Hammer

by Ben Zackheim

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Back Matter

  Thanks!

  Chapter 1

  Rebel was on my ass. Again.

  “Get off my ass, Rebel!” I yelled down at her.

  I was hanging onto the edge of a cliff from the tips of my fingers. One of them was slipping.

  And Rebel? Her claws were jammed through the rear of my Momotaro jeans.

  She held herself aloft upon Kane buns.

  “My other choice is between your ribs, Kane!” she yelled back.

  “Stay on my ass!”

  We hung over the edge of a tall rock spire that overlooked the town of Grundarhverfi in Iceland.

  Beautiful town. Gorgeous country. Great place to die.

  Rebel would usually save us with a spell, but she needed her hands for that. All ten of her rock-hard, dagger-sharp fingernails were tied up at the moment.

  I thought of suggesting a free-fall, but there’s no chance a spell can work if you’re flailing your arms around, wondering why you didn’t become an accountant.

  Rebel and I had been Spirit agents long enough to win some, lose some and lose some big. We’d recently managed to secure Excalibur in Tibet before the Vamps could. Dangerous shit. Almost died three times.

  But, to Spirit, that was old news. Spirit always wanted to know what we’d done for them lately.

  Spirit is an elite organization of heavily-armed diplomats, tasked with maneuvering the maze of supernatural problems across the globe. Each country has its own team. Some have to fight off werewolves, others trolls, and then there are the poor saps who grapple with demons.

  But most countries, ours included, were busy dealing with the Vampires since they’d reappeared two years prior. The Vamps were awake, and they wanted their shit back. They’d been napping for so long that they didn’t recognize the world they woke up in.

  Our mission was clear. Get to the Vampires’ supernatural relics before the Vampires did.

  Then find a place to keep them safe.

  Our orders from Spirit were to go to Iceland and use my Swap Portal to find a clue. The Swap Portal was a kind of spell that allowed me to swap places with anyone, anywhere on the planet. The only downside was that the people I swapped places with were thrown back to where I’d been. It was a gift from my dying teacher, Skyler. He ended up undead, which pissed me off because I couldn’t stand the jackass.

  So our orders were to swap places with a couple of Icelandic mountain climbers who also worked for Spirit. The hikers would climb the cliff and position themselves in the exact spot where Rebel and I needed to be to spot a critical clue — hopefully the location of the next relic on our list.

  Mjölnir.

  Yeah, that Mjölnir. The hammer of Thor.

  Let’s just say the Icelandic hikers got the better part of the bargain. Before we swapped, Rebel and I seated ourselves at a nice restaurant, the dinner bill prepaid and we put the keys to their own gratis hotel room on the bread plate.

  So the hikers got a nice meal, desert, aperitif and slippery etceteras.

  Rebel and I got a craggy cliff with enough room for one-and-one-quarter people.

  After the swap we managed to not fall. But we had to hug each other tight to avoid plunging to our deaths. I shouldn’t complain. If I had to die, there were worse ways than falling from a cliff with a beautiful red head.

  I was probably enjoying myself a little bit too much when the sky suddenly lit up over a nearby mountain. At first I thought it was the aurora borealis. The green and orange light arced through the dim purple sky and swirled around a mountain range in the near distance.

  The ground shook.

  We were thrown off our perch.

  And that’s how we ended up connected at the ass.

  “Wait! Belt!” I spoke in single syllable words because two syllable words just hurt more for some reason.

  “I’m not grabbing onto your belt! No way am I looking at your bare ass as I fall to my death with your pants in my hands!”

  “Tight! Tight belt!”

  “You promise!”

  “YES!”

  She snagged my belt but the sudden move made me lose my grip on the rock a little. I could feel my left hand slipping. She grabbed my belt with the other hand.

  Good thing I’d been working out a lot.

  “Don’t you let go,” she hissed.

  “Or you’ll kill me?”

  “I’m climbing up you,” she said.

  I didn’t like the sound of that and, yet, I totally liked the sound of that.

  She treated my body like a pole, a thing that was built for the sole purpose of having her climb up it.

  She reached for the tip of the rock spire and pulled herself up to the pointy top, hugged it and swung around to face me.

  “Grab my hands!” she yelled.

  That’s when I couldn’t hold on any longer. My fingers slipped off the rock. I reached out desperately and clasped onto Rebel’s boots.

  “OW!” she yelled.

  It was her turn to support my weight.

  So there we were — Rebel’s bowed legs straddling the tip of a spire and me holding onto her ankles for dear life.

  That’s when the twins, Rose and Cassidy, decided to drop in with their fucking helicopter to save us.

  One minute (and two rope ladders) later, Rebel and I dropped onto our backs on the cold steel floor, trying to catch our breaths.

  Rose showed her iPhone screen to us. It was a good picture of me, minus the whole hanging-from-my-partner’s-ankles thing.

  Over the din of the whirling blades, Rose yelled, “We can’t leave you two anywhere!”

