by Nazri Noor
“There you are, little mortal. I said I would find you, didn’t I? The All-Father keeps his promises.”
I couldn’t imagine how the god had fit into the truck. He must have been seven feet tall, so muscular that he looked like he’d been carved out of a side of beef. His beard and hair were lustrous white clouds, his enormous, terrifying frame contained in the flannel shirt and denim jeans of someone who could have been a lumberjack, or, well, a truck driver. He barely looked like someone who owned a bed and breakfast, much less the leader of the Aesir, the entire Norse pantheon.
“You’re not what I expected at all,” I said.
Odin’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, his attention drawn by Banjo’s incessant yapping. The little guy was thrashing in my arms, growling and baring his teeth at Odin. The god gave the corgi his power, sure, but it felt as though Banjo could sense that Odin meant him harm. The All-Father had promised to kill him, after all.
“You’re not hurting Banjo,” I said, proud of myself for not pissing right into my pants as I spoke. “And you’re not taking him away from us, either.”
Odin lifted his head and sneered. “Give me one good reason to spare the little abomination’s life.”
Banjo growled a little more, than gave one huge, decisive bark. Even Odin reacted, stumbling away from his truck as it was pummeled by an invisible wave of power. The cab caved in on itself, as if colliding with some unseen wall, its windshield crashing into a thousand glittering pieces.
Chapter 24
Odin stared at Banjo, dumbfounded, then back at his truck, then back again. He threw his head back and laughed. Behind me, Mama Rosa gasped in panic. The glass door and floor to ceiling windows of her restaurant were vibrating.
“Hah,” Odin boomed, his voice carrying down the street. People were peering out of windows now, cracking doors ajar. “Perhaps the little beast is not such a disappointment after all.”
“He’s a perfectly good boy,” Carver hissed, collecting Banjo from me and pressing him against his chest. Banjo stopped barking immediately, peppering Carver with a barrage of sloppy doggie kisses. “And I’ll thank you not to attack my domicile again.”
Odin pointed one thick finger at Carver’s face. To my surprise, Carver actually flinched.
“You must be the lich, the one who talked back to me. Destroying one of the four walls of your dimension was the least that you deserved. And I did not even have to lift a finger to accomplish it. Be grateful that the All-Father has a quick temper and a short memory.”
Carver’s growl rumbled somewhere deep inside his chest, but he said nothing.
“Then why are you even here?” I said. “Just you being petty and taking it out on us puny mortals? See, this is why Loki runs an international corporation and you’re serving live goats at a bed and breakfast.”
Ooh. Probably shouldn’t have said that. But Loki did say that Odin’s pride was his weakest point, and that was where I aimed to strike. The sun seemed to go away for a moment, as if covered by a passing cloud. When I looked at Odin, something seemed changed. He wasn’t dressed in red flannel and jeans, but a suit of ornate, bloodstained armor. I blinked. The sun came back, and Odin’s clothes were, too. But his face was a storm.
“Loki is a liar and a cheat,” Odin growled. “Of course he finds success in this modern world of mortals and fools, a world that worships and glorifies heathens that hardly deserve to be called gods.”
I leaned forward, a response already loaded on my tongue, when a hand gripped me by the shoulder, stopping me cold.
“Oh my God, dude,” Asher’s voice said in my ear. “Shut the fuck up. Look who you’re sassing. Remember Izanami?”
My fists uncurled, and I took a deep, long breath to stop myself from talking even more shit. I had to control my anger. I could already feel the Dark Room stirring. Asher was right. The last thing I needed to be doing was giving the mothers and fathers of the world’s pantheons more reasons to want me dead.
“Bleat all you wish, little mortal. Soft, feeble sheep.” Odin planted a foot on his truck’s front tire. “I have something of yours, and you may want it back.”
I stiffened. “What could you possibly have taken of mine that I’d so desperately – ”
Odin blinked innocently. “Oh. Did I say ‘it?’ I was so sure that I said ‘him.’” The All-Father smirked, and my heart pounded against my chest. “That man you like so much. The one that makes ice, an affront to my person, as filthy as the frost giants themselves.”
