by Ben Zackheim
“Any sign of Lancelot?” I asked the nearest soldier. She shook her head no. “Shit.”
Nickolas met us in the operations room, once known as the theater manager’s office. It was the size of one of my closets back home, but it did the job.
“It’s a relief to see you,” Nickolas said as he entered the room. I didn’t like the nervous look on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Osiris changed the plan. He wants to attack tonight. He told me to find you. I didn’t know how I’d do that.”
I shot Rebel a look. She understood. “You sure?” she asked me.
I shrugged. “If you have enough of your magic mojo back. It would be a good test.”
“Good test for what?” Nickolas asked. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Rebel is going to loop you into our comm. It’ll let you reach out to us with a thought.”
“I can reach you anywhere you are?”
“Not anywhere, no. You wouldn’t have been able to reach us in Merlin’s Cave from here. We need to be within a few hundred miles. But we should have a way to stay in touch if you need us.”
Nickolas’s eyebrow angled up. “Any thought?”
“Excuse me?” Rebel asked.
“Will you be able to read any of my thoughts?” He nervously pretended to clean something off of his sleeve.
“I think we have another perv on our hands,” Dino said from the corner. He barely fit in the room but he was delighted to be there at that particular moment.
“It’s not a thought you’ll be using to communicate. You’ll see how it works, don’t worry.” She stood up and faced Nickolas. She placed her hands on his temples and closed her eyes. Nickolas shot me a nervous glance. I winked.
There were no fireworks or mystic glow. Rebel took a step back. “Try it.”
“Hello?”
Nickolas’s voice sounded weak, but we could hear him. We answered back in the comm.
“Wow, it’s like a walkie talkie for my brain. I won’t think about Rebel being naked.”
“Yeah, that we heard,” Rebel said. She shoved him lightly in the chest. “You think the words, they’ll transmit. It’s all about intent. Got it?”
“I think so.” He moved to the comm.
“Osiris is acting weird. He seemed scared. He liked the idea of 200,000 demons but I thought he’d be happier, Kane.”
“Osiris doesn’t do happy. He’s always that way. What’s his plan, Nickolas?”
“We attack at sunset tonight. Wall Street. His vampires will wear red boots so we can tell them apart. They’re launching from a building out on Governor’s Island.”
“How many does he have?”
“Twenty thousand.”
“That’s all? Set could have 100 times that many.”
Nickolas moved back to using his voice. “He’s hoping the element of surprise will win it for us. There are three waves to his plan. The first wave will be his vampires. They’ll draw Set’s forces out from Wall Street’s underground. They’ll make sure Set knows this attack is the big one. We can expect some ground-level explosions but they’re designed for shock factor. Osiris’ soldiers will have goggles to block the bright light. They hope Set’s vampires will be blinded and confused for the first part of the battle.”
Rebel crossed her arms and leaned on the wall. “That’s a sound tactic. But I can’t see it taking more than a few hundred out of the fight.”
Nickolas shrugged. “He’s hoping to take out more than that. The second part of the plan is when we come in. He wants our attack from the Hudson River and the East River to force Set to dispatch the entire army. We don’t have a lot of troops but we can make a lot of noise. Get their attention.”
Dino nodded. “Splitting them up is our best chance. Divide and conquer.”
Nickolas nodded. “Which is when your demons come in, Kane. Phase three. He wants you to rain fury on their heads when the fireworks begin.”
“Actual fireworks?” Rebel asked.
“Actual fireworks, yeah. They’ll only last a minute, but they should confuse any vampires without the shades covering their eyes. He doesn’t care which direction the demons come from, but he wants them all in the fight at the same time. No holding back. And he wants you to be sure the demons know who the good guys are, Kane.”
I nodded. “It’s a good plan. In theory. I’m sure Set’s troops have a lot of tricks up their sleeves, too.”
“Hey Kane, you think Set knows about the demons?” Dino asked.
“If he knows about how Raijin could control demons and if he’s seen the corpse on the waterfront, then yeah. We have to assume he knows there are demons lurking nearby.”
“Do demons have a weak spot that Set could exploit?” Rebel asked.
“A million of them, depending on what kind of demon we’re talking about. If I had to choose one, I’d say their weakest point is that they need leaders. They work like a den of lions in that sense. Without the leader they lose their way.”
Dino flashed his toothy grin. “So we just need to protect you, buddy. Been doing that for decades now, so you’re covered there.”
Rebel frowned. “Did you consider that all of this is a set-up so Set can draw you out into the open, Kane?”
“Him?” Nickolas asked. “Why would Set be in New York with his army to capture one guy?”
“This here is an important man, Nickolas,” Dino said with zero sarcasm.
I waved him off. “All right, troll. Don’t lay it on too thick. Set and I have a short history, Nickolas. I might have something he wants.”
“Wow, okay, then yeah we need to make sure you have some people on you.”
“We won’t need it,” Rebel said. “Like Dino said, we have some experience pulling this guy out of the deep end.”
We heard Blanche the demon approaching the room before we saw her. The demon liked to bounce off walls and scrape stuff as she moved. She slid into view in the doorway and gave us a nasty grin.
