by Ben Zackheim
But I had questions to ask before I humiliated myself in front of everyone. “So this whole trip was a set-up. Coming here, telling the vamps we’re carrying something valuable, you showing up in that stupid robe of yours.”
“Yup,” Skyler said, smiling proudly.
“Why?” Rebel asked.
Skyler laced his fingers together and leaned forward in his chair. “Why do you think?”
“See, Skyler, this is a great example of wasting time,” I said with a growl at the end.
“Just take a guess,” the old man said with a smirk.
“Because you want us to split up,” I said. His smile faded fast. “There. Happy?”
“What do you mean, split up?” Rebel asked.
“Skyler wants to spread Cannon’s agents thin,” I answered. “They’ll have to follow us from here in three different directions if we break up into three teams.”
“Just two teams,” Skyler cut in. “You, Fox and Rebel are one. Me and Belch are the other.”
Rebel looked impressed. “You’re teaming up with his demon buddy?”
“Sure. They’re chick magnets!” Skyler locked his eyes on mine. “Sound like a good plan… boss?”
“Now that you’ve got us in the crosshairs, yeah it sounds like the best chance to see one or two more Happy Hours.”
He slapped the table with his cane. “It’s settled then! Now go ahead, Kane.” My ex-teacher didn’t think I could do The Muzzle. I stepped up. I was going to show him that I could.
I took a deep breath. I uttered the spell the best I could under my breath and the banker was instantly covered in a web of white light. The web began to collect around her chest and her shoulders, then her mouth. Then it faded into nothing.
“Hm, not bad,” Skyler said.
“Don't patronize me, old man,” I said.
“No, really. Have you been practicing?”
“You know I haven't.”
“Yeah, I could tell. That's actually the worst you've ever done. Let me help you,” he said.
He proceeded to do the spell right. Just from the intensity of the light that surrounded her and the squirming that she did, it was clear that the banker would not be telling anybody about our plans.
“One month, my dear,” Skyler said. “Do not speak of this for one month. Not with your voice, not with your writing, not with a glance, none of that psychic stuff. You will remember to let us know what you hear of Cannon.”
The vamp banker nodded once. “Good luck, Skyler. Destroy Cannon at all costs.”
“Good!” He clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms. “Now off to Hong Kong with you!”
Greta sighed.
“Oh dear,” the old man said. “So sorry, Greta. You weren’t supposed to know that, were you? Who wants to do the spell next? Rebel?”
Chapter 31
We arrived in Hong Kong’s International Airport after sundown and breezed through customs just like Skyler said we would before he got on the boat with the demon.
Fox, Rebel and I didn’t exactly blend in. I was especially worried about Rebel’s outfit, fingernails, hairstyle and just about everything else about her. People stared as we passed. We wouldn’t win any medals for stealth.
Our mission was clear. Or as clear as any Skyler-run mission could be. Work our way through China to Nagqu, Tibet by motorcycle. First, we had to pick up a young woman named Scarlett in a town called Liuzhou. Skyler said that she’d stand out like a forest fire. She was Scottish. Blond hair you could see from a mile away. Six-four, with glasses that she spitshined to glittering gold. She dressed like she was going to grab a spot of tea with her friend Diana the librarian to talk books and local politics.
We stepped out of the airport and into the distinctive smell of Hong Kong. It was a lush scent mixed with pollution and ocean.
The Honda bikes were waiting for us at a roundabout, helmets hanging from the handlebars. Motorcycles were banned in a lot of Chinese cities but Skyler assured us we’d be fine. My biggest problem with bikes is that I liked to know what was going on around me. But when I’m going 100 miles per hour, 100% exposed, it made me feel like I was missing something.
Rebel, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to feel the chill night air. She put her hair up in a knot and slipped the helmet on with a big grin. I let myself appreciate her beauty for a second before her face slid underneath the helmet. All the daily, nasty crap aside, she had a kind face. When she smiled for real she could melt any heart. When the smile was fake she was probably getting ready to actually melt your heart with a blowtorch.
