by ST Branton
Victoria.
“Yeah I see him.”
I stepped on the gas.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
My lead foot lasted only as long as it took for me to realize the dude in the alley wasn’t budging. I cursed and stomped on the brake. “Hold on tight!”
The grey hatchback skidded to a hard halt amid the squeal of tires and a cloud of acrid rubber smoke. Silas Monk cowered in the seat beside me, arms over his head.”What the hell is happening?” he demanded, his voice shaky.
“Well, we didn’t hit him,” I said. “But I think he’s about to hit us.”
A resounding boom shook the car as his giant hammer slammed the concrete wall next to the car. Debris pattered onto the roof and windshield. The shadow of the weapon passed across the roof and struck again. This time, the debris sounded bigger.
On the next backswing, I flung my door open and rolled low into the alley. Hammer Man beat on the wall a third time, and now I could see it was starting to crumble inward at the point of impact.
“He can’t help either of us if you crush him to death,” I shouted, standing up and brushing myself off.
“My conflict is not with you, human.” He kept his obscured gaze intently on Monk. “It would behoove you to get lost while you still can.” He adjusted his grip on the shaft of his hammer, his broad face expressionless beneath those impenetrable sunglasses. His mouth made a hard, dark line beneath a nose that had clearly been broken at least once. With a grunt, he pulled his weapon back for another mighty swing.
“But, see, that’s where you’re wrong. You’ve got a beef with Monk, and I need him. So, hell yeah, your conflict is with me.” The Gladius Solis was in my hand now. “Are we gonna sort this shit out or not?”
He stopped mid swing, faltering slightly against his own momentum. “All you’re doing is making this worse for yourself.”
“Easy is boring.” I backed away from the car, hoping he’d take the cue and follow me. “Just one request. Don’t blow that thing up, all right? I’m gonna need it to get out of here after I kick your ass.”
He laughed gruffly. “It’s almost a shame we met this way.” Then that damned colossal hammer was coming for my head. I ducked in the nick of time; the edge of it skimmed my hair.
Victoria!
“Not now, Marcus!” I shouted. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not any less busy than I was a minute ago!” Kronin’s blade sliced through the air, but it clanged to a stop against the shaft of the hammer.
“That’s not going to work here,” Hammer Guy said smugly. “Guess you’ll have to think of a way to ditch the cheat codes.”
I was more surprised than I had any right to be, and it pissed me off. Marcus had said over and over again that the sword was unbeatable, and so I felt like I had a right to expect it to actually cut through everything. My first instinct was that this dude had found a way to game the system, even though he called me the cheater.
I braced the flat of the blade against his next strike. Sparks jumped from between the weapons. “Who are you?” I demanded. The sheer weight of the hammer’s head gave me the edge I needed. He stepped back, and I forced him up and off. “Come on, spit it out. You’re not going to win this, man!”
By way of answering, he swung the hammer up over his head and brought it down two-handed between his feet. A web of rumbling cracks surged toward me, warping the surrounding ground. I leapt out of the way as the shockwave crashed into the wall at my back.
“Defeat me, and you might be worthy of my name.”
“What the shit is with you weirdos? You wanna be Hammer Guy for the rest of your life? Fine by me.”
Hammer Guy smirked. “I like how you’re assuming I’ll let you kill me.”
I growled. “I’m not assuming shit, dickass. I’m just going to do it.”
Victoria, listen to me. Engaging this individual is a mistake. Back off, retrieve Monk, and get to someplace I can explain without distracting you.
“I don’t know, man. I’m already pretty damn engaged.” The sword swiped across Hammer Guy’s black-clad abdomen as I lunged forward, singeing a hole in his shirt. The fabric stretched as he moved back, and I caught a glimpse of a dark chain-link tattoo on his skin. He responded by jabbing me with the broad end of the hammer. I stumbled back, gasping for breath.
