by Ben Zackheim
Chapter 42
It’s tough to see where you’re going when you’re stiff as a board.
I saw a lot of stone pass in front of my eyes. I spotted a couple of chuckling guards and a few curious servants. But Skyler waited until we were in a grand hall before he twirled us around.
It was a hall fit for a god. It was the perfect place for someone who thinks a lot of himself. Two statues of armored warriors with crossed spears loomed over everyone. They framed a tall, thin door under their spears. Its golden latticework twinkled in the bright sunlight that flowed through a perfect circle in the domed ceiling.
Skyler walked in front of us. “This is Loki’s spell, in case you’re wondering. I’m enjoying it, mind you. But you should know that it’s not me holding you captive.”
We couldn’t shoot our mouths off at our old teacher anymore. They were locked tight, as if our teeth were glued together.
The tall doors opened and a teenager with bags under his eyes stormed out. The god of mischief looked like he could use a fix. Loki didn’t bother saying hello. His entrance was what you’d expect from a god. Especially one who was known for being an asshole. He had a reputation to uphold, after all.
“Maybe you could let up a little, my lord,” Skyler said. “I believe they’ve learned their lesson.” I was pretty damn sure we hadn’t. But Loki didn’t even hear his loyal subject. He was too busy studying our inert, floating bodies. He tapped his fingers on his chin and took a full minute to notice that his lone disciple was trying to get his attention.
“Hm? Oh. Yes.” He made a move to break the spell, then stopped. “What guarantee do I have that they won’t attack?”
“None,” Skyler said. He was being honest. That was a first. But I guess he was smart enough to figure out that lying to the god of lies wouldn’t work. “I can ask them to, but Kane won’t listen to me.”
“I’m not as worried about him as I am about her.”
I glanced over at Rebel who was trying to cast a spell while frozen. She looked ready to burst.
“Rebel,” Skyler said. “Loki is here to talk. That’s all. This is… his way of saying hello.” Loki chuckled, and Skyler joined him. “Please hear him out.”
Skyler took a step back and gestured for his master to proceed. Loki looked hesitant, but he stepped forward and flicked his wrists.
I felt the weight of my Glocks leave my holster.
He held them in his grubby, immortal hands.
“I see why you people love your guns,” he said. He gripped them tight and aimed at me. “How do I make them work?”
Skyler held out his hand and Loki placed one in his palm. He turned off the safety and aimed at a candlestick. The recoil pushed Skyler’s arm back into his shoulder. But he hit his target. Loki’s eyes went wide with excitement, and he snatched the Glock back. He took aim at the candlestick and fired. He was lucky to hit the wall behind it.
“Instruct me,” he ordered Skyler.
“Kane would be a better teacher.”
Loki looked me up and down and sighed. I felt his hold on me loosen. I fell to the floor hard, right along with Rebel. She looked pissed, but she didn’t attack.
I did, though.
I pulled out my concealed Boberg from its holster on my ankle and fired at Loki’s head. He snatched the bullet from the air and studied it. I knew he’d stop it somehow, but I didn’t feel like being a well-behaved mortal at the moment. His cocky entrance and my twin Glocks in his hands meant I had to show him some fire. He needed to know he couldn’t mess with me. Not without some kind of consequence. I thought he and I had an understanding from our little adventure back in Egypt. But I guess what they say about the gods is true. They only like to remember their victories.
“That was weak,” Loki said.
"Lesson number one, from Professor Kane. Don't take someone's weapon unless you're ready to die for it."
"You could have given me a warning, mortal." He put an extra zing on the word mortal, just to let me know that he was willing to write ‘The End’ on my corpse if he had to.
I shrugged. “You have your way of saying hi, and I have mine, kid."
“Do not call me that,” he said.
Skyler looked worried. “Yeah, Kane, really don’t call him that.”
“How about you give me my weapons back, and I spare your fragile ego. Sound good?”
“What makes you think you can talk to me this way, human?” Loki asked.
“The last few weeks, is what,” I said. I marched up to him and took my Glocks out of his hands. I had no idea what to say, so I winged it. If everyone else was looking for allies in Set’s war, then I’d join in the fun. “You and I both know that the only way out of this shit show is by making our moves together. So can we please cut through the bullshit and talk about the plan?”
“Plan?” Loki asked, glancing at his disciple. “What plan is he referring to, Skyler?” Skyler shrugged. They both looked back at me.
“The plan we’re about to make together,” I said. “The one where we secure the scroll piece together.”
“You are mistaken, Kane Arkwright. We’re not going to plan anything together. I’ve already found the location of the scroll piece, with some help from my friends.”
Loki snapped his fingers.
Cassidy and Rose walked through the tall doors and stood at his side.
Chapter 43
They looked like shit.
They were in their wendigo and gryphon forms, but if that was supposed to preserve their health, it wasn’t working. Cassidy leaned to the right a bit and panted. His dark eyes were half-closed. He looked like a fourteen foot tall dog with heat stroke. Rose was tougher to read. I still couldn’t see her face, but I didn’t need to. The mist around her was dark, her composure was defeated.
“Hey, Rose,” I said. Her hazy, expressionless face didn’t give anything away. “You in there, kid?”
