by Ben Zackheim
Never thought my obituary would say “Death by suffocation in moist rubber tube.”
Then I felt a tug at my boots. A second tug. I felt arms wrap around my shins. Someone was trying to pull me out.
It worked. I fell out of the chute with a wet thud. Right on top of my savior.
Tabitha.
“Hi,” I said, wiping gooey slop off my face.
“Hi,” Tabitha said.
“Was that good for you, too?”
“Not really, no. I feel like I just gave birth.”
I took a look at where I’d dropped out and shook my head.
“Yeah, I feel like I was just born.”
“I’m sure you use that line on every woman,” Tabitha said, almost smiling.
“Only the ones who pull me out of moist tubes.”
Then it hit me that I hated this woman.
She’d killed my friend, Coleslaw, in Valhalla. For “balance” or some bullshit like that.
She could see my face change. I knew that because suddenly she couldn’t meet my eye.
“I told you there would be a price for helping you, Kane,” she said.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, but it’s the truth,” she said.
I wanted to look at her but I couldn’t, so I studied the room instead.
It was a box. Ten feet squared. Four brick walls, painted white, and an eight foot high ceiling.
I didn’t see anything to swap. I guessed I was clear to open the Vault Portal.
Unless Tabitha was here to steal the shield back.
She’d betrayed her husband, the emperor, but that didn’t mean she was on my side. The shield could cause a lot of misery if she had bad intentions.
And I already knew all too well what she was capable of.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I followed you,” she said, and left it at that.
“That makes you a stalker, but it doesn’t answer the fucking question.”
She glared at me. I’d insulted her delicate sensibilities or something. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get the job over with. I couldn’t do that until she was gone.
“I wanted to talk,” she said.
I let that sink in for a minute. “You want to talk? Now?”
“Yes, now,” she said. “We’re in a Tutus Loco. There’s nowhere safer. If you want something to stay safe you bring it here. Including secrets.”
I rubbed my face with my palms and tried to calm down. I’d just dropped fifty floors and through a giant sex toy and now I had to put on my listening cap for a pow-wow. The job could be tough. But it was never tougher than when someone wanted to dump their secrets on me.
“Okay, hit me,” I said, taking a seat on the floor. She sat across from me in the tiny room.
“I’m sorry for Coleslaw,” she said. “I did not mean to kill him.”
“I heard you took his head off with a blade,” I said. “So you’ll excuse me if I don’t believe you.”
“I meant to kill Rebel,” she said.
I had my Glocks out and aimed at her head in a split second. I stood up. She didn’t flinch.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now,” I said.
“I can give you three.” She stood too. “First, you like me. Second, you need me. Third, you can’t.”
I aimed for her foot and fired.
She wasn’t there anymore.
She was behind me. Her breath touched my neck and wrapped around my shoulders.
“Don’t think that just because I like you I won’t make you feel great pain,” she said. Her voice had danger seeping out of its vowels.
“Is this how you killed Coleslaw? Like a coward from behind?”
“Yes, but Rebel was my target.”
“I didn’t take you for the jealous type.”
“Oh, I am. But that isn’t why I wanted to kill her. I wanted to make her a part of the balance. Someone had to die for you to live.”
“I didn’t ask to live, your highness! I asked you to help me win! I wanted the hammer. I could take care of myself.”
She moved around me, keeping her fingertips on my shoulder. It felt good and threatening at the same time.
“But I wanted you to live, Kane,” she said. “It was selfish of me.”
“Find someone else to stalk, Tabitha.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. This is bigger than you. Rebel was to die because Merlin willed it so. His curse on Lancelot is very real and it is very dangerous to both of you.”
Merlin had cursed Lancelot’s loved ones to die. The wizard got off on making the ex-knight’s life miserable. It was part of an old feud between the two of them.
Lancelot went by the name Fox now, and Rebel was caught up in the curse because of his feelings for her.
“How do you know about Merlin’s curse?” I asked.
“Because that very curse ordered me to target her. It was perfect timing. I had to bring balance and the most powerful wizard in history wanted her dead. But when I failed to kill her I felt his anger.”
She waited to see if I had something to say about that. I did. But I didn’t let her know it.
“When I moved behind her in the arena, just like I did to you now, I touched her neck with the knife. But by the time I’d pulled it across flesh it was Coleslaw under the blade’s edge, not her.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. It’s strong magic.”
“I hear that a lot. It never answers the question.”
“How about this?” she said. “It may not be magic at all. It may be something deeper than that. Something existential.”
I let that sit in the room like a big word turd.
“Okay, can we wrap this up, please?” I asked.
“You and Rebel are linked somehow, Kane. I don’t know how but I want you to be careful. If your bond can defy one of Merlin’s spells then you’re under the protection of a very powerful force.”
“Will it save me from Vampire melodrama because that would be great,” I said. “I could use a break. Just for, like, a month. Maybe two.”
