In that moment, as he looked down at her, the look on his face slowly transformed. From anger to frustration to lust, while his eyes roamed over her body. “You really are a pretty little thing, aren’t you? Never said anything about that when he sent me after you.” The flickering leer in his eyes began to gleam.
The words rattled loosely out of her, as if she had no control whatsoever. “Please…please, don’t. Please, I’ll give you anything. I have money, I have some money, it’s all yours...just…please don’t…” Celine panted, her chest so tight she couldn’t push air in quickly enough. The rising moon turned the man into a hulking, black shadow. She was smothering. She’d scream. She should scream, but she couldn’t even breathe. When he slapped her, harder, she thought, than he intended, she felt his excitement ramp up a notch. She knew the effect violence had on men. How it changed them, how it made them bolder. And she knew what would come next.
She dodged to the left, feeling the skittering of pens and pencils beneath her feet as her tennis shoes slipped and slid. Maybe, she thought wildly, I can pick them all up later, after. Maybe, if I’m lucky.
When he caught her and tore her shirt down the middle, she fought back, hands and fists grappling against, over, with each other. He was taller and bigger, but she slashed a hand across his face, felt her nails tear across his cheek, saw the furrows they left just under his eye, the bloom of crimson in the dark. He caught her and pulled her farther in. Then she couldn’t see his features, nothing except blackness and his horrible, wheezing breaths, wet against her face.
“I was supposed to take you back to your apartment, first. You were supposed to give me something, you little bitch. Man never told me what you looked like, though…” The words ended in a rush of air as Celine brought her leg up, felt his soft flesh crush beneath the force of the blow as she drove that knee hard into him. He sagged against her, trapping her between his body and the wall, but she wormed her way out, intending to run, meaning to run, but instead she slipped and fell. Crawled.
It wasn’t fair. Her body was betraying her, exactly like her mind had.
Run, you stupid things, she yelled at her legs. Get up and run, before it’s too late.
Behind her, she heard movement, the man grunting then cursing. Flipping over, she pushed up onto her elbows and scuttled backwards like a crab, watching in horror as the man fumbled the gun out of his pocket. He pushed off from the wall, fell almost on top of her and laughed, right before he pressed the cold barrel to her head and pulled the trigger.
Then all Celine felt was the bullet as it tore through her head.
Chapter 4
Fenrir finally found the moon.
It was night when he woke after the cluster in Odin’s Throne Room. Granted, he was buck naked and chained to the wall of his room, but at least it wasn’t raining. Bad thing was, the moonlight was streaming in on the other side of the chamber, and he was sitting in the dark. Ripping the heavy chains from the wall he strode over until he was bathed in light. The ethereal, silvery light felt like a benediction. He fell to his haunches, letting the coolness wash over his smooth, golden skin, the rays play between his fingers, on the backs of his eyelids.
And left his physical body behind as he went to find peace in the Otherworld.
Tyr cracked the door open when he heard the chains break apart, not wanting a repeat of the shitstorm that had gone down hours before in the Great Hall. Partly because there was a side of him that actually felt bad for the bastard, but mostly because he always got stuck cleaning up the mess.
“Is he changing or what?” Thor waited at least twenty yards down the hall, far enough to sprint for safety should the occasion call for it. One would think with the title “God of Thunder” he’d have bigger balls, but the wolf brought out the pussy in everyone, it seemed.
“Naw, he’s gone to his happy place, he’s fast asleep, just needed to get over into the light is all.” Tyr closed the door on Fenrir’s crouching, still form. Checking twice to make sure it was locked. And ran a finger over the runes that kept them all safe.
“’Bout time. Thought we’d be out here forever.” Thor started down the steps.
“Take the elevator.”
“And waste a year of my life? No thanks. You fix it, I’ll use it. So who’s on for tonight?”
Plans for the coming night eddied in Tyr’s head as he gave Thor a quick rundown. “You and me, north end, Vali and Loki have the west, if Loki’s worth a shit now that he’s back from his honeymoon.” Thor snorted. Which meant he wasn’t at all happy about this new arrangement either. Mortals living in the Tower? Total disaster in Tyr’s opinion. Mortals and gods didn’t mix, you were asking for trouble.
