by Brian Hodge
Dead silence from his end, and I hated myself far more than I could ever hate Phil, even if every one of those fictions had been truth.
Then I did the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.
I hung up.
Four-fifteen.
The afternoon had been one of the strangest in memory. Aaron and I had barricaded ourselves in the house against an unseen enemy in an unknown guise. We’d locked the doors, checked all the windows, drawn the curtains, even built a fire in the fireplace.
And, so far, not a peep out of our friendly neighborhood Viking.
Aaron and I wound up in the family room, both sitting on the floor with our backs, against the couch.
Across the room were the glass doors leading to the patio, and here were the only curtains we’d left open. The backyard was ours to oversee. Beyond was the rear of the house on the next street over. People with nice, normal lives were living over there.
Aaron pointed at the TV. “Anything good on?”
I twitched one shoulder. “Don’t know.” I checked the time again. I’d already forgotten. “If I was up at school, everyone would be crowded around the set in the student union for Leave It to Beaver.”
“So that’s what Mom and Dad are spending a fortune on,” he said, and we both sputtered laughter. In another time, an earlier time we both regretted because our concerns had seemed so petty, Aaron might have made that comment in spite. But not now. We were two souls living as one now.
We watched the sunlight slowly and inexorably dim outside. The sky grew dull, duller, the gray of November changing to the deepest of blues. Shadows gradually lengthened, thickened. Shadows could hide a lot. Pretty soon we’d have to draw these curtains, too. We’d no longer have the advantage of seeing out.
“You know,” Aaron said after a while, “this feels like one of those old westerns.” He toyed with his belt buckle. “It’s like we’re John Wayne and Dean Martin in Rio Bravo, waiting for the bad guys to storm the jail.” He grinned. “I get to be John Wayne.”
“Great. I’m Dean Martin. Get me a drink.”
“At least I didn’t stick you with Walter Brennan.”
I smiled, and for the first time in hours, it felt genuine.
We fell silent again and listened to the crackle of the fire, and watched until those lengthening shadows outside melded together into one. Nighttime.
The dark had arrived.
And the gates of Valhöll were about to swing wide open.
Chapter 42
Six-forty.
We’d long since closed the patio curtains, and Aaron had dug out a deck of cards. We played poker for imaginary fortunes, and I must have been up by three million when we both grew tired of the game at the same time. The novelty had worn off, and the fact that our bets were so outlandish since we had nothing to lose seemed to pale in the face of realizing that in real life, we were risking just about everything that night. Aaron put the cards away, and we were left with sitting. Again.
When would it all end? It had to be coming soon, had to, because I thought I felt the air around us grow heavier, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. I think Aaron felt it, too.
“Do you have any regrets?” he asked me.
I clearly heard him, but needed to hear it again. For the shock value. That’s a question you ask when you feel an irrevocable change coming on, after which nothing will ever be the same. “Say what?”
“Regrets. Have you got any?”
“Jeez, don’t talk about that, Aaron. It sounds so damned final.”
He nodded. And in that moment, I honestly think that his own inner reserves had surpassed mine. It was like once he’d cleared the tears and screaming out of the way, he’d rooted around and uncovered a deep well of hidden strength. “I know. But I need to talk about it. You know. Just in case.”
I simply stared. I was a cloth, a sponge. And every time he said something like that, it wrung me out just that much more.
“Come on, we’ll trade,” he said. “You go first.”
“Have it your way,” I said hoarsely. I took a deep breath, pausing to think. Check the mental file under Regrets. Then I knew. “You remember that reporter, Shelly Potter? I was starting to feel something for her. More than just friendship. I don’t know if she could ever return that, but she cares, I can tell that much. But I never could work up nerve to say anything. It was like the age difference or whatever really intimidated me.” I shrugged. “I guess that’s it. Or at least the best I can do right now.”
Aaron nodded slowly, considering it. He appeared to deem it worthy. “I suppose mine is that I wasn’t as open with my feelings as I could’ve been. There are a lot of things I wish I’d said to Mom and Dad. Well, some things I wish I hadn’t said too, but mostly things I wish I had.” He looked me straight in the eye. “And to you, too.”