  Chapter 2

  “Take us to the mountain there,” I ordered Cassidy. “The one wrapped in light.”

  “That is one not-subtle clue,” Rebel said. She was right. We were used to struggling with tough clues. Minutia that took years of experience to spot. But this one was like getting a big red ‘X’ painted in the sky.

  “Spirit knows something we don’t,” I said. “Not surprising.”

  “I don’t like it,” Rebel muttered.

  “You’re not paid to like it,” I said.

  “Bite me, Kane,” she said.

  She was right, of course.Something didn’t smell right about this mission. We were following bread crumbs around and it felt like we were being taken for a ride.

  But that wasn’t what I was thinking a
bout on the helicopter ride over Iceland. I was thinking about how it had only been a few months since our mission in Tibet to find Excalibur.

  A few months since I lost Rebel and then got her back.

  Seemed like forever ago.

  Things had been weird between us ever since. No other way to put it. When I thought she was dead I couldn’t find much of a reason to go on. I’m not sure how much she knew about how I felt about her ‘death’, but my guess is that our tight team had told her 101% of how insane I went.

  How I didn’t care if I lived or died.

  All that.

  But now that she was back and more Rebel than ever, we slipped into our old habit of sniping at each other. It wasn’t as fun as it used to be. Not for me, at least. It was hard to focus on the job, which sucked because this treasure, the one in Iceland, it had to get got.

  Mjölnir, Thor’s hammer wasn’t a trinket. It wasn’t a thing that could be bought and sold. It was all about power. How much power? Spirit thought it was all the power we needed to defeat the Vamps for good.

  Was it really Thor’s hammer? I didn’t know. But, as we flew toward the mountain range where we’d seen the lightshow, I thought I’d never sit down the same way again, so it had better damn well be Thor’s fucking hammer.

  Regardless, we needed to get the relic before the Vamps did. That was our job.

  I tried not to dwell on the fact that, once again, the twins had saved us. They were getting good at it. At this rate they’d be true-blue members of the team in no time. Hell, they’d probably be my bosses.

  As Rebel bandaged my butt I got to answer the twins’ questions.

  “Last we saw you, you were at Bar 89!” Rose yelled over the roar of the helicopter blades. “How did you get up there?”

  “We swapped with some hike…” I said, before being interrupted.

  “Don’t say another word,” Rebel said.

  “Why are you always protecting them, Rebel?”

  “Because you won’t, probably.”

  “We swapped with some hikers,” I continued. “They got a meal at Bar 89 and we got 567 new gray hairs.”

  “Assholes,” Rebel muttered.

  “Did you pay the bill?” Rose asked.

  “What?”

  “The bill! Did you pay the Bar 89 bill?”

  “Yeah, we prepaid the meal for them,” I said.

  “Assholes,” Rebel repeated.

  “At least I think we did,” I said. I couldn’t remember if I’d actually given them my credit card or if I’d just told the waitress we wanted to pay for the couple that would be sitting at our table in a few moments.

  “You ‘think so’ does not fill me with copious amounts of confidence, Kane,” Rose said, wide-eyed.

  “You didn’t pay the bill at Bar 89?” Cassidy yelled. “They know us!”

  “I’ll pay it when we get back.”

  “If you get back!” Rose yelled. “What if you bite it tonight? Then what?”

  “Your concern is touching,” I said.

  “Oh, damn, do not get us barred from the bar the day before our 21st birthdays, Kane!” Rose cried.

  “I’ll pay the bill!” I yelled.

  “Because I want my first alcoholic drink to be at Bar 89.”

  “Really?” I said. “I didn’t know because you’ve only said that a hundred times since this morning.”

  “Hang on,” Cassidy said. “We’re headed down.”

  He brought the helicopter down gently. We hopped to the rocky ground. The mountain was still illuminated by the lights in the sky.

  The ground under my feet felt ready to shake again.

  Something was waiting for us.

  “You two head back to the city,” I yelled. “We’ll let you know if we need your help.”

  The twins didn’t like it but they followed orders.

  Rebel and I hiked up the hill toward the base of the mountain. I checked my phone for our location. We were hiking up Berjadalur, just east of the town of Akranes.

  We trudged along in silence for a few minutes. The dancing lights above us were mesmerizing.

  “How are you?” Rebel asked.

  “I’m fine, Rebel, and how are you today?”

  “Goddammit, Kane. I’m just trying to get rid of this weird vibe.”

  “So you thought you’d ask me how I’m doing for the first time in…” I had to think about it. “Ever?”

  “Fine. Fuck you.”

  “Sorry. Fine. Good. I’m fine. This mission makes me nervous.”

  “It’s just another case,” she said.

  “It’s Thor’s hammer.”

  “So what? Another dickhead god who probably left it all behind because he was sad no one believed in him anymore.”

  “Maybe. It’s not like we deal with gods all the time.”

