by Ben Zackheim
Below ground? Well, step into the hole and reset yourself. The subway is where you can take a train from one world to the next, take the steps up to your new reality, and redefine yourself yet again.
The three of us took the 1 train downtown. We hoped we were under the Vamps’ radar.
“Our stop,” I said. We stepped off the train and looked for any signs of a tail or a trap.
Fox was not a subway rider. He kept looking around like he was having an anxiety attack. A vampire afraid of being buried undead? Weird. From the looks of it he’d never even been down there. Of course, with a vampire never say never. The number of lives they pack into one lifetime is beyond our feeble comprehension.
“I helped build this tunnel in 1947,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I haven’t been down here since.”
“Yeah?” Rebel said. “Dangerous business, right?”
“I lost two friends,” he said, his voice flat. “Both of them right around there.” He pointed to an obscure area between two columns on the uptown track. “TNT went off before it could be loaded up and stored for more work down the tunnel.”
Rebel and I stared at the spot for a moment. It was just another 100 square feet in Manhattan with a story.
“You sure the translator is still there?” Rebel asked me as we bought some cheap umbrellas from a guy at the top of the subway stairs.
“No, but he doesn’t like change, so I bet he is.”
“You haven’t spoken his name once,” Fox said, just loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of the rainstorm.
“We don’t like him,” Rebel said.
“You don’t like him,” I corrected. “His name is Harry. Harry Yee. He’s a former Spirit agent. Quit after the Paris attack.”
“He quit way before that,” Rebel snarled. “His heart wasn’t in the job for years and it got a lot of people in trouble. Some even died because he didn’t give a shit.”
Fox looked to me to get the other point of view. But she was right. Harry was, well, unsocial. He didn’t work well with anyone. Ever. It got to the point where he was stationed alone on a houseboat on the Hudson, just off Battery Park City. I’d never asked him if his ability to understand any language, spoken or written or gestured, was magic. He hated magic.
When we got to the dock we couldn’t see five feet in front of our faces, much less out to the river’s depths. We found shelter under a canopy near the dock master office and shook off.
“We need a boat,” Rebel said. “Be right back.”
She went inside the office, leaving Fox and me alone. We hadn’t been alone before. Someone was always around to run interference. Fox had made sure of that. Back on the Excalibur mission he’d talked about my father. It had made my heart stop. We’d been talking about Skyler. How he played so many sides of the game that he probably did some bad shit once in awhile. “You could have said the same about Kane's father, though, couldn't you?” he’d said, apparently not aware that I had no idea what had happened to my parents.
But I wanted to know.
And Fox clearly didn’t want to tell me anything.
“You knew my father,” I said. I hoped my bluntness would throw him off, but it’s hard to throw off a Vampire. He didn’t flinch. He just looked at me. I stared back, not willing to look away. “Did you?”
“Yes, I knew him well.”
“Did you know I didn’t know what happened to him?”
“No. My comment on the boat was unfortunate. I apologize.”
“I don’t think it was unfortunate. I think it’s a good thing. I have questions.”
“And I have answers, but Skyler…”
“Stop right there. If we’re going to work together there will be zero secrets, do you understand? And the one thing that will make me boot you the fuck back to Camelot is if you and Skyler keep shit from me. I’m done with that part of my life.”
He just kept staring at me.
Rebel pushed the office door open.
Great timing, partner.
“You were right,” she said. “He is here. But he’s not on the water.” She sensed that she’d interrupted something. “Oooookay, what did I miss? You two accidentally kiss or something?”
Neither of us answered her. He looked at me guiltily. I frowned back.
“I’m not right, am I? You guys kind of look like you kissed.”
“Where is he?” I asked, breaking the staring contest. I kept forgetting you don’t try to outlast a Vampire.
“He’s a few boats down that way,” she said, pointing to a line of expensive yachts getting whipped by the sideways rain.
We left our cheap umbrellas behind. They were useless in this kind of storm. Running down the pier’s long, broad wood planks felt like taking a cold shower in a prison. Yes, I know how that feels. Long story.
Harry’s boat looked exactly the same. If anything, it looked in better shape than when Spirit had given it to him. It had been several years since I’d seen the son of a bitch, but I learned at that moment that he took good care of the things he liked. I hoped he still liked me enough to let us on the boat without shooting at us.
The first bullet hit the grass hill behind us.
“That was a warning shot,” Harry yelled from the deck of his boat. He had a Mossberg 500 trained on us. It was pretty steady too. I had no idea he was good with a gun.
“It’s me, Harry,” I yelled back, holding my hands in the air. I nodded to Fox and Rebel to do the same. They did but Rebel looked like it was everything she had to stop herself from tearing into Harry like a KFC Super Crunch.
“I know who you are, asshole. Turn around and go back to your mansion.”
“We need your help,” I said.
This shot was close enough for me to hear it zip by. I knew he had no intention of hurting us. Well, I knew he had no intention of hurting me. But I had to be careful. If he’d isolated himself since I last saw him then he may have lost his marbles.
“Harry, listen to me.”
