Chapter 9: Heimdall (Patreon)

“How’d it go?” Heimdall asked.

Zed had followed Jason and the others into the building and they now stood inside a pristine house. It looked like the generic suburban home. A nice flight of stairs that led up the house. The living room on one side with a backdrop of the kitchen and a small dining with high stools.

Where they stood, though, was in the small corridor some part of Zed’s memory thought of as the waiting room.

Heimdall stood in front of them, a mass of a man. There was no simpler way for Zed to describe him. He was tall, he was muscular, and he was wide. He had the kind of square face you’d see on an old military video game character, back when things used to be very pixelated and he stared with half-hidden eyes under heavy set brows. His skin was tan and he wore a set of camos.

Three men stood behind him, and while they varied in looks, something about their matching camos left them looking like his mini versions. Zed found himself fighting the urge to ask if they were his kids barely three minutes into meeting them.

“Did you find any hints of it?” Heimdall went on.

Jason shook his head, the—hopefully—unofficial leader of the group. “Went as far as cradle’s deep, then took the eight route back.”

“Any monsters on the way back?”

“Four blobs and a Jackstretch.”

Zed bit back a chuckle. A jackstretch? Who comes up with these names.

A part of him was willing to bet it wasn’t the thing’s real name, but what did he know, it wasn’t like his notifications had given him the creature’s name. There was little doubt Jason was talking about the monster he’d fought, though.

“A jackstretch.” Heimdall rubbed his massive hand along his jaw in thought. “How close?”

“About three hours’ drive south.”

“We found it just after the creepy forest,” Chris added.

“And still no sign of a mana surge,” Heimdall said.

It wasn’t a question but Jason shook his head, regardless.

Zed had considered saying something about the mana surge after he’d heard it from Chris’ mouth, and that was after he’d gotten less hostility from them. However, he voted against the idea. After all, all he knew about it was that he’d had some kind of relationship with it. It had destroyed his physical body and given him a new one, and it was somehow responsible for his memory loss Jason and his team still didn’t know about.

Yup, he nodded. Best keep that to myself.

“Did you guys try the creepy woods?” one of the mini-Heimdalls asked.

Ash shook her head. “You know what that place’s like. Low ambient mana and all that. Breathing there’s already tasking enough.”

“And talk about how much work it puts on our core,” Oliver added, shaking his head. “The mana there’s too thin. No way a surge happened there.”

“True enough,” Heimdall agreed. “If it had a mana surge it would be dense with mana. It’s just strange how the place just looks so…”

“Unnatural,” Chris shivered. “Never seen a forest that full and rich in my life.”

“Y’know, back when we found this pl—”

“Not now Jerry,” Heimdall cut one of the men behind him off. “We know it used to be a simple stretch of boring woods like the other one. No need to get reminiscent on us.”

The remaining guys schooled their expressions and Zed could’ve sworn he saw the shadow of a chuckle on one of them. It seemed they weren’t all stuck up and strong faced like their original version. Who woulda thunk it?

Heimdall sighed and turned away from Jason. “I’ll send some guys down that way to see how much of the monster corpses we can get our hands on, VHF’s still paying good money for monster corpses. Just wish Larry didn’t have to go and get himself killed on his way to D.C, now I’ve got to find people willing to take it up to Jock’s yard and sell it for less. Anyway, the guys will stop by the shed and restock the supplies there.”

“Uhh, about that.”

Heimdall turned to Oliver and pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead. “This is going to be bad news, isn’t it?””

“I haven’t even said anything yet?” Oliver protested.

“Yes, but you may not have realized you’re like the raven of the group.”

“I come before the sunshine?” he asked in a hopeful yet unconvincing voice.

“No.” Heimdall’s voice was flat. “You’re the one who drops the bad news. Y’know,” he turned to Jason, “why do you guys always do this? Why can’t… I don’t know, Ash drop the bad news. Or even Chris. Hell, y’all can rotate it—take turns.”

“Well, we wanted to do that—”

Oliver shot Chris a confused look. “No, we didn’t.”

“—But Oliver just likes breaking bad news to people,” she continued without missing a beat. “But we’ll work on it, Boss.”

Heimdall pinched the bridge of his nose. “I swear if Jason didn’t vouch for you and I haven’t seen your skills I’d send you all to farm duty.” He sighed. “So what happened to the shed?”

“There’s no shed anymore,” Oliver said.

Heimdall’s jaw fell.

“In their defense,” Zed raised a helpful hand, “it was—”

“I’ll get to you in a jiffy, bloodshed,” Heimdall snapped. Then he turned his attention back to the others. “How the actual FUCK do you destroy a whole shed.”

“It’s really not as difficult as it seems,” Oliver mused. “All you need is a rune gun, a few blobs, and—”

Heimdall shot him a dark glare and he shut up.

