Relic: Spear

by Ben Zackheim

  But the sound of the footsteps made each of us back up toward the portal, one step closer to swapping out of there. I focused on the main street of Montfort-l’Amaury village. I had to swap us with three beings. It was likely they’d be either vampires or demons. I wasn’t worried. These guards were on their toes, ready for action. They could handle a few undead stragglers in their midst.

  I got ready to step through the portal. But it faded away as quickly as it had appeared.

  Fucking thing was going to be the death of me yet.

  Suddenly, Lancelot turned the hallway corner in front of us. The barrel of his gun pointed right between my eyes. Ronin must have realized he had me dead-to-rights because she didn’t go Full Rambo on his ass.

  He was as surprised to see us as we were to see him. I’d only been out of the picture for a few weeks, but I could see how commanding the Paris forces had taken a toll on him. His gray hair and beard made him look twenty years older than the last time I’d seen him.

  He lowered his handgun, and turned back to his guards.

  “Nothing here!” he called out. “Guess I’m still jumpy from the Leviathan battle.”

  He holstered his gun and walked back toward the broom closet. “All of you head to the mess hall. I’ll join you in a minute. Gray, tell Logsdon and Sanchez to take your places on scroll duty. I want them here in five minutes, or there’ll be hell to pay with interest.”

  “Yes, sir. Do you think it’s a good idea to leave the relics unguarded?”

  “Who says they’re going to be unguarded?” Lancelot asked, annoyed. “I’ll stay here until Logsdon and Sanchez show up. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry sir.”

  “Go!”

  Their boots made a real racket on the floor as they all headed in the opposite direction, scrambling toward the mess hall.

  I waited until the noise died down to nothing, stood up straight, took a deep breath and turned the corner.

  Lancelot was standing right in front of me. He took me in his arms. At first, I didn’t know what kind of lame attack this was. Then I realized he was hugging me.

  “It’s good to see you, my friend,” he said, holding me at arm’s length. “You look like shit.”

  Chapter 14

  “You’ve looked better, too, old man.”

  He squeezed my shoulders hard. Painfully hard. He wanted me to know he was still tough as steel. “Ah, but I’ve never felt better! Centuries of feeling almost nothing at all has made me grateful for this whole aging process.”

  “It looks like the process is going a little fast, though.”

  He shrugged. “I will do what I can with the time I have left, Kane.”

  “Thank you,” I said simply.

  He waved his hand at me. “Bah. This whole sad affair was avoidable. But the masses demanded your head, even after I explained that you shooting Rebel must have been an accident. It happens in the fogs of war, as the troops are learning with every battle. I believe we can do one of two things. One, we could wait for them to understand. Two? We could spring you from your cell and let them figure it out on their own time.” He smiled at Ronin, who didn’t smile back.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Ronin, you worked with him on this plan?” I could see from Ronin’s angry face that he hadn’t. No, Lancelot had allowed the rescue to happen. He knew Ronin was planning to set me free and he’d let her do the hard work.

  Lancelot had used Ronin as a puppet.

  Her fury sent off red alerts in my gut.

  I said the first thing that came to mind. “Well, if I was going to be fooled by anyone, I guess I could ask for worse than Lancelot.” That was my best shot at defusing the moment. It worked well enough for Ronin to shift her murder-stare from Lancelot to me.

  “Come,” Lancelot said in a calming voice. “You three don’t have much time.” He ran down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” I asked. “The scroll pieces are in the closet. It’s that way.”

  Lancelot put his hands on his hips. “Yes, but I need to get the keys fir…”

  Ronin dangled his keychain in front of her smirking face. She made sure they jingled as loudly as possible. She walked past him, turned the corner, and headed for the closet of relics.

  “She has my keys,” Lancelot said to me, quietly.

  “Yeah, so about that,” I muttered into my hand. “You may want to be careful when you go back to your office.”

