Relic: Spear Read online

  Had the scroll piece yielded any clues? Were we any closer to securing the unknown weapon that my old teacher, Skyler, had told me could end the war?

  Even with all of these questions, one haunted me more than any other.

  Had I killed my best friend and partner for nothing?

  I’d finally surrendered to the idea that Lucas didn’t have to tell me anything. I was his prisoner, after all. But the day before, recognizing my weakening will, he’d taken pity on me and told me the war was going well. That was a relief. But I was pissed that my own team was kicking ass without me. Maybe I wasn’t so damn important to the war effort after all. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

  I stared at the wall of my room and searched for answers. I would have given my entire fortune to know something for certain. Anything.

  I needed help.

  After I escaped, I needed someone to help me get my head on straight. But who? Who could guide me? Who had answers?

  Skyler, maybe. My old teacher might help if I held his balls over a flame. Literally. Even then, I doubted he’d talk. Skyler had his own agenda. He and his kid-god-opium-addict Loki were up to something that had little to do with the battle I fought.

  I could track down Tabitha. Otherwise known as the goddess, Isis. Otherwise known as Queen of Vampires. Daughter and wife of Set. Mother and sister of Osiris.

  Best known to me as hot-as-hell.

  I tried to damp down the hormones. It wasn’t a good time to fantasize. But her blood ran through my veins, and it had a knack for showing my own blood who’s boss at times.

  Tabitha knew more than anyone else about everything. Maybe I should search her out. But she’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to play the game anymore. Her role was done. She was waiting to kick the bucket. She’d told us that her destiny was to die at the hands of Rebel and me. That gave me some comfort. Yeah, taking comfort in the death of someone was what my life had become. But if Rebel did indeed have a role in Tabitha’s death, then that meant Rebel would live. She had to be alive if she was going to fulfill her fucking destiny, right?

  Like I said, there was a lot of darkness for me to fall into, and no Rebel to fall with this time.

  And then, at the bottom of it all, I had the dream to itch at me somewhere way out of reach of my scratching finger.

  The spear. I must find the spear.

  Chapter 5

  The wait for my new babysitter was painful.

  Being alone, in isolation, with just my thoughts for company, could be excruciating. And what made it worse, was my memory was slipping away, bit by bit. I’d recall a pizza dinner I’d enjoyed with Rebel years before, and it would fade away right in front of my mind’s eye.

  I racked my brain for memories, desperately holding onto each one that flashed by. Even a recollection of a favorite film or book would wash over me like a salve, easing the pain that grew inside me. For a short time, at least.

  The guards shut off my lights, which I’d assumed was a sign of night time. Who the hell knows, though. It could have been noon and I wouldn’t have known in that dark, windowless room.

  The realization that I couldn’t remember how my parents had died hit me hard. My breath would get away from me and I’d find myself struggling for air. An anxiety was settling in.

  A madness, maybe.

  The quiet. The darkness. The loneliness.

  The guilt.

  I found myself wishing I’d paid better attention to Skyler’s meditation lessons. The asshole could sit down, legs crossed, in the middle of Grand Central Station and relax. He was able to find a place of peace in himself no matter what was going down. No small feat for a selfish, conniving rat like him.

  With no sense of peace within reach, I shifted my frantic brain toward something I could chew on.

  Lucas.

  Lucas’ ALL CAPS message only grew darker and deadlier as I thought about it. I wished there was a window so I could see what time of day it was. It felt like I’d waited for days. The darkness inside of me and out was smothering.

  Finally, the fluorescent light flickered on. It surged three times before it popped on all the way.

  I heard the door knob rattle as the key was slid into the lock.

  I ran my tongue over my teeth. I tried to swallow a moan of desperation. I needed to get the hell out of there, or I’d go mad.

  The door swung open.

  The two guards leaned in so they could check out the room.

  They stood aside and Lucas’ replacement slapped the floor hard with the heels of boots that would have been right at home on a femdom dominatrix.

