Valkyrie

by Raythe Reign

  The three of them hustled into the hallway to the stairwell. They could already hear the battle in the basement. There were sharp, bright flashes of lightning that lit up the basement stairwell as if someone was taking a million pictures with the flash on. It was almost blinding and Liam had to shield his eyes as they plunged down the rickety steps.

  The wood felt soft beneath his booted feet and Liam knew that they could plunge through a rotten step at any moment. His wings though gave him lift and he helped Cameron down the stairs so that they were hardly touching them.

  Once they reached the bottom, the wooden stairs were replaced with concrete. They were in a small antechamber. Liam could see that there were several rooms ahead of them. In the flashes of light he glimpsed crumbling wine racks that lined the walls of the next room and smelled the vinegary scent of wine gone bad, which told him that the owners had used that space as a wine cellar. In another strobe-like flash he saw a slender naked body of a child, with tubes still attached to his or her arms jump over one of the fallen wine racks. They were giggling as if this were a lot of fun. His stomach churned. What would these children remember of what happened to them? What had they done since they left the hospital?

  Elda cried out, “Over there! Two o’clock! There’s one at your two o’clock!”

  There was a burst of lightning and Liam could see Mjolnir light up. A stream of blue-white lightning leaped from the hammer and struck a small figure who gave out a yip like a frightened dog. The lightning then chained onto another figure. There was a scream from that one and a deeper darkness seemed to wiggle out of the children and ooze onto the floor. Three more small figures danced through the light. Liam heard Lihua let out a sharp breath and grab her side.

  “Lihua!” Nafari called.

  “One of them stabbed me with a broken bottle! Watch out!” Lihua cried.

  Liam saw her wrench a broken bottle from her side and throw it to the ground. They had found an open space in her armor and struck. The coppery smell of blood rose over the wine. Though Valkyrie were immortal they still bled on this plane and could be incapacitated. They would regenerate fully upon a day’s slumber, but rarely did skirmishes with the Gash last so long before it went into hiding again. The same was true here. They needed to end this decisively.

  Thor’s hammer once more shot out lightning, but the children were able to avoid it and dance away into the darkness again. There was this awful tittering from all sides. It was a wrong sound to come out of a child’s mouth. Out of any mouth. It reminded Thor of the chattering of skulls.

  “I’m opening the doorway in here. You two need to help the others cleanse the children and then lure the Gash to me,” Loki instructed.

  The Trickster God immediately closed his eyelids and Liam heard the beginnings of that terrible murmuring again. He swiped at his nose subconsciously and quickly led Cameron into the other room away from the sound.

  “Whatever you do, don’t listen to the murmuring,” he told Cameron.

  “Why? It sounds nice,” Cameron said.

  Liam paused. Maybe to Cameron it did sound nice. “Just don’t. It might be able to hurt you.”

  His little brother nodded slowly. Liam was certain he would listen to him though even if he wasn’t completely convinced of Liam’s words.

  “Liam!” Thor called out as soon as the two of them stepped into the middle room. “Cameron, you are all right! Thank the gods!”

  “Thank Loki, you mean,” Cameron said with a grin.

  “Indeed, I do mean that,” Thor agreed with a flash of a toothy smile. But that smile quickly died as there was a flash of child-like limbs running past a doorway to his right.

  Liam realized that there were four doors in this room. One leading back to the stairs and Loki, one to their right, one to their left and one behind Thor. All of the rooms were pitch black except for the light from Mjolnir. Lihua was guarding the door to the right. She was holding her side from where she was injured and he saw what looked like black liquid oozing between her fingers. Nafari had found some cloth to help bind the wound. Elda was in the far room. Her golden hair glimmered as she moved back and forth across the threshhold, trying to corral ghost-like children.

  “They keep moving through these little tunnels. They’re too small for us to get through,” Elda cried as he sagged against the doorframe for a moment. “We’ve over caught a handful of them, but there are so many more.”