I called her kid even though I was only a few years older than her. She was an adult, but her mental development had been slowed down by the vampire blood serum her family fed her when she a teen. She’d been under my protection, for all the good that did her. If I’d done my duty, I would have prevented her from being transformed into a gryphon in the first place. The beverage that Skyler concocted for her back in Iceland on her 21st birthday was supposed to be a fun rite of passage to adulthood. Instead, my former teacher and his asshole god, Loki, imbued the drink with a spell that turned Rose into a gryphon and her brother, Cassidy, into a wendigo.
Happy birthday, kids.
Rebel took a step forward. Her fists lit up like torches. “What are you doing to them?”
“I’m not doing anything to them, Rebel,” Loki said softly. The taunting tone did not go over well with Rebel. Her fists brightened. “Not anymore, at least. They’re serving their primary purpose.”
Rebel turned to me. Her shoulders relaxed, and her eyes softened. She turned back to the god of mischief. “Let them go,” Rebel said. “Please.”
Whoah. I didn’t expect her to do that, but it made sense. The twins were the only reason she’d ever plead to anyone for anything. She cared about them like a big sister.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Loki said.
Rebel walked up to the teenage god. Walked may be a bit of an understatement. She worked it all the way to him. Her hips swung. Her hair swayed. She stood over him with authority, but her hands went behind her back.
Her Flame Spell died down to nothing.
She bent over a little to face Loki. “Pretty please?”
He looked up at her and swallowed hard. His wide eyes scoured every inch of her.
He swallowed again. “If I let them go, they’d still do what they were made to do.”
Rebel crouched down and whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, “I’ll play ‘Spin the Bottle’.” I’m pretty damn sure she wanted me to know that this was all my fault.
The whole room waited to see how he’d respond to the
offer. He finally managed to open his mouth to speak. “What’s ‘Spin the Bottle’?”
I managed to stop a laugh. I needed to stay out of this. See how it played out. Rebel pulled a candlestick from a table, and put it on the marble floor so Loki could watch her bend over. She spun the candlestick in circles, and it pointed at me.
She nudged it with her toe. It pointed to Loki.
She stood directly over him and pulled his chin up with a sharp finger. He let out a hiss as the nail dug in. She leaned down, mouth open a bit, and planted one on the Asgardian that he’d never forget. The temperature in the room went up 20 degrees in an instant. Celsius. Rebel stood up straight and smiled at Loki. He smiled back.
With a roar, Cassidy knocked her across the room. Rebel smacked into the far wall and landed on her feet, ready to fight. It was pure instinct. Her Flame Spell lit up both of her arms.
“Cassidy?” she said through her own rage.
But the wendigo just growled and stepped toward her. He was two paces away when Loki snapped his fingers again. The beast stopped in place.
“Like I told you, they are ready to do what they were made to do. I can slow them down, but I cannot stop them.”
Chapter 44
Rebel turned on her heels, ready to fight Loki.
But Rose floated between them, guarding the asshole. Her hands were filled with daggers of gold light.
“What were they made to do, Loki?” I asked.
“Do you really need to ask me that, Kane?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
“They were made to be your nemeses.” He smiled at our dumbfounded response. “The only counter to your partnership with Rebel is a clever treasure finder and a powerful guardian. Kane and Rebel are known across the realms as being the best team to find and control relics. Rebel with her nascent magic abilities. Abilities that scare even the likes of Pandora. And Kane, with two Solo Spells of his own. The first mortal in history to control both the Vault and the Swap at the same time. And a head for tactics. Not much for the big picture, as we can see from your current predicaments. But a master at what needs to be done now.”
He examined our faces to see if we were following him. We were following him too well.
“As you know from Skyler, I saw the undead threat a long time ago. I tried to work with Merlin, Odin, and Isis to head it off, but their hearts were never in it. Or they had their own agendas. But it was no matter to me. I knew the undead forces would find a way back to power. Their only equal for that dream are humans. But humans are lazy and settle into bad habits easily. Luckily, there was one human who saw the threat and followed me. Skyler has been loyal and has added to our arsenal over the years.”
“You needed relics to build your power,” I said.
“Yes, but I know how… independent you are, Kane. You and your partner. I knew that the only way to your treasures was through your heart. Skyler did a horrible job winning you over. He failed me in that one regard. So when you took on the twins as partners in your little Spirit adventures, I recognized their half-vampire, half-human blood. It was already prone to magic, so it was easy to mutate into the strongest beast in history and the greatest tool for hunting treasure. Cassidy and Rose are your counterparts. With my support, they are your equals.”
The god was on a roll, so I went right to the important question. “Did you steal the relics from my vault?” I asked.
“Indeed. Skyler spent years studying it while he mentored you. He discovered a way to open it from the Ley Lines. Very clever.”
I shot Skyler a look. “Why did you bring us here?” I asked Loki.
“Me? I didn’t bring you to Asgard.”
“Shit.” From the way everyone looked at me, I must have said that out loud.
