Page 48 of The Brothers Bane

I square my shoulders and step back, giving Typhon room. “You can still control that power, right? You can make decisions and take actions. So now you just need to decide to be human-shaped.”

Typhon’s hundred heads bob in a way that I take for a nod. I watch as his massive body shudders, scales rippling like a sea during a storm. His two hundred eyes fix on me with determination.

“You can do this,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel. I wish that I could take him back to the island and St. George School to test his magic with different materials, the way I tested mine to learn how it worked. But maybe I don’t need the school for him to try. “Imagine the power that makes up your body is like clay. You’re the sculptor.”

A low rumble emanates from him, vibrating the ground beneath my feet. It’s as if he’s murmuring to himself, a chant in a language of growls and hisses that sends chills down my spine.

“Visualize your human form,” I continue. “Remember how your limbs moved in your dream shape, how it felt to be smaller, more... compact.”

He starts to condense before my eyes, scales pulling inward, heads retracting like turtles into their shells. But it’s messy and disjointed—limbs sprout at odd angles and heads pop out where they shouldn’t.

“No, no,” I say gently, reaching out a hand to rest on a bulging part of him that I think might be a shoulder. “You’re thinking too hard about the details. Focus on the essence of being human—walking on two legs, talking with one mouth, seeing with two eyes.”

“If I may,” Campe says, stepping forward. She rests a hand on my shoulder, looking up into one of the strange heads that peers back at us with eyes too large for its face. “Your bond may help. You have access to Nemea’s power too. Let her feed some of it to you, some human essence, to guide your shape.”

His oversized eyes blink owlishly, but when I reach out to touch him, the connection is instantaneous. My power reaches for him, and I focus on what it feels like to be human.

Typhon’s form begins flickering, as if he’s caught between stations on an old TV set. He’s trying to find the right frequency. I step back to give him room, our link stretching like a glowing tether between us.

“Think about emotions,” I suggest, grasping at straws now. “Humans are all about feelings. How do you feel when you’re in the human form you show me?”

There’s a pause—a moment where even his rumbling chant stops—and then something shifts in Typhon’s demeanor. A head—the central one—begins to morph into something more recognizable: a face with vivid violet eyes that hold an ancient sadness.

“Yes!” I exclaim. “That’s it! Hold onto that feeling!”

The transformation accelerates now; the remaining heads shrink away as his body contracts further into a distinctly human shape. The scales fade into starkly pale skin and muscles form beneath.

He stumbles forward on two legs that are finally his own and collapses into a heap of exhausted humanity.

I rush to him, kneeling by his side. “Typhon? Are you okay?”

His chest heaves as he catches his breath in ragged gasps, but he manages a nod and then looks up at me with eyes filled with wonder and gratitude.

But he isn’t the same pretty human man he liked to show me before.

This version of him has the almost translucent skin tone of someone who’s never seen the sun, with tangled black hair that hangs over his eyes. Eyes that glow with violet power, haunted by a thousand years of witnessing torture, no doubt.

He resembles Cerberus in his human form, only paler, more haunted, and a little gaunt. I know he and Erebus and Vesh are brothers, but they never mentioned being related to any of the others. I suppose anything is possible.

I brush a lock off his forehead, holding my breath at the hesitant look he gives me, like he’s afraid he’ll lose control and revert at any second.

When he holds this shape for several breaths he smiles.

“I did it,” he says hoarsely, his voice resonating with that same deep timbre I remember from before—only now it comes from just one mouth and isn’t accompanied by a hundred hissing tongues.

I can’t help but laugh—a release of tension and joy—as I help him sit up. “You sure did. Now who’s ready for Las Vegas?”

“Hold on, not so fast,” Campe says. “I want to be clear that this is just for practice. We are not staying; we’re there and gone. In fact, the faster you can teleport, the better. The idea is for you to test it out in combat, when reflexes matter most. Also, we can’t very well hit the Strip dressed like this.” She passes a critical gaze over all of us, still naked, even Typhon. Erebus has transformed again into his battle-ready soldier shape, but not even that is good enough for Campe.

She exhales a cloud of smoke that sparks with magic, encompassing the five of us. It settles over my skin, clinging to me and making the small hairs on my body stand on end at first, before settling softly and draping around my frame. Tendrils of it work into my hair, tugging and pulling it this way and that.

When the smoke clears, I look down to find myself garbed in a snug black ankle-length skirt with a slit up the side and a black and purple bustier. I reach up to find my hair carefully arranged in two coils at the back of my head, with strands brushing my shoulders.

The others are dressed to the nines too; Alcides is in a sharp gray suit with a bolo tie and cowboy boots tipped in silver; Typhon’s in leather pants and a concert tee with the Fate’s Fools logo emblazoned across the front, looking like he could be a member of the band; and Erebus is dressed in simple black cargo pants and a T-shirt. He looks like he’s the sole bodyguard of our little entourage, but given his size and silent, intimidating look, he can certainly pull it off.

Campe’s looking quite fine in body-hugging leather pants, with a black satin bandeau top and a cropped jacket covered in iridescent sequins, her braid draped over her shoulder. She takes my arm.

“Let’s see what you’ve got.”

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