Wringing me out even more. “Don’t, Aaron. Please. I don’t think I could handle that now.”
“I guess not.”
And then, tentatively and maybe a little awkwardly, we hugged. Hard. Long. Deeply felt. When we broke, we decided we were starting to get hungry since neither of us had eaten since breakfast, and I headed to the kitchen.
Starting to poke through the Thanksgiving leftovers, I caught the faintest hint of a sour odor. It happens all the time — you yank open the refrigerator door and catch that flashfire of smell, but it’s nothing you can pinpoint because it’s coming from something that hasn’t yet gone over. It’s more like a portent of things to come if you don’t hurry.
I quickly shut the door. Because that odor had triggered off a chain of thought. And the payoff was an idea so obvious that I couldn’t understand how I’d overlooked it.
When Hurdles had died, I assumed that Olaf would be coming after Aaron and me through somebody else the next time. So had Aaron, given the way he’d panicked with Maurice at Chuck Wagon. But all that setup was a mere ploy, and Hurdles had been deliberately sacrificed, because Olaf was an infinitely devious foe. He’d been setting us up for the biggest fall of all, leading our thoughts in one direction while he schemed in another.
Something Crighton said near the end of our time together came back like a ricochet: “Given the social climate of Iceland in those days, Olaf the Dark and Thorfinn Snow-Beard shared a spiritual brotherhood as deep as any blood relationship.”
Brother against brother.
During this day of repressed nausea, I’d never felt any sicker. Because I knew now that we weren’t going to be attacked from outside. It was going to come from within. The hints of this had dated back for months: what Dad had seen out by the woodpile, Aaron’s convulsive reaction the first night I’d shown him Tri-Lakes, the times we’d actually physically fought, so uncharacteristic of the way we’d normally resolve our differences.
Brother against brother.
Aaron gave out a sharp cry of surprise from downstairs.
Chapter 43
I heard. I knew. I understood. And was at a total loss as to what to do.
“Aaron?” I called out from the kitchen.
Movement from downstairs, faint, maybe no more than a shifting of weight. In the silent house, it sounded monstrous.
“AARON!”
Nothing. And it must have been at this point that all rational thought fled me, and I began to move on instinct alone. Rendezvous with destiny. I eased over to the stairway leading downstairs, then grew undeniably aware of the stench that rolled up from below. It was like a package of meat had been left out to spoil on a warm summer day.
The stairs ... the top one, then the next, the next ... and each one offered me a slightly more generous slice of the family room to look at: chairs, tables, the end of the couch…
Halfway down…
No Aaron in sight…
Three-quarters…
I didn’t even see where he came from. I just heard a faint whicker as something was swung through the air, and it cracked into my right knee. Aaron roared triumph as I stumbled down t
he rest of the stairs to carom off the wall at the bottom. I tried to catch myself with my left hand, and for one agonizing second it bent so far back that I swear my fingernails grazed my forearm. The pain was huge, brilliant, brighter than an exploding sun. I cradled my arm against my chest, useless, and went down on my knees.
Aaron was off to my right, a lurking shape that hurled a rectangular coffee table out of his way. A blue and yellow vase shattered against the hearth; the last six months of Psychology Today spilled across the floor. Aaron lifted something above his head, something thin and spurred at the tip: the fireplace poker. He closed in, ready to swing.
I rolled onto my back at the bottom of the stairs, and when he came close enough, just starting his downswing, I planted a foot in his stomach and shoved with all I had. His breath exploded out in a foul rush of air and he went reeling backward to fall over an easy chair. The poker went clanging into an end table, smashing the glass in a framed family picture.
He was up and running, and I dove to the right, left hand still pressed against my ribs. With my right hand I grabbed a leg of the fallen coffee table and wrenched it into his path, and he barked the hell out of both shins, falling backward and howling.
