by Nazri Noor
“They’re waiting,” Asher said. “This is giving Odin and his forces some kind of tactical advantage, so they’re waiting.”
“Well, it’s not like we can yell for them to come out,” Mason said. “The guy that needs rescuing is in this building somewhere. The things standing between him and us refuse to budge. Answer seems clear to me.”
Royce nodded at him approvingly. “I like this kid. No nonsense. Head in. Let’s fuck them up, boys.”
“Ahem,” Romira said. “Excuse you.” She swept forward, brazenly walking into the warehouse alone. Royce looked like he was about to say something, but only followed in silence. The rest of us filed in after them. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one surprised by what we found inside.
It was dark, gloomy, the interior of the warehouse far, far larger than the rundown building on the outside could contain. Like Lorica headquarters, or the Boneyard itself, or my enchanted leather backpack, Odin’s warehouse contained an interdimensional space. Great. So this was even more dangerous than any of us expected. And it was cold. So very, very cold.
Mason nudged Asher with his elbow. “Where to now?”
Asher’s glowing green eyes barely lit up our surroundings, the darkness returning each time he swiveled his head or blinked. “I can’t make heads or tails of it. I can see them – vague shapes of the dead, all around us.”
“I can help.” Romira cracked her knuckles, kneeled on the ground, and pressed her palms there, muttering an incantation to herself. Little wisps of fire rose from between her fingers, illuminating what I thought was a blank floor, but turned out to be cold, slick rock. I tapped my shoe against the ground.
That was why it was so cold. We were someplace that was made almost entirely out of stone, with no walls, no sky. Just a sharp, cold wind.
A howl pierced the silence. I looked around cautiously, still finding nothing, only then realizing that the howl came from somewhere beneath us. The plumes of fire in Romira’s hands rose and split into three burning, coalescing clumps, which slowly took the shape of three dogs. Each dog had three flaming heads.
“Hot damn,” I said.
Romira rose unsteadily to her feet, Royce guiding her back up. “Yep,” she said, chuckling weakly. “This is Cerberus’s gift.”
I’d seen Romira craft an elemental servant before – a secretary made entirely out of fire, who helped her man the front desk at the Lorica – but this was something different. Nine burning hound’s heads turned to her, waiting for a command, their eyes smoldering like coals.
She spoke quietly. “Fetch.”
The hounds took off, speeding in three different directions.
“Didn’t know you could do that,” Royce said. “Kind of hot.”
“Shut up,” Romira said, half-smiling. “They should be able to track Herald down. I can see through their eyes. I’ll let you know if they see anything.”
The hounds offered a secondary benefit – they left trails of fire in their wake, presenting a form of light to guide us through Odin’s weird, undoubtedly trapped dimension. We walked alongside the middle hound’s path cautiously, but kept sure to catch up with the fires. After a while, the flames behind us would die out from the wet and cold.
“So,” Mason said. “Anyone have any idea what this place is, exactly?”
Bastion shivered as he spoke. “It kind of feels like the place the Great Beasts sent us to. All this wet rock, I mean.”
I shook my head. “This is different. No storms, no dragons. Everything feels dead.”
“Sounds about right.” Asher looked around us, green eyes seeing nothing and everything. “This isn’t the Norse version of hell, but it isn’t quite Valhalla either. It’s something Odin made specifically for this purpose. To keep Herald, and to confront us. Like setting a stage.”
I clenched my teeth and my fists. “Go figure. Trust an entity to be all about dramatics. I still don’t understand why Odin abducted Herald. And you’d think he’d have sent out the welcome party by now.”
Vanitas’s garnets flashed red in the gloom. “Careful what you wish for,” he said.
Asher stopped in place, holding his arms out to either side of him, calling a silent halt. “They’re here. Odin’s chosen. The valiant dead.”
We’d stopped just long enough that the flames left by Romira’s hounds had nearly vanished. Their illumination was replaced by several pinpricks of ghoulish blue light, which grew as they approached into the recognizable shapes of men. Dozens and dozens of them, all clad in various forms of armor, wielding an array of wicked weapons. Just a ton of dead Vikings, as far as the eye could see.
