by Ben Zackheim
“Then we’d better be ready for them.”
The sound got louder until it was more like a hammer hitting stone.
“This isn’t possible. How can they be moving through the debris so fast?” Rebel asked no one. Because I was as clueless as she was.
We stood back against the wall opposite the tunnel and waited. The sound grew louder and louder until we had to cover our ears with our hands.
Then, in one split second, the whole cave was filled with thunder and dust.
I dropped down in the “Oh shit I’m going to get blown up” position. Flying debris, some the size of a pebble, some the size of me landed all around us.
Part of the flying junk was a huge boulder. What size? Depends on who you ask but it was big enough to crush my skull. But just before it hit me a small shoulder rocket emerged from the smoke and slammed into the projectile before it could hit me.
I heard barking as I clasped my eye, probably screaming in pain. The dust settled and I rolled onto my back. That’s when I realized that the barking was laughter.
“Great, we got hunted down by some masochists. What a way to go,” I said.
Just then I saw a red laser poke through the mist, followed by four red eyes. They swayed back and forth as if their owners were swaggering toward the butcher house. I hoped that Rebel had enough fight left in her to get away through the hole these punks made.
That’s when I recognized them. The punks. They saw me on the ground and ran up to me smiling, gesturing in the air with their arms, glee coming out of their pores.
They were telling me a story. I couldn’t hear a thing. The explosion had shut down my eardrums.
It was Cassidy and Rose. The twins. Our other team members. Oblivious to my deafness, they must have been telling me all about how they’d just saved me from a flying boulder with a sweet shot from their Stinger missile.
But then they stopped smiling and stood there staring at me. I assumed they were shocked and scared and maybe even a little apologetic. They walked right up to me and looked at my face.
They started laughing.
It was at that point that I remember who I was in the presence of. The two biggest dicks on the planet.
Rebel stormed up to them and gave each of them a light slap at the same time with both her hands. That shut them up. Just barely.
I smiled.
But why were they laughing at my face?
Chapter 10
We walked down the new tunnel that the twins had made.
I remember thinking, Why are we walking downhill? Didn’t we walk downhill to get to the cave? I wasn’t sure how they’d cleared the rubble enough to strut right into the treasure room.
But I got the answer when we emerged from the mountainside. They’d blown out a tunnel underneath the caved-in cave. The debris from the original cave-in, the rock and stone that had made our tomb, had simply rolled away into the jungles of Peru.
Brilliant.
We hopped down the ramp of stone. The twins turned around when we reached the bottom. They surveyed the destruction, arms crossed, pleased with themselves. Cassidy and Rose may be jackasses but they were good at their job. I looked forward to hearing how the hell they knew we needed help.
I took in the fresh air and waited for my hearing to come back. Rebel looked fine as she stared at me. We smiled at the fact that neither of us had shirts on. Her overcoat barely covered her naked top.
“The sword?” I asked Rebel. She shushed me. I was talking too loud. I still couldn’t hear much.
She reached into her overcoat and pulled out the bundled cloth. She pointed at the cave. Cassidy and Rose strutted toward us, laughing.
“What the hell is so funny?” I asked, trying to be a scary pile of helpless jelly-man, barely able to stand.
“Nothing,” Cassidy and Rose said together. I could hear them well enough. They’re accustomed to shouting all the time. They need to so that they can hear themselves over the other one’s constant chattering.
“What’s going on, Rebel?”
“It’s your eye,” she shouted.
“What about it?”
“It’s a cyborg eye!” Rose yelled, smirking.
“Your right eye is a different color,” Rebel broke in. “The explosion must have busted the iris up or something.”
“But I can see fine.”
“Good!” she said. “Actually, it looks kind of cool.”
We rested for a while and then gave all the bodies (and body parts) a pseudo-proper burial because that’s how we roll. I don’t mind kicking ass but I always show respect after I smite my enemy and defile his fighting spirit with the agony of defeat. I’m pretty sure Rebel feels the same way, just with more swear words.
It took an hour to get back to base camp. It was the most fun I’d had that day. I got to enjoy the beautiful view of Peru in the moonlight as we walked down from the foothills. It really was an amazing country. So rich with life. So many places to hide from the world.
Base camp, for this job, was our car. A Fiat. That would be Cassidy’s fault. He claims he didn’t know the difference between a Fiat and a Ford. “Hey, look, my thing is explosives. Give me boomboom. Give Rose the car reservation crap.” I obliged him by taking him off car duty forever. And assigned him to motel reservations. He didn’t like that.
Having Cassidy and Rose around is like being a parent to kids. Not just any kids, though. Psychopath kids who you see coming a mile away and do everything to avoid but end up with them anyway. They stick like glue. They stink like glue, too with that lab of theirs. That was the real reason I kept them around. Rebel actually really liked them. She felt some kind of big-sister thing. She’d provide awful advice and they’d take it and multiply it by 1000 times the awfulness and I’d get to pick up the mess.
But in the final analysis the lab made it all worth it.
