by Cari Z
Deepness, darkness, tendrils of power spread through rocky soil, boulders and a pond and a small grove of trees. Not the greatest of my kind, no, but this place is mine, and they won’t move me, not the great ones, not the Christians, not this family that dares to lay claim to me. They won’t. They won’t. I hear the machines coming closer, but I won’t be moved. I would rather perish with my land than be erased like some minor wight. The berserker offers me a deal, offers me a new path, possibly even a new life―room to expand, a human body to exploit, a spirit to join mine and renew me for centuries to come. His madness…it tastes delicious, and so does the boy, sweet and brave and oh, so helpless with his love. Love. I think I like it. I think I want to know more. That’s why you’re still alive, seer. Thief. Out!
I was cast out of the creature’s mind as abruptly as a bullet from a gun, leaving me choking on a residue of freezing water, decaying vegetation, and harsh, inhuman power that wasn’t meant to sit steady inside a person. How Sören was containing it, I had no idea. He should have been dead from it. He should have…
“Not possession,” the creature continued. “Sören is mine. He is become me, and I him. Anything less than that would never work.”
“No,” I gasped. “I can see that.”
“I know you can. You’re smart, soothsayer. Powerful. And you have a hold on Sören that not even his family can claim. You’re interesting to me.”
“Fantastic.”
It ignored my sarcasm, or maybe it didn’t recognize it. “Do you know what I am now?”
I did, actually. Months of road tripping with my mother had led me to burn through a lot of books as a kid. Since we kind of had a personal stake in mythology and magic, I’d gone through a whole stack of Bulfinch and Edith Hamilton. I’d done my best to forget it all when I was older, but some things had stuck.
“Landvættir.”
“So smart.” The beast within Sören smiled again. “You know that that means?”
“You’re a…a spirit. You live in a particular place, and you protect it.”
“Close enough. My place was threatened, and Ólafur Egilsson came to me and made a deal. He would save me, sacrifice for me, and gift me with beauty. In return I would save him from the geas the gods laid on his family. Once our deal is complete, we will be entwined, his line linked to me forever.”
There was a pause, like Sören was waiting for me to catch something. I racked my aching head, trying to ignore the burning sensation in my forearms as I went over his words.
“But―” The catch, where was the catch? “But you’re not entwined, are you? The deal isn’t finished, because you’re here.”
“Very good.” He nodded. “The bargain is incomplete. My home is moved, but not yet rooted. I have been promised beauty, but all I see is the same thing over and over―men, weapons, and warehouse walls.” Sören frowned. “Dull. And my sacrifice yearns for something that tears at our bond, keeps him unquiet and unsettled. That thing is you.”
“Are you offering me a deal?” I asked, barely breathing. A deal for―what? Sören’s fate? A chance to undo what the landvættir and his father had done to him? Or something more subtle? Either way, I would take it. I didn’t exactly have a lot of options.
“Yes. Swear to provide me with three things, and I will give you a chance to prove your offer is better than that of Ólafur Egilsson. If you succeed, I will join with you and help you defeat your enemies. If you fail, I will return to my original supplicant. And kill you, I suppose,” he added nonchalantly. “Even though it would distress Sören. I want my sacrifice to be content, but I will settle for overwhelming him if need be.”
Well, shit. There wasn’t much I could say to that, but there were some things I just couldn’t offer up either―things I would rather die than experience again.
I swallowed dryly. “What three things do you want?”
“First, a home, and the means to root me there.” The purple flared in Sören’s eyes. “That means ensuring there are no native spirits there to fight me for it, because I refuse to displace another of my kind to steal their home. That would be dishonorable.”
Funny he was worried about that, but I could roll with it. “Okay, so you need land.”
“And the magic to root me,” he reminded me.
“Okay, land and a shaman.” Or something. “I can do that. What else?”
“Something to occupy my time. Something more than sitting and waiting and being ordered about. I am vættir, stronger than any human, no matter their magic. I will not be your hound, any more than I would for Ólafur Egilsson. He underestimated my obedience. Don’t make the same mistake.”
