Hero's Curse

by Jack J. Lee

  “The brain is an essential organ, but it’s just the receptacle for our minds. Destroy a brain, you still have an afterlife. Burn out a mind, you don’t. Souls and minds are the same. Our minds make up our souls; they are everything that makes us individuals. When we use magic, our soul touches the Universe. The analogy of a volcano accurately describes the Universal energy. Whenever our soul touches the molten lava, a part of it burns off. The more energy you try to siphon, the more of your soul you lose. Lose too much and you die the final death. Casting a strong spell temporarily downgrades your memory and your ability to think clearly. Lucky for us, souls are renewable. I could talk for hours about what kind of spells are the worst on your soul and what helps your mind regenerate, but we really don’t have the time.

  “And Mr. Paladin, you just did something REALLY amazing! Unless you have the expertise of someone like Master Aidan Cahill, you NEVER want to make changes to a major cantrip without an active surge suppressor. Now that you have one, using Pig Latin for your next spell won’t be nearly as dangerous. Let’s go back to my office and I’ll show you what you have to do next.”

  I realized how much of a risk I had just taken. It had worked out. There wasn’t much point crying over milk, especially when it hadn’t spilled. I promised myself, however, the next time I was tempted to get Aidan’s take on something to follow through and actually talk to him. When we got back to Tim’s office, he turned on his computer, spent a few minutes typing, and printed out two pages. “I’ve printed up two copies of your anti-scrying spell, the first in plain English and the second in Pig Latin.”

  I’d been bothered by the thought of B watching everything I did. “Tim, after I put this spell on myself, will I be able to stop angels from watching me?”

  “Hmm, well it would depend on how powerful the angel is; a low level angel shouldn’t be able to see you—unless of course they got dispensation from above. An archangel wouldn’t have any problems seeing you, and of course, Jehovah sees everything. The Jotunn that killed our previous paladin shouldn’t be able to track you.

  “I want to warn you that after this next spell, you’re going to be wiped and it would probably be best for you to get some sleep. Why don’t you study the incantation while I set up a cot for you in one of the other rooms?”

  It took awhile to get over the disappointment I felt about the limits of the anti-scrying spell. I told myself I should have expected as much, but it didn’t matter. I hadn’t realized how much I had prized my solitude and anonymity until I had lost them. I was still trying and failing to focus on the incantation in front of me when Tim returned.

  A thought occurred to me, “Tim, why am I placing these spells on myself? Why couldn’t you or Aidan do it?”

  “You’re too powerful for a protection spell to stick if it’s cast by someone you don’t absolutely trust. Placing a spell on you is the equivalent of touching your soul. You don’t know me or Master Cahill well enough to really trust us. You would instinctively resist.

  “The cot’s ready in another room. It’s probably best for you to go there now so you don’t have to travel as far after the incantation.”

  The room with a cot was just two doors down. It was empty except for a small canvas camping cot. Tim walked into the room and stood there looking expectantly at me.

  “Tim, do you have to be here?”

  “Umm, no.” He shook his head and gave me a questioning look.

  I stared at him until he started to squirm. “I’d like some privacy.”

  “Oh, sure. Okay, I’ll be going, Mr. Paladin”

  After he left, I looked again at the papers Tim had printed out. The spell was only a few lines. It didn’t take long to memorize. After I recited the incantation I felt a wave of weakness rush over me. I almost fell. My mind fogged up like I was drunk. I lowered myself onto the cot and fell instantly asleep.

  Chapter 7: Gearing Up

  “Victor, Victor.” When I woke up, I felt like I’d been on a three day bender. I sat up and I was dizzy and nauseated and my head pounded every time my heart beat.

  “Here drink this.” A large Styrofoam cup with a straw was pushed into my hands. It was a chocolate shake. I took a large sip, ripped the straw and plastic cover off, and started gulping it down as fast as I could. As soon as I was done, I was given another one. It took a little longer to finish this shake. From the aftertaste, I could tell the shakes had been fortified with protein supplement powder. After two shakes, I felt halfway human.

  “Victor, we don’t have much time.” I looked up; Aidan had given me the drinks. Tim stood behind him. I stood up slowly. When Tim rushed over to help me, I waved him away.