She sighed.
We heard a noise from the chute. Someone was about to join us.
“This can’t be good,” I said.
“It isn’t,” Tabitha said, facing the chute with her hands crossed in front of her.
Like a queen.
The emperor dropped through the labia minora.
He was soaking wet. And he was pissed.
Chapter 13
Each of us waited for the other one to make a move, say something, break out into song.
After a full minute of this stand-off vibe, I said, “Oh, hey, hi emperor.”
His purple eyes were half-hidden by a scowl that was borderline Frenzy. Not something I wanted to see in these close quarters.
A Frenzy fight would mean the end of me (definitely) and probably both of them.
“Arkwright,” the emperor growled. “Open the portal. Now.”
Emperor Dakari Okar had one power I’d never seen anyone else possess. He could grow as he got angry. He took two steps toward me and had to duck his head to avoid hitting it on the low ceiling.
“You may want to ix-nay the rowth-gay thing,” I said in Pig Latin, backing up the one step I had room for in that tiny fucking space.
I was dead meat. All I could do was delay the inevitable.
He glared at me. I looked back. I wasn’t going to give Tabitha the pleasure of asking for her help. I didn’t have to.
“My king,” she started.
He turned to her in one savage move. I’d never seen anyone move that fast before. Okay, maybe Tabitha a few seconds before, but this was even faster.
“Don’t My-king me, bitch,” he growled. She didn’t flinch. Almost as if she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. “Go back to your little resistance and leave the men to do real business.”
He turned back to me but I couldn�
��t take my eyes off of Tabitha’s face.
She was furious.
She was on the verge of a Frenzy.
“Dude,” I whispered. “Wife.”
She slammed her palms into his temple and he smacked the wall with a brick-shaking thud.
His head was buried in the wall all the way down to his chin. He hung there for a second, his arms dangling like he’d been knocked out.
But then his arms bent and his fists clenched. The skin on his palms broke open under the stress and poured blood on the floor. He jerked his head out of the wall, teeth clenched.
His brow pressed against his darkening eyes.
The two of them started to give off a smell of rage. I don’t know how else to put it. It was both disgusting and delicious. Like a fresh vanilla cake coming out of one stove and a shit pie coming out of another.
“Guys!” I shouted. I needed to cap this one off. Fast. One more blow and the white walls would be fifty shades of red in five seconds. “Hey! Over here! Shield. Here comes the portal! Open Sesame!”
That was the loudest I could yell. They didn’t flinch.
But then the emperor cocked his head toward me and sniffed at my neck.
Shit.
His eyes shaded to a dark purple, then a bright purple. He even shrunk a few inches. He glanced back at his wife with a warning glare. She got the message. I watched her face go back to the beautiful Vampire I knew and… knew.
“Do it now!” the emperor yelled at me.
“All right, all right, give me a second. Opening a portal takes concentration.”
I closed my eyes and tried to relax but it was tough to forget about the 8 foot Vampire emperor and his ancient Egyptian Vampire queen looming over me.
After a minute of trying, nothing happened.
“So?” the emperor growled.
I opened my eyes and saw them both looking down at me.
“Performance anxiety,” I said.
“What is performance anxiety?” he asked. His head started to press against the ceiling again as he got pissed.
“It’s hard to open the portal with you both looking at me,” I said. “And I’m sitting in your blood, which doesn’t help me concentrate.”
He slurped at his hands, not breaking eye contact with me. Creepy fucker. He threw his jacket on the floor and swept it back and forth with his foot across the puddles of blood. The floor now looked like a kindergarten from hell, with undead finger-painting and solid red rainbows all around me.
“Okay, that didn’t help much,” I said. “Can you two look away, please?”
“No,” he said.
“Do you want your shield, or not?” Tabitha asked. She glanced at me as if this was part of some plan that she was trying to suss out.
I had no plan.
I was in a small room with the emperor of Vampires. My plan was to give the fucker what he wanted and take advantage of what happened next.
Yeah, I was cocky.
Okar put out his bleeding hand, palm up and shoved it under my nose.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I had a snack before.”
“The guns, Arkwright,” he said.
I slipped my Glocks from the holsters and handed them over.
Kept my Beretta though.
He slowly turned away but then glanced over his shoulder at me as I closed my eyes.
It’s not like I could picture running fountains or rain to make the portal open. I had to find a place inside me that was okay with the chaos of life. I had to give in to being vulnerable, open to attack, okay with being weaker than those around me.
I felt the portal start to open.
I opened one eye to get a read of the status. That was just a habit. Usually one little peek didn’t do any harm because once the portal opened in the air in front of me it would take care of itself.
But this time I noticed the dim light from the portal almost fade to nothing. I felt a chill. Something in me said, stop.
A feeling, as if danger was imminent.
I reached out to it and watched the light dim on my fingertips.
Close my eyes, I thought. I don’t know why. Gut maybe.
