The Relic Box Set

by Ben Zackheim

  “He’s fighting an Auoi,” Fox said. He’d told us about Auois at the Metropolitan Museum ball during the Mjölnir mission. He claimed they’re supernatural leeches, or symbiotes of some kind. He said they were harmless and that everyone pulls a few around their whole lives.

  The Vamps can see them. Humans can’t.

  “This Auoi is attached to me,” Fox said. “I haven’t looked behind me for awhile. I guess I should have. It’s grown huge.”

  “You think the Ley Lines are the reason?” Rebel asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s possible. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I’m stopping,” I said. I pulled to the side of the road.

  “I said don’t stop!” Fox hollered. He leaped from the back door, rolled on the pavement and ran into the desert. He was about thirty yards away from us when he was suddenly knocked off his feet by something we couldn’t see.

  “I think things are about to suck,” Rebel said as Bonehead landed on the desert floor on his rear wheel and sped off after Fox.

  The Vampire was getting thrown around like a doll. He’d be close to landing on the ground when he’d be violently slapped into the air again.

  Rebel jumped from the SUV and sprinted toward Fox, her fists glowing bright. It was a new color. I’d never seen it before. It was some kind of beige. The kind of color you’d find all over the place in a Sears catalog in the 1970s. The kind of color you hadn’t seen since.

  She spread her arms wide and then slapped her palms together. A beam shot from her fingertips and spread a deep purple cloud over the horizon.

  And in that cloud was a shape.

  And in that shape was every fucking nightmare I’d ever had.

  The giant thing shifted around like a jellyfish. Parts of it spiked off while other parts curled up into gelatinous tendrils. It was about a hundred feet across and fifty feet high. The part of it that looked like a mouth had a long, wavy string hanging off of it.

  The string was attached to Fox’s neck.

  The Vamp found a moment to run a few steps before the Auoi crushed him with one of his tendrils.

  I got out of the Land Rover, steadied my arm on its hood and fired at the tendril that was about to come down hard on our friend.

  I hit it dead center but nothing happened.

  “Try the holy bullets!” Rebel shouted.

  “It’s not a demon!”

  “You have a better idea?”

  I stopped and loaded in the holy cartridge, took aim and fired. Twice. Just to be sure.

  Nothing.

  So there I was. No portals, no effective weapons. No plan. I didn’t even have anything to say if you can believe it.

  I stood there, helpless.

  Unless…

  I got back into the vehicle, revved it, apologized to Tony the troll and slammed it through the rancher’s fence.

  I did a b-line toward the fight.

  I spotted Bonehad’s bike.

  And then I saw the Lines. No, not the Ley Lines. The fight Lines.

  It’s not a magical ability. At least, I don’t think it is. But I can see the Lines of a fight the same way a pilot can spot where his missile will land before he even fires.

  Bonehead was riding off the edge of the creature so he’d have to land on the desert floor and loop back around to find another way to mount the ugly thing.

  As he rode off he took a couple of swings with a sword. The Auoi screeched and bucked him off.

  I turned the Land Rover’s wheel to compensate.

  He’d land in 3 seconds.

  I punched the gas.

  2 seconds.

  I jerked the wheel right. Hard.

  The SUV turned on its axis. I opened my car door just as Bonehead landed next to me.

  He slammed into my door and was thrown off his bike. The machine landed under one of my wheels.

  That wasn’t in the plan.

  I stomped the brakes, jumped out of the Land Rover and ran for the bike.

  Bonehead was already standing when I pushed the motorcycle back up and made it mine.

  He shook his head to get rid of the little flying birdies.

  I waved at him.

  He gave me the finger.

  I rode toward the fun.

  Chapter 31

  My plan was stupid.

  Rebel would have laughed at it.

  I was about to risk my life on a hunch that Bonehead’s bike could ride the beast’s back because it had a spell on it.

  Metaphysical treads.

  Or something.