“You ready?” she asked me through the helmet’s headset.
I shrugged. “Yeah, why not? I love a good trap as much as the next guy.”
Fox was silent.
Rebel turned to the vampire. “Fox?”
He fumbled around the bike, knocking his helmet on the handlebars a few times as he searched for the ignition. “How do you turn this damn thing on?”
Rebel turned his machine’s ignition. “Now push that button.”
“Button? Which button?”
She placed his hands on the button and squeezed. The bike revved high and loud. If you’ve ever seen a vampire smile you know it’s like seeing a lion yawn. You feel like you’re looking at a force of nature. His grin gave me chills. I guess vampires could actually enjoy themselves after all. Apparently, motorcycles were Satan’s new gift to this particular hemogoblin.
“Follow me,” I said. The walls of the parking lot echoed the screeching rev that only Honda bikes can make. Rebel shot ahead of me in a puff of tire burn and was half a mile away before I even hit third gear.
Fox and I caught up with her around Kowloon. I’d spent a lot of time in that area when I was a teenager. I was always trying to bond spiritually with Bruce Lee, like every other martial arts student in the area. For about two minutes it felt like I was riding that motorcycle through time, remembering my days as a student. Every corner was packed with history. The first time I drove down Tung Chau Street. The first time I ran away and hid in the smoke shop for a full day before Zhang Wei, the shop owner, found me and whipped the back of my head all the way back to Skyler’s studio. Then there was the pool where I’d practiced holding my breath just so I could get away from my teacher’s chatter for a little while. My record was 5 minutes.
Rebel’s voice shot into my ear. “You want to pass by the old kwoon?”
“No thanks,” I said.
“You’ll have to face it sooner or later,” she insisted.
“Later then.” I didn’t feel like seeing the old school. Ever again.
When we reached highway G55 toward Guangxi province, I remembered why I loved China so much. The view went on and on under the light of a full moon. Mountains and clouds as far as the eye could see. And the history of the country was visible everywhere — historic battlegrounds, ancient cities, strategic fortifications. Each mountain peak had been looked upon by famous heroes and infamous villains from the last few millennia.
Just being there made me feel the weight of history on my shoulders. And now I was becoming a part of it, carrying Excalibur and headed to its final home in the mountains of Nagqu, Tibet. Nyingchi to be exact.
When we reached Liuzhou, I was hungry enough to eat my helmet. As expected we stood out like a bleeding thumb. Especially Rebel. And she did nothing to tone it down. She pulled her helmet off and flung the knot out of her hair. She unbuttoned her leather jacket to let in some air. She was as sweaty as I felt, but she looked twice as good doing it. I shook off the thought. I didn’t know why I was suddenly so focused on her. She was just a friend. Nothing there. Nothing to see. Except maybe the way she glanced back at me as she entered the grocery store.
I had no idea what was going on but I knew I had to be careful. There’s no better way to mess up a partnership than to fall for your partner. Skyler would be lashing my hide for even having these thoughts. Especially at that time, when the mission was getting dangerous.
She popped her head out of the shop. “Want some water?”
“Sure, yeah,” I said, giving her an awkward thumbs up. I felt like she’d caught me in the act of thinking about her. I was convinced she could read my mind.
“Blood?” she asked Fox.
He raised a hand. “I’m good.”
Another motorcycle rider pulled up behind me and revved his engine. Great, someone wanted to whip it out compare sizes. I didn’t feel like racing, so I tried to ignore him. But when he pulled up next to me, he stopped, looked me up and down through his tinted visor, and revved again.
He wanted to race.
I shook my head. We weren’t going to leave Rebel behind.
He pointed ahead of him.
I shook my head again. No. I let my hand drop to my side, ready to grab the Glock from its hiding place under my jacket.
Fox pulled his bike up next to mine.
