“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked, inadvertently echoing his questions from earlier as I reached his side and endeavored to prop him up.
“Voices. Why...am I hearing...voices?”
The instant I touched the brujo’s bare skin, I realized I heard them, too; there were perhaps four people speaking in total, each uncommonly loud and accompanied by a shrill, beeping sound that was both familiar and inexplicably gut-wrenching. One voice cut above the din and asked the others to be quiet, and in seconds all I heard was that sole speaker giving orders which were quickly followed by a single barked command.
“Nurse, clear the room,” the voice said.
“I’m not going anywhere!” another replied.
Now that voice I recognized.
“Camila?” Max cocked his head as though his sister were standing right beside us. But she wasn’t, I knew she wasn’t; Camila was at her brother’s bedside in the hospital room back in Boston.
“I can see there’s been some activity, but we have tests to run, Ms. Velez, before we can proceed. I swear we’ll let you come back in once we’re—”
“You are talking about my brother,” Camila insisted, her authority so absolute it made me want her to stay in the room, despite having absolutely zero say in the matter. “I’m not going anywhere. Do your tests. I will stand over here.”
“I...fine. But please, don’t interfere or I will have to have you removed.”
Camila made a sound that was half-laugh, half-snort but said nothing. After that, the voices began to fade into obscurity—little more than a series of mumbles and unintelligible remarks. But it was already clear to me what was happening: Max was waking up.
I couldn’t be sure how I knew for sure, or why it was happening now, only that my instincts told me it had something to do with the awakening of our connection and the sudden burgeoning of Max’s power. According to Circe, the brujo had ended up in a coma because I’d cut him off from whatever energy had sustained him after he’d nearly died back in Boston. Which must have meant I’d either reestablished the bond between us, or Max had siphoned off enough power to kickstart his own engine.
Either way, I knew I had to be happy for him.
After all, the man had a loving family member waiting for him on the other side.
“I t’ink it’s time for ye to go,” I suggested, putting on my very best smile. “Ye should tell Camila I said hello. And, if ye see Robin, that I’ll be comin’ home as soon as I can. Make sure he passes it on. He should know what that means.”
“Wait, I don’t understand, where am I going?” Max asked, panicked. “And why aren’t you coming with me?”
“It’s alright, Max. You’re goin’ home.” I squeezed the brujo’s densely muscled arm and leaned in to kiss his dimpled cheek. “I have some unfinished business to take care of, but don't worry, I’ll be right behind ye.”
“No, I can’t leave yet! It isn’t...”
Max’s mouth continued to move, but it was as if someone had hit the mute button; I couldn’t make out another word as the flesh beneath my hand dissipated, wavering like a mirage before vanishing altogether, leaving behind nothing but the faintest sensation of a teddy bear pressed against my lips.
38
I seriously considered kicking Mabel until she woke up coughing blood, if only to make myself feel better about Max’s abrupt departure, but ultimately decided against it; as things currently stood, she was worth more to me in one piece. So, rather than cave in her lungs with extreme prejudice, I snatched the elf up off the ground, raised her to about eye level, and slapped the living shit out of her.
Twice.
“Ouch!” Mabel cried after the first blow connected, then again following the second. “Ouch, fuck! That hurts, stop it!”
“Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep,” I said, shaking the elf for good measure. “I know how much ye need it, these days. But I have questions I need answers to.”
The elf cursed, squirmed, and tried to lash out at me with her feet, only to end up bashing her toes against my armor, instead. Annoyed by the attempts, I chucked her against the wall. She hit with a satisfying crunch, collapsing to the ground in a sprawl that left her looking even more pathetic than before. I nudged her with the toe of my boot.
“Get up. I know you’re conscious.”
“Why hasn’t the doctor killed you yet?” Mabel hissed, glaring up at me from beneath her grimy bangs, two hand-shaped welts forming on either side of her face.