Even Zed knew it was not the time to be a smartass.

Heimdall’s glare returned to Jason, and this time he tried not to make it so dark as he asked, “What happened?”

“Three Beta rank blobs and one Rukh got to us.”

“And the wards? They aren’t there for no reason.”

Oliver opened his mouth but Jason spoke over him. “I miscalculated the amount of mana it would take to keep it out. Burned right through the rune from the back. Fried the entire rune system.”

The mini-Heimdalls winced.

“Is it still salvageable?” Heimdall asked.

“Maybe. But only if we hurry. We put up simple temporary wards on the trees around and activated them.”

Heimdall rubbed a hand down his face. “How long do we have?”

“I’d say two days, but you know what our rune-work is like.”

“Yeah, Festus told me.”

Zed leaned towards Oliver and whispered, “What’s our rune-work like?”

“Shit,” Oliver whispered back.

“Andre,” Heimdall snapped.

“Yes, Boss,” the man on his left answered.

“Go get some of the boys. Tell them we’ve got restock on the shed. Don’t tell them how bad it is. And,” he added when Andre started moving, “take James with you so he fixes up whatever patchwork these guys set up. He’s no Festus but we can’t risk our only rune mage so he’ll have to do.”

Andre disappeared after the order.

“Now, you,” Heimdall turned to Zed and stepped in front of him. “Where did you crawl out from?”

“A hole in the ground.”

Heimdall’s jaw twitched. “I see Jason’s brought me a bloody comedian.”

Zed gestured at himself dramatically. “And quite literally, at that. I also do home gigs and group sessions, but I must warn you, I’m not cheap.”

Beside him Oliver struggled to hold back a chuckle. Impressively, if Zed’s smell bothered, the big guy, he wasn’t showing it.

“Before we continue,” he went on before Heimdall could get a word in. “What’s VHF? I know everyone’s supposed to know it, but something tells me you aren’t selling monster corpses to Very High Frequencies.”

One of Heimdall’s men buried his face in his hand and his shoulders shook. The other one looked at Zed, confused.

Heimdall sighed and turned to Jason. “I see you’ve brought me another Oliver. I’m sure you wanted me to add him to the hunter’s detail, and I will. But there’s a twist. He’s your problem till the foreseeable future. Now get out of my house before I change my mind and kick you out.”

“And before you go,” he added as they turned away. “What kind of blob did you fight, so Andre and the others know what to expect when they get there.”

“Wait.” Zed paused. “There’s more than one kind of that thing?”

“There’s hundreds,” Oliver said.

“Can’t be too sure,” Chris answered Heimdall. “It was one of those ones with a lot of legs.”

“All of them have a lot of legs, Chris.” Heimdall turned to Ash. “Care to help your friend out?”

Ash shrugged then thumbed at Zed. “It was as tall as bloodshed over here.”

“This is why I’m not a fan of your reports,” Heimdall grumbled. “They’re all tall, Ash. Someone. Anyone. Any help will be good. Was it a Grinch blob, a dapper blob, a fin-spiked blob, a sentinel blob? Was it a feline blob, a fungus blob?”

“I know that one,” Oliver chimed. “But no. Definitely not a fungus blob.”

“For the love of—”

Zed raised a hand.

“WHAT?!”

Zed noted the vein on the man’s forehead and almost pitied him. He’d thought the man’s seriousness towards the group had simply been him overreacting but he was beginning to see why the man was so tired of them. The man was heading a command set up, building soldiers, and while Zed didn’t know much about anything military—or anything at all, really—an instinct he was certain wasn’t his let him know that the least they could do was properly identify their enemies. It helped reduce future casualties.

“An arachnid blob,” he said.

“What?”

“The thing we fought. I’m assuming they fought the same thing, but the one I faced was an arachnid blob.”

Heimdall’s dismissive reaction towards him waned but didn’t die. “And you’re sure of it?”

“Eight spider legs, face like a giant sloth head with only a mouth, and grey as the hair on your head. Yup. If that’s an arachnid blob, then I’m sure.”

Heimdall frowned at that. “Seems this one’s not a complete Oliver.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with Oliver,” Zed protested. “I like Oliver. He’s been a good chap so far.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do. You know what?” Heimdall turned from them, shooing them away with a tired gesture. “Just go do something else.”

They left the house not longer after and Jason closed the door after them.

“I think that went well,” Chris said as they strolled back to the car. “Now all I need is a shower and a nice bed.”

“Yeah,” Zed agreed, a nice sensation filling him in association with the word. It was warm and it was nice. “But before that, where do I learn magic?”

There was a pause and a stretch of silence as four pairs of eyes stared at him.

“What?” he asked.