  “It’s our first gob,” she said. Gob is a ‘god job.’ Most of them end in disappointment and earthly sources. But some have panned out to be the real deal.

  “What power does Mjölnir have?” Rebel asked. She was good at magic and hand-to-hand combat. My strength was knowing what the hell was going on because I loved to read books that no one else wanted to read. And I could shoot the wing off a fly at a thousand feet. No, really. I did that once. My teacher, Skyler, lost the bet and had to keep his mouth shut for three heavenly days.

  Of course he talked twice as much for the following year, because he was an asshole.

  “Mjölnir does just what the myths say,” I said. “It decimates.”

  “That’s not what the Vamps want, though.”

  “No, they want us in one piece. Though some may prefer the eight-piece value meal.”

  “Nice choice of words. Well done.”

  “It’s all about entertaining you, Rebel.”

  “Don’t I know it? Look. There it is.”

  I followed her gaze and got distracted by the beauty of our surroundings. It was a beautiful morning that looked like dusk. The sun managed to lay a thin blanket of orange just on the horizon behind us. It covered everything in a soft light.

  It was fall in Iceland so the nights were getting longer and would soon dominate the days. Night would be night and, well, day would be night, too. Being this far north of the equator meant 18 hours of darkness in winter.

  A Vampire’s dream come true.

  The crest of the mountain sat about 800 feet above us. Two slender slopes rose into the night sky where they met at a peak that would let us see all the way back to Rekjyavik. It was an easy hike compared to the ones we were used to.

  We reached the top and enjoyed the view of Iceland’s biggest city. The lights glowed on the water of the peninsula, an upside-down copy that looked like an underground civilization.

  Maybe it was the view. Maybe it was the fact that Rebel and I were awkward around each other. But whatever the reason, we let our guard down. It was stupid. We both knew we were on a mission.

  But someone had sneaked up behind us. Within striking distance.

  “Psst,” we heard. We both turned toward the noise behind us. I aimed my Glock at the small guy standing on the rocks. Rebel crouched, ready to use her claws or her magic or a killer frown.

  “Who are you?” I asked. It was tough to make out his features. He was cloaked in magic. One thing I could make out was a large set of ears.

  Pointed ears.

  “Demon,” Rebel growled, taking a long stride forward.

  “No, not a demon!” the stranger shrieked. A faint glow from his hands illuminated a small face. Tiny black eyes gleamed at us, brows furled. He came into better view. A long beard reached his round stomach, which was clothed in Osh-Kosh overalls. His white collar shirt was filthy. “Not a demon. I am Shlkxchrsew.”

  I’d never seen anything like him. “An elf,” I muttered.

  “No sir,” he said. “A Travelers’ Friend.”

  “Yeah? I’ve never met one of you.”

  “Pleasure, sir.” He bowed. The haze had lifted from around him. His h
ead was bald as a bowling ball and about as shiny. His black eyes were softened by a kind smile.

  “What’s a Travelers’ Friend?” Rebel asked. Her nails were still set to kill.

  “They help travelers,” I said. “Each culture has its own. I think the Syrians have a giant.”

  “Yes, Christopher,” the Traveler said.

  “I thought it was Christophorous,” I said.

  “He goes by Christopher now. Chris if you are a pretty woman. Bit of a bore if you ask me.”

  “What should we call you?” I asked.

  “Shlkxchrslew.”

  I’d learned long ago that you needed to give friendly supernaturals a nickname fast, before they got past their awe of us humans. I had no idea why we had that effect on them. Some people say it’s because they’re offshoots of humans and feel deferential when they’re near us.

  There was a ‘slaw’ sounding part of his real name so I figured Coleslaw was as good a name as any.

  “Hi, Coleslaw,” I said. I guess Chainsaw would have been cooler, but Coleslaw didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he chuckled.

  “What do you want?” Rebel asked. She wasn’t off her guard yet.

  “I am the second clue,” he said. “We have been waiting for this day for a long time. I’ve come to take you to the hammer.”

  “Who sent you?” I asked.

  “I shall take you to her.”

  “Who?” we both asked.

  “The person who sent me here,” he said, slightly annoyed by what he thought was dimness.

  “He’s annoying,“ Rebel said to me. “Why us?” Rebel growled at him.

  “Because you are not them.”

  “Them who?”

  “The undead.”

  Rebel and I looked at each other.

  “Hurry,” the Traveler continued. We don’t have much time. The undead approach the door. They will have the hammer by the end of today if you don’t get it first.”

  Chapter 3

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I dialed Rose’s cell.

  “To Heimurinn!” he said, as if we were supposed to know where the hell that was. “Hurry.” His black eyes focused on the sloped terrain below us. It was hard to read those beady eyes but my best guess was that he was worried about something.

  “Why do I feel like that’s not on Google Maps?” Rebel asked.

  “It is a place in Reykjavik. It is under the city.” He started to run as I waited for Rose to pick up. “Or, that is to say, it is a realm that is accessible from under the city.”