This bought me enough time to get to my feet, and in another moment Aaron was likewise. For the first time I plainly saw his face, and I wished I hadn’t. Aaron simply wasn’t there any more. He could no longer act on thoughts or emotions — not with that face — only on impulse. His eyes regarded me with a flat cunning.
Like the eyes of a bear.
He retrieved his poker and moved in closer, warier this time, cocking the poker back as he would a baseball bat. I circled, most of my weight on my left leg because the right knee was too unsteady. Keeping just out of his range, I circled over to the fireplace and snatched up the ash shovel. Aaron charged, hurdling the coffee table, and he swung just as I brought the shovel up. They clanged sharply together, a fine cloud of ash sifting to the carpet.
He swung again. Again. Again. I did my best to parry the blows, and we moved about like a pair of ridiculous gladiators with makeshift weapons. Aaron had energy to spare, and I felt as if I were gearing down like a windup toy. He swung wide, two-handed blows, and I only had one good hand with which to hold the shovel. Every clashing contact sent an electric shudder ripping up through my arm. Muscles and tendons strained. Sweat rolled, and I started to pant.
I couldn’t last this out much longer.
Aaron’s follow-through on his next swing carried him forward too far, a shade off balance. I lashed out with the shovel and chopped down a few inches behind his wrist. He yelped in surprise and pain, jumping back and shaking his forearm.
He paused to look at me, and we were two enemies facing one another again after nearly a thousand years. Part of me wanted to talk to him, to reason with him, to get him to sit down and have a beer while we talked this out. But it wasn’t Aaron I was dealing with anymore, I had to remind myself. Talking would do as much good as standing there and letting him run that poker through my skull.
So when he spoke, it was just that much more of a surprise.
“You think Bobby looked bad?” A wicked grin spread across his lips and a little chill went racing up and down my back; pretty much along the same path as Bobby’s lungs had hung on his. “Wait till you see what I do to you.”
When the poker went up again, I moved faster than I thought possible and gut-kicked him. He doubled over with a single loud cough, leaving himself completely vulnerable. But I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more to him, not to my own brother. Crazy as it sounds, my main worry was keeping him from getting hurt.
So I ran — up the stairs and through the kitchen, the dining room, the hallway. I left the lights off, better for hiding. I ended up in Aaron’s room only because it was the farthest point away that I could reach, and I fell to the floor between the far side of his bed and the wall. He’d be up and after me soon enough, but for now I just needed time to catch my breath, to recover a little.
The world was pain; both my arm and leg throbbed badly. My right hand left the shovel long enough to feel my other wrist. It had swelled up frightfully, stretching the sleeves of my pullover sweater and the shirt beneath it, bulging like a billiard ball. I didn’t even want to think about moving it; something inside grated like ground glass. If it wasn’t broken, I never wanted to know what a break felt like.
Think Chris, or you’re dead. I considered the battle-axe in my trunk. Had it been from Olaf, as I’d thought, it seemed to follow that he’d have known where it was, and sent Aaron after it. To really do the job. He could’ve calmly gone out to my car, keys in hand, and been back inside and I wouldn’t have had a prayer. Yet it hadn’t gone that way at all.
Olaf doesn’t know…?
It ignited a dim candle of hope. That maybe this ancient relic was just for me — from where, I couldn’t begin to guess — a weapon of last resort.
But I can’t use it on Aaron!
The thing was meant for one purpose only: slaughter. Even if I, supposedly on the side of good, killed him with it, Olaf would still have won. Brother kills brother. I could feel my teeth grinding miserably together, straining against the weight all this had brought down on my shoulders, the weight of galaxies.
So, for the moment at least, I lay still and silent on the floor, wondering how I could keep Aaron from meeting the same fate that Hurdles had.
Fire and faith … It was like the fire made something pure.
If it could be done at all, Olaf had to be killed, again, through the trees. His home, his shrine, his source of power — that was the key. But I had to subdue Aaron and restrain him long enough to get us both out to Tri-Lakes. Any drugs in the house? There were Dad’s heart pills — big deal, might as well try slipping him a Tylenol.