“No, you listen to me, dammit! I ran away from you, and that asshole there with the fingernails, and all of your kind. I don’t want anything to do with it! You could tell me I’m going to save the world and I won’t give a shit. Now GO!”
“Sounds like pukedick has made up his mind,” Rebel said.
I smiled.
She was willing to play Harry’s game.
It was what I hoped would happen. It had always been our way of breaking the ice with Harry. Make no mistake Harry did hate us, but payment for his help meant a barrage of heartfelt abuse. We always came out of our time with him a bit raw. But we always came out of it better off, too.
“Pukedick, am I? It’s better than running around pretending my fingers are the penises I always wanted to have.”
“You’ve always wanted one penis, you tit.”
“I think you’re mixing up my penis with your wants.”
No one knew what the hell he meant by that. Even Rebel, who could jumble meaningful words in meaningless ways with the best of them.
“All right, all right. I’m out of practice,” Harry said, letting his rifle fall to his side. “Get on the boat. But dry off first. One drop of rain gets on my floor and you can fuck off for real.”
Chapter 22
Harry was behind the bar by the time we got out of the rain. He waved his hand in front of his face a few times. “What’s that stench? You forget to wipe again, Kane?”
“Good to see you too, Harry,” I said.
“Who’s the jackass that death passed by?” He eyed Fox.
“Fox,” he said, reaching out his hand.
“I don’t touch undead. Bad luck. What about you, tart?”
Rebel shut her eyes and managed to say, “Call me that again and I’ll forget that you can’t control your ugly mouth.”
“Oooooo, she’s still feisty,” Harry said. He wasn’t an old man but his crackly voice made him sound like one. His black hair had one streak of white in it that I think he secretl
y coveted. I once found him slapping a pound of styling cream on it on one mission in Amsterdam.
“We need to…” I started.
“Shut up,” he interrupted. He walked to his galley and pulled out a tea cup. We watched him as he poured some water in it and slid it into a microwave. He set it for thirty seconds and then sat down at his mini-bar and looked at us.
We stared at him as he nuked his tea, waiting for him to say something. This was the part I hated about Harry. The cussing and too-personal insults were Rebel’s hot buttons. My button, and he pushed it too well, was when people with the upper hand kept rubbing it in that they had the upper hand.
The microwave beeped twice and he popped it open, slid the cup back out, shook some loose tea leaves into a steeper and set it in the boiling water. It was a green tea. I could smell it from across the boat. He liked it green and stanky.
After two minutes of silent hell (where I had to grab Rebel by the wrist twice to keep her from slashing that smirk off his face) he took a sip of the tea. He made a face, dumped the tea and started all over again with a fresh pot of cold water.
This happened four times.
On the fifth cup he smiled, showing us that wicked grin he had, the one with a missing tooth. He’d lost it when he tried some similar bullshit on the wrong person.
“What’s in the sack?” he pointed his chin at the canvas bag with the shield inside. It sat at Fox’s feet.
“A shield,” I said, trying to make sure my voice didn’t betray my irritation. I didn’t need him to whip it out again and show us who’s boss. “We’d like you to read it.”
“We?”
“I.”
“Not doing dick-all for her. Or it,” he flicked his thumb in Rebel’s and Fox’s general direction.
“It’s a Viking shield,” I said.
“Easy. Let me see it.”
Fox reached for the sack but I grabbed it first and shook my head at him. Harry enjoyed this. A lot. He even chuckled. At that moment I wondered why I liked him. Maybe it was the loner in him. I was a loner too. But, unlike him, I wouldn’t let myself be alone. I always wondered what it would be like to just cut myself off and engage people only when I wanted to, though. I think Harry knew this about me. I guess some people just get each other.
I pulled out the shield and laid it gently on the round dining table.
“Nice one. I know it. From the Met. You guys have been busy.”
He studied the leather and wood surface of the shield with his eyes first and then with his fingers.
“Why do you need this read?”
“We think it’s a clue,” I said.
“But it’s been in a museum for years,” Harry said. He took a sip of tea and blew his breath at me. “People have probably taken hundreds of pictures of it. Interpreted it. If it said something special, wouldn’t we have heard about it by now?”
“Maybe it needs the right context,” Fox said.
“Or maybe these words have no meaning,” Harry said. He started tearing at the shield with his fingernails.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
He stepped back before I could grab his hands. He smiled and gestured to the shield.
There were hidden symbols under the leather layer.
“Changes the meaning entirely. Before I just blew you away with my excavation that totally freaked you out — pure joy, by the way — it said, ‘Cattle and crew man members to the sky.’”
“That makes no sense,” Rebel said.
“To an idiot maybe,” Harry said. “To some of us it has a number of meanings and the tough part would be deciding which one applied here. But it now says, ‘Hold the hammer and the shield as one - Free man’s member to the sky there.’”
We had to think about that for a second. The clue hit me right in the gut.
To free man’s member?
“That doesn’t mean what I think it means,” I said, knowing full well that it meant exactly that.
“You are fucking kidding me,” Rebel said.
Fox almost smiled.