  “You hungry, dickhead?” Ronin asked me, as she squeezed her way between the guards with a plate of steaming hot food in her hand.

  Ronin.

  Rebel’s sister.

  Chapter 6

  Shit.

  Was she there to save me, or end me?

  Lucas’ ALL CAPS message took on a much darker meaning. I’d hoped his replacement would be an ally who was part of some brilliant master plan to free me. But now I realized his replacement was more likely my hangman. Maybe biting Ronin wasn’t a distraction of some kind, meant to buy me time to escape. Maybe latching onto Ronin by my molars and holding on for dear life was my only chance to live through the day.

  Ronin had never liked me much. I was an obnoxious, entitled brat in her eyes. The feeling was mutual, by the way. But shooting her sister, Rebel, in the head was probably one rude step too far.

  I managed to damp down my disappointment, but I’m pretty sure my face did a great job of broadcasting my misery.

  “No hello?” she asked as she sat in the chair next to my bed, crossed her legs, and leaned back. “I should have figured as much. You’ve never been the polite type, have you Arkwright?” She laid a heavy look on me. The kind that was filled with hidden meaning only she could understand because she was a crazy asshole. “Take shooting my sister in the head like a coward, for instance. Not fucking polite, Kane.”

  Maybe not so crazy, after all. That made sense.

  I did my best to convey strength and confidence while strapped to a soiled bed in a room that smelled like several days of me and my liquids and gasses. “Ronin, listen.”

  I heard the weakness in my cracking voice.

  Strike one.

  She raised her finger and waved it in front of my nose. “Ah, ah, ah, no, you listen. Listen closely.” Her fingertip got close enough for me to take a bite out of it, but I second-guessed myself and missed the chance. “You’ve got a lot of people very mad at you right now, billionaire.”

  “Yeah, what have I done for them lately, right?”

  “Don’t play the woe-is-me game with me, dicksmack.”

  “What the hell is a dicksm…”

  She leaned forward and slapped me. That shut me up.

  It also pissed me off.

  “Slapping a bound man,” I said. “Try that again, chickenshit.” I hoped and hoped she would try again so I could activate my antsy teeth and chew on her chickenshit fingers for lunch. But she just crossed her arms and glared down her nose at me. Her eyes were black. The irises opened as she studied me with a cold distance. My memory may have been slipping away from me, but it occurred to me that my new sitter was an interrogator by trade.

  I was in for a long day of pain.

  To my surprise, she sat down next to me, placed the plate on her lap, poked the omelet with a fork and slowly brought it up to my face. I’d been expecting her to start probing, interrogating, or torturing me. The sight of the hard-ass sitting next to my bed like a den mother was hard to accept.

  I watched her hand approach my face slowly, almost in slow motion. I knew I’d only have one chance to get this right. If I lunged at her with my pearly whites and missed, I could kiss those pearly whites goodbye.

  I opened my mouth, but I didn’t move my head forward. The closer she leaned toward me, the bigger my target. I focused on the meat of her palm like I was aiming my Glock at a vampire�
��s jaw. I hoped Ronin would think my intense stare was on the food. It did smell delicious.

  Too bad there was zero chance I’d ever taste it.

  Ronin, on the other hand? She tasted awful.

  I lunged my head and shoulders forward as forcefully as my body could manage. Ronin let out a quick shriek and I felt her try to pull her hand away as my front teeth dug into her flesh.

  Her little shriek turned into a bellowing holler. The holler rose higher and higher until it reached banshee proportions.

  She pulled back and tried to escape my jaw’s unrelenting grip. But all she got for her efforts was a torn palm.

  The guards broke in, pistols up.

  Ronin’s eyes looked wide enough to pop out of her head. She breathed through her teeth, hard and fast. Each pained exhale shot spittle through her clenched maxillary cuspids.

  I briefly made eye contact with one of the guards. He couldn’t get a bead on me. Ronin was squirming too much.

  She finally got her voice back. “You motherfucker!”

