Relic: Spear

by Ben Zackheim

  But my memory failed me. Again.

  I ran one way, second-guessed it, and then ran the other. I wove through hall after hall with Lucas following breathlessly.

  “Sir!” he yelled from behind me. I stopped and saw him standing in front of a museum map on the wall. “The map says to go this way.”

  My pride wounded, I followed the demon. He made it to the Book of the Dead’s hallway first. Ronin’s flashlight bobbed up and down in the dark distance.

  “What did you shoot now?” I yelled.

  “The lock,” she hollered back. Her heavy grunting told me her lock-shooting had been unsuccessful.

  We arrived to find her pressing a boot against the wall, tugging on the handle to the first panel of the security display. Its thick glass was partly bullet-proof, but her shot had taken a nice chunk out of the lock mechanism. I let her pull as I aimed my flashlight at the scroll.

  My heart clenched tight.

  Someone had taken the scroll.

  Not all of it. Just portions. The scroll unrolled along the wall in one long glass case. People could walk the entire length and admire the beauty of the relic. But the scroll was torn in a few spots, with entire sections missing.

  Ronin released the handle and wiped her sweaty hands on her pants. “We’re not the first ones here.”

  “I can see that,” I said.

  “Let me see which portions are missing,” Lucas said, as he started walking down the hall.

  “Does your nose tell you anything?” I asked him.

  “No. It’s hard to smell much with the burnt metal stench from that monstrosity she’s carrying.”

  “I like the smell of hot steel,” Ronin said. She grabbed the handle and started pulling again.

  “Why don’t you use your super strength to crack that open? You took out the door with a single swing back in Paris.”

  “Good idea,” she said. “Now that you’re here, I can. Stand over there and shine your flashlight on me.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it, Arkwright.”

  I remembered the way she’d moved the room lamp around before she put her fist through the steel door like it was paper. I shone the light on her back. She got into a standard boxing position, bent her elbow back and pulled off a haymaker for the ages.

  The glass door shattered and fell to the floor in three large chunks.

  I realized her fist never touched a thing.

  “Your shadow did that,” I said.

  “Yup! Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Is this one of your magic-science experiments?”

  “Yup. Our scientists noticed a weird reading during a completely different experiment. Nothing to do with shadow casting. They pursued it with my permission. It only took them a few days to mix up a salve.”

  “You mean it’s a lotion?”

  She reached into her sack and pulled out a small bottle.

  “The last of it.” She slid it back in and snapped the bag shut, just to make it super-clear it was hers. “It lasts for a long time. If you don’t shower, it lasts longer.”

  “That explains why you always smell,” I said, taking full advantage of the opportunity to use her own insult against her.

  She shrugged. “Maybe. But I could put a fist through your crotch with zero effort.”

  “If that’s what you’re into.”

  She ignored me and cleared out a few more slabs of shattered glass. The 3-inch thick panels looked like clusters of spiderwebs.

  “Curses!” Lucas yelled.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  The demon’s squeaky voice slithered from the shadows. “There’s no pattern. I’m going from memory, so I could be wrong, but it appears the missing sections include spells ranging from wealth, to influence over the living world. I’d say it was an amateur thief, but the scroll was handled delicately and the cuts are as precise as a surgeon’s.”

  “Okay, so what do we do?” Ronin asked.

  “We take the remaining pieces with us and go somewhere to examine it properly.”

  “Do you have somewhere in mind?” Lucas asked.

  “We could go back to our library at my house.”

  “That’s tempting. Somewhere safer?”

  I thought for a moment. I didn’t like the idea, but it was the only one I had. “I don’t know about safe. But we could pay a visit to a former ally of mine.”

  “Which one?” Ronin asked. “You have a few dozen ex-friends.”

  I ignored her. “Let’s go back to Paris and see if Odin’s home.”

  Chapter 26

  “Odin who?” Ronin asked.

  I threw my hands up. “Odin Finkelheimer, Ronin. Which Odin do you think?”