“You got an invisible friend?” Hammer Guy sneered. “Or did Kronin’s sword just happen to find its way to a human lunatic this time?” The medallion fell from my neckline as I steadied myself. His eyes snapped to it. “Invisible friend it is.” Before I could stop him or get out of reach, he stepped forward and grabbed the chain, inspecting the coat of arms. “I think I know this guy. I’d ask if you killed him, but he probably died saving your life or something. They’re all about that shit in Carcerum.”
He let go of the medallion, and I stuffed it back into my shirt. “Do me a favor and don’t ever touch my shit again.” I squared up. “Let’s get this over with.”
“If you say so.” He whipped the hammer down at me, forcing me to dive out of the way. When I looked up, it was already spinning like a rotor above his head. “You were at the hotel before. You know what comes next.” The hammer started to sizzle.
“Fuck off!” A torrent of rage burst in my chest, and the next thing I knew, Kronin’s sword was flying through the air. Clean throw, but he had too much warning. I watched as he deflected it with the whirring hammer.
Not my finest moment, but I had a trick up my sleeve. I took a deep breath, held out my hand, and called, “Gladius Solis!”
The sword, lying where it had fallen after bouncing off the wall, skidded a few feet in my general direction.
“Not much of a teacher, was he?” Hammer Guy started to advance. “That’s all right. He’s not here to see this.”
The searing heat from the hammer bored down on me, the glare of the fire burning my eyes. I threw myself to the side, barely clearing the white-hot flames, and darted for the sword. The blade came out just in time to save my skull from being forcibly reshaped.
Damn, I wished Monk knew how to fight. Or do anything besides sciency stuff and hiding in a stolen car. Vamps with knives and guns were one thing, but this guy was bigger than Rocco, and his hammer threw me off my game. Plus, it sketched me out that he seemed more interested in treating me like a toy. I’d take pure murderous intent over mind games any day.
“You’ll be sorry if he runs,” I said. The sword cut upward.
“I’ll be surprised if he gets the balls to look out the window.” Hammer Guy did a back turn and met my next strike with infuriating ease. “If he runs, I’ll go after him. I told you, my conflict isn’t with you.”
“Aren’t I the luckiest girl on Earth?”
“If I’m not mad at you, you’re up there.” He moved to take another swing but was stopped dead by a screeching cry from the other end of the alley. His head snapped around, and the semi-playful smirk fell off his mouth. “Dammit.”
A horde of lithe, slender shapes poured out of the street, filling the width of the alley like a screaming, vengeful torrent. It took me a second to realize they were harpies. Not as tall as Eve or the other one, but definitely louder.
“Where the hell did they come from?” I asked to no one in particular.
“I’ve been asking that question my whole life!”
I turned to look at Hammer Guy, but the harpy tide crashed between us, and he was gone behind a wall of wings and slashing claws. The report of the hammer blows cut through the screams with vicious regularity. I could already see the crowd starting to thin.
While the girls were preoccupied with Hammer Guy, I got back to the hatchback, which was now covered in scratches. A skinny hand snatched at me, so I cut it off. The claws clutched grotesquely at nothing.
It almost made me miss the familiarity of my boring New York vamps. Those guys didn’t constantly screech like they were on fire. Sure, they catcalled me, but I had established ways of dealing with that.
&nbs
p; The door was closed and locked somehow. I could still see Silas Monk scrunched up in the seat. He’d lapsed back into staring silence, but at least he reacted when he noticed me. His thumb hovered over the unlock button on his door panel.
I nodded, and just as I heard the sound of the locks opening, a hand jerked me backward.
The air rushed from my lungs as I landed hard on my back. A short harpy loomed over me. “Going somewhere?” she asked, in a scratchy, witchlike voice. Her skin looked like it had hairline cracks, her eyes bloodshot scarlet. If Lysiani was the Harpy Queen or whatever, she didn’t have very high recruiting standards.
Then again, this bitch had just flung me like a ragdoll, so maybe it was in my best interest not to judge a book by its ratty cover.
She seized me by the arm and hauled me to my feet, aiming to toss me again. I dug the point of my sword into the pavement, stopping her at the cost of a painful jerk to my shoulder. Once she saw what was holding me in place, she bared her teeth, hissing, but she made no move to get near the blade.