Tyr went on while they navigated the spiraling stone stairway, “Odin insisted on going out tonight too. Heard him and Freyr are taking the south. Don’t know how that’s going to go.”
Thor smirked. “No? I can tell you. It’s going to be a cluster. Odin hasn’t been out on the streets in… Well, he’s never been out on the streets. So we’re going to be, what, backup?”
“Best case, yeah, worst case, we’re clean up. Thank the gods we haven’t seen a demon in months. But we have to keep looking. No telling how long this peace is going to last. Besides, with Fenrir out, we’ve lost our secret weapon. So now, it’s knives instead of teeth.”
“Lotta good that’ll do us.”
“Your mouth to a god’s ear.” Tyr’s rough growl reverberated off the walls.
“Is that blasphemy I hear?” Thor grinned, “Father would be so displeased.”
Tyr laughed, but it sounded forced. “Not from my mouth brother, not from my mouth. Besides, that’s gods, plural.”
With a relieved sigh, Fenrir unleashed the beast. Finally, the monster was free, running in the Otherworld.
Okay, he maybe wasn’t running, more like floating, but he was loping though the Otherworld and the moon was shining overhead and he felt great. Greater than he had in a while. Except…there was something niggling on the edge of his mind, like an eyelash in your eye, or a skip in a record, and you’d almost let it go except it comes back at the craziest times to annoy you. There was…something not quite right about his favorite place in all the realms.
Usually this world was relaxed and chill, which was the feeling he took back with him to the real world. The euphoria usually lasted, like any good vacation, for a couple of weeks before it started to wear off, and then real life wormed it’s way back in, and the beast started clawing its way back out. Then Odin called him to the hall for a face-to-face, after which shit went south, and he ended up chained to the wall in his fucking room in the dark.
Fenrir shook his big, shaggy head. “Not this time.”
What the hell was different? Moon? Check. Mist? Check. Feeling of calm? Negatory. So why the hell did he have all the right ingredients and not the ooey, gooey cookie at the end? In the Otherworld, there are all kinds of creepy stuff to avoid. Stuff he’d never let bother him, because, well, let’s face it, he was the biggest and baddest of them all.
Usually, even the worst of the evil creatures went screaming away from him.
But tonight, something was drawing him in. Like gravity, it had this definite, beckoning pull. A destination to be reached. He sure as hell couldn’t ignore it. So he loped onward through the mist, past the ghosts and dead, rotting things until his paws hurt, and he almost wished he’d stayed chained to the goddamned wall of his room.
Further in than he’d ever ventured before, he picked up the scent. Like…snow, it had a clean, crisp edge. Beneath that, he smelled woods, fresh bark and new leaves and spring rains. Lifting his head higher, he pulled in a deeper breath. Something was here, and it smelled sweet. Nothing here smelled like that, which meant…
Fen began to gallop, the mist and fog swirling in his wake, far past his happy place and into a place that started to smell and sound like a place he did not want to be. He heard the river before he saw it, knew at the end of that waterway lay the
Underworld, and he sure wasn’t going back there.
But on the opposite edge of the river, in the muck, all huddled down in a pile of shredded clothing, lay a girl. From his vantage point, he couldn’t really see her face, only a pale smudge marked by two dark eyes that watched the inky black water twist past her into the shadowy beyond. She staggered to her feet, rags trailing down a frail body. “Don’t look at the water,” Fenrir called, roaring as loud as he could, but the water roared up over him. He wouldn’t put it past Hel to be doing it on purpose, just so he couldn’t warn the girl.
So he roared louder. “Don’t look at the river, look at me, over here, look at me.” But the louder he roared, the more the water churned until it drowned out everything in the world around them. The girl’s eyes cast about as if searching for the source of all this noise before finally fixing on him as he paced frantically across from her. “Yes, that’s it, look at me.”
