by Raythe Reign
Liam squeezed without remorse. He wanted the thing beneath him dead and gone. But that throat that should have been easy to crush, was resisting him. Worse, his hands began to feel terribly weak as if he was a doll make of sand and his sand was running out. Black spots appeared before his vision. He tried to pull his hands away, but couldn’t. The Gash grinned its black-tooth grin, and Liam saw his hands turning bone white. This was what happened when the Gash devoured a Valkyrie.
“You’re giving me back all that Thor took away, foolish boy,” the Gash chuckled.
“Liam!” Cameron shouted, recognizing his distress before anyone else. “He needs help!”
“Let go of her, Liam! Get away!” their mother shouted.
“I — I can’t!” Liam cried.
“Thor! Help him! I can’t keep the barrier up if I move!” Cameron shouted.
But even Liam could see that Thor was having problems of his own. All of Loki’s attention and power was aimed at keeping the doorway to the Beyond open and letting nothing escape. Cameron’s ice shield had been protecting the Aesir, but now it was completely eaten away as the eye of the storm narrowed and concentrated on destroying that area where the doorway was. The storm was howling like it was a living thing. Thor was using Mjolnir to keep the sand from scouring him and Loki.
I’m on my own.
In a last desperate attempt, Liam tried to bring the lightning as he had before, but without the focus of his own hammer, it sputtered. Terror thundered in his blood. But it wasn’t fear for himself that caused the greatest surge of adrenaline. It was the thought of Cameron seeing him die for a second time. Lightning leaped from his fingers and caused the Gash to arch up. He took that moment to break free. His hands left that grimy skin. The thrill of success filled him as he staggered to his feet, but he was weaker than he’d realized and immediately fell back. And now the Gash was on top of him.
“You’re not getting away so easily!” The Gash gibbered.
Drool dripped from those rotten lips and would have dripped down into Liam’s mouth if he hadn’t turned his head to the side. It still slid over his cheek and down his neck. His gorge rose and it was only through an extreme act of will that he did not sick up all over himself then and there.
Cold and grayness started to affect his vision as all the warmth left his body and flowed into the Gash. It’s hands were on his neck, squeezing and releasing, a parody of a massage. Liam heard Cameron screaming his name. But he couldn’t respond. That was when he caught a glint of his hammer just underneath the car to his right. With all the strength he had in him, he extended his arm to it. His fingers crawled along the asphalt one painful inch at a time.
The hilt! Where is the hilt?
He felt stones and glass and the slick slide of a discarded and crushed paper cup, but then he felt the metal handle under his middle finger. Hope flowed into him for a moment faster than the Gash was draining him. He extended his arm as far as it would go. His fingers brushed that handle. He caught it for a moment and dragged it a few precious centimeters closer to him. His vision was going black. He had no sense of any of his other limbs any longer. The Gash was humping his chest as if aroused as it drained the life right out of him. He didn’t hear if it said anything. Every sound, every sight, everything but the hammer’s handle was faint as if it were going away.
His fingers curled around the hilt and he dragged it out from under the car. With his last strength, he brought it up and smashed the hammer against the side of the Gash’s head. It wasn’t much of a swing, but it was unexpected and the Gash half toppled off of him. That gave Liam the chance he needed. He managed to crawl a foot away even as the Gash grabbed at him again.
But then there was a sight above him that he would never forget.
Cameron was standing there above the Gash whose back was to him. His little brother’s arms were raised, with this dagger in his hands. His eyes burned gold like Loki’s did. It was a light that was unearthly. His little brother’s beautiful face was transformed by rage and fear into something terrible and yet still lovely. Liam saw the madness there, too. Nipping at his little brother’s mind.
“You won’t take him from me again,” Cameron hissed and brought the dagger down.
It hit the Gash’s shoulder right where the neck and shoulder met. The dagger sank in up to the hilt. It sliced through the Gash’s flesh and bone as if they were butter that had been heating in the summer sun. The Gash froze for a moment as if not sure what had happened exactly. Cameron tugged the blade out. The blade itself was glowing like the sulfurous fires of Hell.
