parents occasionally spoke to them in their dreams, giving them advice or knowledge, but Catia had never been so blessed. Other than the ring, Artemis had been radio silent.

The ring had appeared nearly a week after her father’s sudden death. That same week, her stepmother had sent her away to live with Connor, who was supposedly a distant cousin of Catia’s father. Connor had been her guardian ever since, though Catia had long since learned he was no blood relative of hers.

But he was the one who’d taken her in when she’d had no one else. When the entire world had thrown her away, Connor was the one who’d dried her tears. He was her family. And Skye.

Skye arrived a few months after Catia. Though technically a year older than her, Skye’s early life had been shady. Connor had said little, but the haunted look in Skye’s blue eyes when he’d arrived said enough. She’d never asked him about the life he’d had before.

But in the years Skye had lived here, the haunted look had disappeared from his eyes. He’d blended in with Catia and Connor just fine. The three of them were a family now, one that Catia would fight for. One she would die for.

Catia had always thought Skye’s name had been ironic, considering his father was Zeus, the lord of the sky. She guessed that his mother, whoever she was, enjoyed the irony of it.

Her watch beeped again, and Catia glanced down. The simple thumbs-up reply from Connor made her smile.

She headed out of the woods, watching as the foliage became thinner and thinner as she neared the exit. When she finally broke free of the line of trees and stepped into the sunlight, she had to shield her eyes. The late June sun was sinking below the horizon in the distance.

Just off to her left, her car waited on a dirt road that led to a curving two-lane highway. She slid into the driver’s seat and turned the car on. The radio wasn’t on, and she left it off. The drive wasn’t long, and she didn’t feel like breaking the silence yet. Her mind still thrummed with adrenaline from her hunt.

Soon she was pulling into a paved driveway that went about a half-mile into a stretch of trees. In front of her, an empty clearing stood. Then, as she drove further, she passed through a shimmering veil of magic. A buzz flashed over her skin. As soon as she’d crossed to the other side of the wards, a two-story house with cozy blue shutters came into view.

A three-door garage stood next to the house, creeping ivy crawling over the sides. Hitting a button on the visor of her car, one of the garage doors opened, revealing an empty spot. Outside of the garage, the late evening sunshine greeted her.

Though the air was still humid, it smelled of fresh-cut grass, and a sense of ease washed over her.

She was home.