Death's Daughter

by L. A. McGinnis

  The woman at his side paled, right before flushing red.

  “Enough,” Tyr shouted, his voice cutting through the bullshit like a knife. Mir burst out in a foul tirade, Sydney grasping his arm to stop him from going over the table after Hunter, who sat with her arms crossed, a taunting smile pasted on her face.

  Silence to utter chaos. This was Hunter Wallace in a nutshell, Tyr raged silently. She was nitro glycerin. Dynamite. The Black Plague. Okay, that had actually been Hel on a day trip, but still, Hunter had the requisite skill set for total destruction. Even enjoyed it.

  Ignoring her mocking little smile, Tyr attempted some damage control. Leaning in, he hissed, “Stop provoking Mir. Stirring things up does no good.” In response, her smile only widened.

  “Too late for that.” Freyr muttered from the other end of the table among the hum of agreement.

  Fine, if Hunter wanted to play, he could very well do the same. The smile that twisted Tyr’s face was all teeth and no mirth. “But since you feel like you can come in here and start some shit, back up your accusation with more than just words. Sydney’s part of this family. We trust her.” Now his tone turned scathing. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

  They held each other’s eyes for a long, strained moment before Hunter let out a hollow laugh. “Of course. My mistake.” She offered a curt nod to the redhead. “I apologize, Sydney. I was completely out of line.” Leaning back in her chair, she went on, “All I was trying to say is magic always demands a price. Something we all know to be true.”

  Tyr’s gaze narrowed as Hunter continued, “The real question is why the creature is coming back at all? He must have good reason.”

  Lots of uncomfortable looks were exchanged before Loki finally explained, “There is a portal about a mile from here. The Orobus has been using it as a means to move between worlds and to bring his armies forth.”

  Now Hunter was nodding, her expression turning thoughtful. “It makes sense. He’d certainly need more troops. We hit him hard in New York, and he took some serious losses.”

  Keeping his eyes on her face, Tyr laid out the details, curious to how she’d react. “Except it’s more than just a portal. It’s a series of doorways, where each opening leads to a different world. Some of the worlds contain his armies, and from our recon, he’s been breeding millions of them. Which is why we cannot allow him to open up any of those doors.

  “Other doors seem to lead nowhere, and one leads to the prison the Orobus escaped. We cannot destroy them. We’ve already tried, but the explosives didn’t make the slightest dent. They’re protected by the creature’s black magic.”

  A low, dark laugh issued as Hunter shook her head wonderingly. “The dark god created a hub. A central interchange to other realms, here in Chicago. No wonder he’s heading back. My God, once he opens those portals…” She looked to Loki. “You’re certain you tried everything to destroy them?”

  “Threw everything we had at it,” Loki assured her. “When the smoke cleared, the stone circle still stood.” Tyr winced at Loki’s revelation. Hunter Wallace and magical stone circles did not mix well.

  “Wait? Stones?” In a second, her expression changed from thoughtful to furious as her head whipped to Tyr. “You said they were portals.”

  “Which they are. A circle of ancient, standing stones, which are the Orobus’s means of moving between realms. Which is all they are, Hunter. Don’t make this into more than it is.” When Hunter looked like she was about to explode, Tyr shrugged. Even though he knew what Hunter’s issues were with the stones, he had bigger problems to deal with at the moment. Hunter would have to get in line. “The stones are not the issue. The issue is how to prepare ourselves for his forces once they arrive.”

  “And my sister,” Fen pointed out. “Hel will certainly be with him, plenty of her Grim in tow.” Leaning toward Hunter, he asked, “How many Grim would you say they have with them?”

  “About three thousand, give or take,” Hunter answered, her voice dropping. “And maybe two thousand Dark Elves. But if he hits Chicago like he hit New York…”

  “He won’t.”

  All eyes flew to Odin, sloppily propped up in the doorway.

  “How can you be so sure?” Hunter asked, her eyes widening slightly as she took in Odin’s disheveled appearance.

