by Rick Heinz
“You did just speak English there? Is this a comic book? He’s the arch villain, right? Doc! Are you sure I’m not nuts!” Mike shouted down the warehouse.
“Nooope,” came a distant reply from Doc.
“Well, so Mr. Bad Guy has an army of vampires and wants to rule the world. How is that any different from Mr. Good Guy Lazarus? All I see is a bunch of vampires and a conspiracy to rule the world,” Mike said, slurping more blood.
JJ and O’Neil looked at each other for a minute, debating how to best respond. Finally O’Neil spoke. “I said I’m bound to see this through to the end. You are under no such obligations. Let the rest of the crews up there know what he’s up to and set them upon Vryce. The ritual at the Twin Cities will wither and die on its own. We can just hope that some other location finds Lazarus so he can fix everything and make the world forget this ever happened.” O’Neil sat down.
JJ slammed his hands on the table, causing Mike to spill blood all over his coat. It was almost not green anymore. “It’s not just that. He has an army. If he achieves becoming a lich, he won’t need fuel from here. If we are banking on Lazarus sealing the gates, then you should bet another can rip them open. This could be the end of earth itself. We can’t just sit here and hide. We have to do our jobs, kill him, and free Lazarus. Sure, the others might get lucky and wander through the long way, but we can skip right to the cave with my information. We are the ones in a position to strike.”
O’Neil raised an eyebrow when JJ mentioned the location. O’Neil let his trademark awkward silence hang in the air as he thought.
“So while you guys sit on your asses waiting, what happens to everyone in Minneapolis while this rift is open, eh? Just like here, I imagine? Yeah, screw that jazz. I’m with baldy here. We go up there and do what we must. Besides, they killed Frank. I haven’t forgotten about that. Hey, what’s the name of the guy who killed him?” Mike asked.
“Gabriel D’Angelo, the right hand of Vryce. His soldier of death,” JJ replied.
O’Neil and JJ looked at each other in another long silence. Mike waved his arms, trying to get their attention at first, but settled with tossing his boots up on the table with a loud thump. O’Neil gave JJ the final nod as he lit the cigar, the light from the flame kissing his aged face. “Fate. Mr. Bollard. May the fickle bitch smile on us before she smacks us back down.”
“I’m going to get my shit,” Mike said as he stood up from the table. It was getting near dawn, and he knew they would be leaving at nightfall. Still, sleep wasn’t on the table for him. Mike walked over to one of the Captain’s fireman coats and grabbed it off the hook. He spent the rest of the day cleaning his protest trench coat and sewing it back together. He added a single new patch underneath the two coins from earlier. “Minneapolis Fire Department Engine 1.”
CHAPTER 33
‘Make enemies’, he said. The thought hung in Gabriel’s head as he looked down at Roger Queneco. “While the cat’s away, the mice will play. Is that it?” Gabriel asked as they were escorted through downtown Minneapolis on foot. His personal security detail stopped people that would bump into him. One of the Twin Cities most despicable traits was that everyone was so consumed with themselves they never watched where they walked. Sometimes stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to look at their phone. Gabriel elbowed a human with frost-tipped hair out of his way.
The homeless were a different story. He hated them. One homeless man was being particularly persistent tonight. He asked Gabriel twice if he had a smoke. They were so persistent in chasing Gabriel down, always asking for a smoke. You can’t get a job if you reek. Gabriel outright shoved one away hard enough to cause Roger to pause.
“Easy there, Hercules. You never know who works for who,” he said.
“No. If the trash wants something free, they have to work for it.” Gabriel fumed.
“You woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Listen, I know this is impromptu, but you have to start sorting through our allies and enemies. Delilah’s gone missing, so tonight’s meeting with the dignitaries falls on me. I have to track what has been uncovered with their dives.” Roger picked up his pace to match Gabriel’s.
Gabriel pushed himself through a line outside a street taco vendor. People call them a fad, but these damn trucks are popping up more and more every night. Ugh, Mexican food. “Yeah, so why bring me? You need to take notes on me because I’m the apprentice?”