  “How much time have we got?”

  “At most, a couple of hours.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We need to lock your paladin gifts to you. Normally, we would have a ceremony but we don’t have time.” Aidan handed me a charm bracelet filled with charms. My eyes were immediately drawn to a miniature AA-12. “Put this on. It will help you call your gifts and seal them to your soul. You need a call phrase. The previous Salt Lake City Paladin used ‘Christ Victorious’, another popular phrase is, ‘Justice.’ You get the idea.”

  I put on the bracelet. Immediately, I saw a three dimensional image of an AA-12 hanging in the air in front of me. The buttstock was different, as were the sights. There was a rectangular bar running under the barrel. Next to the shotgun were images of a mid-to-late 1960s Harley-Davidson XLCH Sportster and a black leather motocross outfit—gloves, jacket, pants, boots and full-face helmet. It was as if I was rotating through my choices in a virtual reality video game.

  I raised an eyebrow. Mini-Santa grinned, “I had a feeling you would prefer this look over the usual paladin’s suit of shining armor, and every paladin has a mount. Only your shotgun and boots are indestructible. There’s a minor spell of protection and comfort on your suit. I didn’t have time to do much else. Where possible, I have inserted Enhanced Mithril strike plates. I have linked the rest of your gear to the paladin’s gifts. When you call them, all your gear will appear. Stare closely at the images, Victor. Try to hold all the details in your mind, and then call your equipment to you. You can use any phrase you want, but once you pick a phrase, you’ll use it forever.”

  I examined the images closely. The AA-12 had a twenty round drum. The suit had a utility belt that held two extra drums and three ten round box magazines. I looked up at Aidan; he had a reassuring smile. Tim was trying his best to look calm but his Adam’s apple was jiggling with anticipation.

  I struggled against my reluctance to call the gear. It was one thing to put spells on myself to save my life; it was another to bind myself to Jehovah’s gifts forever. It was one thing to be forced into servitude, another to willingly accept gifts from my captor and master.

  Who was I kidding? I’d gone up against just one troll and almost had my ass handed to me; my chances of surviving twenty plus magical elves without supernatural help was nil. Death was no escape. If I died, I’d be an angel and have even less free will and no dick. I was being given the farmhand’s choice of mucking out horse shit versus pig shit. Even with manure there are better and worse options. Pig crap is a hell of a lot worse horse shit. As a servant of God, I had the ability to make some of my own decisions. It was better than being an angel.

  ‘Christ victorious’, didn’t work for me. ‘Joey is a little shit’, could be a problem. I shouted, “Azam-shay!” The charm bracelet burst into a blue flame. As I watched, the bracelet melted and dissolved into my skin; there was no pain. The flames exploded over my body and then disappeared. When they were gone, I was holding the AA-12. I was looking through a visor that was so clean it was almost invisible. The clothes I had been wearing had been replaced by the black leather armor.

  Aidan waved at me to follow him. We all walked out to the hall and down to the large room below Broadway. He gestured to the far wall about forty feet away. “Victor, we have targets so you can t
est your shotgun.”

  The buttstock of the shotgun had been modified to accommodate my helmet. I took aim through the ghost ring sight and pulled the trigger. I fired a single round. There was barely any recoil. I held the trigger down and the AA-12 went fully automatic. Within seconds the entire magazine of twenty rounds was gone. I changed and emptied another magazine. Every round I’d fired had been completely silent. There hadn’t been any noise and hardly any muzzle rise.

  “Aidan, what happened to the sonic boom?”

  He beamed like a doting parent showing off a newborn. He was proud of what he had accomplished. “The speed of sound at sea level is three hundred forty meters per second. I found stock factory shotgun rounds with a muzzle velocity of three hundred thirty. There is not enough sonic energy in a shotgun blast to melt lead. The heat generated was only enough to make the lead warm to the touch. There is an upside because this allows us to use copper jacketed lead slugs with retractable stabilizing fins. With these finned, saboted slugs, your shotgun has one minute of angle accuracy at one hundred yards; that is, it will shoot one inch groups at that distance. Tim and I had to custom fabricate these slugs for you. We were able to make seventy-five rounds. Most Redcaps don’t wear armor, but if you meet one with a breastplate, a copper jacked slug should go through it. Military Police Systems makes a frangible, fin stabilized, armor piercing round that explodes with a nine foot blast radius.” He stopped and gave a sigh of regret. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to make high explosive rounds.

