by Ben Zackheim
Contents
Thank You
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 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 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Back Matter
I’d like to thank the following people for giving invaluable feedback. I wouldn’t have launched this book without them!
Hal Bass
David Botell
John Debnam
Carolyn Jean Evans
Natalie Fallon
Carolyn Fielding
Adam Goldstein
Jan Gray
Andrew Greeson
Mike Helas
Bonnie Dale Keck
Denise King
John Logsdon
Del Mitchell
Adam Saunders-Pederick
MaryAnn Sims
Kate Smith
Noah Sturdevant
Larry Diaz Tushman
Chapter 1
Rebel was on my ass.
“You may want to run faster, Kane!” she yelled.
“You may want to look down, Rebel!” I yelled back.
The cliff’s edge was two feet to our left as we scampered up the old path. We just had to hope it didn’t dead-end or drop off into the jungles of Peru. No one had laid a foot in the area for a thousand years if local tales were accurate.
“Move it!” Rebel screamed. “Or I’ll use them. I swear to Thor!”
I knew she was referring to her hands. Hands that were packed with weapons, none of which were a gun, an explosive or metal.
Those damn fingernails were infamous.
Sharpened and shined to a dagger point, her ten digits were known in our circles for their razor-sharp attacks and intimidation factor of ten. Rebel worked hard to make them shine, or “snag the sparkle” as she liked to say.
She was wearing a pair of gloves sliced off at the top of each finger so the nails showed. Her long jacket covered a black outfit that looked like a cross between a Jiu-Jitsu gi and some kind of workout suit. Tight in all the right places but with enough give where she needed it. The getup helped her spring like the panther she wanted to be.
A bullet bounced off the stone above my head, scattering dust and pebbles into my face. I tried to wipe it away but in that split second I lost my footing and tripped right over the edge of the cliff.
The searing pain in my shoulder was a welcome relief. Rebel had me. Granted, she had me by the four or five fingertip daggers embedded in my forearm’s flesh but as long as the skin tissue held together I wouldn’t be falling. At least not at the moment.
The guys taking shots at us had other plans for me. They’d love to see me plummet to my death. Did they even know what they were protecting anymore? They were following orders that went back a thousand years, at least.
If they only knew how much more treasure their bosses were hiding from us, they’d be offering me their sisters as thanks and Rebel their brothers -- or sisters, or whatever she was into those days.
Rebel and I had been chasing treasure for five years. But not just any treasure.
Vampire treasure.
Rebel and I were a Spirit team. You could call it an elite organization, but it’s more of a heavily armed diplomatic wing that’s needed to monitor every country’s paranormals. Spirit agents from each nation are responsible for providing protection for the citizenry. Some countries considered both humans and paranormals their citizens, some didn’t. Some had been infested since the Vampires reappeared two years ago. Some had to fight off werewolves and others were grappling with the demonic world. Each country had to determine what they needed to protect themselves and communicate clearly with everyone else what steps they were taking. International law and all that stuff. Way above my pay grade.
The United States had three teams. Rebel and I were one. Our mission was clear.
Get to the Vampire treasures before the Vampires did.
Vampires were still myth up until recently. Well, Spirit knew they were real but there were so few of them and they were so well-behaved that we could keep them hidden.
But then Paris happened.
It was mayhem. The city was a bloodbath as the Vampires emerged from the sewers at night and swept through the streets with almost zero resistance. By dawn, Paris had been evacuated by all humans. The only ones left were ten Spirit teams. We combed Paris for Vampires but only took out a few. Thousands escaped. We couldn’t determine where they’d been hiding for a thousand years.
One thing we did know is that the Vampires were awake again, and they wanted their shit back. They’d been asleep for so long that they didn’t recognize the world they woke up in. They couldn’t find their ass on a map. We had to take full advantage of their confusion. We couldn’t let them blend in with the human population with unlimited wealth. No one wanted to find out what Vampires would do with the power they could drain from human society.
Rebel and I graduated that same year. Our primary mission was to find and secure all the Vampire treasure as quickly as possible. Then, once we secured the loot, we needed to identify the best location to keep it safe. A lot of the bounty was your standard gold and gems. But a lot of old and supernatural relics were rumored to be waiting for us. Supernatural treasure is tough to hide from supernatural beings.
But that was our goal.
The treasure in Peru was a supernatural relic of the highest order.
“You okay?” Rebel asked as she tugged me up high enough to slip her other set of claws under my other arm.
“Never better, Rebel! Shrapnel in my ass and fingernails in my armpit make it all just great.”
“HA! In my book, maybe. Don’t worry, we’ll get you to…”
Another bullet PANGED off the rock wall. We were ten yards from a bend that would hide us from our pursuers. At least until they turned the corner too. I hoped the end of the path was close. Skyler’s clue didn’t include a map. Typical. I couldn’t stand that old man.
