Relic: Mask (A Kane Arkwright Supernatural Thriller) (Relics Book 7) Read online

  “What Fa knows, belongs to Master Bait…”

  “Okay, let’s just forget that nickname for now, all right?”

  “Yes, Sire of…”

  “Call me, Kane. Got me?” She nodded her stone head. It made a sound like pebbles in a sack. “Now tell me who you work for.”

  “Fa serves at Nephthys’ whim.”

  “I thought so,” I said. “She works for Nephthys,” I explained to the sisters.

  “What does that mean, though?” Rebel asked. “Is she on our side, or not?”

  “She is now. Or at least as long as I have the Sceptre. Is that right, Fa?” The creature nodded. “And if I lose possession of the Sceptre, what happens then?”

  “I do the bidding of the Sceptre-bearer. Only those who are worthy hold it. If Kane loses it, then Kane is not worthy of it.”

  “Thought so. Where is Nephthys now?”

  “I do not know. But she spends time in Set’s Wound.”

  Shit.

  Set’s Wound was a parallel plane that you could get to by entering a wound in his thigh. His old spirit form had been hovering over the pyramids for millenia, unseen by us mere mortals. Tabitha had used the realm to store relics of her own in preparation for this war. When I’d last seen her, she was with her sister Nephthys. She’d claimed that Rebel and I needed to kill her to fulfill our destinies.

  Yeah, as I pieced together the big picture in my head, I missed McDonald’s and YouTube.

  “What is Kane’s desire?” Fa asked in my head.

  “Saving the world would be nice,” I said.

  “But you already have, Kane,” Fa said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The balance has begun. We are in a time of rebirth. The next to rise will be the next to rule.”

  “I meant I want to save humanity, Fa.”

  “Ah, saving humanity is another matter, Kane. Fa will do as you bid, but if that is your desire then you’ll need more than Fa.”

  “Gotta start somewhere. What were your last orders before Nephthys sent you here?”

  I didn’t know if she’d actually sent her, but I had to keep up the ruse. I wasn’t sure if my lie would escape the Lamassu in my head. Maybe she could read my mind, too.

  “Fa guarded the Nile.”

  “So you were at the Nile one second, and the next you were fighting Ronin and her people?”

  Fa moved her head quickly to look at Ronin. It was impossible to read her expression, but the movement was filled with fury. Fa turned back to me, and nodded.

  “What was that all about?” Ronin asked.

  “I don’t think she likes you, sis,” Rebel said.

  “I don’t like her either.”

  “You killed the other Lamassu. But she’ll cooperate with us as long as I have the Sceptre.”

  “Then hold on tight to that thing,” Ronin mumbled. “I don’t want to have to hurt her.”

  “Yeah, right, Ronin,” Rebel mumbled back.

  “Fa, is there anything you can tell us about Nephthys or Tabitha? I mean Isis. Have they chosen sides?”

  “As the goddess Isis told you, she is in-between. She will help keep balance until it is no longer possible. Until you and your female kill her.”

  “So you were there when Tabitha told us we were destined to kill her?”

  Fa nodded. “Fa guarded the Nile. It was Fa who pulled you from the waters with the troll monster as you regained your missing hand to hold the Sceptre and rule over Fa.”

  “Thank you for helping us out here. We do appreciate it. Is there anything you can tell us about the coming war that we may not know about?”

  Fa was silent. After waiting for a minute, I wondered if she’d heard me, but then she spoke up so we could all hear her.

  “Set cannot be defeated. It is written.”

  Chapter 18

  I was pissed.

  “You just told us the world is balanced and that the next to rise is the next to rule it.”

  “Yes,” she said in my head.

  “So stop talking in riddles and tell me what the fuck that means then. Because there are two things that don’t go together, ever. One is that the world is ‘balanced’ and the other is ‘Set can’t be defeated.’”

  “It is written. He will defeat all gods and mortals.”

  “Where is it written?”

