Hero's Curse

by Jack J. Lee

  On the drive back, we swung by and picked up take-out Chinese, and all seven of us ate dinner in the kitchen like one big happy family. Towards the end of the meal, Tim skewered a dumpling on each chopstick, and they looked like oversized feet attached to excessively skinny legs. He then danced them around his plate and on the table in front of him. He moved the chopsticks with such fluidity and grace that you could see someone dancing on the table. It was surprisingly funny.

  I was becoming more and more convinced the subtle bastard’s hero worship of me was an elaborate mind game, and that he’d been yanking my chain since we’d first met.

  Aidan, Tim, and Drew decided to bunk in the Master Bedroom. It’d been unoccupied since Mina’s parents were killed. Tim and Aidan didn’t mind sharing the king sized bed, and Drew brought an air mattress and sleeping bag.

  Mina and I called it an early night. The first thing I did when I got to my room was to make my journal entry. I kept it strictly business—nothing about Mina and me. I brushed my teeth, and changed into shorts—it was too warm of a night to wear a shirt. I needed a new bed. The twin sized mattress I had wasn’t cutting it Mina came in wearing one of the Sig-Sauer t-shirts they’d given us at the range, and pink cotton boxers. I know she was trying to keep the sensuality level down but it didn’t help. No matter what she wore, she was a knockout.

  She giggled when she saw my face. She dove into bed and gave me a quick kiss. “Vic, I was wondering, have you met God?”

  “No.”

  “Has anyone described what God looks like to you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, I was thinking, the deal you have where you can only have sex after marriage—it sounds like something thought up by a woman—one with a mean streak. I think God is female. What do you think?”

  “Um, B refers to Jehovah as ‘He’ and ‘Him’, and I guess he’d know, but I’m not sure I have an opinion.” Jesus, like I cared whether or not God had dangly bits. Wait a minute, Jehovah had Jesus with Mary. Mary was a virgin but did that matter? Could God be a lesbian? Was lesbian even the right word? I didn’t have the inclination to keep asking myself questions that I didn’t know the answers to and didn’t give a flying shit about. “The next time we see an angel, you should ask.”

  I thought I’d kept my thoughts well hidden but Mina gave a little laugh. Mina had angel genes. Man, I hoped she never learned how to read minds. Touching souls was plenty. “Okay, I will.” She leaned in for another kiss, murmured “I love you” against my lips, yawned, stretched and said, “I'm so beat, Good night.” then turned on her side away from me. I turned off the light. It was natural to spoon her from behind and wrap her in my arms. It was quiet for a few minutes; I thought Mina had drifted off.

  “Vic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How old are you?”

  I’d been wondering how to bring that up. “I’m forty-seven, but I’m just a kid compared to Aidan. I think I heard him say he was over six hundred.”

  “So are you ever going look older?”

  “I don’t think so. You know you don’t have to age either.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s just magic. Once you learn how, it’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Vic, do you know how old my parents were?” I could tell by how tense her body became that this question was important to her.

  “I’m sorry Mina, but I don’t know anything about your parents. I didn’t know anything about paladins, angels, or Jotunn until a few days ago.”

  “I need to ask Aidan what he knows. I keep meaning to talk to him but we’ve always been so busy. When we shared souls, I saw images of you growing up in dormitory run by nuns. Were you an orphan?”

  “Yeah.”

  We lay in silence for a moment. “Do you remember your parents at all?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry, Vic.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s probably better that I don’t have any memories of them.”

  Mina turned around. “That is so sad; I really believe your parents loved you Vic. They had to have a good reason for sending you to the orphanage.” She paused, her hand squeezing my shoulder and then hugging me closer. “Vic, I love you. I want to have a family with you. No matter what happens, you have to live. Promise me you’ll stay alive; promise me that we’ll have children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren. We’ve both had parents that made decisions about our lives without telling us. They may have had good intentions but they were wrong. Tell me our children will always know who their parents were. Tell me we’ll never keep huge secrets from them. You have to promise me.”

