War and Famine: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Revelations Book 2) Read online

  “Impressive,” Vidar said before backhanding Ian across the face. “But you’re not ready to face me yet. This moon is not in the sky and the signs are all wrong. Killing you now would bring an eon of bad luck.”

  Unfortunately, Ian didn’t quite hear all of those words because he was too busy flying backward. His body struck the metal wall behind him with a sound that would have hurt his insides if the whole of his world hadn’t erupted in fiery agony. He slumped forward onto the floor, blood dripping from his mouth as the blurry form of Vidar walked toward him.

  “Be free, Famine. Ravage the land. Kiss your woman. Do whatever it is you must do because in three days’ time, you will face the wolf. After that, I will come for you.” Vidar slammed one ironclad foot into the wall behind Ian. It shattered like it was made of glass. Shards of metal burst outward, revealing an unrelenting sun in the sky and a field of endless black sand.

  Ian tried to reply, tried to say anything at all, but the god was already gone, vanishing without a trace. His face throbbed, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. Still, his heart was hammering in a way it hadn’t done since they’d faced Jormungand. Even though he had lost, he’d enjoyed the battle, the possibility of a kill. The hunger inside him rose to a crescendo as he stood and stared out at the hellish landscape. He wasn’t quite sure where he was, but he wasn’t staying. He had a wolf to eat.

  “I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” a voice from behind him drawled. Ian turned to see an Asian man about five feet tall wearing a cowboy hat and denim overalls over a black and red checkered shirt. He was chewing on a red plastic straw. “If you do, they’ll be forced to turn on the perimeter defenses, and while I’m not one hundred percent sure on how durable you are, I’m reasonably sure you won’t enjoy having a few thousand rounds of fifty caliber bullets hit you in the next couple minutes.” He pulled the straw out of his mouth and pointed out the hole with it. “Do you see those four towers up there? Each one of those has two Browning M2 machine guns mounted on it. A Browning M2 averages something like five hundred, fifty caliber rounds a minute on a slow day. It’s probably not a slow day.”

  “Seems like a lot of fire power for little old me.” Ian stared up at the towers, but couldn’t make out the weapons. Still, he could feel eyes on him. Even if the man was wrong, he’d never actually been shot before and had no pressing desire to find out if he was bulletproof.

  The man pocketed his straw. “Sugar, you’re like the least dangerous thing in here,” he said, walking up to Ian and gripping him by the shoulder before steering him back toward the door. The man’s grip was firm, but not hard as he led them into the hallway. Six men who looked like they’d seen everything hell had to offer, killed said things, and weren’t even annoyed at having only gotten the t-shirt, stood on either side of the doorway. They both held a machine gun in each hand. All four were trained on him.

  “No offense, but you wouldn’t say that if you knew who I was, sir,” Ian said as they made their way down the hallway. The escort moved with them, guns never wavering.

  “Do you know what’s in there?” the man asked, stopping to point at a sealed door. It looked exactly the same as every other door in the place. Solid steel with no name plate and an air tight seal.

  “No. How would I? You’re the first person I’ve seen in a while,” Ian responded with a shrug.

  “Too true, and if I had it my way, you’d still be locked up.” The man looked at Ian in a way that suggested he didn’t make the rules. “Through that door is a woman known as Ariel.” The man waited a moment but when Ian gave no reaction, he continued. “She’s basically the second most powerful vampire in the world, and while I’ve never had the pleasure of asking her about her age, I’d wager she’s at least a couple millennia old.”

  “Did you say vampire?” Ian asked, wondering whether the guy was lying to him. He seemed totally serious, so Ian was inclined to believe him even though he’d never considered the existence of vampires before. “Does she sparkle in the sunlight?”

  “She does when you set her on fire.” He clapped Ian on the shoulder. “We’re in what I like to call the C wing. Do you know why? No, of course you don’t. A guy like you has probably never gotten a C in his life. C is for average level threats. It’s where we keep things we’ve decided are less dangerous than those in the A and B wings. The average things.”