“Who, Dr. McCrispy?” I asked, gesturing to the throne room and the grungy stain spread across its floor—all that remained of the mad scientist’s ashes. “What’s left of him is over there. So, sorry, but he won’t be killin’ anyone, anymore. Max saw to that.”
“Nice try,” the elf spat, craning her neck to look down both ends of the hallway. “Your Manling isn’t even here.”
“He had places to be.”
“Please. More like the doctor took him.”
“No, Mabel. Frankenstein’s dead. I saw him burn to nothin’ with me own two eyes.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Mabel shrieked, her skin mottled with rage. I didn’t know anyone could look so distraught; Mabel glared up at me as though I’d backhanded her a third time for no good reason, tears welling up in her eyes. She began shaking her head over and over again, rocking back and forth, muttering one phrase in an endless loop like a defective children’s toy. “The doctor cannot die, the doctor cannot die, the doctor cannot die…”
“Apparently he can.”
“No, you idiot, he cannot die! I tried. I tried to kill him. I poisoned him, I stabbed him, I slit his throat, and every time he came back. And every single time he punished me. Which means he’ll be back to punish you, too.”
I felt a chill run up my spine but decided to ignore it. After all, Mabel may have done her damndest to murder the bastard using conventional methods, but I sincerely doubted she’d ever managed anything quite as thorough as burning him to ash from the inside. Besides, I had more immediate things to worry about than the ravings of a backstabbing lunatic, like fulfilling my end of the bargain I’d struck with the trickster god and tracking Ryan down. Now that Frankenstein was dead, the glimmer of hope that I could save my old friend had brightened considerably.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, dismissively. “In the meantime, why don’t ye tell me where Hel is so we can get this show on the road?”
“Who?”
I seized the elf by her ragged shirt, tearing it until she was nearly as exposed as I had been not so long ago. For some reason, that bothered me a lot more than the thought of smacking her around had. I sighed, looked around, and found a few articles of clothing left behind by the spirits I’d battled. I released the elf and fetched a familiar fur-lined cloak off the ground.
“She’s the jötunn, the giantess, who ran this place until you arrived,” I snapped, tossing the cloak at Mabel. “The one that throne room belongs to.”
“Oh, her.” Mabel made a disgusted face. “She’s probably still in her room, crying.”
“In her room? Ye mean Frankenstein didn’t lock her up?”
“Like in a cell?” Mabel looked at me like I was the crazy one before barking a laugh. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t make cells that strong. Besides, the doctor said she wasn’t a threat to us. He actually pitied her, if you can believe it.” Mabel threw the cloak over her shoulders, sneering at the memory. “He called her an endangered species.”
“An endangered species…” I echoed, reminded inexplicably of the jötunn heart thumping away in the chest on my hip and Skadi’s insistence on its value. I shook my head, resolving to give that more thought when time was less of a factor. “Alright, well I want ye to take me to Hel’s room, then. I need to speak to her.”
And pray that doing so counted as liberation in Loki’s eyes, I added inwardly.
Because, otherwise, we had a problem.
“Then we’d better get started. I want ye leadin’ the way, and keep your hands where I can see ‘em. Right now you’re more valuable to me alive than dead, but I could go either way. I wouldn’t tip the scales if I were ye.”
“You need to work on your threats.” Mabel snorted indelicately but turned to do as I asked, her hands visible along the cowl of her cloak. “Next to the doctor, you’re about as scary as a pixie high on her own dust.”
Sensing there was little point arguing with the elf, I refrained from mentioning the numerous pixies I knew personally who’d have skinned Mabel alive for the mere suggestion that they were anything short of terrifying. Besides, I didn’t need her to believe my threats, I simply needed her to behave. If the elf couldn’t manage that, well, then it was like she’d said: it was a long, long way down.
Especially if someone were to, say, toss her ass out the nearest window.