  I found a tiny reserve of jaw strength and clamped down harder. She lost her ability to speak again as her breath quickened. The guards let their guard down.

  “Let her go, Arkwright,” one of the guys said with a thick French accent.

  I would have said something like, “She tastes like Ben Gay, so I’d really love to.” Unfortunately, I had a fucking Ben Gay flesh chunk squirming in my mouth, with heavy doses of iron juice running down my throat.

  Ronin pulled her Ruger from its holster and aimed it at my forehead.

  “I’ve got this,” Ronin said.

  She didn’t even ask me to let go of her hand before she shot me.

  Impolite of her.

  The world went purple, white, rainbowed, then black, then nothing.

  Chapter 7

  I came back to life in another room.

  I knew it was another room because my stink was gone.

  I felt like someone shot me in the head. Then I remembered that someone had shot me in the head.

  “Now that’s justice,” I thought to myself, as I tried to move my eyes around. I’d shot Rebel in the head, so her sister Ronin got to shoot me in the head. That’s the way the world should work.

  Then why was I alive?

  A point-blank shot to the noggin from a Ruger? That should have killed me.

  I’d been bound to my bed for so long that I didn’t even try to move my body at first. But when my right hand came up to feel my forehead, it kept on moving. Past my legs. Over my chest. Under my nose. I felt my fingers touch the space between my eyes and was hit by a wave of joy as I realized I wasn’t tied down anymore.

  What does a guy do when he miraculously comes back to life, finds he has complete control over his body for the first time in weeks, and has no idea what new danger awaits him? He scratches his nuts, apparently.

  Holy Thor, I needed that. Bad.

  Frankly, the sound of relief that came out of my mouth made me queasy. It was as if Joy met Discomfort and asked Arousal to take them from behind with his buddy Abandon.

  Fuck it all. I had no shame. My balls were mine again, to do with as I pleased.

  Which is when Ronin appeared in my field of vision, making me lose my balls again.

  I released my crotch and to tried jerk my shoulders into the bed hard enough to sit up. Lucas came out of nowhere and shoved me back down.

  He put his clammy hand on my forehead. “Relax, sir. You haven’t moved from your bed in three weeks. You’re going to need some time to get your feet under you.” I could have told him that I’d been exercising the entire time, using the restraints, the bed, and gravity as my tools to stay in shape. It was something I’d learned in training with Skyler, who often found himself tied up in beds for weeks at a time, apparently.

  I asked the obvious question. “Why am I alive?”

  “Because I need you,” Ronin said.

  Oh man, she threw me a softball. I wasn’t in the mood to joke around, and I knew Ronin wasn’t either because she never was, but I couldn’t resist. “I know you need me, Ronin. But can you give me five minutes to get ready. Lucas, would you mind stepping out for a few…”

  She slapped me.

  Totally deserved.

  Totally worth it.

  “I need you to do a job for me.” Her voice showed no sign of anger or emotion of any kind. I think she was struggling with asking me for help.

  I supposed I could have kept pushing her buttons -- but I’m a jerk, not a masochist. “What kind of job?”

  “I need you to get a relic.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Ronin always wanted something from me. But I was a little too preoccupied by the fact I was still alive.

  I moved my hand to my forehead to feel for the wound.

  “Okay, first of all, you’re either a really bad shot,” I said, while running my thumb over a welt on my forehead. “Or you two have staged a murder and are trying to convince everyone I’m dead.”

  “I hit you right where I wanted to hit you, Arkwright,” Ronin said. “I always hit you right where I want to hit you.”

  Lucas smiled. “She shot you with a paint ball. It was my idea.”

  “How could that convince people I’m dead?”

  “I pulled rank in all the right places,” Ronin said with a shrug.

  “Rank? What rank? You don’t have any rank here.”

  “She’s been with us for two weeks, sir,” Lucas mumbled, not sure if he should get in the middle of the discussion. “She’s quite good at maneuvering power structures, I must say.”

  I sighed and sunk my head deeper into my pillow. He was right, of course. Our little Paris operation was in its infancy. Its leader had just shot his partner in the head. It was like a playground for an opportunist like Ronin.