“Aren’t you Beta rank?” Ash asked.

“Yes?”

“What kind of mage gets to Beta rank and doesn’t know their own magic.”

“More importantly,” Oliver cut in. “How’ve you been alive for the past five years without magic?”

Zed shrugged. “My wi—”

“If I hear one more word about wit or personality,” Chris got in his face. “I’m going to stick my magic so far up where the sun don’t shine you’ll be shitting rainbows and spellforms for the next ten days.”

She stomped off towards the truck after that with a loud scream.

Zed turned to Oliver, confused. “What’s got her apples?”

Ash shook her head and followed after Chris. “I’m beginning to think I liked you better when you were a madman with a tomahawk.”

Zed looked between Oliver and Jason. “Did I do something?”

Jason shook his head while Oliver put an arm over his shoulder and took it off immediately with a shiver.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, making sure he hadn’t gotten stained. “I’ll show you a few tricks on magic while I teach you aura sense. But before that, you need to get a shower. You stink!”

……………………………………

“So,” Jason dropped the seat in place and sat on it the wrong way. “What do you guys think?”

“Suspicious,” Chris said.

Ash nodded. “Definitely.”

They were in Chris’ room now. And while Jason and Chris each occupied a chair of their own, Ash had commandeered Chris’ bed. It was a firm piece of mattress but was more comfortable than hers. Currently, they were making a decision Oliver wouldn’t have been happy about.

And that’s why they were doing it while he was with Zed.

“Why, though?” Jason asked. He didn’t necessarily disagree with them but he needed something more than just a gut feeling to go with.

“For starters, he’s too cheery,” Chris said. “It’s barely been five years since the second awakening. No one’s that cheery already.”

Ash turned to her. “Ollie is.”

“That’s cause your brother’s a man-child and Imani’s been keeping him happy recently,” Chris replied.

“Wait,” Ash sat up. “Imani on the third lane?”

Chris nodded with a grin. “Yup.”

“I thought she was going out with Ned.”

“That’s old news. They broke up three months back.” Chris paused. “Then got back together. Then broke up… then got back together. You know what, forget I said anything.”

“Guys,” Jason clapped his hands to get their attention. “Stay on topic. We can gossip about Oliver and who he’s making out with another time.” He turned to Chris. “And being happy doesn’t make someone suspicious. Maybe he’s just taking the good wherever he can find them.”

“If that’s the case then good for him, cause he’s got quite the pain tolerance.” Ash laid back down. “I wonder just how much he’s had to go through to develop that level of tolerance.”

“What do you mean?” Jason asked.

“I saw the end of his fight with the blob,” Ash said. “They went through the wall and it threw him almost ten feet high with each tumble and he just came down on that thing like he was the one who’d thrown himself.”

“Mages have high pain tolerance,” Chris said. “It’s no big deal.”

“I don’t know exactly how long you’ve been a Rukh for, Chris, but Beta mages like me don’t just shrug off a bone through the thigh.”

Chris’ eyes narrowed. “Not even a sound?”

“He did yell when he pulled it out but that was all.”

Jason shook his head, resting his arms on the back rest of his chair. “Even if he cried when it happened, there’s a bigger pain tolerance than that. It’s been, what, four hours since we met him and he’s already moving about like nothing happened. I just thought his pain tolerance was abnormal as a Beta, but,” he frowned, “that’s mildly disturbing. Even a Rukh mage won’t walk off a stab from a monster that quickly.”

“I knew he was suspicious,” Chris said.

“He’s also hiding something,” Ash said. “What kind of mage gets to Beta without knowing how to use magic? Like, there’s being poor at it, but to not know it at all? I find that quite hard to believe.”

“There are mages who don’t really know how to use magic, though,” Jason opposed, playing devil’s advocate. “We already know the VHF like using them as soldiers. I heard they’re a perfect fit for the Olympian armor since they have all that backed up mana to use.”

“I heard that, too,” Chris agreed. “I also heard ninety percent of the Predators are mages without specializations or spellforms.”

Ash shook her head. “Still not buying it. There’s just too many things he’s claiming he doesn’t know. It’s too suspicious.”

They lulled into a brief silence after that. Jason never tried to play leader unless when Heimdal pushed it on him whenever he was present, but he knew they often saw him as a leader. Even now, they were waiting for him to give the final verdict. They’d given their opinions and it was his turn.

“I guess that settles it then,” he said finally.

“Always said we should’ve just left him behind,” Chris said.

“Yea,” Ash said softly. There was a touch of guilt in her voice but she pushed it down like she did most things that weren’t useful to her.

Jason got up from his chair. “I guess you’re going to have to break the news to Oliver, because I think we’re going to get a lot of pushback from him, seeing how well they get along.”