  Liam knelt down by the two children that Thor had felled. He checked their pulses. They both still had heartbeats, but they were weak and their breathing came in ragged gasps. Neither had hair and he guessed they both had cancer. Their limbs were wasted to nearly nothing. These children were terribly ill and needed a hospital. If they didn’t end this fight soon, these kids would likely die.

  Liam got to his feet. “Elda, Nafari, Lihua, the three of you go into the rooms and drive the children out here towards Thor and I. Cam, I need you to block the door to Loki. Don’t let them get past you to him. Thor and I have to cleanse them.”

  The others nodded and took their places with the Valkyrie disappearing into the darkened basement rooms while Cameron guarded the door at his back. Liam positioned himself opposite Thor and took out his own hammer. Lightning sparked along Mjolnir as if it recognized the hammer in his hands.

  “Ready to catch some lightning, Liam?” Thor asked and there was this fatherly grin on Thor’s face as if they were playing catch rather than battling a great darkness.

  Liam nodded and felt a surge of electricity go through him and light up his own hammer. Just at that moment, there were childish cries of anger and pain. Suddenly, three children burst out of the room Lihua had disappeared into. Lightning arced from both their hammers, cascading across the room, catching all three children in a web of blue-white sparks. They went down.

  Liam pulled his lightning back at the last minute as he remembered doing at the hospital so that it did not do more than burn the Gash out and now burn the children to a cinder. He saw the blackness leave the children and he sent another blast of lightning after it. One of his strikes caught the pools of liquid black and there was a shriek that seemed to echo from all over as that small bit of black became ashes.

  “Good, Liam! Control the lightning, do not let the lightning control you,” Thor counseled.

  Liam could feel what the Thunder God meant. The lightning surged inside of him like a separate living thing that wanted to simply reach out and destroy. He had to control it carefully or a single strike would become a lightning storm.

  More children, half a dozen, erupted from the room that Nafari was hunting in. They squealed and rolled around on the ground as they were struck by twin bolts of lightning and then went still.

  “There are not many more, I think,” Thor was saying when a little boy, who looked almost feral jumped on his back from the doorway where Elda was hunting.

  Thor reaching back to remove the child as gently as he could, but the little boy snapped at his hands and wound himself tightly in Thor’s cloak rather like a burr. Thor avoided the child’s chomping teeth and gracefully undid his cloak. Child and cloak were sent flying into the center of the room between Liam and Thor. Twin lightning strikes hit the child and he went down.

  “Those are all of them!” Elda cried as she stepped out of her room.

  “How do we do this?” Liam asked Thor.

  “Loki, are you ready?” Thor called.

  It was Cameron who responded. He made a thumbs up signal. “He’s good to go.”

  Liam could now hear the teeth-grinding sound coming from the other room and knew that a door was open to the Between. The Gash could be sent there and would never be able to return if they did this right.

  “Light up the rooms, Liam. Send the lightning out to every space, creating a cage around this house,” Thor instructed as he held up Mjolnir and lightning poured out of the hammer and hit the ceiling. It then spread over the ceiling like water.

  Liam lifted up his hammer and
let the lightning flow through him as well, but he directed his to the ground. The lightning that both of them were generating surged over the floor, the ceiling, and the walls of every room. It stirred the Valkyrie’s wings, changing them from soft white to blue. Cameron’s skin took on a bluish tint as the lightning harmlessly washed over him as well.

  There were strange squeals and shrieks from the other rooms. Almost as if the basement itself were vomiting, blackness poured out of the three doorways. The blackness jumped and hissed and smoked as it touched the lightning. The smell was unbelievable. Something like rancid meat and bubbling asphalt reached his nostrils.

  “Direct the current, Liam! Send it to Loki!” Thor directed.

