by Ben Zackheim
“These Ley Lines are some serious shit,” Rebel said.
“That’s a quote for the ages right there,” I said. “Can I put that on my tombstone?” Rebel fake-smiled the hell out of me. “Polk was right, then,” I said. “Santa Fe is a flashpoint. We also have to assume he was right about having 8 hours until everyone turns into a pistachio.”
“Two hours now,” Rebel said.
I studied our path forward. It wouldn’t be possible to get past these people without being seen.
“This is creeping me out,” Rebel said.
A group of people just down the highway turned to look at us. They were lit by the car lights. One left turn signal was blinking.
With each orange flash we could see them climbing the slope toward us.
“Get back in the car,” I whispered.
She slipped in next to Fox.
“What’s going on?” the Vamp asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rebel said.
“That bad, huh?”
I started the car and steered toward the shoulder. Our new friends ran at us, mobbing the car before I could get some speed. They slammed their hands, feet, arms, and even their heads against the metal glass. Splotches of blood started to block our view of what was going on out there.
“Got any spells to put a mob to sleep?”
“It’s called a Sleep Spell,” Rebel shot back, sarcasm tattooed to every word.
“Great, thanks for the lesson,” I said. “And the answer would be what exactly?”
“No. But I may have something that could work. It depends on how tuned into their senses they are.”
“They don’t look to be heavy on the senses right now but what’s the plan?”
“Hold your nose,” she said, giving me a real smile this time.
“No, Rebel, don’t…” I started. But she did it.
“What?” Fox asked.
Before he inhaled.
The stench hit us like a wave of water. It was as thin as air but as thick as a wave. It wasn’t just that it smelled bad. It was that it invaded the nose out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning. I hacked and tried to get a breath, while simultaneously doing everything I could to not breathe.
Some people would call that drowning.
I knew that the Stink Spell would pass. Rebel had done it before in Bavaria on a simple gold run. But every second felt like an hour, and every breath smelled like a frat house where just about everything went wrong with the hazing.
“Open the window!” Fox yelled, a hint of desperation in his immortal, undead, knighted voice.
“Not yet,” Rebel managed to hack out before losing her roasted almonds all over the floor. The troll and the demon would love us if we ever got the car back to them.
Fox looked like he was about to hurl too.
I turned to face him and stuck a finger in his face. “No blood on the floor, Vampire!” I yelled.
He managed to hold it in but another two seconds and I’d be vomiting my own words.
“On the count of 3!” Rebel croaked. “1!”
“3!” I said and opened the door.
The mob may have been nuts but they still had their sense of smell. Their eyes teared up and they backed away, screeching, falling over each other. I mopped the blood off of my windshield with my jacket arm and spotted an opening just to our right.
Perfect.
I hopped back in the car and slammed on the gas. I swerved past some people reaching for us and rolled down the shallow shoulder. I drove side by side with a long barbed wire fence but when I saw the mob falling down the hill ahead of us I jerked the wheel to the right and broke through. One tire was blown out and we found ourselves on loose dirt. But I could still manage to go faster than our pursuers.
It was a clear run all the way to town. We’d have to ride the ranch land until we hit the back roads, then steal another car, but we all took a deep breath of the clear New Mexican air and appreciated the moment.
It didn’t last.
In the distance, we saw a giant figure looming over the town. Its red hair shone in the flashing lights.
Chapter 34
Santa Fe was Hell.
Not the Viking Hel we’d brushed up against in our last mission. That one was supposed to be filled with parties and fights and other “Rebel-ry”.
No, this was a fire and brimstone affair. The kind of place where torture would be your best hope.
Rebel had a small set of binoculars which we used to get a better look.
The “Giant” was Zozobra. Ugly as shit. It was hard to tell but it looked like it was made of paper and cloth. Its big lips and white eyes would scare the boxers off a soldier.
“Looks like the surfacing happened before they could burn Old Man Gloom,” I said.
“It’s time to cast the spell then,” Rebel said. “I don’t know if this will have an impact on you, Fox.”
“One way to find out,” he groaned through a broken larynx.
We watched Rebel as she closed her eyes. Her lips moved, making small clicking sounds as the silent words beckoned to another reality. Her red hair began to lift, as if the car were charged with a big hit of static electricity.
I was flooded with clarity. No other way to put it. I could see and hear and smell better than I ever had. Even when Tabitha fed me her blood. I sat up straight, suddenly aware of the messed up way I was sitting in the driver’s seat. Even the steering wheel felt different to me. Its smoothness ran under my fingertips like a sheet of warm ice.
“I think it’s working, Rebel,” I said.
I was plugged into this reality. I felt connected to it. I felt aware and ready.
She opened her eyes and smiled.
I glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed that Fox looked better.
“Good job, Rebel,” he said.
“You get an A,” I said. That would have been funny before we got in a fight. The expression on her face made it clear… not funny.
Which is when the car started telling us to get the fuck out. It spat and jolted and then rolled to a stop with a moan. We were now sitting in a dead car.