  I heard the worry in her voice. She was afraid that she’d lose me the same way she’d lost her parents. “I can’t promise that they won’t kill me. The absolute best I can promise is that I’ll do everything I can do so that they won’t. If I can make that happen, I promise you everything else.” I hugged her tight and said, “I love you.”

  Mina drew back and I could feel her wipe her eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying.” She couldn’t see me smile in the dark. I drew her back in my arms. “I know my parents loved me. I’m sure they thought they had good reasons to keep secrets from the three of us, but they were wrong. They should have told us the truth. If you can’t promise me you’ll never die, at least tell me you’ll never keep secrets from me.”

  “I promise.”

  She smiled, “Here’s your last chance to tell me about your wife and eight kids in Hoboken, New Jersey.”

  “No other wives, girlfriends, or children. You’re it Mina. I don’t have—I don’t want anyone else.”

  Mina fell asleep right away. I lay awake with arms around her listening to her breathe. It was a sound I wanted to get used to. Hours later I fell asleep.

  Chapter 27: Drew

  When I woke up, everyone else was asleep except Aidan; I could hear him brushing his teeth. The sun was just starting to rise, so it was a little after six. Mina grunted softly but stayed dead asleep as I got up past her.

  I threw on a shirt and went outside and started running barefoot. As the miles went by, I thought about how best to kill Jotunn with a 9 mm bullet. Filling a hollow point with a flammable compound should work. The major problem was combustion requires oxygen and there isn’t much free oxygen inside a penetrating wound.

  I considered and rejected a variety of different compounds. Then I thought of thermite. Lack of air wouldn’t be a problem for thermite because it carries its own oxygen supply. It’s also easy to make. A number of different powdered metals and metal oxides can be used to make thermite—the most common being aluminum and rust. The only downside to thermite is that it’s difficult to ignite.

  Metallic sodium explosively ignites when it contacts moisture, like blood. Fill a hollow point with thermite, top it off with metallic sodium and then seal it with epoxy and I’d have a massive ouchie for any Jotunn.

  I ran a twelve mile loop and got back to the house about an hour after I left. Mina, Aidan, and Tim were in the kitchen drinking coffee. When I leaned in to her to give her kiss, she put up her hands and exclaimed, “Vic, you’re disgusting. Take a shower!” Apparently there were limits to a woman’s unconditional love.

  I took a quick shower and went downstairs. I ate an entire box of cereal, eight slices of toast, and four oranges before I got full. Once I was able to focus on something besides my empty stomach, I turned to Mina, “You have any plans for today?”

  She grimaced, “First thing, I’ve got to call in to work and apologize for not showing up for two days. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think to call. It’d have only taken a minute.” She gave a huff of frustrated laughter. “I’m trying to think of what to say. Somehow I don’t think telling my boss I was being chased by killer trolls will go over well. My supervisor has been really good to me and I really like my co-workers. If they haven’t already decided to fire me, I’m quitting. But it’s a crappy thing to do to people I like;
quit without notice. I’m not looking forward to this one bit.” She shrugged, clearly unhappy at the prospect.

  I shrugged. I’d never seen the value of a nine-to-five job. I didn’t see much point in worrying about a part-time job, especially when our lives were in danger. I didn’t much care whether she quit or got fired.

  She went on, “Then unless you have any plans Vic, I’d like to go back to the range today. I’m thinking that Andi should quit cheerleading camp until the Jotunn are taken care of. As soon as he wakes up, I’m going to tell Ben to quit his job, too.”

  “I think it’s a good idea for us to go to the range everyday for a while.” I caught my armorer’s eye as he was heading to the basement. “Aidan, you said something about a bounty on minions. How long do you think it’d take before I get paid for the Redcaps?”

  “I set up an account for you at Zion’s Bank a couple days ago.” Aidan pulled out a small notebook, opened it, and handed it to me. “Here’s your account number and internet sign in information. Why don’t you check?”