“I think I’ll go,” Nickolas said nervously as he passed the demon, avoiding eye contact at all costs.
“Give us the good news, Blanche,” I said.
“Don’t have any boss.”
Chapter 37
“What happened?” I asked. “How many demons did we get?”
“Turns out Raijin had collected most of the remaining demons before you kicked his ass.”
“How many, Blanche?”
“Five thousand. Give or take a couple hundred. Probably take.”
“Fuck,” the three of us said at the same time.
“We’re screwed,” Dino said.
Blanche took a seat and kicked her hooves up on the table. “That’s not all. A bunch of them are starving.”
“So they’re weak,” Dino said. “Great.”
“Nah, they’re strong enough to fight vampires. The problem is that…”
“They stink,” I finished for her. She looked surprised. “Demons who haven’t tasted flesh for too long start to give off a stench. It’s not as bad to the human sense of smell, but the vampires will sniff them out from 100 miles away.”
Dino stood and the top part of his head broke through the ceiling. He didn’t flinch. “Wait, so you’re saying the demons will ruin the element of surprise? That’s the only thing we got going for us right now!”
Blanche held up a hand. “The good news is that we have close to 100 giant demons. They’re each worth a few hundred of me.”
“We can’t use them,” I said. “Not unless we can feed them fast.”
Blanche shook her head. “No can do, chief. We’d need to scrounge up some volunteers from your little army out there. A lot of them do look look juicy!”
Rebel put her hands on the table so everyone could see her nails. It was a habit of hers when she started to get pissed off. Blanche cleared her throat and gazed at her lap. Message received.
I sighed. “Where are the demons now, Blanche?”
“I left them
at your house upstate. Told them to raid the fridge.”
That surprised me. “You know where I lived?” She just smirked. “Good thinking.”
“So what now?” she asked.
“We need to get Osiris the bad news,” I said. “Blanche, I need to talk to Rebel and Dino alone. Find Nickolas and work out a way to get the message out to our allies.”
“You got it, boss. But I don’t think Nickolas likes me.”
“He’ll get used to you,” Rebel said. “Just stop looking at him like he’s a snack.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Blanche bounded from the room like a kangaroo with no sense of self-preservation.
“I like her,” Rebel said.
“I thought you were going to cut her up.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t get along.”
Dino took a seat in his corner again. He wiped dust from his brow. “So, we’re screwed.”
“Zip it, troll. We didn’t have demons at our beck and call a couple of days ago and we were ready to jump into this fight. We just need to think of something. Fast. Rebel, I need you to do something for me, if you’re able.” I pulled Lucas’ envelope out of my pocket and slid it across the table to her. “This is a spell that Lucas translated from the latest scroll piece.”
She took one look at the spell and her eyes went wide. “Portal? This is a portal spell?”
“I think so. Can you figure out what it does?”
She studied the symbols on the page. “It’s a room.”
“What kind of room?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The spell creates a portal to a room.”
Dino chuckled. “Sexy stuff.”
I sat down to think. “What good is a room?”
“There’s only one way to find out. Stand there, Kane.”
“You’re casting the portal spell on me?”
Rebel crossed her arms. “If you want it to belong to you, yeah.”
“I see.” I thought about it for a few seconds. “No, give it to Dino.”
Dino put his hands on his chest. “Me? I don’t want a room portal.” He paused. “Though it would solve the whole ‘get a room’ problem I tend to have all the time. Okay, give me the room.”
“If you say so, Kane.” Rebel put her hands on Dino’s elbows and moved him to a spot of her liking. “Ready?” The troll nodded. He had on his brave face, but I could tell he was nervous.
“Ouch,” he said as the spell began. “OWWWW!” He roared and almost knocked Rebel off of her feet. But she dug her claws into him and held on tight. Dino’s face twisted up in agony until it was painful to even look at.
And then he exhaled. A strong gust of wind rushed from his lungs and across the room, blowing our hair back.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“Hurt like hell. No more portals for me, thanks.”
I gestured to the room. “Open it.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
“If it’s anything like my portals, you just need to relax and think about it opening.”
I could tell he didn’t believe me, but he did what I said. Within seconds his yellow portal lit up the room. “Ew, it looks like a floating baby turd.”
He was right. But when it opened up into a perfect circle of light it had a freshness to it. I don’t know how else to put it. It was as if the new portal was happy to be alive, and ready to serve its purpose.
I slapped him on the arm. “Congratulations on your very own portal, troll. Let’s take a look.”
He and I peeked into the portal. We shared a confused glance.
Dino shrugged. “Here goes nothing.” He stepped into the portal.
I couldn’t believe what I saw. Dino stepped back out of the portal with a huge grin on his face. My smile matched his.
Rebel cleared her throat. “You guys look like a dentures commercial. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
I slapped the troll’s arm. “Dino, my friend, I have an idea.”
“Kane, good buddy, you read my mind.”
Chapter 38
Ten minutes later, Dino and I swapped to my old home in upstate New York to give the demons their instructions and gather some extra supplies.