“There,” Asher whispered. “Brave warriors who fell in battle, sent by Odin to fight us.”
“Can you control them?” I asked. The air felt even colder.
“No,” Asher grunted. “They’re the heroic fallen, brave warriors who died in battle. They belong to the All-Father and his valkyries. Nothing I can do to turn them against Odin.” He bared his teeth. “But I can still fight.”
Asher slashed his hand through the air, and at the peak of the arc I caught a glimpse of something hideously sharp and white firing out of his arm. It was a spear made entirely out of bone. Whether it was his bone, or substance borrowed from the unseen undead, I wasn’t sure. Man. Necromancers are creepy.
The spear soared through the air, hitting its mark right in the neck. The warrior gurgled as the bone pierced him from his throat through the back of his skull. He crumpled to the ground, his blood a spurt of liquid black. The other warriors roared in fury, clanging their shields and weapons.
“Oh my God,” I mumbled, at once horrified and amazed by Asher’s aim and talent. He’d grown a hell of a lot since he joined the Boneyard. It was the Carver effect.
“You can’t hurt them if they’re already dead,” Asher said. “Snuff out as many as you can. They’re nothing if not loyal, and they’ll keep coming back to fight for as long as Odin asks them to.”
This was, once again, the Carver effect. He’d educated Asher extensively about the afterlife in different world cultures. I’d only read far enough about the Norse to know about their glorious dead. They did have one other concept of the underworld, though, and that was the one ruled by Hel, daughter of Loki, and the actual Norse goddess of the dead. Knowing what we did of Izanami, I could only hope that we’d never run into Hel, or any of their other peers.
“Vanitas?” I said. “Can you kill ghosts?”
Vanitas laughed gleefully as he soared into battle, his jewels drawing a bloody, scintillant line through the air.
“Only one way to find out.”
Chapter 27
Mason fought ahead of our pack, using his massive golden shield like some sort of one-man Roman phalanx. I was almost afraid for how gung-ho he was getting, charging into the glorious dead like a human – sorry, nephilim battering ram, but they were dropping like flies under his assault.
Maybe that had to do with how Bastion was fighting abreast of him, swinging his arm like he was slicing with a great, invisible blade. The dead fell into pieces with every swipe. As numerous as Odin’s warriors were, maybe we could still whittle them down after all.
And Bastion’s presence was a reminder of all the things he taught me, or rather, of what he’d tried to teach me. I still couldn’t exactly wrap my head around the idea of replicating his arcane grenades – how the hell was I supposed to wrap fire in darkness? – but I did the next best thing, scattering handfuls of flame and little shards of shadow from the Dark Room among the warriors.
It worked. They exploded like fragmentation grenades, the horrible spikes of solid darkness rocketing in every direction like shrapnel, their speed powered by clumps of angry, explosive fire. I was shredding the dead.
Then suddenly, a distant howl.
Romira sent a fireball banging into the air like a signal flare, drawing our attention. “This way,” she shouted. “I see him. We’ve been following the wrong dog.”
My heart
pounded double time. Please be safe, I thought. Please, let him be safe.
Taking the detour meant pushing through another crowd of Odin’s fallen, but while they had the numbers, we had all the magic. Swords, maces, and shields were nice, but they weren’t any match for fireballs, bone spears, and, I proudly thought, my nifty new shadowfire grenades.
Onwards we ran, Mason and Bastion leading the charge, smashing dead Vikings out of our way as Asher, Royce, Romira, and I rained supporting fire from the rear. Soon we’d come close enough to Romira’s three-headed hound to spot it running in the distance, until it vanished in a puff of white smoke. As we drew closer, I saw why.
The ground here was even colder, wetter, and more slippery, because it was slick with ice. Bizarre white growths of rock – more like spires and pillars, actually – dotted the landscape, breaking the monotony of dark, featureless stone. Romira’s hound had collided with one of these pillars and poofed out of existence. Even enchanted fire couldn’t handle the freezing cold of this odd realm’s magical ice.
