by Ben Zackheim
The demon frowned. “Fido is also a good name for a dog.”
“It’s an unoriginal name for a dog.”
“Hey,” I said. “What did I just say? No names. Besides, he can talk. He’ll tell us when he feels like it.”
“What would you name him then?” Ronin asked, ignoring me, as usual. When she realized I wasn’t playing the game, she glanced at the sky in that stuck-up way she had about her. Her ‘thinking’ face looked fake, as if she’d spent years in front of the mirror to craft the perfect Pondering Philosopher pose.
“Okay, you two,” I said. “Enough games. Maybe you forgot we have a…”
“Xavier,” Ronin said with great weight.
Lucas’ laugh was like a coyote yip. “Come here, Xavier!” he yelled. “Good Xavier.”
“It’s classy,” Ronin shouted. “But demons wouldn’t know about that.”
“What would you name him, sir?” Lucas asked. Neither of them heard a word I’d said. They were obsessed. They both waited for my answer.
I felt like the only sane person on the planet.
I started walking toward Odin’s townhouse. The dog followed me. “He’s not a dog, you two. He’s a deity. He can walk on all fours, or on his hind legs. He can speak, too. So just…”
“We all need names, Arkwright,” Ronin said, catching up to me.
The last thing I wanted to talk about was names. I was supposed to know what my real name was. In fact, a hell of a lot seemed to depend on me knowing my name. So Ronin’s words hit a sour note in my soul that I just wanted to run away from.
So I did. The dog trotted after me and almost stepped on me in the process.
“Where are you going?” Ronin yelled from behind.
“Where do you think, Ronin? Follow me, or don’t. I don’t care.”
“What crawled up his butt?” I heard her ask Lucas.
The Tengu did his best to keep pace with my much shorter strides. I looked up at him, annoyed. But his humongous dog face made me smile. He’d take one step, wait for me to catch up, take one step, wait for me. This went on for a few minutes before I cooled down enough to glance over my shoulder.
The knuckleheads were following me. They had a good distance between them. Good. I was done playing peacekeeper for them. I’m sure Lucas felt the same way about us.
I stopped walking. The dog stopped just ahead of me. “Let me see that wound.” I put a hand on his side and reached for the bloody spot on his fur. He growled again. “You want this to get better, or not?” I reached again and he whimpered this time. “Don’t be a big baby. It’s just a scratch. We need to clean it up, though. I’m sure Odin will have something laying around. Well, actually, I’m not sure about that at all, but let’s assume.”
I felt a little silly talking to a big dog, but I could tell he knew what I was saying. At the very least, he got the gist of it.
Odin’s townhouse was in view now. I waited for the others to catch up. We had to approach as a single unit. Two humans, one tiny demon and a giant dog walking toward your home would probably set off a few alarms.
“Let me take the lead,” I said. I walked a few paces ahead of the rest.
With one small step forward, the townhouse transformed from a bleak, ruined building to a bright home. Vines and flowers climbed its walls, weaving around the tall, thin windows like a beautiful maze. The others noticed the change too and someone let out a gasp. The same amazing transformation had happened when I’d first visited, but that didn’t take away from the power of the vision. It looked like the old world. Paris once enjoyed thousands of places just like this.
If we humans could keep control of Paris, we’d rebuild it one day. That was a big ‘if’, though.
The first thing that struck me was the lack of security. The last time I’d visited, the building was guarded by two vikings the size of moose. There was no sign of security anymore.
That worried me.
It meant one of two things. Either the gods weren’t home right now, or they’d lost their support.
We approached the steps up to the front door cautiously. I didn’t want to trigger any traps. But we reached the door just fine.
It was open.
Another shitty sign.
“I don’t like this,” Lucas said for me.
“Yeah, but we’re not turning back now. Just be ready for the worst.”
“With one bullet?” Ronin whisper-hissed at me.
“Get ready for some of your shadow boxing. You can handle it. I have faith in you.”
“You have faith in me when it’s convenient.”
I pushed the door open slowly and walked into the entry hall.
A soft, dangerous voice drifted down on us from above. “Hello, trespassers.”
Chapter 29
I had her in my sights.
My trigger finger was as close to firing that Glock without firing that Glock as it had ever been.
I released the pressure. A bullet wouldn’t have done any damage anyway. Gods don’t sweat heat from the sun, fire, or gunfire.
“Welcome, handsome,” Freya said sweetly from the balcony. She smiled.
I rolled my eyes. “Hi Freya.” I gestured toward my team. “This is Ronin, Lucas and a Tengu. He’s tagging along. Guys, this is Freya.”
“The Freya, surely,” Lucas purred, turning on the demonic charm. “For one so lovely can be but a god.”
Freya smirked and bowed her head. “It’s nice to see manners made it through The End Times.”
Lucas bowed so low his nose touched the floor. “Three Ragnaroks wouldn’t stop beauty such as yours from casting hope on the realms.”
“I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach,” Ronin grumbled.
“Stand in line,” I mumbled back.
Freya made a wide, slow gesture with her right arm. “Odin isn’t here, I’m afraid. If you’re looking for his help you should look elsewhere. He’s decided to abandon your war, Kane.”
