by Ben Zackheim
I sat on a boulder and put my head in my hands. I could fall asleep right there.
With the fighting done, all I could think about was Coleslaw.
The twins stirred. They rubbed their heads. They looked like they’d been drinking for twelve days. Cassidy realized he was naked, except for his watch, and covered by random pieces of clothing, not his.
“What the fuck?” he said. “Rebel, did you do this to me?”
“You wish,” she said. She turned to me. “We all lost our cells on this vacation so you should swap yourself home and get us a ride out of here,” Rebel said. “Swap with Lucas in the library.”
“What time is it, Cassidy?” I asked.
“3,” he looked around at the Icelandic sky. “PM? Maybe?”
Lucas was always in the library at this time of day.
“He hates being outside,” I said. “When he’s swapped here he’ll be a motherfucker. You ready for a fight with a demon?”
“Always,” she said with a smile. She put her hand on my shoulder. I must have looked uncomfortable because she quickly pulled it away, the smile fading.
“After you swap, we’ll head north,” she said.
“I’ll get Dino out here in a helicopter,” I said. “It’ll be 2 hours max.”
“We can handle two hours.”
“I don’t like the idea of being naked for two hours!” Cassidy yelled.
“Look around, dude!” Rose hollered. “Take your pick of Viking Vampire couture!”
They didn’t look like they could handle two minutes, but I knew Rebel would tell me if she was worried.
“Maybe Fox will show up and save the day,” I said. It came out more sarcastic than I meant it to.
Maybe.
“Hope not,” she said. “Sick of that guy.”
“Really?”
“No, not at all. He’s so fucking hot I can’t take it.”
“Right,” I said opening my portal.
“Hey,” she said as I turned my back on her. I stopped. But I didn’t look back. “Good job today.”
I walked into the portal to leave that moment way the fuck behind me.
I wished I could leave my sunken stomach and cracked heart behind too.
Chapter 52
I had a wah fest for a few days after we all got home.
I sat in my chair in the library and listed out everything that had gone wrong in one mission. Did it make me feel better? Hell, no. But I wasn’t looking to feel better. I was trying to get everyone to just leave me alone.
The twins were stuck with powers no one had seen before. Worse, no one could even make an educated guess about why one was a fucking Wendigo and the other one was something that could sniff out treasure, shoot fire arrows and look creepy.
My dad was a goddamn traitor to humanity. Everyone was paying way too much attention to how I felt about that news. I didn’t have an answer but apparently that wasn’t an acceptable answer around there.
Fox and Rebel had a thing going, but didn’t because they couldn’t. Or something. If Merlin’s curse was real then Rebel was on borrowed time because of Fox’s fee-fees.
And I was caught in the middle.
Mjölnir was smashed, which solved half our problem but now we had to track down the shield. Hakkar took it for a reason. I didn’t know if he had good or bad intentions but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t have a relic floating around in the world. I had to secure it.
Oh yeah, and I fell for a murderous vampire queen who’s fucking Attention Deficit Disorder made all of us some kind of twisted balancing game to her.
Her husband, emperor of Vampistan, wanted me and my team dead.
I’d made an enemy of Merlin with around five stupid words.
And Coleslaw was dead. Dammit.
It was like Christmas for the bad guys.
I wanted to be alone. I would have given my fortune to be alone. But when you’re in this line of business it’s always business. Taking a break isn’t an option unless you’re ready to quit.
And I was far from quitting.
“How you holding up, Kane?” Rebel asked. She stacked the books on the coffee table in front of me. I’d been trying to escape into good reads for three days straight.
“Could use some coffee.” I answered, honestly.
“Don’t pull that shit on me,” she said.
“What’s wrong with coffee? Fucking A!”
“We can’t pussyfoot around this for much longer, partner! We need to talk about how the news about your dad affects our team.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t show her what I was feeling. If I started, where would it end? I needed to focus on what came next. I couldn’t spot the big picture anymore. It had been so easy to follow one relic after another. Now I had to factor in what my dad did? I had to make up for his mistakes? Fuck that.
“It’s going to be like that then, huh?” she said. She sat across from me and sank into the soft leather of the chair. She threw her feet up on the coffee table and then leaned them on mine.
She just stared at me while I stared into the fireplace behind her. She had her poker face on.
Rose walked into the library and stopped short at the door.
