“Completely,” Gabriella murmured. Watching the two of them disappear, she turned back to Celine, who smiled wearily.
“Fen means well. He really does. But I think he’s gone a bit crazy lately.”
Gabriella measured her up. She was far too big for thirty-two weeks. “May I?” she asked, gesturing toward Celine’s belly.
“Of course.” Celine reclined, keeping her eyes to the ceiling as Gabriella felt around, pushing gently, pausing here and there.
“He’ll get through this, you know,” Gabriella murmured. “It’s bad enough, under normal circumstances, the uncertainty of the whole thing. Worrying over you and the baby, the unknowns. But with what’s going on, he must feel like he doesn’t have any control. You both just have to get through”—she slid her hands around to the bottom of Celine’s considerable bump—“these next few weeks. And then, everything’s going to be wonderful once you hold this baby of yours.”
Gabriella rocked back on her heels, careful to keep her face neutral. “Your baby feels active and healthy.” She hesitated. “Big.”
The kernel of fear glimmered in Celine’s placid gray eyes before she could hide it.
“Which is also perfectly normal, you know.” She went on, warming up the stethoscope, listened for a moment and smiled. “The fear. You’ve never done this before, and you don’t know what to expect.” She leaned in and wrapped her hand around Celine’s. “But I have. You’ll come through this just fine, you and Fen, both. And in the end, you’ll have a child.”
Gratitude. That’s what shone in those eyes, now.
“All right. One down, one to go.” She laughed. “I’ve got to go check on Odin. I have a feeling he’ll be my most difficult patient.”
“What happened to him when he was gone, do you know?” Celine wondered out loud. “He’s so thin. And his eyes?”
Gabriella shook her head. “No. I’m not sure about anything when it comes to him.”
“I’d forgotten what this feels like.”
Gabriella found Odin on the glassed-in sunporch, his face turned upwards toward the warmth, those milky eyes of his closed tight. She figured this was the perfect opportunity to get some answers.
“We need to talk about what happened to Ava.”
“She made a mistake, and we’re not speaking of what happened with Ava.” Every word was a flat denial.
“All right, let me rephrase that. I need to talk about what happened with Ava. What is Ava?” Somehow—Balder knew—they all understood Ava was different, and that fact settled her. If they all knew and accepted her, then the truth couldn’t be that bad, right? As if she’d summoned him, Balder materialized next to her and sat down beside them on the couch.
“Great timing.” Odin smirked. “Thank the gods you’re both here, I was getting lonely, basking in the sun and silence all by my little old self.” He directed that blank stare their way and Gabriella swore he actually saw her.
Gabriella rolled her eyes. “Tell me about Ava.”
“She made a bad decision, getting out of that truck. One I wish she hadn’t made.”
Gabriella waved her hand in the air, dismissing him completely. “We’ll get to that in a minute. What I’m interested in is something she said before. She claimed she dove through a magic portal to find you. What does that even mean? I’m guessing you didn’t want to be found?”
“Not exactly.”
“And when I asked you how you survived in the city… You said you weren’t in the city.” Gabriella leaned forward, intent. “I’d like to know, before I commit to staying, what’s going on here. Who you people are. How can someone else wear David Domenic’s skin—and what, exactly, is the Orobus?”
“Ava was right, wasn’t she?” Odin murmured, a knowing smile on his face. “There is a tiger lurking beneath the house cat. Perhaps the better question is, who are you?”
Gabriella shifted, nervously eyeing Balder next to her. No way her secrets were coming out today. “I asked first, so start talking.”
“I was born a god. Or I was…until I ended trapped in another realm with the Orobus. Between my fight with the creature, and months marooned in that realm, my magic is nearly gone. I only allowed Ava to bring me home because, otherwise, she would have died in that godforsaken place.”
Yeah, there were so many things wrong with that explanation. But Gabriella had seen too much with her own eyes these past months to deny the world had changed, and not in a good way. “Ava would have died, but not you?”
“She is mortal, and mortals require food, warmth, water—Niflheim couldn’t provide what she needed.”
