by Ben Zackheim
“What were you going to say?”
“He had his guard down in that brief moment and I saw his eyes. He wasn’t like tearing up or anything, but his eyes were so sad.” She shook off the memory and did another one of her shrugs. “Who knows? He’s a god. Maybe they show emotions differently. As far as I know, he was remembering a funny joke he heard in 4 billion BC.”
“What happened when he saw you?” Thor asked.
“He smiled. He reached down and grabbed a second plate of food. It was steaming hot. I didn’t eat it though. I didn’t know what it was and he wouldn’t tell me, so screw that. I don’t swallow unidentified meat.”
She and I looked at Thor and said, “Shut up” at the same time. He held up his hands defensively.
She broke her glare away from the thunder god. “He said he recognized me as a friend of yours. I tried to convince him that we are not at all friends, even a little, but he wouldn’t let it go. Started getting into my history and yours and Rebel’s. It was creepy. He said he’d like to work with humanity to defeat the vamps. He seemed to have a special kind of hate for Set. His face got all jittery and hard to see when he said his name. But in return he wants the sceptre of Was.”
“Did he say why?”
She thought about it with her eyes squinted shut. “I think he said something about the sceptre extracting a crown.”
Thor and I looked at each other. He put a hand on my shoulder. “With the sceptre of Was in one hand and the spear of Odin in the other, you will extract the crown from Set’s ass and take his place as god of gods!”
I rubbed my face, exhausted. I’d had enough for the evening. I had to train with the troops in the morning so they’d be ready to handle the swap to New York. “Go away. Both of you. I need sleep. Thanks for the message, Ronin.”
“Whatever,” she said as she left the room and closed the door behind her.
“Thor. Go. Tell me tomorrow what you meant when you said you haven’t been honest with me.”
“I will tell you now, father.”
“Don’t call me that, dammit.”
“I asked for your help in killing the traitor who calls himself Odin because he killed my wife. That part was true.”
“Thor, I want you to go. I have enough to chew on tonight. Give me some…”
“But you must also know, I must act quickly. We all must. Freya also told me the relics are dying.”
Chapter 16
I might have freaked out just a little bit.
I immediately opened the Vault Portal to check on the relics. The dim glow of the portal added some creepy light to the room. I took a good, long look at the sceptre, the spear and Excalibur. Everything was there.
Including my lamassu guard. She squatted next to the relics, her stone eyes on me. I’d asked her to stand watch over the relics. I’d always thought the vault was accessible only by me, but Tabitha had shown me otherwise. Anyone with access to Set’s Wound could find their way to my stash, which meant it was possible for Set himself to discover the vault. We couldn’t have that.
“Hello, Yit,” I said to the stone creature. She nodded. Lamassu’s voices can drive a man mad. It’s a cross between a psychic attack and scraping your nails over a chalkboard. She’d agreed to keep the verbal communication to a minimum. She spotted Thor through the portal’s opening and slammed her spear in the ground defensively. “It’s okay. He’s with me. Is everything okay in there?” She nodded again. “Would you mind handing me King Tut’s Eye of Horus amulet, please?” She stepped out of sight.
“Why are they dying? What do you mean, Thor?”
“The gods are dying. What binds us to this world is fading. That same force is what powers the relics you’ve protected.”
I remembered the deal I’d made with Odin. The other Odin. He’d promised to help us in return for worshippers. “You mean worshippers. Worshippers’ belief in you is what powers you.”
“That is what some believe, but I know otherwise.”
“What do you know that other gods don’t?”
“Thanks to my mother, I know a portion of what the runes mean on your spear, father.”
“Call me that again and you’re fucking grounded. What’s written on the spear?”
“The runes that matter to me cast the spell of the gods.” He left the words hanging in the room. Thor was an alpha male on hormones with a taste for the melodramatic. Still, I had to admit, the weight of his words impressed. “The spell is the source of our standing, our bond, our power.”
“I feel like you’re saying something I need to understand, but I have no idea what it is. Are you saying that gods are magical beings? Rebel would disagree with you.”
“We’re not magical beings, no. Our abilities are not driven by magic. We are one level removed from that purity. What I’m saying is that the gods are a spell.” I must have worn my surprise all over my face.
“If you’re a spell, then what’s the counter spell?”
“Freya believes only the crown can answer that question.”
My brain raced through the possibilities. Tabitha had told me the water running through the small slice of the Nile in Set’s Wound was the flow of magic itself. The stuff had restored my missing hand, so I wasn’t going to argue. Then there were the Ley Lines. Baldr’s shield had plugged up the lines of energy that bound us all together, almost driving all of humanity nuts. I wondered if the Nile and the ley lines were related somehow. It was just a guess, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
I looked up at Thor. “So if we could find the crown and if it did carry the spell of the gods, we could kill Set.”
Thor shifted his stance. He was uncomfortable. If you’ve never seen a god squirm, I don’t recommend it. Their presence is always terrifying, but even more so when they look like they’re losing control.
“What’s wrong?”
“You could kill Set, yes. But you would take all of us with him.”
Tabitha.
