Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2) (25 page)

Kubo put up his hands in a feeble show to the lizard men before us. “Now, now, I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding. My friend here has no quarrel with your kind. We are just looking to go on our way, off to visit some friends, so if you'll excuse us--”

“Can it,” muttered one of the lizard men, shoving Kubo to the ground. Germaine was nearly flattened in the Chief's descent, and sprang out at just the right moment. A shame; I wished he'd been turned into a spider pancake. That would have been about the only good thing to come out of this fight that was about to break out.

The trio was closing in on us. Kanta's hand was locked around her braid. All she needed to do was pull one of those hairs out and she'd have a big, gleaming trident to thrust into the bodies of these ruffians. She hesitated, though. She didn't seem to want to fight until combat became an inevitability. A wise move.

Percy, though, had other ideas.

Can I just say that it feels great
not
to be the guy who fucks everything up for once? I didn't even have to open my mouth, didn't have to make a boast or throw a punch this time. Instead, it was Percy who got things started, despite Kubo's harsh stare telling him to back down.

“As a matter of fact, I think I remember your brother,” said Percy, his hand slowly moving to the hilt of the sword. He touched it with two fingers, meeting the werewolf's steely gaze. “Though, it's hard to remember. My family has cut down so many of your kind over the years, and you all look the same to me.”

That did it.

With a savage roar, the werewolf launched himself at Percy.

The street was alive with hushed murmurs as all hell broke loose.

With a quick, practiced movement, Percy wrapped his fist around the hilt and whipped the blade from its scabbard, swinging it downward just in time to separate the werewolf's fist from its arm. The monstrosity's cries tore through the night, and a jet stream of blackish blood doused the ground. Percy wasn't through yet, however. He reached out and knocked the werewolf in the snout with the butt of his hilt. The creature stumbled to its knees.

The lizard men were on the move. Where Kubo had initially hoped to play it cool, he knew now that there was no choice but to fight. Before the first of the lizard men could approach Percy, Kubo reached out towards its neck.

The sound of gunfire made everyone in the street, myself included, duck for cover.

I watched as a couple of silver bullets sailed through the lizard man's throat. Its eyes shot open and a stream of blood trickled down its scaly lips. It was dead before it hit the ground.

Its partner, crouching low, tried to make a break for it, but before it could build any distance, I caught a whiff of burning fabric. It was on fire.

Joe's lighter was on, sticking out of his pocket just enough to be seen, and he'd tossed a few sparks onto the creature's cloak, igniting it. The faster it ran away from us, the faster the fire spread, until it was a screaming fireball rushing for the fountain we'd walked past.

Kubo lowered his hood, the illusion he'd cast to hide his appearance suddenly falling away. “We need to move. Now.” Dressed now in his suit, silver gun in hand, Kubo charged ahead. Kanta and Percy followed, running after him. Joe made sure the lizard man was burnt to a crisp before continuing on, and Germaine quickly darted up my pant leg, stationing himself on my shoulder.

I didn't even have time to protest.

“How far are we from the frigging armory?” I asked the spider, running behind the others.

“It's still a little ways away!” gasped Germaine.

Damn. We'd attracted a ton of attention. I hoped that the lizard men didn't have friends watching that scuffle, else we could expect to tangle with more of them. Kubo's disguise was gone, too; if anyone recognized him as a Veiled Order operative like he'd feared, then we might end up fighting through a crowd to get to the armory.

We turned right, following Kubo, whose face was covered in fresh sweat. “There it is,” he said, panting. “The Celestial Armory.” He slowed down just a bit as we rounded the corner, falling into a jog. He tucked his gun back into its shoulder holster and wiped at his brow. “We need to hurry. Cat's out of the bag, and anyone out here might recognize me. Germaine, is your friend going to be there?”

“Oh yeah, Dennis will be there,” replied the spider. “He's reliable, and I told him to get there early, in case we got held up.”