I ripped my arm from her grasp, yanked the sword from the concrete, and shoved it through her bony chest. She dropped like a sack of rocks, and I dove into the car. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
“Are you okay?” Monk asked. “You just killed her.”
As if I hadn’t noticed. “Yeah.” I put the car in reverse and burned rubber back toward the street. “It happens. Tell me if they start chasing.” There was an even chance that we’d be obliterated by oncoming traffic the second we popped out of the alley into the street, but given what was on the other end of the car, I thought it was a worthy risk.
At the mouth of the alley, I craned my neck as far back as I could then swung the wheel. The car swerved a little wide as its tires squealed, but we didn’t die, so I called it a victory as I punched it forward. “Yes!”
Monk let out his breath. “Holy shit. What are we gonna do? Where are we gonna go?”
“Working on it.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and tossed it into his lap. “Go into my email. Send a message to my contact named SplitScreen. Ask if she knows somewhere safe we can stay for now.”
Monk looked like he wanted to say something, but he wisely kept his mouth shut as he typed. A minute later, the app dinged. He looked at it. “She wants to know if you’re okay, what happened, and what you found out, in that order.” He paused. “And if you’re alone.”
“Well, I’m not, so you better announce yourself.” I wasn’t real happy about introducing Namiko and Silas Monk directly, given her history in Silicon Valley, but at this point, it couldn’t be helped. I just hoped she would see it that way too. My email alert sounded a few more times. “What’s she saying?”
“I think she’s mad,” said Monk. He sounded uncharacteristically cowed. “Look, I recognize her handle. I’ve seen her stuff. I’m trying to tell her I don’t necessarily disagree with everything she’s said, or all the information she’s uncovered, but she isn’t—” He looked at the screen again. “She says to bring me to her house so she can look me in the face.”
I held in a smirk. “Address? You might need to help me find it. I don’t know the area.”
“I’ll tell it to you if you swear this girl isn’t going to kill me when we get there.”
“You’d rather deal with the harpies, huh? Trust me, Namiko is like two feet shorter than Eve. You can handle it.”
Grudgingly, the richest tech mogul in Silicon Valley assumed the role of GPS, guiding me to my friend the computer espionage agent’s house.
Life had not stopped being weird as hell.
Namiko lived in a wealthy, sprawling neighborhood where most of the giant houses had gates. Hers was gothic wrought-iron, topped with four-inch spikes that Monk eyed nervously.
“She is not going to impale you, okay? She’s way too invested in this to ruin it now.” I pulled up to the intercom box. A camera swiveled to face the car. “Hey, it’s Vic. And… this guy.” I jabbed my thumb in Monk’s direction. “Sorry I had to bring him. It’s a long story. Turns out his girlfriend was a harpy.”
Namiko snorted.
“Hey! Am I the only one who thinks it would be cool if we didn’t broadcast that information?” Monk asked.
“Pretty much,” I said. The gate clicked and began to swing open. “Don’t feel too bad. She might consider you humiliated enough not to torment you further.”
“Great.” He sulked all the way up the driveway and then all the way to her front door. Two more cameras examined us as we waited for her to let us in. A slot in the door, positioned precisely at Namiko-height, opened and closed in a flash, followed by the door itself.
She locked it three different ways behind us, repositioned the cameras, and primed a keypad. Then she led us down the front hall into a lofty, well-decorated living room. Noticing me staring at a wall of ornamental masks, she said, “This is my dad’s old house, from when he was still working in the States. Those oni masks are his.”
A laptop surrounded by three monitors was set up on the table in front of a leather couch. She posted herself in front of it and cast a disdainful glance at Monk. “Okay. So tell me how the hell this happened.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Wow.” Namiko pushed her laptop away so that she could fully absorb the craziness I’d just related to her. “All that shit you were talking before, about the Forgotten—vampires and gods and monsters—it’s real? I...I’m not sure what to think about this.”