But they weren’t spires of white stone. Columns upon columns of the structures grew thicker as we progressed, almost like a forest. They were spikes of thick, sturdy ice, each ending in a point, each only slightly taller than a man. I looked closer as we passed. Every one of these grotesque icicles contained a single man, his features frozen in terror. What the hell were we up against?
A fleck of something wet and cold drifted onto the tip of my nose, and I flinched. I looked up. It was snowing. And just up ahead, there he was, kneeling in a pile of snow. His clothes were torn, his hair flecked with white. Fingers crusted over with arcane frost pushed more and more pulses of ice magic into the ground.
“Herald.”
I broke into a run, hardly even thinking to myself. Was it an illusion? A trick by Odin? I didn’t care anymore. I threw myself at Herald, my knees crunching into the snow as I slid to the ground.
“You’re okay,” I said. “You’re fine.”
He looked up at me, eyes burning. “What the hell took you so long?”
I blinked at him in confusion, then looked around. There were more of the giant icicles in the distance, just beyond him.
“You did this,” I said softly, my epiphany dawning on me with a mix of dread and awe.
“I spent every last ounce of magic I had left,” Herald said. “I’m so damn tired. What the hell kind of a rescue was this? I wiped out half of Odin’s army myself. Amateurs.”
“Now, now,” I said, patting him on the back of the neck. “You’re just being grumpy because – ”
“Dustin, I love you, but I swear, if you keep talking, I will use what’s left of me to turn you into a human popsicle.”
I shut up immediately.
“Nice outfit,” Bastion said, chuckling.
Herald clutched at the tattered remnants of his shirt, covering himself up. “Die in several fires, Brandt.” Asher knelt by him, examining him for wounds, offering healing magic that Herald gratefully accepted. Good old Asher.
Romira turned to Royce, tugging on his sleeve. “Can you teleport us out of here?”
“No can do. I’ve tried, but something about this place is stopping me. We’ll have to walk back out.” Royce turned in place, taking in the thicket of frozen dead around us, whistling to himself. “Damn, Igarashi. You did all this? Impressive as hell.” He stopped turning, then fixed Herald with an incredulous look. “Is that why it’s so cold? Is that why the ground is so slippery? Did you actually try to freeze this entire dimension?”
Herald gave Royce a reproachful glare, but I could tell that he was holding back a proud smile and trying not to look so pleased with himself. I scooted closer, meaning every word I spoke next.
“You really did all this, didn’t you? I’ve – I’ve never been more attracted to you.”
“Cute,” Herald grumbled. “But now’s not the time. We have to deal with him.”
I followed Herald’s finger to where he pointed, then groaned. There, resplendent in a massive suit of gleaming armor, was Odin, no longer a truck driver, but leader of Asgard, the patriarch of the glorious Aesir, the true All-Father. In his hand was his sacred spear, Gungnir, taller than a man, sharper than anything.
He took two steps towards me, and the earth trembled as his greaves struck stone. I leapt to my feet, puffed up my chest, and slowly inhaled a massive breath. Look him in the eye, I thought. Be brave.
“This one put up quite a fight,” Odin said, nodding at Herald. “Best you discern that he isn’t descended from frost giants. I’ll have to wait for so many of my men to thaw out.”
“Very funny,” Herald snarled.
Odin turned to the rest of us, glowering. “So. The humans come to collect their own.”
“It’s what we do,” I said. “We stick together, because we’re all we have. Why did you take him?”
“Pride and purpose, little fool,” Odin said, his shadow growing longer across the wall. “You simpering mortals need to learn your place, thinking you can just stomp into the domain of gods – of the All-Father himself – to make demands. I should cut out your tongue. Do you remember, once, when you called upon me to beg for my aid against the Eldest? Your request was foolish and brazen, and now – ”
“Now they’ve sent their strongest servant to deal with us. No, servants. Thirteen manifestations of one of history’s most powerful witches is roaming the earth, doing who knows what. Tiamat herself refused to help, along with all the other Great Beasts.”