“A quick study you are! Yup, yup! It’s not far up ahead. You got the book I sent you?”
“I made it my own.”
Gabriel stopped without taking his eyes off the binder to avoid a taxicab. He opened his binder to review his notes. On the side he had titled it “Book of Expendables.” The red light from street signs reflected off the plastic pages. The book contained information on all the groups hunting within the city from different Unification branches, like the priests of Xipe Totec or the Vodun from Montegue. It listed where they had been, and it included sales pitches for them. A marketing guide for the apocalypse. Gabriel was to convince them to donate their findings to the Library of Deus, in exchange for better diving grounds within restricted areas.
“The Society of Deus boasts one of the world’s largest collections of arcane texts and original artifacts relating to magic, so naturally, sorcerers, would-be warlocks, and vampires interested in picking up a spell or two were drawn here.” Gabriel looked back and smirked as Roger looked annoyed with his public candor.
“Peter Culmen in Mexico City has at his disposal some of the world’s most advanced and yet unreleased technology. It’s technology the world is not ready to handle, like cloning, mind transfer, and android tech. Shifters and constructs are drawn there. Few vampires, though. Rasputin had the largest amount of imprisoned demons taken from near all the world’s religions, everything from djinn to Japanese oni. Ghosts, revenants, and vampires flock to him. See, I got this, right?” Gabriel said.
“Chap, we are in fucking public. Watch your tongue,” Roger hissed.
Gabriel put on a defiant smirk and walked backward. “As payment for their services, each warlock was granted permission by the council to charge a service or fee for the rights and privileges to helldive within their walls. Having different requirements draws different crowds.”
“Yes, yes, you moron,” Roger said as he had to jog to keep up with Gabriel’s long strides.
“What are you so worried about? If we win, all these people will know magic is real and start using it. Who gives a fuck?” Gabriel laughed. “So naturally the gaping hole in the Unification’s armor is the loyalty of its ranks. They were all drawn together from millennia of secret societies.”
“I’m starting to rethink my choices tonight,” Roger replied with a dry tone and a sharp look.
“Once the Unification Council had achieved enough influence throughout the world, smaller societies would sign on or forcibly be crushed and brought into the fold. In the past century, the Unification started to eliminate many alternative cults that stood against them. The council had a goal in mind, and no one could stand in their way once they had control over the world’s finances.” Gabriel laughed louder as they neared Walsh Tower.
“All right, go ahead. Spoil the fun. Continue on. Just spill it all. No worries,” Roger said.
“Haven’t you noticed yet?” Gabriel stopped and leaned down. “You going to cry yet? Nobody gives a shit! Nobody is listening. They are ignorant masses.”
To prove his point further, Gabriel walked up to a couple as he turned the page. This page is about my family. One of the forced acquisitions. “Forced into service were Italian merchants and fortune-tellers who manipulated fate and chance to their favor. They had the economic might to stand alone for ages. Their pure-blooded sorcerer lineage gave them an edge against the demon-blooded swine that the Unification would send as enforcers.” He read out loud. They looked down and hurried past, slipping through piles of fresh snow to get away.
“Okay. You’ve made your point.�
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“Have I?” Gabriel chuckled. “I’m the best at what I do. I don’t need to read books. Shit’s fucking easy.”
“No, you’ve made the point that you’ll be the perfect asshole to continue pissing everyone off.”
“And that’s exactly why we are here tonight. Me pissing off all the Unification divers helps you be a straight—”
The ground shook beneath them. For ten eternal seconds, the buildings of the Twin Cities rocked and creaked with the world around them. Roger dropped to the ground, placing his hands above his head as Gabriel struggled to keep his balance. The city panicked, wide-eyed people gripping the nearest person or object as the sounds of a quake echoed through their bones. A rush of ozone swirled through the streets between buildings that gave protest to the ground moving beneath them. Looking to the horizon surrounding the Twin Cities, Gabriel saw a shimmering aura vibrantly flare up along its edge, its colors rapidly changing between shades of deep red and vibrant blue before settling on a soft, dying green light.