Fenrir smiled, but it was a wolf’s grin on a monster’s face, full of teeth and danger, and she froze, instantly, as prey does to make itself invisible. “I won’t hurt you. I’m coming to get you.” Quickly, he padded into the water and waded across. The water was as cold as he remembered, grasping at him with powerful eddies, his long claws scrambling to find purchase on the slick rocks underneath. When he emerged, dripping and hugely monstrous on the other side, the girl backed away a step, her face as white as paper.
She was small, delicate, possessing a fragile perfection the like he’d never seen. But her face was strong, set with eyes of such luminescent gray, they reminded him of tidal pools, and when they focused on him? Something hummed in his very blood. There was an awareness there he’d never experienced before. As if with a glance, she stripped him bare, straight down to his bones. Her elfin face was framed by a fall of tangled white hair, but he was drawn back to that perfect, captivating face. The strength of it, the sheer force of it.
When she shoved the hair impatiently out of her eyes, not a shred of fear on her face, it was only in order to see him better. She was almost dainty, half covered in torn clothing, mud caked all over her. Yet a princess, all the same. Alone, here at the edge of the world. And more surprisingly, very much alive. Fenrir cocked his head, catching her subtle scent, drifting over the primordial fumes of the river.
He’d never spoken to anyone in this world.
But then again, he’d never seen anyone alive in this world.
“It’s not safe here, on this side, but I can protect you on the other bank. I’ll take you across to where it’s safer.” His words, thoughts, whatever these were, hung in the air between them for a moment before she cautiously answered back.
“If I do go, what happens then?” She didn’t smile, and for some reason he wanted to see her smile.
“Nothing, you’ll be safe. It’s dangerous over here, on this side.”
“I have news for you, wolf. It’s not safe anywhere.” Her words were accompanied by a doubtful glance to the black water churning a few feet away. Nevertheless, she stepped closer and slipped her arms around his neck, twisting her hands into his fur. He felt a chill go through him, as if something was about to go very, very wrong, even though he was trying to do everything right.
Trying to keep his voice playful, Fenrir teased, “How do you know I’m a wolf?” In this place, he never felt sure he even had a body, only the barest suggestion of form. He assumed he was a specter-like presence, abiding here with the rest of the dead.
“Because I see you, plain as day.” Those gray, somber eyes didn’t so much as blink. “And you are most definitely a wolf.”
“And still, you’re willing to go with me?” He prodded further, wishing he could see what she saw. He knew he must be monstrous, in this form, but to leave her here, in the mud, so close to his sister’s realm? The things Hel would do to her… As a shudder shook through him, she ran a gentle hand through his fur, as if to calm him. Her fingers brushed his skin, a cold caress.
Yet, a trail of heat in their wake.
“Well, you might be a wolf, and I might not know exactly where I am,” she answered, her voice a husky, tremulous hum that made his blood quicken. “But being with you is better than being alone. Besides, if I’m going to die anyway, one side is as good as the other, right? I’d like to not die all by myself, if that’s okay with you?” Her face had a haunted, knowing smile as she spoke. He shivered, the expression held no lunacy to it, only pure, simple truth.
The girl meant what she said.
“Why do you think you’re going to die?” he inquired, debating whether to ask how she’d gotten here in the first place.
“Because something terrible happened to my real body in a Chicago alley. But my mind brought me here. That’s what this place is, isn’t it?” She cast about, looking at the mists, the water, him. “Where we go to die?” Her head cocked, inquiring, her fingers still woven through his fur.
“How could you possibly know all of that?”
The girl hesitated, chewing her bottom lip. “I don’t, exactly. It’s like my brain knows, but it hasn’t told me yet, so I’m waiting to find out.”
His instincts sparking, Fenrir studied her, that oddly perceptive smile still on her face. “I’m going to carry you over to the other side, and then I’m going to take you out of this place. If you trust me?” She nodded once before tightening her arms, and he waded in, warning her, “Don’t let go, I’ll swim as fast as I’m able, but the water is freezing. Wrap your fingers tighter into my fur.” She weighed nothing, he thought, nothing at all.