  Look, there was a lot going on, okay? I was desperate. Bottom line? I hoped that his bike would let me do what he did.

  Because if it did, that fucking thing was going to be feeding the metaphysical vultures for a long, long time.

  Rebel was busy throwing spells at the monster. She was keeping the thing semi-visible, but she wasn’t doing much damage to it. Fox was still a rag doll – no way was he awake for that play session. His pet symbiote apparently had some issues with his host and today was the day he was getting even.

  A bundle of tendrils grouped together. I saw my opportunity.

  The bundle was making something resembling a ramp and that ramp was about to scrape against the dirt.

  Right in front of me.

  I rode the bike as fast as it would go and bent down for a little less friction.

  The sand was flying in my face but I kept the wheel aimed at the exact spot where the tendril-ramp was about to be.

  My front tire hit the tip of the thing and I almost lost my balance. I managed to steady the wobbly front wheel by pulling a mini-wheelie. When the front wheel landed I had three feet on each side of me to ride the flesh road up to the top.

  So far, so good.

  The only problem was that Rebel’s spell was fading and as it did the creature was disappearing underneath me. That made it tough to balance myself. I had to ride a bumpy, writhing jellyfish that I couldn’t see.

  I still don’t know how I kept it up for so long.

  It was time to execute the plan.

  I planted my right foot on the rubbery flesh underneath.

  I pulled on the brake and the clutch, revved the engine, and then let out the clutch.

  I spun in circles. Fast. Faster than I ever had.

  I could hear the flesh under my wheels give.

  I could smell the stench of Auoi guts as I turned in circles, drilling a hole in its whatever. I just hoped I was above something critical to its survival.

  I started to drop like a rock. Maybe I’d hit the inside of an organ. The stomach maybe.

  I spotted Fox sail past me in the air. His limbs flapped around. Yup, he was sleeping through the fun.

  My wheels slammed into more invisible flesh and I came to an abrupt, painful stop.

  I was still about twenty feet off the ground. I was stuck inside the thing now.

  I started the bike up again and slowly drilled through its invisible flesh. When I was ten feet above Rebel’s slackjawed face I knew I was almost done.

  I landed right in front of her with the grace of a bellyflopping troll.

  “What the fuck was that?” she asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  We stood in the silent desert and waited.

  Fox suddenly landed with a thump about 100 yards away.

  He lay there, unmoving.

  We could feel the weight of the thing above us. Was it dying? Was it just pissed and getting ready to slam us? Was it even there anymore?

  Then there was nothing.

  No weight in the air. No sense of danger. The sounds of the high desert came back.

  The bike and I were covered in some kind of rancid soup. Like demon vomit, which, yes, I have seen before.

  I hopped off the bike and slapped the gel off of me as Rebel ran to the Vampire.

  “No, I’m fine!” I yelled after her.

  Bonehead emerged from the settling dust. He wore his skull helmet mask.
The white carbon fiber skin shone in the bright moonlight.

  “Thanks for the bike,” I said.

  He walked right up to me and looked down.

  My fists clenched, ready for a fight.

  “You’re welcome,” he growled.

  Chapter 32

  Bonehead trailed us on his bike. He wouldn’t say a word about how he found us or why he’d helped us. I had to use my best judgment, which was, in a nutshell, the fucker’s been following us and he saved us because he wants something we’ve got.

  But what did he want? The shield? He’d already given that up to me. Another relic? Too bad. All gone!

  I didn’t have time to think about it.

  We drove in silence again. I was alone with my thoughts. My least favorite place in the whole world.

  Fox was going to be fine. Vampires who aren’t beheaded, staked, fried, or heartbroken always are. But he was pretty beat up. For one thing, his neck was broken. That still paralyzes a Vampire for some reason. I guess they still have spinal cords with electrical signals from the brain and all that. Not sure how. I’d given up on understanding the machinations of the supernatural and magic a long time ago.