  “So the second most powerful vampire in the world is in the third scariest wing?” Ian swallowed hard, finding it hard to believe, especially since he was also housed in this wing. He was one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

  “This is where you are supposed to ask me what is in the A wing, but I’m not going to tell you.” He shook his head, his expression changing from cheer to sorrow in the space of a second. “No man should ever see what is on the A wing.”

  “Awesome. So why are you telling me all of this, mister?” Ian asked, drawing out the title.

  “Mister Governor. But you can just call me the Governor. It’s catchier and truer.” He stuck one hand in the pocket of his overalls and pulled out his straw. He fiddled with it for a moment. “I need you to do me a favor, Famine.” He stuck the straw back in his mouth as they approached a large doorway encased in what looked like blue ceramic tile.

  Somehow Ian wasn’t surprised this guy knew his name, especially since the Governor seemed to be in the business of imprisoning monsters. “What’s that?” Ian asked, suddenly curious. “Wait, are you letting me out?”

  “Temporarily.” The Governor pressed his thumb into one of the tiles, and it began to glow with light. A beam of blue energy shot from beneath their feet, and while it wasn’t hot per se, it felt like it was burning him. He fell to his knees as his lungs suddenly failed to deliver any oxygen to his brain. His temples throbbed as his vision went dark. “I need you to go stop the apocalypse.”

  Amy 02:01

  “How tough could they be if Vidar just walked in and stomped them?” Amy asked. She was sitting across from Ian at a table in a fast food restaurant that while named for its speed, was anything but fast. Still, this wasn’t the first time she’d braved the lunch line for their double meat, double cheese animal style.

  Ian shook his head and moaned, not even touching his chocolate shake and French fries. He’d been like that ever since she’d received the call that he was being released. It came as something of a shock since he’d vanished off the entire goddamn planet a few weeks ago. She still remembered going to see him that day and being told he had never existed. Even Sabastin, with all his high-tech gadgetry, had been unable to locate Ian. Then again, since the Sabastin spent almost all his time fussing over his comatose daughter, Amy wasn’t sure he’d actually looked for Ian.

  She was still pissed off at him about it. The only reason she hadn’t forced the issue was because something inside her had been absolutely certain he was alive and well. She felt like she’d have known if he died. Knowing that had let her start to put him out of her mind, allowed her to compartmentalize the events of a few weeks ago and go about her summer fretting about what she’d need for her dorm come fall.

  So of course, of freaking course, she’d dropped everything when she’d gotten the call to come get him and raced back to the jail. He’d been sitting outside in a wheelchair barely conscious with a burly gorilla of a man looming over him. She wasn’t even quite sure why they’d called her of all people. Shouldn’t they have called Ian’s family? The thought had gnawed at her in a strange way, making her wonder if Ian had asked for her purposely, but she was too afraid to actually ask him.

  “You know,” Amy said, dipping her last fry in her vanilla shake before popping it her mouth. “It’s time to talk and eat French fries, and I’m all out of French fries.”

  Ian grunted and put his arms protectively around his food. “Mine,” he whispered, and there was a hint of a growl to his words.

  “You clearly don’t know how girlfriend rules work around fries,” Amy replied before stopping herself and
turning red. Had she seriously just called herself his girlfriend when they were nothing of the sort? Still, when he didn’t immediately call her crazy, she relaxed slightly. Maybe he was okay with the idea? Maybe he wanted her to be his girlfriend? The thought twisted in her guts.

  On the one hand, there was definitely something about him that called to her on a nearly subatomic, primordial level. On the other hand, he’d killed her boyfriend and was a criminal. Could she really date someone who was a criminal? Was she really one of those girls? The kind who waited for her man to get out of jail? As she thought about it, she realized, she very well might be. How sad.

  “You’re not getting my fries,” Ian whispered, fixing his eyes on them like he’d never eaten before. “Not unless you plan on taking their place.”

  She shook her head, dismissing a dirty thought as a blush spread across her face. “Nope. I’m good.”

