by Raythe Reign
Doesn’t matter if they are. There’s an innocent child at stake here. The understanding flowed through her and something else, too. An acknowledgment I have the blood of the Aesir in my veins. I, too, am unnatural, preternatural, paranormal, but … I am also right. I am a monster killer. The blood of gods in my veins gives me power.
Mary put her head down and ran. The distance between them halved. The child looked back, still smiling with that gash of a smile. But when the child saw that she was within reaching distance, the smile died. The head snapped back forward and the child tried running harder, but it was no good. Mary was faster.
A wild feeling of exultation flowed through her. She felt the magic in her blood. She was magic. She lunged forward. Her arms wrapped around the slender chest. They were falling forward. Mary twisted in mid-air so that she would not land on that bird-thin body. It would shatter beneath hers. But what should have been a bone-jarring fall for her was light as air. It felt like the air cushioned her fall. She didn’t even feel the sand beneath her back.
The child thrashed in her arms like a wild thing. She felt tiny fingernails rank down her arms. She knew that they drew blood even through her uniform’s sleeves. But she didn’t let go. Instead, she held onto that child tightly, but tenderly. The child was not what was evil. It was the creature possessing them.
She pressed her mouth against the child’s right ear. “Listen to me. I know you can hear me. I can feel you inside of there. I know you’re scared. I know that you think hiding is the way to go. But it isn’t. Tell me your name.”
The child stilled and for one moment, she smelled a sweet child scent and not the body odor and rotten meat that accompanied the Gash. The voice was a little girl’s then, soft and sweet. If Mary had ever had a girl, she imagined she’d sound just like this as she said, “Florie.”
“Florie, that’s a pretty name, a beautiful name. My name is Mary. I’m a …” She was about to say sheriff, but instead she said, “I’m a child of the Aesir, of thunder and magic. I’m here to help you.”
“It’s so dark,” Florie’s voice was softer, less distinct.
“There’s light, Florie. Follow my voice to it. This is your body. Your light. Your life. The thing inside of you does not belong. You can kick it out,” Mary told her. She smoothed a hand over the bald head. Florie was trembling. She was cold. She had no body fat. She was ill. She was dying. Or would be unless Mary freed her of the Gash.
How did Cameron do it? How did he get the Gash out? He used cold …
Mary closed her eyes. She imagined snow. She imagined icebergs. She imagined … the damp basement cold that soaked into her bones just before she felt the brush of claws on her ankle. She turned that into ice, the ice she felt in her belly when that happened. She took that ice and she imagined it flowing into Florie. It felt like the whole of her was emptying out.
“Don’t be afraid, Florie. The cold will help you,” Mary whispered.
Florie arched up, head and heels digging into Mary’s body. It hurt. The child was light but bony. Florie’s head thrashed back and forth and black froth. It flecked Mary’s clothing and spattered her left cheek. Some of it touched her lips and she had to fight down the need to vomit. She turned her head to the side and gritted her teeth until the urge to retch subsided. She leaned into Mary’s other ear.
“Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Understand that you are not alone. That blackness that’s inside of you is not you and not all there is. There’s light, Florie,” she promised. “There’s so much light.”
Both their breaths frosted over and with one last sudden arch of Florie’s body, black smoke issued out of her mouth and flowed into the sky above them. It joined the rest of the blackness. It seemed to go on forever and Mary was half convinced that the little girl’s body would snap in half from the force of it. She’d heard of people with pneumonia breaking ribs from simply coughing, surely this would break Florie’s little spine. But the girl abruptly sagged against her, letting out one final sigh of breath.
I did it. I made it leave. I can’t believe it! She almost laughed at that, but was too exhausted to move. I saved her!
The black mist that had left her flowed up into the black sky and joined the rest of the darkness. Mary smoothed a hand over her head again. Florie’s head was soft as if covered with down. The child made no movement. Her hands moved down to the child’s chest. She did not find it moving. No rising and falling.