  “Here now, why don’t you test fire a few slugs? Behind the rear ghost ring, there is a flip up adjustable peep sight you can use when targeting anything from fifty to three hundred yards. Since the target is only forty feet away, you are probably better off using the ghost ring.”

  I changed to a box magazine. From forty feet away, I put three rounds into the same hole. Was it wrong to be in love with God’s will? While shooting, I felt an intense urge to go to Pioneer Park. I’d never been there before, my urge made no sense. I decided to ignore it. I practiced quickly switching out magazines. My need to leave got stronger. I remembered Pioneer Park was where the Redcaps were. ‘Shit!’ I wasn’t going to have much time preparing.

  “Aidan, I’ve got to go.”

  Aidan’s expression became all business. “Tim and I need you to say we have permission to touch your gear. Give us all your magazines and we’ll reload them for you. I don’t know if you have noticed but you have a Camelbak-style backpack. You have got four liters of Gatorade inside. We have added a couple extra cups of sugar to the Gatorade. You are going to find your calorie needs are four to five times higher than they were before.”

  I walked over to Tim to hand him the shotgun. He jerked away like it was on fire. “Oh yeah, it’s okay for Tim and Aidan to touch my stuff.”

  As I handed Tim my gun, he began giggling, “Mr. Paladin, you gave me permission to touch your stuff”.

  I looked at him with every ounce of irritation I was feeling. He kept giggling.

  Aidan cleared his throat. When I looked over, he looked almost as pained as me. “Your visor is mirrored; you can see out, no one else can see in. There is a spell on the visor to make it work like night vision and thermal imaging goggles, and another spell to keep it from getting dirty or fogged up. It is strong enough to resist small caliber bullets.”

  Tim got the hint and shut up. He turned to a table up against the wall and started reloading my magazines. The urge to get to Pioneer Park was almost overwhelming. I knew I couldn’t leave until I had all my reloads.

  Aidan interrupted my chain of thought. “Victor. Say, ‘Gecko’ and your boots will stick to whatever surface they are on. Say, ‘Gecko’ again and they will stop sticking.”

  “Gecko.” I tried to move my feet. I was able to rip one foot off the ground but I had to use all my strength.

  “You need to peel your foot off starting from the heel and going to the toe like you have sticky tape on the bottom of your feet. Make sure you keep your weight forward to make the motion smooth, not jerky.” I followed his advice; there still was some resistance but not nearly as much as before. When I got to the wall, I tried to curl my toes up and keep my body parallel to the wall. It didn’t work. I didn’t have enough flex in my boots and the balance point was all wrong.

  I tried keeping my feet flat to the wall, letting my body go horizontal to the ground. I was glad I had super strength. I could feel the strain on muscles on the front of my leg, thigh, and torso, but it was doable. I got to the ceiling and hung upside down. I said, ‘Gecko.” As I dropped, I twisted in the air and landed on my feet. Immediately, I sprang seven feet through the air to the closest wall shouting, “Gecko!” I landed and stuck. I yelled gecko twice, first to release from the wall and then again in the air to stick to the ceiling. I mouthed ‘Gecko’ without making an audible sound; I dropped to the ground.

  I was having so much fun I could almost ignore my compulsion to get to the Redcaps. “Aidan, these boots have to take a lot of energy. How long can they stick before they give out?”

  “Believe it or not Victor, they don’t use extra energy. The boots use the same forces geckos use to stick to walls. Plastic wrap works on the same principle—van der Waals, or electrostatic interaction. Your boots and a gecko’s foot have microscopic hairs called setae which are tipped with even smaller hairs called spatulae. There are so many of these hairs causing so much surface to surface interactions, a two ounce gecko can theoretically stick to a wall with over ninety pounds of force. The setae are even self-cleaning. Each of your boots stick to the wall with five hundred pounds of force. The only thing you cannot stick to is Teflon. Water significantly decreases the effect—from five hundred pounds of force to about three hundred.

