Brimstone Kiss: Phantom Queen Book 10 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries)

by Shayne Silvers

  “Except it is not their memories the Gjoll takes,” Hel added, as if suddenly eager to be included in the conversation. “That is what the doctor thought, too. But he was wrong.”

  “Then what does it take?” I asked.

  “Their regrets.”

  “Wait, it takes what?”

  “Their regrets! You see, the dead who end up in Helheim have nothing left but regret, and the threat of losing those keeps all but a few from trying to cross into Niflheim.”

  I frowned, thinking about the spirits I’d come in contact with in the city, how they’d called out to me and chased me down the thoroughfares with angst in their eyes. Perhaps that was what set apart the spirits of Helheim from those in the other realms: a sense of incompletion, of unfulfillment. But then, that raised a whole new concern I hadn’t considered until now.

  “Did Frankenstein know Ryan ended up in Atlantis?” I asked Mabel. “Like, with absolute certainty? Did Ryan send ye lot a postcard, or somethin’?”

  “Not a postcard, no. But the doctor seemed sure. I know that after Ryan disappeared Frankenstein was more pleased than usual. He didn’t even bother creating another one of his monsters the day it happened. But trust me, if he’d have found out Ryan failed, he’d have taken it out on the rest of us. That’s just who he is.”

  “Was,” I corrected, feeling better by the second about what Max had done to the wretched bastard who’d sewn those souls together and tortured his flunkies. Mabel, I noticed, didn’t agree with my sentiment—but nor did she argue. It seemed the longer we went without a resurrection, the more inclined she was to believe the doctor was well and truly dead.

  “What are you two talking about?” Hel asked, petulantly.

  “Sorry! Just one more question,” I said, realizing there was little else to be gleaned from the jötunn, “do you know where the Gjoll leads?”

  “Leads?”

  “Aye. Like where it goes. Where it ends, or becomes somethin’ that isn’t the Gjoll?”

  “Oh!” Hel exclaimed, brightly. “No.”

  “Great,” I muttered, wondering if I dared risk chasing after Ryan with such little information to go on. I mean, what if he hadn’t ended up in Atlantis, after all? Or what if, by some stroke of luck, he had, but I wouldn’t? There were simply too many unknowns to account for. Maybe I could make another deal with Hades? Or double back and demand a little assistance from Freya, considering how worthless her information and blessing had ultimately proven.

  “You could always ask Garmr, though,” Hel added, perhaps sensing my growing dissatisfaction. “He likes to play in it, sometimes, when he thinks I am not looking.”

  “Garmr. The gigantic guard dog at the gates, the one with all the blood splattered across his chest, and with teeth as tall as I am? That Garmr?”

  “Yes! That is him.”

  “No offense, but that sounds like a suicide mission. The last time I saw Garmr he was tryin’ awful hard to eat me, and that was when I was on the other side of the gate.”

  “Oh, he was probably just grumpy because he has not had his treat in so long!”

  “His...treat?”

  “Come,” Hel said, slapping the ground so eagerly I actually toppled from the subsequent quake, landing next to a seemingly terrified Mabel. “I will show you.”

  40

  Mabel and I followed Hel through the streets of her city, watching mute spirits flee at the mere sight of the giantess, much to her initial surprise and eventual dejection. Of course, considering the jötunn had downsized to something far less imposing before leaving her room, I couldn’t be sure exactly why that was the case. Perhaps they were put off by the juxtaposition of her improbable height and her ethereal thinness? Despite hovering around a hundred or so pounds, the jötunn stood several feet taller than me, her gangly limbs poking out like those of an emaciated scarecrow. Or maybe they simply failed to appreciate her Two-Face impression for the cosplay award it deserved. Either way, it meant we were able to approach the front gate completely unmolested, which suited me fine—even if that was at the expense of Hel’s self-esteem.

  “So, this treat ye mentioned,” I asked, trying to lighten the mood, “what exactly is it?”

  “They,” Hel corrected, apparently cheered to have been spoken to. “And you will see. I do not want to ruin the surprise!”

  “Ah, the surprise. Right.”

