by Ben Zackheim
Dino’s footsteps broadcast his location to everyone within a half mile. I’m not sure I would call it running, or dancing. He was definitely happy, whatever the hell he was doing with his body. He jumped toward us from about 10 yards away and landed on both feet. “TADA! I’m ready! Let’s go wrap this thing up! What the hell is wrong with you two? You’d think we lost this war.”
“We won the battle, but there’s one more to fight.”
“Sir!” a man called from somewhere behind me. I turned to see Nickolas running full speed toward us.
“Nickolas, what’s your report?”
“We lost a lot of people, but we just met up with some of the Red Boots on Canal Street. Sir, I think we won. Set’s troops are scattering.”
“Leave your ‘sirs’ for Lancelot, Nickolas. That’s great news. You need to get everyone back to…” Nickolas lifted something from a sack. “What is that?”
“A demon gave it to me. Little guy with his guts hanging all over the street. He managed to trip me on my way here. I almost shot him but I could tell he wanted to give it to me.”
Nickolas handed me the crown.
It was a thin band of iron, adorned with runes rubbed down by age.
“Put it on,” Dino said.
I frowned at him. “I don’t fucking think so.” I turned to Nickolas. “We were looking for this. Great job. Get everyone to safety. I don’t want the Red Boots getting hungry around you. Understand?” Nickolas swallowed and nodded. As he ran back to Canal Street I yelled out, “If you see Osiris, tell him Set is dead!” Nickolas screamed with joy, pumping the air with his fists.
Rebel smiled as she watched him run. “So that’s what it’s like to have hope.”
The moonlit sky, now clear of vampire hordes, suddenly clapped with thunder. It rolled from the distance and got louder. It stopped in an instant as Thor landed in front of us. Mjölnir hung on his belt. One hand gripped a mug of mead, apparently undisturbed by the violent arrival. The other hand held something I couldn’t identify.
But I hoped it was what I’d asked him to retrieve.
“Oh, it’s you,” Dino grumbled.
Rebel crossed her arms. “You’re a little late, Thor. We already beat Set.”
Thor’s eyes went wide. He looked around at the carnage. His eyes ended up looking straight down at his feet, which were splashed with vampire remains. “Well done, father!” Thor yelled.
“You got a lotta kids, Kane,” Dino said.
“Shut up, troll. Thor, is that what I think it is?”
“This?” he held up the mug. “Yes, this is the finest brew south of Valhalla. If you enter Valhalla, don’t go through the stone door, just hang a left…”
“The other hand, Thor.”
“Ah, yes, father. This is the scroll piece you asked me to recover. I waited for you in Brazil but you didn’t show up, so I took care of it myself.”
“Wait, what?” Rebel asked. “You sent him to retrieve the last scroll piece?”
I nodded as Thor handed it to me. “We were supposed to join him in Brazil, but the botched swap in New Jersey ruined that plan.” I unrolled the scroll fragment, realized I had no idea what I was looking at, and handed it to Rebel.
“Did Pandora fight you for it?” I asked.
“She argued. She whined. She threatened. But she’s always had a soft spot for the old hard god.”
Dino scrunched his nose and stuck out his tongue.
Rebel studied the scroll piece with a puzzled expression. “I can’t read this. We’re going to need Lucas.”
“Let’s hope he’s still with us then.”
“Oh, I can read it for you,” Thor said, reaching out his hand. Rebel gave it to him, but I could tell she was ready to strike if the god so much as breathed wrong. He studied the scroll piece, cocking his head left and right as he translated it.
I lost my patience. “What does it say, Thor?”
“Oh! Sorry, father. It’s a spell for a portal. I don’t understand what it is for, though. Feeding, harvest maybe…”
“Nourish,” I said. “The last of The Four’s portals is the Nourish Portal.”
“The Four?” Thor asked. “The portals are creations of The Four? I’d never heard that before. Relics, yes. But not portals.”
“You’re going to have to clarify that, thunder god,” I said, annoyed.
