by Susan Harris
Donnie jerked at the pain, trying to yank his arm away from the wolf, Ricky grabbing him by the other hand to try and pull him free. Donnie felt Fenrir lick at the blood that was dripping from the wound, then the little shit let go so suddenly that Donnie fell backwards, landing on top of Ricky on the ground.
Fenrir lifted his head and howled, Donnie’s blood smeared on his lips, teeth and chin as he smugly said. “It seems we have a solution after all.”
Donnie got to his feet, the wound on his arm already healing to a faint pucker that Donnie was certain would scar, not healed by his vampire healing ability. Then again, it wasn’t every day a wolf god tried to bite off your hand.
“It is diluted by human blood and that of the vampire who made you, yet I would know the taste of his blood anywhere.”
It took Donnie a couple of seconds to replay what Fenrir was saying before things started to slot into place and he sucked in a breath. Ricky was open mouthed beside him; his buddy having pieced it together before he did.
“Are you telling me that I have the blood of Tyr in my veins?”
Fenrir licked his lips. “I am saying that you are a direct descendant of the God Tyr, by only a generation.”
What the hell did that mean?
He must have looked as confused as he felt, because Ricky clasped him on the shoulder, grinning as he said, “Looks like Erika is your aunt. Our family trees are completely fucked up.”
Donnie stumbled back, his ass hitting the ground before he could stop it as he tried to understand what was happening. He had lived his entire human life knowing he was unwanted, his poor mother dying in a filthy alley instead of telling her parents that she had gotten pregnant. Caitlyn had gifted him with knowing his mother’s family, though their guilt over his mother, Bridget’s, death kept them at a distance.
Now, he told himself that he hadn’t wanted to know who his father was, that he hadn’t mattered, but finding out that not only was Tyr his grandfather but he had a living, breathing relative who was part of their supernatural world, one where they understood him as he was now—that floored him.
“If it is of an ease to you, human females hardly ever survive a birth of one with god blood. It is possible that your father didn’t even know who his father was.”
It didn’t ease him in the slightest, but Donnie got to his feet and looked at Fenrir, his face expressionless, but Fenrir snarled at him again with bloodstained teeth.
“How no one saw that you were of Tyr’s blood, I will never know. You look like him now, as you face me.”
“I should say thank you for telling me another part of me. But now that gives me leverage. If I free you from the chains, will you help us defeat Odin? You would have to swear to stay until the battle is done, until we win or we lose. And play a part.”
Fenrir’s sinister smile felt like ice in his veins as the wolf replied. “Odin was the one who ordered Tyr to bind me here. I have remained here for an eternity, waiting for the day I could exact revenge on the Allfather for his actions. I will play my part, grandson of Tyr. Now unchain me.”
Donnie shook his head. “I know the way of gods, Fenrir, so here’s the deal. You will swear an oath to me, sealed in blood. Then I will release you and you will help us defeat Odin.”
Without waiting for a response, Donnie turned over his palm and sank his fangs into his flesh, then held it out for Fenrir. The wolf did as Donnie had done, biting down into his flesh, and then he clasped his bloody hand in Donnie’s.
Donnie’s body shook like there was an earthquake inside him, bones rattling, teeth chattering until Fenrir removed his hand and the oath was bound.
“Free me.” The growl in the wolf’s throat was far from human. Donnie wondered how in hell he was going to get the chains open.
There was no slot for a key, no clasp for him to flick. Narrowing his gaze, he put his hand on the wide metal that ensnarled Fenrir’s ankle. When the magic didn’t send him flying back like it had Ricky, Donnie knew that the wolf spoke true: He was certainly Tyr’s grandson. All of this, getting the compass, making it work, the quest and now this, freeing Fenrir, it all came down to blood, and then Donnie remembered what Fenrir said.
“Gleipnir is its name.”
Donnie placed his bloody palm on the wide cuff, then simply said, “Gleipnir.”
