Have Artifact, Will Travel (The Immortality Curse Book 5)

by Peter Glenn

Several things happened in quick succession. Another sword-armed cultist weaved his way through a few sets of crates toward me, two of the rifle-holding guards took their aim, and I heard the distinct sounds of a plane engine starting up.

  Great. Allie hadn’t been successful, then. Time was starting to run out.

  I braced myself as I watched the two riflemen squeeze their triggers. Once more, nothing came of it. Not even a loud squelch or anything. I could kiss Isaiah for his interference. It was gold.

  The cultist with the sword was almost on top of me, so I braced for his attack. We met somewhere between the floodlights in a darkened area, blades clashing in the night air and bouncing off each other again and again.

  This guy was not as skilled as Left Guard had been, and after a few thrusts I was able to land a blow to his gut, which made him fall to the ground writhing in pain.

  I had no way of knowing if the wound would kill him or not, but I had other things to worry about. Like more guards coming at me, wanting to take my head off my shoulders. I advanced further, making my way toward the plane and keeping my eyes out for any sign of Kedron.

  So far, there was still nothing. I figured he must be on the plane itself. Thankfully, it hadn’t moved yet, though I knew it couldn’t be too much longer before it got off the ground.

  Part of me wondered about what had happened to Allie, but I could worry about that later. Hopefully, she hadn’t managed to get herself killed. As much as she grated on me, she struck me as the type of kid who was just in over her head. That type of person didn’t deserve to die at the end of a sword.

  Up ahead, I caught sight of a familiar form in the darkness. It was Hobart. I was certain of it. He had his sword out and was leading a charge of two other guards, heading in my direction.

  Fantastic. I’d finally have a chance to end his miserable existence.

  Another guard raised a rifle and aimed it at me, but his attempt to end my life met with a similar frustration as the last time. With Isaiah’s magic stopping their weapons, I actually had a shot at this.

  The cultists near Hobart were almost on top of me now. I crouched low to the ground, weapon out in front of me. At the last second, I lunged, hacking into the leg of the closest of the cultist. My weapon sliced into his leg, leaving behind a nasty gash. But the guy didn’t go down like the last one had. He kept coming.

  Three blades flew over my head then, almost in unison, as I brought my own weapon up to block the blows. I was a decent swordsman, but I wasn’t that good. I’d need to even the odds nice and fast.

  Right Guard came for me first, swinging wildly at my middle. I dodged backward, batting his sword away before it could find my tender flesh.

  In the same instant, Hobart thrust his blade forward, scoring a glancing blow on my arm. Blood seeped out of the wound as pain shot up my arm, and I struggled to hold onto my sword. I staggered backward again, fending off several more blows as I went.

  Another sword strike came for my head, and I thought it was all over. At the last second, the sword flew through the air in the opposite direction, stunning the cultist as much as it did me.

  Then a massive fireball filled the air, slamming into the side of the swordless cultist. He screamed as the flames overtook him, and he fell, writhing, to the ground.

  I took advantage of the momentary shock and lunged for Right Guard again. This time, my sword bit deep into his abdomen, slicing through his kidney.

  Right Guard grunted and fell over backward, freeing my sword from his body in the process. I kicked his sword hand to make him let go of his weapon and shoved it away from him with my foot so he couldn’t spring back up and magically skewer me.

  With that taken care of, I turned all my attention back to Hobart. “You’re going down tonight,” I told him, my eyes filled with an evil glare.

  “Only if I take you with me,” Hobart countered.

  “Meh. I’m good with that.”

  Hobart advanced a second later, coming in with a low swipe. I blocked the blow easily and our swords clanged against each other. He came at me again, swinging wildly, but I was ready for it, and I was able to keep him at bay.

  I came in with a high swipe and landed a blow on his shoulder. My blade sliced deep into the skin there, leaving a wide gash behind.

  Hobart growled and lashed out at me with another powerful thrust, forcing me backward just a little bit. I almost tumbled into one of the discarded crates and fell backward. Hobart took advantage and pressed onward, coming at me with a powerful blow to my sword arm. He managed to nick me again before I could fully right myself.