“It means you need to get the hammer and the shield together to free your member there,” Harry managed to say before he snorted out a laugh.
“It also sounds like the hammer and shield need to be together to work,” Fox said.
“Good read, corpse,” Harry said, nodding.
“But you said it reads, ‘There free man’s member.’ Where’s ‘there?’”
“Release the dick and maybe you’ll find out,” Harry said, triumphantly.
“Focus, guys,” Rebel broke in. “Okay, so we’re saying that the shield is telling us it needs to be paired with Mjölnir to be at full power. We know that there’s a location we need to find. But what happens when they get together?”
“Find the penis and you’ll find out,” Harry said, swaying his hips left and right.
Rebel stuck out her tongue like she’d just swallowed gristle. “This is going to be a tough mission,” she said.
“A lot of cultures treat the phallus as a symbol of power, life, war,” Fox said. “Americans have infantalized the concept out of fear of that truth. Vikings embraced it.”
“Embrace the penis, Kane,” Rebel said. She immediately regretted it. “Sorry, it’s just… I couldn’t resist.”
“Do the Vampires know they need the shield to make the hammer work?” I asked.
“The little fight with their man in the Met would say yeah,” Rebel said. “If they don’t, they’ll find out soon.”
“Either way, they’ll be looking for us,” Fox said. “That’s a tactical advantage for us. We can determine where we want this fight.”
“Not New York,” Rebel said.
“Iceland,” I said. “We head back there and we make them take it from us.”
“We can swap with Skyler and the twins,” Rebel said, getting out her phone to make the call.
“Not yet,” I said. “We need to find Tabitha first.”
Rebel put the phone up to her ear. “It’s not a good time to be chasing your new girlfriend around, partner,” she said.
“It’s not about that. She said something in the museum. Something about the hammer and the shield.”
“What did she say?” Rebel asked, waiting for an answer on the cell.
“I… don’t remember.”
“That’s about as helpful as his breath,” Rebel said, nodding toward Harry.
“Good one, good one,” Harry said.
“The whole thing is like a dream in my head,” I said. “Fox, you have any idea where we can find her?”
“Like I told you, I’ve heard of her. And she is familiar, but I don’t know from where. I could ask around.”
“That would be good. In the meantime, we’ll head upstate and do some research. Maybe the library can help on this one. I just don’t want to go back without knowing a little bit more about what we’re dealing with. I think we’re a step ahead of them with the shield in our hands. We need to educate ourselves while we have the time. Speaking of which…”
It was time to open the portal. The shield had to be safe.
I lifted the shield and immediately felt a surge of power. It wasn’t a bad feeling. It wasn’t good. But it was enough for me to know that we needed to be very careful about how we reacquainted it with its hammer friend.
I closed my eyes and concentrated.
“Boo!” Harry said, shoving me to the ground.
“What the fuck, Harry?” Rebel said. I should have expected it. I carried the shield to the couch. Rebel stood in front of me to protect me from Harry. He’d keep messing with me the whole night otherwise.
I heard the portal opening in front of me. I opened my eyes and it was there, waiting for its latest deposit.
“I love that thing. So cool,” Harry said. “Ever wonder where it goes to?”
“I don’t have to wonder,” Rebel said. She hung up her cell. “Rose is ignoring me.”
“Get the fuck out. You’ve been in the portal
?” Harry asked her.
I slid the shield into the thin crack in the air and ran my hand over it to close it. For some reason, that step was always sad to me.
My cell phone rang. Skyler. That couldn’t be good. He never called me.
“Yeah.”
“Bad news. The twins are gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’? Did someone take them?”
“Not from the looks of it. They ran away.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“The note they left.”
“Are you planning on telling me what’s in it?”
“You won’t like it,” Skyler said.
“It’s you I don’t like.”
“Fine. Looks like Cassidy’s handwriting. It says ‘We know where the hammer is. We’re going to get it without you. See how it feels! Love, Cassidy and Rose.’”
“Stop fucking with me, Skyler.”
He laughed. “Okay, okay, it doesn’t say ‘Love Cassidy and Rose’ but it does say they’re going to get the hammer.” He hung up. He was telling the truth.
“What did he say?” Rebel asked, seeing the expression on my face.
“The twins have gone rogue.”
Chapter 23
“They can’t be serious,” Rebel said.
We were in a rental car office which is like being in a porn shop without the porn. We’d left the boat without discussing it further because Harry was laughing too hard at our predicament and wondering if he should track the twins down to join them.
“Whatever the alcohol did to them may have messed up their heads,” I said.
“Or they’ve been possessed,” Fox said.
But I’d felt their anger in Iceland. They’d always been rebellious teens. Maybe they’d grown into stupid adults.
“We’ll deal with them later. Let’s get home and regroup. Rebel, call the librarian.”
“I think we should do the research without him,” she said, predictably. Lucas, my librarian, was another ally that Rebel wished would accidentally fall on her fingers. He’s not really a he, though. Or a she. More an it, I guess. The demon dresses like a man, talks like a woman and eats like a lion. I call him a he to save time and he doesn’t seem to mind.