My blood froze. “No. Herald? What did you do to him?”
The All-Father laughed. “Follow me if you will. Find me if you dare. Perhaps you will discover then.”
“Wait,” I shouted, the Dark Room banging its many fists against my heart, begging to be let out, begging to kill.
“I have said my piece, little human. Find me, or your friend dies.”
Odin patted the side of his truck, and the damage Banjo had done was instantly reversed, the metal inflating and glass reassembling into the shape of a perfect, unblemished cab. Odin swung himself into the driver’s seat, then threw the engine. The next thing I knew he was backing out and off of the ruined sidewalk.
I didn’t know trucks could reverse quite so fast. It rumbled down the street backwards, pedestrians dodging and screaming as it went. Instead of the roar and rumble of an engine, this time the truck thundered with what sounded like a horse’s frantic neighing.
“That infernal contraption is a modified form of his steed,” Carver said, still glaring down the street.
I glared with him. “So it was Sleipnir, after all?”
“Indeed. The All-Father couldn’t go galloping down the streets on an eight-legged horse, now, could he?”
I nodded. “And if Sleipnir works anything like Apollo’s chariot, it means that it holds a portion of Odin’s essence and protects him. It’s like a piece of his domicile travels with him.”
“The All-Father is untouchable even outside his domicile, then,” Carver said, “for as long as the steed remains unmolested.”
I blinked at him. “You’re not seriously suggesting that I’m dumb enough to try and kill him?”
Carver scoffed. “He is in possession of your beloved. You have killed for far less, Dustin. Your anger changes you. Do not argue this point with me.”
Damn it, but he was right.
“Pray that you do not further attract the All-Father’s ire by attempting to slay him. Retrieve your significant other, then flee.”
I shook my head, groaning. “Easier said than done.” I looked at the anomalous hole in the side wall of Mama Rosa’s restaurant that paradoxically led into the Boneyard. “V?” I thought. “You’re coming with. We’re going up against the head of a pantheon. Gonna need you around.”
“Right,” he blustered as he came floating out of the Boneyard. “Today’s as good a day as any to die.”
I rushed to collect him, wrestling him into submission when he resisted, because the last thing we needed on top of normals seeing a muscular lunatic truck-driving Santa Claus was them seeing a flying sword.
“You sound unsure of yourself,” I thought to him when he’d settled down. “Even nervous, actually.”
Vanitas sniffed and said nothing. A woman came down the sidewalk, glanced momentarily at the twisted metal of the lamppost, then trotted up to the restaurant. She clasped her hands together hopefully, directing her question to Mama Rosa.
“Hi, are you guys open? I hear you do some really good fried chicken.”
Rosa sighed and ushered her in. “Come. Come.”
In the distance, sirens wailed. The Lorica would be showing up soon, too. “Right,” I said. “Time to go.”
“We’re coming with,” Mason said, slipping his body between me and Carver, staring down our boss with all his boyish defiance. Carver looked between him and Asher, then sighed.
“Go, if you must. It would be folly to send Dustin off on his own. I will contact our allies at the Lorica.�
� Carver dug around in his pockets for his phone. “Help will come when it can.” He looked around himself, his false eye glowing as he pierced blocks, miles of Valero to follow Odin. “A warehouse, at the Gridiron. Gods, but I hope Igarashi is well. There’s no telling what the All-Father might do. Dustin, you will need to transport the three of you yourself.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, sweat already trickling down my temples. “The Gridiron. Got it.”
“I will remain here, with Rosa. I must consume my energies repairing the walls of the Boneyard.”
“Roger,” Asher said. “We’ll help with rebuilding when we get home.”
Carver nodded at him slowly. His lips parted as if he was about to say something else, but he hesitated. I knew that look. It was a father’s concern. But hey, Asher needed to leave the nest some day, right? This was Carver trying his undead damnedest to be supportive.
