Relic: Mask (A Kane Arkwright Supernatural Thriller) (Relics Book 7)

by Ben Zackheim

  The battle below us came to a sudden halt. Everyone and everything looked up at us.

  The Vault Portal was nowhere to be seen.

  “Really?” Rebel asked me, annoyed.

  “It’s not my fault!” I yelled. “Looks like it’s our turn to save the twins’ butts,” I said, as I pulled out my Glocks. The twins had pulled Rebel and me out of trouble a few times before they’d transformed. It was one of the reasons I felt so guilty about how we’d parted ways.

  It’s funny how a battle can be defined by the first few seconds. Every one of my shots hit their targets. Some shots hit two of the demons at a time. It was the perfect show of strength at the perfect time. The last demon I hit was a big guy. Once he fell to the ground, the other demons scattered with ear-piercing shrieks. He must have been one of their leaders.

  The demons bunched up to the walls of the warehouse. They made chattering noises that sounded like a discussion between thousands of birds. The pause in battle allowed me to identify them. Again, the name eluded me. I gritted my teeth and tried to force my brain to spit the word out.

  They were Yōsei. That’s right. Yōsei.

  Why was I having problems remembering this stuff? Supernatural trivia was my specialty. I shook my head and tried to collect my thoughts.

  Yōsei. Not quite demons, not really faeries, the Yōsei were able to cause chaos in great numbers and perform some pretty powerful magic when fighting alone.

  I reloaded. I wouldn’t have enough ammo, but I’d fight with my fists if I had to. Hand-to-hand wasn’t my thing, but desperate times…

  The Yōsei began to circle around the walls. They were pumping themselves up for the final attack. We’d slowed them down, but it would take a lot more than my Glocks to stop a few hundred demons.

  A window from high above our heads shattered, and a lone figure dropped into the middle of the warehouse.

  Lancelot was covered in blood, from head to toe. The only part of him that wasn’t crimson red were his white teeth.

  “Come on, fuckers!” Lancelot yelled in a very unchivalrous way.

  I ran down the stairs to join him, and Rebel followed me, hovering a few feet off the ground. I couldn’t be sure, but I think she was smiling.

  Lancelot’s sword seemed to have a light of its own. It interrupted the flat glow of the fluorescent lights that lined the warehouse’s ceiling and added a whistle to the silence. His blade moved so fast that the demon blood mixed with the sword’s fiery light show.

  I took my cue from Lancelot’s path through the enemy and walked toward him, squeezing the demons into a trap of the knight’s sharp edges and my hot lead.

  “Rebel, get your feet on the ground,” I said through the comm. She needed to preserve her magic. I didn’t want the demons to know I was worried about her.

  “Screw off, Arkwright. I’m fine.”

  “Your light is barely brighter than a 20-watt bulb!”

  “It takes a dim bulb to spot a dim bulb.”

  “Not funny, and not helpful.”

  “Riding me isn’t helping anything either.”

  A demon leaped high enough to grab her ankle. It pulled her down fast. My partner disappeared in a mob of Yōsei.

  “Rebel!”

  It wasn’t my scream. It was Lancelot’s.

  He rushed into the mess of hungry monsters and brought his blade down on their heads. A dozen craniums cracked onto the ground. They sounded like a wet drum as they dropped one-by-one.

  Cassidy and Rose had collected themselves enough to join the fun. For a few moments, we felt like a team again. I knew it wouldn’t last, but I held onto the moment with all of my heart. I dreaded what would happen after the last demon fell. My ears pounded as the blood beat through my head. The battle was almost over, but none of us were ready to take the next step. So someone else took it for us.

  A blast of lightning broke a hole through the roof. Blood poured through and flowed over the cement floor.

  Two huge creatures dropped though the gaping maw. They landed on their paws with a wet thud and shook the blood off their fur like two giant dogs, which made sense, because they were two giant dogs.

  Each of them stood about eight feet tall, but that wasn’t the most impressive thing about the beasts. They stood on their hind legs and walked with a gait that reminded me of a werewolf’s.