  “Good.” Ian picked up a handful and shoved them into his mouth. “I’m glad everything is good,” he said in between chews.

  Amy glared at him. “You know, you’re being kind of a jerk. I dropped everything to come get you. Hell, I bought those fries for you, and even if you don’t want to share, the least you could do is not be hostile toward me. It’s not cool.”

  “Don’t be mad because you just decided you were my girlfriend.” Ian shut his eyes for a long while and when he opened them again, his entire demeanor had changed, going from protective hostility to a weird mix of embarrassment and empathy. He pushed the fries across the table toward her. “Have some fries. Then we need to go see Sabastin. He helped us before. Maybe he can help us again.”

  Amy didn’t have any fries. But she did die from shame. Had they really become boyfriend and girlfriend just like that? It wasn’t supposed to be like that, was it? They weren’t supposed to just look up and realize they were together. No, there were supposed to be awkward dates, and well, other things presumably. She wasn’t sure exactly what, but this didn’t seem like how it was supposed to be. Especially not with someone who’d stabbed her last boyfriend to death.

  Ian watched her as she cleared her throat and looked away, trying to hide her flushed cheeks as guilt swam over her skin. “We can go see Sabastin now,” she said after the silence between them grew into a living thing. Why did this feel so awkward? Guilt, sure, but there was definitely something more at play, something she couldn’t quite quantify. She’d come to terms with the fact that she was a horrible person already, so that definitely wasn’t it.

  Ian stood up and held his hand out toward her. “I don’t really like touching, but I’d like to hold your hand.”

  “Okay,” she replied, offering him her hand and letting him help her up. They walked like that to her car. This also was awkward, but less so.

  Still, as Amy popped open her glovebox and pulled out the small golden bracelet Sabastin had given her, she couldn’t keep the flush of embarrassment off her cheeks. Had Ian really become her boyfriend just like that? If he had, how did she feel about that? To be perfectly frank, she wasn’t sure.

  Why? Because while she liked him, almost pathetically so, there was a little voice whispering in her ear, trying to convince her that the only reason she had feelings for him was because of their mantles. As much as she tried to deny it, there was no way for her to know for certain if it was the force of their mantles pushing them together or if her feelings were real?

  After all, hadn’t that been what had happened between Kim and Malcom? Both were clearly terrible for one another, bringing each other nothing but pain, and despite this, their mantles, Conquest and Death, had thrust them back together over and over again.

  It was something she couldn’t risk. No matter how much she liked him. Besides, they had an ancient Nordic god named Vidar to deal with. If he was anything like Vali had been, he’d be harder to kill than a water bear and those things could survive the vacuum of space for ten days. This was not the time to be daydreaming about a boy, especially the boy who had gutted her boyfriend a few weeks ago. God, she must be crazy to even consider it.

  No. They would not be together. It was impossible. But his hand did feel nice. Way too nice.

  Amy pushed that thought out of her mind as she clipped the golden bracelet on her wrist. She gripped Ian’s hand tighter and pressed the green button on the side. Emerald light spilled from the bracelet’s faceplate as symbols in a language she didn’t understand danced across the metal. Sabastin had given her this bracelet when she’d left his super-secret base in the clouds, and while she’d used it to teleport back there on occasion, the experience still weirded her out. Teleportation wasn’t exactly pleasant feeling.

  Her stomach nearly revolted, twisting into a knot inside her as light streamed over their bodies. Ian squeezed her hand, and the feeling passed under a wash of cool air. Amy turned toward him and found him looking at her, a sly smile on his lips.

  “I always hate this part,” he said before the scenery around them faded away, and their disassembled particles shot toward Sabastin’s distant headquarters in the sky.

  “Me too,” she tried to say, but found it impossible because her body had broken down into teeny, tiny bits of light.

  A split second later, the world snapped into focus. They stood in Sabastin’s control room, but it didn’t look like anyone had been there since she’d last come to visit a week ago. The big screens belonging to the super computers Sabastin lovingly called the fates, were dark. It made them look like lava lamps with the light out and all the wax congealed into a sludge at the bottom.