When they reached the other side, she clambered onto the bank alongside him, her hand still wound tightly in the ruff of his neck. He chuffed out a harsh breath, spewing water all over the bank. With a start, she yanked her hand from him then scrambled away from him as fast as she could through the mud. Fenrir froze, not wanting to spook her any further. Her gray eyes flared bright with fear. “Where am I?” she demanded, her words almost lost to the roaring river behind her.
Fen stilled. “We’re on the other side.”
“The other side of what?” Turning to face to him, those incredibly aware eyes of hers began to change. All the intelligence, all the cognizance leaching away until they were horribly, completely blank. She reached out a shaking hand, as if to ward him off. “Please, please, whatever you are? Don’t hurt me.”
And Fen knew he had made a terrible mistake.
Chapter 5
Celine wasn’t sure about much.
She didn’t, for instance, realize she was Celine Barrows.
Or her brain had, earlier in the day, short-circuited and caused her enormous embarrassment in a master’s level language class at the University of Chicago.
Or that she’d been attacked and shot and left for dead in a dirty alleyway. She only knew she ached all over, her head was splitting, and if she didn’t get some aspirin pretty soon, she was going to give someone a piece of her mind.
The tread of rubber-soled shoes paused outside the curtain surrounding her bed as Celine called, “Excuse me, Miss?” The nurses treating her were very nice. Or at least they were trying to be very nice, in the way people do when they don’t have time to be nice so they end up going through the motions, which just pisses everyone off, and then no one is very nice to each other at all.
The nurse finally popped a head through the curtain. “Yes, hi… Can I please, please just get some aspirin?” Celine knew she was supposed to be polite. That it was the best way to get things done.
“In just a second. There’s a gal out here with a couple of questions for you first, sweetheart. Another police officer, I told her she could have a few minutes.” The drapes parted like in a play and a woman in uniform with dull, exhausted eyes came and leaned a hip into her bed.
Those tired eyes ran the length of her, from her feet all the way up to her head, pausing for a minute on her face. Something, a flash of anger maybe, tightened her rounded face. “How are you holding up, honey?” Celine reached up, and like before, touc
hed the thick, heavy wadding of bandages on her head with some surprise.
“Good, I guess. Can you find me some aspirin? My head’s killing me.”
“In a second. Can you run me though what happened to you last night? In the alley at the corner of Eighteenth and Ashland? Can you give me a description of what your assailant looked like? Maybe how old? How many? Hair color? Anything?”
Celine thought hard. She tried to remember an alley; she tried to remember last night. It just wasn’t coming. All she remembered were white lights and doctors and right now, which was waking up in this room in this bed and her head hurting like holy hell. “No, I don’t remember anything about an alley. Was there an alley?” The lady cop disappeared, the drapes closed, and then a lot of quiet, fast murmuring. The drapes opened, like this was another act in the play, and the lady cop with the pretty face and tired eyes looked even sadder and told her that yes, there was an alley, and maybe it was better this way and had her sign some forms. Even told her the right name to sign, and then the nurse finally gave her some aspirin and turned out the lights, and Celine tried to make herself sleep.
Sleep made a lot more sense to her than the bright room and the confusing questions did. The idea of sleep calmed her, as if she knew there was something, or someone, waiting there for her. As if in her dreams, she might not be quite so alone.
Before she fell asleep, she tried the name on her lips the sad cop had her sign on the bottom of the papers.
Celine Barrows.
But it didn’t sound right, like it was missing something or it didn’t quite fit right. She was sure this wasn’t her name. Somehow, a girl with a name like that wouldn’t end up in a hospital bed in the middle of the night all alone.
According to the nurse who wheeled her out of the hospital two days later, small guns are sometimes unreliable, especially when wielded by weak men who are bold enough to shoot little girls but not quite bold enough to kill them, and that’s how she ended up with a really bad headache instead of in a pine box. At least that’s what Celine heard her murmur angrily, right before she pressed twenty dollars into her hand and dumped her off into the reception area.
The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 27