  I was still unwilling to show the two of them that I enjoyed about 80% of my strength available to me. I knew there was still a chance I’d have to fight them to get out of there. If that happened, I’d need the element of surprise on my side. I spotted a small pile of shiny stones on the bedside table. They’d make a good weapon.

  But then I glanced at Ronin’s holster.

  I smiled on the inside and prayed it didn’t show on the outside.

  Her Ruger wasn’t secured.

  Ronin was a great politician, and a great brawler, but her attention to detail had always been amateur hour.

  That pistol was mine. If I needed to escape from them, I’d go for it.

  “So I ordered one guard to report what had happened,” Ronin said, proud of herself. “Then I bent over you so the other guard couldn’t see me apply some duck guts to the back of your head.”

  Lucas nodded. “Looked just like an exit wound.”

  “The guard saw you breathing, but I told him you probably wouldn’t be for long. He helped me get you to the med bed where Scarlett took over.”

  I’m pretty sure I smiled. I couldn’t help it. If it was my buddy Scarlett, then things were looking up.

  “Our Scarlett?” I asked Ronin.

  “Yes, Spirit’s Scarlett,” Ronin said, with a small smile. She was pleased she’d surprised me. She’d get her rocks off at my expense 100% every chance she could get.

  “You know her?” Lucas asked.

  I thought back to the invaluable help Scarlett had provided us on the Excalibur and Mjölnir jobs. “We teamed up in Tibet and England,” I said, while tapping at the bump on my head. It wasn’t too big. I’d look like an ugly unicorn biped for a day or so. “She’s the best Healer I’ve ever come across. Scarlett’s in on your plan, then?”

  Ronin nodded.

  “You should have seen the doctor cry over your dead body, sir,” Lucas said. “She’s a natural actress. She declared you dead between these exquisite gasps and heaving sobs and snot and spit everywhere. Never seen anything like it.”

  Ronin stood over me, arms still crossed, as still as a statue. She didn’t say anything, which meant she was probably waiting for a
thank you.

  “Thank you,” I said. And I meant it. “Thank you both for risking it.” Lucas patted my leg, while Ronin showed no sign of a response. “Okay then. What’s the job, Ronin?”

  “We’re going to Montfort-l’Amaury.”

  I nodded, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. But I owed her.

  Montfort-l’Amaury was a small village outside Paris with a long history of demon activity. My team and I had swept through there on our way to the city after everything went to hell. We’d stumbled on a pile of vampire bodies in a basement. It was a mystery until that Egyptian stone creature, the Lamassu, informed us that supernatural beings were engaged in a new phase of the war. The half-lion, half-woman statue told us the supernaturals were maneuvering their own ways through the apocalypse — allying and backstabbing. Thriving and going extinct. The piles of vampire bodies we’d found in the village were likely a hiding place for the bodies. My best guess was that the demons were killing vampires and storing the bodies out of sight, under the bloodsuckers’ radar.

  I didn’t like that town. Not a bit.

  If there were one place on the planet that was haunted down to its cobblestones, it was Montfort-l’Amaury. So even though I was ready to hop out of bed and get going right then and there, I still managed to make it into an argument. What can I say? Ronin brought it out of me. “Why would we go there?”

  She moved her hands to her hips and frowned. “First of all, don’t challenge me, or I’ll shoot you in the head. Second, because it’s the only chance we have to save my sister.”

  Chapter 8

  She’d done it again.

  My face must have shown my surprise, my excitement, my confusion, my joy, my guilt, and all the other feelings that go along with finding out your best friend is alive. After you thought you’d killed her.

  Ronin smirked, enjoying the show. I tried to collect my thoughts. I tried to say something, anything.

  “Uhhhhhhhh,” is all I managed.

  Lucas took pity on me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, sir. The secret was meant to test me. Security monitored my visits and would have pulled me off of meal duty if I’d revealed anything about Rebel’s condition.”