by Ben Zackheim
I pulled out my two Glocks, both secured to my back on the right side. The holsters are custom-made to have the grips facing the same way. I can pull them both out with one hand, shoot with one while the other one is midair and on the way to my other hand. My right hand grabbed the flying Glock and aimed at the head of the beast closest to me.
At least I thought it was the head. They were a jumble of movement, swirling around Rebel like a wave, like…
Ghosts.
I hate ghosts.
The Glocks did as much good as an ice cream sandwich. I ran for Rebel.
“I could use some help here!” she yelled.
I had no idea what to do except swipe at them. They could touch us but our weapons went right through them.
The bites hurt, but they didn’t break the skin. They tore at something deeper. The teeth weren’t covered in blood. They were covered in a glow.
Were they eating pieces of our soul? Or were they making hors-d’oeuvres out of Rebel’s magic?
The ghosts didn’t have faces but they loomed over us like giants. Or like vikings. They circled us and drifted into one another until they made a cloudy bowl. The top of the bowl grew some fangs and started closing in on us from over our heads.
Rebel yelled, “CAC!” which is “shit” in Gaelic. “Cac” is also a very specific spell. She used it when we were about to get slammed and there was no other way to stop it. The spell used to be “Oh, shit!” but that took too long to say. So she and Skyler did their weird magic tribunal thing in New York and found a way to alter the spell.
The ethereal jaws of viking death clamped down on the pink surface of Rebel’s shield. It glimmered in the darkness of the tomb. Rebel and I watched the fangs of a thousand ghosts smack against it. I imagined this was what it would be like to be trapped in a barrel, surrounded by piranha.
“I can’t hold it much longer,” Rebel said.
“Can you cast another spell?” She glared at me. “Thinking that’s a no.”
I closed my eyes and tried to relax.
“Kane, what are you doing?”
“Shh.”
“You are not doing what I think you’re doing, are you?”
The shield was cracking under the barrage of otherworldly fangs.
“Kane! You can’t do that! It won’t work.”
My Vault Portal opened in between us. That’s my only other magic skill. It’s the portal that stores the relics we find. It comes in handy when dealing with Vampires. They know that if they kill me then they lose access to their precious relics.
“After you,” I said, gesturing for her to get in.
Chapter 8
“Zero chance I go back there,” she said, seething. She’d been trapped in my portal on the Excalibur mission. I guess I didn’t blame her for hesitating except for the million teeth about to chomp into our flesh.
“We don’t have a choice.”
“You’ve never stepped into that thing,” she yelled. “If you do we could bite it!”
“We’ll definitely bite it if we stay here. Or they’ll bite it, I guess.”
A loud cracking sound made her jerk and close her eyes. She looked at me and stepped toward the portal.
But the crack wasn’t coming from the shield.
The viking ghosts had scattered. Their wispy shapes were pinned to the stone of the tomb by arrows. One by one they struggled until they faded into the air and disappeared.
Hilde stood over us, a bow notched with three arrows. She let them fly and they pinned three more spirits to the wall.
Rebel’s shield gave way. The pieces bounced off of us and landed on the floor like broken glass shards. The pink hue faded, dying with the spell.
“Thanks, Hilde,” I said. “I thought you couldn’t help us.”
“We can’t tell you what you’re up against. But we can help. If we choose to.”
“Thanks for choosing to, then,” Rebel said. “What are they protecting?”
Hilde and Coleslaw were silent.
“They’re guarding the next door,” I guessed.
The hall of coffins went on for as far as we could see.
“Okay, let’s get walking,” I said.
But after one step the hall ahead of us filled with more ghosts. The ones with eyes were the worst. Their gaze, packed with battle rage, was like a punch to the gut when I made eye contact.
“And what are we supposed to do with them?” Rebel asked. “We just got our asses kicked.”
Hilde notched an arrow and pulled the string back a little bit. She started walking ahead of us, bow at the ready. It only took a few steps before I noticed what was happening around us. When I did, it chilled me to the bone.
“Holy Mother of Fuckers,” Rebel said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
The viking ghosts were staring at us from the darkness of each tomb. Some stood in front of their coffin. Others hung back in the darkness. But I saw their sallowed faces, with black eyes that stabbed my bravery. They just watched us walk. Hilde was holding them back. But if she tripped or let her guard down in any way, we were ghost meat.
“Can we walk faster?” Coleslaw asked. I’d forgotten he was there.
“Why are you coming with us?” I asked.
“I’m a Travelers’ Friend,” he said.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rebel asked.
I hated it when she did that.
“No, Rebel, it isn’t obvious to stupid me. Please enlighten me.”
“He’s got the hots for the organist.”
“Oh yeah, I did notice a little thing going on there. Is that true, Coleslaw?”
“My name is Shlkxchrslew.”
“Gesundheit,” I said.
“He wants to redefine what an organ grinder is,” Rebel poked. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. We should have probably cut it out. These two strangers were helping us and we were giving them a hard time. But it all distracted me from the empty eyes watching us from the darkness.
