by Ben Zackheim
"I can be louder for you, baby," Dino said. I rolled my eyes but not before seeing Rebel roll hers.
The Wretched Train conductor peeked out from his little window to make sure the track was clear.
The train doors opened.
“Next stop, wherever,” the conductor’s whiny voice echoed.
We sat on the flesh-colored flesh seats. Dino sat across from us, manspreading his way into the world record books.
“How did you find us?” I asked as he adjusted his junk.
“I was just going to take the Wretched to Chicago to visit my cousin,” Dino said.
“The train goes to Chicago?” I asked.
“It goes everywhere, dude. Come on, you call yourself a Spirit agent? All the major cities have a stop. Cities are where the magic is needed…”
“…to keep everything together. Yeah, I heard. What happens if the magic goes away?”
“No one knows but I think everyone and everything just kind of messes up.”
“Messes up,” I repeated.
“Messes up,” he said.
“Messes up,” Rebel said.
“Why are we saying messes up so many times?” Dino asked.
“Because it’s pretty non-committal, don’t you think?” I asked. “I mean that’s like saying everything just kind of goes wrong. Weak.”
“Don’t know what to tell you, dude. Cities, rocket ships, and nukes are the extremes of human endeavor. Magic has at least a small hand in all of it. So if the endeavor breaks, then who knows what you fucking maniacs will unleash upon the world?”
I didn’t really know what the hell he was talking about. And neither did he, yet I was hit with a sense of dread. As if Dino’s words were a warning that much more was at stake on this mission than I’d thought.
“Arriving wherever,” the conductor said. “Please mind the gap leaving the train. It ate someone this morning.”
“I think I’ll go with you guys instead,” Dino said.
“Oh, no, that’s okay,” I started, but he stepped off with us and the air around us shifted to cold and windy. The walls of the station faded into the chaos of 42nd Street.
The Wretched Train doesn’t just drop you at your station. It drops you at your destination.
“So what are we up to here?” the troll asked us, putting his hands on his hips and trying to ignore all the tourists who were screaming and running away from him.
“We have to get to the 61st floor,” I said. “And I think I see what Bonehead was talking about now.”
“What do you mean?” Rebel asked.
“I can feel the shield growing stronger. It’s pressing against the portal. This shit hurts. We have to hurry.”
Chapter 10
“Let’s take the elevator,” Dino said.
Which is when I heard the last thing I wanted to hear at that moment. The stomping of hundreds of feet. The hisses and growls of predators.
“No time,” I yelled. Dino and Rebel turned to see what I was looking at.
“Oh,” the troll said as he took in the hordes of Blues turning the corner of 42nd Street and headed straight for us.
Some people thought it was a film shoot or a practical joke. But once the Blues starting snacking their way to the Chrysler Building they got the hint and scattered.
“Spirit is not going to be happy about this,” Dino said, glancing down at me.
“Oh, you think so?”
I whipped off my belt fast and looped it through his. We were attached at the waist. Rebel did the same.
“What the fuck are you two doing?” the troll asked. I think he was afraid of the answer.
But it was the only way.
“Climb!” I pointed up. I’d seen him climb in Argentina once. It was a beautiful thing. Trolls are big, bumbling boobs on the ground, but get them on a cliff face and it’s like watching a gazelle run.
Dino’s shoulders drooped. He looked like a big, ugly, sulking baby. He jammed his fingers into the white brick wall and started pulling himself up. Rebel and I went with him, hanging from his back.
The Blues slammed into the walls below us as we traversed the fourth floor. I tried not to use any ammo but it was so tempting. All of those easy targets. But the bullets had to be preserved. I just hoped they’d keep their focus on me and not the New Yorkers, some of whom were dumb enough to peek around corners and over cars to get some pics with their phones.
“How far did you say we’re climbing?” Dino asked.
“61st floor,” I answered. “The northwest gargoyle.”
“61st fl… Jesus Christ, Kane. You think I’m Superduperman or something?”
“You’d better be, Dino, or we’re all dead.”
“If only I had some motivation to keep going,” he said. Ugh. I knew where this was going.
“Dino,” I said.
“If only I could see a prize at the end of all this,” he said as his climbing slowed down. “Something cranky. With red hair.”
“Fuck you,” Rebel said. “Climb or I’ll rip your dick off.”
“That would be extreme but I could be into that,” he said.
I heard him chuckle. Rebel looked pissed but she also smirked. He was a pig, but he didn’t pretend to be anything else. I knew she’d warm to him when she got to know him. I just hoped it didn’t become something more. That would be fucking disgusting. I tried to get the thought out of my head.
Little red head troll boys running around my library, asking for books to eat.
Or toilets to fight.
Or something sharp to stick up their butts.
Just like their dad.
“Kane, look,” Rebel said.
The Blues were climbing after us.
“Since when could they do that?” I asked.
“Never seen it before,” she said.
“What do you have to drop on them?” I asked. Her face lit up like a kid in a toy store.
