by Ben Zackheim
“We watch, but we get ready,” the old knight said. “When the rebels strike, they’re going to throw everything they have at Set. We’ll see how that goes.”
“And if the rebels win?” Rebel asked. “They’re vamps too. What do we do with them?”
“Depends on how polite they are,” Lancelot answered. “We’ll cross that bridge when we find it.”
“You mean when we blow it up,” Dino muttered with a smirk. He elbowed Rebel to bring her in on the joke, but she just scowled at him. I was worried about her. My wheel chair was a physical manifestation of my injuries. But Rebel’s wounds went deep. They struck at her innate magical abilities and her confidence.
“Set’s tactics are weak,” Lancelot continued. “He’s gathered almost all of his forces in the Wall Street area. The vampire insurgents, on the other hand, have someone smart leading them. That’s clear.”
“It’s probably Osiris,” I said.
Lancelot’s eyes went wide. “What the hell makes you say that?”
“He’s been helping us out.”
Lancelot rubbed his forehead. “I thought he was in charge of Set’s army.”
I nodded. “He is.”
“So he’s acting as a leader of both Set’s army and the insurgents. That is one hell of a tight spot to put himself in.”
I shrugged. “The guy has a lot to prove. He won’t tell us what that is, exactly, but it’s clear as day. It sounds like he’s ready to blow his own cover in Manhattan.” I had to say what was on my mind without challenging the old man’s authority. “There’s one problem with the intelligence we’re getting. From what I’m hearing, Set is stepping back from the war. He’s just an observer now. It’s all a big show for him.”
“Who told you that?”
“Freya. I don’t know if it’s the truth. But she’s a god, so she talks out of a thousand sides of her mouth. She believes the gods are fighting for a place in the new world. I got that much out of our conversation.”
“The lamassu also told us Set had already won the war,” Rebel said.
“That’s right. Back in San Francisco, we freed a lamassu from a Spirit jail cell. She said the war for humanity’s survival was over. She said we’d already lost.”
“She also said the best chance to defeat Set is Kane,” Rebel added.
Lancelot looked at me. “Maybe we should send you to New York then.”
I shook my head. “No can do, boss. I have to get to Brazil. There’s a relic with my name on it.”
Lancelot sighed and crossed his arms. “Which relic?”
“A scroll piece.”
“Another one?” Alix asked. “How many o’ these things are there?”
“If my old teacher Skyler is right, this is the last one.”
“I thought there were two more,” Lancelot said.
“Not anymore. We got a visit from Tabitha. She dropped the one from India in my lap. Lucas is studying it right now.”
Lancelot leaned on the table. “And you trust Tabitha?”
“Please. I don’t trust myself.”
Alix cleared his throat. “Can one o’ you fine people, explain to me why it’s so important to get this scroll put back together?”
“Because the last two scroll pieces have spells inscribed on them,” I said. “It’s possible they can end this war fast.”
Lancelot stood quickly. “You didn’t tell me this!”
“We just found out ourselves.”
Lancelot went into deep thought. His eyes focused on something somewhere far away, or deep inside his own brain. We watched him pace the room. No one wanted to interrupt. Then he turned to me and pointed. “If these spells help us take the fight to Set, then we need to be prepared. The plan has changed. We’re not going on offense, but we’re going to be ready to fight in New York. We’re going to build up our forces around the island. Slowly. We’ll set up a perimeter force in Jersey City and Brooklyn. Kane, you grab that scroll piece and get back here ASAP. If there are spells we can use against Set, then we’ll wait for the undead rebels to attack him, and join in the fun, spells ready-to-go.”
I smiled and nodded at him.
Chapter 13
Then it hit me. We’d need someone to cast these spells. I glanced at Rebel.
“If you need magic, don’t look at me,” she said. “We’ll have to convince Pandora to help us.” I wasn’t going to argue with her in front of everybody, but I didn’t trust Pandora. I couldn’t allow her to hold our fates in her hands.
“There’s one big problem,” Lancelot said. “We need a way to get our troops to New York.” His eyes settled on me.
I leaned back in my wheelchair. “You want to transport our soldiers with my Swap Portal.”
“Can it be done?” Lancelot asked.
I shrugged. “Sure. It can be done. But you’re going to be swapping a shit-ton of undead or trolls into Paris HQ.”
“We’ll have troops positioned to handle them.”
Rebel kicked her feet up onto another chair. “We should set up the swap on street level. There will be a lot of corpses to get rid of.”
“You’ll have to be careful, Lancelot,” I said. “Don’t put any trigger-happy dipshits on duty. I don’t have control over who gets swapped in. You don’t want to be shooting the good guys when the portal drops them here in Paris.”
Rebel shook her head and smiled. “I hope you know what you’re doing, old man.”
Lancelot smacked his knees with his palms and struggled to stand up. “It’s settled then.” Rebel made a move to lift him to his feet. He smacked her hand away.
“Just trying to help,” she said, backing off.
“I know. Just… don’t.”
Dino interrupted the awkwardness with a loud fart.
“What the fuck, troll?” Rebel coughed out. “Did you eat ass for breakfast?”