Black blood started to pour out of the wound and more blackness started to extend from that opening in ribbons. They trailed down the exposed shoulder and up the Gash’s neck. It let out a shriek then and tried to turn around and bat Cameron away. But his little brother easily danced out of reach and then slammed the dagger home again. This time Cameron stabbed it in the back. The Gash howled and tried to buck Cameron off. But his little brother hung onto the dagger and started to carve the Gash’s back open right near the spine.
The screams Liam would never forget. They seemed to scratch down his very bones. But none of it stopped Cameron. It didn’t even slow him down. He continued to dig that dagger deep into that body and rip along the Gash’s spine. The flesh parted and black blood just poured out, filling the entire area that was being shielded from the storm. A whole lake of blood. There was so much of it. Too much compared to what that frail, rotted body could hold. But it kept coming.
Liam’s strength was returning. He’d pulled himself out from under the Gash. His arms were up against his chest and he could feel them again. He was still numb in places and all his body wanted to do was curl into a ball and sleep for days, maybe even weeks. He was shaking as if with a fever.
I have to do something. Not even Hel’s dagger will destroy the Gash! And I can’t let Cameron keep doing this terrible thing, even if it’s warranted.
Liam didn’t want his brother haunted by causing a death. Cameron already had too much darkness clawing at him. It was as if madness had chosen his little brother for a dance partner and was always waiting in the wings to take him for a spin. Killing the Gash would give madness more opportunities to do just that.
“Cameron!” their mother suddenly called.
Liam’s head snapped towards the sound. He had forgotten about Mary. But she hadn’t forgotten about them. She was the one that was holding up the ice barrier.
She has powers like Cameron does. Then he amended that, But hers aren’t as strong!
She confirmed that as she collapsed on her knees. She was holding both hands heavenward. Icy blue was rising up from her palms, but the stream was becoming intermittent and the ice was starting to crack under the ferocity of the storm.
“Cam, go! Go help her!” Liam cried as he got to his feet. His legs shook at first, but then he steadied them.
“But, Liam, you need me! I won’t let it hurt you! I won’t let it take you from me!” Cameron objected. His hands were drenched in black blood. Spatters of it decorated his beautiful face and fair hair. He’d stopped though in his terrible cutting and the Gash lay on the ground moaning and feebly thrashing.
Liam reached up and tucked a curl behind Cameron’s ear with a trembling hand that he forced to firm. Lightning suddenly danced up and down his hammer, illuminating them both in ghostly blue light. “Go. I’ve got this.”
Hel’s knife flickered like a living flame in Cameron’s hand and Liam worried that it was calling to him to keep cutting. But Cameron nodded. One touch from Liam and the madness had retreated.
“I love you,” Liam said and put every ounce of his love into those words and the madness seemed almost banished.
A small, tentative smile crossed Cameron’s lips. “I love you.”
Cameron kissed him almost brutally, before he reluctantly parted from Liam, and jogged over to their mother. One last longing look at Liam and Cameron clasped hands with their again. Mary was able
to get to her feet in a moment and the ice shield not only firmed, but grew slightly.
Liam looked down upon the Gash. The wounds were not closing. Blood was dribbling out of that broken body in a myriad of places. But Liam didn’t make the mistake of thinking it was safe to touch it again. He hefted his hammer and let the lightning fill it. He would hit the Gash to the doorway into the Beyond.
He looked up at Thor and Loki. The ice shield was completely gone around them and Thor was swinging his hammer by the cord at the bottom rather like the character in the Marvel movies did when he took flight. But instead, the movement was keeping the sand at bay and the cars. The ones that had beset them earlier were nothing compared to what the Gash had unleashed now. Cars were flying down at the Aesir one after another as if they were leaves on the wind. They would find Thor’s wind vortex and fly away, but if the Thunder God ceased his swinging for a moment there would be a dozen vehicles piled on top of him and Loki.
