Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2) (26 page)

With that, Kubo led me and the spider up to the door of the armory. The door was massive, a good twenty feet high, and could only be reached by way of a tall set of stone stairs. And, of course, it was locked. “Shit, should we go back and get the keys from Dennis?” I asked.

Kubo ignored me and flipped through his stack of seals. “I came prepared for plan B, remember?” Teasing out one particular slip, he pulled me away from the door and pressed the seal into it.

Then we hit the deck.

An explosion rocked the armory, and a shower of stone and debris rained down on us. When I chanced to look up, my eyes watering for the dust that filled the air, I saw the gaping hole in the stone door. “Shit, Chief. That's a hell of a spell.” For the damage it'd done, Kubo might as well have strapped a stick of TNT to the door.

Kubo wasted no time. He dragged me to my feet and led me into the armory by the arm. Inside, I could already hear the resonant footfalls of goons in plate armor scrambling to find the source of the explosion.

Behind us, the guards posted near the gates sprang into action.

And I do mean
sprang
.

Since our arrival, I'd only seen those dudes in knight's armor shuffle around the grounds. When we threatened Dennis they hadn't so much as flinched. But explosions, apparently, were something they reacted to. They'd seemed slow, clunky, totally inefficient to me up to that point. Now the armored figures jumped into action and began sprinting towards Percy, Kanta and Joe with incredible speed, weapons poised for attack.

Inside the armory there were more of them, and we weren't a step or two into the place before they descended on us from every direction.

I hoped the others would be able to hold off the guards outside while the Chief and I busied ourselves looking for the Archangel Saber. I sucked in a deep breath and got ready to cross fists with the incoming knights.

“Keep your wits about ya, kid,” warned Germaine, taking cover inside my shirt. “These things are out to kill.”

Fists balled, I grinned. “Hold on, then. It's going to be one hell of a ride.”

THIRTY

I cut Gadreel's leash.

The demon surged to the foreground, meeting the first of several guards with a steady flurry. A straight right, a left jab and then a heel stomp left the suit of armor riddled with dents.

And mere suits of armor these things appeared to be.

I popped the helmet off of the next one, crunching it like a pop can, and found nothing underneath.

“They're enchanted,” explained Kubo, staying back and looking for the right seal for the situation. “If they're sufficiently damaged they'll shut down, like machines, but until then they're relentless. Blowing them to pieces is our best bet. Trouble is, I only packed a few of those seals you saw earlier, and we don't know what lays ahead.” He plucked one paper seal from the stack and held it between two fingers. “Let's try a different approach. I need you to pick me up, and when I say 'jump', you jump. Got that? I've got a spell here that's going to turn the floor into lava.”

“Like the game you play as a kid? Where you throw pillows on the floor and try not to touch the carpet?” I asked.

“No,” replied Kubo, glowering. “I mean
real
lava, you idiot.”

A suit of armor rushed towards me, wielding a battleaxe. These weapons, thankfully, were made of plain old steel. Had they been silver, I might've been in trouble. Parrying the crushing weight of the axe with my forearms, my skin was torn open, but the weapon failed at cleaving my arms off. I drop-kicked the suit in the legs and watched as it fell to pieces at my feet. “Whatever you say, Chief. Sooner we get out of here, the better.”

Germaine shrieked, peeking at my rear. “Look out!”

I turned just in time to catch a sword in the eye.

One of the suits had managed to get the jump on me, and it thrust a longsword through my head, spearing my right eye and pinning my body to the wall. I hadn't been fast enough to stop it, and the attack literally blew my mind.

OK, you're right, it's a shitty time for jokes.

My body went slack for a second there, but in the next I was punching the suit's arms apart. Slowly I yanked the sword out of my skull and crumpled to the floor, loads of blood and brain matter streaming from the enormous wound. A mere human being would have been done for after a hit like that one. Even though I was going to live, I tell you it hurt like a bitch. Getting the inside of my head probed with a razor-sharp blade wasn't really bucket list material.