Magic swirled in the air, and then the chains fell from around Fenrir’s ankles, leaving not a mark on his skin as the chains fell away to the ground. Fenrir lifted one leg, then the other. He clicked his fingers, and his body was clad in an all-black ensemble, like he was a member of SWAT. His eyes flared red as he smirked, his eyes looking down at the chains.
“Pick them up, Donnie O’Carroll. We might make use of them yet.”
“Shit, shit, shit ... come on, A.K.!”
The shard of Bifrost glass in his hand didn’t so much as tremble as Zach glared at it, hoping that he could will it to work, but his best friend still remained in the past. Zach had warded his room to keep the immortal beings from getting in and using him to get to Ash, but he was running out of time, and the wards were being slowly chipped away.
Ash must have done something to mess with the future so badly the fates could not ignore it, and as her accomplice, he was as guilty as she. They had made an agreement, before she vanished into the past without him, that she would come back when he called.
“Fuck this.”
Zach pushed away from his desk, opening the secret drawer and pulling out another shard of Bifrost that he had “borrowed.” Then he grabbed his shoulder holster, slipping it on over his khaki long-sleeved tee that had a picture of Danger Mouse on the front of it, a present from Ash, who teased him for following after his vamp mom and a love of slogan tees.
Slipping his two guns into the holster, Zach pushed his glasses up his nose and then placed one of the shards into the mechanism at his desk. A whirling sounded as the doors to his apartment blew open, but Zach ignored it as his wall split in two.
He was not Ash to dive into danger with a laugh, nor was he invincible. But Zachary Spencer Moore never shied away from what scared him.
He rolled his shoulders and dove into the split, falling headfirst into the past.
Ash
* * *
Grey had disappeared, though Ash knew he was probably lurking around somewhere. After the dead had risen from Hel, the team had taken a few hours to clean and rest, but Ash found herself restless. The shard in her pocket kept heating, as if Zach was trying to reach her, but she couldn’t respond without going home.
Ash knew she had to return, especially after her talk with her dad, knowing that her dad, the one in the future, was probably going out of his mind. Ash swept her hair off her face as she looked out of the warehouse to where her grandfather stood, watching, waiting.
She could feel it in her bones that her time in the past was coming to an end. It was as if it sang in her veins, the need to go back to where she had come from, as if home was calling to her.
Picking up her hammer, Ash stepped off the window ledge to the ground, letting the sharp cold of the wind whip against her face. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the scent of rain on the horizon, the promise of thunder rippling against her skin. As a child, she had spent hours sitting out in the rain, staring up at the thunder and lightning and wondering why she loved it so. Then, one day when she had lost her temper and the house had almost caught fire as a flare of lightning seared the roof, her mother had sat her down and told her who she was, who Thor was and why she needed to learn to control her emotions and not let them control her.
The very next morning, the first of her tattoos had appeared. She’d been seven at the time, and it had freaked her dad out. Zach was twelve then, claiming he wanted one of his own. Their parents still didn’t know that as soon as Ash had turned sixteen, they’d gone to get tattoos, considering Zach was twenty-one and technically an adult.
Ash felt a presence behind her, ducked before a berserker could claw her back to shre
ds. She swung Mjölnir wide, sending her grandfather’s foot soldier backwards into the path of the dozen others that had converged, as if they had been lying in wait for someone to step out of the warehouse.
Lifting her hammer, the rumble of thunder like the most beautiful of melodies in her ears, she charged at the dozen berserkers with a war cry that was sure enough to alert the rest of those who lingered in the warehouse.
The berserkers were hideous misshapen beasts who seemed trapped in half-wolf, half-human form. Fur matted their flesh, with drool dripping from horrendously formed mouths. They circled her, snapping their teeth at her as she tried to twist and turn to keep them all in view.
Ash spun faster, lashing out with Mjölnir, hitting them square in the stomach, knocking them backward. With glee on her face, she heard her dad call her name, but she dared not glance upward or toward the voice in case she lost her focus.
