Beginning Of The End (Book)

== Chapter One ==
I used to be a normal kid, you know? I watched cartoons, had friends, went to school, and did normal kid things. I was a little bit of a runt compared to other kids: skinnier and shorter than most, even if only by a little bit. Overall, I was totally normal. Or at least everyone thought I was, including me. Most people, anyhow, my mom knew I wasn’t. I guess in a way, I did too. I didn’t know, but odd things happened to me all the time. I would see things out of the corner of my eye, a common shared experience, but they were more frequent and far more frightening. For I saw the silhouettes of ancient beings, old monsters that lived not only in my mind, but in the real world. Past evils that had returned from their depths to hunt me and those like me. Demigods. Children of elder, powerful beings that now silently ruled the world. Gods. The Greek Gods. The Olympians. Then one day, I was delivered a prophecy. 
For one to rise,
Another must fall
The most unexpected to conquer them all
For even the most powerful, their time will grow short
What now that the ball is in their court?
A great war to end them all,
As for one to rise,
Another Must Fall. 
---
Lucas tapped his foot against the floor of the bus, head against the cool window, which was lightly fogged up. He was tired, staring out the window, which he could still see through even though it was fogged up, but not paying attention to anything he saw, really. That was until he saw what looked like a really, really large (we’re talking human sized) bat. It was just from the corner of his eye, and he jumped slightly, turning around to get a look. He could see it, but once his head turned and he could see it fully, it was gone. 
Lucas sighed, this happened to him far too often. He would see something, then turn to get a better look and it would be gone. It had been happening since he was around two, that’s at least what his mother told him, but it had been going on as far back as he could remember, which may just have been at the age of two. She was convinced it was fine, she told Lucas everyone sees things like that sometimes. He knew that to be true, but this was far too often to be normal, he was sure of it. That was why he had never told anyone but his mother: it would be like screaming ‘hey I’m crazy run away or lock me up! Do both!’ to anyone you told. That was not something he wanted. 
Eventually the bus stopped where it was meant to, and Lucas filed off of it and onto the sidewalk with a line of other kids older, the same age, and younger than him. He walked home, which was a townhouse with a decently nice exterior, and an equally nice interior. Opening the door, Lucas stepped inside, dropping his backpack on the ground beside the entryway table and walking into the kitchen. He made himself a sandwich, sitting down at the table in their dining room to eat it. His mom wasn’t home from work quite yet, so the house was silent. Lucas finished up homework and a few missing assignments as he ate, taking advantage of the quiet.
When his mother did come home, Lucas didn’t notice. He had his headphones in, listening to music while he finished up an essay for his English class. His music wasn’t very loud, but it was rock, so there were a lot of heavy drums and guitar. She tapped him on the shoulder and he almost jumped right out of his skin, turning around and pulling off his headphones. He relaxed with a smile and a bit of a laugh, though his mothers face grew concerned. She always saw right through him.
“You’re pretty jumpy today, huh? See something at school?” Her voice was filled with worry as she spoke. 
“I…it’s the same as all the other times, mom. I see it and then I blink or I turn around and it’s gone. I’m just really tired of it, you know?” Lucas sighed, watching his mother’s face as sympathy mixed with her anxiety. 
“I know, I know, but it happens sometimes.”
“It happens too much, this can’t be normal! I think I might be crazy or something, honestly. You should take me to a doctor or something.”
She sighed, pulling out the other chair and sitting across from him. Lucas’s mother watched him for what felt to him like forever without speaking. What was only a few seconds in actuality moved through his mind like minutes, as if time itself was trying to move through quicksand. His worst fear was that his mother would agree with him. She would say ‘yes, you are crazy. I called someone to take you away from here forever. Bye’. He knew that wouldn’t happen, he did, but it still worried him. What if deep down his mother did think he was strange, that maybe he was seeing things or just a little crazy. But that wasn’t what she said when she spoke. 
Lucas’s mother’s words began with a sigh, “I want you to listen to me. You aren’t crazy, you’re okay. There’s…there’s a reason that you see things like this more than other people do. I just don’t know it yet, hon.” To Lucas, at least, it sounded like a complete lie when she said she didn’t know why. 
“But do you?” He paused, “Do you know, I mean. Please don’t lie to me. If something is wrong with me, I need to know about it, mom.” He tried to sound as serious as possible, keeping the fear and anxiety from his voice, but he wasn’t sure how well that worked.