  “Fa does not know. It is known.”

  “So it could be bullshit,” I said, annoyed.

  “Written on bullshit? This substance of the bull is not easy to write upon, but perhaps. Gods will write where they will.”

  “No, I mean the prophecy could be a mistake. It could be wrong. Lots of stuff has been written that ended up being wrong.”

  “Kane, what is she saying?” Rebel asked.

  I held a finger up. Rebel did not like that.

  “It was also foretold that this day would be upon us, Kane. I do not believe the bull has anything to do with it.”

  Frustrated, I sat on a stool and sighed. “She’s saying that Set’s already won. But she’s also saying that the world is ready for a new ruler. The next to rise is the next to rule, or something like that.”

  Ronin crossed her arms and her face contorted. I knew that expression. She was plotting. “You realize what this means?”

  “If I know you, it’s something I won’t like at all,” Rebel said.

  I butted in and mansplained. Not because I was being a dick, but because I really didn’t want the sisters to start tearing into each other. Big of me, I know. Actually, I couldn’t handle the hassle.

  “It could mean that if we want humans to have a chance, we need to stick our stake in the ground and claim our spot.”

  “Or our Sceptre,” Rebel added.

  “I said it could mean that. We don’t know. But…” A thought smacked me in the temple. “Fa, are you saying we need to fight someone else? Someone besides Set?”

  “That would be wise.”

  “But would it help my people?”

  “Any victory will help your people, Kane. This is war.”

  “War with who?”

  “War with everyone and everything, natural and supernatural. Dead and alive. Godly and magical.”

  “You’re saying we need to pick fights with trolls, werewolves, pixies.”

  “Pick fights. I do not understand this phrase. The fights will pick you. All things are always at war. But when the world is new, as it is now, the stakes are high.”

  My brain was racing. I couldn’t catch all of the thoughts and conclusions and clues that were flying through my brain.

  Rebel slapped the steel table next to me. “Talk, Kane” she said. “What are you thinking? Is this good or bad? Because I’m getting the distinct feeling this is all really fucking bad.”

  “The vampire corpses in the village. Remember?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get the smell out of my nose,” she said, making a face.

  “The demons were killing vampires and hiding their bodies.”

  “Which means what? They’re fighting for turf?”

  “Yeah. Quietly. With stealth.”

  “Demons?” Ronin asked. “When did the demons get in the middle of this mess?”

  I didn’t hear her. Well, I heard her, but I needed to get the thoughts out of my aching head, and fast. I didn’t want to miss anything.

  “But the trolls were working with the vampires,” I muttered. “They were protecting the tomb in Paris.”

  “Maybe that was a marriage of convenience,” Rebel added. We were getting into one of our grooves. “A temporary truce before they find a chance to kill each other.”

  “So what are you saying?” Ronin asked, stepping in front of me. I stopped pacing and she got in my face. “Kane, are you listening to me?”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. I was seeing the big picture. At long last, I had an idea of what the hell was going on. “Set used Cannon, the worst specimen of humanity, to bring us down, Ronin. Get it? That means somet
hing.”

  “Fine. Enlighten me. What does it mean?”

  I walked around her and started to pace again. I heard her exasperated sigh from behind me. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he enjoys our battles. Maybe he thought we were corrupt, unworthy to rule.”

  Rebel had had enough. “Sis, you take his left arm and I’ll take his right. We’re dropping him into the water tank.”

  “What I’m saying is that Set is not fighting us anymore, Rebel. Is that right, Fa?”

  The creature nodded.

  I turned to the sisters. “He’s already won. He’s achieved what he wanted. Now he’s watching us, to see which race will rule the new world.”

  The silence in the room was broken by Fa’s shifting positions. We all looked at her.

  And she disappeared.

  One second, her ugly mug loomed over us. Her eyes met mine. And then poof. The Lamassu was gone.

  “What the ever-loving fuck?” Ronin asked, as if any of us had an answer.