  Liam tightened his net of lightning around the blackness. He and Thor herded it towards the room where Loki had opened another line into the Between. Cameron quickly stepped out of the way as the blackness surged through the doorway that he had been protecting and hurried for the Between, the one place where the dreaded lightning wouldn’t be able to follow it. The stuff rolled through the door that Loki had created, disappearing into the greater darkness beyond. As the last of it passed inside, Loki let the doorway snap shut.

  All of them stared at where the doorway had been in silence.

  Liam stretched out his senses into the house and he felt none of the oppressive residue of the Gash here. The house seemed clean to him. He took in a deep breath and smelled only dust and old wine. Nothing more.

  Could it be over? Could the Gash really be gone that easily?

  Not that it had been easy exactly, but he thought there would be more hissed threats, more taunts, more … something.

  But the house is clean.

  “Is it really over?” Nafari sounded as uncertain as Liam felt.

  In the light of the still sparking Mjolnir, Liam saw Lihua close her eyes. They all waited in silence then both she and Loki spoke as one.

  “It distracted us,” they said.

  Lihua turned towards Loki. “When it took Cameron it was distracting us from the fact that it moved.”

  “Moved?” Liam asked, his gaze flickering between them all. “How could it do that?”

  “It sacrificed most of itself for us to destroy here, but the core of it remains,” Lihua said, her face white.

  “Well, where is it?” Liam demanded.

  “Mom,” Cameron suddenly breathed, which had Liam snapping his head towards his little brother whose eyes had become twin pools of bleakness. “It’s gone after Mom.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: INTO THE STORM

  Sheriff Mary Blake stood with her hands on her hips in the hospital parking lot. All of the patients had been moved to other facilities. The thought that some strange new illness was lurking within the hospital’s corridors made the hospital administration determined to take no chances. Not to mention some of the best staff had been killed - murdered - which had some wondering if the hospital should ever be opened again. It was tainted. And maybe that wasn’t superstitious nonsense. Mary found that she no longer shied away from the thoughts of the paranormal as if flinching away from a blow. She accepted that it was there.

  I have Aesir in town. Sort of hard to deny with Thor and Loki sipping mead at the local watering hole.

  She took off her hat and wiped the back of one forearm over her forehead to clear the sweat away. Though it was still early morning, the heat was already fierce. Her eyes scanned the parking lot, watching as figures in white suits moved in and out of the hospital. The main entrance had been sealed over with a hallway of white plastic. Though she had broken quarantine no one had suggested that she go back in. Maybe she was never to have been quarantined in the first place, or perhaps the Gash had lied.

  If only it had lied about the other things it said to me.

  She felt a wave of grief go through her about her sons. She could still see them embracing, kissing, looking at each other like …

  Like lovers do and, so help me, I think it was always there. Even when they were innocent children.

  She put her hat back on and adjusted her mirrored sunglasses. Having Liam back was a dream. Seeing Cameron whole again was something she never thought would happen. She should focus on those two things and forget that her two beautiful sons were often lying in each others’ arms, naked, doing things. She shut her eyes.

  Good lord. I can only imagine what they do. And how happy that makes them both. She opened her eyes. I have to find a way to accept this. They won’t stop. No matter what I say. And - though this is terrible to think - no one will actually know they are brothers. Well, except the paranormal beings and I don’t think they care.

  She sighed. She needed to focus on her job. Since she wasn’t quarantined, she had taken over security for the hospital. She dreaded the thought of those children returning, the ones that had gotten away. But she wanted to be here if they did. She knew how dangerous they could be. But she wanted to save them if she could.

  At that moment, she felt a chill breeze skate over the back of her sweaty neck. She was on the very edge of the parking lot with her back to the desert. She had taken this spot so she could have an overview of the people coming in and out of the hospital and to see where help was needed or where children were approaching. She hadn’t considered herself apart or isolated until that wind brushed up against her skin and froze the sweat where it beaded.

  Is the waiting over? Are they back?