  “Why are we going to look for Odin?”

  I sighed. “We don’t need to look for him. I know where he is. Well, I know where he sometimes goes.”

  “Hooters?” Lucas asked, pleased with himself.

  “His townhouse on Avenue Montaigne in Paris. I had dinner with him and Freya there.”

  Ronin’s eyes were wide. “You’re serious. What’s he like?”

  “He’s like whatever he wants to be like. He’s a god.”

  “So he’s an asshole?”

  “More like an asshole god.”

  Ronin took out her weapon and started to inspect it. “And we want his help why?”

  “Because he has a library that could match mine. Analyzing the Book of the Dead will probably require a lot of reference.”

  “And he may know where the spear is,” Lucas said. “Assuming that wasn’t the real spear you incinerated, woman.”

  “It wasn’t. Open your creepy portal, Arkwright. I want to meet this Odin guy.”

  Lucas and I didn’t need to say it out loud. It was clear we both wanted Ronin to find an excuse to peel off and do her own thing. She had a perfect 50/50 record of saving our asses or ruining everything. That kind of record was not acceptable in my line of work, especially with so much on the line. The idea of walking into a wrathful god’s abode with Ronin didn’t appeal to me.

  “We should split up,” I said without having a plan. Again, my thoughts were dumping out of my mouth, unedited.

  Ronin’s body stiffened. “Excuse me?”

  Lucas stepped between us. “What he means to say is…”

  “I know what he means.”

  “You stay in New York City, Ronin. Head to the Spirit HQ here and see if there’s anything to salvage. Weapons, supplies, anything. We’ll come back and get you in a few hours.”

  “You think I trust you to leave me alone in New York City? Last I checked, the vamps have this place locked down tight.” She walked up to me and stuck her face in mine. “If you want to get rid of me, you’ll have to kill me. Got it?”

  “Ronin…”

  “I thought we were starting to work okay together, you moron. What is wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me? You’re the one shooting everything that gets in your way. You’ve always been reckless, but you’ve taken it to a whole new level.”

  “We’re in the fucking apocalypse, in case you forgot, Kane! Monsters, or gods, or spirits are around every corner.”

  “That’s why we need to be smart. Take them on one-at-a-time. Shooting off your Ruger and your mouth is only going to bring everything down on us at once.”

  Her mouth opened slightly and she shook her head. “What happened to you, Arkwright? I never liked you, but you were never a coward.”

  “I’m learning to adapt to the situation. Control what I can. You should try it sometime. It takes the weight of the world off your shoulders.”

  She shot a look at Lucas. The demon shrugged. He wasn’t going to get in the middle of it. Her frown turned back to me. “Open the portal,” she said, slowly.

  I held out a hand. “Give me your weapons.”

  “No.”

  “I’m not taking you anywhere near Odin.”

  “Then I guess we’ll be calling this museum home,”
she said without breaking eye contact.

  “Allow me to propose a solution,” Lucas said. Ronin and I ignored him. We were too busy imagining all the ways we’d like to incapacitate each other. Lucas cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is, let Ronin take a weapon with her, but load it with one round. The Sacrifice Spell.”

  “Are you insane, demon?” I asked. “That bullet is guaranteed to kill its target.”

  Ronin joined me in the demon shaming. “It’ll kill someone else in the vicinity, too.”

  “Precisely. It works as designed.”

  “Not all the time,” I said, remembering how I’d used the bullet on Merlin but he’d broken the spell. He survived, but his innocent wife had died as a result.

  “It would be enough of a risk for our friend here to think twice before she used her weapon again. And it would not leave her defenseless.”

  “Fine with me,” she said. They both waited for my answer.

  “I’m not sure the threat of killing an innocent, or even herself, will stop her. But if it’ll get us moving again, fine.”

  I held out my hand. Ronin took out her gun and handed it to me. I kept my hand out and she placed the other Ruger in it. I kept my hand held out. She paused as if she was going to claim she didn’t have any more weapons, but she knew I was smarter than that. She bent down and pulled a third Ruger from an ankle holster and slapped it into my hand.