“Not for breakfast, no.”
Rebel and Lancelot strolled down the balcony together. Fight averted.
“You did that on purpose,” I said to the troll.
“Of course. I’m just building off of yer brilliant move with that Lancelot-Thor pissing contest you broke up. It made me recall my own upbringing in the sewers. Trolls always have a fart ready to go. It’s the only way to break up a family fight. You know the old saying, ‘Save a toot to make them mute.’”
“No, I missed that one, I guess.”
Like I said, killing awkwardness with awkwardness usually works like a charm.
Just have some gas ready to go.
***
I would get three visitors to my bedroom that night. None of them were any fun.
“We must talk,” Thor said, waking me from a deep sleep.
I’d been dreaming, but the dream wasn’t apocalyptic this time. It was soothing, welcome — something to do with cheesecake and a beautiful toothbrush. Hey, it was a dream.
The stinky god stood over my bed in the dim light of a single, dying candle. I managed to stop myself from shooting him with the Glock under my pillow. I rubbed my eyes. “Where did you disappear to, Thor? We looked all over for you.”
“I stepped outside and into the sky. I think well with clouds beneath me.”
I nodded. “I bet. Sit.” I gestured to the chair next to my bed. It bitched about his butt with several small cracking sounds.
“I have not been honest with you, Kane Arkwright.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“Loki may have the reputation for being the liar, but that’s only because he’s honest about being a liar. All gods lie. It’s kind of your thing.”
“So if I tell the truth now, do you vow to honor our deal? I fight with you and you give me the crown?”
“First of all, we never had a deal. Second of all. Hell, no. But I’ll listen and I’ll be fair. You need to know that killing Set and ending this war is the top priority. If your plan clashes with mine, it’s a no.”
“Understood.”
“Start with the crown. What crown do you want from me?”
“I need the crown of crowns. Do you have it?”
“No. I don’t know what it is.” I suspected he was looking for the crown mentioned in the Book of the Undead. The one that somehow held the Book of Life. I tried to hide my excitement at the possibility of getting answers. I did not want Thor to snag away my upper hand.
“It’s the crown of the god who gave us The Four. It holds all the knowledge of all realms. Worldly knowledge, magical knowledge, everything.”
I had a hard time controlling my thoughts. His short statement brought up a dozen questions. Lucas’ discovery about the Book of the Living now made sense. It was not, in fact, a book. It was a crown. A crown that acted like a book, or an encyclopedia of all knowledge.
“So you put it on your head and, boom, you know everything?”
“I don’t know how it works, but I do know it holds the power to bring my true love back to life. Even if it’s the end of the world, I would give everything for a moment with her. We can watch the realms burn together.”
Wow. Dramatic. “Who is she?”
Thor paused. He was probably measuring how much he wanted to tell me. “Sif. She resides in Hel thanks to Odin and… others.” I knew he was referring to Loki and Lancelot. He’d let that cat out of the bag with his tantrum out in the loading bay.
“I’d be happy to help you, Thor, but I need to know more. When was the last time the crown was seen?”
“To my knowledge, it was in Set’s Wound. When I heard you’d done battle with Set there, I assumed you took it for yourself.”
“You assumed wrong, buddy.”
Thor’s face changed. I’d never seen him with his guard down. “Buddy,” he said softly. “That is a term of endearment if I’m not mistaken.”
“Don’t let it get to your head.” He stood and paced the room. He almost said something a couple of times. “What’s wrong with you?”
He sighed and turned to face me. “I was visited by my mother tonight. She came to me in the light of the moon.” He looked at me like a kid trying to find the courage to confess something to his father.
Which is when I realized he may actually be a kid about to confess something to his father.
Chapter 14
I tried to cut him off, but I was slow on the draw. I’m better with my Glock than my mouth, which sounds totally wrong.
“Are you my father, Kane Arkwright?”
I didn’t mean to roll my eyes and sigh, but I did. Instead of making him mad, he gave me an even meeker glance. “Do I look like your father, Thor? I’m not old enough to hit a mid-life crisis much less father a god. Well, actually, with the apocalypse and all, I guess mid-life would have been when I was 15.”
“But Freya claimed you were the true Odin. She said you have the spear of Gungnir and you will use it to restore the world to its former glory.”
I let that comment sit in the room like a big, stinky turd. “Really? You believe Freya?”
“So you don’t have the spear?”
“Yes, I have the spear.”
“Then it doesn’t work for you?”
“Well, sure, it works fine, as far as I can…”
“So you don’t have vivid dreams of the end of times that burn your flesh? And you don’t yearn to decipher the runes on the spear?”
“Dammit, Thor! Yes, I have dreams and I want to know what the runes say! But that’s not the…”
He got onto one knee and bowed his head. “Father.”
I wanted to stand up, but my body told me to sit the fuck down. “Look. Maybe there’s something to this whole Odin thing. But from what I know, I’m a parasite that jumps from host to host and keeps some piece of Odin alive. I think the old man you’re trying to kill is probably another piece. I’m the brain part and he’s the asshole, but…”
“A piece of Odin? That makes no sense.”