Liam gritted his teeth. I can do this. I can.
With a throaty growl, he used his hammer as if it were a baseball bat. Lightning exploded out of it as if it were the ball he was hitting. That ball of lightning struck the Gash and lifted it up into the air several feet and sent it tumbling end over end towards the opening to the Beyond. Liam felt hope springing up in his chest after that. It had worked! He didn’t take even a second to relish that fact before swinging again and again, moving closer to the doorway and the beleaguered Aesir, with every hit.
“You’re doing it, Liam! You’re doing it!” Cameron called, his voice filled with admiration. “Just a little farther.”
Liam swung again and the Gash’s body went up and fell down just outside of the doorway. One more hit and it would be inside, except that he couldn’t make that blow. Only Mjolnir could do it.
“I will finish this, Liam!” Thor thundered and he prepared to make a frantic blow to the Gash while he still kept the cars from crushing them.
But, just then, the Gash’s hands - more like claws - shot out and grabbed Loki by the throat. The Trickster God had been deep in the middle of his chanting. That caused Loki to pause a moment and the doorway shimmered.
No!
Thor echoed those words out loud, “No! Get away from him!”
Thor tried to send a bolt towards the Gash, to get it away from Loki, but this interrupted his swinging of Mjolnir just as a massive panel van was falling down upon them. Thor sent up a lightning bolt to send it spinning away into darkness, but the front end of the van clipped his shoulder. Mjolnir went flying from his hands as Thor was sent sprawling in the opposite direction, deep into the storm.
Only Mjolnir can send the Gash through the doorway into the Beyond!
But Thor was nowhere to be seen. The Gash was clawing at Loki. The doorway was falling out of existence. Liam knew that only Thor was supposed to be able to wield Mjolnir, that no one and nothing else could lift it, but he had to try.
Please, Odin, help me. I don’t want this power for myself. I will give it up the moment the Gash is finished, but please grant me the strength to wield Mjolnir just this once!
For a moment, he thought he saw a raven form in the storm, but then it was gone. He grabbed the short handle of the Thunder God’s hammer and prayed as he tried to lift it up. The hammer rose easily in his hand.
Liam stared stupidly at it for a moment. But then he heard Loki’s strangled gasp and saw the Trickster God had fallen back and the Gash was attempting to get astride him.
“No,” Liam intoned, his voice hardly sounding like his own, but one with the authority of the gods.
He extended the hand that held Mjolnir towards the Gash. Lightning flew from it as if it were an extension of himself. It hit the Gash’s side and sent the thing flying off of Loki. The Gash lifted its head to look at him. Shock was written there as it took in the fact that he had Mjolnir. Liam was wreathed in lightning. He could feel so much power. The power of the very earth and sky were his to control.
“You do not belong here. You will leave,” he said, his voice booming.
The Gash stood directly in front of the doorway. He saw Loki extend a hand to stop the doorway from disappearing.
“Now, Liam! Now!” Loki choked out.
Liam extended the hammer again and a bolt so pure hot-white that it blinded him with its brilliance leaped from the hammer and hit the Gash square in the chest. He felt more than saw the Gash pass through the doorway, which Loki promptly snapped shut. The connection between the Beyond and the Realm of Midgard was closed.
The silence was the first difference that made Liam realize that the Gash was really and truly gone. The storm had ceased the moment that Loki had closed the doorway. The darkness started to clear from the sky. Sand began to sift down from the air onto the ground almost like a light snowfall.
The ice shield suddenly ceased to be and he felt his little brother’s arms flow around him. Cameron was suddenly there in front of him, blocking his view of the empty space where the doorway to the Beyond had been. He would later wonder if, just before he had sent the Gash inside, had he seen something slip out. But he did not think too long on that at the moment. They had succeeded in destroying the Gash.
“You did it!” Cameron was laughing and crying. His face was still speckled with black blood, but his blue eyes were as clear as a summer sky. He gently put his hand on the arm that Liam still had outstretched towards where the Gash had been. Cameron slowly pushed that arm and the hand that held Mjolnir down to his side. “It’s done, Liam. You did it. You sent the Gash into the Beyond.”