39
True to Mabel’s word, it took a considerable amount of time to reach our intended destination—which, it turned out, was less a room and more of realm unto itself. From my estimation, the cavernous underground chamber reflected the size of Helheim in its entirety, its impossible circumference hemmed with granite walls from which hung black velvet banners and silver braziers blazing with blue flame. The floor itself was even stranger; made of powdered snow, it crunched beneath our feet as we walked. The air of the subterranean space was so cold that I was forced to walk through the fog of my own breath with every step.
“How much farther?” I asked through chattering teeth, already longing for the rejuvenating warmth Max and I had shared back in the throne room.
“You said you wanted to talk to her, right?”
“Aye.”
“Well, given where we came in, I’d say her head is a half mile this way,” Mabel said, jerking her chin to the left as though that were the obvious direction, not to mention an ordinary distinction.
“Wait, her head?! What about the rest of her?”
“Well I’m guessing those,” Mabel said, gesturing to a series of snow-covered hills in the distance, “are her arms. Which makes that her shoulder. Her head should be somewhere over there. She’s moved since we came down here.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, realizing at last what Mabel had been saying all along: they hadn’t thought to jail Hel because, of course, it would have been impossible to do while she held her jötunn form.
Gods, I was struggling lately.
Part of me thought to blame my slow uptake on the afterlife for giving me nothing but moldy, diseased lemons since my arrival, but ultimately I had to admit I’d been off my game for a while. Failing to follow-up with Freya on every little detail, letting first Loki and then Mabel get the jump on me, and now this. Indeed, aside from the rush I’d experienced when connected to Max, I found myself increasingly drained both physically and mentally—making me sluggish and slow-witted. Was it possible I’d overdone it, somehow? Or did it have something to do with what Loki had said about Circe’s potion wearing off?
“So, are we going or what?” Mabel asked, impatiently.
“Aye,” I replied, realizing I wouldn’t find my answers here. “Lead the way.”
When we finally reached Hel’s head some ten minutes or so later, I was surprised to find her face pressed to the snow as though buried in a pillow. What I could see of it, however, was remarkably lovely; despite being absurdly overblown, Hel had the sort of bone structure that distinguished cover models from their inferior counterparts. In fact, I would have called her downright stunning if it weren’t for the silent tears rolling down her face to form a frozen pond.
“Here she is,” Mabel said, sounding less than impressed. “Can I go now?”
“Literally no chance in hell.”
“Is someone there?” Hel cried out, grinding her cheek further into the snow. “I do not care who you are, just go away! I do not want to see anyone ever again!”
Hel’s voice, like Skadi’s, boomed overhead. And yet there was far less certainty—if not considerably more whine—to it. Less thunderclap, more tornado siren. Honestly, it reminded me of a teenager’s after a bad breakup—all pitchy and overdramatized.
“Hel...” I began, then drifted off, unsure exactly what to say.
“Don’t look at me,” Mabel interjected. “She was like this when the doctor talked to her, too.”
“The doctor!” Hel wailed, pounding her fist into the ground with enough force to send Mabel and me stumbling from the aftershocks. “That vile creature! He stole my palace.”
“The doctor is dead!” I shouted.
“Really?” Hel lifted her head from the snow, revealing the rest of her face, her expression hopeful—albeit divided between a beatific smile and a haunting leer.
I flinched, unable to look away from jötunn’s horrendously bisected face; on the one side lay the gorgeous mold I’d expected, but on the other there sat a hideous mask of frozen flesh and glistening bone. Bridging the two were nothing but teeth and her father’s pale grey eyes, one of which sat full in a gaping socket rimmed in hoarfrost. And yet, both were filled with such hope that I found myself mirroring her expression, dimly reminded of Skadi’s guileless nature.
“Really!” I insisted.
“If you say so,” Mabel muttered.
“Wait, are you lying to me?” Hel asked, staring wide-eyed at me, her bottom lip quivering as another bout of sobs began to break. “I should have known...not to get...my hopes up!”
“No, I wasn’t lyin’, I swear!” I grabbed Mabel by the nape of her neck and squeezed until she yelped. “Tell her, Mabel.”