  As if overtaken by a sudden urge to entertain herself, the jötunn began skipping down the street, humming a dirge under her breath, her heels clipping the ground, sounding like bones rattling together, the whisk of her floor-length skirt like whispers in the dark. Covered from neck to toe in a dark cloak made of what looked eerily like tar and yet moved like silk, the cumulative effect brought to mind an image of the Grim Reaper were he to go frolicking among plague-riddled neighborhoods in broad daylight.

  A regular Sickle Me Elmo.

  When we finally arrived at the gates a few minutes later, we found them shut but notably unguarded. Fortunately, Hel wasn’t as put off by Garmr’s absence as I’d expected her to be. Instead, she took a slow look around, planted two fingers between her bisected lips, and whistled—if whistles sounded like the wails of a couple hundred terrified souls being flushed down a toilet bowl.

  I clamped my hands to my ears, but it was too late to stop them from ringing, especially once Garmr’s raucous barks began; each yawp hit me with the same bone-quivering shockwaves you get from industrial subwoofers at metal concerts. As one, Mabel and I whirled to find the great big hound loping towards us, his tongue flopping along the right side of his muzzle as though he’d forgotten to put it away, the fleshy organ dripping with drool that gathered into steaming puddles wherever it landed.

  “You don’t think we are the treat, do you?” Mabel asked once Garmr’s thunderous barks subsided.

  “Why d’ye t’ink I brought ye along?” I planted my hands on my hips and tried to mentally prepare myself for whatever Hel had in store once the hound arrived, fighting against the fresh wave of exhaustion threatening to pull me under. “Ye won’t be much of a meal, of course, but if push comes to shove I’m bankin’ on him gobblin’ ye up while I make a break for it.”

  “I really do hate you, you know,” Mabel growled under her breath.

  “Welcome to an extremely non-exclusive club,” I muttered. “Now, let me do the talkin’ unless ye want to end up the Kibble to me Bits.”

  “Your what?”

  “Nothin’, nevermind. Just be quiet.”

  “Fine.” Mabel made a face and folded her arms across her stomach. “But if I get eaten I promise you I will haunt you until the day you die, and probably then some now that I know what’s in store for you half-breeds. I didn’t survive the doctor so I could get swallowed by that thing.”

  For a fleeting moment, I considered correcting Mabel’s assumption, but then “that thing” came barreling at us, his absurdly muscular body flexing with every step, his lips frothing and spread in what looked like a smile. Hel, I noticed, stood with her arms out wide in welcome, beaming—a proud dog lover, for all her faults. At least we had that in common; for the briefest of instants, I pictured Cathal padding towards me, his hindquarters trailed by a cloud of steam, his druidic markings flaring brightly against all that dark, coarse fur.

  “Why are you smiling like that?” Mabel hissed. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally lost it.”

  I shook my head, and the image vanished like a mirage, replaced by the vision of a jötunn hound big enough to wreak havoc in some Japanese city while its citizens shouted “Godzilla!” over and over again until a second monster showed up to cause even more damage—something I had to admit I’d never understood. But then, as if realizing at the last possible moment that Hel was not alone, Garmr skidded to a halt and scented the air. He growled at us, sounding a lot like one of those gas-guzzling diesel trucks that tend to piss off environmentalists and somnophiles alike.

  “It is alright, Garmr! They were not invited, but they have
overthrown the creature who seized the Underworld Tree!” Hel shouted, gesticulating towards the structure I’d dubbed the Helspire. “And, for that if nothing else, we must allow them to come and go as they please.”

  “Ah, so that’s what Fenrir was howling about,” Garmr replied, the words rumbling out from between his teeth. “That makes a lot more sense.”

  “Fenrir!” Hel exclaimed. “You spoke with him? Does that mean my brother is free?!”

  “Yes, Mistress. Though the dunga has apparently lost his ability to hold a decent conversation. It’s all ‘eat Odin’ this and ‘the end of times’ that with him, at the moment.”

  “By the Queens!” Mabel snatched at my arm, shock written all over her face. “Did you know that thing could talk?”