  “Because that’s not his game.” Odin meandered into the room, an empty bottle of scotch hanging loosely from his hand. “He’s toying with us, you see. And where’s the fun in that if you wipe everyone away in one fell swoop?” Searching their faces, then the room, as if he’d never seen them before, his silver eyes were bleary. “This isn’t the liquor room. Where is all the booze?”

  Odin’s normally crisp clothing was stained, his long white hair ragged as he swayed, raising an arm to shield his eyes from the overhead lights. “Where in the name of all that’s holy is the damn scotch?”

  Balder rounded the table and steered Odin back toward the door. “You’re in the wrong corridor and on the wrong floor. And the Lag is all gone. You’ll have to switch to Balvenie.” Balder threw a backward glance to the others that was akin to Gods, give me strength. “Although my guess is, you’re not going to notice.”

  When they’d cleared the door, Hunter posed a question for the room. “It seems obvious. If you know where the dark god’s prison is, then shove him back inside.”

  There was laughter. A few loud snorts. A whole lot of headshaking.

  Tyr watched Hunter’s gaze settle again on Syd. But to his surprise, Sydney was nodding, as if in total agreement. And when Hunter spoke again, her words were directed to the redhead. “She knows that’s the only solution. Get him through the doorway into his prison, then destroy the portal. Send the thing back to hell.”

  “She’s right,” Sydney said, her voice small, her face still flushed pink. “I’ve worked out some possible scenarios, and it’s really the best option.”

  Mir’s voice turned sarcastic, as he leaned in until he and Hunter were nose to nose. “Oh…okay. Well, since you have all the answers, then why don’t you tell me how? How in the fuck are we supposed to cram a primordial god back into his little box?”

  She grinned, and this time, it did reach her eyes. “That’s not my concern. However, once you manage to trap the monster, I will destroy the portals behind him.”

  “Finally, something you’re fucking good at.” Mir’s mutter made her grin.

  “Well...yes.” Hunter’s smile turned sharp. “Something I have experience with, anyway.”

  Mir gritted out, “If you can call almost ending the world…experience.”

  “You are being overly dramatic, Mir.” Hunter waved a dismissive hand. “It was but a…”

  “Face it. You’re a walking time bomb,” Mir muttered.

  “Enough bickering, you two,” Tyr cut in. “Now that we have everyone’s attention, yes, the rumors are true. Hunter is powerful enough to destroy the dolmens. The real trick will be luring the bastard through the correct doorway.” Maybe this would work, after all. He’d been thinking of Hunter as a liability. Maybe it was time to start thinking of her as an asset. He turned to Hunter. “Any ideas?”

  “Several,” she told him, fingers drumming on the table. “None of which you’ll like.”

  “Try me.”

  “Using someone as bait might work.” Her smile turned mocking. “But remember what I said about there always being a price?” Tyr nodded slowly.

  “Maybe this time it’s not only the magic that will demand its due.”

  5

  In the aftermath of Hunter’s pronuncement, a good-natured argument broke out between Freyr and Thor, and Tyr leaned back, letting the banter wash over him. At least the worst had been avoided, and Mir and Hunter weren’t at each other’s throats. Maybe this evening could be salvaged. And maybe Odin had the right idea, after all. “You know what? Let’s eat. And drink.” He pulled over a bottle of bourbon.

  “Especially drink.”

  Catching Hu
nter’s eyes, his throat tightened. There was, for a moment, the slightest flash of something resembling compassion in those penetrating, cat-like eyes. Clearly, he must look like roadkill if she felt anything for him.

  He was halfway through his glass when Celine sidled up next to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thanks for calling Fen back early. I’m glad he’s home.” In response, Tyr shot the big, bad wolf a smile over her shoulder.

  From across the room, he felt the unspoken warning in Fenrir’s blue-eyed stare before the wolf finally turned away, as Loki whispered something in his ear.

  “They’d done all they could do, sweetheart. Besides”—Tyr gave her hand a gentle pat—“he’s better off here. He loves you to the moon and back, Celine.”

