by Ben Zackheim
“What the hell did you do, you bitch?” Rebel screamed. “He’s dead!”
I don’t remember looking to see what had happened, but I guess I did.
Everything went black.
Chapter 46
I woke up in my room in Valhalla. My shoulder was wrapped. It felt like it was on fire.
Rebel was sitting next to me. The twins stood at the end of my bed like a couple of creepy ghosts in a horror movie.
“Where’s Coleslaw?”
“He’s dead,” Rebel said. “The queen killed him.”
“What?” I tried to sit up and thought better of it. “Why?”
“She claims he was about to cheat for you. The Valhallans found the Trolls Cross on him.”
My stomach dropped. Tabitha somehow knew about my plan to call a troll army to my aid if I thought I’d lose. Sure, it would have been cheating. I didn’t give a shit. I was trying to save the world here.
“Does it really summon a troll army to do your bidding?” Cassidy asked.
“I guess we’ll never know now,” Rose said.
“Did Fox disappear again?” I asked.
“I’m here,” he said from the dark corner of the room. I could see a figure sitting in the chair.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Hakkar is receiving the hammer and shield. They will go to the Eurasian and North-American tectonic plates located here in Iceland. The rumor is that the emperor will order Hakkar to bring the hammer down on the tectonic plate that runs under foot.”
“What the fuck for?” I asked.
“To split the plates apart. To tear at the flesh of the world until it’s dead. It will cause chaos. And the Vampires will fill the void that the chaos brings.”
“Good for you,” I mumbled.
“It’s the end of the world,” he said as if I didn’t know.
“Then we have to stop him,” I said throwing the blanket off of me. But when I tried to move my legs, I found out that they were chained to the bed.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“We’re prisoners now,” Rebel said. “Until they figure out what to do with us.”
“Why would the Valhallans want to keep us prisoner?”
“Not them. The Vampires. Because you lost to them they can do what they want with you. With us. We tried to put up a fight but they took us by surprise.”
“Then you need to get going,” I said. “I’ll see what’s left in the Vault Portal and make sure you guys go in as armed as possible.”
“Doesn't’ work like that, uncle,” Cassidy said.
“Uncle?” I asked.
“Yeah, I just wanted to try the name on for size. Sucks. Sorry. Anyway, they locked all of us in here. Sealed it shut with magic that makes Rebel as helpless as a wet rag on a New Jersey highway.”
We all looked at him.
“Thanks Cassidy,” Rebel said.
“For what?” the clueless kid said.
“Your portals won’t work either,” Rebel said. “That’s what they claim. But it’s worth a shot to try.”
“They also have guards on the door,” Rose said. “Vampires I think. I heard them complaining that they can’t be at the ceremony.”
“We need to find another way out,” I said.
“We looked everywhere,” Cassidy said. “You’ve been passed out for 5 hours, Kane.”
I felt helpless. I don’t like to feel helpless. “Dammit, we can’t just stay here. Everyone quiet. Let me see if I can open the Vault.”
The door opened and Skyler strode in, his stupid top hat in his hand.
“You all ready to go?” he asked.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Is that any way to talk to your savior? Now come on, we don’t have much time. The Vampires are on their way to the plates now. Hakkar is looking really impressive, gotta say. He grew about a foot and the charge he brings into a room is arousing.”
He and Fox broke the chains off of my ankles.
“Drink this,” Skyler said. He handed me a small glass vial.
“What is it?”
“Poison,” he dead-panned. “I felt like killing you right after I saved you. Just drink it!”
I downed it in one gulp and waited for my ass to blow up like a balloon or something.
Instead, I felt fantastic. It was a strength serum. I’d be as strong as several men for a while. My wounds wouldn’t heal, but the pain would be manageable.
“I thought you couldn’t make these serums anymore,” I said.
“It’s stock. That was my last one.”
What a liar.
We ran past the two guards who were husks of men. Their bone-dry skin hugged their skeleton as if they’d been dead for a thousand years.
“Good work, old man” Rebel said.
“You can’t always rely on me to save you, Rebel,” Skyler said.
“Well, thanks anyway,” she said, put off.
“Won’t they be pissed that you killed your own kind?” Rose asked.
“They won’t find out unless you tell them,” Skyler said.
He led us across the hall into another room. Its windows looked out over the arena on one side. On the other side, a small door was open.
“Go down the stairs,” Skyler said. “Keep going until you run out of stairs.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Fox and I are going to stay here and plead ignorance,” he said. “I’m a great liar.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “If you lie 100% of the time it makes it easier for people to know you’re a liar.” I looked at Fox. “You sure you want to stay? You were a prisoner too. The emperor called you a traitor.”
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I have allies here.”
“Your call, Lancelot,” I said as I bent down and slipped through the small door. I suspected he didn’t want to be near us because of Merlin’s curse. I was way past giving a crap, though.
The floor dropped down into a spiral staircase. Torches on the wall lit our way, but just barely. After five minutes of stepping and slipping and sniffling we hit the bottom.
We were in a dank room with dirty widows covered by cracked wood shutters.