  Once more, I hissed as pain filled my arm, and I felt it hard to maintain my grip.

  Hobart kept coming, and I had to roll to the side to dodge his next blow. I came up just in time to block a well-placed attempt to sever my neck.

  I’d forgotten how good this guy was.

  Sweat formed on my brow, threatening to blind me, and my palm felt slick where it met Grax’thor’s metal. I’d have to end this quickly. I swung hard for Hobart’s legs. My blade sliced through the fabric of his jeans, leaving behind a nice red line on his right foreleg.

  Hobart groaned and stumbled backward. I pounced on him, pressing the advantage, and hacked at his sword arm again. He came out of the advance with another gash on his bicep as his blade clattered to the ground.

  Hobart fell to his knees, clutching his injured arm. In the distance, I heard the plane engines speed up. I knew I would have to take care of that soon, but first, vengeance was mine.

  Isaiah came out of the bushes a second later, a fireball in his palm. I stood next to him, staring down Hobart where he knelt in the dirt, and leveled my blade at his neck.

  “You lose,” I told Hobart, a grim smile on my lips. “Any last words?”

  “Go to hell,” Hobart spat.

  “You first.”

  My sword arm tensed as I prepared to strike. I brought my blade back slightly and prepared the swing that would decapitate him. This was going to feel amazing.

  “Stop!” a voice rang out at the last second, freezing my arm in place. It was Kedron’s.

  11

  My blade hovered in the air mere centimeters from Hobart’s throat. It would have been so easy just to pretend like I hadn’t heard in time and finish the job, but my blade stayed still.

  In hindsight, I probably should have just ignored Kedron and whacked Hobart anyway, but I didn’t. For some bizarre reason I’d never quite fathom, I followed his steely command.

  “Put your hands up and turn around slowly!” Kedron insisted. “And don’t try anything stupid.”

  Holding my hands up over my head, I turned around to face him.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the sight that greeted me was not one of them. Kedron had Allie held fast in one of his beefy hands. In the other, he held a rather menacing-looking dagger perched precariously against her bare throat.

  Where did he get all those cool-looking daggers, anyway? Did he own a dagger factory or something? If I wasn’t mistaken, this one had a ladder Damascus pattern on the blade. Nice choice.

  But I only glanced at it for a moment. The fact that he was about to kill Allie with it was a little more pressing. Like I’d mentioned earlier, Allie struck me as the innocent-girl-in-over-her-head type. She annoyed me to no end, but I didn’t want to kill her by any stretch. I wasn’t that mean.

  “Good. Good,” Kedron said as I turned around. Isaiah put his hands up in the air, too. “Now throw your sword on the ground.”

  I laughed. “Look buddy, you don’t want me to–”

  “Do it!”

  “Fine.” I shook my head slowly. “But I warned you.”

  I tossed my sword as hard as I could. It landed a short distance to the side of Kedron. Damn. When it flew back to me it probably wouldn’t hit him. Unless I could manage to maneuver in the right direction, of course…

  “We’ve done what you asked. Now what?”

  Kedron’s dark eyes glared at
me. “Now get down on the ground. Slowly.”

  Ugh. Villains. So predictable. Throw down your weapons. Get on the ground. Why was it never stand on one foot and grab the other with your free hand? That would occupy my attention so much better than lying still on the ground. And make it harder for me to make a quick movement or do something to stop him.

  But nope. It was always lying on the ground. So boring.

  “Okay, big shot,” I said. “but do you mind if I lay over here?” I pointed off to the left, then started walking slowly in that direction. This would be a hard one to line up correctly. Still, I was determined. “There’s a bunch of blood here, and I don’t really want to ruin my Duran Duran shirt.”

  “Just get on the ground!” Kedron yelled. He dug the dagger into Allie’s skin a little. “Or I’ll kill the girl!”