Then it ended.
The aura of the quake faded away as quickly as it had appeared.
“Roger?” Gabriel asked as people recovered, pouring into the streets from buildings to survey the damage. Sounds of the shock wave were replaced with horns of cars involved in accidents and distant sirens. “Roger!” he shouted again. Yanking the little vampire off the sidewalk as he gripped a magazine rack for his dear unlife.
“Okay. Okay.” Roger stood up and dusted himself off. “I have a clue of what that was. Let’s calm down.”
“Sure thing.” Gabriel chuckled as a fire hydrant started spewing cold water into a crowd.
“Vryce isn’t here.”
“Nope,” said Gabriel. “Off collecting.”
“Walsh is busy.”
“Yup, oversight.”
“Delilah’s not here,” Roger said.
“Nope. MIA.”
“That makes me in charge here,” said Roger.
“Yup, looks like it.”
“Our source to power the ritual just got shut off.”
Gabriel hummed, watching the first case of looting he’d seen in the Twin Cities.
“We’ve got a week of soul energy at best,” Roger said.
“Yup. We’re screwed.”
“Always a plan B, chap. Always a plan B. However, that means, you, my good friend, need to do a really, really good job at selling to all these dignitaries. You’re the lowest apprentice, and I need to run.”
“I’m not sure this is what I’m cut out—”
Roger opened the glass door into the building. “Beauty before age, friend. You’ll do wonderful! Just barter library time for demon hearts. It’s a buyer’s market, I hear.” He held the door for Gabriel to enter first. “Oh, and start taking notes on who is who. You’ll probably have to kill most of them later. Don’t want any mix-ups now, do we?” he said with a grin.
Gabriel walked into the meeting room. High above the city, he was thrown to the wolves. Unprepared and socially inept for the intense pace of negotiations, he was shredded. Weeks of time alone with the Emerald Tablet were purchased for marbles. Entry into the sacred Libraries of Deus was traded to helldivers that had mapped out only tiny portions of the underworld. The who’s who of names thrown around him in dizzying fashion trashed any preparation he had. Everyone inside knew the obvious: Deus was on a clock.
CHAPTER 34
Entering the ritual site in Greenland was a shock, even to Vryce. He quickly dived to the ground to dodge debris from a forty-millimeter grenade round. His ears rang as he struggled to regain his bearings, a luxury he was not afforded before another struck nearby. A shard of silver shrapnel lanced through his leg. His real leg. One he could not repair. Even behind his mask, now with eight of his shards near him, he could do nothing but clench his teeth and hiss through the pain.
Wolves, larger than the Humvee firing from its Mk 19 grenade-launching machine gun, ran past him. Their translucent blue fur glowed brightly, matching the night sky, a rainbow of colors illuminated along the aurora. Through the pain, Vryce recognized the mythical beasts. Geri and Freki, some of the legends in Odin’s pantheon. He smiled even though he was in pain. Magic is returning. He surveyed his wound from his ill-fated teleportation and was not pleased with the results.
The Unification had mobilized their own troops for containment, armed with weaponry built to handle the supernatural creatures. Clad in deep greens with mesh hoods, they had the appearance of monsters themselves, wielding customized ammunition. The result was that his leg was useless for the foreseeable future. The wolves, spiritual creatures of legend, had less to worry about from physical weaponry. They tore through the soldiers as machine-gun fire riddled through them.
Despite the appearance of the wolves, it looked like the battle was not going well for his loosely connected ally in Greenland. Verkonis was one of the few warlocks who assisted in altering the ritual for his own means. The city of Nuuk was his location for the ritual, and from the looks of it, the small population had mostly been evacuated already. The backdrop of the Sermitsiaq mountains were illuminated with the sparks of battle waging. Winged warriors and mythological beasts battled Unification helldivers, vampires, and Special Forces units as they fought to usurp control of the warlock’s inner sanctum. A foretelling of what Vryce would face if his society could not keep Walsh and the council distracted.