Tabitha claimed her death would be at the hands of me and Rebel. She knew our destiny was to kill her, but she failed to tell us the part about killing all gods in the process.
The lamassu reappeared in the portal’s opening. She slid the amulet through. It only took a second for me to know Thor was right. I’m not a magicist, but I’d always been able to sense the power of an object. It’s not a big deal. Anyone who holds one in their hands will feel something different. I was just more tuned-in after years of salvaging the things. The relic was faded, weak.
I handed the amulet back. “Thank you, Yit.” She bowed her head and the portal closed. “I need to think. Don’t tell anyone anything until I get a chance to talk to Rebel, okay?”
“Fair enough. Let me know if you need me.” Thor turned to go.
“Thor.”
“Yes, f… Kane Arkwright.”
“Take a shower already.”
He waved me off as if I were joking. “Bah!”
“We’ll find the crown and we’ll find a way to cast the counter spell on only Set.”
Thor smiled, clearly unconvinced, and closed the door behind him.
I tried to sleep, but the revelation that we could make the gods go away with a single spell haunted me. I had a hundred questions. What did it mean that they were so vulnerable? How could they have wielded power for so long with such a weakness? You’d think another god would use the leverage of the spell to be god of gods.
I was thirsty. I reached for the water on my bedside table. One of my rib injuries shot fire through the left side of my torso.
I threw the glass across the room in anger, and suffered the agony a little more.
I was still thirsty. Too bad. I wasn’t moving. “Idiot,” I mumbled to myself. I leaned forward and tried to find a comfortable sitting position on the edge of my bed. It was no good.
The Vault Portal opened. Maybe I opened it, maybe I didn’t. The spear and sceptre beckoned to me all-day, everyday.
Yit appeared and slid the sc
eptre and spear through. Our eyes met. I tried to read her intent, but it didn’t take long for me to get it. I was in pain. I was weak when I needed to be strong.
I took the spear and sceptre into my hands. The portal closed again.
I gripped them firmly and was overcome with warmth. It started in my palms and flowed through me slowly. It was like stepping into a hot bath on a cold day. I recognized the sensation. It was the same feeling I had on the day my hand grew back. Back then, it was the magic of the Nile’s water that healed me.
I didn’t have much time to think about it because in the blanket of their healing powers, I found sleep.
Chapter 17
“I want my body back.”
The voice came from all around me. Visitor number three for the night.
The boy.
The boy who haunted me. The one who demanded I give him his body back.
Who was he? Maybe he was no one, a figment of my imagination as my brain slowly cracked under the apocalyptic pressure.
I knew I was in the middle of a dream of some kind. A waking dream, maybe. The boy’s small figure sat in the chair Thor had just nearly busted into pieces earlier. His short legs dangled over the edge, swaying back and forth as if the spirit had to deal with gravity the same way the living do.
“Enough bullshit, kid. How do I give you your body back?”
His jet black eyes met mine. He didn’t answer at first. After a minute, he whispered something. It was the first time I’d seen his lips move.
“What?”
He spoke a bit louder but it was still too faint to hear. I leaned forward.
“Die,” he said.
His voice, and his intent, drove a wave of ice cold through me. I felt like I’d touched death itself. I felt like it would consume me and I’d never be warm again.
“Sorry, kid,” I said, trying my best to keep my composure as my insides went full popsicle. “I can’t die yet. I have shit I have to do before I can kick the bucket.”
His eyes darted to my bedside table. They settled on my Glock. I didn’t remember setting it down like that, with the barrel pointed right at my chest.
I woke up.
Something woke me from the dream. A pounding noise made me look around the dark room.
“Who… what is it?”
“I heard a gunshot!” Rebel’s voice yelled from the other side of my door. “The door’s locked! I’m coming in!”
She kicked the door open and bathed the room in light. Both of us looked at the Glock at the same time. It was pointed in my direction, just like in the dream.
Rebel turned on the light. The bullet hole in the plaster wall still smoked slightly. The sceptre and spear leaned on the bed next to me.
“What the hell happened, Kane?”
I turned the gun so it pointed away from me. “I think I have a poltergeist.”
“The kid you told me about?”
“Yeah, looks like he wants me to hurry up and give him his turn in this broken shell of mine.”
Rebel took a seat in the chair. That chair was getting a lot of traffic all of a sudden.
“We need to talk,” I said. I didn’t know how I’d break the news about killing the gods with a counter spell, but I’d have to find a way fast. If anyone needed to chew on the idea, it was Rebel.
“I’m sitting, Kane. Let’s talk.” She crossed her legs and pulled a nail file from her jacket. She took great, obvious joy in the sharpening of her Nails of Doom.
I shook my head and slipped on some socks. “Not here. I’ve been holding court for hours. I want to move around.”
She sighed, pocketed her file, and made a move to help me to my chair. I stood. And it didn’t hurt. I was as surprised as Rebel.
“Explain,” my partner said, simply.
“In a minute.” I popped open the chest in the corner. The one with all my remaining belongings. “First thing’s first. Remember how you tried to explain your theory about why the power of the gods wasn’t magic?”