  “Is that how she appeared in Colorado?”

  “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

  “My guess is that Nephthys is behind this,” I said.

  Ronin’s face was contorted with deep thought. “She’s playing with us?”

  “Or helping us,” I shot back.

  “Either way, she’s spying on us, too,” Ronin said. “No way was the timing of that little magic trick an accident. You have a revelation and then the thing disappears? I don’t think so.”

  “You’re right,” I said. Ronin looked at me like I’d grown a rosebush on my head. “What are you looking at?”

  Ronin shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard those words out of your mouth before.”

  “There’s an easy explanation for that,” I said. “You’ve never been right before.”

  Chapter 19

  Ronin dumped us in the kitchen on the house’s ground floor before she ran upstairs to “do something.” Probably something that would mess up whatever plans Rebel and I could muster.

  The view of the park outside was beautiful. There was no sign of Armageddon anywhere. The sun continued to shine. A lone cloud hung in the blue sky as if asking where everyone was.

  Rebel and I ate undercooked mac and cheese. She stared at the red and white polka dot tablecloth, unblinking.

  Fa’s escape sucked, but I was confident I could call her back to me with the Sceptre. My gut told me I needed her to trust me. I wouldn’t call on her unless it was an emergency. My brain was full of too much information. The Lamassu had dropped a ton of information on us, and now we had to sift through it all.

  “What now?” Rebel asked. “I mean, this changes everything. We need to find some allies.”

  “The werewolves, maybe,” I said.

  “Ugh, really? Why werewolves?”

  “They hate vampires. They hate trolls.”

  “They hate humans.”

  “Not if we’re charming and trustworthy.” I smiled.

  “They hate humans.”

  “Fine, Rebel,” I shot back. “What do you think then?”

  She sighed. Strategy wasn’t her strength. Tactics? Those she could pull off. The more violent, the better. But the big picture was my domain.

  She shoved the crappy lunch aside. “You’re the one who’s read all the books, Arkwright.”

  “I’m finding that books aren’t helping much in the apocalypse. You always said as much.”

  “I hate being right. I don’t know,” she said with a big sigh. “Maybe the trolls would be a good ally.”

  “They seem to like you.” She smiled. It was a sad smile. I was referring to our friend, Dino. He’d developed a complicated relationship with my partner before the end came.

  She pointed at me. “As long as you stay out of the way, maybe we could make friends with some troll tribes.”

  “We have the pixies on our side already,” I said. The pixies had helped us in Egypt when we were up against Set. They worshiped me as some kind of superstar hero-type. Hey, I didn’t ask for it. They must have picked my name out of a hat. They were a fickle bunch, though. They were already showing signs of getting bored with me. That’s what they liked to do. Prop someone up to godhood and then knock them off of their high horse. What’s more entertaining than watching a hero eat humble pie, right?

  “I wouldn’t trust them as far I could throw them,” Rebel said.

  “So you trust them a lot, because you could toss them really, really far.”

  “You know what I mean. I don’t want to be watching for a knife in my back while I’m aiming at my enemy.”

  “The demons are powerful as hell.”

  “Pun intended.”

  “But it would be hard to keep an eye on them. It’s not like I can just hop into the underworld and look like I know what I’m doing.”

  “Lucas could help us on that front.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t really want to hang our hopes on a demon librarian hypochondriac.”

  I didn’t like the silence that took over that small kitchen in San Francisco. It felt like a silence that was empty of ideas. We needed next steps. Even small ones. Something to keep hope in the picture.

  “I don’t trust her,” Rebel said without a trace of a whisper.

  “She’s your sister.”

  “That’s beside the point. I don’t trust her.”

  “Fine. Just reminding you. We need to play nice. We’re all on the same team.”

  “She doesn’t know that. She’s neutral until she spots an opening.”

  “She won’t have the option to be neutral. Not if Fa is right.”