Others joined in the fray, with Ash catching glimpses of her parents, of Erika and Melanie and Caitlyn all making their way towards where she fought. Ash was transfixed for a moment as Caitlyn lifted a short, curved blade and moved with the deadly efficiency that Ash had been trained with, like a wraith in the night. Her weapon slicing through bone, Caitlyn divested one of the berserkers of its head.
Distraction could get you killed. A blow to Ash’s head made her drop her hammer, claws biting into her flesh as she was dragged down the street, her legs kicking to get free as three berserkers roared into her face, their claws in her head so that she could not even raise her hand for Mjölnir.
She screamed. They seemed to be unsure of what direction they wanted to take her, her body being pulled in three different directions. She felt her shoulder pop from its socket, then she howled as if the moon could trigger her change to wolf, yet she knew changing now wouldn’t help her much.
The berserkers snapped at one another, growling and hissing as they seemed to come to some sort of nonverbal agreement, and then just one grabbed her and she was moving in the direction of where Odin stood.
Looked like her grandfather wanted a word after all.
Ash kicked out her foot, smashing in the face of the berserker at her feet. He growled, dropping her legs so that she now dangled along the ground, staggering away as he lunged forward making to grab her again or sink his teeth into her leg.
Stupid fucker didn’t get the chance.
His body hit the ground a second after the shot went off, the bullet lodging right between his eyes. The surprise gunshot caused the other berserkers to drop her and spin round, snarls on their faces. She was standing, staring down the barrel of a gun, but she couldn’t help but grin like hell.
“Ricky!!!!!” Melanie’s voice carried across the street as Ash saw Caitlyn shake her head, a smile on her lips. She saw her tell Melanie who it was, that it was not Ricky, but his son, all grown up, Melanie’s eyes going wide as she ran her own gaze over the new addition.
“A.K., duck,” Zach barked at her, his green eyes flashing with determination as he lifted his gun-wielding hands up a notch.
She did as she was told, the order coming from the partner she trusted with her life without question. The next two shots hit true as the creatures fell down to the ground, dead. Ash rose up, her arm hanging limp as Zach sheathed his guns away, then practically shoved Ash to lie down on the ground.
Zach braced his foot on her shoulder, angled her arm, his hazel eyes on her as he said, “Ready? On three … one … two …”
Zach pulled and then pushed her arm back into place, and she swore a blue streak at her best friend before she said, “You never wait till three.” Ash gasped, rubbing her shoulder.
“And every time you’re surprised.”
Zach chuckled before he cocked his eyebrow at her. “You don’t call. You don’t write. You don’t answer when I call you. I was starting to think you forgot about me.”
Ash threw her arms around his neck, then felt the familiar hands around her shoulders as she hugged Zach to her, his scent as familiar as her own, like fire and fur.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too. We have problems.”
Ash detangled herself from Zach as she stepped back. “I know. Grey mentioned something, but I think you need to say hello to some people. Your mom looks like she’s about to have a heart attack.”
Zach chuckled again, pushing those glasses of his up his nose as he turned, his cat-green eyes brightening as Melanie strode over to him, everyone else not far behind. Melanie was shorter than Zach by a good few inches. She reached up and cupped his cheek.
Zach’s smile deepened. “Hey, Mom.”
Melanie blinked, her eyes widening as she just stared at him with an open mouth.
Zach glanced at Ash, who shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think you call her that yet, so it’s a trip, hearing it for the first time. You should have seen my dad’s face the first time I called him Dad. It was worth it to see his face.”
“You’re—you—” Melanie began, her voice full of wonder. “But you are him as well.”
“I think what Melanie is trying to say is that you are definitely your father’s son.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Zach replied, then jerked back from his mother to pull out his guns again, popping off two shots before anyone else could react. A lone survivor of the berserkers hit the ground without much fanfare.