  Their front fangs were the size of my forearm.

  And their barks knocked me on my ass.

  Chapter 49

  “Tengu,” Lancelot said.

  I’m glad he did, because I’d forgotten the word. Again. Something was wrong with me. I tried to push the fear down. I didn’t have time to worry about my memory in the middle of a fight.

  The dog demons snarled at Cassidy and Rose.

  “Cute. Here, doggy!” Rebel yelled. She was trying to distract them.

  The beasts turned their snarling maws on us.

  Cassidy seized the moment. He let out a wendigo roar and attacked one of the Tengu from behind. He latched onto the beast’s furry back and bit into its shoulder. The Tengu yelped, and its partner slammed its claws into Cassidy’s back.

  Rose responded the only way she knew how. With rage. The glow around her face reddened, and the temperature in the warehouse shot up. It felt like I was getting burned from the inside out. The pain got so intense that everyone in the room dropped to the concrete floor and writhed in agony, except Rose. She stood over her brother and got in a defensive position.

  The pain eased slowly. Cassidy got to his feet and stood back-to-back with the gryphon.

  Rebel ran to Lancelot and pulled him from the large puddle of blood rain collecting on the floor. Rose’s attack took him down hard. He was barely conscious. My partner wiped the blood from his face and looked up at me.

  “What now?”

  The Tengu got to their feet and faced the twins. They prepared their next attack.

  “Remember what Skyler told Loki,” I whispered. “A Tengu is going to betray the thunder god. Maybe it’s one of these dogs. Let them fight the twins. We’ll see how it plays out. Look for the mask.”

  The Tengu jumped at the twins for round two. It was hard to stay out of it. My instinct was to help my old teammates. But we had a job to do, and that moment was probably our best opportunity. I surveyed the layout. We stood in an empty part of the warehouse. But the other side of the cavernous room was piled high with neatly-stacked cardboard boxes on three story high steel shelves.

  “If I were a Japanese deity, where would I hide a treasure?” I asked.

  “Not here, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe not. But Rose is here, so that means she’s onto its scent. It has to be nearby.”

  “You check the office up there,” I said, pointing to the windowed room that overlooked the facility. “I’ll look for doors. Maybe there’s an underground area.”

  “There usually is when you’re around.” She winked at me and flew off. I watched her go, and an odd feeling hit me. A sadness. It clenched at my chest. I tried to shake it off, and ducked behind a lift to begin my search.

  It wasn’t easy to focus with the battle raging a few feet away. I had to dodge a falling Tengu and barely avoided getting crushed by a toppled truck.

  “Any luck?” Rebel asked in the comm.

  “Nothing. Front door. Some bay doors to the outside. You?”

  “This place has nothing.”

  “Do you see a map of the building anywhere?”

  “Not yet. Let’s help the twins, Kane. I don’t like the looks of this fight. They’re losing.”

  “That’ll just force the dogs’ paws, Rebel. They won’t have a choice but to attack us.”

  “If we show that we’re helping the twins, maybe it’ll trigger something in them. Maybe they’ll remember we love them. Fuck this, I’m going in.”

  “Rebel!”

  But it was too late. I saw her break through the office window, guns blazing. Well, hands blazing in her case. Orange fireballs rolled
from her palms and dropped on the backs of the Tengu. Their fur caught fire and forced them to roll on the bloody floor to tamp it out.

  Apparently, Rebel’s powers had recharged.

  A piercing pain shot through my head. The only reason I didn’t fall on my face was a lucky grab for a nearby chair. I almost told Rebel about it, but it passed as quickly as it hit me, so I decided not to worry her.

  The Tengu seemed to be overwhelmed by the attack. They had to deal with the twins and Rebel now. One of them bent his back legs and got ready to jump at my partner.

  Looks like my hand was forced. Now I had to join the fray.

  I aimed at a rear leg and put a round into it. The sound of the shot echoed through the space. Everyone paused to look at me, and the bullet fell from the dog demon’s fur, hit the ground with a little clink, and rolled into the growing blood puddle.