Odin bared his teeth and bellowed, his beard trembling. “Fenrir, Jormungand? Fafnir? You consorted with Loki, and now you’ve communed with the Great Beasts? The heralds of the apocalypse themselves?”
“Then will you listen now? Even those who were fated to end the world won’t lend us their aid. What about you, All-Father? You said so yourself. You told me never to call on you again, unless the world was ending. Well, that’s what’s happening now. Agatha Black is loose, and in no time she’s going to shatter the walls between this world and the next. The Old Ones will come, and they will consume us all.”
I’d never seen so much anger contained in one man, so much rage etched into the wrinkles on Odin’s face. “Let them come,” he growled. “The All-Father will destroy them all. If Ragnarok is upon us, then so be it.”
“This is worse than Ragnarok,” I said. “This is the end of all things. Of all of us.”
Odin cast me one final, furious glare, then turned away. “Take your betrothed, little mortal, and leave this place. Keep your hound, too. I never wish to hear your panicked bleating ever again. The next word you speak against the All-Father shall be your last. Leave.”
My body lurched forward in protest, but Herald grabbed me, gripping me by the arm. Herald didn’t need to say anything. It was time to shut up, to turn and go.
With his back turned to our party, Odin lifted one gauntleted hand, then slammed the butt of his spear into the ground. A flash of light sparked from Gungnir’s point, triggering a strange reaction in the world around us. The darkness wavered, then receded with a quiet hiss, the sound of sand slipping down an hourglass.
I gripped Herald’s wrist tight. As the shadows parted, I didn’t want to believe the convenience of where we’d ended up: back in the Boneyard, of all places. We were on the stone platform the guys and I used to practice our abilities, our makeshift magic dojo.
Mason looked around himself, marking each of us off on his fingers. “Is everyone present and accounted for?”
“Think so,” Asher said. “We should go find Carver. Tell him we’re safe.”
“Well, now this has to be a trick,” I said. “Are we sure this isn’t an illusion?”
Herald groaned. “I barely care anymore. I need a coffee, and a hot shower, and a change of clothes.” He gestured at himself. “Look at the state of me. I’m like a really bad stripper. Like, with no budget for a decent costume, even.”
I shrugged. “It’s kind of hot.”
Herald gla
red at me. I was glad – and lucky, let’s be honest – that he was fully out of magic.
But before anything else, we headed to the break room slash living area, to announce our presence, but also to check on that massive breach that Banjo – nope, sorry, that Odin had created. I wasn’t about to blame that on Banjo, even though he did sort of bork a hole in reality all on his own. I was sure Carver was mad about having to renovate his domicile, but in a way, I could imagine him being proud of his little obliterator.
We found Carver there, twin discs of amber fire rotating from his palms as he waved his hands across the Boneyard’s abyss. It was strange seeing the breach. The hole wasn’t exactly closed up in the conventional sense. It only looked as if a sheer veil had been thrown over the gap into the outside world, so that the street looked a little murkier from where we stood. Prudence was helping out, contributing her own stream of blue magic to the cause.
I sidled up to Gil, who was watching from the back of the kitchen. He scratched the back of his head. “We woke up late,” he mumbled. “Sorry we didn’t get to join you.”
“No harm done,” I said, clapping him on the back.
Sterling sidled up to me from somewhere in the dark, draping an arm across my shoulders. “Technically speaking, I shouldn’t even be awake. Bloodsucker and all.”
I chuckled and untangled myself from him. “I said it was cool. Don’t worry about it.”
Within minutes any of our mage friends who still had reserves of arcane power left were helping Carver, rebuilding the walls of our home with prismatic rays of magic. I was content to watch for a little while, then remembered that I had to march Herald straight to a shower, and probably let him take my bed for the next few hours. Poor guy needed some rest. I turned to tell him so, only to find that he was across the room, snoozing on the couch. I hadn’t noticed him drifting away for a nap.
Then who was the faceless man standing next to me?
I scrambled away, just far enough to put space between us. I hissed in pain as, on instinct, the palm of my hand ripped open, Nightmare spurting from the Dark Room and into our reality. My blood trailed down my fingers as I readied my blade to confront the intruder.