Gabriella frowned at the strange name. “You don’t need food or water?”
Odin shook his head, the movement barely perceptible. “Not in that realm, because time moves differently there. Besides, survival wasn’t my endgame.”
“Ava brought you back—like how? Is there a doorway or something?”
“A portal in the mountains. It’s a long story, but we barely made the trek, and it was by sheer luck we ended up back in Chicago and not somewhere else.” Odin’s eyes, white yet fierce, met hers, then shifted over to Balder’s. “Because that bastard stole my magic when he pulled me through the portal, I had nothing left to bring us home.” Odin ground his teeth so loudly Gabriella cringed. “I feared we’d both die there.”
She glanced at Balder, but he was only watching intently, his expression somber. Neither of them appeared to be raving. She scowled. “Look, you have to understand all this sounds crazy. And since I have no reason to stay…”
“But you do have a reason to stay. You’re curious. And you have ties to Domenic. Which means you have ties to us.” Odin’s milky gaze focused on her. “Here is the truth, though it will be hard for you to understand. We are immortal gods. The Orobus is a primordial god bent on destroying the Earth and everything on it. He stole my magic, and now he has Ava.”
“Still not making any sense. And as far as the whole immortal thing, I think since you’re dying, that theory has gone out the window.”
“For someone with secrets of her own, you’d do well to hold your tongue, Gabriella,” Odin warned, and she felt a thrill of fear. “Ava came to rescue me, foolhardy as that was. I was content to stay on Niflheim until I died, but she is beyond stubborn…” Odin’s voice trailed off. “We had to find a different portal back, and since time works differently on each of the realms, we returned to Chicago later than we’d planned. And yet…” The smile illuminated him from the inside. “I would not trade those days away.”
“You could recover.”
“I don’t think so.” That white gaze swung her way again. “You don’t either.”
She didn’t. And yet, Odin was only a small part of what was happening in the world. “I’ve seen a lot of weird shit these past weeks.” She rubbed her hand, still feeling the burn of the monster’s blood. “Let’s say I cautiously accept what you’re saying as truth. Ava has some dark power in her. Domenic’s been taken over by a god and is out to destroy the world. Are either of them still human?”
“Domenic? No. I’m surprised his mortal form is holding together,” Balder mused. “But even though Ava’s power felt vast, somehow, she’s managed to control it all this time. So, I’d say yes, Ava is still human.”
Gabriella was glad of Balder and his solid, steady presence. She thought back, part of her queasy at the memory. “When Domenic stepped out of that horde, I thought he was swallowing me up. Like a void opened up and I was being sucked down.
“But the moment Ava stepped between us, I felt that void disappear. Ava felt dark, yes. But different. Deeper, in some ways, than what Domenic felt like, but brighter too. A kind of shivering cold, as if her darkness was full of stars. Besides, she saved us.”
Odin’s face shuttered. “Don’t ever mistake evil for good. It will be the last one you make.”
Gabriella thought of all the evil things she’d seen. The twisted, thorny evil of her father, all the glossy, smooth w
ickedness of her mother, all the things she’d watched countless men do to each other, in the name of freedom and money. She doubted evil ever had a face, and when it did, no one recognized it until it was too late.
“I’ll trust my gut, thank you very much, to tell me what to believe. You made me a promise before we left Chicago, and since this is Earth, you need to eat. You need to hydrate. Sleep. You screw any of that up, or I find out you’re not holding up your end of the bargain, I’ll hunt you down.” The smile she turned on him was cold. “And I think you’re wrong about Ava. I think she’s the light to Domenic’s dark.”
Odin shook his head sadly. “No, Gabriella. She’s the fuel to his fire. And between them, they will burn this world to ash, if we let them.”
Much, much later, for the first time in longer than she could remember, she slept. Protected, warm, and not caring whose bed she was in, nor how it looked.
She didn’t feel Balder cover her up before he curled himself around her and slept himself.
15
Unbreakable.