The stranger revved his engine one too many times.
I pulled the Glock, but he already had a bead on me with his own.
Rebel’s helmet flew out of nowhere and smacked the biker’s head to the side. He fell off and slammed the dirt hard.
He dropped the weapon and raised one hand in surrender. He pulled off his helmet with the other hand, revealing that he was actually a woman. Her blond mane shot out in a thousand directions. Her shiny gold glasses sparkled in the afternoon and her big smile was the last clue that this was Scarlett.
“Good to meet you, too, Kane,” she said with a voice packed with joy. “Oh my God, your eyes are two colors! That is so cool!”
Chapter 32
Scarlett led us to a safehouse about four hours out of town.
Yeah, China’s big.
From the looks of it, this safehouse was also someone’s home. The sparse style was classic Chinese with beauty in every item. The layout was elegant — a “T” of rooms, with all of the fundamentals covered. In the middle of the house was a small fountain that provided a steady, pleasant sound of moving water. Just walking into the place settled my nerves.
The sunrise broke the horizon just as Fox slipped under a few blankets to get his beauty sleep.
“How did you get the Glocks into the country?” Scarlett asked.
“Rebel,” I said, simply. I wasn’t going to give this girl all my secrets just because Sklyer trusted her.
Rebel scoped out the place for signs of trouble. “He means I cast a spell on them. I made them appear as two dildos to customs.”
I dropped into a chair. It was much more comfortable than the bike seat. “I wondered why they looked at me like that.”
“Yeah,” Scarlett said, trying to slip a word into our decades-old back-and-forth. “Not everyone carries a dildo around in their pants.”
“Really?” Rebel asked. “Hm. People are weird. So what happens now, Scarlett?” She and our hostess settled into some chairs that formed a circle in the den.
“We wait,” Scarlett said, simply.
“For what, exactly?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she said with a shrug. “But you know Skyler. We’ll know it when we see it.”
Rebel took a chug of the tea Scarlett had laid on our armrests. “I don’t get all of this secrecy and sneaking around. Why don’t we even know where we’re going? Makes me uneasy.”
“I told you everything I know,” I said. “The old man thinks the sword will only be safe if it ends up on that mountain.”
“With a specific person,” Scarlett added.
I leaned forward, betraying my surprise. “Wait, what?” I asked. “What person?”
“It’s just a guess,” she said standing up. She peeked out the window. “Skyler doesn’t trust many people, but he has to leave the sword protected, right? I figure he’ll have someone there to receive it.”
Rebel nodded. “Yeah, good point. He would never just lock it up without someone being responsible for it.”
“Someone, yeah,” Scarlett said. “But not a group of people. He doesn’t like too many points of failure. So it’s more likely that he knows a single person who he can leave the sword with.”
She was right. But she missed the most cynical interpretation. “Which, knowing Skyler, actually means he’s tricked another sucker into doing his dirty work for him.”
Rebel smirked. “Skyler would love that we’re sitting around trying to guess what his plan is.”
Scarlett’s happy face faded for the first time that night. “But if Skyler doesn’t want people knowing about the sword, then what’ll he do with us? After this is all over, I mean?”
I liked her. “One point for Scarlett!”
Rebel could see that our hostess’ question delighted me. She turned her annoyed glare on Scarlett. “Trust us, maybe?”
“Yeah, right,” Scarlett and I said together. She winked at me. I think she liked me too.
“How do you know Skyler, Scarlett?”
Again, her smiled waned. “He almost trained me but my dad wouldn’t agree to it.” She studied her tea. “I ran away ten times before my family had me sent off to boarding school. The second I was on my own I found Skyler and asked how I could learn from him. I knew it was too late to train but he agreed to bring me on for stuff like this. Liason. Usually on vampire deals, but I even did a troll job last year.”
“That must have been smelly,” Rebel joked.
“You hear about that, yeah, but it’s a whole other thing when you actually experience it. I actually lost my sense of smell for a few months. Their stench just shut down my nose.”