  “I know. I love him too. It’s scary. The world’s ending, and I wonder every day how much time we’ve got left.” She turned those depthless eyes to Tyr. “But we have to talk about your friend, Hunter Wallace. She seems like trouble.”

  “You’re not wrong, sweetheart, she’s definitely trouble. But she’s not exactly…my friend.” He evaded as Celine slipped in beside him.

  “I know. I had a dream about you two, a couple weeks ago.” She leaned her elbows on the table, her gaze flipping between him and Hunter. “I saw you standing together on a field of blood. I knew who Hunter was, before she even showed up today.”

  “You couldn’t have seen her. How is that even possible, Celine?”

  “Sydney and Mir have this theory. They believe the Orobus created a new dimension when he came through and bent the magnetic fields. I’m able to go there, because he opened it up when he and I were connected psychically. Now I sometimes have visions.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “I don’t like it.”

  She smiled sadly. “And, I should point out, Fen likes it even less.”

  Well, if that didn’t give him the heebs, Tyr didn’t know what did. “So Odin’s gone blind, but you’re having visions?”

  She nodded, gaze turned downward, hands clasped in her lap. “Yup. Except I’m not sure what I’m seeing until it actually happens, if you know what I mean?”

  Tyr didn’t even know what to do with this. But if Celine had seen Hunter and him together… “All right. Describe this field to me. What did it look like? Could you tell where it was—Chicago, maybe?”

  She glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure Fenrir was still laughing with Loki before continuing, her voice conspiratorial. “It was down in a valley, between some crazy high cliffs. There were a lot of dead…demons…Grim, scattered around you guys. Along with dead soldiers. And you and Hunter were circling each other on horses, looking like you were about to kill each other, or…”

  “I get the picture.” What the hell? “So tell me, was there more to this dream?” Tyr kept his voice steady and placidly calm while his internal radar went berserk. Celine hadn’t seen the future, she’d seen into the past.

  She nodded, growing considerably paler. This time, when Celine looked over, Hunter stared right back and their stare held. “She looked like a princess, all dressed up, perched up on this giant horse, but then, she turned…into something else.”

  “What did she turn into?”

  Her eyes never left Hunter. “I watched her turn into the Orobus.”

  His hand shook when he poured the last of the bourbon into his glass, the amber liquid overflowing the rim. Yep, just when you thought things were as bad as they could get. “It was only a dream, Celine.”

  “Maybe,” Celine murmured. “But there’s more. Hunter talked to me after she turned into the Orobus, Tyr. She told me things.” This conversation was taking a turn he didn’t like. Tyr evaluated the room. Fen was still yukking it up with Loki, Hunter was surveying the entry points to the room for weaknesses, and Mir was focused on them like he knew exactly what this was about.

  “Okay. Go on.” There was a tightness to his voice that even the whiskey couldn’t smooth out, along with a sense of impending doom.

  Celine walked him through it, remembering. “It was Hunter, but she was all tangled up in the Orobus, if that makes any sense. Like there was this awful cancer infecting her, waiting to get out. But on the outside, she still looked like a fairy princess.”

  If only you knew.

  “She said she was a part of the whole. But he would come for her someday. She also said…that you made her, Tyr.”

  Yup. He had to shut this down quick. “Celine, honey…”

  Celine’s voice turned high. “What did you make her into, Tyr?”

  “Yes Tyr, why don’t you tell all of these fine people, these friends of yours, what happened that night you used your magic on me? What you turned me into?” It shouldn’t have surprised him when he heard that low, husky voice of Hunter’s right behind him.

  Hunter’s voice turned hard. “Handy, isn’t it, that there happens to be a cursed stone circle, right here in Chicago? Funny you never mentioned that little tidbit when I arrived. Must have slipped your mind.”

  Tyr squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for patience. He didn’t blame Hunter, really, for being pissed off. Nor did he blame her for hating him. Hell, he hated himself. But seriously, did they have to do this in front of everyone?

  Of course they did.

  She was Hunter Fucking Wallace, and this was how she did everything.

  Big. Loud. Over the top.