  A loud click came from Lancelot’s walkie talkie. “The prisoner is alive and he’s escaped,” the male voice said. “We need medical on LL 3. That creepy bitch shot me and Charlie.”

  Ronin glanced up from testing keys in the door. “Did he just call me a bitch?”

  Lancelot leaned closer to me as we walked. “It looks like I should have been more hands-on in this conspiracy of mine.”

  Ronin let out a small yelp as she found the correct key. The door swung open. Her ecstatic smile slipped off her face.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” she cried, gesturing to the closet.

  I peeked around the door and smiled.

  They’d stored the two scroll pieces in my custom safe.

  The thing was a monstrosity. It was more of a modern art statue than a safe. It was a large human hand with a massive middle finger sticking out. Why did I have a big FUCK YOU safe? For exactly the reason I was witnessing at that very moment.

  To flummox. To piss off. To kneecap all confidence.

  The flesh-colored monstrosity was hyper-realistic. It had weaving, web-like fingerprints. Its tiny ceramic hairs poked up from the knuckles. It even had a couple of dirty fingernails. I’d designed the safe during a whiskey night with Dino years before. He thought it would be hilarious to have a safe that could only be opened if I gave it the middle finger.

  I thought it would be even more hilarious if I made the safe a middle finger. Two phone calls and a crap-ton of dough later and I had myself a safe that was so horrible I had it shipped to Paris just to get it out of my sight.

  With a smile, I gave the safe the middle finger. It whirred, clicked and spit the door open. The veined knuckles and back of the hand parted, revealing the treasure inside.

  Two humble slips of scroll parchment.

  We’d secured one of them in the Parisian sewers. The other one was hidden in the mask in Japan.

  “How did you get this safe open?” I asked Lancelot, unable to contain my delight.

  “We knocked you out, wheeled it into your room, and posed your hand.”

  I slapped him on the shoulder and he flinched. It was meant to be friendly, but I’d hurt him. “Sorry, buddy.”

  Lancelot sighed. “The body isn’t what it used to be.” He smiled, but it was strained.

  I slid the scroll pieces from the safe, took a deep breath, and focused on opening the Vault Portal. The glow of the portal appeared over the middle finger of the safe.

  “Didn’t you tell me the Vault Portal has had its treasures stolen recently?” Lucas asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s a hell of a lot safer than carrying it in my back pocket.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” the demon mumbled.

  “Give the pieces to me,” Ronin said. She unsnapped the leather pouch on her belt and stuck out a hand.

  I slipped the scroll pieces into the portal. “They’ll be fine.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Ronin said, snapping her pouch shut.

  “You’re the one with a fanny pack, lady.” I reached into the portal and pulled out my Glocks, still in the harness. I wasn’t going to head into the next part of our little adventure without my weapon of choice. Ronin almost said something, but thought better of it.

  The portal started to close. Lucas put his hand on mine. “Wait. Stop. Can you keep it open?”

  “The Vault Portal? Sure. Why?”

  “So we can keep an eye on it. We must make sure no one tries to steal the scroll p…” His sentence was cut short as he peeked into the portal. “Satan�
��s dick!”

  “I don’t think I have that in there,” I said. “I used to have Thor’s dick, but Tabitha gave it back to him.”

  Lucas glanced over his shoulder at me, annoyed. “It’s a demon saying, sir. I had no idea your stash was so huge.”

  “That’s what she said,” Ronin and I said together. I flinched in pain. It was the kind of pain that comes when your favorite things are sullied and stained and ruined forever by proximity to the turd-tossers in your life. I realized I could never use my favorite joke again. Not if it was a favorite of Ronin’s, too. I had my pride, especially when it came to snarky snaps.

  I changed the subject. “I can keep it open if you want, but it’s tough to see what’s going on in there. You have to position your eye just right.

  Lucas nodded. “Yes, I see that it’s similar to using a microscope. If your eye is not perfectly lined up you’ll see a blur.”