“A whole mess of things,” she said, now sounding like a kid, too.
“Get to it.”
She closed her eyes and spread her arms. A dim light passed between distant palms and quickly intensified until it looked like she was making a really long cat’s cradle. She moved her fingers slightly and the glow progressed from white to orange to red.
Within one blink she was squeezing together three rubbery balls of fire, the size of basketballs. With a grunt she released them.
They didn’t just fall down. They shot down. They smashed into the glass and bricks of the building and rolled toward the Blues.
They weren’t basketballs anymore.
They were bowling balls.
I hoped they would end their journey of similes like deadly liquid fire balloons splashing Vampires with doom and leaving their ashen husks on the pavement below for the pigeons to pick over.
My wish came true.
Hundreds of our pursuers went from hungrily clawing their way up the walls and window frames to frantically flailing and falling, crispy black, taking down their brothers with them. The fiery front line of Blues that had just nipped at our heels now cleared the skyscraper like a squeegee drying off a window.
Very satisfying.
“Well done,” I said.
“Crispy, salty goodness,” she said with a smile.
“How you doing up there, Dino?”
“Good, just meditating on whether or not I could live another few hundred years without a dick.”
“It’s not a real offer, troll!” Rebel shouted.
“Aw, come on!”
“Guys, cut the chatter,” I said.
I spotted some Vamps floating nearby. They were watching us closely. I could make out the emperor’s massive shape in the middle of the crowd.
He waved a hand and his men dropped down on the remaining Blues, who were jumping over their comrades and getting ready to climb at us again.
The emperor’s goons cut into the Blues without mercy. Rebel and I looked at each other, confused.
“I
think those Vamps just saved us from round two of the Blues,” Rebel said.
“Looks like it, yeah.”
“What the fuck is going on here?”
“I guess the Blues aren’t with the emperor,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Then who do they work for?”
I had my suspicions, but I didn’t want to think about it.
Chapter 11
I stood over the northwest gargoyle. Its Art Deco eagle head watched over the city with an “I got your back, people” glare.
Dino panted like his lungs were about to explode, which was good because otherwise he’d be peppering Rebel with disturbing flirts.
“Where’s the door?” I yelled.
“How the hell should I know?” Rebel yelled back.
“We should have brought the twins,” I said. The twins were the other junior members of the team. Well, they weren’t technically on the team at all. I just allowed them to come with us when I felt like they could handle it.
Rebel shot me a frown. “Why? So Cassidy could turn into a Wendigo and Rose could get all creepy-looking and float around and look down on us in a judgmental way?”
“And they could tell us where the fucking door is,” I said.
They were helpful that way. Rose in particular. Her new power helped her sniff out treasure. But ever since they’d downed their first alcoholic drinks in Iceland, they’d activated some messed up abilities. We couldn’t bring them along on missions until we knew they could control themselves.
“Rebel...you can...start...to...,” Dino said between breaths.
“Shut up,” Rebel and I said together.
“Try under the light,” Rebel said.
The spotlight under my feet shone on the eagle so the tourists below could see how awesome the building was. I had nothing to lose so I found the edges of the light’s frame with my fingers and pulled.
It popped right out. A round hatch with a metal handle waited inside the hole.
“Nice, Rebel,” I said.
Dino’s eyes watched Rebel’s ass as she passed him to take a peek.
“Yup, that’s a door,” she said.
“Open it up,” I said.
“You open it up.”
“Rebel, I need to open the portal to get the shield.”
She sighed and crouched down, slipped her fingers through the handle and yanked.
A strong wind blew straight up, sending her long red hair into a tizzy. When it settled down she looked like she’d stuck her finger in a wall socket.
“The building just farted on me,” she said.
She was joking but only a little. The smell that erupted from the space was part mildew, part butt vapors.
She lit up her fingertips with her favorite spell and pointed the orange beam straight down.
It was a chute.
“Where does it go?” she asked.
“The bowels of Chrysler would be my bet.” I pulled a bullet out of my pack and dropped it into the hole. I listened to it roll until the sound faded to nothing.
“It’s not a straight drop,” I said. “Sounds like a slide.”
“Let’s just drop the shield in,” she said.
“What shield?” Dino asked.
“Shut up,” Rebel and I said at the same time. Dino rolled his eyes.
“Did you just say we should drop the shield into a hole and call it a day?” I asked her.
That did not sound like the Rebel I knew. At all. The Rebel I knew would get ready for the fight. No shortcuts. Ever. That was her unofficial motto.
“So what?”
“So the job would kind of not be at all fucking done,” I said. “That’s what.”
“Get off my back, Kane. I know where this is going and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Neither do I. But I’m carrying around a nuke-level relic. I need to go down there and swap the shield for whatever’s in there. And the Vamps are watching us.” I gestured to them and a few of them waved at us. “You know why they’re just floating there?”
“They’re waiting for you to open the portal so they can swipe the shield,” she said, looking down at the floor like a bored teen.