“Tell me about it. Eyepatch-Odin is the only Odin I know who has played the whole god role in the last millennium. If anyone is your dad, it’s him. You should, you know, settle things with him. Leave me out of it.” Thor bunched his lips together in deep thought.
A knock on the door made me reach for my weapon. I sensed danger.
“Who is it?” No answer. “You have a thunder god and a god among marksmen in here, so either tell us who you are, or we see which one of us can kill you first!”
A familiar voice said, “Always so fucking dramatic! If I wanted to kill you, would I knock on the door?”
I laid the gun on the bedside table. “Dammit, Ronin. You almost got yourself killed!”
Rebel’s sister, my second visitor of the evening, pushed the door open and struck a pose that would have been right at home in one of those campy 90’s music videos. Crossed arms, spread legs that went on for a very long time, and silhouetted black by the intense backlight from the hallway.
“By Thor,” Thor said.
“Wait, you say that too?”
“I’m a good god to pray to. I like doing favors. And I would like to do a few favors for our new guest.”
“Ugh, zip it stinky,” Ronin said. “Take a shower and get back to me.”
“I have been doused in battle, woman!”
“Well, your battles smell like shit, then!”
“Don’t start with her, Thor. You’ll just…”
“I will not be spoken to by a stranger this way!”
“My name is Ronin. Is that better? Can I be honest now? You smell like a chaffed butthole that’s been neglected for about three days.”
Thor took a step toward her. Ronin uncrossed her arms and reached for her gun, as usual. As if the gun would do anything to him.
“Do you know who I am?” Thor asked, throwing her another softball to hit with her Bat of Sass.
“Bob the Stinky-Assed Hippie?”
I leaned forward and gave Thor a small shove. He glared down at me. I think I got a good sense of what an ant feels like before it gets stepped on. “Calm down, Thor. What do you want, Ronin? What are you even doing here? I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“I’m still fighting the same war you are, genius.”
“We’re in the middle of something here, so tell me what you need.”
“I came to make you an offer.”
“Perhaps you could include a thunder god in your offer, woman,” Thor said, trying to recapture the upper hand in their decaying non-relationship.
“Didn’t you just want to kill her a few seconds ago?” I asked.
Thor gave me a quizzical look. “It is a fine line between planting seed and sword.”
“What a beautiful sentiment,” Ronin said. “You want to know the offer, or do you two want to shoot words all night?”
“Talk!” I yelled. No one could make me lose my temper like Ronin.
“Raijin is prepared to ally with us against Set.”
Thor crossed his massive arms. “My Japanese counterpart. We could make some dangerous thunder together! That is good news.”
“He also controls an army of demons,” I said, recalling the fight in Japan. “What’s he want in return?”
“The sceptre of Was.”
Chapter 15
Everybody wanted my relics.
Thor turned to face me. “You have the sceptre of Was as well?”
“Maybe,” I said to him and, “You can tell him no,” I said to Ronin.
“That clears things up,” Thor mumbled.
Ronin shrugged. “It’s your call. Seems like a good offer to me.”
“That’s because you don’t know the gods like I do.”
Ronin cocked her head slightly. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I gestured a hand toward Thor. He smiled. “We lie a lot.”
Ronin turned to leave. “Maybe that’s where humans get it from.”
“Ronin.”
“What, Kane?”
“You’re not leaving until you answer some questions.”
“Where have you been, and how did you survive a meeting with Raijin?”
“Bite me.”
“My pleasure,” Thor said. “Where?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “He, she, it, whatever found me. Raijin talks with a thousand voices. Creepy shit. Anyways, I’ve been helping Belch find survivors, if you must know. I was scrounging for food in an abandoned store. I wasn’t having any luck. The place was picked over by some local humans who I ran into a little later, much to their regret. But then I smelled something burning. It had been so long since I’d smelled cooking meat that I didn’t recognize it at first. But when it registered in my brain that someone was barbecuing, I followed my nose. Long story short, Raijin was cooking something on a spit.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“No grand entrance with blood from the sky and thunder that makes your balls hide?”
“No, he was barbecuing. I mean he didn’t look like a god at first. Just some small dude. He looked into the fire like he was deep in thought. When he spotted me, he grew about twenty feet and transformed into something I don’t ever want to see again.”
“Yeah, we fought him in Tokyo during the mask mission. His face will take you out of the fight from the first second. Why didn’t he kill you?”
“Because I laughed.”
“You literally laughed in the face of danger?” Thor asked.
She shrugged. “I do that sometimes. Other people see their lives flash before their eyes before they die. I find the joke and I think it’s hilarious.”
“I like this woman too much,” Thor mumbled.
“The feeling isn’t mutual, dumpster dick. So anyways, Raijin was, I don’t know, impressed maybe? He reached for me and I almost couldn’t breathe, I was laughing so hard. He picked me up in that massive hand of his. It felt like I was being crushed. I guess I passed out because the next thing I remember is him standing over me in his human form, eating piles of meat from a paper plate. It took him a second to realize I was awake. I think…” She stopped talking and looked at me.
