God Hammer: A novel of the Demon Accords (36 page)

“Now we have to heat it back to critical and then quench it somehow.  We want to cool it superfast to lock the carbon molecules inside the iron’s crystal structure,” Mack said.

So we heated it past critical and then I pulled all the heat at once, dumping it into the ground and the building.  The weapon went from cherry red to frost-covered in two seconds.

“Wow, I think you just cryo-quenched it!” Mack said.

“Is that bad?”

“It’s super hard to do.  Supposedly it’s good.  We’ll have to see.  Next, we have to temper it.  We need to heat it to about four hundred degrees for about an hour minutes, then let it cool on its own.  We have to do that three times to relieve all the internal stresses,” Mack said.

The weapon stood on its flattened counterweight butt, looking like a seven-and-a-half-foot cross whose arms were too short.  Held in one’s hands for use, the weapon’s square edges were up, down, and side to side.  Same with the cross bars.  That way, any strike by an opponent’s blade would have the best chance of hitting a reinforced edge and breaking.

“It’s like a Chinese sword breaker crossed with a boar spear and hopped up on steroids,” Mack said.  “About thirty-five pounds of steel.”

I thanked Robbie and released him back to the Earth.  He was reluctant.  The city bothered him, so we looked up Central Park on Google Maps and figured which direction it lay from the Tower.  Then I sent him there to rest under the trees and grass of the park.  Not exactly the same as our forest back home, but much better than city streets and apartment buildings.  The floor smoothed back to normal under my feet and looked pretty much undisturbed, except for the chalk lines, which we left in place for tempering.  When I glanced up, Mack was shaking his head.

“What?”

“We just completed a major weapon in less than two hours without a forge, without a hammer, or even tongs.  You’re a piece of work, O’Carroll.”

“A dirty, sweaty, hungry piece of work.  Let’s get cleaned up and get some dinner,” I said.

“Cleaned up, then we’ll reheat this to cool while we eat.  Then once more.”

“Deal.”

We showered and changed in record time, both motivated by our stomachs.  After reheating the blade breaker a second time, we headed up to the dining room.  The sun was down, or at least had set enough that Remy was up.  When I introduced him to Mack, he relentlessly pressed my friend for his most desired dinner.  Reluctantly, Mack admitted that he wanted surf and turf, obviously worried about the cost.  Remy just nodded and thirty minutes, a basket of rolls, and a salad each later, we both were scarfing down lobster tail, scallops, and filet mignon. 

“Who are those girls that keep staring this way?” Mack asked.

“Computer science interns who think I’m scum,” I said after looking over at Jodi, Aleesha, and Grace four tables away.

“Oh this sounds good.  Let’s hear it,” he demanded.

Between bites of buttery lobster and melt-in-your-mouth beef, I told him about my first several weeks of summer work.

“That’s pretty shitty, dude.  I kinda understand why they’d be upset, but on the other hand, you were just working for your boss.  And that douche that poisoned you deserved to get fired.”

“It is what it is.  I kinda liked the brunette but she’s normal and I’m so very not,” I said.

“Yeah, I get it.  Still, she is pretty hot,” he said, then laughed at the expression on my face.

We finished dinner, reheated the breaker, and then played video games in my room for an hour.  Then we grabbed the breaker and headed to the gym.  It barely fit on the elevator, it was so long.

As I went to open the gym door, I heard noises on the other side.  Pausing, I realized it was Tanya and the others training, and with a sinking feeling, I realized that I was probably supposed to be there as well.  Hand frozen in front of the door, I hesitated.  The doors opened themselves and Nika stood there in workout gear. 

“I knew I heard someone out here lurking about.  You better get in here,” she said with a curious glance at Mack. 

The sinking feeling turned to plummeting lead as we followed her inside.  Tanya stopped beating on Chris and turned to look at me, eyes going head to toe and brows rising at my lack of gym clothes.  Lydia, Stacia, and Arkady all stood nearby, staring.

“You’re late, but you brought us a snack,” Tanya said, glancing at Mack, who went white in the face.

“She’s kidding.  Ah, I forgot, Tanya.  We were making this,” I said, holding up the breaker in both hands, “—and time slipped.”

“You made a cross?  To repel vampires?” Lydia asked.

“No it’s like a butterfly pin for pesky, fluttery little pixie vamps,” I said.  “Actually, we call it Blade Breaker.”

“What exactly is it for?” Chris asked, curious and amused.

“It’s for
her
,” I said, pointing at Stacia, “in her beast form.  We based it on a sword breaker from China.”

Suddenly, Tanya was right in front of us, taking the breaker from my hands and flipping it around as though it were a reed.

“The cross bars do what?” she asked.

“Thing Two, rise and present three blades.  Freeze,” I commanded the bug in the corner.  “See, if the point is shoved against the carapace, the cross pieces are just at blade length. The force of the bug’s own motors will bend or break the blades against the edges.  At least in theory.”

“Spin it up, bug.  Let’s move past theory,” she said.

The were whacker was running, and the steel blades hummed at high revolutions.  Tanya stepped forward and jabbed the breaker against Thing Two’s armor.  There was a loud clang, a snap, crack, and a zing, but I was ready.  Two blades had bent, but the top one snapped off and was flung toward Lydia, stopped by the hasty shield I had thrown across the audience.  The shard hung suspended about stomach level, point-six inches from Lydia’s body.