  “Fascinating,” Ronin said with enough vinegar to season a thousand salads. “Can we get a move on? The next guard shift will be walking through those doors in a few seconds.”

  “She’s right,” Lancelot said. “You need to be gone. Open the Swap Portal, Kane.”

  “Fair warning, knight in shining armor,” Ronin said. “We’re going to be sending three vampires back here in our place.”

  “Or demons,” I added.

  Lancelot took a step back. “I can handle three of anything. Do it now, Kane. I need to have this fight and get rid of the bodies before my men show up, or I’ll be getting a cell of my own.”

  I summoned the Swap Portal and breathed a sigh of relief when it appeared instantly. I’d worried that it would misbehave again. It had a tendency to do that when I needed it most.

  The moment I felt relief, it blinked shut.

  And so did my Vault Portal.

  Suddenly, I was portal-less.

  Chapter 15

  The uncomfortable moment of silence was broken by Ronin’s matter-of-fact, “I don’t know what my sister saw in you, Arkwright.”

  “Shoot me in the leg,” Lancelot said. “We have to make this look conv…”

  Ronin interrupted him with a bullet in the thigh. Lancelot screamed in pain, fell to the floor and writhed around like a bad break dancer.

  Go,” Lancelot said. “Now!”

  We ran down the hall and took a few turns before I realized we had nowhere to go.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucas asked, as he skidded to a stop behind me.

  “There are no exits this way. We have to…”

  “Swap us out of here, Arkwright,” Ronin said.

  “No, I’m not swapping three of the enemy into our HQ.”

  Lucas nodded. “He has a point. Even low-level grunts could do a lot of damage if they slipped into the shadows down here.”

  I started walking before anyone could ask for the plan. “This way.”

  We had to swap from a secure place, but nowhere was safe. I had one option.

  Ronin growled out a hushed, “Where the hell do you think you’re going, Arkwright?”

  “Just trust me.”

  Her grip on my shoulder stopped me in my tracks. I turned and put a finger in her face. She slapped it away and stuck hers in mine.

  “No,” she said as her other hand lifted from her side. But this hand had a pistol in it.

  “Get that thing out of my face,” I said, barely in the whisper territory. We were risking everything on this little tiff. If any of the troops heard us, our adventure would come to a final end. But the dislike between us was intense. It was hard to damp down.

  Lucas nudged his way between us and shoved us apart.

  “He’s leading us toward the mess hall,” Ronin said to the demon.

  “It’s the only place where we can use the Swap Portal,” I said.

  “He’s right,” Lucas whispered. “It’s lunchtime. It’s crowded. Everyone is armed. It’s the best place to swap with the enemy.”

  Ronin put her gun back in its holster and pulled her finger out of my face. But her glare told me how she felt about the idea. She walked ahead of us, toward the mess hall.

  Lucas caught up to her and held out his bony hand. “I’ll take a gun.”

  “No!” Ronin and I said at the same time, a bit too loudly. Everyone knew that a demon with a gun was the same thing as a bullet in the brain. Dangerous, in a final kind of way.

  Lucas’ nose sagged. “Fine. Just a suggestion.”

  We got to the mess hall’s south doors without being spotted. The chatter on the other side of the swinging doors was laced with the kind of excited buzz that only a red alert could generate. I knew they’d be clustered in circles, guessing what the alert was about, and wishing they were on duty to help out.

  “Listen up everyone!” a female voice shouted from in the cafeteria. “Settle down. We wait for orders. I know it sucks to stand around, but we don’t want to get in the way.”

  Now that the troops were distracted, I used the moment to summon the Swap Portal. It popped open as strongly as the Vault Portal had moments before.

  “Ready?” I asked. My team nodded. It was the first time we’d all been on the same page. I was surprised we were still standing.

  I positioned the portal directly behind us. Once the troops saw us, we could just step backward and swap ourselves out of there. I shoved through the swinging double doors to the mess hall.

  “Hi everyone!” I said, waving the Ruger like it just so happened to be in my hand.