“Okay, so…entertainment.” Whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. What, was I supposed to get the spirit a Wii and let him go to town? I’d come up with something. “I can definitely do that.”
“Finally, you will provide me with a sacrifice to prove the strength of your commitment to our bargain. Someone meaningful, someone close to you.”
Well, fuck. I had no idea how to do that. I didn’t want to do that. There was no way I could get down with sacrificing anyone else to this fucking thing, but right now my options for living if I disagreed were exactly zero, so…
“Yes. Fine.” I had to add, “That’s what Sören was to you? Egilsson’s sacrifice?”
“Yes. An imperfect one, because he was motivated not by love for his father, but by love for you. His love is what has disposed me to spare you, so do not mock his sacrifice.”
“I’m not,” I said numbly. God, I wasn’t. “Can I speak to Sören?”
“It distressed him to emerge from his sleep,” the landvættir demurred, as if it wasn’t the thing that was fucking distressing Sören so much. “Perhaps later, if you earn it. If you fulfill your promises before Egilsson does. Now, do we have a bargain?”
“Yes.” Yeah, we had a bargain. I’d been in tighter places―not lately, but I had. I could get through this. I’d find the loopholes. I’d figure this out. In the meantime, I just had to survive a terminally curious, body-snatching Icelandic spirit who wanted to fucking road-trip with me. “You’ve got a deal.”
“As do you.” The thing in Sören’s body leaned forward and kissed me, his lips cold but somehow refreshing, reminding me that I was parched. “Sealed.”
“Great.” I tugged uselessly at my bonds. “Do you think you could let me go, then?”
“Certainly.” Sören―it was using his body, I had to get used to calling it that or I’d slip up along the road―reached around my back and with one firm yank, pulled the jumper cables in two. He unwound the loops securing my wrists, and I almost collapsed with the sudden pain. “And a boon,” he murmured. “To show good faith.” He set his hands on my shoulders and ran them slowly down my arms, making my flesh crawl with cold. After he brushed over my fingertips and released them, though, the pain was gone. All the pain was gone, even the pain from my bullet wound. I pulled my sleeve back and stared dumbly at the unbroken skin.
“That’s…quite a boon.”
“Yes,” Sören agreed. “A gift for my love’s beloved.”
I stared at him. “You love him?”
“He is mine. Of course I love him.”
“But he was screaming.”
Sören shrugged. “I never said it was easy to be mine.”
Holy shit. I’d made a deal with a psychopathic spirit from the black fucking lagoon. “We need to go,” I managed at last.
“Of course. One moment.” He reached behind himself and handed over my―my phone? And it was on?
“What did you do?” I asked as I looked at the screen. The connection was live. “Who is this?”
“Ólafur Egilsson.”
“He’s been listening in this whole time?” I exclaimed.
“Of course. It wouldn’t be fair, otherwise. He must know the terms of the competition.” Sören grinned at me. “I’ll wait in the car.”
I barely restrained the urge to throw the phone at him as
he walked away. I should just hang up; I should turn it off and take the battery out and get rid of it, but…
I turned up the sound and lifted it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Cillian Kelly.” Oh, I knew that voice. He always sounded so reasonable, just before he ripped your heart out. “You stole my son.”
“If he didn’t want to be stolen, he wouldn’t have let me take him,” I said, forcing myself to speak. “You should have taken better care of him.”
“So I see. I’ll have to remedy that. I suggest you run, boy. Don’t mess with powers you don’t understand. If you leave now, I might not hunt you down.”
It was too late for more bargains. “Nah, I think I’ll give beating you a shot first.”
“If that’s the way you want it.” Egilsson sounded more amused than anything. “In that case, enjoy the rest of your very short life.” He hung up. I stared at the phone for a long moment.
Beeeepbeepbeep! The blare of the horn jolted me to life. Sören was bored. Great.