I managed to get up to the path where I took a second to catch my breath. Then I rolled over and peeked over the edge. Two men were running up the path. They must have seen we were close to reaching our goal and decided it was time to catch up and kill us face to face.
Polite of them.
“Are we sure these are the Guardians?” Rebel asked as I got to my feet and hobbled ahead.
“I don’t know, Rebel. It sure looks to me like they’re protecting something.” I tried to make the pain go away with sheer willpower. It wasn’t working. I wishe
d we had a healer on our team.
“I don’t know,” she said. “They look different to me. What’s with the funny caps. Like bank robbers who got lost in Peru.”
“Maybe it’s a local gang. For hire.”
So far the mission was not living up to the hype. We had expected to be up against heavy arsenal. Vampires loved them their guns. So we’d come prepared. We had an Armalite AR-50 sniper rifle, a small crate of M67 grenades and even a FIM-92 Stinger missile launcher, just in case they came at us from the sky. But we’d made the mistake of carrying it all in one car.
One car which had been stolen.
By the guys who were after us.
Hey, we were young. If we lived to the next adventure, we’d get better. Of course, I’d been saying that for the last few missions and we still hadn’t walked away with a single treasure yet. Not even a gold bullion. I got mono in Scotland, though. That was a gift that kept on giving.
I peeked around the bend and checked out what was ahead.
“The path ends 50 yards up,” I told her. She couldn’t see around the bend. “And then we have to climb. About 150 feet to the first ledge. No way I’m making that with shrapnel in my ass.”
“Great attitude, Kane. No wonder we’re doing so well.”
“We’d be doing fine if we could return fire! I’m not the one who took my eyes off a car full of a small army’s arsenal because some Peruvian model gave me the twinkly eyes, am I?”
“I’m not the one who had to leave the car in the first place to hike a mile into the jungle so he could buy exotic mushrooms!”
“Come on. We don’t have time for this.” I winced and made for the cliff wall.
Guns behind us.
A two hundred foot drop to the left of us.
“The only way to go is forward,” I said.
Which is when the spear lodged itself into the stone wall behind me. I watched as another one arched through the sky at me. The tosser was perched on the cliff ahead.
Chapter 2
“Where the fuck did that come from?” Rebel asked, pulling the spear out of the wall.
She was pissed. They’d pay for even getting close. Rebel would feel their blood flow over her pinky for that.
Yeah, she’s dark. Vindictive, too.
“Up there,” I said, pointing up to the ledge above us. It was slightly covered in mist and partially cloaked in darkness so it was the perfect spot to hide.
I slipped past Rebel, my hands tucked under my arms to apply pressure and stem the bleeding.
“What the hell are you…” she asked as I barely avoided slipping over the edge again. But I had to check on the guys behind us. The ones with the guns.
“I can’t see them. Give me your pistol,” I said, slipping past her again so I could see the cliff where the spears were coming from.
“Don’t waste a bullet on the spear guy!” she yelled. I aimed. “Are you sure you can hit him?”
I stopped. I looked over my shoulder at her.
“What?” she asked. “It’s windy out there. And he’s hiding in the shadows. And there’s no…”
I fired.
Nothing happened. No movement from the cliff.
“See? Dammit, give me that gun back,” she said.
And then a human form stumbled out of the shadows of the cliff, fell off the edge and spun all the way down to the sharp boulders below.
“Okay, that was amazing,” Rebel said. “And disgusting. Look at that.” The dead guy was at the bottom of the cliff in several pieces and dark puddles flowed in every direction around him.
Rebel lives by her fists. Fighting, to her, is like slipping into velvet pajamas and sipping cognac by the fire. She hates guns. Me, I fight and live by them. Put one in my hand and point me to the bad guy. I won’t miss. Ever.
“Let’s go, Rebel. We’re going to make it this time.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“Shut up and go!”
“See? So sweet.”
I shoved her ahead and took one more look behind us to see where our pursuers were.
I didn’t have to look far. They were right behind us. As in stepping-on-my-toes close. And they were much bigger up close. The guy who towered over me was 7 feet if he was an inch.
The beast of a man picked me up. His arms squeezed the breath right out of me. I couldn’t get my hands free to box his ears so I used my head to bash his nose in. It was like slamming a tomato with a hammer. But even with all of the blood he didn’t let go. He did start to lose his balance which was not what I was looking for. We were 100 feet up.
One bad step and we’d be going over.
He slipped and fell.
He let go of me so he could grab onto something. That’s when the other guy snagged me by the arm and pulled me up. He didn’t mean to. He’d been going for his buddy and just missed.