“It’s not really a theory. It’s more an academic exercise. It’s meant to challenge our thinking and see the world in a different way. That’s just one of hundreds of brain puzzles they throw at you in magicist training.”
“Well, if Thor is telling the truth, the mental exercise is bullshit.”
“Thor was here? I thought I smelled something funny, but I assumed it was you because it smells just like you did after the Istanbul job.”
“That’s great, Rebel. Can we talk about some…”
“Did he put his pants on?”
I threw my hands up. “I didn’t look! I think so!”
“I mean, I’m all for flaunting it if you got it, but leave it up to a god to stick some rocket fuel on the idea. So what did the big guy tell you?”
“He said the gods aren’t magical. They’re a spell.”
I can usually read Rebel pretty well. As well as a guy can read a girl, which is to say not very well at all. Still, I didn’t recognize the expression on her face. It was a cross between trying to hold in a fart, and wanting to punch the nearest person in the nose.
I stepped back. Just in case.
Rebel laughed harder than I’d ever seen. The red in her cheeks spread over her face and erupted through her eyes in the form of tears. I chuckled nervously. “Is this one of those inside jokes for magic nerds?”
She held up a finger, needing a minute to catch her breath and get her composure back.
“Kind of, yeah,” she managed to spit out between short breaths. “Skyler. Skyler and I argued about this, oh, about three hundred times. He said it was impossible for the gods to be spells because they displayed such vast powers that magic had no chance against them. I was a good student so I was always thinking. I just couldn’t shake the idea that our magic doesn’t impact the gods because they’re a spell we don’t have a counter spell to. Find the counter spell to that god, and…”
“Thor says the spell of the gods is a rune on the tip of the spear. The counter spell is on the crown. He says it will kill all the gods, not just one.”
She stopped smiling. “That’s not… But that can’t…” Rebel leaned forward and dipped her head between her knees. “So you’re telling me there’s one single counter spell that will wipe out all the gods?”
“That’s what Thor says, yeah. Now we just need to find the crown and a magicist to cast the spell.”
She looked up at me. “I’m not the magicist you’re looking for, Kane. I’m spent. You know that. Merlin took it all out of me. We’ll have to ask…”
“First of all,” I interrupted, “I know what you’re going to say and there is no chance we’re asking Pandora to cast the counter spell. I’m also not letting her near the spells on the scroll pieces. No way. We can’t depend on her. Second, we just need to get you back on your feet.” I raised my arms to a T-pose and smiled. “You can be like me.”
“If Thor had anything to do with your healing, you can forget about it. I’m not spending my last days on earth owing that pig anything.”
“Thor didn’t heal me. It was the spear and sceptre.” I slipped on my pants.
She looked at the relics leaning on my bed. “The spear and sceptre healed you?”
I shrugged. “It feels like it, yeah.” I pulled my belt tight. Four holes to the notch. Damn, I’d lost a lot of weight. “I had to use them together, though. They…”
“They what?”
“I don’t know how to explain it. I guess they were in some kind of synchronization. Each of them had a hand they wanted to be in. I instinctively knew the spear had to be in my right hand and the sceptre in the left.” I took off my shirt and slipped on a fresh t-shirt.
“Do we need to worry about the relics possessing you?” She knew all too well how vindictive relics could be if they were imbued with a spell of spite, or hate, or vengeance. Excalibur’s pull on my soul had been one hell of a trip to kick.
“I don’t think so, but I’m sure you’ll keep a close eye
on me.” I smiled. She didn’t. I lifted the sceptre and spear. “Come here.”
Chapter 18
She gave me the side-eye.
She stood and positioned herself right in front of me. I closed my eyes and tried to find the feeling I’d accessed the night before. The calm. The natural sense of giving. The providing and healing.
As I opened my eyes, I expected to see Rebel with her arms crossed, annoyed. Instead, I saw her smile.
“Anything?” I asked. I sounded like a kid to my own ears.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. Let me see.”
She closed her eyes and I got a good reminder of how gorgeous she was. I was probably the only person on the planet who she’d close her eyes in front of.
“Can you hear me, Kane?” she asked through the comm.
“YES!”
The mental walkie-talkie had been dead since Rebel’s fight with Merlin. She lunged forward and pulled me into a hug. A hug that lasted for a long time. I didn’t mind. She let go of me and I opened the Vault Portal. I slipped my relics through until I felt Yit’s grip pull them in.
The portal closed and, like a gentleman asking a lady to dance, I reached my hand out for Rebel’s. She took it. Yeah, without slicing it, even. Amazing. I led her into the hallway. “You sure you’re okay to walk, Kane?”
“The last time I felt this good was when you gave me Skyler’s potion back in Peru.”
I led us down the labyrinthian hallway to the cafeteria and explained my experience with the lamassu the night before. How she opened the Vault Portal and handed me the spear and sceptre.
“I think it’s a bad idea to have that lamassu watching over the vault. I don’t trust her.”
“You’re welcome to take over,” I said, opening the cafeteria door for her. “You did a great job in the vault during the Excalibur mission.” She’d been trapped there for most of my visit to China and Tibet. The vault had just been a small room back then. Nothing like the series of rooms and tunnels it had become.
