by Ben Zackheim
“Please, Lucas. Continue. Merlin believed in The Four?”
“He believes in it, yes, Present tense. There is no chance that damned wizard is dead, sir. He’s still in his cave somewhere, is my bet. Licking his wounds. He always comes back. Always. There’s something about the cave that replenishes him.” Again, I tried to control my response. I had to keep him on topic. Scarlett and I waited for him to continue. “He’s always spoken of defeating the vampires and Set and bringing about an age of The Four. Four gods with four distinct reasons for being. And with those reasons, the very meaning of life would be revealed. Merlin and his flock of cultists believe mortal life has a precise structure of characteristics — combat, escape, nourishment, and protection. To him, all worldly experience can be slotted into these four spiffy-tight categories. Bah!”
Scarlett leaned close to me. “Scientists identified the fight or flee trigger in our nervous system,” she whispered. “Combat and escape are the same as fight and flee.” I nodded to acknowledge her, but I didn’t take my eyes off of Lucas.
“The relics you’ve sought are more than the buried treasures of power brokers over the millennia, my good friend. We’ve known they have a role in this war. My belief has always been that you, Kane Arkwright, must find the weapons that choose you and wield them in battle.” He paused. He closed his eyes. His breathing was light. His eyes popped open and he continued right where he’d left off. “But if Merlin was right, then four relics have a special place in ending the war. Four powerful relics in the hands of four warriors, each with a portal of their own.”
“Excalibur,” I said. Lucas looked at me, eyes wide. “I had a run-in with Raijin.”
“Japan’s God of Thunder?”
I nodded. “He said Excalibur was part of The Four.”
Lucas grabbed my wrist weakly. “Did he reveal the other three relics?” I shook my head. Lucas closed his eyes again. “Must rest. Just for a bit.”
I stayed with him until I was sure he was asleep.
I pulled Scarlett aside. “If the portals are part of The Four, then they’d likely embody these four characteristics of life. Fight, Flee, Nourish, Protect. I could see the Swap Portal being a manifestation of ‘escape.’”
“And the Vault Portal ‘protects.’ But what would ‘fight’ and ‘nourish’ portals do?”
I rubbed my face. My head was starting to hurt. “Start wars and feed people? No idea. Listen, Scarlett. I need to get back to New Jersey. I know you’ll take good care of him. If he wakes up, tell him thank you.”
Scarlett pulled an envelope from her jacket’s inner pocket. “He wanted me to give you this.”
I tore it open. It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing. The symbols on the page were only familiar to me because I’d once accidentally seen the contents of a magicist manuscript that Rebel was studying.
I looked up at Scarlett. “It’s a spell.”
“It must be the spell he found in the scroll piece. I guess you’ll see what the portals do soon.”
I glanced at Lucas and tucked the paper into my pocket. “Now I really need to get going. We have to get Rebel back on her game. She’s the only one I trust to cast these things.”
Chapter 31
I swapped back to New Jersey and activated the comm.
“Rebel, we need to talk.”
“You’re just in time, Kane. Osiris was here and he…”
“We’re going to Merlin’s Cave.”
“Why would we do that, Kane?”
“To get your full powers back.”
“Oh, they’re hanging out in the cave?”
“Merlin drained you with a spell of some kind. Only he can reverse it, Rebel.”
“Too bad he’s dead.”
“Not according to Lucas. He thinks Merlin is recovering somewhere in the cave.”
We ran into each other in the hallway. Rebel poked a knuckle into my chest. “You need to stop running around the world and start running this shit show, Arkwright!”
“I’m leaving Nickolas in charge.”
“Nickolas? He’s a kid!”
“A kid who convinced his peers to trust me within twenty seconds. He’s got pull. Now tell me what Osiris said.”
She kept her knuckle in my chest. “We attack in two days. He’s adjusting his plan to take the demons into account. We need to let him know how many of them we can recruit, pronto.”
“I ordered them to scout for other demons. I don’t know how many we have.”
She finally removed her knuckle. “Well, find out. We’re not going anywhere until you do.” I walked down the narrow hall.
Rebel called out, “Kane, just so you know, I told Dino about the crown. I figured he should be in the loop.”
“Good thinking, thanks.”
I searched the theater for a place to be alone. There were several box seats. Most of them were occupied by nappers and card players, but one booth was empty. I took a seat overlooking the space. I was struck by its beauty. It was just a random theater, built in the 40’s probably. The construction was solid, the details in the carpet and the ceiling moulding and the booth’s trim had stood the test of time.
I missed the world.
I opened the portal and pulled out the sceptre of Was. I took a moment to examine it for wear and tear. It had been used a lot in the last few days. It was in perfect condition, though. The shine of the paint made it look brand new.
“I need a smart demon here now,” I whispered.
A loud boom from the lobby was the first sign my demon was on its way. The double doors to the theater slammed open.
“Where’s the master at?” a female voice called out.
I waved. “Up here!” Her turquoise blue eyes flashed in my direction. Her wet gray fangs emerged from behind her lips to make something approximating a smile. With a loud hiss she leaped at me, bounced off the ceiling above my head, landed in the seat next to me with a loud thud, and kicked her hooves up on the railing.