“Just that The Four represent the four characteristics that define humanity. Battle, Escape, Protect, and Nourish.” Thor’s eyes went wide. “Ah yes! I see what you’re saying now. The protection portal is the Vault Portal. The escape portal is your Swap Portal! This spell is for a Nourish Portal. Who has the Battle Portal then?” Dino raised his hand and grinned. “You? Really? I mean, no offense, you’re a big fellow, but you’re just a…”
“Just a what?” Dino asked. His voice was like acid on the eardrums. I laid a hand on his chest to calm him.
Thor ignored the danger he was in. “What is the Battle Portal? Is it filled with weapons of war? I must see it!”
“It’s a room,” Rebel said.
Thor stared blankly. Then he laughed so loudly the street shook. When he saw that we weren’t joining him, he looked at us sideways. “A room? How is that a Battle Portal?” I pointed up at the sky where thousands of demons and vampires flew. “You can hold an army inside? A portable army! Brilliant! One man makes the journey and thousands arrive.” Thor finished his mead in one gulp, crushed the cup under his foot, smiled and put his hands on his hips. “I do so enjoy the cleverness of the gods, don’t you?”
We answered him with three annoyed faces.
“We’d better get going,” I said as we turned our backs on him. “Set may have been lying, but I have a feeling he wasn’t.” I opened the Swap Portal.
“Where are we going?” Thor asked as he followed us toward the glowing blue hole hovering in the air.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said. “We’re headed to Set’s Wound. It’s where he’s keeping human survivors.”
I turned to walk into the portal.
It blinked away.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. It was just a glitch. It had nothing to do with Set’s claim that magic was going to die with him. But the Swap Portal didn’t appear. Not even a spark of it.
“Rebel,” I said.
She lifted her palm face up, but this time there was…
“Nothing,” she said. She looked at me with eyes that were both scared and devastated.
“It looks like you’ll need someone to fly you to Egypt then,” Thor said.
I shook my head. “No way. If it’s true that the gods are a spell then you could lose your powers somewhere over the Atlantic. Dino? Can you pilot a plane?”
“Dude, getting on a plane that’s been sitting for a year with no maintenance is a death wish.”
Thor smiled. “If you’re going to die one way or the other, you may as well die feeling the wind on your face, and the god of thunder’s firm grip to calm you!”
Dino, Rebel and I looked at each other. Rebel shrugged. Dino’s shoulders drooped and he sighed.
I spotted a pickup truck across the street. I took off my jacket and used it to wipe the blood from the windshield. I opened the driver’s door and hopped in. When the others gave me several levels of confused expressions, I popped open the passenger’s door. “Rebel, get in! Dino, you’re in the back! Thor, do your thing!”
“Aw, man,” Dino whined as he stepped into the truck’s bed. Rebel slid in next to me and slammed the passengers door shut. We watched Thor through the filthy windshield. He rubbed his hands together with a big grin, flew over the truck, and lifted the truck off the ground effortlessly.
We zoomed over the skyscrapers and broke through the clouds, revealing a bright harvest moon.
I had so much to think about, it should have shorted out my brain. I had to learn about the crown I held in my hand. I had to process the idea of being a parasite that jumped from generation to generation as part of Set
’s plan to destroy the world.
Oh yeah, and I had two gods calling me daddy. I’d considered kids before, but Thor and Set were not what I pictured.
And where was Lancelot? What was his history with Thor? Why did he reforge Excalibur?
Raijin said Excalibur was part of The Four. If true, that meant there were three other relics in the set.
Set. Pun not intended this time.
Set, even in death, could still win the war. If the world had lost its magic, all four of us would probably be dead within a day.
But we still had that amazing moon.
With the silver clouds below us, a shivering troll in the backseat, and a god for rocket fuel, Rebel and I put on our seatbelts, failed to find the energy to say a single word, and fell asleep.
Thanks for reading the ninth book in the Relic series! If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on Amazon. That will help spread the word, and keep Kane and Rebel on top of their game.
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Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank the following people for giving invaluable feedback. I wouldn’t have launched this book without them!
Audrey Cienki
Carolyn Fielding
Chris Christman II
Hal Bass
Janine Corcoran
Larry Diaz Tushman
Lesley Sharp
Malcolm Robertson
Mary Letton
Shannon Wessinger
Stacey Stein
Tina Coulthard
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