“I-” She stopped with a frown, seemingly calculating her words as creases of worry appeared on her forehead, “Lucas, I…”
He watched her with baited breath. She did know. The two main questions that remained in his mind? What was it and was she going to tell him the truth?
She looked at him, wringing her hands together, “I guess it’s time to tell you. Your father-” Lucas’s father had never been around, he had never even met him, “He…was-is, a very important man.” She thought for a moment, “That’s actually a lie, too.”
“Mom, please.” Lucas looked at her with a sigh.
“He’s very…important.”
Lucas stopped. What? She had said that him being ‘a very important man’ was a lie. And then followed it up with ‘he’s very important’. What was going on?
“Okay, mom, maybe you’re the crazy one. I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say.” He normally wouldn’t say that kind of thing, especially to his mother, but she looked worried and nervous, and he was beginning to panic. 
She only smiled sadly at him, “I knew you would say that after I told you, so here it is. Your father is a god.”
He paused, now he really was beginning to worry for his mother, “What?”
She stood up, pushing in her chair and wringing her hands slightly, “Do you remember when you were little? We found that book in that old library, The Odyssey? With Odysseus and Poseidon and the ancient Greeks?”
“Yeah, of course I do. But I really don’t see what that has to do with-”
“Do you remember the religion the ancient Greeks followed? With the twelve Olympians? The titans and the gods that all ruled over a different domain?” He nodded, very uncertain to what she was getting at. That seemed to be a good enough answer for her, “They had a King of the gods, Lord of the sky, Zeus. Do you remember him?” He nodded again, and she paused before continuing, “That’s your father.”
Lucas paused. Either he or she had lost their minds. Either she was talking crazy or he was crazy and hallucinating the entire conversation. Both were frightening, but entirely possible. His mind was racing with so many thoughts at once he seemed to be having no thoughts at all. There were simply too many to focus on and he couldn’t grab hold of one. He stumbled out of the chair, grabbing his phone off the table.
“I-I think I’m going to call Barry. We-we have a group project and…and I’m just going to go to his house for a little while, okay mom?” He backed up towards the door with a shaky smile he hoped seemed confident. 
She shook her head, “Honey, I know it’s hard to understand, or even believe. Trust me I knew it would be hard to tell you, that’s why I waited so long. But you’re older now, and soon…soon you would’ve had to find out the hard way, and I wouldn’t have been able to help you. You wouldn’t have been able to help yourself, not if you didn’t know what was happening. Who you are.”
Lucas stopped in his tracks. His hand went slack and he almost dropped his phone, but he tightened his fingers around it just in time, “What? What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you sit back down? There’s a lot we need to talk about.”
== Chapter Two ==
Lucas and his mother had a lengthy talk after that moment. He grabbed some water, sat down, and tried his best not to jump to conclusions or accusations. That part was incredibly difficult, seeing how ridiculous what he was being told was. But as he listened, and as his mother talked, it seemed less and less insane. He hadn’t been sure he believed it after she had finished talking, still. It remained a crazy idea.
If it were to be true, he learned a lot of valuable information from his mother. All of the legends and myths that compiled Greek Mythology weren’t just that, they were true. The people, and more importantly, things, in them all existed at one point or another. Their stories occurred. As Ancient Greece lost its power, their gods did not. They simply controlled the world from the shadows. They shifted between the most important places in the world so they could rule from the most powerful empires. Now, they were in North America. 
Another thing about them was their children. The gods went around and had kids with mortals a lot of the time. Then they just peaced out of their kids’ lives, almost never even talking to them. These kids were half god and half mortal, stuck between both worlds with a foot in each. A lot of them had powers similar to their godly parent, but sometimes they didn’t have any at all. Their powers almost never rivalled those of their mother or father, but sometimes, though not for a long time, they did. Lucas’ mother told him that when that happened, the gods…got rid…of that kid so their power wouldn’t be threatened. He thought that was incredibly cruel, but hey, it wasn’t up to him.
As the gods moved, so did the monsters tied to them. Now, these monsters roamed across North America, too. They tried to kill the demigods, but most of the time they left the regular people alone. Most of the time. She also said that regular people mostly didn’t see them. That humans had a way of rationalising things to fit what they think is real, even when that seems almost impossible. Though, sometimes, it wasn’t possible to do that. When that happened, it was bad for the regular people. Very bad. Sometimes the monsters killed them. Sometimes they went crazy. Sometimes they kept their sanity and tried to warn others. That was when…the gods had to step in. It wasn’t common, but when it did happen, the gods were alerted, and they got rid of those people, too. 