I’d be lucky to survive the rest of the night.
Chapter Fifteen
It should have taken about eighteen hours to drive from Illinois to the tiny town of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, home of the Blue Hole and, occasionally, Bobby Garcia. Bobby was the man I needed to see about nature magic, so New Mexico was where we had to go. I’d trawl the whole fucking desert if I had to in order to find him. One really long day, maybe two if we were wasting time sleeping and eating, and then we’d be there.
Ha-fucking-ha.
“You should let me drive,” Sören said after midnight, once the highway traffic had cleared a bit. We were headed south toward Missouri―it wouldn’t be long before we crossed the border and hopefully made it that much harder for Papa Egilsson and his crew of vicious offspring to find us.
“Do you know how to drive?” I asked warily.
“Sören knows. I have familiarity with all of his skills.”
“Yeah?” I remembered playing Mario Kart with Sören in the hotel room. He’d crashed on every other lap. “Is he any good at it?”
“He’s never harmed anyone but himself with it.”
Well, that sounded ominous. “What does that mean exactly?”
“Sören has totaled four motor vehicles since he began driving. One was a motorcycle,” the landvættir added helpfully. “He broke a collarbone, two bones in his right hand, and five ribs. Overall―not all at the same time.”
“He’s a menace on the roads, then.” I glanced at Sören. I had promised him entertainment, and if driving was something that would fulfill the requirement… “Do you know about cops?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you know it’s important that we don’t get pulled over. We don’t want them to notice this car, we don’t want a ticket, and we don’t want to be reported. Got it?”
Sören smiled politely. “Got it.”
Was that chill crawling down my spine a premonition, or just plain old fear? “Fine.” I pulled over onto the side of the highway. “Switch with me.” We each got out and changed sides, and I shut the passenger door with a distinct sense of foreboding. I couldn’t see my own future, and I couldn’t see Sören’s, not with his body under the landvættir’s control, but that didn’t mean my talent wasn’t working. It just meant it had nothing to focus on. “Shit.”
“What?”
“This is a friend’s car. Be good to it, okay?”
“The friend who helped you capture me?” Sören asked. “A brave man, but a foolish one.” He revved the engine, revved it hard. I pulled my seat belt on as fast as I could. “Brave because he stood by you in battle, foolish because he knows little about you and even less about me. It was foolish of him to entrust you with his vehicle.”
“I sort of made him give it to me.”
“You believe he had no choice in the matter?” I could smell burning oil, see smoke start to rise from the hood, and still Sören didn’t let off. “That free will doesn’t exist?”
“Pretty much, yeah. Look, can you just go?”
“Humanity is shrouded by a veil of perception,” Sören said conversationally, as if our car wasn’t about to catch on fire. “Free will, predestination…none of it really matters to mankind. Belief is largely dependent on circumstances. You and your kind, framsýnir, you cut through the veil on occasion to see more clearly, but your picture is still incomplete, influenced by your own natural solipsism. I think it would be good for you to let go of the idea that you, more than anyone else, have control of your own life.” Sören grinned at me, teeth glowing in the moonlight. “Because it simply isn’t true, Cillian.”
The Buick Electra leapt forward with a hellish squeal, all that pent-up energy finally let loose. The tires probably left three layers of rubber on the asphalt as we peeled out, going from zero to sixty in way too short a time. And Sören didn’t stop at sixty.
“Sören,” I managed once my heart had settled back into my chest. “We can’t afford to get pulled over, slow down!”
“That’s a funny thing to say,” Sören replied, still grinning as he swerved around the few other cars on the road.
“Why the fuck is it funny?”
“Because you say it as though it should mean something to me.” We surged past a BMW, whose driver looked at us like we were insane. Which, okay, was fair. “I am the object of a competition. I am a prize to be won, and just because I’m with you right now doesn’t mean I’m going to stay with you if I’m not satisfied by your performance.”
“You stayed with Egilsson for two years!”
