Axes and Angels: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Novel (Better Demons Series Book 1) by Matthew Herrmann & Ramy Vance & R. E. Vance

Author:Matthew Herrmann & Ramy Vance & R. E. Vance [Herrmann, Matthew & Vance, Ramy & Vance, R. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Keep Evolving Studios
Published: 2021-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

“Mo’ Beef!”

“Typhon … Where to begin?” my employer said.

“He was a meddling human?” I suggested.

He shook his head. “Typhon was no human although he walks in the guise of one. He is a demigod.”

“Oh, like Hercules?” I asked.

My employer laughed. “Typhon would make Hercules cower like a babe, like a little cupid. No, Typhon is … well, there is a reason he is called ‘the one-hundred-headed beast.’ ”

“Hundred-headed beast?” Simon asked with wide eyes, a bread crumb suspended right before his mouth. “Theo, I draw the line at two-headed beast—"

I smacked the bread crumb away.

“I’m likin’ this Typhon guy,” Garfunkel said, rubbing his hands. “Keep the details comin’, Don.”

Glancing up at the ceiling, I said, “Typhon’s got a hundred heads? When I saw him sitting smug in the Arena, he had only one.”

“Ah,” my benefactor rasped. “But that is not his true form. You have not seen him when he is in a fury.”

I nodded slowly. “You mean like when he’s hangry?”

“I am not familiar with the term.”

“OK, look. Can we just get to the part about me killing him and rescuing Orion?” Gotta love straight-to-the-point me.

Don continued, “You should not underestimate Typhon. He is a ravaging beast. He was so strong-headed, so full of ambition that he thought he could take on all the Greek gods on Mount Olympus. It became his life-mission to kill them.”

“Sounds like a badass,” Garfunkel said. I nodded in agreement.

“Typhon made several preemptive strikes against the Palace of the Gods on Mount Olympus, testing its defenses. Many other Nameless servants were killed by him as he poked and prodded, searching for a vulnerable spot. He carried the God-Slayer, forged in the fires of Tartarus. So foul was it, so powerful, that its victims literally boiled from within when it pierced their skin.”

I thought about what the lava axe had done to Leo and Scorpio in Typhon’s Arena when I had barely nicked them in self-defense.

My employer paused, seeming on the verge of tears. “One night, during one of his forays onto the palace grounds, Typhon felled my lover—I watched his insides melt from his orifices as Typhon glared at me, trudged right past me.” After a moment of silence, Don sat up straighter with resolve flickering in his cloudy eyes. “Ever since that night, I vowed not to let him succeed. I vowed to protect my master Zeus.”

Simon wiped a tear from his eye as he reached for another bread crumb. Smack! He didn’t get it.

Garfunkel reclined on my left shoulder, filing his fingernails.

Don continued. “It was a dark and stormy night when Typhon mounted his final attack …”

“Of course it was,” Garfunkel said.

I felt Simon shutter. “I don’t want to hear the rest.”

“… and he didn’t come alone. The Hundred-Headed Beast brought an army of monsters that poured through the servants’ quarters and kitchen, causing a worthy distraction while Typhon stalked unfettered through the palace.”

My employer paused. “I was hiding beside the stone archway leading directly to Zeus’s sleeping quarters. And I … I …” He paused again, picking up his wine glass.

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