Ava felt unbreakable, even though she was stretched as thin as a balloon. But the power inside of her was immense. An endless, inky blackness pulsing with energy. Primitive energy that felt rootless. Timeless. As if she contained the entire universe. Ava released a breath. It felt cool, the rush of air across her lips. So human, this sensation, so mundane, and yet, so wickedly lovely.
It had been a day since she’d loosed her power, and it still inhabited her with its ever-expanding blackness. Content to remain within this flesh and blood prison that appeared so ordinary. She wondered at that, as she wondered at so many things.
“Ah. There you are. Are you hungry?”
David Domenic. But that’s not what she saw, standing in front of her, tan and handsome. She saw a mirror. She saw boundless power. She saw something so big it could not be contained within this earth, or any of the worlds. In an instant, she saw everything.
“I am. Or rather, this body is hungry and should eat.” She smiled, licking her lips. “What does it like?”
“Steak, potatoes, and something green, I believe. It’s winter and the choices are slim, even for us.” Her human nose picked up the scent of food, and her stomach grumbled in response. It smelled delicious.
“After dinner, I have something to show you. Something I think you are going to enjoy.”
Ava ate quickly and efficiently. Food was fuel, and it tasted familiar, even though she only ate through muscle memory these days. But when a spoonful of soup hit her lips, a flash of a dinner table came to her, of a sister—blonde haired, green eyed—sitting across from her. She had so many of these ghostly feelings, as if there was a half-remembered world just outside her grasp, full of color and light and…
“Let me show you.” His eyes bright, Domenic tugged at her hands, dragging her to her feet. “I can’t wait any longer. When you said you’d once known her, I just couldn’t wait.”
Ava followed him down a set of steps, and then another, past blank-faced men and twisted beasts who used to be men, but now were something other. Something, she observed, that was a mixture of what was inside of her and Domenic, and whatever evil had been inside of them to begin with. The place stank, she decided, sniffing with her human nose, once they reached the bottom, the yawning dark stretching out before them. The noises that came out of the dark were mewling. Desperate. Horrible.
“Here, down here, she’s down here.”
Ava slowed and then stood in front of a barred room, the smell barely tolerable, blood and piss and other things she’d rather not identify, wafting out. She took a step back. In the middle of the floor a woman lay, curled on her side, clothes so ragged they were unidentifiable, hair matted and bloody, skin torn so wide it was gaping in places. And when she turned her face toward them…
“Ah, there she is, my sweet Helena.”
As soon as the woman’s black as coal eyes locked with Ava’s, a missing part of her clicked back into place. It was a memory. A bad one. Hel. Ava’s eyes grew clear and bright. “Well, hello there, beautiful.”
Behind her, his voice a crooning melody, David Domenic whispered, “See? I told you you’d like my surprise.” He came up behind her as he observed, “She’s an immortal, so she’s practically impossible to kill. But think of the fun we can have.”
Ava’s smile grew wider. As did her memories. She had been locked in the Underworld with this goddess for an eternity. A painful, endless, eternity. Tortured. Ripped apart and put back together more times than she cared to remember. Parts of Ava’s past slotted themselves back into place within her mind. “You look a bit worse for wear, Hel.” Even the Louboutin’s were gone.
“Please…please… Just make this end. Let him kill me.” There was such desperation in those eyes of hers—such agony—Ava wasn’t sure she’d ever seen the like.
Staring at the broken creature on the floor, more bits and pieces flowed back. The escape from the Tower. Domenic’s waiting army. Her rather questionable decision to get out of the Hummer. The very eclipsing of herself as the darkness took over. Her entire past snapped back into her like a rubber band, and she was back.
She was Ava Burke. And she held the universe inside of her.
Praying Domenic didn’t notice the change, Ava chewed her thumb, looking Hel over. “I’ve got to admit, you did a real number on her.” But she paused. “I don’t know. It seems a bit too…easy, I guess. Kind of like kicking a puppy. I suppose I expected more. Something on a grander scale. Planet-wide destruction? Universal devastation, maybe?”