  “I don’t know if I buy it. Fa could have her own agenda.”

  “I know. But it makes sense.”

  “Does it? If Set is out of the fight then why does he have Hakkar running around with a vampire army?”

  “Defense. They only played defense with us in Paris.”

  “So your plan to take back Paris…”

  “Might not have been the reason we won.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “But it’s true. If he’s laying low, then his forces were an easy target.”

  “Or...” Rebel cut herself off.

  “What?”

  “Or it means any plan has a great chance, Kane. It’s like you said in Paris. His forces are probably spread thin.”

  “Spread thin, and on defense.”

  “Exactly.”

  I smiled. “I like the sound of that. Say it again.”

  “Spread thin, and on defense.”

  “Gives me tingles.”

  “You two need a room?” Ronin said, as she walked into the room. I hadn’t heard her coming. That worried me. What did she hear? From Rebel’s expression, it was clear she felt the same way.

  “We’re thinking things through,” I said. “You should try it some time.”

  “I do way too much of that. If there’s one thing the apocalypse taught me, Master Baiter, it’s that I need to relax a little.”

  Rebel and I glanced at each other.

  “You have a consistent ability to learn all the wrong lessons, Ronin,” her sister said.

  “If consistency were a virtue, you’d be a saint,” I added.

  “Says the guy who never met a deity who liked him."

  “Hey, we’re still here, right? It can’t be the end of the world as long as we’re here. We need to get access to the Spirit KDB, Ronin.” KDB stood for knowledgebase. It was the most advanced collection of knowledge about the natural and supernatural on the planet. Everything from shipping rosters to product recalls. Demon politics to Fae orgy clubs.

  Ronin cleared her throat and looked away.

  “No way,” I said. She didn’t need to tell me the KDB was gone. The story was written on her face like a pimple.

  “The server farms were taken out before anything else,’ she muttered. “The undead struck at our brain first.”

  “I notice you’re still here,” Rebel said.


  “Are you going to keep digging at me all day?”

  “And night. Until it drives you away.”

  I interrupted. “We have a boot print that we need to ID.”

  “It’s not going to happen with the KDB. It’s gone forever. So what were you two talking about?”

  I finished rubbing my face and leaned back in the chair with a sigh. “We were talking about Fa. She might have an agenda of her own.”

  Ronin waved her hand at me. “Pssh. Not likely. That thing was made to serve. She even talks about herself in the third person like some servant.”

  “Or like some egomaniac with delusions of grandeur,” Rebel said.

  “No,” I said. “She’s right. The Lamassu will do the bidding of whoever holds the Sceptre. Then again, her mistress is Nephthys.”

  “Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.”

  “Spoken like a true bureaucrat,” Rebel mumbled.

  “Hey. Rebel. No name calling.”

  “Fine.”

  “I think we could all use some bureaucracy right about now,” Ronin said.

  Rebel and I glanced at each other uncomfortably.

  “See?” my partner said. “She’ll never change.” She dropped in a chair. I needed to change the subject before the claws came out again.

  “We have to find the twins,” I said.

  “Agreed,” Rebel said. “So what’s the first step?”

  “I’d think that would be obvious,” Ronin said.

  I frowned at her. “Says the woman who lost them in the first place. Lose the attitude and tell us what you’re thinking.”

  She took a bite of my mac and cheese and said, “Go back to where they were taken and look for clues,” with her mouth full.

  Chapter 20

  It was time to find the twins.

  Spirit still had three functioning satellites covering the globe. They’d lost seven to sabotage, and lack of ground control. Still, it felt like a big victory to be standing behind Ronin as she sat at the control panel and flipped between monitors.

  “We can cover a lot with these satellites,” I said.

  “Not as much as we need,” Ronin mumbled.

  “It’ll do.”

  We were scoping out the area where the twins were last seen. We needed to find somebody, human or not, to swap with. But something in Japan distracted me. “Wait. There. That’s where we just came from.”