I had no choice. It would have to be by force.
A board creaked nearby. Dining room, maybe the landing.
It was no time to be caught like a fish in a barrel, trapped between the bed and the wall. He would decorate his room with my brains if he caught me there. I got to my knees, then to my feet, slowly, carefully, quietly. To get just inside the doorway, that’s all I needed, just a few feet over. Favoring my right leg, whose knee was swelling as well, I’d never felt any clumsier. I wanted to drag my right foot along, avoid putting weight on it, but you can’t be quiet when you’re pulling a gimp act.
Come on, you can take it.
That black smell was pervading the room, getting stronger, heavier, thicker, advancing like a fog bank on the ocean.
I gritted my teeth and concentrated, and was steeling myself to ambush Aaron and bring the shovel down on his head … and that’s when I let the shovel blade ping against the footboard of Aaron’s bed. It seemed to echo, and he couldn’t have asked for a better beacon to home in on.
He lunged in through the doorway, bellowing, and the poker was a thin black line arcing toward me.
I owe my life to the fact that in moving through the doorway, he was unable to muster up a good, solid swing. That didn’t mean he wasn’t accurate. The poker caught me along the right side of the head with a meaty crunch. Warmth flowed down my cheek, neck, soaked into the bandage on my throat. My head snapped, my knees buckled, and a galaxy of stars floated in the room.
Aaron split two for one, and then I nearly saw four of him. Then they merged back together into a single Aaron who lifted the poker for the final kill. Reflex alone let me bring the shovel up again, and the tools clashed together with blue-orange sparks. Something hurtled past my nose to thump into the floor — the shovel blade. I was left holding a puny handle.
The room tilted and my head was the size of a basketball and still growing, everything seeming to explode out that single gash by my temple. I fell back, half kneeling and half sitting, reaching out to brace myself against Aaron’s dresser.
He grinned, teeth bared in the gloom, and stepped forward with the poker. Déjà vu. Only last time, he’d been taller and fatter a
nd had a crossbow. He held the poker like a spear, ready to thrust it forward from the shoulder.
But two could play that game.
I fell forward just as he launched ahead with his makeshift pike, going down on my knees right in front of him and jamming up with the shovel handle. Its dull tip hit him three inches beneath the bottom of his breastbone, and the wind went out of him in a putrid rush of air. He gagged, and then I was up on my feet with my outstretched hand across his face, shoving him back into the wall. He slammed into it, still retching for air, and I snatched the poker away from him. For once, he offered little resistance.
I paused, trying to make a quick appraisal of the situation. But I couldn’t even see straight. There was only one thing I could do: run.
I lurched down the hall, down the steps, and then out the door without a second thought. The chilly evening air was a welcome slap in the face, a wonderfully head-clearing rush of crystal sensation. I breathed it in and watched the neighborhood swim into focus, then hobbled around the far side of the house.
Lights from all around — all the neighbors’ homes, next door, across the street, across the backyard. I could run in any direction, I realized as I skirted the carport and into the backyard, and I’d probably find a decent hiding place wherever I went. But no way could I bring this down on anyone else’s head. I had the blood of too many innocent people on my hands already. Before I added any more there, I’d sooner die myself.
Nowhere to go but up.
In that moment, I could’ve hugged Dad for being such a hopeless procrastinator about tearing down our useless TV antenna. It stood like a steeple against the blue-black sky.
I stashed the fireplace tools under a bush since I’d need my one good hand for climbing, and was only two struts off the ground when I heard the front door banging open, some of the storm door’s glass shattering across the front sidewalk.
Forget finesse. I hauled myself up the antenna like a clumsy, one-handed monkey, then rolled onto the gentle slope of the roof. The shingles were cold and grittier than the coarsest sandpaper, but they kept me from slipping as I crawled up to the peak and leaned heavily against the chimney. The bricks were even rougher than the shingles, but they were warm, blessedly warm from the heat of the furnace and the fire Aaron and I had built below. I pressed in close to the chimney, drawing my legs in, seeking to melt into the bricks and its shadow.