“Nice catch, kid.  Almost made that butterfly pin thing become reality,” she said.

“It gets yanked hard when the blades hit, but if you’re ready for it, it’s not bad,” Tanya said to the others.  Then she flipped the bar like a bo staff.  The weighted end rang off the pede’s head, knocking the heavy bug backward.

“Hmmm.  It’s not as unwieldy as it looks.  Hits hard.  Why doesn’t it jar my hands?” she asked us.

“I put some mojo in it.  That might settle it out,” I said, pointing at the runes.

“What’s the pattern in the steel?” Chris asked.

“NYC DPW,” I said.  “We used some of your manhole covers,” I said.

“
Where
did you get the tools to do this?” Lydia asked.

“We, ah, improvised,” I said, keeping my shield around my head, which caused Nika to frown.

“You’ll need your beast form,” Tanya said and after a moment of contemplating the breaker, she threw the heavy weapon to Stacia, who so far hadn’t said a word.  The blonde girl hefted the weapon for a moment, eyed myself and Mack, then set it upright on its end while she pulled her clothes off. 

Mack’s eyes widened at the brief glimpse of perfection she offered before Changing into her other form.  From centerfold to horror movie in seconds flat.  Her massive beast form is, in its own way, just as impressive as her human one.  My buddy’s face had changed from shocked awe to stricken awe as he was reminded of what she was.

With a low growl, she plucked the blade breaker off the floor, its length no longer looking outsized.  Taking a few moments to get used to it, she twirled it around her big paws smoothly.

“The weight at the butt end kind of ruins the lines but we needed to balance it out,” I said.  “And it could use some paracord wrapping at the hand points.”

Stacia glanced at me, then strode toward Thing Two.  While we had been talking, the metal bug had lowered its damaged blades and turned, lifting the unmarked portion of its body and snapping open four or five blades.  Now they spun up to full speed as the wolf beast prowled forward.

Instead of jabbing like Tanya had done, Stacia chopped down at the pede, the pick-like cross-piece hitting the bug just in back of its head.  The blow had tremendous force and it knocked Thing Two downward, leaving the same spot open to the follow-up from the hardened, squared-off butt of the weapon.  Thing Two’s spinning blades slammed into the floor, clanging to a halt and definitely damaging more sharp edges.

“Interesting.  More than one way to cut hide from pussycat,” Arkady said.

As the pede started to lift its front, Stacia pinned it down with the point and one of the cross-arms.  Instantly, Thing Two flipped its damaged back end forward, arching its whole body like a scorpion’s tail.  Stacia replaced the blade breaker with her foot on the pede’s closest head, smoothly rotating her weapon forward and jabbing the split point right at the junction of the head and first segment.  The hardened tips slid up the stainless steel of the joint and under the armor of the head.  Now she had full control of the creature, her body weight  holding it down and her powerful arms easily holding off the tail.  She paused then yanked her weapon free, standing back and letting the pede scuttle away.

“Hmm, lots of control techniques possible,” Tanya mused.

“A sharp stamp on the middle segment would likely let her paralyze it,” Chris said.  “Then she’d have time to smash it with that nasty big bludgeon.”

“Let me try,” Arkady said, striding forward, hand out.  Normally, he looks the part of a giant, but next to a werewolf beast form, he looked like a regular guy.

Stacia growled at him, reluctantly letting him take the breaker. 

“What did you make it out of?  It’s as hard or maybe harder then the bug’s armor,” Tanya said.

“We used the prybar and the head from the broken sledge,” I said.

“And where exactly did you get a forge and tools to process this much steel?” she pressed.  Behind her, Arkady was smacking at the bug with the breaker, pausing to tell Stacia his thoughts on possible technique.

“Mr. Deckert said we could use the utility room, and I used magic,” I said.

“You turned my utility room, the one that provides life to my multi-million-dollar building, into a forge?” she asked.

“And didn’t even disturb the dust,” I said.

“If you don’t need him, I’ll take him back to the blade smithy and put him to work.  We could quadruple the output.  Plus, I think we got lucky with the heat treatment because we winged the hell out of it,” Mack said.  “Possibly the first time anyone used magic to cryo-treat steel.”

“You quenched it with magic?” Tanya asked, her interest sharpening.

“Yeah, this guy can heat almost forty pounds of steel to critical with a thought and then drop it to way below zero in an instant,” Mack answered.

“So a high percentage conversion of austenite to martensite?” she asked him.

His eyebrows went up at her technical knowledge, but the rest of his head nodded.  “Yeah, damn near a hundred percent, I think.”

“Declan, on Monday, I would like you to work with Dr. Susskins on the quantum project.  Mack, you never heard me say that,” Tanya said.

“Okay, but you know my thoughts, right?” I asked.

“Nika will keep close watch,” Tanya said, glancing at her blonde friend.

“You bet, Declan.  As distasteful as it may be,” Nika said.

“Now, I suspect you are thinking of turning Mack loose in my nightclub, correct?” Tanya asked.

“Katrina thought it might be okay.  Actually, her words were
of course, you moron.
”