The lava spell was put on the back-burner. Kubo crouched beside me, firing a few bullets at the remaining suits while I struggled to recover. I don't know why he thought that might be effective. The bullets didn't even penetrate. From behind me, I heard Germaine trying not to throw up. The spider was
retching
in my half-severed ear, and it was pissing me off. “G-glad you're OK, kid. But maybe next time try and
dodge
, eh? N-no one wants to see that shit.”

I glared over my shoulder at him, my face slowly mending. Bone, muscle and skin alike began a slow crawl, frayed ends reaching out to one another till every level was fortified. “Thanks for your concern,” I said when I could finally speak.

Kubo was in trouble. Two of the metallic bastards were taking turns slashing at him. One of them had a longsword, the other a frigging hammer. The tireless suits were incredibly fast, playing a game of whack-a-mole with the Chief. Kubo just barely evaded each time, but his movements were getting slower as he grew more exhausted. These things were relentless.

I managed to dispatch one of them with a kick, but didn't get to the other in time. Kubo was forced to do a log roll to avoid a jab from the longsword. With a grunt, I reached down and picked up the hammer the other one had dropped, raising it over my head and swinging with everything I had. Shit, the thing was heavy even to
me
. These enchantments had serious muscle.

The suit of armor crumbled away beneath the might of the hammer, and for the first time since our entrance, there was silence.

“Eat your heart out, son of Odin,” I said, wielding the hammer in one hand.

Germaine clicked his tongue. “Nah, haven't you seen the movies? If that were really Thor's hammer, you wouldn't be able to wield it.”

I hesitated. “D-do you mean that... that Thor is actually, like,
real?
The Norse god?”

“Oh, yeah,” replied Germaine with altogether too much casualness. “Believe it or not, those movies are pretty much documentaries.”

Meanwhile, Kubo wasn't looking so hot. He rose to his feet, clutching one of his elbows. Even beneath the suit, I could tell that he was seriously injured. “Elbow is broken,” he said through grit teeth. “The one with the hammer clipped me.”

Shit. Kubo was pretty much down for the count. He gripped his seals and peered out the door, where Kanta, Percy and Joe were still locked in battle with the other guards. “What're we going to do, Chief? If there's something waiting for us in that room where the sword is at, then you won't be able to take it on. Not with a busted arm.”

He nodded. “I'm going to stand back, help them out from a distance,” he said, motioning to the group in the courtyard. “You go on and find the sword. Take Joe with you. The two of you make a good team, and I think you'll be able to handle whatever comes your way. Germaine will stay with you so that you can identify the sword when you find it.”

My eyes went wide. “Y-you want me to bring Joe?” I gulped. That didn't sound like such a bad idea to me, and it was true that the two of us made a strong team, but I didn't think Joe was going to be up for it.

Kubo staggered out of the armory and whistled. “Joe, get in here.”

Joe was hanging back, near Dennis, while the other two struggled to beat back the remaining suits. Their weapons weren't well-suited to destroying thick armor. Kanta was pounding away on the things, but they still kept coming.

“Joe!” called Kubo, waving him towards the makeshift entrance in the armory door.

Joe finally broke away from the group, rushing in to meet us.

The Chief stepped out into the courtyard and gave us his orders. “I'm tagging out,” he said, cradling his busted arm. “You and Lucy go find the sword with Germaine. I'll support the other two out here. Hurry up, got it? And work together.”

Joe looked at the two of us in turn, the reticence in his gaze clearly telegraphed. “S-sure, Chief,” he replied.

“Well, don't act so excited about it,” I added, tugging him into the armory and leaving Kubo behind. “And don't get yourself killed, Chief. This fight is only just getting started,” I reminded him.

Kubo turned to the courtyard, using his teeth to pick out the seals he wanted from the stack in his fist. Nope, the Chief wasn't planning on checking out. Not yet.

Joe and I pushed through the armory. Up to this point, I hadn't actually gotten a good look at the place. I'd been too busy hacking apart enchanted suits of armor to admire my surroundings. But as I took a moment to look around, I saw that there was, as I'd expected, a good deal to admire.

The place was more or less a museum. Hundreds of glass cases lined what proved to be an immense showroom. This place was known to house mythical weapons of great rarity, and the art history buff in me salivated at the thought of exploring the whole place. Shame we'd gone and roughed up Dennis; I'd have really loved an in-depth tour of the joint.