  It was Skyler who convinced me that I shouldn’t even bother being a Magicist. He hated teaching me, even though it was his fucking job. He’d give me a hard time even when I managed to pull off a spell.

  It was always about Rebel and her talents. She was the one-in-a-million Magicist. That was fine with me. The more time he spent with her, the more I got to chill.

  Sometimes I’d watch her train. It was always intense. Fire and fury, and yelling and hugs. The two of them worked each other hard. As teacher and student, they challenged each other. But Rebel was always blinded to his dark side. He put on a jolly face whenever anyone else was around. But I knew what a nasty fuck he could be.

  For reasons he still hadn’t explained, Skyler would take me on Spirit missions. Not the light stuff either. He’d yank me out of bed and make me stick around to help Spirit teams on some of the hairiest missions they’d ever had.

  There was the family slaughtered by a rogue Vamp in Mississippi. The school that was haunted by a child-killer ghost who still managed to kill. He even took me on the demon couple case in Boise. They ate bunnies whole. It was a lot to take for a kid who was just trying to remember what his parents looked like.

  But, out of all of those missions, it was the Polish village that I’ll never forget.

  I was eleven and I was having a hard time adapting to the Spirit life. It demanded a lot and no one told me why I was even there. A year prior I’d been a normal kid in a normal school with two boring parents. I even had friends. The next thing I knew I was being thrown into a training academy to fight supernaturals. I was told I had a Solo Spell and that made me special but, again, no one would tell me why. I sensed an urgency in everyone around me, but I wasn’t allowed to know what was so dangerous.

  What was so terrifying that we were all dedicating ourselves to it?

  That night, Skyler showed up at the end of my bed, like he always did. Silently. I could feel his eyes on me even before I woke up. He was quiet so he wouldn’t disturb the other young trainees. But he didn’t hesitate to disturb the living hell out of me.

  He took me to the gym and opened his Swap Portal. He told me to be ready. He told me that my life was about to change. He told me I’d better be stronger than he thought I was. He didn’t say that he hoped I’d be stronger. He said I’d better be.

  Asshole.

  By that point, I hated him so much that I was either doing everything I could to avoid eye contact, or, if we locked eyes, I wouldn’t let his glare outdo mine.

  I got good at it.

  That night was the night I got better at it than he was.

  I walked through the Portal first and immediately turned around to get the fuck away.

  I’d come face-to-face with a girl’s head. It hung from a coat rack. The ripped flesh of the neck hung down low. As if it had been pulled off. Stretched until it broke in two.

  Skyler appeared behind me and shoved me forward.

  I realized that the coat rack was standing in the middle of a house with no walls. Some of the furniture and even the rugs were still in their place. But I had a 360 degree view of a small village.

  A small village that was razed to the ground.

  Bodies lined the dirt street that ran past the house. Most of the bodies were in pieces. But my eyes focused on the faces with open eyes. In all the jobs I’d done up to that point I’d seen a lot of dead people, but they didn’t look back like these corpses did.

  Their eyes were still terrified. They’d be terrified forever. What they’d seen would always linger in that place. I think, in that moment, the eyes were making ghosts.

  I was dizzy. I was sick. But Skyler didn’t let me rest. He led me past a small group of Spirit agents. All of them glanced down at me, no compassion in their eyes. Not for the victims. Not for me. I did see one woman shake her head and I remember hoping that she didn’t approve of Skyler bringing me there. That would have made her my biggest ally since my Spirit training had started.

  My teacher took me to a small house. His grip on my shoulder hurt. I tried to shake it off but he’d just put it back on, stronger than before. So I stopped struggling.

  It was always a battle of wills with him.

  He ordered me to open my Vault Portal. I was bad at it, of course, and he reminded me I was bad at it while I tried to open it. But after a few minutes of holding back tears and zoning out his crackly voice, I found the opening and I massaged it open.