  There was three hundred thousand dollars in my account. I didn’t realize how tight the muscles in the back of my neck had gotten until they relaxed. Whatever Joey’s other shortcomings, at least he wasn’t cheap. After I paid Petrov, I would have been down to my last few thousand dollars. It was good to know I had some cushion. Money doesn’t buy you happiness, but it sure as hell gives you opportunities you don’t get without it. I didn’t know where I was going to get metallic sodium and the other supplies I needed to prepare for the Jotunn, but I knew it’d be easier with money.

  Mina asked, “Has the money been deposited?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” She bumped my shoulder with hers, grinning. “I’ll take a kiss please. I’d rather leave sooner than later. I’m going up to tell Ben and Andi to get ready.”

  After she left I turned to Aidan, “What do you think about the idea of making a thermite bullet to use against the Jotunn?”

  “I’m sorry lad. I’ve heard the term before but I don’t think I’m familiar with it. .”

  Tim leaned forward. “It’s a pyrotechnic combination of a metal power and a metal oxide such as atomized aluminum and ferric oxide. It doesn’t actually explode but burns at an extremely high temperature, and is used for welding, metal cutting, or material destruction.”

  Aidan nodded. “Ah, the Goldschmidt process, of course[13]! I’ve used the technique myself.”

  Tim asked me, “How do you plan on igniting the thermite?”

  “Metallic sodium or potassium.”

  “Makes sense, both elements will ignite on contact with moisture, but…” He hesitated. I was starting to realize that was a bad sign.

  “But what?”

  “Why bother using thermite when you can use just sodium or potassium by itself? The point is to burn the wound into the Jotunn so they can’t heal it. Metallic sodium burns at a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be?”

  I was getting tired of Tim being able to make me feel stupid in such a nice, friendly manner. He was right; there wasn’t any point in trying to make a thermite bullet when sodium or potassium alone would probably work.

  “Or, if you want to stop reinventing the wheel and save a lot of time and effort,” Drew said from the doorway, “why not just use tracers? They’ll do what you want.”

  “Because tracers point both ways, and the Jotunn will see where the rounds are coming from.” Wait a second, at the effective range of handguns and automatic weapons—under fifty yards—they’d be able to see us even if we weren’t using tracers.

  Drew snorted, “And the chances of fighters familiar with magic not using their skills to locate hidden enemies are basically nil, anyway.” Well, there was that too, the smart-ass.

  I looked over to Aidan who was nodding his head. “Drew is quite correct. With the right precautions, we should be able to stay concealed until we spring the ambush and the actual fighting starts, but not afterwards.”

  “Okay, so we use 9 mm tracers for the Swensons and we’ll provide the mercs with tracers, but tracers have crap accuracy. Drew, we should make sodium or potassium rounds for your sniper rifle.”

  Drew paused and then let go of his attitude. He gazed at the ceiling, put his hand to his chin, and thought out loud, “Good point. As the tracer compound burns, the weight of the bullet and center of gravity change unpredictably. That’d really screw with long distance accuracy. I brought my .300 Win Mag M24 SWS. Ruag Ammotec makes a great sniper round loaded with a 200 grain hollow point boat tail bullet in that caliber, too. They even make a short range hollow point that has a huge cavity, and fragments inside the target.”

  He dropped his eyes to meet mine, “The day I can’t hit a head sized target under a thousand meters is the day I retire. It’s not like I NEED extra help to take out a Jotunn, BUT I am intrigued by the idea of sodium round. I’m curious if we can make it work.”

  The US Army put the M24 SWS in service in 1988. Drew was an early adopter, and was issued one of the first ones. It wasn’t surprising that he’d traded in the 7.62 NATO round he’d used for most of his career for the longer reach and greater down range killing power of the .300 Win Mag. It was surprising that he hadn’t picked up the newest fad of the long distance gear monkeys.

  I decided to quit while I was ahead and change the topic. “Why don’t you have a Barrett?”

  He grimaced, “Too heavy. With the suppressor, ammo, and optics, the damn thing is forty pounds of long and awkward. Only time I ever used one, I had to hump it three miles up a mountain. Barrett’s got great reach, but the target was only six hundred meters away; .300 Win would have been fine. On the way out, my ex-target’s friends got all pissed off and started dropping mortar rounds in my general area.