No, no, no, I saved her! I saved her! She has to live! I can’t have used this power only to have it fail!
She knew that was foolish, childish, almost petulant. It wasn’t about her. It was about Florie. Had she waited too long? Had she done too little or not enough?
“Florie?! FLORIE!” Mary shook the little girl.
There was a sudden deep breath from the child and a dry coughing that came low from Florie’s stomach. But that was good. They were strong coughs that wracked her entire little body. But that meant she was alive and strong enough to have them. She kissed the side of the little girl’s face and Florie made a coughing laugh.
“Tickles,” she said. “Tickles, Mary.”
“Good. I’m going to tickle you some more,” Mary laughed. She knew she sounded hysterical. She felt hysterical. And then the rain of sand pelted them both. The storm was almost fully there. They had to get inside. Stay outside and they were dead.
She gently flipped Florie over so that she could look above the top of the ditch and across the parking lot. The one door to the hospital was blocked by the plastic tent, but there were more entrances except those were locked to keep people out. But no one would expect a mad woman to break a window.
She was off the ground and on her feet, holding Florie tightly against her chest. She started to dash across the parking lot, shielding the little girl from the grit that flew through the air like sandpaper. She felt her skin being scouring off her right cheek. Something hot and web slipped down her cheek and off her chin. Blood. She knew it was blood.
She ignored the pain that was like a thousand knives sliding down her face. Florie curled so tightly against her chest that none of the little girl’s skin was visible. Mary was glad of that. Mary squinted her eyes and tried to get to the hospital that was now a completely lost in the gloom. She hoped she was going the right way.
She shouldered her way through the darkness. Her right shoulder leading. Her uniform was beginning to shred. The striking of the sand and pea-sized gravel had caused her to go numb. The back of her neck was just a solid wash of cold pain.
She thumped into something. Was it the wall? God, let it be the hospital wall! But she could already tell it was only waist high. A vehicle. The engine of one. If they got into the car that would be some protection against the sand and wind, but the windscreens were likely blown in and, worse than that, the vents to the car could get clogged with the sand and they could suffocate inside. She had to get into the hospital. She thought that she heard Florie sobbing against her. The little gift was trembling against her.
“Florie, it will be okay,” Mary said, but she doubted her voice reached the young child. It was whipped away by the wind and sand.
She moved along the hood of the vehicle, using her hip as a guide. All of the sudden, the hood was gone and she leaned the other way. The hood was still there, it had just ended. She moved carefully along it and continued forward. When it was gone she felt a trickle of panic. She peered into the darkness. She thought she saw a deeper darkness and hoped that was a window. She moved more quickly from it, but not as fast as she would have liked, but to fall was to die.
The darkness changed as she got closer to it. It was no longer levitating off the ground like a window might, but was touching the sound. It seemed liked was no taller than Mary. She squinted. The cold seemed to get icier. She squinted, but kept moving. To stop was to die also. She had to keep moving.
There were rips in her uniform now. Her shoulder especially felt like was open to the sand and grit. More warm, hot
liquid was dripping down various parts of her body. Her cheek. Her neck. Her shoulder. Along her spine. But nothing stopped her from going forward.
Ever forward. Ever on.
And then, the wind seemed to lighten, the roar lowered, and she could see and hear for the first time in what felt like forever. There was a figure in front of her. Not a window. But even though a figure could not be her savior like the window could have, she initially felt a rush of relief.
“Hello? My name is Sheriff Mary Blake. I’m here to help. We need to get inside. I have a child here and —”
“Mary?” It was a woman who spoke. Her voice sounded like she had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for a very long time.
“Yes, I am Sheriff Mary Blake. I’m here to help —”
“Mary, is that you?” the wheedling tone entered her voice.
Mary’s back straightened. That voice. She knew that voice. But it was impossible.
She’s been dead for years.