  I stopped moving and went down to my knees. Was I far enough to the side for my plan to work? I wasn’t sure. “Okay, but if you do that, we can just kill you after. Not the smartest plan.”

  Like I said. So predictable.

  Several rifles lowered at that moment, all of them trained at my chest. Probably a dozen from what I could count. Too many for Isaiah to dismantle, I figured.

  “Keep flapping that mouth, and you’ll be next!” Kedron seethed.

  “Okay, okay!” I shook my head again. “Have it your way.”

  I laid against the ground, keeping my head propped up so I could still watch everything play out. I wasn’t a complete moron. I watched as Isaiah slowly did the same.

  “Good. Good.” Kedron started to back away slowly, dragging Allie with him. “Hobart! Get on the plane!”

  “Yes, Brother,” Hobart called. He got up and limped over to the waiting plane.

  Damn. He was going to escape again. But maybe I’d get Kedron yet.

  Come on, Grax’thor. Do your thing. Come to Papa.

  With one hand aimed at my sword, I beckoned for the weapon to come to me. To slice right through Kedron on the way.

  Come on, sweetie. You can do it.

  I still wasn’t completely sure what made her move to me and how, but I’d tried it several times recently, and it had always happened within a minute or two.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grax’thor start to shudder. My lips curled upward. Kedron was mine. A second later, Grax’thor whizzed through the air. Her blade grazed Kedron’s right leg, slicing through pants and muscle as she flew into my outstretched hand.

  “Gah!” Kedron screamed.

  My hand closed around the hilt of my sword, and I shot up to full height. In the same motion, Kedron flung Allie to the dirt and ran for the opening in the plane behind him.

  “Get back here!” I shouted.

  I burst forward as fast as I could, past Allie, trying to catch him. But he was moving too fast, even with the leg injury.

  Several shots rang out as rifles exploded, but nothing seemed to hit me. I saw a flash of light as a fireball flew past me, engulfing two of the rifle holders.

  Up ahead, Kedron was boarding the plane. I lunged for him, but my blade fell about two inches short of his torso. I fell to the ground, slamming into it hard, and scowled up at him.

  “Curse you, Kedron!”

  “See you in hell!” he shouted, giving me a mock salute.

  All around me, several more cultists died to Isaiah’s flames. A few others managed to make it onto the plane as it started moving along the runway. Then, with a shudder, the plane’s cargo door closed, and it took off, rising high into the air and disappearing in the night.

  Isaiah stopped next to me, panting. He flung a bolt of lightning at the plane, but it fell well short. The bad guys had gotten away. Again.

  Coughing, I pushed myself up out of the dirt. “Damn it.”

  “I know,” Isaiah replied. He crouched down, putting his hands on his legs. “It sucks.”

  “Thanks for the concern, jerks!” Allie shouted from behind us.

  I turned my head to look at her. She was glowering at both of us. “Hey! We were going to get to you eventually!”

  Thankfully, no one’s injuries were too major. Just a couple of scrapes and gashes. Nothing a little time and some bandages couldn’t take care of.

  Well, for us at least. All of the cultists that hadn’t made it on the plane were dead. Which really sucked, because that meant we didn’t have anyone left to interrogate. Aside from Allie, of course, and she wasn’t saying much at the moment.

  I couldn’t blame her. In the course of a single day, her mentor had left her for dead with a couple of near strangers and then used her as a hostage. That kind of emotional damage would take its toll on anyone.

  “We were so close,” Isaiah muttered. He was sitting next to me on one of the abandoned crates. I’d looked into them after the plane had left. They were mostly full of supplies, food, and ammo. At least we wouldn’t go hungry anytime soon.

  I put one hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “I know, buddy. I know.”

  He glanced at me and nodded slightly, then got up and walked away a couple of paces. “So what’s our next move, do you think?”

  I bit my lip. “I’m not sure, really. What can you do after a loss like that?”

  Isaiah nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Not much we can do about it. Not unless Allie wants to speak up.” He glared at her as he said the last bit, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Take it a bit easy on her, will you? She’s had it rough.”