  “The thing can also hear, Snack.” Garmr flicked his tapered ears for emphasis. “So mind what you say unless you want to piss me off.”

  “He learned for me,” Hel hurriedly explained, one side of her face going rosy-cheeked. “I was so lonely when Odin sent me here, but then father brought Garmr and left him with me and now we are the best of friends.”

  “Only nice thing that trickster has ever done for either of us,” Garmr noted, his hackles rising at the very mention of Loki, though his eyes were all for me. “I was certain you were him in disguise when I smelled you on the bridge.”

  I shuffled awkwardly beneath Garmr’s lilac gaze and decided not to reveal who had sent me—or why. If Loki wanted to take credit for his daughter’s liberation, he could claim it himself. I had exactly zero interest in getting involved in their familial drama, especially if it was going to land me on Garmr’s bad side.

  “Fenrir also told me there were souls loose in Niflheim, though I have no idea how they escaped,” Garmr continued, swiveling his boxy head to better study his mistress. “We’ll have to send for a Valkyrie to bring them back.”

  “I’d ask ‘em to send more than one,” I chimed in, panicked at the idea of Kàra or one of her sisters trying to handle all those dread creatures—wounded or not—on their own. “The doctor is responsible for what happened to the spirits who escaped. He turned ‘em into monsters, which means they’ll need help to get back to normal.”

  “No wonder none of the citizens will look at me,” Hel said, hanging her head in shame. “This is all my fault. I should have protected them, even without her help.”

  “No, Mistress,” Garmr insisted. “The fault is mine. I still don’t know how they slipped past me, but if I’d only reached them before they made it to the Tree, none of this would have happened. I’d have torn them to shreds and tossed their corpses in the Gjoll.”

  I felt Mabel’s grip on my arm tighten.

  “Listen, all that is over, now,” I interjected helpfully, hoping to undermine the building tension before our hostess broke into hysterics and inadvertently sent her dog on a rampage. “Hel, I’m sure the spirits will forgive ye as soon as ye get the others back safe and sound. And Garmr—may I call ye Garmr?”

  The hound dipped his muzzle, which I took to mean “yes” for lack of any other indicator.

  “Great. Anyway, ye should know it wasn’t your fault. I know for a fact there’s at least one backdoor connectin’ all the realms. The doctor stumbled on one, that’s all. And, speakin’ of other realms...d’ye happen to know where the Gjoll leads?”

  “You don’t seriously expect me to believe there’s a second entrance to Helheim that I don’t know about, do you?” Garmr asked, ignoring my question in favor of his own.

  “I mean it would explain how the trespassers snuck past ye, wouldn’t it? But let’s get back to the Gjoll real quick—”

  “No. I want to know where this alleged door is. Tell me right now.”

  “I don’t know!” I replied, honestly. Of course, I did know someone who’d used it—and recently. I took hold of Mabel’s hand and raised it like a prize fighter’s. “But she does! And, provided ye tell me everythin’ ye know about the Gjoll, I’m sure she’d be happy to show ye where it is.”

  “Hey!” Mabel yanked her arm free of my grasp. “I never agreed to that!”

  “Consider it a lesson in karma,” I replied under my breath. “Now, shut up unless ye want to be her bitch, for real. Hel may not have it in her to hold what ye did here against ye, but I’m bettin’ the mutt does.”

  Mabel clamped her mouth closed.

  “So,” I continued, “what d’ye say, Garmr? Do we have a deal?”

  “You want to know what lies beneath the Gjoll, is that it? And, in exchange, this one will lead me to the backdoor?”

  “Aye, that’s what I’m offerin’,” I replied absentmindedly, though I found myself hung up on the peculiar phrasing of his first question—what lay beneath the Gjoll, as opposed to what lay beyond it. My curiosity piqued, I waved for the colossal hound to proceed. “The sooner ye tell me what I want to know, the sooner ye can go chase down that second entrance.”