At least we were immune from the surfacing. For now. None of us knew how long it would last.
We were a few hundred yards from an adobe wall that cordoned off a cluster of homes, now blackened husks. Smoke rose from their skeletons. The dark figures of the residents wandered the streets, flickering in the street lights.
Whoever was manning the power station was probably gurgling to their own tune at the moment.
I’d heard Santa Fe was one of the oldest cities on the continent. It had been a town since the early 1600s and claimed to have the country’s oldest house. Any other time I would have soaked in the history of the place. But the moment called for a more urgent, probably violent, style of tourism.
Fox held on to my shoulder to steady himself as the three of us walked toward the wall.
“We should find somewhere to stay for a few minutes and mend up,” Rebel said. She put her hand on Fox’s shoulder and I could feel his body jerk at her touch. He could still get his borrowed blood flowing for the redhead in our lives.
“I don’t like the looks of that place,” I said. Fact is, I didn’t like the look of anywhere.
“You got a better idea?” she asked, knowing that I didn’t.
We worked our way to the wall slowly. Rebel took point and scoped the area out.
“We find a house with all of its walls within five minutes and we stay for ten minutes,” I said. “Then we get to Old Man Gloom and burn him. We have an hour to get it done.”
“Got it,” she said.
Thankfully, Fox started to move on his own as we got to the high wall that surrounded the community. Rebel cast a spell on her hands and smacked her nails into the wall like ten climbing axes. She crawled up the wall. Every inch she moved made a scraping sound that could wake the whole country. But we didn’t have time to be quiet.
When she got to the top she pee
ked over the edge for a full minute. She took too long. If there had been a good target she would have been back on the ground by then.
Finally, she nodded at us.
She balanced herself on the wall and gestured to the south. I watched her move along the thin perch like an acrobat, arms stretched out to her sides.
Fox and I got to the front gate of the community. I looked up for instructions. She held up one finger and then dropped out of view.
“Shit,” I whispered. But Fox heard me.
“What? Is she okay?”
“Just relax, Lancelot,” I said. “She can take care of herself.” I told myself that as much as I told him.
It felt like an hour had passed but it was probably more like five minutes. I couldn’t hear any signs of a fight. No yelling. No screams. Just the silence of a night filled with people who had lost their minds. Apparently, insanity had a sound, because I heard it.
The gate slowly rolled open and we slipped through the small crack she’d left for us.
All three of us stayed low as we approached one of the few houses that wasn’t burning. It was a new place, recently built on an otherwise empty lot. The concrete foundations of a dozen more homes surrounded it. If we were lucky enough to get in there without making a sound then we could reconnoiter in peace. Time was running out but we couldn’t just run at Zozobra. We had to go in eyes open. Guns ready.
I was hoping we’d catch a break.
We didn’t.
We heard them before we saw them.
They saw us before we heard them.
It all made for a big fucking mess.
I didn’t need Fox to tell me that this was not a Vampire attack. Our attackers were human. One elderly woman was wide-eyed and drooling, her dentures half out of her mouth. A young man was bleeding from the head but he didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy eating his own hand and looking at me like I’d killed his family.
“Shit,” Rebel said, backing up a few steps.
“They huddle in groups for some reason,” Fox said. He was right. We hadn’t seen a single stray since we got to the area. They were always bunched together.
“Fly us up there, Fox,” I said, pointing to the roof of the closest house.
“I can’t,” he said. “Not strong enough yet.”
Okay, then it was time for some non-magic solutions. I looked around the construction site and spotted a sixteen foot ladder leaning against a pile of strong boxes. But when I pulled on it, it was chained down.
Fox yanked the chain apart like it was a string of spaghetti.
“I guess you’re feeling better,” Rebel said with a smile. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d wrapped her hands around his fucking biceps at that moment.
Pissed, yeah. Surprised, no.
Rebel had to give a couple of the faster Santa Feans a boot to the chest to keep them away. We scrambled to the roof and caught our breaths.
Not a single building was free of flame except the one we stood on. Fire erupted from a school down the street so violently that it licked the street’s power lines. They sparked and snapped, spraying hot death everywhere.
I checked my phone.
No signal.
Fuck.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Fox said. The guy had been around for a while, so that said something.
Now that we were out of reach, the mob was wandering around. But they didn’t see each other. They only saw things that we could never understand.
I spotted a little girl, not more than ten years old, twirling in circles on a park’s lawn. She’d been doing it for awhile. Her bloody leg had drilled a hole in the dirt all the way up to her knee.
Then, with chaos all around, a lone figure with torn flesh and an uneasy gait, hobbled up to her and pulled her out of the ground.
I recognized the clothing first. Especially the boots.
It was Baldr.
The girl resisted him at first, but the immortal lifted her up and embraced her. Her tense body relaxed.
My hands turned to fists as her arms dangled to her side.
“Holy shit. Is that Baldr?” Rebel asked.
“It is,” Fox said.
“He just killed that girl,” Rebel said.
I thought he had, too. But as he laid her down on the ground, the girl turned over on her side and curled up.