  The dog turned on me.

  It ran at me with a ferocity that made me run away. Fast. I ran up the stairs to the office and heard the clanging of the Tengu’s claws on the steel steps behind me. My body tightened and got ready to be torn to pieces. A universe of pain was about to come down on me.

  But the dog yelped in pain instead. I turned to see it stopped in its tracks. A sword stuck out of its tail. Its tip was embedded into the warehouse wall.

  Lancelot smiled up at me.

  But the Tengu’s rage was stronger than his blade. It knocked the sword from its tail with its nose and turned back to me. I rushed into the office and slammed the steel door shut. The dog ran into it so hard, one of the hinges popped right off. One more blow and that door was coming down.

  I kneeled down and aimed both Glocks at the door. I’d shoot at the eyes and just hope they weren’t bulletproof, too.

  The door slammed to the ground and the Tengu crouched low for the final attack. I took aim at the eyes and fired.

  Bullseye.

  Dogseye, in this case.

  Yup, the eyes were bulletproof, too.

  I closed my own eyes and waited for the fangs to pierce my skin.

  In an instant, my face was covered in blood.

  Chapter 50

  It wasn’t my blood.

  The Tengu was a couple of feet from me. Its tail slapped my face a few times as it fought something else in the office.

  The second Tengu was attacking the first.

  I’d found my traitor. But why was it saving me? I wasn’t working for Skyler and Loki. Maybe it didn’t know that. I wasn’t about to question my stroke of good luck. I hugged the wall and slipped past the frantic bloodbath. The disloyal dog was winning. His surprise attack had given him the edge over his larger ex-comrade.

  The twins were taking out the last of the Yōsei. The little demons didn’t have much life left in them. But I knew something the twins didn’t. Once the last Yōsei was on its own, it would have some powerful spells to cast. In numbers, Yōsei are savage. Alone, they’re powerful with magic.

  “Hey, you two!” I yelled down at my ex-teammates. “Leave two of those things standing, or you’re in deep shit!”

  There were three Yōsei left. All three of them were attached to Cassidy’s large, furry torso, like ticks feeding on their blood meal. The wendigo picked one of them off of him and slammed him on the concrete floor. He pulled the other two off and held them up. They swung their arms and legs at him like toddlers having a tantrum.

  Rebel cast a Cocoon Spell on them, wrapping them in a hyper-white cloth. Their struggles could be seen under the sheet, but there would be no escaping those things. Not until the spell wore off.

  “Good working with you again,” I called down to the twins.

  The wendigo let out a grunt. Rose, as usual, said nothing. The gryphon form made her quiet. I yearned for the old Chatterbox Rose. The one who could talk the paint off of a house. I also yearned for… What? What did I yearn for? What was Cassidy like again? I couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t I remember what he was like?

  The Tengu traitor slowly emerged from the office. He bent down to get through the door and then stood straight, grunted, and shook more blood off of his fur.

  He took one look at me and his tongue rolled out of his mouth.

  “Hey, thanks for the help in there, buddy,” I said.

  “Man!” the Tengu yelped in a gruff voice.

  “Uh, hi,” I said. I didn’t know Tengu spoke.

  “MAN!” the Tengu repeated. He jumped at me and tackled me. We rolled along the narrow metal walkway that led to the steps.

  The fucker was licking my face.

  “Off!” I yelled. I was worried my partner would attack him to protect me. But I didn’t worry long. Her laughter filled the warehouse.

  Then a grumbling sound joined her. The wendigo was laughing too.

  “I’m glad we’re all bonding at my expense!” I yelled.

  “Better you than me, partner!”

  “Can someone get this one-ton ass-sniffer off of me?”

  Apparently, the beast could understand me. It backed off, and stuck its nose on my pants, and started sniffing.

  “Sit!” I yelled. The Tengu sat in a kind of crouched, cross-legged position. Its hind legs bent on either side of its long, vertical torso and crossed each other. He looked like a fuzzy, frightening buddha statue. Its front arms dangled straight down to the floor.