I had it built under the family estate, Batman-style. The siblings designed the whole thing, down to the special FEMA tiles that prevented leaks of poisons that could take out all of New York City, 40 miles away. Yeah, it was scary stuff. But they were my best bet against the foes we were working against. As long as they made me great weapons for every occasion I’d tolerate their genetic asshole-y disposition.
“I want to drive the Fiat,” Cassidy said out of nowhere.
“Since when do you know how to drive?” Rose asked, cocking her eyebrow.
“Since you started asking stupid questions,” he shot back.
“You’re not driving the Fiat, Cassidy,” I said.
“Why not? You let her drive the Ford.”
“That’s because she knows what a Ford is.”
“And I don’t call steering wheels ‘round turny things’,” Rose said.
“And she doesn’t think brakes are only for using at 150 miles per hour,” Rebel added.
“Well, no actually that was me,” Rose said.
“I’m driving,” Rebel said.
“Fine,” Cassidy said, pouting. He flicked the button on a small black box in his palm. The sound from over the hill sounded like a beast in pain. Rebel crouched, ready for a fight.
But we figured out what it was when the chattering sound got closer to us. The helicopter hovered over the ridge and gently laid down on the flat ground in front of us. Cassidy and Rose smiled and hopped in. Rebel and I watched them fly off.
“They just left without us,” Rebel said.
“Yeah.”
“How did we get so lucky?”
“We make our luck. Give me the keys.”
“You sure you can see okay out of those eyes?”
I glared at her. She threw me the keys. I slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted the rear-view mirror. My left eye was still green, but my right eye was bloodshot and silver.
Rebel grabbed my chin and surveyed my face. “It’s a good look for you.”
“We need to get the sword back home fast. If the Vampires made it here before us then they’ll be right on our tail.”<
br />
“Agreed. You ready to put the sword away?”
“Yeah,” I said, closing my eyes. I focused. I blocked out everything. I ignored the wind. I ignored the smell of rental car. I ignored my hunger.
It was time to get Excalibur somewhere safe.
We were about to hit the open road and the open road was the most vulnerable place to be.
The air around us started to hum and a slice of blue light cut through the air between the passenger seat and the driver seat. A crack formed and a portal of blue light opened. It gave off the smell of salt water, as usual. I reached for the sword in the back seat, but Rebel snatched it up first. She still didn’t trust me to touch it.
She slid the sword into the portal herself.
This was my one spell. My Solo spell, meaning I’m the only person known to possess it. There was only one other Solo spell on the planet and it was my teacher, Skyler’s. His Solo was similar to mine. It could transport people from one place to the other. No one knew where mine led. I just used it as a safe for the items we collected.
Solos are passed down. Skyler got his when he was a kid. A powerful wizard at his school cast it for him right before he died.
No one knows who gave me mine. I’d been searching for the answer my whole life. I was sure it had something to do with my parents. But neither of them showed any ability to cast magic before they died.
My portal was a powerful asset for Spirit. It was why I was assigned to retrieve Vampire treasure. As long as I lived, the loot that I stored inside was safe. If I died then everything inside would disappear forever. It made me the perfect soldier for missions like this. Whoever our opponent was, they’d heard about my gift. I was famous. They knew my death would mean they’d never get the treasures inside. The portal makes me safe. It makes everyone around me dead, because they end up being pawns in the never-ending game to get to the prize.
Which is one of the main reasons I’ll always owe Rebel. She was the only one with guts enough to be the bait when I was captured. She’d be the first to die to make me cough up the fortunes I walked around with.
I came out of my trance, exhausted. I’d never been so tired in my life.
“Where are we headed?” Rebel asked.
“To a safe place,” I said, coyly. I started up the car.
“And where would that be?”
I looked over at her and smiled. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 11
The flight home was a long one. It wasn’t like we suffered. We got on the private plane that flew out of Peru’s Bumfucnoware Airport, a non-existent airport in the middle of a field that I hired some local guys to clear for us so my pilot could land and take off.
That probably leaves the wrong impression.
I’m not an asshole. I don’t like tearing up forest so my plane can go where it pleases. But I’ll make an exception for Excalibur. I had to get it to safety as soon as possible. Finding it and taking possession of it was only one half of the job.
Rebel and I drove home from JFK airport in my Bugatti, a good and proper car. I realized I was in a pretty dark mood. Our first success should have been sweet. But not only had we tapped out every ounce of our energy, we also knew this wasn’t over. You don’t just swoop in and take Vampire treasure and think you’re all clear. Every time you did your job for Spirit you had twice the work to do just to keep the treasure safe.
“What now?” Rebel asked, doing 108mph.
“We wait,” I said. My guess is they’ll hear about our score in the next few days, if they haven’t already. Either way we’re a week out before they try anything.”
“Not if they know we’re a total mess,” Rebel shot back. “If anyone was watching from the jungle they could report back that we hobbled out of there like a couple of hammered hundred year olds.”
“We have the twins.”
“Oh, that’s great comfort.”
“Isn’t it?” I asked.
“They’re a couple of twenty year olds, geniuses or not. They can’t even begin to comprehend how messed up it is to fight with a Vampire.”