The building Kubo had pointed out was enormous compared to everything we'd hitherto seen in the Underground. It was made of stone, for starters, and was topped in a large, white dome. The entire structure was held up by pillars, and even from here I could see its enormous doors. It was a couple of blocks away, but it really stood out from its surroundings. There was something elegant about it, something that called to mind the stonework of ancient Rome. This building, I guessed, had been constructed centuries, perhaps millennia ago. It wouldn't have surprised me if there were ancient works of art stashed inside along with all of the mythical weapons-- which were works of art in their own right.

I almost asked Germaine about what else we'd find in there, but thought better of it.

Now was
not
the time to geek out over art or architecture.

We booked it through a narrow alley, breaking out onto a wide, busy street. Kubo ran past a number of riders on horseback, nearly getting himself trampled, while the rest of us darted and weaved through the foot traffic. We made it to a tall gate, a combination of stone and thick, wrought iron, which restricted access to the armory and effectively blocked out the riff-raff.

There were guards posted there; big guys in suits of armor. I didn't know if all of them were human, but they wore intense-looking plate like something straight out of a bedtime story. “The fuck?” I asked Germaine. “What, does King Arthur live here?”

Germaine jumped off of me and skittered towards the gate, where a lone figure was propped up against a stone support, smoking a Lucky Strike. The man was, surprisingly,
incongruously
, human. He wore a black polo shirt with the TGI Friday's logo on the breast.

This was our guy.

“Dennis!” shouted the spider. “There ya are!”

Dennis peered down at the arachnid and grinned with all the warmth one might afford a close friend. “Germaine Fox, how the hell you doing?” The Jersey accent was strong in this one; though Germaine was a spider, the two of them might as well have been brothers for the similarities in speech. “I was wonderin' when you might turn up.” He glanced at the rest of us curiously, taking a long drag. “These, uh... your buddies you were talkin' about?”

“That's right,” said the spider. “And we need to get in there pronto, man. Ran into a bit of trouble, like we expected. I tell you, this whole place is going downhill. What do you say? Can you let us in?”

“Of course.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a keyring. Slowly, he unlocked the gate and ordered two of the posted guards to lock up after him. The men walked over stiffly, the armor inhibiting their movements, and secured the gate after we'd all passed through.

Kubo introduced himself to Dennis, offering a handshake that was only weakly returned. “I'm with the Veiled Order, name's Kubo,” he began, “and we're here because Germaine tells us you can get ahold of the Archangel Saber.”

Dennis arched a brow and stopped suddenly, putting out his cigarette on the heel of his shoe. “Hold on...
that's
what you came lookin' for, Germaine? The frigging Archangel Saber?”

“Obviously. What else? Why, is something the matter?” asked the spider.

“I'll say there's a problem,” replied Dennis. He looked over at the rest of us, waving his hands in the air. “Of all the shit you coulda asked for, I can't let you have that one.”

Kubo glared down at Germaine like he was about to stomp on him. And damn, how I wished he
would.
“What do you mean you can't let us have it? Why not? Didn't Germaine tell you that we were coming for it?”

Dennis chuckled, shaking his head. His hair was greasy, tightly curled, and he smelled vaguely of deep-fried mozzarella. “Nah, Germaine here called me to say he was cashing in on a favor I owed him. He didn't say nothin' about letting y'all borrow a frigging
holy sword
. Pretty sure I would have remembered that.”

“What the hell, Germaine?” I said, reaching out and kicking him with the tip of my shoe.

The spider wheeled around, pointing a hairy appendage towards his buddy. “Dennis, you're my go-to guy for this kinda shit. I need you to come through for me with the hookup. We're talkin' life and death here.”

Dennis shook his head. “I can't do it. Strict orders from the owner.”

Kubo grabbed up a fistful of Dennis' shirt. “Who's the owner of the sword? My bosses will buy it from them, no questions asked. No price is too high.”

Dennis whistled, breaking out of Kubo's grasp and brushing himself off. “I'm sure your bosses are flush with cash and all that, mister... uh,
Kubo
. But money ain't the object. See, the owner of this thing don't care about money. And I know for a fact that he ain't gonna part with it. I guarantee it.”

“Who's the owner?” asked Kanta, stepping forward. She was playing with her braid again, probably considering ways in which she might persuade him through violence.

Dennis sighed, looking down at the spider that stalked around his feet. “You know, that's a breach of customer confidentiality. But I'll give you the name. He's a big guy, goes by the name of Agamemnon.”