  “A lucky round wounded my spotter and took me off my feet. I landed on the fucking Barrett, and screwed up my back. Had to dump eight grand worth of gun and booby-trap it so I could get my spotter out. Thousand meters and under, I’m good with the M24. If it’s over a thousand meters, they can get someone else. And my back’s never been the same since, either.

  Drew had always been cheap. I was sure the pain in his back was nothing compared to the agony of having to ditch eight thousand dollars worth of equipment.

  Tim spoke up, “I’ve heard about the Barrett; it’s one of those really long range sniper rifles. Didn’t a Canadian use one in Afghanistan to shoot an insurgent a mile and a half away? What’s a M24 SWS?”

  Drew replied, “No, it wasn’t a Barrett. In March of ’02, a Canadian Corporal named Rob Furlong used a .50 caliber Tac-50 rifle to make a confirmed kill at 1.51 miles. The year before that, another Canadian named Perry used the same kind of rifle to nail an insurgent from a mile and a half away. For awhile there, all of us US trained guys were wondering what the Canadians were eating for breakfast. The Barrett fires the same round but is a different rifle.

  “The M24 is a modified Remington 700 bolt action hunting rifle used by the US Army as a sniper weapon. SWS stands for Sniper Weapons System. With custom hand loads, my rifle will shoot half MOA.”

  Tim Hardy had a new love. He stared up at Drew with adoring eyes. Men don’t often look at each other that way. I watched Drew notice and then get creeped out. I had to fight to keep from laughing, and I wondered if Tim was fucking with Drew, too. Aidan also had a twinkle in his eye.

  I had no idea who Tim really was. He presented as a clueless, effeminate lightweight, but I was beginning to think that a lot of that was an act. In general, people instinctively want other people to make sense—to fit an unconscious stereotype, like Ninja, nerd, comedian, hero, or coward. Tim didn’t fit into a neat slot, and he sure as hell wasn’t predictable. Whatever he was, he was funny.

  Tim carried on, “How’d you get half inch groups at a hundred yards? I know the 50 caliber rifles have huge, heavy barrels, and that the .50 caliber sniper bullet has a flatter trajectory, and is less affected by wind than the
typical military bullets. But how do you get that kind of accuracy with a 200 grain bullet? A match barrel and a custom trigger is a given; is the barrel free floated or glass bedded?”

  I commented, “Tim, for a medieval armorer’s apprentice, you seem to know a lot about modern firearms.”

  Tim gave an embarrassed smile, “I have every ‘Soldier of Fortune’ magazine since it first came out in 1975. I find the articles fascinating. I don’t have much personal experience with firearms but I’ve read a lot about them.”

  Drew gave him a wary look and then answered Tim’s previous question, “Okay, my barrel floats but that doesn’t mean a pressure bedded barrel is going to be less accurate. Every rifle is different. They can be from the same factory and one serial number apart, but one will do better if the barrel is kept from touching anything and the other will do better with consistent pressure. You try different things until your rifle shoots better

  “Accuracy is all about consistency. You can only get so far with just tweaking the rifle. I hand load all of my ammo. I sort the cartridge cases and bullets by weight; I square up the primer pockets and de-burr the flash holes. I buy propellant by the case so I get the same lot number, and I weigh each charge out individually with a powder trickler and digital scale. I use match-grade primers and competition dies. I try to make each loaded cartridge exactly like every other cartridge I load in a batch. Factory ammo, even the premium factory ammo, isn’t custom made for my rifle; my hand loads are.”

  Tim looked Aidan. “Master, like Mr. MacDonald, I’m intrigued by the idea of a flaming bullet. Making a single flaming arrow takes almost two hours of spell casting time; a flaming bullet using the usual spells will probably take longer. We won’t have a wood shaft to use as fuel. It should take much less time and effort to make a sodium or potassium bullet. I think it’d be worthwhile to test Vic’s idea. There are a couple chemical suppliers in Salt Lake City. I’m sure one of them will have metallic sodium or potassium in stock. Should we go pick up what we need now? We can also stop by Sportsman’s Warehouse and get some reloading supplies and equipment.”