  “I have to warn you; you weigh a lot more than you think. To be sure, paladin bones and muscles are much denser than a normal man’s. You weigh at least fifty pounds more than you did before you turned. There is quite a bit of Mithril plate in your leathers. With all your gear, you’re probably close to three hundred pounds. Be careful on wet surfaces.”

  Tim exclaimed, “I’m done!”

  Aidan started speaking faster. “Let’s get all of your magazines including the ones that usually hang on your belt into your backpack. It wouldn’t do for a police officer to stop you on the way to the park. Your shotgun has a name, Sanguinis. Call her, and she will come. Say her name while holding her and Sanguinis will return to the safe in my office. We’ll watch for it. If you run out of ammo, send it here and we will switch out your magazine. Try to give us at least thirty seconds. Leave her here until you get to the sewers. There are three extra twenty round drums in your backpack besides the two from your utility belt and the four box magazines. ”

  Aidan helped Tim stuff all the magazines into my backpack while it was still on my back.

  “While researching assault weapons, I came across the concept of a tactical light. All paladin gifts can glow. I cannot believe I never thought of using light as a weapon.” Aidan actually started chortling with delight. I was struck again by his uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus. “The inside of Sanguinis’ barrel, firing pin, and bolt have a mirror finish and God’s will never gets tarnished. Say, ‘Lumen’ and the barrel will work like a flashlight. ‘Lux’ will cause blast of light as bright as anything put out by a military style tactical light.”

  Aidan picked up my shotgun. “See this button here by the trigger?” When I nodded he continued. “It takes thirty pounds of pressure to release it, so it is it’s hard to set off by accident.” He pushed it and an eight-inch bayonet shot out of the rectangular sheath below the barrel. “The blade pops out with four hundred pounds of pressure.” He gave an embarrassed shrug. “You’ll have to retract it. I don’t have the strength to pull against a four hundred pound spring with one hand. You brace the buttstock on your hip like this, keep the release button pushed in with one hand, and then use the other to pull back the bayonet.” He showed me how to brace the
buttstock against my hip to get the leverage.

  “Anything in your pockets will transfer when you switch from regular clothing to your armor and back. This includes your cell phone. If you need help, call us. While you were asleep, I worked on your phone. You’ll have a signal even deep underground. I put my number on speed dial; it’s #9. Tim is #8.”

  Aidan gestured toward the way out. I began to run until I realized that he couldn’t keep up. He made it up the stairs, huffing and puffing, as quickly as he could. When we reached the ground floor he gasped, “Whistle, or call out ‘Harley’ and your mount will be waiting for you. Your compulsion to do Jehovah’s will is not all bad. It will lead you to where you need to go. You can depend on it to find the Redcaps.”

  Chapter 8: Redcaps

  I whistled for Harley as soon as I got to street level. Aidan and Tim stayed in the lobby as I ran outside. I guess with a paladin in town, their compulsion to fight monsters was gone. I was good with that. I didn’t trust Tim to have my back and I wanted Aidan here to get me reloads if I needed them.

  Outside, I heard the distinctive sound of a Harley-Davidson idling. I followed the sound to the alleyway behind the store. My mount was a pristine black and chrome Competition Hot 1969 Sportster. I was starting to like my leprechaun armorer. I took off due west in the direction Joey wanted me to go. The top speed of this bike was supposed to be 112 mph. I had a feeling my mount could go faster. I made sure to ride only a couple miles above the speed limit. I didn’t need to be pulled over by a cop.

  It only took a few minutes to get to Pioneer Park. Most of the people in the Park looked like they were homeless. They were clustered in groups and looked scared. I parked next to a manhole cover. If my mount hadn’t been God’s will made manifest, I probably would have worried about leaving it parked on the street.

  Some of the homeless watched me go into the sewers. I didn’t care. They weren’t the kind who would report me to the authorities. I made sure to pull the cover back into place before I dropped down. Thankfully, it smelled like I had dropped into a storm drain rather than an actual working sewer. It made sense. Redcaps wouldn’t want to live in shit anymore than I would. It was in the middle of summer, the drain was completely dry.