I could be wrong, but I think that Kubo started laughing.

Either that, or it was the first time I'd ever seen him cry.

TWENTY-NINE

We spent a lot of time trying to talk some sense into Dennis, but it was all for naught. Aside from lying to us about being able to easily get ahold of the Archangel Saber, Germaine had fibbed a little about his closeness to Dennis. They were old drinking buddies... not exactly BFF's.

“Look,” began Germaine, “we're trying to keep the world from getting overrun with zombies. Get it? And your client, Agamemnon, is the one who's controlling them. Now, he probably bought this sword so that no one else would be able to get ahold of it. Smart move on his part. But he's fixin' to destroy Detroit-- to raise an army of the dead and overrun the Earth. So, we need this sword if we're gonna stop him.”

Frankly, this whole thing was comical. We'd come all the way here, risking our lives in search of a mythical blade, just to get turned away at the last minute. And why was that? Because this dumbass wanted to uphold his contract to the goddamn necromancer. It was the perfect plot-twist, the perfect kick in the balls, considering everything that was at stake. If Agamemnon could see us now, he'd probably laugh till his ribs were sore.

“Can't help ya,” replied Dennis. We were standing in the well-lit courtyard outside the armory. The guards around us remained still as statues at their posts. “Even if I
wanted
to violate my contract, which I don't, I couldn't help you.”

“Why not?” demanded Kubo.

Dennis nodded towards the monolithic building. “See, I was paid really well for this, but that ain't the sole reason. A stipulation in the contract was that Agamemnon would provide his
own
insurance on the sword. It's kept in a separate room, and he's got it surrounded by guards of his own. I don't know who he has posted there, but he promised me that to even look at that room would equal a painful, painful death. I haven't been down that stretch since I took on the contract. Not worth the risk. And have you ever met the guy? He's fuckin' intense, man. I believed him. Took him at his word, I did.”

“But he can't even
use
the sword,” I argued. “He's a necromancer. A sword like that one could kill him. He has no use for it, except to keep it from us. And in case you missed it, we're the
good guys
. We're trying to save the world. Don't you understand that?”

Dennis shrugged, scratching at his belly. “Sure, sure. And good on ya. But I don't have a dog in that fight. See, there's this little thing called
integrity
, and not everyone has it. But you know what it would do to my business if I went back on my contract? Nope, can't help you this time, Germaine. If you want to cash in that favor I owe you, I'll take you out to the titty bar like last time, but--”

Kubo socked Dennis in the sternum. The pudgy guy went white in the face and fell flat on his back. Kneeling down on the ground, Kubo dug into Dennis' wide eyes with a gaze that would have made
me
shrink away. “Listen up. This is how it's going to go. You're going to let us have that sword, or we're going to shove that
integrity
up your ass till you spend the rest of your life shitting blood. Got it?”

Germaine was a little more delicate. He wandered over, caressing Dennis' cheek gingerly with one of his arms. “I'm sorry, bud, but I have to agree with Kubo over there. You're being unreasonable. Let us have the sword; we won't tell a soul you let us have it. It's important, though.”

Dennis slowly sat up, clutching at his chest and coughing. “N-nah... you messed up this time, Germaine. I ain't... I ain't gonna let you pull one over on me like this.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Kubo, pulling Dennis up by his collar. “Looks like we'll be
taking
what we came for.”

I have to say, I really liked this new, thuggish Kubo. This Kubo got shit
done.

Dennis smirked, then winced as his chest ached afresh. “Oh, I wouldn't do that. You might get in there, but aside from the guards Agamemnon's posted, you'll have to deal with my security. I'll have you all rounded up by the time you even get close to the sword.”

Kubo shoved Dennis into Joe's waiting arms. “That's a chance we're going to take, then,” said the Chief. “Germaine, Lucy, you're coming with me.” He turned to Kanta. “You, Joe and Percy keep our buddy Dennis busy. If he gives you trouble, you have my permission to kill him.”

Dennis' bowels audibly loosened as Kanta pulled out a strand of hair and held the tips of the gleaming trident against his throat. “Sure thing, Chief.”