“You want smart, you want me,” she said. “You’re better looking than I thought you’d be. Definitely better looking than the last master. What a party animal he was. Thanks for killing him by the way.”
Her skin was a pinkish hue but looking at her was like looking at a fish tank. Little blobs swam around just under the surface of her flesh. It was not going to be easy to make eye contact with her without shivering.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” I said. “I wanted him alive to fight with us. He didn’t give me a choice.”
“Hey, you don’t need to justify yourself to me, boss. I’m all for smiting enemies dawn to dusk to dawn to dusk, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.”
“Okay, first order of business is you need to stop being chatty.”
“I take it back about preferring you over the last guy. I’m smart. I’m here to do your bidding. But I’m not gonna let you crimp my style.”
I sighed. “Look, I just need you to let me know how many demons we’ve recruited.”
“Little over a thousand. 1200 maybe.”
“That’s all? I told a thousand demons to find help. Now you’re telling me they’ve found a couple of hundred in 24 hours?”
“Hey, they found me! You should be happy. So who did you send out to do the recruiting?”
“The demons on the New Jersey waterfront.”
The demon chuckled. It sounded like dice rolling around a wood box. Not pleasant. “Listen, boss, you need to know something up front. If you’re talking to archdemons then you’re talking to your fucking cats. Okay? If you want something like recruitment done, you need to tap the smart ones.”
“How many can you recruit in two days?”
She pursed her lips together and stared at the ceiling. “I can get some buddies to help me. If we fanned out, and if you gave us a little something to sweeten the pot, we could track down a couple hundred.”
“We need more than a couple hundred.”
“Thousand. Two hundred thousand, boss.”
She smirked at my surprised face. “We may be stupid, but we are plentiful.”
“Make it happen.”
“And?” She stared at me with those big blue eyes.
“And I’ll sweeten the pot. What does that even mean for a demon?”
“Depends on the demon. You could give us our own armies. You could give us the flesh of humans. You could give us smoothies.”
“Smoothies as in the drink?”
“I’m sorry, is there any other kind of smoothie?” She scoffed and shook her head. I’d ended up with a smart and sassy demon. What a surprise.
“Fine. All of the above. Promise them whatever you think I can deliver. Don’t let me down…” I waited for her to tell me her name.
“Swqxtz, but you can call me Blanche.”
“Don’t let me down, Blanche.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She jumped from the balcony and landed next to a couple of soldiers, both of whom fell on their asses. She ran from the room chuckling.
The two soldiers glared at me. “Sorry,” I said with a small wave. “She’s new.”
***
“A couple hundred thousand?” Rebel asked. “That’s nuts. We’re going to kick their asses.”
“Set has more than that.”
“It still makes me feel better about our chances. Do you think Lucas is right? Is Merlin alive?”
I shrugged. “Lucas isn’t wrong very much.”
“How will we get Merlin to help us? He hates us.”
“He hates me, Rebel. He admires you. You’ve fought three times and won every time.”
“I wouldn’t count the last fight as a win.”
“It’s better than being dead?”
“In that case, I guess I’ve won every fight I’ve ever been in.”
Dino emerged from behind the movie screen. “Dino! Come here. We’re going on a trip. Nickolas, we need to talk.”
“Dino’s going with us?” Rebel asked.
“Hell yeah, the old team, back together. It’ll be great. I’m not going into that cave without a troll.”
I explained the plan to Dino and Nickolas. To my surprise, they both acted like they were all-in.
“Let’s pack some supplies and get going,” I said. “Nickolas, when Osiris checks in with us, let him know we’re trying to get another 200,000 demons.”
“Whoah. Yes, sir!”
I took the lead toward the supply room, formerly known as the projector room.
Dino leaned down to fake-whisper to Rebel, “Looks like someone’s got their mojo back.”
Chapter 32
Our intel indicated that the town of Boscastle, about two miles from Merlin’s Cave, currently housed a small cluster of vampires.
Dino, Rebel and I swapped with three of them. We stepped into an old pub that smelled of stale smoke and spoiled drink. And vampire breath.
The three of us moved as quietly as we could. We didn’t see any other undead, but we knew they were lurking somewhere nearby. The old building did not enjoy Dino’s weight. It creaked and cracked with each step. It’s a good thing this particular gaggle of vampires were heavy sleepers.
We stepped out into the daylight and caught our breath. I’d been holding mine since the swap. The ocean air felt great in my straining lungs. Without a word, we set off in the direction of Merlin’s Cave. We wanted to get there quickly so we checked vehicles for keys along the way. No luck. I hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.
I’m no mind-reader, but I could tell the three of us wanted to speak. We wanted to acknowledge the fact we were together again. A team. After being split apart from each other by the war, we’d finally traversed the world and death itself to make this journey together. It was a heavy moment. Filled with undefined friction. It was a silence that spoke so loudly we couldn’t make out the message.
“I’m horny,” Dino said, because of course he did.
The heaviness lifted like a launching rocket, pushing against a surface of glee. We laughed. I pointed ahead. “The hole in that tree over there looks kind of sexy, troll.”