  “Looks like you’ve made a new friend,” the knight said, with a delighted tone. I guessed he was feeling better.

  Of course, the party couldn’t last.

  Without warning, the roof of the warehouse bent down. The deafening screech of bending metal made us all wince. The Tengu whined and curled up like a ball.

  “TRAITOR!” Something big, pissed off, and with a voice like thunder was on the roof.

  Chapter 51

  The Japanese god of thunder broke through the ceiling and landed hard.

  Raijin was godly huge.

  His head almost reached the top of the warehouse. His face was a terrifying mask of white. A black streak crossed his eyes, which were solid emerald green. I couldn’t tell where he was looking because he had no irises.

  Raijin reached for the Tengu with a hand three times my size. The palms were covered in blood rain. The fingernails were long and black and as sharp as Rebel’s. The dog demon snarled and bared his teeth, but it was just for show. He didn’t have any fight in him. Once he was in the god’s palm, he’d be squeezed to death.

  I knew bullets wouldn’t break the skin, so I aimed for the god’s fingernails. Round by round, each finger snapped back from the force of the bullets.

  The god turned to me.

  It was my turn to enjoy his affections.

  For the second time that night, I turned on my heels and ran.

  “Armor up, team! It’s us versus him!” I yelled, as I skated across the bloody puddle. I don’t think anyone saw that coming. But that’s what a leader does. When the troops are confused, gather the team and pretend you have a plan.

  My long slide across the warehouse ended at the wendigo’s feet. I glanced up at him. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  He looked down at me and grunted.

  Raijin raised both hands in the air. They busted through the ceiling, making another pair of holes for the rain to pour through.

  He brought both arms down with enough force to crush the two lifts at his feet. He was showing off. He wanted us to know we had no chance.

  “Go for his left eye!” I yelled.

  It would only take him one step to reach us, so we’d only have one crack at hurting him.

  I aimed both Glocks at the emerald eye.

  Lancelot tossed his sword.

  Rebel and Rose launched their missiles.

  Cassidy leaped over us and landed on the god’s neck.

  And the Tengu landed on top of his horned head.

  Raijin bellowed out one for the ages as our weapons hit their mark. Cassidy and the dog hung from the screaming god’s eye. I couldn’t see what kind of damage they were
doing, but, from the sounds of it, it was a lot.

  Raijin snagged both of the monsters and yanked them off his face. Cassidy brought an emerald souvenir with him.

  The god’s eyeball dropped from his hand , hit the cement floor and bounced.

  The silence that settled on the warehouse was probably something like the silence before the Big Bang.

  With another thunderous roar and a long swipe of his arm, the god bowled every one of us over. We soared through the air and crashed into the high shelves of stacked cardboard boxes.

  The shelves teetered back and forth until one finally caved under the pressure. It knocked the next shelf over, and then the next. Thirty-foot steel structures dominoed down the space. We did our best to avoid the falling boxes, with varying degrees of success. I lucked out, but the others took a few blows to the noggin.

  Luckily, the boxes weren’t heavy.

  Not-so-luckily, the boxes opened by the hundreds and dropped their contents all over the warehouse.

  I looked around at the mess on the floor and my stomach sank.

  Raijin laughed.

  He’d hidden the mask in plain sight.

  Chapter 52

  Thousands of masks spread out over our feet.

  It was the same mask design that my old teacher showed the god of lies.

  Somewhere in this mess of cheap masks was the one, true relic. We still had no idea how the mask was going to help us find the scroll piece, but we’d handle that problem later.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?” the knight asked me. He rubbed his head and barely stepped out of the way of a falling box. His sword flew back into his hand like a pet returning to its master.

  I kicked one of the masks at my feet. “One of these things is the key to finding the second scroll piece.”

  I should have seen it coming, but I was too worried about the thunder god. His laughter was dying down, so we only had a few seconds to figure out what to do next.