Then, his mom had told him something else. His father had given her something for when he was old enough to know the truth. She stood up and went upstairs, which is when he heard the trapdoor to the attic open. She had always told him not to go into the attic. There were rusty nails, broken glass, open walls with insulation that made it unsafe. She hadn’t gotten around to fixing it, she had said. Now he knew she had just been keeping whatever his father had given her hidden from him, probably for good reason. He had no idea.
Saying Lucas was surprised when his mother returned was an understatement. She handed him a sleek black cane. There was a golden eagle’s head at the top of the cane where you would hold it, and a design that looked like golden cracks wrapped around the cane-lightning bolts. He frowned, turning it over in his hands. For being an old useless cane, something about it enticed him. It pulled him to it, drawing him with some sort of power. But it was a cane, and that wasn’t rational. It was a perfect match for his height, light and fitting perfectly in his hand. 
He realised why it drew him to it when he brushed his hand over the delicate and beautifully made eagle’s head. It crackled with electricity. The eagle’s head grew warm and started to glow, and the glow raced down the cane until  it consumed the whole thing. Where the lightning bolts had been, it glowed brighter. 
Instead of the cane he had held only moments ago, he now held a sword. It had a golden hilt with an eagle carved into it. The wings of the eagle were carved into the crossguard, the body and head carved into the grip. The blade was long, but not too long. It fit perfectly in his hands: not too long or short, not too heavy or light, and somehow he knew just how to hold it. It felt right, though he hadn’t ever held a sword. The only time he had ever seen a sword in person was behind glass in a boring, dusty old museum. 
As the sword took the place of the cane, a booming voice filled his ears, slightly shaking the house, “For you, my beloved son. This sword shall grow with you. Only accessible by your touch, it will be disguised by your side as a cane. My symbols inlaid in both sides, it shall represent the delicate balance of your mortal and godly lives. Good luck, my boy, you have a dangerous journey ahead of you.”
As the voice stopped, the glow died down. Lucas dropped the sword, and it shifted back to a cane as it clattered to the floor. Where had that voice come from? It was his father, no doubt. His father had given him a magical cane-sword and left him a…vocal note? Voicemail? Magic cane-sword message? He didn’t know what to call it. But his father had acknowledged him! After fifteen years of never doing that…but still, it counted for something!
Lucas picked the cane back up with a shaking hand, and this time it stayed a cane. It crackled with electricity when he picked it up, but that died down once it was comfortably held in his hand.
He looked at his mother, “What am I supposed to do now? I have a weird magic cane-sword with an…ominous voicemail from my father. Do I just…forget about it? What comes next?”
“What comes next is we go to the museum downtown.”
Lucas paused, frowning. The dusty old museum filled with old people and the history of their town? He had just received life altering news and a life altering gift, and his mother wanted to go explore the life of the early settlers?
“Uhm…why?” He frowned at his mother.
She shook her head, smiling, “It has a gateway to where we really need to go.”
Lucas wasn’t really sure what he meant, but he didn’t argue with her. He stood up, the strange lightning cane in one hand as he used the other to slip his phone and earbuds into his pocket. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be back for at least a little while. He looked back at his mother, holding the cane with both hands so it sat at a diagonal, one end just above touching the floor. His mother grabbed her car keys and headed outside. Lucas didn’t know what to do except follow her silently. His brain was moving too fast and altogether too slow simultaneously, and if that was how it was going to be for too much longer Lucas feared he might implode. Although, now he had to worry about magic powers, monsters, ancient evils, and magic cane-swords, so his brain imploding could very well be the least of many worries from here on out.
They got in the car together, and unsure of what to do with it, Lucas laid the cane across his legs like you might a purse or a small package. Only this was a very destructive walking tool. Some present.
When they arrived at the museum, Lucas only noticed because the landscape stopped moving past him. He had been blankly staring out the window, not really  watching actively out the window, but not quite spaced out, either. As his mother parked the car, Lucas glanced down at his magic cane. It felt warm as he picked it up, but it wasn’t crackling anymore. He figured that a cane crackling with lightning and sparking wouldn’t do much good for ‘concealing a magic weapon’ in a public space. It would probably make people think they had gone crazy. Or that he was a criminal. Or both. None of those options were really that awesome, so he was grateful.
His mother shut off the car, pulling the keys from the ignition. Together, they stepped out of the car, and she locked it, before they headed towards the museum doors. Lucas still didn’t have much of an idea as to why they were really there, but he guessed he was about to find out. He wasn’t sure he liked that.