Rebel flipped her wrists and the shutters opened, exposing the room to the dim moonlight of Iceland.
Somehow, by walking down some stairs from the Valhalla/Hel underground, we’d ended up back on the surface.
Supernatural physics. Drives me nuts.
The door ahead of us flipped open with a flick of her wrist and the brisk, clean Iceland air flowed over us, cold but welcome.
We’d emerged miles away from where we’d entered Valhalla.
I had twenty seconds of peace. We stretched and breathed deep and Rose even smiled. I almost did, too. We were on a hill that was surrounded by a low mist. Over the mist we could see for hundreds of miles in every direction.
I turned to see what was behind the nearby hut.
At first, I thought I was looking up at a giant, wrathful Merlin, preparing to rain vengeance upon my face.
But it wasn’t the wizard.
It was the last thing I ever thought I’d see in the 21st Century.
“No fucking…” I started.
“Way,” Rebel finished.
Chapter 47
“Those aren’t what I think they are,” I said.
“They are,” Rebel said, crossing her arms. “Leviathans.”
The two distant machines were a half mile away but they still managed to loom over us like skyscrapers. Their awkward legs, designed to carry 1000 tons of metal over any terrain, bent in a hundred ways to support their weight. I’d heard about the weapons and I’d even seen a blurry picture of one when I broke into Spirit’s classified files. But seeing them for real was a treat. Their huge square bodies and spindly legs reminded me of a daddy long legs spider with a disproportionately huge torso.
The Leviathans were in mobile mode which meant their wheel
s were down. The feet hung over the ground by ten yards but could activate at any second to help the machine maneuver over bumpy terrain. The Leviathans appeared to be slowly making a circle around an area. My guess was that the tectonic plate’s weak spot was their focus.
“I don’t like the looks of those,” Cassidy said.
I realized the kids probably didn’t know much about Leviathans, if anything. It was ancient history to them.
“They’re from World War II,” I said. “A secret weapon that the allies only used once.”
“The Germans had buddied up with giants,” Rebel said. “So the Allies had to fight back with something that could make the enemy scramble.”
Cassidy laughed. “Giants? Seriously?”
“Giants aren’t real,” Rose said confidently.
“Giants are real,” I said.
“With a little magic and a lot of science the Allies built those things,” Rebel said.
“For hand-to-hand combat,” I said. “With bombs and guns, just for shits and giggles.”
“Nasty,” Rose said.
“Cool,” Cassidy added.
“Not if you’re the one fighting them,” I said. “They were supposed to be destroyed by the allies in the 40s.”
“Someone hid some away,” Rose said.
Cassidy looked up at the metal monstrosities. “And the Vampires got them.”
Four people against an army of Vamps and a couple of giant killers wasn’t a good idea. But it’s the fight we faced.
“Is there any way we can see what they’re packing?” I asked Rebel.
“Vision Spells aren’t my thing. We’ll have to draw their fire to test them out.”
“That’s a really stupid idea,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“We’ll get close to the closest one,” I said, knowing I was on the spot to come up with a better plan. “We’ll get a good look and, if possible, we’ll jack one for ourselves.”
“Now you’re talking,” Cassidy said, rubbing his hands together.
“Rose,” I said. “Lose the strap.” She wore a strap holster around her shoulder where she kept her cell phone. She didn’t have any friends but she had to have it nearby in case someone called her.
“No way,” she said. “I got this for Hanukkah.”
“That’s hard to do being that you’re not Jewish,” Cassidy said.
“I got it for myself. I identify with the Jewish people.”
“It’s hot pink,” I said. “We’re trying to blend into the landscape. Earth tones only. Cover up the bright and sparkly stuff, guys.”
Rebel sighed and pulled some nail polish out of her bag of tricks. She painted over the silver glitter that gave her nails a particularly dagger-like look. It took her one minute. She’s a pro. She held them up and gave me a fake smile.
“Nice,” I said. “You know any Cloaking Spells?”
“None that can cover all of us. I could go ahead and scout the Leviathan out myself.”
I could have let her go. I should have let her go. Things might have gone better if it were just the two of us, one cloaked and one crossing his fingers. But I didn’t want to have to manage the twins by myself.
“Let’s stick together,” I said.
“Sure,” she said, shrugging. And probably knowing exactly why I didn’t want her to go off without me.
Once the heavy mist lifted there would be no way to avoid being seen. We were on low land with almost no terrain to hide behind.
Basically, we were four bugs waiting to be squashed.
If the Vamps had lookouts on those things then we were meat. I held out some hope that all eyes were on the tectonic plate. Sounded like it was going to be one hell of a party.
We entered the mist. It was already starting to lift.
After ten minutes of walking we had to duck low to keep our heads under the cloud. I gave us another 5 minutes before we were completely exposed. But we were close enough to a Leviathan to give me some hope that we could pull it off. With a little luck.
Which is when our luck ran out.
We heard the scuffling of footsteps nearby. Just in front of us, from the mist.
Their shadows emerged from the white blanket in one large, dark mass.