“Um, nuke-level relic, did you say?” Dino cut in.
I ignored him. “But I have to worry about you watching my back because you’re pissed about Tabitha?”
“HA! That’s why you think I’m pissed?”
“It isn’t?”
“Shouldn’t we be focused on the whole not-having-a-nuke-level-relic right now?” Dino asked, raising his hand.
“Do me a favor, Kane,” Rebel said, sticking a nail in my face. “Jump into the hole and do your job. You don’t need to worry about me watching your back. That’s what I do.”
“Rebel...”
“I said drop it,” she growled.
“The shield or the subject?”
“Both.”
“What are we talking about here?” Dino asked.
“Nothing,” she and I said together.
“That’s a lot of something for nothing,” the troll said.
“I drank the queen Vampire’s blood because I was bleeding out on the roof,” I told him without looking away from Rebel. “I would have died!”
“Why does everything have to be a long conversation with you, Kane?”
“Because he wants to get in your pants,” Dino said.
“Look, I’m not dropping the shield in the hole. I’ll head down and see if there’s something else I have to take with us. I just need to know that you’ll be here. 100%. No distractions.”
“Yeah, fine. I’m here, Kane. Go.”
“We’ll enjoy the romantic view,” Dino said, baring his teeth in some kind of smile.
We both glared. He enjoyed the rage as if it were a warm breeze in spring.
“When I go, the emperor will try to follow me,” I said. “It’s up to you two to fight them off. Got it?”
“Yessir,” Dino said. He walked right up to Rebel and put his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. “You can count on us.” He put his hand back. She grabbed his wrist and flung it off.
“Just go!” Rebel yelled.
Dino put his hand back on her shoulder and she socked him in the balls so hard he fell backward and almost dropped off the ledge. He got his balance and then fell to his knees.
“Fuck, what’s that smell?” she said, sniffing the air.
“I crapped my pants,” Dino said, laughing.
The Vampires laughed too.
“You two get it together,” I said and steeled myself for whatever waited at the bottom of the chute.
Then someone beat me to it. Like black lightning, a human shape dropped right in front of my face and disappeared into the darkness of the chute below me.
Chapter 12
“What was that?” I asked.
“No idea,” Rebel said.
The troll peeked over the edge. “It looked like a Vampire but he went by too fast for me to see. You still want to go in there?”
“No, but I’m going to anyway,” I said. I pointed at them. “No more Vampires down that hole.”
I turned on my penlight, stuck it in my mouth, took a deep breath and dropped.
Luckily I was right about the chute being like a slide. It would have sucked if it was a straight drop from 61 stories up. I pointed the tight beam down toward my feet but all I could see was blackness.
Then the slide disappeared from under me. I fell. Straight down.
I tried not to scream but you try not screaming when you don’t know how far you have to fall before your big toe jams into your cerebellum.
Suddenly I felt moistness all around me.
Oily, warm, rubbery moistness.
I didn’t know what was going on but my fingertips told my brain that I was squeezing through a thick rubber membrane of some kind. As I fell my speed slowed down until I felt my feet poke out of the bottom of the tube.
I’d stopped.
The only proble
m was I hadn’t dropped out of the tube.
It was getting hard to breathe.
The membrane was suffocating me.
As my eyes went wide I could see a transparent rubber wall all around me, filled with clear, bubbly liquid.
Never thought my obituary would say “Death by suffocation in moist rubber tube.”
Then I felt a tug at my boots. A second tug. I felt arms wrap around my shins. Someone was trying to pull me out.
It worked. I fell out of the chute with a wet thud. Right on top of my savior.
Tabitha.
“Hi,” I said, wiping gooey slop off my face.
“Hi,” Tabitha said.
“Was that good for you, too?”
“Not really, no. I feel like I just gave birth.”
I took a look at where I’d dropped out and shook my head.
“Yeah, I feel like I was just born.”
“I’m sure you use that line on every woman,” Tabitha said, almost smiling.
“Only the ones who pull me out of moist tubes.”
Then it hit me that I hated this woman.
She’d killed my friend, Coleslaw, in Valhalla. For “balance” or some bullshit like that.
She could see my face change. I knew that because suddenly she couldn’t meet my eye.
“I told you there would be a price for helping you, Kane,” she said.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, but it’s the truth,” she said.
I wanted to look at her but I couldn’t, so I studied the room instead.
It was a box. Ten feet squared. Four brick walls, painted white, and an eight foot high ceiling.
I didn’t see anything to swap. I guessed I was clear to open the Vault Portal.
Unless Tabitha was here to steal the shield back.
She’d betrayed her husband, the emperor, but that didn’t mean she was on my side. The shield could cause a lot of misery if she had bad intentions.
And I already knew all too well what she was capable of.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I followed you,” she said, and left it at that.
“That makes you a stalker, but it doesn’t answer the fucking question.”
She glared at me. I’d insulted her delicate sensibilities or something. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get the job over with. I couldn’t do that until she was gone.