by Eva Chase
There. Doors, a few of them, scattered between the windows and the weapons. If I could just make it to the nearest one…
I propelled my battered body along, gritting my teeth against the stabs of agony, ignoring the trail of blood I was leaving in my wake. I’d said I’d make it back. I’d said it, and I was damn well going to do it. No pack of shrimpy soulless demons was going to get the better of Ari Watson.
I had to grope upward two times before my fingers closed around the doorknob. They clutched it and wrenched.
The door flew open into a vast blank space as bright and blue as the summer sky. I closed my eyes, thought of the soft green lawn outside the gods’ house, and shoved myself over the threshold.
My body thumped into the grass, which wasn’t quite as soft as I’d been hoping. A strangled sound shot up my throat. I rolled over, and then I couldn’t seem to move at all. Pain weighed me down like a heap of boulders. I was buried in it.
“Ari!” someone shouted. Thor, I thought. Footsteps thumped across the yard. I frowned up at the stark blue sky.
“They didn’t get me,” I announced raggedly to whoever happened to be listening. “I didn’t let them get me.”
Then darkness swam up over my vision, and I tumbled down into a void inside my head.
16
Ari
Baldur’s gentle hands lingered on my stomach. His godly magic had repaired my wounds while I’d been out of it, but prickles of pain remained here and there. I had the feeling I’d taken some damage that couldn’t be patched up that easily, even by him. His softly handsome face was briefly solemn as he concentrated.
Where he touched me, I could feel a glimmer of what had to be his life energy, warm and bright as sunlit gold. Just as the gods’ emotions were almost undetectable to my new senses, I’d never noticed any of their living essences before, even though I could pick up on people from miles away. Even close like this, the hungry void in me didn’t stir at all. Apparently no valkyrie could claim a god’s life. I’d just have to hope I didn’t meet any I had a reason to fear.
Really, all I could do was lie back on my bed where I’d woken up an hour or so ago and let Baldur do his thing. And, you know, try not to think about the fact that I was lying half-naked on a bed with one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever known putting his hands all over me. I wasn’t usually guy-crazy, not even a little, but everyone has their limits.
Baldur leaned closer to inspect my shoulder, bringing warmth and a scent like a breeze through spring fields. I studied the ceiling, but I got a twinge down low anyway.
Okay, as soon as I was done with the whole valkyrie-on-a-mission thing, I had a few things of my own to take care of. Number one: going to see Petey again. Number two: getting this damn itch scratched with the nearest halfway decent non-godly man.
A little voice in the back of my head reminded me of all those myths about gods cavorting with mortals. It wasn’t impossible that one of the four here might be up for a hook-up. I just had trouble seeing that as a good idea. I was tied to them enough without making things that much more complicated.
Anyway, before I worried about any of that, we had other problems to take care of.
“So, what happens now?” I asked. “Those… people, or whatever they were, that attacked me—what are we going to do about them?”
“Dark elves,” Baldur said helpfully. “From what you said, you found yourself in Nidavillir, their realm.”
Elves, huh? I’d have expected those to be smaller and pointier eared, but what did I know?
“Okay, dark elves. They’ve got to have Odin if my sense of him led me there, right? And from the way they came at me, they must have been guarding that entrance. I guess we know what happened to the other valkyries. I also saw those dead humans there—it sounded like the dark elves were hurting other people too, torturing them or something. We’re going to go after them, aren’t we?” Pay them back for all the shit they’d put me and who knew who else through.
Baldur nodded, straightening up. “We now have a much better sense of direction. We can’t reach Nidavillir through Asgard as you did, but the lower realms connect in other ways. There should be a few entrances we can access from Midgard. For now we’ll keep watch for dark elves coming and going in your world, and in time they should lead us to one of those.”
In time. I grimaced. I’d like to bash around those bastards with Thor’s hammer right now—or watch him do it, which would also be acceptable. They’d practically killed me all over again. If I hadn’t been able to tell that from the agony I’d been in stumbling back here, I’d have known for sure from the look on Thor’s face when I’d woken up. He hadn’t been sure I would wake up.
He’d been worried about me. Possibly they all had. Even Hod had looked a little relieved when I’d started talking, although he might just be glad he didn’t have to fulfill the promise he’d made me.
“I can help with that,” I said, squirming into a sitting position. My body felt stiff, like I’d overdone it with a workout a day ago, but the last of the sharper pains were gone. “How do we find dark elves?”
“Hey.” Baldur’s lips curved with a smile. “You did what we asked of you, even though it was clearly a difficult fight. You’ve earned some rest, Aria.”
I didn’t feel like resting. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those sprawled human corpses in the cave, heard those desperate shrieks. Whatever the dark elves were doing, I didn’t think Odin was the only one in trouble.
“How am I supposed to rest with those freaks running around in my world?” I asked. “We’ve got to stop them.”
“We will,” Baldur said. “We’ll take every step we can. You’ve already played the most important part you could.”
He hardly even sounded fazed. He’d just found out that the leader of the gods, his father, was being held captive by a bunch of weirdo elves that were going around trying to slaughter anyone who interfered, and he might as well have been talking about a day at the beach. I frowned, studying his face as he stood up beside the bed.