She felt the cool wash of air on her back as Domenic stepped away and the black monster inside of her rose, gliding into place—a sentient, patient thing—waiting for his reaction. “Not good enough for you?” The words sounded like they came through gritted teeth. Oh yes, you’ve been studying us, haven’t you—you sadistic monster? “What then, would you like?”
Ava thought of the endless expanse of the universe.
“I’ve never been to Niflheim. Or Vanaheim or Muspelheim. Nor Alfheim. I guess I’d like to see some of these worlds before you destroy them. You know, check them off my bucket list.” She could feel the frustration of the Orobus simmering behind her. Feel that unsettled urge of… Should he destroy her now? Or later? Wait and see how she could be used and exploited? Or kill her. She felt the pendulum swing, back and forth, while she measured the damaged woman on the floor of the prison cell before her.
Both of them, prisoners. Both of them caged by bars they couldn’t break.
“Well?” Ava laughed, a too loud, too happy sound down here, and Hel recoiled, as if the sound hurt her ears. “What will it be, David Domenic? Will you show me the worlds you intend to destroy? Or just this one, small woman? It seems to me that time will do her in, eventually.”
A challenge. She’d never known a man to back away from one. And even though the Orobus wasn’t essentially a man, he was cloaked in the body of one. She was counting on that testosterone-driven flesh to sort this whole situation out for her. Again, she sensed Domenic’s intentions shift. As if she felt the decision being made.
“Where to first, princess?”
Ava grinned. “Vanaheim. I’ve heard it’s lovely this time of year. You can show me what you’ve done with the place.” As she walked away, she allowed herself a single glance back at the goddess. Watched Hel wrap her arms around her legs, pull them in so she was nothing but a tiny ball on the floor. A tendril of thought, just the faintest wisp, really, went flying, but it found its mark.
Hang on. Just a little longer. Don’t die, not yet. I’ll come back for you.
But all the goddess did was huddle in tighter and begin to shake.
Vanaheim was not beautiful at all—the Orobus had stripped it bare—and it sat squat and ugly, ruined in a way that bespoke of greed and laziness, its trees barren and its oceans steaming and rancid. But she had to see what he could do. What he would do, if he had his way. Blackened, twisted forms of things that had, mayb
e, once been alive, curled on the ground, stretching across as far as she could see. Odin once told her how beautiful this world had been, a haven, he’d said, for gods and Vanir and mortals alike. No more.
“It stinks here.” She curled up her nose. “Too many bodies, I suppose. You should have just burned everything to ash.” He gave her a knowing smile.
“That is what I needed to hear from you, woman. I knew I was missing some part of my power. I’ve searched for it, here, and on other planes. But never did I think it would be clothed in the skin of another mortal.” When he circled, she was overwhelmed, for all around her—in the sky, inside of her, he was probing, clawing. Ava remained still. Refusing to be shoved an inch further than right where she stood. Because he’d never get what was inside of her. It was hers, and hers alone. Her power. Her magic. And she’d be good and goddamned if she was going to share with the rat bastard who was planning to destroy the world.
“Well, it is. And now, Mr. Domenic, I think I’d like to visit Niflheim. See if I like it any better than this hellhole.”
They visited each planet, morphing to and from each plane as easily and quickly as if she was walking from one room to the next. She felt the vague shift between worlds, but it was seamless. Effortless.
And so, they went. It might have taken days. Or hours. Or months. Time was irrelevant. But time was what was required. Desperately, she had resorted to this endless, exhausting outing with the Orobus and meant to stretch it out for as long as she could. Getting him out of Chicago and off the Earth gave the gods time to prepare. It gave Hel time to heal, and it gave Ava time to sort herself out.
Because the mixing of the untethered, black monster inside of her and her own self left her feeling…strange. As if the two were forming their own balance. The new magic slowly weaving itself into her mortality, maybe her soul, dancing its wicked way through her until it became such a part of her, she’d never unbind herself from it. Which was fine with her. She needed its cunning strength, its unforgiving power. Every time she shifted her eyes over to Domenic, every time she felt the reciprocal power emanating from him, she knew just how much she would have to rely on it.
The Tower Page 6