  “Very well. As far as I can tell, the Gjoll flows above a chasm, below which lies a realm filled with all manner of things. Junk, mostly. The souls who inhabit it appear to wander aimlessly, though lately I have begun to notice a pattern. Oh, and they speak.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They tempt with knowledge they should not have, trying to lure in anyone who might be listening. They promise impossible things which can never be, and sometimes they even show visions of these things...no matter how cruel those images might be.”

  “Are you saying they tried to take you away from me?” Hel asked, sounding distraught.

  “And failed,” Garmr replied, lowering his head until his mistress could reach up and scratch the ridge of skin just past his nose.

  I, meanwhile, was busy reflecting on what Garmr had said, trying to decide if his description gelled with my understanding of Atlantis as a whole; the beguiling spirits sounded a lot like those Helen had mentioned, whereas the junk and the wandering souls coincided with what Circe had told me. Obviously, I had to admit it was at least possible this underwater realm was the Atlantis I’d heard so much about, which also meant Ryan may very well have arrived at his intended destination. Though, if what Hel said was true about the river stripping people of their regrets, it was also possible he’d lost something in the exchange. The question I had to ask myself was whether it was worth the risk to follow after him.

  “Besides, that was a long time ago,” Garmr added, cutting short my mental dilemma. “Ever since I started getting treats, I no longer hear their voices.”

  “Oh your treats! I almost forgot. Here, take this” Hel insisted, passing me a black velvet bag full of what felt like blocks of cheese. “Toss him one of those.”

  I opened the pouch, examined the contents, and retrieved what looked like a pastry filled with golden nectar that was far fresher than it had any right to be given where Hel had produced it from. Struck by a nagging sense of familiarity, I held the treat aloft only to find Garmr staring so intently at my hand that even I thought I looked tasty; within seconds, his jowls were coated in a fresh deluge of slobber. So, rather than risk him getting impatient and taking half my arm along with it, I chucked the treat as high into the air as I could. Garmr lunged, snatching the pastry up in his jaws so swiftly that I got clipped by a sudden gust of wind—not unlike when a semi-truck blows past you on the highway.

  Within a matter of seconds, the hound began to glow, the veins beneath his fur pulsing with golden light the way mine occasionally flashed emerald.

  “Ambrosia biscuits,” Hel explained, pointing to the bag. “Made from Idunn’s apples, which keep the gods young and powerful. Another gift from my father. He saved Idunn once, you know, from Thiazi. I mean, my father was the one who abducted her on Thiazi’s behalf in the first place...but in the end he saved her.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I admitted, trying to sound both nonchalant and interested at the same time while the chest on my hip pulsed, vibrating like an antiquated beeper at the mention of its owner’s name. “So,
uh, what do the biscuits do, exactly?”

  “Toss him another one,” Hel suggested, giggling. “Then you shall see.”

  I did as Hel asked and threw a second biscuit. This time when Garmr moved, it was like watching an ambush predator strike; he sprung into the air with enough force to create a wind tunnel that whipped my hair across my face and forced Mabel to huddle further into her cloak. By the time he landed some two hundred feet away, Garmr had become even larger than he’d been a moment before, his muscles throbbing with pent up power, his fur bathed in golden light.

  And then he began to chase his own tail.

  “So, they’re like steroids, huh?” I eyed the bag warily. “They make him stronger? Faster? Dumber?”

  Hel was nodding animatedly.

  “How many d’ye give him in one go?”

  “Oh, no more than two. Otherwise he would break everything, or get fat. Either way, we would never get to play any of our games. That’s what we do after I give him the treats. The treats make them so much more fun.”

  “Ah.” I glanced back at the city sprawled out behind us with its bells and arches and thatched roofs, marveling at the fact that any of it still stood. “And...where d’ye two play, exactly?”

  “My room, usually. We play fetch out here, of course.”

  “Of course,” I replied, refusing to let my mind fixate on the physics involved in what she was describing; I had enough metaphysical mysteries in my life without the added headache of how a dog the size of a warehouse could play fetch—or what could possibly be big enough to throw without incidentally leveling all of Helheim.

  “Anyway, you should take a couple with you in case you see my brother after you leave. I am sure he would love some…” Hel hesitated, catching my expression. “You were planning to leave, right?”