  I watched him kick some debris out of the way. Best I could tell, we were in what used to be a small dining area. Broken cups and half-eaten food lay at our feet. He kept kicking and walking forward until he got to a bump in the floor. He bent down and opened a trap door. He reached in and grabbed something from the darkness below.

  A cloth sack, the size of his hand.

  I didn’t know what was in it, but it made my skin crawl.

  And he’d found it so easily. I found out later that we were in Poland, yet he just walked right up to a secret door and took something out of it. No effort.

  Plotted. Planned.

  I’d never trusted my teacher. But that was the night I lost all hope of ever trusting him. He was hiding something from me and from Spirit. He had his own agenda. And now he was making me a part of his plans.

  He ordered me to put the sack in my Vault. What could I say? I was eleven years old. I took it and felt something flow through me. Something powerful.

  I shivered as I closed up the Vault.

  He ordered me to mind my own business and not peek.

  He ordered me to tell no one.

  And he told me he’d get it later.

  But he never did.

  For years that fucking sack sat in the Vault. I avoided it. I kept it buried under the other relics so I didn’t have to look at it.

  I almost grabbed it by accident when I was in the arena battle with Bonehead in Valhalla. But my fingertips knew the touch of that cloth and I dropped it quickly.

  When it came to doing my teacher’s bidding, Skyler had trained me well.

  “You okay, Kane?” Rebel asked.

  I focused my eyes on the road ahead and gave her a nod. I’d been lost in thought. It felt like I would have disappeared if she hadn’t tapped me on the shoulder at that very second.

  I surveyed the situation. Bonehead was still on our tail. Fox was slowly coming to. His healing shit had kicked in so he was already looking normal.

  Rebel’s eyes skimmed over me in a way I hadn’t seen before. It may have been concern but I guessed she was worried about Tabitha again. All I had to do was daydream and my partner would think I was under a Vampire’s control.

  If we survived this mission, we’d have to have another talk about trust.

  But I didn’t feel like we’d survive it. Not both of us, at least.

  I felt uneasy
.

  I felt like the world was about to fall apart at the seams.

  We pulled around the bend on highway 84. The lights of Santa Fe came into view.

  It was clear that my dread was dead-on.

  If Polk was right, we had a little less than three hours to set things right.

  From the looks of Santa Fe, all of us, every single person on the planet, had less than three hours to live.

  Chapter 33

  The lights of the city flashed on and off like Christmas lights.

  Fires spotted the horizon, sending wisps of smoke floating into the night sky, disappearing as it left the glow of civilization.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Rebel said.

  As disturbing as the burning city was, it was the hundreds of abandoned cars that scared me the most. The vehicles were scattered across the landscape. Smoke marked a dozen or so accidents. A couple of trucks were wrapped around each other like they were old friends hugging it out in a mess of metal.

  There was movement everywhere. Dark shapes walked and stumbled around. But my eyes settled on two men, bloodied but conscious. They sat on the highway facing each other, silent. One rocked back and forth while the other guy mumbled to himself. The two of them were looking at each other, confused.

  Bonehead shot past us on his bike and went off-road. He hopped onto a county road that ran parallel to the highway and disappeared around a bend in the hills.

  “What an asshole,” I said.

  Rebel pointed. “What’s that?”

  It was a group of people. They crossed the highway like they were in a trance. Some of them had walked off into the field just off the road. I couldn’t make any sense of their movement. Some wandered, some threw their arms around like they were angry at the weather.

  “Zombies?” I asked.

  “No,” Fox said from the back seat. “I can smell their blood. They live.”

  “Stop it,” I said. “You’re making me hungry.”

  “Look, they’re fighting each other,” Rebel said.

  She was right. Two of them pulled each other down to the pavement, swinging at each other like they were both going for the kill. I saw one of them take a swing at the guy she was sitting on top of. Her fist slammed into the pavement but she showed no sign of pain.