  Slowly, she turned to face the desert. The sky had been its normal peerless blue just a moment earlier, but now black clouds were boiling over the horizon and heading towards her at breakneck speed. Her hand went to her gun as darkness rolled over the desert sands and obscured the blue sky.

  “What is this?” she breathed even as she knew what it had to be. The Gash.

  She drew her weapon even though it was useless. She fished with her other hand for her phone. Cameron and Liam needed to know about this. She fumbled to unlock the phone and jabbed at Cameron’s phone number even as her eyes stayed fixed on the oncoming darkness. The phone rang and rang and rang.

  The voicemail answered, “This is Cameron. Leave a message and I’ll catch you back!”

  “Cam, you need to get to the hospital! The Gash is coming! It’s — it’s already here.” Her fingers went nerveless and she practically dropped her phone. The entire sky was blotted out. The mountains were gone. The desert had disappeared. It was only a boiling blackness.

  Then she was spinning away from the desert and towards the hospital.

  I have to get people away from here!

  She was running through the parking lot, dodging vehicles, and waving her hands in the air. She shouted, “Get inside! Get inside!”

  People looked up at her and it was only then that they noticed the blackness behind her. She saw one white-suited figure pop up like a kernal of popcorn in a pot of hot oil. White hands flailed up in an almost comical movement. It would have been comical if not for the terror that was behind that action. She thrust her own arms towards the white plastic hallway.

  “GET IN! GET IN!” she screamed.

  The wind was howling behind her. It sounded like a wolf on her heels. She has no idea if the people could hear her, but they were running towards the hospital so it didn’t matter. The white plastic hallway leading into the hospital collapsed in on itself. There was no way she could get inside. That was when she saw the first child out of the corner of her eye. The child was running along the drainage ditch that lined the parking lot. They were running low, but still had on the pale blue hospital gown that glowed under the darkening sky.

  Mary veered away from the hospital and towards the ditch. She didn’t know what would happen if she was outside when the darkness fully got there, but the same thing would likely happen to the child. She had to try and grab him or her. She’d hustle them into her squad car and then drive and drive and drive.

  Sand peppered her back. It would become like a scouring pad against her skin when the storm got here fully. Fear made her
fleeter of foot. She jumped into the ditch and dashed down it. The child’s head was mostly bald with only a few strands of hair attached. Chemo and radiation had stripped that young body of his or her hair. Their legs were thin as matchsticks. Their arms slender reeds ready to snap at a moment’s notice. There was still a piece of tubing hanging from the right arm. It trailed behind the child like a length of string. She imagined the child a kite. If she didn’t catch the string, the child would rise up and up and up into the black air and be blown away.

  “Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” the child’s singsong, gender neutral voice rang out.

  Her feet ate up the ground between them. The dirty tubing flew backwards and Mary snatched at it, but it blew away from her. The child extended the distance between them. It shouldn’t have been possible. The child was sick, dying, with legs that were half her length though it seemed like they made up three-fourths of the child’s body. Yet the distance between them was growing. Mary’s feet slowed.

  “Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” the child laughed delightedly again.

  The child cast a glance back at her. She saw a face so white it almost looked blue. The veins and arteries could be seen beneath the thin skin that was stretched too tight across birdlike bones. The lips were bloodless. The mouth was a slash. And then there were the black eyes. A terrible giggle erupted from the child that caused a chill to run down Mary’s spine.

  Unnatural. Preternatural. Paranormal. Wrong.

  The child turned away and the paces increased between them. And then she knew, if she kept doing this like a cop this wasn’t going to work. She was never going to be able to run fast enough if she were merely human. She wouldn’t be brave enough to keep going. She would go hide somewhere like she had with her mother. Under the bed. In the closet. Outside the house. Hoping against hope that her mother wouldn’t find her and drag her into the basement where the monsters dwelled.

  The child’s black eyes flashed at her in amusement and said, “The monsters are here.”

  Or maybe she just heard that in her head.