  Fifty guns quickly aimed at the three of us, all at once. It would have been kind of funny — if someone else was on the wrong side of the barrels.

  All three of us took a step back toward the portal, which was no longer there.

  “Damn it!” I yelled.

  It was Ronin who thought fast. “Stand down!” she yelled. Her voice was filled with authority. She’d made a career out of sounding like she knew what she was doing. It usually worked. But not this time. This time, the masses wanted to see me out of the picture really bad.

  “Hands up!” a woman yelled as she took a step toward us.

  Lucas became a blur. I heard a dozen grunts from the other side of the room. Apparently, the demon was fast. He was taking them down one by one.

  I knocked Ronin back through the swinging doors and jumped after her. We scrambled out of the line of fire, taking position on either side of the entrance.

  The troops’ ammo finally ran low. The gunfire ebbed and the sounds of weapons reloading took over.

  “You hit?” we asked each other at the same time. We both shook our heads and turned to face the footsteps coming down the hallway.

  Ronin grabbed my shirt and pulled me nose-to-nose. “Get that fucking portal working,” she said as she fired a warning shot into the wall to back the troops off.

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus. It’s not an easy thing to do when you have people shooting at you from one side, and about to shoot you from the other.

  But I did it.

  The Swap Portal opened just as the new troops turned the hall’s corner and raised their guns.

  Lucas zipped past us and ran into the portal. I nudged Ronin in and jumped in behind her.

  I heard the gunshots from the other side of the portal as my ass hit a cobblestone street.

  I also heard the distinct sound of vampires hissing and screeching from inside the Paris HQ.

  The portal pooped out, but the plan had worked.

  The buildings of Montfort-l’Amaury looked down at us like the unwelcome intruders we were.

  Chapter 16

  The town was just as I’d left it a few weeks prior.

  The cobblestone streets were still, the windows dark. Silver moonlight cast a glow over the stone buildings that made them appear to have a fleshy texture, like elephant skin.

  You didn’t have to be a weathered pro to know that something bad waited in the night shadows.

  The smell was different, though.

  It was a cross between a mossy for
est and a candy factory. The sweet, rich scent would have been welcome, if it hadn’t been so overwhelming.

  Ronin glanced around, sniffing. “What is that stench?”

  I shrugged. “Smells like an eighth grader at their first formal.”

  Ronin made a sound like a leaking tire. “Was that the last date you went on, Kane?” She chuckled at her own joke.

  “You’re not as funny as your sister.”

  “Compare me to her again and see how that ends.”

  Lucas raised his hand. “Will you two keep it down, please? The smell is a spell. I recognize it, but I need to think, which is impossible with the mortal shortcomings flooding from your mouths.”

  “Nice image.”

  “Appropriate image. You should hear yourselves.” Lucas’ eyes went wide and he smiled. He let out a quiet breath with a dim, “Ahhhhhh, yes.”

  “What is it?” Ronin asked. She loomed over him with her arms crossed, like a bully. It was her way of keeping control, even when she didn’t have any.

  Lucas pushed past her and hopped up on a car to get a better look at something. He squinted and then pointed down the street. “You see that?”

  Ronin walked up to Lucas, flailing her arms with her fingers on her weapons’ triggers. “You know what I see? I see a demon who looks like he climbed out of another demon’s ass, standing on a car I wanted to buy before the world died. I see a liar who never told us he could run 200 fucking miles an hour. I see a distraction who is slowing down our mission.”

  Lucas’ arms dropped to his side. He shook his head and turned his eyes to mine. “Can we put her back where we found her?”

  I tried to change the subject before we did the enemy’s job for them and emptied our weapons into each others’ faces. “I don’t see anything down the street either, Lucas. Talk to me.”

  “Hmph, must be your human eyes. There’s a beam of green light crossing the street further down the road. There.” I followed his spindly finger’s tip, but all I saw was darkness.

  Ronin pulled out her Ruger and checked it. “Locked and loaded.”