Some had spears. Some swords. A few even carried maces that dragged on the stony ground, shattering rock with each step.
The moon hit them with a gray light. At first I thought they may be ghosts. Then I noticed the perfect skin and the hungry eyes.
Vampires.
Viking Vampires.
Chapter 48
“Oh, shit,” Rebel said, jinxing exactly what I was thinking.
“Jinx,” I said.
“You didn’t say it out loud, dipshit.”
“Doesn’t matter. You owe me a Coke. Get ready.”
If I had to guess a number, I’d say we were up against 50 undead warriors.
Rebel knew what to do. She cast the Wood Spell. It gave her fingernails a sheen of wood that would be deadly to our new friends if she could pierce that leather armor.
I could still feel Skyler’s potion in my veins. The extra strength would come in handy. I hoped.
Then I felt something. Something new.
The air felt charged. My skin stung. I could feel my body hosting millions of tiny electric shocks.
And the twins didn’t look right at all.
Rose took deep breaths and let them out swiftly. A creepy glow started to transform her face until I couldn’t recognize her. Her face looked like a smirking death mask.
Cassidy’s transformation was faster and more, let’s say, dramatic. His nose bloated as his chin rose to meet it. At first his teeth cracked in his gums but the long whiskers that grew from his lips supported them like tendrils. The teeth let off dozens of pops and suddenly tipped off, as sharp as daggers. It must have been as painful as thirty two root canals with no drugs.
His screams made the Viking Vampires stop in their tracks. None of us could take our eyes off of him.
Cassidy’s back grew a hunch which forced him to kneel and then stand on all fours. His fingers pressed against his palms until they broke through the skin and slid out of the back of his hands. Each digit made a bloody snapping sound as he licked his wounds, whining like a wolf in pain. It worked for a second but when his tongue turned to jelly he screamed again. It flattened and elongated until it dropped out of his bloodied mouth.
He howled and the Vikings stopped in their tracks. It was the scream of pain itself. Sorrow, violence, loss, desperation, hunger, all of it flew through our ears.
It was enough to make a vampire feel pity.
All of this was happening to them because of a couple of drinks? Or Skyler did this to them somehow. He was the one who mixed the drinks.
“Cassidy,” I shouted. I wanted him to know I was there. I wanted to keep him grounded, focused on what we were doing. As far as I knew he’d start tearing into his friends as well as his enemies within seconds.
His human eyes turned to me just as his brow collapsed on itself, ripping his eyeballs in two.
He howled in pain again and this time the vampires took some big steps back. He shook his head and splattered the blood from his eye sockets all over the rocks around him. He blinked and look at me, his eyes now golden but still dripping red.
He wasn’t a werewolf. He looked more like a bear with long arms and legs.
I didn’t know what he was until Rebel said, “Wendigo.”
Cassidy tore all of his clothes off, still standing on two legs. His body was covered in a gray and brown fur that was as thick as a wolf’s. The fur was covered in blood but it shone in the dim light as if it gave off light of its own.
With two deep breaths, he looked done.
He looked ready.
And I have to say, he looked damn impressive.
“You with us, kid?” I asked. He snapped his head to look at me. For one second I thought I would be his first meal of the day. But then he growled and
trained his eyes on the vampires.
He was with us.
“Then let’s get this party started,” I said. I’d have to do hand-to-hand but I was pumped on Strength Serum, so that was fine with me.
Rebel and Cassidy leapt at the same time, arching through the air like an arsenal of sharp spears, claws, teeth and Chanel Wood #4 aimed at the Vikings’ hearts.
My fist went through the first Vamp’s face and came out the back of his head. I grabbed the second Vamp with the bloody hand and ripped out his throat. I got stuck while pulling my hand out of the guy’s head and three Vikings were on top of me.
Rebel took all three of them out before I even got a swing in.
“I can take care of myself,” I said.
“I can see that,” she said as she looked at me standing there with Vampire larynx hanging from my clenched fist and weaving through the split head of another Vampire.
“I’m kind of turned on right now,” she said.
“Me too. Behind you.”
Another Vampire leaped from the mist. Both of Rebel’s hands disappeared into his chest with a wet thump.
Rose floated over us, her arms lifted like the wings of an avenging angel. Her target was one of the larger Vamps who took a swing at her with his sword.
It went right through her. I still wasn’t sure what she’d become but it was something I appreciated one hell of a lot. It scared the shit out of me, but it was a good thing she was on my side.
For now.
We’d pushed a dozen Vamps back into the mist. We’d taken out ten more. But I needed to understand the situation better.
“Rebel!” I yelled. “Assess!” Rebel was good at that. I guessed we had a dozen strays wandering around us, hidden from view.
“100! Maybe 120!”
“What?” I saw her looking over my shoulder. I turned to see a wall of Vampires coming down on us like a really ugly wave.
Chapter 49
I didn’t have time to yell the “FUCK!” that swelled up inside me. It was a big one too. It would take a few years to release all the fucks that needed to come out at that moment. I’d been in danger before. But something in me was screaming out, “This is the end for real, asshole!”