“Why didn’t you just blow the ears off us?” Her dad asked Zach. Firing a gun right next to a bunch of supernaturals was dangerous. A gunshot could blow out an eardrum, yet they were all unaffected by the two shots Zach had fired off.
Zach seemed to straighten at the sound of her dad’s voice, and Ash hid her smile, because as much as her dad was Uncle Derek outside of work, he was still their boss. Zach held out the guns for Derek to take.
“I tinker with things, sir. Cars, weapons, computers. The gun is a prototype of a Glock. I’ve managed to put a spell into a coil that makes the shot almost silent.”
Derek offered Zach a look that was all filled with pride, and she swore that her bestie nearly purred with pride. “Ain’t that something. I believe I have you to thank for keeping her safe.”
“We keep each other safe, sir. That’s what family does. What partners do. I watch her six, and she watches mine.”
Derek nodded his approval but said no more as Zach looked pointedly toward the warehouse. He was looking for his dad.
“He’s not here, son. He’s gonna be pissed he missed this.”
“Oh, he hasn’t gotten back from the—”
Ash clamped a hand over his mouth and shook her head as Zach’s green eyes widened. When Ash shook her head, he seemed to realize what he’d nearly said, and Zach winced.
“See, not as easy to keep your mouth shut now, is it?” Ash said haughtily, a smirk on her lips, considering the lecture Zach had given her about revealing too much. And here he was, not a hot minute in the past and already nearly dropping secrets.
Zach growled at her, ducking under her arm and shoving her away.. “Well, considering how the fates blew up my apartment door to try and get to you, I think you’ve done more than keep your mouth shut, A.K.”
“A.K.?” Melanie asked softly as she stared at Zach.
Ash held up her finger. “Don’t.”
Zach rolled his eyes and threw an arm around her shoulder. “A.K. as in Ashlyn, Kyria … but my lips are sealed as to why else I call her A.K.”
The ground began to tremble, and they all readied for attack, turning toward the intersection of the street where the roads met. The road did not split like it had when Hel arrived to take the dead back, nor did the dead appear again, but magic was thick in the air.
“I can’t deal with dead again. That girl needs to keep hold of her realm a little more,” Melanie said as she pulled out a gun and pointed it in the general direction of where everyone was looking. Ash caught the amused look on Zach’s face as Melanie stepped in front of him, shielding him, despite the fact that Zach cou
ld handle himself.
“It’s just like when the kid in class pushed you off the monkey bars and broke your glasses.”
“I know, right? When Mom pulled a gun on the banshee, I thought she would piss herself.”
Melanie peered over her shoulder at them with a stern look on her face. “I know you two are telling the truth but don’t have the brain matter to process it.”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
Melanie didn’t get the chance to retort as the air seemed to shimmer and crackle as the appearance of three sisters stole the air from her lungs.
Ash heard her dad call her name. Mjölnir sailed through the air, and she caught it. Her eyes widened at her dad, who had tossed Mjölnir like he had been wielding it for centuries. Even her mom looked shocked as hell.
“Does your dad know he’s not supposed to be able to do that?”
Ash shook her head at Zach, considering the last time Zach had tried to lift the hammer, he nearly popped a disc.
Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld stood at the intersection of the roads, past, present and future all equal in their rage as Zach swore next to her, dragging their gaze from Ash to him.
“Zachary Spencer Derek Moore, we have been looking for you,” Skuld said, her voice filled with power and age as Zach glanced at her dad, wondering how he would handle the knowledge that Zach had taken his name when he got a little older, such was the influence Derek had played in his life.. Then he turned his eyes back to the fates and his charm.
“Ladies, long time no see. Had I known you were looking for me, I’d have dropped everything ... just for you.”
Ash stifled back a laugh as she heard Caitlyn mutter, “His father’s son, all right.”
“You should not be here, cat. You will return now or we will make you.”
That threat came from Verðandi, her appearance nearly the same as the supernaturals who stood around them. But it was Urðr who spoke next and directly to her.