“I heard. Things got too hot for him?”
“He hasn’t shared his thinking with me yet. It’s a husband’s prerogative, I suppose. But I’m whittling him down. If I find out why we abandoned such a noble cause, I’ll certainly let you know.”
“Are you sure you should be saying that kind of thing out loud, my lady?” Lucas asked, his eyes darting to every corner of the room. “You wouldn’t want one as powerful as Odin to suspect you of treason.”
“Oh, he knows I’m always conniving, little one. It would be silly to try to hide anything from my dear husband. He assumes the worst in everyone.”
“Wise of him,” Lucas said taking another bow.
Ronin covered her face in one hand and shook her head. “Will you stop kissing her ass, demon?”
“How about you show some respect, human?”
“You are a beautiful woman,” Freya said to Ronin. The curveball of a statement gave everyone whiplash. Suddenly, we were all staring at Ronin, who shifted on her feet and thought of a comeback.
“Thanks,” she said, deflated. All the venom left her in a rush and a small smile even managed to break her stone face.
She was beautiful. Freya was right. It was easy to miss that fact with her ugly behavior, but she looked a lot like her sister, just with black hair. There had been times when her beauty slapped me in the face, but those were few and far between. And they were easily forgotten once she opened her mouth and made my life miserable.
I looked up at the goddess to find her already staring at me. “Freya, we could use something to…”
She lifted an arm and gestured to the stairwell. “Follow me, my dearest Kane. I’m ashamed it took me so long to recognize your hunger. And I do believe your pet is injured? We’ll tend to his wounds immediately. Now let us get some food in you and talk about how I can serve you and your cause today.”
“Serving your cause?” Ronin muttered so only I could hear. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Freya winked at me. She’d
continued her perfect record of fitting in some heavy flirting every time we met. The thought of going at it with a goddess was tempting. I wondered if I should take advantage of the offer. But my train of thought was doused by a nasty frown from Lucas.
He knew what I was thinking. As usual, he assumed human nature would endanger us and the mission. As usual, he was right. I made a gesture with my hand like I was tamping him down.
I knew what I was doing.
Most of the time.
The four of us worked our way up the steps. It wasn’t easy. The battles of the day had left us battered and sore. The giant dog nudged me with his nose when I leaned back a little too hard near the top of the stairwell and almost fell backwards.
“Thanks,” I said and was immediately covered in dog tongue from shoulder to forehead. “Okay, okay, boy.”
Freya’s lithe shape turned a corner ahead of us. The long hallway was lined with bookshelves on both walls, uninterrupted by doors or one of Odin’s creepy pieces of art. As we walked, I noticed something odd. Our feet barely made a sound on the floor. It was as if we were on carpet, but the floors were made of wood.
That’s when I noticed the peripheral of my vision was also unsettling. It was as if the edge of my view was blacked out.
I stopped.
“What’s up?” Ronin asked, placing a hand on her piece.
“Settle down, Ronin. There’s nothing to shoot. Do you guys notice something off?”
The Tengu let out a small whine that would have sounded normal from a poodle in trouble. But from something as big as him, it added to the uneasy vibe.
Something was off.
“Yeah,” Ronin said quietly. “Now that you mention it, I feel stoned.”
I let out a laugh before I could stop it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, sorry.” I didn’t want to start an argument. Not when it felt like I was about to go into one of my out-of-body experiences. I did not want to pass out in front of Ronin. She’d use it as leverage to take over the operation. It was just her way.
“You don’t think I’ve been stoned, is that right? I’ve been stoned before!”
“Ronin, please.” I grabbed a book off the shelf.
“No, no, let me tell you something, Arkwright…”
“Lucas,” I said, shocked at what I found inside the book. The demon waddled up and stood on his tip-toes to see what I was looking at.
The pages of the book were blank.
I turned the tome over. ‘Lullabies of Love’ wasn’t familiar to me, but I didn’t know Asgardian tastes. I assumed it wasn’t supposed to be a blank book, though.
The paper was old, worn by years of shelf-life and even a little bit of use. The cover had signs of wear as well, with a crack in the spine near the middle of the book.
Lucas pulled a volume from the shelf and opened it up for everyone to see.
Blank.
“What does it mean?” Ronin asked.
“It means we’re losing,” Freya said from behind us. Ronin pulled her weapon, of course. I nudged it down and gripped her wrist until she put it away.
“We didn’t mean to pry,” Lucas said while doing one of his ridiculous bows.
“Nonsense, of course you did. It’s only human. And demon.” The grin on her face meant she wasn’t mad. That was a relief.
“We’re not losing, Freya,” I said. “The vampires are backed up on their heels. They have some internal strife to stomp out, too.”
The goddess shook her head slightly. “I’m not talking about that war, Kane. I’m referring to the struggle to hold sway over this mortal coil. It was hard enough when billions of you scurried about. But now…”
We waited for her to finish. She gestured with one hand for us to follow her and said, “Now we eat.”
Chapter 30
Freya wouldn’t speak again until we were seated for dinner.