The figure spoke again, “Mary, I’ve been looking for you. Have you been hiding? That’s a bad girl to have been hiding from me. That only means a longer time in the basement. A longer time for punishment.”
No … you’re dead … But so was Liam and he was brought back by the Aesir. Could the Gash bring her back?
Florie whimpered. “Not good. Not good. Cold and black.”
She turned her body so that she was protecting Florie from the storm and the figure. And, for the first time, Mary wished that Loki was there. She wished it so damned hard.
“Mary,” her mother whined.
“You’re dead,” Mary said, her voice sounding flat and hard.
“Mary,” her mother laughed at that. Harsh and hacking. “Death is only the beginning.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: MAGIC IN THE BLOOD
As soon as they had scrambled out of dilapidated ranch home with the children, Cameron saw that he had a message from their mother on his phone. As the Valkyrie tried to corral the sick and confused kids, Cameron hit the listen button on his phone and brought it to his ear. Within seconds he felt all the blood drain from his face and was turning towards Liam. His older brother was already looking at him. Liam always knew when Cameron needed him.
“It’s Mom. The Gash is at the hospital. She got cut off,” he said. He tried calling her back, but it went straight to voicemail. He texted her that they were coming. He fat fingered some of the words as his hands were shaking, but autocorrect helped for the first time ever. He pressed send and hoped their mother was still around to receive it.
Liam took Cameron into his arms, but he wasn’t looking at Cameron, but, instead, he was staring over Cameron’s shoulder, back at town. Cameron twisted around, too, and felt ice form in the pit of his stomach. While the sky was a peerless blue here by the ranch, the sky over the city was black as pitch. The darkness was rotating, too, like a gigantic funnel cloud.
“We need to go. We need to go now.” Cameron tugged at his older brother’s arm.
“Right.” Cameron’s wings formed the Valkyrie motorcycle beneath him. Cameron swung his leg over the bike behind his older brother and wrapped his arms around Liam’s taut waist.
“The children!” Nafari cried. “We cannot leave them here! They will die in the state they are in!”
Nafari was down on his haunches helping two of the children sit upright. He pressed a bottle of water to one of their lips. The kids all looked gray and shaken. It wasn’t just from their illnesses, but from the Gash’s possession of them. They had been off their life saving drugs and other treatments for over a day. They had been running all over the countryside as well doing who knew what. Pale, fragile limbs, most times too thin to seemingly hold them, were trembling beneath them now. Lihua, Elda and Thor were assisting with the others. None of the children went near Loki nor did he approach them. He did watch Thor patting a little girl’s head with a kind of detached smile on his face as if he was seeing the Thunder God do something “cute”.
I wonder if he finds it hard to always be so apart, Cameron thought. But he knew the answer. It was and wasn’t hard. None of the children came to him either. It was how he and Loki were. They had their counterparts in Thor and Liam. That was enough.
“Nafari, Elda and Lihua, get the children to safety then join us when you can,” Thor commanded. “We, four, will take care of the Gash in the meantime.”
“We will be with you as quickly as possible,” Elda said with a nod of her head.
Now that everything was settled with the kids, Cameron found his anxiety rising for their mother. “We’ve got to go. It’s like a twenty minute ride to the hospital!”
“Cameron, why ride the highways for minutes when you can cross distances through magical portals in moments?” Loki grinned and suddenly a “hole” in the world appeared ahead of them.
Through the hole they could see the hospital’s parking lot. Blowing sand gushed through the opening and Liam held up a hand to block his eyes. Cameron found himself reaching around his brother, extending one of his hands outwards, fingers outstretched and a clear as glass sheet of ice appeared. It levitated a few feet above the ground, just equal with his and Liam’s faces. The sand blew harmlessly around it and, thankfully, did not stick.
“You’re learning!” Loki laughed. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s end this,” Thor said with a nod.
Liam and Cameron were the first through the portal. The bike rumbled to life beneath them and Liam rode them straight into the heart of the storm. Thor and Loki came quickly after and the portal between the ranch and the hospital closed as if it had never been.