“I know you don’t care, but I can vouch for her,” Monk said. “I was there too. Obviously.”
She ignored him, getting back on her computer. “First things first, we should probably try to figure out who the guy in the trench coat is. He might be a problem if he’s going to keep turning up everywhere.”
“I know who he is.” Monk’s voice was weak. “Eve, she told me that I wouldn’t be safe without her protection. She said that all manner of creatures would come for me.”
“So what kind of creature is he?” Namiko asked.
“A demon,” he said. “And he’ll come for me again, I know it.”
Namiko stared at him with an open mouth, then turned to me. “Is that possible?”
More than possible. Marcus’s voice was tinged with worry. And more than that, I know which demon he is. A particularly foul creature by the name of Abraxzael.
“Abraxzael?” I said his name out loud before I had a chance to stop myself. Now it was their turn to look at me.
“Do you know him?” Namiko asked, somewhat suspiciously.
“What? No.” I touched the links of the golden medallion chain. “This is going to be hard to explain, but as long as we’re in this for the long haul, it might save us all some unnecessary confusion if I just told you.” I held up the medallion for them to see. “The short version is that I had a friend at the beginning of this mess, he died, and he left me this. If I wear it, I can hear him.”
“Can he read your mind?” Namiko wanted to know.
“I… don’t know,” I admitted. “I hope not.”
I probably could if I wanted to, but I do not want to. I wish to continue respecting the established boundaries of our relationship.
“He says no. And he also says that he knows who the guy with the hammer is.” We all waited expectantly.
That being is Brax, otherwise known as Abraxzael. He belongs to a subset of Forgotten called The Marked. They are akin to what you would call demons.
I sighed. “The dude goes by Brax. And Brax is a demon.”
The blood drained from Monk’s face. “We’re all going to die.”
“Just shut up nerd,” Namiko shouted. Monk flinched when she spoke.
The term is merely the closest approximation I thought to make. I admit that I do not know as much about the Marked as others. During my tenure in Carcerum, I never bore witness to one. My predecessor, however, had multiple encounters with Abraxzael over the years, and your hammer wielding assailant fits the description.
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“Well, what’s his deal?” I moved over and sat down next to Namiko, motioning for Monk to join. “I won’t lie; this is gonna be pretty weird. I can tell you what he says, but you’re just going to have to trust me on it. Can you do that?”
Namiko didn’t look happy, but she relented. I glanced at Monk. “If we all wear it together, would we be able to hear him?” he asked.
“I don’t—” The question put me way more on the spot than I expected.
Namiko saved me. “There’s no way I’m getting that close to you.” She never looked up from her screen.
I cleared my throat as Monk retreated a few inches across the couch. “Sorry, Marcus. Please continue.”
The history of the Marked is thus: They were the gods’ first attempt at creating an enslaved race, but they proved too willful to subdue. After several failed rebellions, the largest of which resulted in many human casualties as well, the Marked were formally banished to their own realm.
Namiko and Monk stared at the medallion while I related Marcus’ message. Namiko shot me a look. “Do you know how this works?”
“Ghost magic, as far as I can tell. He told me it holds the spirits of his ancestors. Anyway, why would Brax have a vendetta against Monk if he helped him build the drill?”
It is not the vendetta that worries me. It’s what will happen if he gets ahold of the drill.
I grumbled. “That makes more sense to me than I want it to. It seems our sex goddess isn’t the only one who wants your weapon.”
“What can we do?” Monk was draining confidence by the second as the weight of his actions bore down on him.
“We have to make sure no one else gets it,” I interjected. “Doesn’t matter who or what stands in our way. You made it, it exists, and some really bad shits are trying to get their hands on it. But we can use this to our advantage. If this thing really is powerful enough to use in a fight against the gods, we need to secure it for our side. If the gods have a plan and that plan is coming to fruition, I want to have access to everything that will help us.” Specifically, I wanted access to anything that would help me, but I kept that to myself, giving Monk a look. “It’s not in your hotel room, is it? Please tell me it’s not in there.” Please tell me it’s not already gone.