“Right,” Asher said, tugging me by the wrist into the shadow of Mama Rosa’s restaurant. “This should be about the right size.” He pulled Mason in, too. Mason looked between the two of us, confused.
“What’s going on?”
“Remember teleporting?” I said. “When Carver used magic to send us to Brandt Manor?”
Mason nodded. “Yeah. I felt sick afterwards.”
“Well,” I said, holding his hand as we sank into the darkness, “this is worse.”
Mason groaned.
Chapter 25
Threads of darkness fell from my skin and hair as the three of us appeared in the Gridiron. I felt woozy, and a little bit sick. It’d been a while since I’d used the Dark Room to shadowstep something bigger than, say, two apple pies. This was two whole people.
Vanitas stayed tucked under my arm, shifting around quietly, saying nothing. Asher stumbled out of the Dark Room, but gained his footing quickly. Mason wasn’t doing so hot, though.
“I’m gonna barf,” he choked out.
“Rough ride?” I said.
“That’s not funny. I seriously think I’m going to hurl.”
Asher wrinkled his nose. “Do it there, over by those crates. I don’t need your gross noises distracting me. I’m not as good at this as Carver is.”
He tapped the side of his temple, in a way that I’d sometimes seen Carver and Royce do, like they were pressing a button on some invisible surveillance device. Asher blinked, his eyes misting over with a ghostly green glow.
“This doesn’t work as well here – it’s not like there are dozens of the dead just hanging out in the Gridiron.”
Too true. The Gridiron was sort of Valero’s industrial district, filled with rows and rows of warehouses. I’d been in and out of the area enough times to expect the worst from the inside of them. Dead bodies, rites of human sacrifice, and maybe most unsettlingly, my first encounter with a clone of myself, a homunculus that Thea Morgana created out of my own blood.
“I think I’m okay,” Mason said, holding his hand across his mouth, turning in place as he surveyed the area. “Is this how it works? You see through the eyes of ghosts?”
“Basically,” Asher said. “Shush. I can hear through them, too.” He spun on his heel, flinging out one hand towards a block of buildings that looked just as rundown and unobtrusive as the others. “There. That’s where Odin is holding him.”
My blood raced to my temples. What the All-Father even wanted with Herald was entirely unclear. For all I knew, this was just another manifestation of an entity’s pettiness. We took something of his – Banjo – so now he wanted something of mine. My fists clenched.
“Let’s go,” I said, leading the way.
Asher blinked as he walked astride me, and his eyes went back to normal. Mason made a small retching noise as he caught up with us.
“For real, I think I’m fine now,” he sputtered.
“Get it together,” Asher said. “I’m sure we’re in for a hell of a fight.”
“And I’m ready for one,” Mason said unconvincingly, his skin paler than usual, his forehead sweaty.
“Damn it.” Asher stopped in his tracks, pressing his open palm against Mason’s chest. Mason stopped as well, looking down at the green light pouring into his body from Asher’s touch. “I’ve never dealt with teleportation sickness before, but if this doesn’t pep you up, nothing will.”
Color returned to Mason’s face slowly, the sweat there now only evidence of the heat of the sun. “Thanks,” he muttered, looking at his own hands, flexing his fingers, the glyphs near his clavicles glowing. His strength was flowing back. Good to know.
It was also good to know that, in a pinch, I could nab someone and force them through the Dark Room, maybe give them a nice old headache or a case of the pukes. I needed to learn some nonviolent ways of dealing with problems someday, right?
But today wasn’t that day. Asher stopped us in front of the correct warehouse. I assessed the situation in silence. Shadowstepping blindly in was never a good idea, not unless I knew what I was getting myself into. I could shadowstep my way into a brick wall, for example, or materialize with my torso sticking halfway out of a pallet of crates. Fun times.
Plus, chances were good that Odin was waiting inside with a swarm of lackeys ready to chop us into pieces. I wondered where his truck was, scanning the surrounding lots for it, when I decided that magical eight-legged transforming horses could probably hide wherever they goddamn wanted. Sleipnir was probably lurking somewhere in the warehouse himself, waiting for a chance to trample the shit out of us.