It was the same dining table I’d eaten at on my last visit. One glance around the room was all I needed to see that things had changed. A lot. Where there were once statues and relics on pedestals, now there were only the pedestals. The walls had a moldy look to them, as if the room had been neglected for years. But that wasn’t possible. I’d broken bread there a few weeks before.
But the most alarming change was the lack of company. The number of guards was down to one, and from the looks of it, he was a third-tier warrior at best. He’d likely been brought up the ranks by necessity, not skill. His aged face and scurrying eyes gave me the impression he was waiting for his own end to arrive at any moment.
Freya had deflected our follow-up questions with the grace of a goddess, until we stopped even bothering. But as a servant poured the first cup of wine, she leaned forward with her elbows on the table and locked her eyes onto mine.
“We are all fighting the same war. Mortal, immortal, gods. But ‘war’ has many meanings, doesn’t it? We battle this.” She gestured to the room around us with her hands. “And we battle this.” She held a hand to her heart.
“But one thing never changes,” I said, smiling. “The gods still speak in riddles.” Ronin’s snicker collided with Lucas’ gasp. Freya didn’t enjoy my sense of humor this time.
“I’d think a clever man like Kane Arkwright would have figured out why the gods who vowed to help him, abandoned him.”
“The thought had crossed my mind. You and Odin left Japan. Pandora took Madrid for herself.”
She stared at me. She was playing one of her god games. I was used to it by then. I’d put up with enough gamesmanship from deities to annoy me for a few thousand lifetimes.
She wanted me to play a good old-fashioned, infantile guessing game.
I sighed, rubbed my face, and leaned my elbows on the table. “You either broke the deal because you’re conspiring against me, and this is where me and my friends bite the big one, or…” I waited for her to make a move. If she was going to kill us, she’d likely choose that perfect moment to do it.
Freya’s lips curled up into a gentle smile. Her eyes softened, and told me that the answer was right there in front of me. She’d given me all I needed to know.
“Or?” Ronin asked, shattering the intense silence between me and Odin’s stunning wife.
“Or the gods had bigger problems than our mortal problems. Something more fundamental to their existence.”
“Like what?” Lucas asked, trying to help me along. The little demon knew the value of impressing a god. He also knew the risk of disappointing one. Freya’s test may have seemed facetious, petty. But, as usual, there was a meaning to this game that I’d have to uncover.
“Like a lack of worshipers,” I said, eying Freya for a response of some kind. Something to tell me I was on the right track. I knew they wanted worshipers because my deal with Odin was for one million followers. If we won, I’d allow him to court worshipers in the new world, and even encourage them to join him.
But the goddess’ face was stone still. I might have been partially right, but that’s not good enough when you’re playing a game with a deity.
I’d have to change my guess, or elaborate on the one I’d thrown out there.
I decided to elaborate until Ronin said, “That makes sense,” at which point I changed gears. Hey, if Ronin thought I was on the right track, I was most likely not on the right track.
I took a deep breath, locked eyes with Freya and, at that moment, I knew my first guess was way off. But why else would different gods, from different cultures, abandon a war against a common enemy? I didn’t know enough about their machinations and interactions to make a good guess.
All I could do was look at it from a human’s perspective.
“So this is a turf war now?” I asked, but it was more a statement. “The gods are positioning for power now that the world is in shambles.”
“We’re living a cliche,” Ronin mumbled. “I always assumed as much.”
It was one of those moments when Ronin was annoying, yes,
but also dead-on right.
At least I thought she was right.
“I wish it was that simple,” Freya said. She leaned back in her chair. “But, like magic, our war defies the laws of nature.”
For some reason, in that moment, I remembered Rebel chastising me months ago for not knowing that the gods’ powers weren’t magic.
Magicists held sway over a mortal power, she’d told me.
But if that were true, then what did gods practice?
Again, my gut kicked in. And my gut told me the answer to that question was the answer to Freya’s riddle.
Chapter 31
I didn’t have a chance to think about it. Freya turned her eyes to me and her voice echoed in my head like a fever dream.
You know the answer.
I answered her with a thought. An angry thought.
You could fucking tell me the answer.
But my anger just made her smile. I almost hit the table with my fist. But then I noticed her smile wasn’t a smirk. It was sad. Her eyes asked for forgiveness even if her words didn’t.
Damned gods and their damned rules.
I’m not sure how long we stared at each other but it was long enough to make the others in the room shuffle uncomfortably.
Ronin’s voice broke the silence. “You two want a room?”
I shot her a frown. “Sometimes I forget you’re Rebel’s sister and then you open your mouth.”
It was hard to swallow everything Freya had dumped on us.
She showed some mercy and raised her glass with a smile. “To a future with as much love as the world can hold.”
We raised our wine glasses. I felt a surge of hope pass over me but I knew enough to recognize a god’s power. Her toast had injected the room with a surplus of positive energy. But I doubted the vibe went much farther down the hall.
Once again, I thought about Rebel’s comment. Magic is for humans. Then what power was Freya using on us?
The world slipped back to bleak. It felt emptier, knowing that even the gods were suffering. The vastness of the reality I’d grown up with was not so vast anymore.