“Hm. Juicy.”
I turned to Dino. “Did you learn anything about Merlin while you were…?” I didn’t quite have a word for what Dino did for the wizard.
“While I was killing for him? I didn’t learn much. His breath smells as old as he is.”
“Something useful, Dino. You must have picked up a few clues about how he thinks.”
“I can tell you he knows what he’s going to do well ahead of time. He’s a planner. When he shows up, he’s got shit mapped out and he follows the plan like a boxer moving to his own rhythm. He forces everyone around him to follow the same beat. They get on board or they’re toast.”
“Good, good, yeah. That’s perfect, Dino. Give me an example.”
He sighed. I was asking him to remember some things he’d rather forget. He and the other trolls had been under the wizard’s spell for a long time, but Dino was the smartest one of the group. Knowing him, he’d struggled against the spell every second of every day. It must have been exhausting for him. Not to mention humiliating. Dino was a proud beast. He didn’t mind following orders, but he needed to feel like he could just walk away if he felt like it.
Dino nodded. “Okay, so this one time, we returned from a mission in Moscow. He wanted us to eliminate a mob of pixies who were black marketing everything under the sun. No idea why he took an interest in it. Long story short, we fucked up. The mob was heavily armed and way smarter than me and my idiots brigade. We showed up at his cave with our dicks between our knees.”
“Is that like having your tail between your legs?” Rebel asked.
“Yeah, except it feels way better. May as well get off before you get chewed out by the boss, am I right? So I tell him the news, because that’s my job. Was my job. And he immediately launches into plan B. No hesitation. No anger. Boom. Right in. He was dipping his toe in the water with plan A, I suppose.”
“Did he play chess?” I asked.
“Yeah, he has a chess board in his workspace, his lab, whatever the hell it is. Plays with himself.”
Rebel patted him on the arm. “You two have that in common then.”
“I didn’t see that joke coming.” He smiled. “It’s good to be working with you again, my friends,” he said.
We didn’t say a word to each other for most of the journey. Then the shoreline came into view.
“It feels like talking is something we used to do before the war,” Dino said, as if reading my mind. “I mean like small talk, y’know? Everything is so damn big and consequential now.”
“I know what you mean,” Rebel said. “I’d like to talk about a new beer I tried. Browse a catalogue and mark the pages and never buy anything from it.”
“I miss the porn,” I contributed. Dino laughed. Rebel smacked the back of my head. “I’m kidding! Maybe.”
“Do you think we can find a way back to that life?” Dino asked.
“No,” Rebel said quickly.
I nodded. “I know we can.”
“Surprised to hear you say that,” Dino said. “You always see the worst case scenario with that tactician brain of yours.”
“If Tabitha is right, and Set is keeping the human population in some kind of stasis, then we can save them. If we save them, we restore the world we knew. That’s what I’m fighting for.” The breeze picked up as if it was joining our conversation. I wished I could understand what it was saying.
“I’m tired,” the troll muttered.
“We can take a rest,” Rebel said. She held his hand.
“I mean tired, as in sick and tired. I feel like I’m living on borrowed time. I was dead and now I’m back. Or I was something. It felt like death. What I’m trying to say is that I got a taste of eternal sleep before Merlin interfered. I don’t think I’ll ever get out of its clutches.”
“Dino, I had no idea,” Rebel said.
He shrugged. “Neither did I until now. All thi
s peace and quiet is making me think too much.”
“Then we’d better get fighting,” I said. “That’ll take your mind off of everything.”
We trudged over the rough terrain. Things started to look familiar. “There’s the entrance.” I pointed to a hole in the ground about a quarter mile downhill from us. After our battle with Merlin we couldn’t find a way out of the cave. Scarlett had to travel from Paris to blow open a new door in the rocky ground. She was an exceptional healer, but she was also an explosives nut.
We reached the hole and stared down into the cave below. A lot of memories came back about the battle with the old man and his army of trolls. It didn’t make it easy to start the descent, but I led the way.
The cavern was quiet. Merlin’s absence took something away from the grandeur of the place. Some birds had found their way in through our hole in the ground, and they were having a good old time zipping around over our heads.
“That wasn’t there before,” Rebel said from behind me. I followed her eyes across the cavern.
A huge tree had grown near the center of the cavern. I’m no tree pro, but it looked like an oak to me. It was in full bloom. The tree’s highest branches waved in the cave’s steady breeze. The limbs scraped across the cavern’s ceiling, filling the vast silence with a rhythm of the wind’s making. If you had my balls in a vise, I’d bet it was 200 feet tall. Then I’d ask you why you have my balls in a vise. It had a wide trunk, long scraggly branches packed with leaves, and roots that wrapped around its surroundings like a web. I followed the path of one of the roots and realized it weaved all the way to our feet.
“Wow,” is all Dino could muster. His chatterbox was all boxed up.
“How can something grow that fast?” I asked. I tried to remember the tree from our battle, but everything had been so hectic. Maybe we’d just missed it. “Are we sure it wasn’t there?”
Rebel didn’t answer. She started walking toward the tree.
“You sure that’s a good idea, sweetheart?” Dino called after her.