The difference between the two locations couldn’t have been more stark. Where the ranch had been hot and bright, the hospital was as dark as pitch, hard to see, and their breath frosted in front of them and it wasn’t from his ice shield. The Gash was drawing all the warmth from the air and their bodies. Cameron curled tighter against his older brother’s back as he suddenly ached with cold.
Liam slowly guided the bike through the parking lot. The dark shapes of cars, already half buried in sand rose up on either side of them like hills. Cameron peered anxiously inside the darkened windows of the vehicles, but he couldn’t see much. He pounded on some of them and shouted for their mother.
“MOM!” Cameron’s voice whipped back at him and there were no answering poundings.
The one good thing about this “freak” weather event was that most people would have taken shelter immediately and wouldn’t see what was happening. He could almost imagine them telling their kids in later years about the day the sky was swallowed up by a sandstorm of epic proportions and how they had thought they had heard fell voices on the wind.
Cameron found himself reaching for the dagger at his waist that Hel had given him. She was supposed to be the dread queen of the netherworld, but he was feeling pretty damned positive about her at this moment.
She’s watching us right now. Just like the Aesir are, but up in Asgard. We’re not alone, even if they can’t help us more than they already have. They’re rooting for us. I wonder if they know where Mom is? Can they see her?
For a moment, Cameron thought he saw the sand take on the form of a raven by the side of the hospital, but then break apart. He blinked and thought he must be imagining things.
But maybe not.
“Where is she do you think?” He shouted the last into Liam’s ear. His older brother merely shook his head, his eyes still scanning the area ahead of them. “Maybe she took shelter in the hospital? We should check it out.”
That was where the bird had flown. Maybe that’s where she was. Without comment, Liam turned the bike towards the front of the hospital. The sand was now coming at them broadside. Cameron shifted the position of the ice shield and increased its size so that they were more protected. It levitated by their side as Liam manuevered the bike past the sand shrouded cars. He was brought up short as they both saw that a structure made out of flexible metal tubing and white tent-like
material had collapsed in front of the main hospital doors. Unless she had made it inside before the collapse there was no way that she could have moved the heavy material to get inside.
“Let’s regroup with the others. Maybe they’re having more luck,” Cameron said and pointed towards where Thor and Loki stood. He felt an irrational anger that the bird form hadn’t led them anywhere.
Loki’s right arm was in the air, fingers spread wide, and like Cameron, was casting some kind of shield spell. His though was red and spilled down over him and Thor rather like a dome. The Thunder God had Mjolnir out and was studying the sky with a disatisfied look on his handsome face. Loki increased the size of his shield to accommodate them as Liam pulled the bike beside them. Cameron dropped his shield as soon as they were safely inside of Loki’s.
As soon as both of them had dismounted, the bike disappeared and Cameron found himself touching Liam’s back as if to make sure the wings had returned where they should have. He felt nothing, of course, and it was a silly thing to do, but his brother’s wings were sacred things. Liam’s arm went around his waist in response to his touch.
“Loki, can you sense Mom anywhere?” Cameron asked as he turned to look into the storm of sand.
The Trickster God shook his head. “Too much Gash on the wind.”
“Where is the Gash?” Liam asked Thor who was scanning the sky.
“I feel it all around us. Diffuse almost,” Thor grunted out. “Yet it is the core only that has escaped.”
“The core is here. Somewhere,” Loki added. There was this fey half-smile on his lips. “I think we should just start lighting things up and see what happens.”
“You always want to do that.” Thor frowned.
“Yeah, that’s not a good idea,” Cameron objected. “Mom could get hurt if she’s out there and you guys start throwing lightning bolts.”
“Or fireballs.” Loki looked at him pointedly and Cameron lowered his head a little.
“Cam, if she’s out there she likely is already hurt,” Liam said quietly. “We need to get to her.”