Hilde glanced over her shoulder and shushed us. But she was smiling too.
I looked behind us and noticed that the ghosts were emerging from their hidey-holes and following closely. Their noiseless movement toward us felt like death approaching. Made sense.
“You know they’re right behind us,” I said to Hilde.
“You’re safe as long as I’m here.”
“Who are they?” Rebel asked, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer from them. “I thought vikings went to Valhalla.”
“The right ones do,” I said. “The ones who died like a viking. These guys might be the vikings who betrayed their brothers. The scorned.”
Rebel glanced over her shoulder and said, “The black sheep of the afterlife, guys?”
The ghosts didn’t answer. Their expressions didn’t change at all.
Suddenly, the floor started to shake.
“No,” Coleslaw said.
“Be strong, my dear,” Hilde said.
“No!” the Traveler screamed. “I won’t allow it!”
“What the hell is going on?” Rebel asked.
I saw something moving from behind the wall of ghosts. Something big. It was headed toward us.
“Go! Now. Run!” Hilde shouted. She raised her bow and the arrows’ tips lit up with an orange glow. The whole cavern filled with light and heat.
I ran. Rebel ran with me. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Coleslaw thrown toward us. Hilde had tossed him like he was a baseball. I ducked just in time. The Traveler flew over my head and skidded on the ground in front of us. He stood quickly and ran back toward us.
I wrapped my hands around his shoulders to stop him.
“Let go of me!” the little guy said. He was strong but I managed to keep him from breaking free.
Hilde wasn’t Hilde anymore. Not the woman I knew. She had the same face, but she wore a silver armor that glistened in the light her arrows gave off. Our eyes met for a split second. She looked away, smiling.
“Is s
he a Valkyrie?” I asked.
“She’s the last Valkyrie! Let go of me!”
A massive cloud rolled in from behind the ghost vikings. I’d seen it before. In Tibet. The ghosts grew in power as they combined into one entity. They would consume us in seconds. The sound of their shrieks was deafening.
But then the room was silent.
An invisible wall had appeared out of nowhere between us and Hilde. The whisps of ghost flowed over it like smoke trapped in a bottle. Hilde pulled back her bow. We saw her release the arrows into the mass just as the cloud blocked her from view.
I let Coleslaw go. He ran to the barrier and put his hands on it, trying to get as close as he could to Hilde.
“Hilde!” he yelled through his sobbing.
Rebel made a move to help. I grabbed her elbow. “We need to keep going,” I said.
“Come on, Kane. Look at him.”
“He’ll follow us when he’s ready.”
I felt like shit but I knew this battle was exactly what Hilde and Coleslaw had been expecting. I didn’t want her sacrifice to be for nothing. And if we died, if our mission failed, then it would be for nothing.
All three of us jumped when Hilde slammed against the clear wall. Her face was covered in blood. I think an eye was missing but it was hard to tell.
The good eye she did have conveyed a super clear message. It was the same thing she’d said before. Her last words.
Go. Now. Run.
“Come on!” Rebel shouted. The Traveler watched Hilde get pulled back into the smoke.
Slowly, he turned. He looked at us with a pleading expression. Stunned.
He ran past us and we followed him.
Chapter 9
When we’d exhausted ourselves we slowed to a walk. We still couldn’t hear anything behind us. We hoped that meant the wall was holding.
“Coleslaw,” Rebel said softly. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He sat on the ground and put his head in his hands and wept quietly. Rebel sat close to him.
“How long did you know her?” I asked.
“Many years,” he managed to say. “She was a good friend.”
“She saved us all,” Rebel said.
“I told her to stay behind!” he yelled. The savagery in his voice was directed everywhere but I definitely felt it on us.
“She would still be alive if you two…” He stopped himself. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “You’re right. You can let us have it.”
“No, it’s a good thing you showed up when you did. The Vampires have found another way to the hammer so it is fate that good-hearted people try for the prize.” We let him think. “She would do it again, knowing her.”
“We can rest here for a while,” Rebel said.
“No,” the Traveler said, standing and brushing himself off. “We need to honor her sacrifice.” He walked ahead of us.
We walked for hours. The tomb went on and on. Coleslaw didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at us again, having decided we were to blame after all. He may not have remembered we were there at all. Grief can do that.
“There it is,” Rebel said.
I squinted and could just make out the end of the tunnel. As we walked closer I saw a large black door. Its surface was as shiny as seeping oil, but it looked solid. Like some kind of glass.
I walked up to it slowly and pointed my flashlight at the rich, moist darkness.
My face reflected back at me but quickly transformed into a face, not mine.
An old woman’s. She opened her mouth and screamed. Her mouth widened until it was big enough to swallow my head. I backed off.
Okay, I actually fell on my ass and scrambled back.
It was a good thing the door was also a prison of some kind because that bitch would have taken my face off otherwise. Her large teeth scraped against the black surface.
“This is my least favorite place,” I said.