“Are you really that calm all the time?” I said. “Doesn’t anything bother you?”
I thought I caught the slightest twitch of a muscle in his temple. Enough to make me want to peel back that dreamy exterior and find out just what made up the man underneath. I knew there was more to him than he showed.
Then Baldur shrugged and gave me that same sunny smile. “This is just my nature. No matter what happens, the sun shines down on us. We’ll find our way through. I trust in that, so no, I don’t worry.”
“Oh, yeah? You weren’t even worried when everyone was dying and the world seemed like it was going to hell during Ragnarok?” I was improvising a little, but I’d gotten the gist of it from what the other gods had told me.
The light god’s dreamy expression definitely shifted then. Just for a second, a brief tightening, but his voice came out a little strained too.
“I wasn’t there for Ragnarok. I couldn’t feel anything about it.”
He glided out of the room as if he were a beam of light before I could ask him anything more about that. I blinked at the doorway he’d disappeared through. Guilt pinched my stomach for provoking that reaction, but it was followed by a deeper pinch of curiosity.
He hadn’t been there? Then where the hell had he been?
Somewhere he wasn’t too happy remembering, from the looks of things.
Well, that was another mystery for another day, if he ever wanted to speak to me again. Today, I had some dark elves to take on. No way was I going to be able to relax just lying here in bed waiting for someone else to get things done.
I eased myself gingerly to the edge of the mattress and found that when I stood up I only felt as if plywood splinters were jabbing through my muscles, not whole knives or anything. I’d experienced worse. Being hit by a speeding jeep put a lot of things in perspective.
By the time I’d made it to the hall, the splinters were more like sandpaper grit. A steady improve
ment. Voices carried from the second floor. I shuffled down as quickly as I could manage.
When I pushed open the door to the study, Loki, Thor, Hod, and Freya all fell silent where they were gathered together by the desk. Thor opened his mouth, probably to ask whether I really should be walking around, so I jumped right in.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m back in one piece. Where are we looking for these dark elves?”
The piney scent of the nearby forest hung in the air even on the downtown strip of the West Virginia city I was checking out. This high in the mountains, it was even a tiny bit cool as summer went. Goosebumps rose on my arms when the evening breeze tickled past me.
I should have brought a jacket. Of course, that would only have gotten in the way of my wings if I needed them.
The gods had said there’d been dark elf activity in this area decades ago. They weren’t sure if any had been around since, but it was one place to start. I guessed they were checking out other potential leads while I poked around here.
I let my eyes sharpen as I scanned the road. Nothing had jumped out at me so far, but halfway down the main street, my gaze caught on a poster taped to a telephone poll with a photo and the word MISSING in large font across the top. I crossed the street to take a closer look.
The photo was of a middle-aged woman who looked like she’d had more hard times than easy ones. Her brown hair was scraggly and the teeth behind her smile crooked. Apparently she’d been last seen a couple towns over nearly a year ago. From the yellowing of the paper, I guessed it had been there quite a while too.
I breathed in deeply, testing the air the way I had periodically since I’d gotten here. A couple times, I’d thought I’d picked up a hint of that rotten smell I’d noticed in the cave, but as soon as I’d tried to follow it, it had vanished into the breeze. Maybe it’d just been my imagination. Or a butcher shop’s trash bin. Hod had said that scent wasn’t anything they usually associated with dark elves anyway.
As I continued past the shops and restaurants, a twisted shadow on the side of one building snagged my attention. I hustled closer and frowned. Three jagged lines, twined together, had been carved into one of the bricks on… I stepped back and checked the sign. It was a backpacker’s hostel.
An uneasy prickle ran over my skin when I dropped my gaze back to the symbol. I hadn’t had time to commit them to memory very solidly, but I was pretty sure I’d seen a marking like that on the wall of the dark elves’ cave. Or at least one a lot like it.
But then, even if it had been made by dark elves, there was no way of telling how long ago or whether they’d been here since. The edges of the carving were worn down by the weather. It wasn’t recent.
The prickling sensation stayed with me the rest of the way down the main street. I glanced over my shoulder abruptly a few times, but I didn’t catch any movements that looked suspicious. My fingers curled around my switchblade, closed but ready if I needed it.
Around a corner in the fringes of the downtown strip, I spotted another of those symbols, this one with four lines instead of three. I paused, cocking my head as I studied it. Nothing about it meant anything to me, other than that association with the dark elves. But I didn’t like it.
That one was on a small charity building. Soup kitchen and beds for the “needy.” I bit my lip. No, I didn’t like this at all.
Something rustled at the edges of my hearing. I stiffened, my hackles rising. The sound stopped too.
Carefully, I walked on, setting my feet as quietly as I could. Cars and other pedestrians passed me, but the street wasn’t all that busy on a weekday in this nowhere town. In the gaps in between, I kept my ears perked.
There wasn’t much, but the rustling reached me twice more, ever so faintly, only for an instant. That was enough.
Someone—or something—was stalking me.