“Intense,” she said. “You should see the energy between you two. It’s like a boxing match and porn all rolled into one.”
“Shut up, Rose,” we said together.
“I’ve been thinking about your dad, Kane,” Rose said.
“What a surprise.”
She ran her fingers over a shelf of books. “And I think you need to take a vacation. Get your mind cleared up.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rebel said.
“Why don’t you guys go somewhere and leave me here?”
“So you can brood and make bad decisions?” Rebel said. “Forget it. I don’t feel like cleaning up any messes for a couple of weeks.”
“It’s not like Kane had anything to do with what his dad did,” Cassidy said, suddenly appearing in the library door.
“Oh look, it’s a party,” I said.
“Dude, he just learned that his whole life was based on a lie,” Rose said.
“I wouldn’t say…” I started to say before Cassidy interrupted me.
“That doesn’t mean he’s responsible for his father’s sins.”
“So if I went nuts and killed like a million people you wouldn’t feel like you needed to clean up my mess?” Rose asked.
“Great question,” Rebel said.
“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s not even close to a good question.”
“Yeah, but you’re my sister,” Cassidy broke in. “We have a bond that, yeah, I guess it would mean I was on the hook to make good.”
“Oh, and dads and sons don’t have a bond?” Rose said, her voice rising.
“Not like twins, no. I’d think the last week was proof of that.”
“You’re basing your argument on metaphysical appropriation of human logic,” Rose said, pulling a book from the shelf.
Rebel made a confused face at me. I frowned back.
“What are you talking like that for?” Cassidy said.
“Like what?”
“Like a college student who wants to hide the complexities of life under a tidy blanket of fancy words and snooty attitudes.”
“It’s better than pulling pop-psych from an underdeveloped holster of zero life experience and comprehension that’s crippled by feelings of insufficiency.”
“I’m going to kill them,” I said to Rebel.
“You two need to lay off,” Rebel cut in.
“What? He started it!” Rose bellowed.
“I meant lay off Kane!” Rebel shouted. “He’s the one we’re focused on here.”
“No we’re not,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Look, I appreciate the concern but I need some time to think this through.”
“That’s cool,” Rebel said. “Maybe a vacation would help.”
“No, I want all of you to leave,” I said. “I
need to be here. In this house. Alone. If I’m going to work this out then I need to have a talk with some ghosts.” The house had been destroyed twice since my parents had lived there. But I could still feel their presence.
“Like, literally ghosts?” Rose asked, looking around nervously.
“Probably not,” I said. “But maybe.”
The front doorbell rang. Saved by the bell. The soft ding-dong wasn’t my style. I’d wanted it to sound like a Rocketdyne F-1 rocket firing off in the desert. Exquisite sound. Love it. But the doorbell guy had let Rebel talk him out of it. I’d fired him but hadn’t found a new doorbell guy who was more afraid of me than her.
I slipped my cell phone out of my back pocket.
I’d busted the screen with my ass again. I was a pre-smart phone soul in a smart phone world.
I checked the app that showed me the front door’s camera feed.
“You have got to be fucking with me,” I said.
“What is it?” Rebel asked, walking behind me to see the screen. “Hoooooly shit.”
It was a guy in a long overcoat. His face covered in a hood. But one look at his boots and we knew it was Bonehead.
He looked up at the camera, his face still covered in darkness.
His voice boomed over the speakers throughout the house.
“You were right,” he said. “The shield should have stayed with you.”
Wait, Bonehead is asking for help? This has to be a trap!
Did you enjoy Relic: Hammer? Please leave a review here. Reviews help authors stay visible and give us a chance to keep writing our adventures, so thank you!
Are you ready for the next installment of Kane Arkwright’s Relic series?
Relic: Shield
February, 2018
In Relic: Shield, Kane and Rebel return for an adventure that takes them back to the States. What has Rose become? What is Bonehead up to? Is Rebel going to fall victim to Fox’s curse? And what role did Kane’s dad really play in the Vampire awakening?
Did you miss the first book in the Kane Arkwright: Relic series? Grab Relic: Blade here. And if you like it, please leave a review!
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I’d like to thank the following people for giving invaluable feedback. I wouldn’t have launched this book without them!
Larry Diaz Tushman
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Noah Sturdevant
Mike Helas
Adam Saunders-Pederick
Hal Bass
Denise King
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Jim Stoltz
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