He spied a small squad heading down a road in his direction, three, maybe four reinforcement vehicles, creature types Vryce could not make out at this distance. He reasoned they could be anything from sorcerers to regular humans. Either way, they were the enemy, and there was zero possibility of him hiding in time. Focusing his will, he commanded the clouds to form a raging storm and steeled himself, waiting for the right moment to call forth death from above.
All four vehicles rounded the mountain pass, and Vryce snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. That is most unfortunate. He snapped again, only to watch his storm clouds dissipate as quickly as they had appeared. How rude. Countermagic. Isn’t this exactly why I recruited Gabriel? “Oh, what an inopportune moment to be really here,” he said, lying his head back on the mound of dirt.
“There is no room in this world to be soft,” said a deep voice.
Vryce craned his neck back and saw Warlock Verkonis standing meters up the hill beyond him. A bear of a man, more strong man than body builder, dressed in brown-and-gray finery. His long beard and hair were braided neatly, tied together with trinkets of power. His most defining feature, however, was his fake left eye, a crystal that housed within it every color found within aurora borealis. “Command of the elements is not my only trick,” Vryce hissed.
“No, but it is not your specialty. You are relying on the classic spells. Why is the master of possession here in person? That would be like me, the master of spirits, walking around without my ethereal guardians,” he boomed. Behind him, his spiritual companions, Norse legends and ghosts, spread around them, creating a shield wall.
“Possession was the plan. You seem to have evacuated all your humans, however. Speaking of soldiers?” Vryce pointed to the caravan. The soldiers rolled past, giving a salute to Verkonis.
“Not all humans deny magic. My town has decided to join the fight. They are helping me resist a full onslaught from the council, so we fight to protect them as well. Here, this is yours. You should know better than to assume you would have to steal it. Have some honor.” He threw a small rune stone with Vryce’s fragment bound inside onto his chest. “Still trying to become an unholy abomination, I see.”
“And I see you are still trying to be the spitting image of Odin.” Vryce placed the rune stone in a pocket.
“We each have our means, and the gulf between us is eternally wide. Yet we are both friend to myth and legend. The cost for this fragment of yours is safe haven and access for any of my people, at any time, whenever they need it, with the utmost hospitality.”
“Very well,” said Vryce.
Vryce sighed. He knew relying on allies and favors was never free, but this was worth any cost. He paid it gladly.
Satisfied, Verkonis loomed over him. “You should return home. They will be assaulting your walls soon enough. You must keep your portal open until the twenty-first. I hear they’ve already shut down your neverborn in Chicago. Do you have a plan?”
Vryce picked up his personal soul blade and sat up fully. “I have my people working on that. Lineages are a powerful source of energy. Do you have a plan for yours?”
“I have my spirits working on it. The will of humans is a powerful source of energy. Remember, Vryce, if you gamble with the lives of others and lose, you must pay thrice.”
Vryce grimaced as he sliced his hand again, teleporting into his sanctum deep beneath the Twin Cities. That little trick is why so much is possible. How I can collect my fragments before time runs out. I am so close.
His leg still tattered, he moved a cane to his side for some mobility and placed the porcelain mask on the wall with the viola case underneath it. With a steady hand, he fixed the raven’s claw to the hilt of his soul blade. Satisfaction was beginning to creep up within him, almost making him gloat to himself. Oh. Not yet. There are still many players left in this game. There will always be players. He sheathed the blade and hobbled out of his sanctum, pulling two iron nails from a table full of other ritual components before emerging into his grandiose underground living quarters. Dozens of familiars and small homunculi worked at cleaning the arcane tomes that would be added to the library above them later.
It was decorated with personal belongings he had acquired over the years. A banner from the carnival he served with during the dust bowl in the 1930s. A Freemason’s Grand Master robe. A wicker man from the Salem days. The smell of vanilla incense and dusty fabric mixed in the air. It was a museum of his life, items to remind him of who he was and who he could become again. Outside this room Sven would be waiting for his master’s possession. Two iron nails later and a spell to alter appearance and the warlock could enter his city without fear of death. Well, unless one of the homunculi gets the bright idea to stick a dagger in my eye.