I shut my eyes tight and there was an explosion of light that even the palms of my hands couldn’t keep out. I heard the Vampires scream in pain as they were blinded.
“CLOOOOOOSE!” the emperor shouted. His voice rolled through the room like a lion’s roar.
But the light faded on its own. I gave it a few seconds and then opened my eyes.
Tabitha and Okar were seated across from each other, their hands over their eyes. The emperor rocked back and forth. Spit shot from between his fangs.
The portal was open in front of me.
The first thing I thought was, what the fuck is going on with my portals? They were both acting up.
The second thing I thought was, I’d better check to make sure everything is in there.
The third thing I thought was, shit, my vault portal is empty.
All the relics I’d been storing in there were gone.
Including the shield of Baldr.
Chapter 14
I had to get out of there.
No way would the emperor believe me.
I looked around for an exit but the only possibility was the sloppy chute. I didn’t have any way to climb all the way up. I figure I’d dropped about 30 or 40 floors, at least. I could be wrong but not by much. Bottom line was there was no climbing my way out of this bind.
“What have you done?” the emperor growled.
“Kane, are you there?” Tabitha asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know! That’s never happened before! I can’t see.”
Think, think, think.
A secret room, no windows.
Beretta!
As quietly as I could, I slid my Beretta from my belt and pointed it at the emperor’s head. It was the only way I’d make it through this.
He was an ace target.
I’d save lives if I killed him.
Tabitha gently pushed the gun down and held a finger up to her lips.
She could see.
“What is happening?” the emperor said, struggling to his feet. He was getting desperate. That’s another trigger for a Frenzy.
“We’re all blind, my King,” Tabitha said.
“Bullshit,” he belted out and slammed his fist against the ceiling. It dropped chunks of brick on our head. He did it again and the ceiling started to crack.
“Stop!” she said. “What are you hitting, you fool?” Clever lady, pretending to be blind like him.
He leaned his back against the wall. He bought the lie.
For the moment.
Tabitha glanced around for something. She opened my jacket and checked the pockets. They were empty.
She slipped her fingers into the loop of my belt and unbuckled it.
I tried to say, “Now’s not the time” with my eyes but they probably said something more like, “Wheeee!”
She held her finger up to her lips again and handed me the belt.
She pointed to the ground.
I got the hint.
Disappointed and relieved, I put the belt on the floor. We waited a few seconds and the wall noiselessly faded away on one side of the room.
I’d left my belt for the room to keep safe and now it was letting us out. It wasn’t exactly a dangerous item, except without it my pants could fall down.
Tabitha ran from the room. She looked over her shoulder just as I raised my gun again.
The emperor had to die.
“Why are you two being quiet? The sound in here has changed.”
Again, Tabitha stood behind me.
My Beretta was suddenly in her hand.
Pointed at me.
I raised my arms and stepped over the emperor’s feet. He reached for me. I kicked his hand aside and ran from the room.
But the moment I left it, the door closed behind me and it became a standard office wall.
Tabitha w
as trapped with her husband. I heard shots. I banged on the drywall. I put my boot through it.
“HEY” someone yelled from behind me. A guy in a suit. Working late. That can kill you. I kicked again. I made another hole in the wall. I tore at the board and looked into the hole. It was just wiring and beams.
Where had the Crazy Tutus gone? Tutus Loco. Whatever.
The overachiever grabbed me from behind and shoved me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you…”
Tabitha crashed through the wall and knocked him all the way to the other side of the hall.
“Come on!” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me along.
“Where’s your beloved husband?”
“Must everything you say be sarcastic?”
“Well, no,” I said. “Was that sarcastic?”
She threw me through the window of an office straight ahead.
The glass shattered and fell all around me. From the glittering slices emerged my Glocks.
Perfectly thrown for me to catch.
Tabitha leaped from the broken window and flew at me. She embraced me around the hips and we swept up into the night sky. By the time she dove toward the battle I lay sideways in her arms, legs dangling over one and my back supported by the other.
“Don’t shoot at the ones with swords,” she said. “They’re mine.”
I scanned the skies and spotted Vampire-on-Vampire action that was raining blood on the streets below. Half of them were in the Fury and the other half were almost there. I did notice that the ones with the swords were more controlled. Their strikes were deliberate.
The emperor’s troops, on the other hand, were slashing their way through everyone.
I contributed my one magazine of wood bullets to the cause. It wasn’t easy to look manly while being carried by a Vampire queen through the skies of Manhattan.
I wondered what kind of vision we must have been as Tabitha looped through several airborne scuffles with me firing off pellets of doom into the chests of her husband’s soldiers.
I didn’t have to wonder for long.
Either Rebel had just eaten a lemon whole or she didn’t approve at all.
She stood on the street below us as I emptied the last of my ammo into a fat Vampire. Her mouth hung open and her nose scrunched up so tight that her eyes disappeared into slits.