“Are you …” Liam swallowed. His voice still sounded eerily sonorous, but when he spoke again, he sounded more himself, “Are you okay?”
Cameron gave him the fondest look and kissed him. “I’m more than okay. It’s over.”
His little brother clung to him and Liam rested their foreheads together. He just allowed himself to breathe.
“Wait! Mom! Thor! Loki!” Liam cried. “Are they all right?”
“Surprisingly, yes,” their mother said, hobbling into view. She looked worse than what he’d seen from before. The incoming sunlight showed the terrible scrapes and cuts and bruises far more clearly. But she was smiling and her eyes were clear from shadows, shadows he hadn’t even realized were there. She came over and hugged them both. “I’m so proud of you both. My boys. My good boys.”
Cameron surprised them both when he kissed her temple. “You weren’t so bad yourself, Mom.”
She let out a chuckle. “I do try.”
“But what about Thor?” Liam asked, his heart thudding hard in his chest.
“He is fine,” Loki’s droll voice rose up. “He doesn’t consider it a true battle unless he gets banged up a little bit. He’ll go on and on for ages about the bravery he showed today. Trust me. He will tell this tale forever and each time the story will get a little large. It won’t be a panel van in the end, but a dragon that bowled him over.”
Out of the lessening gloom of the parking lot, said panel van - or future dragon - was sent flying and a massive blonde giant stood up on tree trunk sized legs. Thor loped towards them, evidently none the worse for wear, which Liam was extremely glad to see.
Thor’s gaze swung first to Loki, who was standing on trembling limbs, a weakness that the Trickster God immediately tried to hide. But Thor went over to him even as he scanned Liam, Cameron and Mary for injuries. He put a protective arm around Loki, to help the Trickster God stand. Loki’s expression was interesting to see. On the one hand, he appeared annoyed as Hell, but on the other, he looked touched. He evidently had decided on touched as he rested his head on Thor’s broad shoulder.
“You did it! All three of you!” Thor said, his voice filled with pride, as he gazed at Liam, Cameron and Mary.
“Only three of them did this? I suppose holding the doorway to the Beyond open for a damned long time is nothing then?” Loki narrowed his eyes.
Thor grinned at him, completely unrepentant. “I would expect not
hing less from you, but these are our child … our family.”
Liam saw both Cameron and Mary’s foreheads crease. Neither of them knew that Cameron and him were the “spiritual”, if not physical, children of Loki and Thor. That would to be explained. At another time.
Liam stepped forward, extending Mjolnir to Thor. “I believe this is yours.”
If he thought that Thor was going to be angry that he had wielded Mjolnir, he was wrong. Thor looked … teary eyed. Liam was almost afraid that the Thunder God might call him “son” and embrace him in front of all and sundry. The embracing was fine, but the title would cause too much consternation. He took Mjolnir from Liam and put it back through the loop on his belt.
“So I guess that part of the mythology that only Thor can wield Thor’s hammer is actually myth then?” their mother asked.
“Oh, no, it’s true,” Loki answered, a smile pricking at the corners of his mouth.
“Odin granted me a boon. He allowed me to wield the hammer just this once to end the Gash,” Liam explained. He was certain that this was true.
“Only one worthy may wield Mjolnir,” Thor corrected him, tears sliding down his cheeks that Loki quickly wiped away. “Odin could not make you worthy. You had to be all on your own, Liam.”
Liam looked down, cheeks suddenly burning, and scuffed the ruined parking lot with one foot. Cameron squeezed him and said softly into his ear, “You’re a hero. I always knew it, now everyone does, too.”
Liam drew Cameron fully into his arms again and held him tightly while kissing him fiercely. Their mother stepped a little ways away and Liam thought that she was studiously ignoring their affection. He did not stop kissing Cameron though. He had made his choice. He hoped she would come to live with it. Loki, however, could not leave things alone.