Sören shrugged. “His magic compelled me. If you hadn’t found this body untethered, I wouldn’t have been able to leave with you. Now that a new bargain has been struck, his hold on me is weaker, but yours isn’t strong yet. Nor will it be until you fulfill the deal.”
“So…” I saw where this was going, and I didn’t like it. “You can leave me at any time. You could run right back to him and leave me high and dry.”
“I don’t want to. I want Sören to be happy. You would make him happy, but I will not be disrespected or judged as though I’m human.”
“You’re wearing a human body!”
Sören shrugged. “What’s the saying? Never judge a book by its cover.”
A faint wail started up behind us. I glanced back and saw the flashing lights of a police cruiser coming up fast. “Fuck. Pull over.”
“No.” Sören pulled the wheel back and forth, weaving us all over the road. We had to look like the drunkest car in creation. “This is fun!”
“If you’re not going to pull over, at least lose the cop.” I didn’t want to get into a car chase, but it didn’t look like we had much of a choice.
“Tempting, but no,” Sören said. Suddenly he slammed on the brakes and pulled the wheel hard to the right. The Electra spun out, doing donuts down the highway. I clutched the dashboard and the edge of my seat, almost but not quite sick enough to throw up, and watched as we headed for the concrete retaining wall. Shit shit shit―
We stopped maybe two inches from the wall, facing the wrong direction. Sören beamed at me like a mad thing. “I love driving,” he confided to me. The air turned red and blue as the cop pulled up, sirens still blaring. At least he didn’t get out with his gun pointed at us.
He’d have to come to my side of the vehicle; the driver’s side was blocked by the wall. I’d get a chance to talk to him first. A chance to manipulate him. I’d have to do it if I wanted to keep us from getting arrested, because that was what the look on the guy’s face promised.
I turned to Sören. “Keep quiet.”
“Are you going to use your magic on him?”
He sounded way too excited about that prospect. “I’m going to have to,” I snapped. “Now shut the fuck up and let me talk.”
The cop rapped hard on my window, his flashlight illuminating the interior of the car. I rolled the window down. “Hi, Officer.”
“I assume you know just how fast you boy
s were going down that last stretch,” he said flatly, not looking at me but at Sören. I needed to catch his attention.
“Yeah, sorry, my cousin’s not from here. He’s still getting the hang of driving on the right side of the road.”
“This wasn’t a traffic violation, sir. This was reckless endangerment.” He straightened up. “Both of you get out of the car.”
“Officer, if I could just―”
“Get out, turn, and face the car, hands on the hood, now!”
I sighed and glanced back at Sören. “Stay here,” I mouthed. He nodded agreeably. Great, now he was obedient. I opened my door and got out, but instead of turning around, I held my hands up and looked the cop in the eye. “If you’d just let me explain.” We were too far apart for a good capture, but I was starting to get images now, bits and pieces of his future. Grief that big was easy to read.
His hand went to his sidearm. “Turn around!”
“Shouldn’t you be home with your mother? I get that you need to work, but leaving her with a hospice nurse the night before she dies…that’s just cruel.”
“What? She―what?” Flustered, good, I could work with that.
“Your mother. The Alzheimer’s, the hospice nurse, you bringing her to stay with you for the last few weeks of her life… What use was it if you aren’t going to stay with her?” I took a careful step closer, very conscious of the whir of cars as they passed to the left of us, slowing down to rubberneck. “It’s the smell, isn’t it?” I said as I got a better view. “That sour, dry smell. Kind of like dust and urine mixed together. You hate it, can’t bear it, in fact. When your mom was in the nursing home, it was okay because they bathed her all the time. You could visit, and she smelled fresh as a daisy, but now that’s your job and you can’t even do it. The hospice nurse is only there at night, but you’d rather let your mother lay in her own filth all day than change the pad and wipe her clean.”
“That’s…that’s not true,” the cop stuttered and then recovered. “I don’t know who you think you are, but―”