“I thought you hated Skyler’s downstairs bathroom more than any other place,” Rebel said, smiling and helping me up with a hand cupped under my elbow.
Coleslaw walked by us, took a key from his Osh-Koshes and opened the door. He stepped back.
“Thanks,” I said. He didn’t meet my eye.
The door led to a silo. I could feel its vast, sheer drop before I even saw it. It felt like a mile-deep mouth had just opened in front of me. The walls of the silo were the same black mirror that the door was made from. And behind the blackness were dim faces of a million dead. Their green glow was the only light.
I walked to the edge and peeked down. I could make out the top of a tree. Its leaves were many colors and shades as if they were stuck between summer and fall.
“That first step will kill you,” I said.
Which is when something grabbed my ankle and pulled me over the edge.
I fell through the top tree branches. Hurt like hell.
I looked down.
The drop, and the tree trunk, seemed to go on forever.
After getting slapped by a branch for the twentieth time I realized that the safest place for me was near the black walls. The tree spread its branches wide but the twigs near the wall were easier on the flesh than the thick ones I was smacking off of.
I reached a break in branches and glided as close as I could to the wall. Then it was just the small matter of not slamming against stone. I was falling too fast to see the faces well. But I could tell they were watching me.
After falling for a full minute I started to get the impression that this was going to go on for awhile. The fear even waned a bit. Maybe it was the anti-climax of being positive that death was moments away and then finding out that it could be a few days away.
I saw something falling above me. It was Rebel. She was catching up. I could hear her body slicing through the air. She made her body as thin as she could. Her arms were at her side. She spotted me, relaxed her body and slowly turned so that she was facing up too.
“Hi,” she said, falling next to me.
“What’s up with you?”
“Not much. Thought I’d drop by.”
“Really?”
“Sorry,” she said. “So this isn’t looking good, is it?”
“I wonder how far down it goes.”
“I hope you’re wondering that for a long time. Long enough for us to find a way out of this mess.”
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“Pray. Hope. Nothing that will work for you, though.”
“Hey, I hope and pray.”
“You hope for extra fortune cookies and you prey on my last piece of sushi.”
“I prayed to Thor once.”
“Really? I didn’t know you believed in something bigger than you and your limited world view.”
We were falling through the center of hell’s pipe, entertainment for the tortured souls trapped behind black glass.
“Is Coleslaw coming?”
“No idea. He’s a mess.”
“Got any spells to slow us down?”
“Yeah, I do,” she said. “It’s going to be tough to cover both of us. Keep an eye open for the bottom. Once we see it I’ll cast it.”
But then the wind started.
It came from below us. It was a warm rush of air that felt good but also started pushing us around. We had less control.
“Come on,” Rebel said. “Follow me. We’re getting too close to the wall for comfort. Don’t touch it. Don’t even skim it.”
I aimed my body back to the tree, trying to get some control over the fall.
Rebel was following behind pretty well until the wind shifted again. She started to get carried away from me.
“Watch it,” I said. “Toward me.”
“I’m trying. Reach for my hand.”
I tried to get close enough to grab her but a strong wind blasted us both from below and knocked us in two different directions.
“Shit!”
“Don’t touch th
e walls!” Rebel yelled.
“I heard you the first time!”
I touched the wall with my foot.
“I touched the wall!”
“Dammit, Kane!”
Now the wall had a glow of its own. A light green aura surrounded us. The faces behind the glass were lining up in circles around us. They faded away, backing out of view into the darkness all around them.
And then they charged.
Like pistons they slammed into the walls. The surface started to bend like clay until hell’s pipe was no longer smooth and glassy. Now it was like a bubbling creature.
With arms and hands and faces.
The first hand grabbed me by the ankle and almost yanked my foot off. The second hand hit my shoulder and threw me into a third hand that smacked me in the face. All around us thousands of hands emerged from the walls and tried to interrupt our falls. If even one of them got a good grip on us we’d snap in two at that velocity.
“Let’s climb a tree!” I yelled.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Get us to the tree. We can climb down.”
A hand punched her in the face and she started angling toward the tree. Another hand grabbed her foot and pulled her back toward the wall. She struggled free.
I got hit next. Hard blow to the shoulder. It was dislocated. I cut across toward the tree but, again, a hand pulled me back.
“I have an idea!” I yelled as she got socked in the stomach. She moved toward the tree. I pulled out a Glock. Another couple of hands reached for her and I shot their wrists.
With one shot, by the way.
Rebel drifted closer to the tree. I threw her my gun.
“What the fuck!” she yelled. It was a perfect throw but she almost managed to mess it up. She bobbled it. It fired and almost hit me. She got control of it.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I’ll try to get to the tree! You shoot anything that tries to pull me back.”
“You know I can’t shoot!”
“You’d better learn!”
I got smacked in the back of the head. Hard. Floaty-stars and pixie-dust-birdies hard.
I heard shots firing but couldn’t be sure what was going on.
When I woke up I was falling beside my partner. She held onto me tight. Her eyes were closed. She was casting a spell.