  Isaiah chuckled. “Are you sweet on her now?”

  “Nah, nothing like that. I just understand where her head’s at is all.”

  And I did. My older brother was a bit of a maniac. He’d calmed down in the past few months, but for years he had beaten me over the slightest of mistakes. I’d looked up to him like a father at one point, though those days were long past.

  Point being, I could understand being abused and abandoned by someone you cared about.

  Isaiah was muttering something about how he couldn’t believe things had turned out like this, so I patted him on the arm one more time and made my way over to where Allie was sitting.

  She was huddled under a blanket, shivering a little. There was a thin red line on her throat where the dagger had bit into her skin, and she was covered in dirt. Her hair was a complete mess, too. In short, she looked like hell, which did make me smile a tad bit, even if I regretted it a second later.

  “Hey,” I said as I approached her.

  Allie’s eyes shot up and peered into mine, then she lowered her head. “H-hey,” she muttered in a voice that was barely audible.

  I took a seat next to where she was. Not super close, but within arm’s range. Not that I wanted to touch her or anything, of course. I was LaLuna’s man. Allie wasn’t going to get me to like her that much.

  “Cold?” I wasn’t really sure what else to say, I just had a feeling that I needed to say something.

  Allie looked at me again. There was a hint of disdain in her eyes. Or something similar to it. But her eyes softened a moment later. “Yeah.”

  Another one-word answer. This was going to be one heck of a short conversation if all I got were one-word answers…

  “Can I fetch you a jacket or something?”

  “Nah, I’m… I’m okay.”

  Phew. Finally, I was getting her to open up. “Now, now. Let’s not be hasty. Anyone going through what you went through would not be okay right now.”

  Allie shot me a dirty look. “And why do you care, big boy?”

  Heh. At least she was back to using her little term of endearment. That was a good sign.

  I shrugged. “Look, I just thought you could use someone to talk to about… things. You’ve been through a lot, and sometimes talking helps.”

  “Has talking ever helped you get over your mentor and quasi father figure trying to kill you?”

  I sat there for a moment, staring straight forward into the night while I thought about that question. “Can’t say that it has, no,” I admit
ted at last.

  Allie snorted. “Then don’t say it’ll fix me, either.”

  “Okay, fair enough.” I sighed. “Like I said, I was only trying to help.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t need any of your help.”

  She shot me a look that said she was going to pounce on me or something, so I backed away and threw my hands up in defeat. “Sorry. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

  “Tch. I didn’t even ask you to come over here to begin with.”

  “Fair point.”

  I got up and walked away from her. I was sure she’d cool down and talk eventually, but she obviously needed more time to let everything soak in. I went back over to where Isaiah was sitting, but he wasn’t in much of a mood to talk either, so I ended up taking refuge on a crate that wasn’t right by either of them.

  Stretching my arms out wide, I felt out the wounds on my sword arm. The top one was just a scratch, but the bottom one was a bit more severe. It’d probably take a couple of days to heal on its own.

  My mind began to wander, wondering if any of the crates had healing bourbon in them. That would heal me up nice and fast. I got to work opening the crate I was sitting on when something buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it for a moment, but the buzzing became more and more intense.

  Finally, it grew annoying enough that I reached my hand into my pocket and pulled out the buzzing device. It was my phone. Someone was calling me. In all the haze and confusion of the combat earlier, I’d completely forgotten that I even had my phone on me. It was a wonder the thing wasn’t broken. And that it had battery left. Let alone that someone was calling me at this hour of night.

  Glancing at my phone’s screen, I peered at the glowing letters and a small grin formed on my lips. I answered the call and brought the phone up to my ear.

  “Rick, old buddy old pal!” I shouted into the phone.

  “Ugh, don’t do that!” Rick spat. I imagined him holding the phone at arm’s length and scowling at me. It was cute in a way.

  “Sorry, bud. So what’s up? Why are you calling me so late?” Not that I minded. Rick was more fun to talk to than either of my broody companions at the moment.