“It’s true!” Mabel replied, her voice laced with pain. “She was telling the truth. The doctor is dead.”
“So, you...lied...to me?”
I tossed Mabel to the ground so it looked as if she’d knelt before the giantess, then pressed my boot to her back to keep her there. “Mabel here is sorry, aren’t ye, Mabel?”
“I—”
“See? She apologizes. Now, Hel, I wanted to talk to you about what happened here after the doctor came, if you’re feelin’ up to it?”
The giantess nodded, sniffling.
“Good.”
I frowned, trying to decide what to ask. I had plenty of questions—ranging anywhere from what had Frankenstein done to wrest control from her to whether she intended to rule Helheim once more now that the doctor was dead. Unfortunately, any one of those could lead to long, drawn out conversations, and I simply didn’t have the time. So, instead, I opted to focus on the most pressing topic: Ryan. I’d already grilled Mabel on everything she knew, but it turned out the elf hadn’t been remotely privy to their plans; the last she’d seen of Ryan had been when he and Frankenstein left to speak with the jötunn again.
“When the doctor came to visit ye the second time,” I began, “d’ye remember whether someone else was with him? A man with blue skin?”
“No,” Hel replied. “Not a man. But there was something else. A mean, blue-skinned beast who made it cold in here. He left all this in my room.”
Hel picked up a handful of snow on the other side of the room and released it like an avalanche, describing the situation the way a moping child might tell on another for having left out all the toys. But then there was something inherently childlike about the jötunn—a naivety bordering on capriciousness which, frankly, rubbed me the wrong way.
Indeed, whereas Skadi had been equally unassuming, she at least had been utterly fearless—the sort of child parents constantly have to check on lest they risk hospitalization, again. Hel, on the other hand, was the troubled sort most parents outsourced to a therapist, the kind who came back with so many overlapping diagnoses that it made a Venn diagram look like a mandala.
Of course, part of me knew that I wasn’t being fair; I believed we were all products of our environment, to some extent
. How long had she been the ruler of Helheim, I wondered? Had any of her kin ever visited? And what about Loki, had he helped raise her? Without her people’s encouragement and support, could she be blamed for failing to win back what was rightfully hers?
Unfortunately, deep down, I thought the answer was yes.
But then it wasn’t my town.
“Aye, that’s the one,” I said, at last. “D’ye remember if he said anythin’ to ye? Or what he and Frankenstein talked about?”
“They wanted to know about the Gjoll.”
“The Gjoll? Ye mean the river? The one that circles Helheim?”
In my mind’s eye, I pictured the waters of the river flowing beneath the bridge I’d crossed, recalling Hemingway’s description of its deadly currents—how to cross it meant death, and how the dead could never do so. Given the city’s walls, the security measure seemed a little redundant, but who was I to throw stones at eternal prisons?
“Yes. They wanted to know why none of the spirits will cross it.”
“I thought they simply couldn’t? Like they were incapable of it.”
“Oh, no. Some have tried. A few have even swam across. But none who did will ever talk about it. That is how the Gjoll works.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did they,” Hel huffed.
“The Gjoll takes away their memories,” Mabel interjected, still kneeling in the snow. “Without their memories, spirits aren’t even spirits, anymore.”
“See, she gets it.”
“It’s something Frankenstein said after Ryan left,” she explained, catching my look. “The doctor told me that he’d gone for a swim and lost his mind. In that order, which is why it stuck with me.”
And with that, the pieces began to fall abruptly into place.
Circe had already told me how to reach Atlantis but not before making sure I understood the impossible nature of the journey, itself; in order to find Atlantis, you first had to forget everything, including your desire to reach Atlantis. If the effect of the Gjoll was to strip away memories, then it was entirely possible Frankenstein had thrust Ryan into its currents in the hopes that he would stumble onto the City of the Lost.
Brimstone Kiss: Phantom Queen Book 10 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries) Page 19