  I held out the other hand.

  “What?”

  “You really think you could hide the last one from me?”

  “I don’t have anything else, Arkwright. Open the portal and let’s get my sister back.”

  That was some nicely-played bullshit.

  “Lucas, am I a breast man or a butt man?”

  “A breast man, sir.”

  Ronin sighed, reached down her shirt and pulled a fourth Ruger from a bra holster.

  “You’re a pervert,” she said. But I saw the smirk on her face. I dumped the ammo into my hand and reloaded the Ruger with the one Sacrifice Spell bullet. I handed it back to her and stuck the other handguns in my bag.

  “Cross your fingers I can make this work,” I said. I focused on opening the Swap Portal. It didn’t open.

  “Hurry up,” Ronin said.

  I opened my eyes. “Really? You think that’s going to help?”

  “You do well under pressure.”

  “Real pressure. Not annoying pressure. Zip it, okay?”

  She shrugged and I closed my eyes again. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the glow through my shut eyelids.

  “You two go first,” I said. “I want to make sure we’re swapping places with the enemy and not some innocents.”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  “Better him than me,” Ronin said before she stepped in.

  “Thanks, Ronin.”

  She swapped with a vampire. I took advantage of his confusion and turned his head into a misty cloud before he could attack. Lucas handed me a handkerchief and swapped himself to Paris. I went two-for-two with a hell of a shot to the back of the next vampire’s head.

  I wiped the gory mess from my face with Lucas’ handkerchief and stepped across the ocean.

  Chapter 27

  “Are we close?” Ronin asked me the millisecond I stepped onto the damp curb.

  Paris had seen a big downpour since we’d left. The streets and sidewalks glistened with a moonlit sheen of dripping and puddled water.

  The rain in Paris could still seem romantic, even at the end of the world.

  I took a moment to look around. Ronin tapped her toes. I tried to ignore her.

  “Shit,” I said when I realized how far we’d landed from Odin’s hood. “Thirty minute walk. If someone carries Lucas.”

  “Excuse me, but I can keep up just fine.” He zipped around us like he’d done back in HQ during the breakout. He stopped short in front of me and crossed his arms, confident he’d made his point.

  I smiled, impressed. “Chill, Lucas. Save your demon magic for when it’s needed. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  At first, the walk was uneventful except for a couple of sad sighs from Lucas as we passed abandoned bookstores. Lucas hated neglected, dusty books almost as much as he hated Ronin.

  We were about five minutes away from Odin’s townhouse. He probably wouldn’t be there. I knew that. But it was as good a place as any to start looking for him.

  My worry-wart brain shut down and focused on a noise behind us. I’d heard it a few times before as we wove through the labyrinthine streets of the city. But as it grew louder and more frequent, I knew someone was following us.

  Following me, to be clear.

  I didn’t question the certainty in my gut. I’d learned enough to know that sometimes your gut is your best defense. Our pursuer was after me, but it wasn’t because I was some big, important figure in this web of insanity. I was, of course. I was a huge deal. The biggest deal. No one could match my deal. I was a walking, talking Royal Flush.

  Whoever or whatever my stalker was, they had some strong feelings for me. The intensity was enough for even me, a non-Magicist, to pick up.

  Could it be the emperor of vampires, or Loki, or Skyler — all of them would be tough to beat. We didn’t have the firepower to handle any of them. I tried to settle my nerves. Maybe it was Lancelot, or Tabitha.

  Or Rebel.

  Yeah, I know that didn’t make sense. But the connection I felt with this stalker was strong. Whoever it was had to be someone loyal to me, or sworn to destroy me.

  It would have taken me several years to get the right answer.

  “Someone’s following us,” Ronin said with as much caution as a god. Lucas and I shushed her with a couple of savage hisses. Any chance we had of surprising the stalker was gone. I shoved down the urge to yell at her.