“So let’s teach them.”
Rebel stole a glance at me. “You mean you should teach them.”
“I’ve been saying for two years...”
“I know, Kane. You want your claws in them. But they’re scientists. They’re inventors. Total nerds. You can’t teach them to fight.”
“You underestimate them.”
“And you want them dead.”
It was my turn to be pissed. I let it sit. It wasn’t my turn to apologize.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes you did. But you need to stop acting like some kind of big sister. They’re not your family. They’re Vampires.”
“They’re Little V’s, Kane. That’s a lot of baggage and you know it.”
Little V is a name used for people who get injections of Vampire blood. Messed up stuff, but people are messed up. I think the whole world went nuts after the Paris attack. In the twins’ case, their parents injected them in the hopes of making them Ivy League geniuses. That’s the reason a lot of people go through the process. Little V’s can be brilliant at one or two things.
Some people theorize this is because the history of all humanity is more potent in a Vampire’s DNA. Maybe having a closer connection with our ancestors makes for more wisdom, more knowledge in some way.
But, in most cases, the injection kills you. It killed the twins’ parents within seconds.
The other downside is that their status in society is either the lowest-of-the-low (if the injections do nothing) or the lowest-of-the-low in service to the highest-of-the-high (if they display a talent).
Both statuses mess up their lives. They become servants. I was just trying to make their servitude serve a higher cause. I couldn’t stand being around Cassidy and Rose for more than an hour. But I wanted to help them.
In the end, you know what? They didn’t care what I thought either way.
Rebel’s take on all of this was solid heart. Zero head. She hovered over them, always. Like a helicopter parent. I had a hard time figuring out why. She would do anything to keep them away from trouble. But trouble was a constant state of being for Little V’s.
“They should be a part of the team,” I said. “We shouldn’t have them hang back. We lucked out this time. They got worried when we didn’t respond on the walkies. But you know our luck won’t last forever. We have a better chance of getting through this if we have them come with us.”
“They could have killed us with that cave explosion.”
I spotted a White Castle. “Yeah, but I’m hungry because of them. The dead don’t eat. Pull over.” There was no such thing as passing a White Castle for Kane Arkwright. Especially after Kane Arkwright had been in Peru for two weeks looking for Excalibur.
Excalibur.
Now nice and safe in my portal.
***
The next few weeks were awkward. We went through the paces of training for the imminent attack on the mansion. The Vampires would realize we got out of the cave alive with the sword and come at us full-force. But after we wrapped up for the day we’d go to our corners of the estate and ignore each other.
Rebel went to the gym. The twins were lost in the lab. I read. A lot.
No one said what was on their minds. We argued over tiny things. Even a bit of honesty on any of our parts would have resolved everything. But we were in the mood to fight. It was as if we were preparing for a battle with the Vampires by sniping at each other.
Except for one weird anomaly.
Rebel was being nice to me.
Well, not nice. She wasn’t being a douche, though. Knocking me around was usually a hobby of hers. But as we wandered the halls of the Westchester mansion she didn’t make a peep when it came to me. I even went to dinner one night in my pajamas and she thought they looked cute.
Rose kept asking me what was wrong with Rebel because she wasn�
��t on my case. “It’s boring around here,” Rose concluded. I guess my torment had become a kind of entertainment.
“I can’t get over how cool that eye looks,” Rebel said one night as I sat by the fireplace.
“Yeah, so you’ve said. A dozen times. Today.” If I didn’t know her better I’d say that she had a crush on me.
“We need to talk to Skyler,” Rebel said after she plopped down in the leather chair across from me and stared blankly for a full minute. I didn’t respond. Maybe she’d go away if I pretended she wasn’t there.
“You can’t ignore me.” She rolled a shiny stone in her fingers. But I stared at the fire. It was captivating. The fireplace was alive with flame, its heat sliced from the massive hearth. It was my kind of show. I was a pyro on top of everything else.
“I would if you’d let me ignore you,” I said.
“Skyler will know what to do,” she said. She kicked her legs over the armchair. “At least he could let us know if there’s any buzz about the sword.”
I didn’t want to visit Skyler. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the old man. He was like a bowl of empty pistachio shells — once awesome, now empty. But Rebel thought he could move planets and do the laundry at the same time. He was her guru. If she didn’t have a reputation to uphold she’d probably clean that filthy house of his in L.A.
“We can find out in other ways,” I said. “We have enough ears to the ground. We’ll hear if something is up.”
“Hey guys,” Cassidy yelled from down the hall. “You’d better come here. Something’s up.”
I sighed.
“After you,” Rebel said.
Chapter 12
My folks were wealthy. I’d given up on feeling bad about it. Most other people have much less. Instead of feeling guilty, I decided to make the world a better place. Sure, that’s relative. But I know good when I see it, just like I know porn when I see it. Hard to define, but hits you right in the whatever when it pops up.
Part of being super-wealthy is having a big house. It used to be bigger. It burned down when I first got into this business. Long story. Maybe I’ll tell it one day. But instead of rebuilding it I decided to just rebuild the parts I liked.