  As emotions warred within him, he spun to face her. Met those raging, wildfire eyes of hers. And felt this momentous shift inside himself. He’d always felt this mix of emotions around her. Love. Hate. These feelings were so tightly wound together that somehow, over the years, they’d simply become the force that pulled them together. Just as they would, inevitably, be the things that drove them apart. But for now…

  As the band of immortal brothers and the women they loved looked on with widening eyes, Tyr explained, “Long story short, Hunter killed me after I forced her father and her clan to fight a losing war against a Grim invasion. Most of them died. When she killed me, the blast from the release of my magic killed her as well. I resurrected us both. But the old magic I used—”

  Hunter cut in, “We were on hallowed ground. On my family’s burial grounds, which just so happened to be a cursed circle of stones…”

  “And my spell pulled some ancient, evil spirit up out of the ground that night. Then, when I combined the spell with my blood, the only way to save Hunter was to…”

  “Seal it inside of me. Forever.” She hissed through her bared teeth.

  “Better I should have left you to die?” Tyr countered.

  “Double-edged sword, if you ask me.” Her voice was so low it was practically a growl.

  “Truth.” He nodded solemnly. “The magic I used afforded you a degree of immortality. But the spirit that surged up out of the earth and possessed you?” He explained to the now-silent crowd. “Well, the spirit came with some interesting side effects.”

  “Interesting?” Hunter’s face had gone rigid. “That’s what you choose to call this?” She waved a hand over her body. “You cursed me, asshole. For a thousand years, I’ve been cursed, and you want to whitewash your mistake by calling what you did to me…interesting?”

  Hunter felt a million regrets rising up in her as she faced off with Tyr. But he’d gotten most of it right, as usual. She’d been alive and walking for all these years. Because of him. She was also cursed. Because of him.

  He was her savior and jailor.

  Her love and hate.

  She’d been stretched thin between the two for so damn long that she felt the tension, like exhaustion, in her very bones. Perhaps she had become the battle itself. Certainly there wasn’t anything left of the chieftain’s daughter she’d been when she’d ridden away from him a thousand years ago, wondering what an immortal god’s lips tasted like.

  And when she came back down out of her head, Tyr was staring at her so intently, and he looked so…tired, she thought with a jolt. The sight of him recalled how her father looked in th
e middle of that battlefield, surrounded by dead soldiers. He looks fragile. This indefatigable being, this one constant in her life looked defeatable. Hunter frowned. She didn’t like that. Not one bit.

  She needed him to be the wall she could throw herself against, over and over again.

  The one that would never, ever break.

  Tyr grasped her arm. “We need to talk. You and me. Now.”

  She managed to nod. Because all of a sudden, words just wouldn’t come.

  A sort of guttering hopelessness swelled inside her. As if this final, historic confrontation she’d waited so long for was going to break her goddamned heart.

  Tyr strode out of the room, practically towing her along. Away from the silent speculation, the judging eyes, the exposing of all their long-held secrets.

  “In here.” Huge double doors swung inward to silence. An echoing vastness swallowed them, seeming to suck her dry. “This used to be Odin’s. But since he’s off drinking somewhere…” Tyr’s warning echoed into the dark corners. “Just…stay away from the fucking throne.”

  Against the grandness of the marble, the sheer vastness of the space, she only noticed the little things. His bloody knuckles. His red-rimmed eyes. His thin shirt stretched too tightly across muscle and bone. Damn him. She needed him to be the monster she loved to hate. The relentless, unbreakable killing machine. Instead he had the audacity to look…vulnerable.

  “Tyr…” His name came out softly, sounding almost sentimental.

  She tried again. “Tyr.” Better. “There’s too much between us to be made right. There are too many mistakes between us to undo them all. You know it as well as I do.”

  He watched her for a long moment, then spoke. “When I first saw you that day, I thought you were weak. I thought you were helpless. I thought… Look at this young, mortal girl in her lovely dress. She’s so pretty. So breakable.” The smile she saw on his normally expressionless face was mirthless and a little regretful before disappearing completely. “I thought wrong. About everything.”