Baldr glanced up at us and the walking corpse did the last thing I ever thought it would do.
It gave us a joyful wave.
A wave that was a lot like the one Fox described when he’d sailed away from Thule.
Chapter 35
Baldr moved through the mob like he was one of them.
They didn’t see him, just like they didn’t see each other.
He was the calm in the eye of the storm. As he moved closer to us, the humans he passed fell to the ground. I saw the smile on one man’s face as he slept. It wasn’t a smile of happiness as much as a smile of relief. His dreams made sense to him again. I didn’t know what would happen when he woke up, but he’d be able to start working toward a normal life again, if I had anything to say about it.
Apparently, Fox found the strength to fly. He jumped from the roof and lifted into the sky above us and then settled down softly in front of Baldr. I couldn’t hear what he said to the immortal but the strong handshake and embrace said it all. Baldr slapped Fox on the back and opened his mouth to say something.
Nothing came out.
His teeth were still uncovered. The joint of his jaw was all bone. His face was still skeletal even while the rest of him looked better.
He parted the poor citizens of Santa Fe like they were the Red Sea. They fell to the ground, asleep, by the dozens. Even the ones who were waiting for us at the bottom of the ladder lost interest and wandered to him, only to fall to their knees and then to the lawn.
Baldr stood at the first rung of the ladder and looked up. The flesh on his face grew in front of my eyes. A smile emerged.
“You’re a couple of tough motherfuckers,” he said to Rebel and I. His voice was a raspy, broken thing, but we could understand it just enough to smile back.
“Now you just sound like my mother,” Rebel shot back.
“If I had a penny for every time I heard that…” the immortal said, his smile growing wider as his teeth lost their yellow tint.
A naked fat man ran at Baldr from around the corner of the house, screeching until his voice cracked. Baldr turned quickly. But he didn’t hit the guy. He wrapped his thin arms around the man’s shoulders and pulled him close. It wasn’t a hug. It reminded me of the way the Pope embraces people because they’re so overwhelmed with his presence. He was containing the guy. He was calming him. He guided him down to a sitting position and then glanced back up at us.
“Mind if we come up?” he asked.
“I like him,” I whispered.
“That’s a first,” she said. “You hate everyone you meet.”
I shrugged.
“I guess that means I have to be the cautious one this time then,” she said as she waved him up. “Come on, Baldr, friend of Thor and Lancelot.”
“Fox,” Fox mumbled.
Baldr struggled up the first couple of ladder rungs. “Horrible name, old friend.”
“You’re on my side, Baldr,” Fox called after him. “Don’t forget that.” The Vamp floated straight up and landed on the roof. “You owe me that much.”
“I guess I do,” Baldr said. His face was almost back to normal. He even had a beard growing, fit for a Viking.
“How are you speaking modern English, Baldr?” I asked.
“I’ve spent the last thousand years observing the world from the shadows. I speak Chinese, German, and Russian too. We don’t have much time, Kane and Rebel and my old friend… Fox.” He said the Vamp’s name like it tasted sour.
“How did you get out of my Vault Portal?”
“Is that what you call it?” he asked, smiling. His teeth were white and he had a g
lint in his eye. “Clever. Well, let’s see. I sensed the shield in there and I decided to chase it. But it was already far away by the time the vault shut behind me. I’ve been following it since. But I took a wrong turn I suppose and exited the vault near here. The shield must be close because I haven’t felt this good in a long time.”
We sat on the roof and looked out on the mayhem in front of us.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We don’t do anything,” Baldr said. “The shield is my responsibility. Odin gave it to me to keep safe and I plan on keeping that promise.”
“Sorry, Baldr, we can’t let you go off on your own,” Rebel said. “You’re skin and bones. Literally.”
“So are you,” he said. “Just a little better put together.”
“That’s my point,” she said. “You can be the hero, but we’re your backup.”
“Hold on,” I said. “No one is playing backup here until we have a plan.”
We all looked at Baldr. His eyes dimmed as he stared at the wandering mob below us. “A lot is going on, Kane,” he said. “I can tell you that the shield is mine by rights. It was charged to me by Odin as a balance to Thor and his fury.”
“We knew that,” Rebel said.
“But when Mjölnir was destroyed by the man in the skull mask…”
“Hakkar,” Fox said in a way that sounded like a spit.
“An old friend of yours?” Baldr asked, but Fox just frowned and waited for Baldr to continue the tale.
“I can sense its presence,” the immortal said. “The closer I am to its power, the stronger I am. I can see it now in the distance, like a moonrise on the horizon. For hundreds of years it was across the waters, out of reach. But once the hammer was taken from its perch in Hel’s door I was transported to it. I almost got to it, too.”
He was referring to our fight in the Metropolitan Museum. Tabitha, the queen Vampire, told me that the shield was the key to snagging the hammer. So I fought a skeletal Baldr for it. I won, but I’ll never forget looking over my shoulder and seeing his pitiful grasping for the relic. He didn’t have a face to show any emotion but I remember the despair in the room as I took it away from him.