Vanitas finally spoke. “I don’t like our chances, Dustin.”
“I don’t either,” I replied through my mind. “But we need to do something. Herald’s in there.”
“Odin knows we’re coming,” Mason said. “Unless you guys you have some sneaky plan in mind, there’s no point being subtle about this. He’s going to trap us either way.”
“Sure,” I said. “But if we just barge in, we’re dead.”
“That’s the strangest part,” Asher murmured. His eyes were glowing green again. “It seems that a lot of the dead are gathered right inside. But they aren’t responding to me. They won’t cooperate or even acknowledge that I’m around.”
That just added another layer of fuckery over the whole situation. What was Odin up to? Unresponsive dead people? Did he have zombies in there? Where did he get them?
“God,” a voice said from behind us. “Indecision can be so tedious.”
I looked over my shoulder. “What the – Royce?”
And Romira, too. The two of them stood side by side, each with a hand extended towards the warehouse’s doors.
“Ah, the cavalry’s arrived,” Vanitas said, his voice slightly more cheerful.
“You act like you’re so relieved that they’re here now,” I grumbled to him mentally.
“The nephilim and the necromancer are powerful, but they’re rookies. These two, at least, are more tested in battle. They have a better idea of who they are, and what they can do.”
Fair was fair.
“Hi, Dusty,” Romira said. “You boys better stand clear. No way we’re getting out of this without a fight, so we may as well make a grand entrance.”
“Hah,” Royce said. “Make an entrance. That’s a cute one, babe.”
I hardly had time to formulate a response. Mason body-slammed me out of the way as twin jets of fire roared out of Royce and Romira’s hands, joining into a massive gout of flame the shape and size of an enormous fist. It smashed through the warehouse’s doors, leaving a huge, flaming hole in its wake.
They made a damn entrance, all right.
Chapter 26
Thick smoke and white heat filled my nostrils. I backed away from the gaping, burning opening, fanning my hand in front of my face and coughing.
“What the hell was that?” I hissed. “Do you guys have special boyfriend-girlfriend powers now?”
“That was pretty wicked,” Mason said, peering through the hole.
“It’s called practice, Graves,” Royce said. �
��Something you’d know about if you spent more time honing your craft.”
“Hey, I spend a hell of a lot of time honing,” I said. Not true. “You don’t know me. And why is it that you only ever show up when the going gets fucked?”
“Oh, excuse me. I guess I could just teleport me and Romira all the way out of here. We could be having banana daiquiris on a beach in Maui the very moment I snap my fingers.”
Asher’s mouth was half-open in quiet amazement. “Wow. Seriously?”
Royce stood to attention and sniffed. “The very moment.”
“Enough with the pissing contest, you two,” said another voice from behind them.
Bastion? He stepped up just short of Royce and Romira, giving me a quick, curt nod. “Carver called everyone he could. It’s a good thing we all exchanged numbers that one time we had dinner.”
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him turn up. Had to admit, I was glad it was in this sort of setting, too. We didn’t exactly leave off on good terms, Bastion and me. I’d have to make it right at some point, though.
“I mean, we also keep in touch over the group chat,” Romira said.
“Yeah,” Asher said, giving a small chuckle. “Carver’s getting better at all this tech stuff, I think. He can send messages without getting frustrated and setting his phone on fire now.”
Bastion and I spoke at the same time. “What group chat?”
Everyone, Royce included, looked elsewhere, scratching their necks or grinding their shoes nonchalantly into the ground.
“Never mind,” I snarled. “Always leaving me out of things. Come on. We need to rescue my boyfriend.”
Romira threw her arm out across my chest. “Settle down, tiger.” She gestured at the burning hole in the warehouse, then made a weird, blowing sort of pucker with her mouth. The flames guttered, then died out. “Now you can charge through.”
“Though I wouldn’t recommend it,” Bastion said. “The two of you made a hell of an explosion. How come no one has stampeded out to greet us yet?”