Loki circled a small table, and poured himself some wine. “However, I’m happy you’re here. We can send the twins off to collect the scroll piece and the rest of us can stay here and play ‘Spin the Candlestick’.” Rebel growled. She might have attacked, too, if Loki hadn’t stopped short with a nasty frown on his face.
“Wait a moment,” the teen said as he turned toward Skyler. “You.”
“Lord? What’s wrong?”
“You brought them to my realm. Why?”
“Lord, please.”
“Don’t lie to me! You can’t lie to the god of lies! You kept part of the Swap Portal when you gifted it to him.” My teacher had almost died back in Tibet. He gave me his Solo Spell before Lancelot gave him new life with a vampire bite on the neck.
Skyler got down on one knee. “Lord, please. I did it for you.”
“Why?”
Skyler wanted to lie, but he couldn’t. He knew he was in the bullseye. All the power of Loki was focused on him. “Because the Tengu wants to help us.”
“What’s Tengu?” Rebel asked.
“The Tengu, or ‘heavenly dogs’ are a demon known for being disruptive creatures,” I said. “Sometimes the disruption has meaning and purpose. Sometimes it’s done for fun. Loki’s kind of demon.”
“Which Tengu?” Loki asked Skyler.
“The Tengu, lord.” He was trying to hide something from Rebel and me. Spirit had run into Tengu a few times while I was working for them. I’d never seen one of the Japanese demons close, but I studied them close enough to know they looked like big dogs on two legs, and they could be trouble. They tended to have their own agenda. Born troublemakers.”
Loki crossed his arms. “How do you know this, Skyler?”
“The Tengu told me he wanted to help us steal the mask from Raijin. The Japanese gods are in disarray.”
“He wants to turn on Raijin? Then who does the dog demon serve?”
“I… don’t know.”
“Fool!” Loki’s eyes flashed black, and he marched at my old teacher like a wild animal.
“The mask is in Tokyo, lord! Here! Here!” He shuffled through a bag that was draped over his shoulder. He pulled out a Japanese mask. “It looks like this. We’ll find it easily with the twins’ help.”
Loki’s temper ebbed again. But he wasn’t done with Skyler yet. “Why did you bring them here?” he asked, pointing at me.
Again, Skyler wanted to lie. Again, he forced the truth out of his mouth. It was painful to watch. “Kane needs to know who he is if your plan is to work, lord.”
The room started to vibrate with the god’s fury. His black eyes settled on Skyler and locked on. I expected my old teacher had about five seconds to live.
“That is not for you to decide, human!” he roared.
Rebel thought this would be a good time to attack Loki.
The wendigo mirrored her jump and his long arms reached for her. He snagged Rebel by the ankle right as her nails started their journey into Loki’s chest. Her body snapped back as Cassidy swung her down to the floor like a sledge hammer. She hit with a sick smack.
The panting wendigo let out a growl and whine, like he was conflicted between satisfaction and agony.
I did my best to get a shot off, but Loki was behind me before I could even get a good grip. I didn’t know how we’d get out of this one. In fact, I didn’t know anything except the deep darkness that only a blunt object to the noggin can bring.
***
I woke to the sight of Rebel being worried about me.
So touching.
“Hey,” she said softly.
Kind of a turn-on, too.
“Can you sit up?”
“Think so. Where are we?”
“Loki’s dungeon. I’ve been listening to the guards outside the door. I don’t think we’ve been out long, from the sounds of it.”
“We need to get out of here before the twins can steal the scroll piece.”
“I know. But I don’t know how we’re going to do it. This place is locked down and my magic comes and goes around here. I can barely keep us warm right now.”
I took a look around. She was right. The stone walls were covered in moisture, making them as slick as oiled rubber.
Not that I would know anything about oiled rubber. Except what I learned in Vegas once. Two barred holes high above us let in a little bit of the Asgardian sun.
“No floating?”
“No floating.”
“Can you store something up for the guards? Maybe we could take them by surprise.”
“We heard that!” one of the guards yelled from the other side of the door.
“I should have warned you that they have some kind of spell on the room so they can hear everything we say.”
“How about over the comm?” I asked in my head. But Rebel just shook her head.
“They’re blocking it.”
“You can’t use it, but I can,” a male’s voice said in my head. From the expression on Rebel’s face, she heard him too.
After I got over the initial surprise, I realized I knew that voice. All too well.
“What do you want now, Skyler?” I asked.
Chapter 45
“What do you want, you fucking traitor?” Rebel added.
“You’ll want to rethink that, lady,” he said. “Will you two shut up, please? I can’t process both of you spewing your anti-Skyler bullshit in my head at the same time.”
“Loki is going to let you live?” I asked.
“I’ve told him everything. He gets to make new plans now. He enjoys that.”
“You just leave chaos wherever you go.”
“I did what I did. I make no apologies for it. I’ll always follow my own way in service to Loki.”
“You’re such a rebel,” I said. “Lone disciple of a teeny-bopper god.”
“I said shut up, kid. Listen to me.”
“Who am I?” I asked. “Enough bullshit. Tell me.”
“I can’t do that, kid. That would be the last straw for Loki. I don’t have much time, so shut up and listen. He’s preparing my punishment now.”
“It involves a hot poker?” Rebel asked.