“Nice,” Rebel said. “What are you into?”
Scarlett looked at her confused and turned red. Then she looked at me.
“I think she means what do you specialize in?”
“Oh. Yeah. Of course. Explosives.”
Rebel leaned forward. “Ooooooo. I’ve been thinking about cool ways to use jet tappers. Have you played around with those?”
Scarlett smiled and leaned forward too. “Played around? No. Mastered? Yes.”
“Get out! What’s it like? Can they really take out an M2 Bradley tank?”
“If you’re an amateur. If you know what you’re doing a lineup of 5 of them wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Teach me,” Rebel said. She put her hand on Scarlett’s knee.
“Uh,sure,” she said like an idiot. She probably thought Rebel was joking. But she’d just made a deal with the devil.
The long pause was about as comfortable as stapling your eyelid to your upper lip, which is something Rebel once did to a sassy vampire during an interrogation.
“Let’s do it,” Rebel said, just in case Scarlett was unclear on the deal.
Scarlett glanced back and forth between me and her new tormentor. “Now?”
Rebel stood and stretched. “When it comes to me, sweetie, it’s always now.”
Scarlett led us to her lab. That’s something I’ll never forget. We had to walk outside and up a hill behind her house. She pulled open a latch in the dirt ground and bent down to flick on a switch. A bright light flashed up into the night sky. We climbed down and found ourselves in a long, thin room — like ten mobile homes combined into one, packed with work tables, tools and plastic containers plastered with every warning label ever made by man.
“Wow,” Rebel and I said together.
“You’re a dangerous woman,” I said. I had no idea what I was looking at. But it left me with the same feeling I had when I met a powerful vampire or magicist — I could feel the danger all around me.
“Blow something up!” As usual, Rebel got right to the point. I didn’t like the smile on her face. It was way too big for comfort. I’d seen it before and it usually led to something leaving someone’s body.
“Now?” Scarlett asked.
“Well, not here. Let’s drive somewhere and go boom.”
“We can’t go south. Too close to Panzhihua. Skyler told us to stay away from there. He thinks Cannon has spies there.�
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“Good to know,” I said.
“I guess we could go to Yalong River. There aren’t many people out there.”
“Yalong. Totally,” Rebel said, egging her on. “What’s this thing do?”
Scarlett slapped her hand away. “Careful! That’s really delicate. Okay, then why don’t you guys head back up and I’ll find something to demo.”
“Make it big,” Rebel said. “And loud.”
I wasn’t going to fight it. The truth was, I wanted to see what the kid could do, too. If she knew of a place where we wouldn’t catch people’s attention then great. I could probably learn a thing or two from someone with a workshop like that.
Rebel and I climbed the ladder. The vast horizon stole our enthusiasm for big things going boom-boom. A purple haze, the color of the galaxy, blanketed the horizon, calming the demons inside both of us for a minute. Ironic, I guess, since we were waiting for Scarlett to blow some of that peace and quiet into a billion pieces. Rebel was soothed by the view, too. Her red hair in the dim silver light of night made me feel like I was standing by a human flame.
So it had to be in that unique moment, in that calm before the storm, that the storm came to us.
I spotted a car at the bottom of the hill.
“I don’t remember that car being there,” I said.
“Do you think you’re ready for this?” a female voice said from behind us.
I’d pulled my Glock before she’d finished her question.
She shot me in the shoulder at the end of her question.
I guess I wasn’t ready, so question answered.
Chapter 33
Rebel was unarmed. She threw herself between me and the attacker anyway.
Our asshole guest was shrouded in a dim backlight, but I could tell from her shape that she was wearing tight-fitting clothes. She had a handgun aimed at my partner.
I managed to catch my breath and focus on something other than the pain. I’d been injured many times before. Often at the hands of Rebel and on the orders of Skyler during training. It was all in the name of testing my ability to avoid going into shock.