17
Loki
I slunk from shadow to shadow, my wolfish shape blending into the dark patches with a mix of stealth and magic. I only caught glimpses of Ari now and then in the gaps between the buildings, but I didn’t need more than that. My raised ears could pick up the soft rasp of her shoes against the pavement, even the murmur of her breath.
I did like the glimpses I caught, though. Our valkyrie was certainly coming into her own. She moved down the sidewalk with a bold but not reckless confidence it was hard not to admire.
Every time I saw it, I remembered that first moment she’d reappeared on the lawn yesterday afternoon. Battered and bleeding, she’d managed to pull herself all the way back to us—and to crow about her victory before those injuries had completely caught up with her. Then back on her feet, chomping at the bit to get moving the very next day…
I’d forgotten mortals could possess that kind of strength and fire. I didn’t see it very often even among the gods. It made me want to push her even farther to find her limits and to hide her away so no one could ever batter that spirit right out of her, both at the same time.
That was all right. I was used to having complicated impulses. We’d see which one won out.
Ari’s pixie frame ducked down an alley between a clothing store and a bank. Had she seen something down this way? I went still, tasting the air through my fangs. Nothing unexpected reached me. I pulled back behind a dumpster before she emerged into the longer alley I’d been loping along.
Her shoes scuffed against the damp concrete as if she were heading in the opposite direction. I waited several seconds before slipping out from my shelter to keep pace.
I’d only taken two steps when she whirled and sprang toward me with a burst of supernatural speed.
Her switchblade flashed. Her eyes widened at the sight of me. I reared back a moment before she reached me, returning to my usual form so she didn’t try to kill me like the smallish warg she’d probably taken me for.
“Imagine running into you here,” I said. “What a lovely coincidence.”
Ari’s legs had locked. Her eyes narrowed. “Coincidence my ass. What the hell are you doing here?”
I gestured lazily with one hand. “Oh, taking the lay of the land, investigating various avenues.”
She crossed her arms. “I was supposed to be the one investigating this town. You could have told me you were coming along. But you didn’t want me to know. You were following me. You still don’t think I can handle myself after yesterday?”
Her voice was tart, but under the snark I thought I detected a note of hurt. I hadn’t realized I might wound more than her pride. And even the pride, she’d rightly earned.
My mind tripped through a hundred possible excuses to settle on the right one. “Not at all, pixie. Believe me, there’s little I’m surer of at this point than your capabilities.” The truth of that statement sank in as I said it. I really hadn’t been worried about her, had I? I’d told myself that was why I was keeping an eye on her, but really…
I gave her a self-deprecating grin. A little more honesty couldn’t hurt. “I was actually rather curious to see what other tricks you might pull out of your metaphorical hat. Watching you is leagues more entertaining than spending time with any of those lunks whose company I’ve already kept for eons.”
Ari kept frowning, but her shoulders came down. “You aren’t supposed to be entertaining yourself,” she said. “We’re supposed to be tracking down those dark elves.”
“I’m very skilled at multitasking,” I said. At her skeptical look, I nodded to the alley. “They’ve been here more recently than we were already aware. I’ve picked up traces of their passage. Not in the last few years, though, and I don’t think for very long. The signs would suggest they came and went from west of here.”
“Oh. Did you see any more of their symbols?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Symbols?”
She studied me for a second. When she seemed to come to the conclusion that I honestly didn’t know what she was talking about, a triumphant glint lit in her eyes. “Come on,” she said. “Apparently it’s a good thing you w
eren’t investigating on your own.”
I followed her back onto the street and down the block. The passers-by drifted around us, not seeing us but instinctively making room. I’d have loved to see their expressions if they’d gotten to witness our valkyrie in her full winged glory. My gaze lingered on the taut muscles of her back, the smooth skin that hid those wings at the moment.
Mostly smooth. Baldur had healed her wounds from her two battles with us, but she’d come to us with other scars already in place. A thin curving one veered from the peak of her left shoulder down the back of her arm halfway to her elbow, like a path just waiting to be traced.
“There.” Ari pointed to a brick in the side of a dreary-looking building. Some sort of symbol had indeed been carved there: four lines twisting around each other in a barbed tangle. My brow furrowed.
“What makes you think this has anything to do with the dark elves?”
“I told you I saw markings on the walls of that cave. I’m pretty sure this was one of them. Or at least it looks a lot like them.” She paused, glancing up at me. “You haven’t seen anything like this before.”
I shook my head. “I’m familiar with the language of the dark elves, spoken and written, but this is something else. If you saw it in their domain, though… It’s been a long time since we’ve crossed paths with them. If they’re up to something nefarious, as all evidence indicates they are, I wouldn’t put it past them to have developed some new visual code precisely to avoid our notice.”
Which was not an encouraging sign at all. This building had nothing to do with Odin. What other schemes were the cave-dwellers up to that they were working so hard to hide from us?
Perhaps taking Odin hadn’t been the point. Perhaps he’d merely been a casualty of a larger plot—one he’d stumbled onto?
“It’s a charity for the homeless,” Ari said, tipping her head toward the building. “I saw another symbol on the hostel a couple streets over. No others so far.”