I raided the armory for a few Grouse shoulder-launchers and some other goodies. I liked Osiris’ plan, but I was adding to it with some boom-boom of my own.
I was relieved to find the demon army in decent shape. I’d stocked up on hot dogs, just in case Belch ever showed up there again. The demons had inhaled every single one.
I gave the demons one more run-down of the plan before Dino and I swapped back to Jersey. The troops had already lined up at the waterfront. We’d ended up with 182 human soldiers total, including some locals who had tracked us down after the fight with Raijin.
Nickolas had done a great job of securing boats for all of us to get across the river to Manhattan. He’d split up into two groups, as planned. The other group was already on the Brooklyn side of the city, ready to go at sunset.
The rest of us stepped into our transports, one by one.
“You want to fly there, Kane?” Rebel asked me. “I know how much you like flying.”
“You need to save your energy, partner. Don’t think you can just jump right back on the magic train and do everything you could do before.”
She cocked her head. “Where did you get your amazing ability to sap the fun out of everything?”
“Who knows? I didn’t inherit it. I’m a parasite remember.” I smiled, just to be sure she knew I was kidding around.
She did not think it was funny. She walked toward the water. “I have a feeling there’s more to the story than what Merlin leaked out of his head hole, Kane. I only told you what he told me, but I don’t believe all of it.”
“Thanks Rebel,” I said, catching up.
“Except the parasite part. I believe that.” It was her turn to nudge me.
I sighed. “Okay, yeah, let’s fly.”
She smiled. “Yeah? Okay, let’s do it. You know the drill.”
I rolled my eyes. Ever since Rebel realized she could carry me while she flew she’d make me raise my arms straight up, like a toddler waiting to get picked up by mommy.
A moment of humiliation was totally worth it.
The sensation was indescribable. Lifting off the pavement, the gentle breeze on my skin, the sight of Dino getting smaller as we got higher, the rush of moving forward and the city getting larger — it made me appreciate magic in a way I wasn’t familiar with. Usually magic was there to be useful. To win a fight, or finish a job. But when we flew together, Rebel and I enjoyed the spell on a level that was more like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. There was a beauty and grandeur that transcended the moment.
So I was disappointed when the ride was over. Rebel set me down on the dock where our troops would soon land.
“Good way to fly,” I said.
“On a good day to die.”
“That would be a letdown after everything we’ve been through.”
“If Merlin is right, Set will be out for your head today, Kane.”
“Thanks for reminding me that a god wants to eat me, Rebel.”
“I just want to be sure you have backup plans, partner.”
“Come on, Rebel. You know me. I never save the world with Plan A.”
Dino was on the first boat to reach the dock. His sea legs were about as stable as his two-bottles-of-whiskey legs. He fell to his knees when he got on solid ground and looked to be holding down his last meal. “I…should…have…taken the subway.”
When Nickolas hopped off the boat and onto the platform, I made sure I was the first one there to greet him. “The munitions boat, Nickolas?”
“It’s right behind us.”
“Good. Get the shoulder rockets to the base of the tower. Rebel will fly our guys to the top.”
“Should we leave the rockets in a…”
“Don’t overthink things, Nickolas.”
“Got it. No overt
hinking. How do I do that exactly?”
“Start by getting the munitions off the boat and the men to the tower, like I just said.”
“Right, sorry, yeah.”
I watched him run off. He’d be fine. I hoped he’d be fine.
We had an hour until sunset.
Chapter 39
Everyone was in position.
My biggest worry was our lack of coordination with Osiris and his troops. It was nice to have explosions and fireworks acting as transitions from one phase to the next. Visual cues were easy to follow. But we hadn’t scoped out the battleground. Once our troops entered downtown they’d be winging it.
Wall Street was always quiet at dusk, even when the world was plugging along, oblivious to its fate. The stock brokers used to file out of the stock market at the bell, head to the bar to celebrate or drown their sorrows with booze, then stumble into cabs and subways to their apartments in Brooklyn. Now those same stock brokers were prisoners, along with the billions of their fellow mortals.
Rebel, Dino, and I had found a position in a bank’s arched entryway. We had a nice view of the Wall Street bull. We could have used a bull in the fight.
“Quick review,” Dino whispered. “Phase one. Osiris and his vamps draw the enemy out with a frontal attack and some well-timed explosions that should distract them. Phase two is when our troops fight. When they hear the explosions they’ll advance from the east and west to give Set the impression there are more of us than there really are. Phase three. Fireworks light up the sky. Our vampires are fine because they have dark goggles on. But Set’s troops should be off balance, even blinded for a bit.”
“That’s when we join the fun,” Rebel said. Yes, she was serious. She was ready to fight.
The air around us chilled as the last of the sun’s rays dipped below the horizon. It wasn’t just the lack of heat that made me shiver. It was the noise that followed as the sky went from blue to black. The eerie quiet was interrupted by an orchestra of sounds. Metal doors squeaked open, shoes and boots hit the pavement, hisses echoed through the narrow canyons of the financial district.
The vampires were awake and ready for their Bloodios.