He dropped me on the path as his partner screamed all the way down.
He took a wide swing at my head and I ducked underneath it. I snapped back to my feet and put everything I had into my strike. I’d only get one chance. My swing missed by about four feet. But Rebel’s landed.
I heard a small crack. The big guy screamed in pain but kept swinging. He clipped me and slammed me against the cliff wall.
That’s when Rebel cast her stupid music spell. It plays dramatic music during a fight in 360 degree surround sound. Super annoying. But it’s a good distraction. She’d chosen Song of the Valkyries this time.
The song surrounded us. It became our soundtrack.
The attacker looked around, confused by the sound. Rebel latched onto his torso like a tick. She crawled over his shoulder and onto his back. She hugged him from behind, trying to get a choke hold. But the guy was a pro. He folded his chin into his chest and then let loose with a nasty head butt with the back of his head. It sounded like the blow broke Rebel’s jaw. I knew that would piss her off even more because she likes to taunt her opponents. She hung on but I could tell she would lose her grip soon. I aimed the Glock at the guy’s legs and tried to get Rebel’s attention. If I was going to take him out she’d have to be ready to jump clear as he fell over the edge.
Her eyes met mine and she smirked.
I fired at his groin. Bullseye. As usual.
He stopped fighting Rebel and snagged his boys in agony. She jumped from his back and rolled down the path. She teetered on the edge for a second. I ran for her, knocked into King Kong, and reached for her outstretched hand.
I grabbed the edge of a rock and managed to stop our fall, but my bleeding armpits now had a dislocated shoulder for company. The pain was beyond belief. My determination to not drop Rebel was the only thing keeping me awake.
I felt her weight lighten. She’d found her foothold.
“Nice save,” she said.
“We’re even,” I said.
She laughed. “You wish.”
We got about ten yards before we heard the sound of a woman screaming.
The scream was coming from the cliff above us.
“Run,” I said and she did.
Chapter 3
When we got to the bend in the path we could see a light coming from a cave in the cliff wall.
“You’d better get up there,” I said. I wasn’t going to be able to help her anytime soon. Rebel lay me down on the path, as far from the edge as she could shove me. She stuck something in my face.
“Drink,” she said. My eyes focused on the thermos. Her thermos. The one she always filled with Skyler’s elixir.
The elixir was the crap-brown magic syrup concoction that our old teacher gave her for her birthday every year. So once a year Rebel got the chance to be as strong as Superman whenever she wanted. Last time she drank it to bounce some bouncers who kept blocking her from the bar she got banned from. She probably could have taken them on without it, but she did have fun tossing them around like rag dolls.
I didn’t know she’d brought her stash with her on the mission.
“That
shit can kill you,” I said.
“If the sword is up there I want you to see it. Just drink it, you big baby!”
I grabbed it out of her hand just to wipe the faux exhaustion off her face. I knew she was right. We had to finish the job. Plus, I’d always been curious what it would be like to have super strength. I wasn’t kidding when I said it would kill me though. The elixir was made for her, with love that Skyler felt for her. He had no love lost for me, so I could see his potion taking it all out on my guts.
We’d see. Because I did it.
I drank deep. I swallowed the greasy liquid and gagged enough to almost puke it up but Rebel shoved a hand over my mouth and lifted a finger into may face. “Don’t you barf up his hard work!” I nodded and she let go.
It happened almost immediately. Not only was I able to move my whole body within a couple of seconds. Not only did I feel as strong as a llama on speed. Not only did the whole world look weak and at my bidding. But to top it off I was as horny as a senior at prom.
“Okay,” I said, trying to contain my excitement. I didn’t want her to know just how much I liked it.
I stood up, brushed off and examined the steep path ahead of us. It looked weak and puny. I ran and I heard Rebel laugh behind me.
I got to the cliff wall in two seconds.
Another scream erupted.
I crouched. I wanted to jump the rest of the way up. But a gentle, firm hand laid on my shoulder.
“Remember,” Rebel said.
“Oh yeah, limited strength.” Neither of us knew when it would wear off but the spell had a tendency to shut down at the worst possible time. So I might have leapt the whole way up and then found myself weak again. Skyler’s concoctions also made the drinker headstrong but I was able to gather my wits, take a deep breath and start climbing.
It took one minute to get to the top but my pumped up state of mind made it feel like a day. I ran to one edge of the cave opening and peeked in.
After a few of these treasure hunts I thought I’d seen everything.
I was wrong.
The entrance was small but the cave was huge. It was man-made. Its walls were chiseled away with thousands of tiny slashes. Must have taken a lot of people a lot of time to finish. There was a light glowing bright from the rear of the cave but I could see why it was flickering.