  “Looks like Sabastin’s really been keeping up the place. It totally seems like he’s on top of the whole ‘my mission in life is to save the world from horrible monsters’ thing,” Ian said, releasing her hand and taking a few steps into the room. The motion sensors caught him, and the lights flickered on, filling the room with their sterile white glare and illuminating the dust on the consoles and the cobwebs in the corners.

  “He’s been sitting next to his daughter most of the time. I don’t think he’s even looked at these monitors since you brought her back,” Amy replied, trying to ignore how cold her hand felt now that he’d let her go.

  “I wouldn’t look at them either,” Ian said, glancing back at her and smirking. “Even if it was my job, and I didn’t have an excuse to ignore them.” He pointed at the middle screen. The one that belonged to Lachesis. “The only thing those things can tell you is where you should go to die.”

  “So instead, no one is looking out for the world.” Amy sighed. “It’s his job to locate threats and send people to stop them.”

  “Maybe the world doesn’t need his protection. Maybe we never did. This planet has been spinning for a while despite all the ancient vampires and such. Maybe a bunch of people living in the sky, trying to look out for us is the height of arrogance.” He shook his head, holding up his hand like he wanted to stop the conversation from proceeding. That was good. She had no desire to get into an argument with him about metaphysical philosophy. Especially since Sabastin had come to the same conclusion and disbanded his people, disregarding their millennia old mission to fight monsters and save the world. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Where is he?”

  “Probably in his daughter’s hospital room. Follow me.” Amy moved across the room and pressed a button embedded into the steel wall. A concealed door slid open with a whoosh of compressed air, revealing a hallway lit only by two glowing green strips along the floor.

  “She still hasn’t woken up?” Ian asked, following her into the hallway as she made her way through its maze of twisted passages. The first time she had treaded across this path, she’d gotten hopelessly lost and Sabastin had come to fetch her when alarms started going off. The memory still made her shake with embarrassment.

  “No. We all thought she’d awaken once she healed from the wounds she suffered when she was possessed by the Nose god Jormungand during our battle, but she has been healed for a couple of weeks, and she’s still asleep. Something i
s definitely wrong.” Amy shook her head, remembering how the girl had beaten all four of them within an inch of their lives. If Malcom hadn’t sacrificed himself, there was no way they’d have stopped her. Even then, it was a near thing.

  “And how do we know that thing inside her is really gone?” Ian asked, reaching out and touching her on the shoulder. She stopped, stiffening. “Maybe it’s still inside her, still in control, and the second she wakes up… well, I don’t need to tell you how hard it was to beat her with all four of us.” He dropped his hand back down to his side. “Now Malcom is gone and Kim? Who knows where Kim is.”

  Amy shook her head, trying to ignore the sensation of his touch. “Sabastin says Jormungand is gone now, and I believe him. He’s run more tests than I even have words to describe.”

  “He could be wrong. His judgement is likely clouded because it’s his daughter,” Ian replied. His voice was calm, more so than it’d been in the entire time since the battle.

  Amy bit her lip. She’d had a similar thought but couldn’t bear to think Sabastin might be wrong. The way he looked at his daughter was enough to break her heart into tiny pieces. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if she woke up and wasn’t herself. She was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. She knew it was stupid but felt she owed him that much. After all, he had helped them win.

  “I’m going to take your silence as confirmation that you agree with me.” Ian exhaled slowly and the temperature in the hallway fell a couple degrees. “Still, I suppose we ought to wait and see. We are in the middle of his demon hunter base. If something goes wrong, there’s got to be some kind of gizmo to keep her bound and gagged somewhere around here.”

  Amy sure hoped he was right as she turned down the last corridor. If both Ian and Sabastin turned out to be wrong, they were in a ton of trouble. Up ahead, light spilled out from a doorway. It was almost oppressively bright in the mostly dark hallway, and even though Amy had visited Sabastin here many times, she always felt like an intruder when she approached.