I walked quickly between the rows of cases. In one, there was an ancient-looking bow and arrow, totally wooden. It didn't look remarkable, but was probably worth loads if it was being kept here. Further on was a huge sword, whose placard read
Sword of Beowulf
. “Are you kidding me right now?” I was giddy as a schoolgirl. “This place is full of awesome shit! Why didn't you tell me that they had all of these artifacts? It's a collector's paradise!”

Germaine reached over and smacked me in the cheek with one of his legs. “Because we ain't here to sightsee, you asshole. Get moving! We've gotta find that sword!”

Joe and I looked around the enormous showroom, from the countless cases spread out before us, to the large, domed ceiling overhead. “W-where, exactly, do we need to look?” asked Joe. “We could search for an hour and never find it in this room.”

Glancing this way and that, Germaine urged us onward. “It ain't gonna be here. If Agamemnon wants it hidden, then it's probably not gonna be housed with the main collection. Dennis said the sword is in its own room. I know there are other chambers in this place. Let's look for them.”

We pushed past the rows of glass cases. I did my best not to linger, I swear, but some of these things were just too awesome to pass up. There was a staff in one of those cases that supposedly belonged to Moses. In with an ornate sarcophagus was a dagger that'd belonged to Tutankhamen, and the blade was made from the iron found in a meteorite. I could have wandered the armory for hours.

The deeper we went into the showroom, though, the more I felt a strange dread welling up in me. It was a really peculiar feeling, like something was sneaking up on me. I stopped now and then, trying to sense where it was coming from, but couldn't pin down the source. Joe and Germaine felt nothing.

I took another step, and the feeling intensified by double.

“There's something going on in this place,” I said. “I can feel something weighing down on me. Something that doesn't want me here.”

Germaine perked up. “It's the sword! It's gotta be the sword!”

“Think so?” I asked, bracing myself against one of the cases. “It feels... it feels all wrong. I have the strangest feeling in my heart.” The thumping in my chest was surging up to new heights with each step I took. Whatever it was, Gadreel
really
disliked it.

“Follow that feeling, kid. You might lead us right to it!” urged Germaine.

“Yeah, keep going, Lucy. I'll bet it's the angel sword's aura!” said Joe.

Maybe Joe was onto something, but suddenly I just wanted to turn tail and get out of there. I was being actively pushed away by some force I couldn't see.

I pressed on with no little difficulty, walking towards the back of the room. I kept my head down, just focusing on the awful feeling that overcame me. I had a weird taste in my mouth. It was vaguely metallic; and this, too, only grew stronger the further I walked. Then, studying the way ahead, I noticed that the showroom branched off into a long hallway. “It's this way, whatever it is,” I said.

We started down the hall.

THIRTY-ONE

“Question is, which room is it?” asked Germaine as we stood at the end of the hallway.

We'd walked more than thirty feet and passed no less than ten doors on either side of the hall which all bore signs reading “no admittance”. Any one of them could have housed the sword we were looking for.

The air in this hallway was all wrong, and I was picking up more than just a bad vibe now. There was something more tangible than dread in the air, a certain stench I felt reasonably sure I'd whiffed before.

The smell of the grave.

“Joe,” I said, “keep your eyes open, man. There's something in here with us. I smell something weird. The living dead, maybe.”

Joe whipped open the Zippo. “You sure?”

Sniffing at the air, Germaine scoffed. “Nah, you're imagining things, kid. My sensory apparatus is a lot more sensitive than a human's, and I can't smell shit.”

I took another step, glancing at the stretch of doors ahead. “I'm not so sure.”

By the looks of it, this hallway stretched another fifty or so yards before branching off in two different directions. I was about ready to drop a trail of breadcrumbs, what with all the wandering we'd done. This place was massive, easy to get lost in. Pressing on, I booked it to the next split in the hall, the feeling of oppression never waning and my stomach playing host to a knot of dread.

Arriving at the end of the hall, the stench of death hit me harder than ever, and a glance around the corner showed me why that was. “
Stop
,” I warned Joe in a whisper, pushing him back the way we'd come. “
Zombies. And...
” I squinted, trying to size up and describe what I was seeing. “
Something else.
”