  Until I had an idea. A stupid idea, sure. But it wasn’t as stupid as waiting for a sneak attack.

  “You think so, genius?” I yelled at Ronin.

  Lucas stepped between us and held me back. “Hey, hey! Settle down, sir.”

  “Screw that! I’m done with her ‘Bull in a China Shop’ act. We leave her here, or I’m letting you two loose.”

  “Oh, you’re letting us loose?” Ronin yelled back. Her hot temper was showing. Perfect. “That’s a fucking laugh. HAHA!”

  “That’s your comeback? Your sister could take you down with half her brain.”

  “You mean the half of her brain you put a bullet in, asshole?”

  Ouch.

  “You’re gone,” I yelled. “Good luck. We don’t need you, Ronin. You’re useless.”

  She drew her guns.

  I just hoped my stupid plan worked because shit had escalated to bullet-in-back-of-head levels.

  A loud growl from the shadows made us turn in circles to spot the source.

  Claws racked the pavement as something big walked closer. Its growl settled down but it still had a wet, bassy bellow to it that meant we were in deep shit.

  Two glowing eyes emerged from the darkness.

  The growl turned into a howl.

  A mass of fur and fury broke into the dim light of the moon.

  It was the Tengu.

  Chapter 28

  I shoved Ronin’s pistol down and stepped in front of her.

  The eight foot tall Tengu walked into the dim moonlight. The gray patch around one of his eyes made me relax. It was the same dog-like monster who had helped me secure the mask in Japan. He’d followed me through the Swap Portal when I’d traveled back to Paris.

  Apparently, my Parisian captors either let him go, or the dog had escaped.

  The Tengu sprinted toward me, dug his claws into the pavement, and slid on his back paws until he came to a full stop right in front of me.

  I looked up at him. He looked down at me, panting.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said. Now that I could see him better, the poor guy looked awful. His matted fur covered a bone-thin body. One of his eyes was dim. I doubted he could se
e through it.

  “Buddy?” Ronin asked sourly.

  “Yeah, we go way back, right? Did you see the big, bad lady point a gun at me, big guy? I knew you’d come and save me.” The Tengu licked my face again.

  I’d gambled that my pursuer, friend or foe, wouldn’t tolerate me getting killed in front of them. I’d won the gamble, but my legs were shaky from the adrenaline rush. “Did the mean lady scare you?”

  The Tengu suddenly licked at his leg. The lick turned into a nibble. “Hey, hold on. Let me take a look at that.” I reached for his wound and he growled. “Okay, okay. Just go gentle on that thing. Looks like someone shot you already. I’ll wrap it up as soon as I can.”

  The gravel scraped and popped under him as he sat. He leaned forward and dropped onto his belly. His long tongue lolled out of his mouth and he started panting.The beast had spoken to me in one word sentences back in Japan, but I assumed his speech was impaired by the injury.

  Lucas stepped up. “You going to introduce us?”

  I gave the dog a second to answer if he could. But when he just licked at his wound I said, “He doesn’t have a name. Or if he does, I don’t know it.”

  “Tengu, right?” Lucas asked. He reached for the giant dog, but he got a rumbling growl in return so he backed off. “Is this the same one you swapped from Japan with?”

  “Yeah. He’s the one who saved our asses. We got the mask because of him.”

  “I thought he was locked up back at HQ,” Ronin said. “How did he get free?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me that. I was your prisoner, remember?”

  She shrugged and secured her gun in its holster. “I heard a couple of Tengu were in the mix and that we snagged one of them. Happened before my time, though.” She sat on a car hood, arms crossed. The Tengu gave her a sideways glance, ready for anything. Smart dog.

  “Bingo,” Lucas said with a smile. “Bingo is a good name for a dog.”

  “Bingo is an awful name for a dog,” Ronin said.

  “We’re not naming the Tengu, guys,” I said, knowing they wouldn’t listen to me.

  Ronin swiped her hand dismissively at Lucas. “You might as well call him Fido.”