But Emerson would have seen things in those terms— he’d even said that he did— and would have specific bitterness but also a particular reluctance to think of Saint Germain as something God created. I needed to stop muddying the water for him.
“He and his offspring have always been suppurating pustules,” Magnus said in his accented English. There was no reason to laugh at this— indeed there was every reason not to, but I leaked a short snort before I could clamp down on the inappropriate humor. My forward manners and irreverence seemed to please him and Magnus smiled benignly. “It is time for you to rest and we will make a plan while you sleep and get strong. You are adapting quickly to the curse but you must rest.”
In a way, he was right about my adjustment. I had embraced this latest change to my body without that much trauma. But that is only because I didn’t believe in curses and had spent years accepting the fact that I wasn’t normal and never would be. That first acceptance of being different had taken a lot longer. I’d fought it my entire childhood and spent most of my adult life hiding it. In a way, my physical change had a silver lining; I was so obviously different now and my life so changed that I would no longer question my reliance on my talent. Nor would I ever again feel shame for having it in the first place. This gift had saved my life and it might do it again.
“You’re right. I’m tired.” And we had had my meal of shark and liquor tea so I wasn’t hungry, though I remained suspicious that my new state might not protect me from scurvy if I stayed here very long. Green vegetables were important. Saying goodnight I scrunched down on the floor.
I am mostly diurnal. Emerson seemed mainly nocturnal. The three Viking Stooges didn’t seem to need sleep, but I did, in spite of my several cat naps on the plane, so I curled up by the dying fire and did my best to find my way into the arms of Morpheus. Emerson laid some sort of horse blanket over me and wished me pleasant dreams before returning to the table.
That was fine with me. The contemplative voices were soothing and they could make their plans without me. I hadn’t a clue how to go about finding and destroying our Nemesis. Or fighting trolls who might be zombies made with non-human magic. Frankly, I hadn’t a clue about much of anything and didn’t want any just then. One thing at a time and I had already had my share of firsts and tough insights for the day. Let my sleep be deep and my dreams trouble-free.
As I slipped off the yoke of wakefulness I heard Emerson say impatiently: “There is no expectation that this will be easy, only that it is possible. I am not looking for an easy out because there is none. We have to try this because it is the only way and we are the only ones left.” There was no fear in his voice. That was nice.
I had live most of my life in Irish Camp and I lived most of it in some kind of fear. Not always large fear, but constantly shadowed by the knowledge that my odd little life could be ended at any time. I understood very early on that life was fragile and that, short or long, it would eventually end. And I accepted this because I had no choice. But what if someone had offered me another option after my parents died? Well, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat—that’s what. I had seen my parents snuffed out in an instant and I had watched my grandmother and Aunt Juliet get old and seen how age had brought them cruel mental and physical limitations. That wouldn’t happen to me now. There would be other problems, I had no doubt, but this one I would be spared. Magnus and Emerson might see this long-lived state as some kind of curse, but I couldn’t agree. However long I lived, it would be in good health.
Was this what happened to Saint Germain, an early and terrifying awareness that he would die, and then when he was desperate, along had come a chance to avoid it? But if so, why turn to evil once he had the power? Why not be like Emerson and use his life for something good?
I had one last thought. There was Emerson, wounded but whole. There was me, wounded but healing, and now there was a we, a distinct third personality with its own emotions and expectations that we had to plan for. If I, who had only been alone for three years, was surprised by this relationship, how strange must it be for Emerson? I would try hard to be more thoughtful of him. He was older and more experienced in many ways, but not about this. We were both finding our way through what might be a January-December romance.
Assuming we survived to explore it.
Chapter 12
“The wilderness has a mysterious tongue which teaches awful doubt.”
—Mont Blanc by Percy Bysshe Shelly
I woke up with Emerson curled around me like a living blanket. The thaw was complete, I thought. Our relationship had finally reached the right temperature and could unfold naturally if circumstances allowed. Unfortunately, I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that the brothers Grimm were drinking more liquor for breakfast and watching us intently, so I had no chance to decide if I was enjoying the experience of being in Emerson’s arms. There would be no pursuit of the favorite indoor sport as long as we had an audience.
I became aware of a fog of body odor not experienced since I had walked by the boys’ locker room after a football game. I tried burying my nose in the crook of my arm but it was useless. The smell was everywhere.
“It is my experience,” Magnus said, switching to English once he knew I was awake, “that the smarter a man is, the uglier he is. Take Emerson here. The boy is scrawny as a scarecrow.” I cracked an eye and peered at Emerson whose own eyes remained closed though I knew he was awake. I resisted making the obvious retort about our host’s skinny ugliness but Magnus continued: “Of course, it is worse in women. The smartest woman I knew had spavined hocks and a nose like a turkey vulture.”
I was pretty sure that this spavin thing was something bad that happened to horses. Emerson’s eyes opened but he wisely decided to let me fight my own fight.
“Well, you’re just lucky that I’m as dumb as a sack of hammers—and that you aren’t in the diplomatic corps,” I said back. “Cretin.”
“I know you find them annoying,” Emerson said softly. Then louder: “I find them annoying too. But I believe that they have heated a pail of water for you to bathe in.”
“Which won’t happen unless I have some privacy, because I may be stupid but I am not immodest,” I said, and heard three bodies move toward the door. I couldn’t read their thoughts and moods as I did Emerson’s, but I sensed that were still finding me vaguely fascinating and amusing and completely unexpected. Maybe that’s why Magnus was poking at me with verbal sticks.
Emerson also rose and after a moment where he seemed to be searching for something to say, he quietly left the room. That I was less happy about, though kissing was out of the question until I brushed my teeth.
The hot water and clean teeth filled me with an undeserved confidence that all would be well. I decided to stop worrying about being useful and settle for the more realistic goal of not being a nuisance to the men who considered me— at best— an ersatz member of the cursed clan. And obviously Emerson and the three Viking stooges had come up with a plan while I slept. That was good. We would begin the process of getting rid of Saint Germain that very day. It probably wouldn’t be easy, so this involved me having to practice trust and reliance on some very weird strangers. Not easy, but I would make the effort because I was completely void of ideas about what Emerson and I could do on our own.
I had a brief inner debate about leaving the portable behind with my clothing, but a look at the leaking roof and the door without a lock that would not have withstood an assault anyway, and I slipped it into my backpack. Maybe it was crazy, but I felt like it was my security blanket, the last thing I had from my old life and I didn’t want to give it up. Anyway, we might not be coming back this way.
Optimism suffered a slight check when I stepped outside. Dark and cold have never tempted me to great activity, but lingering in the empty cottage didn’t appeal either. I thought of Macbeth and agreed that what had to be done had best be done quickly—especially when it involved the three witches staring up at the sky. Beside
s, Death had me in his address book. Every now and again he sends me a symbolic postcard, like an apple tree struck by lightning right outside my window, to let me know he still cares—Thinking of you! Wish you were here! If he wanted to find me, he would. Hiding here wouldn’t help at all.
We spent the morning hiking with a flock of four ravens circling overheard, darkness moving in darkness—one each, I guess, and no fighting among the boys about who got to fly whom. Though unenthused about trekking over frozen ground I didn’t suggest trying to take a wheeled vehicle. For one thing, there was none, but also they have yet to invent a land vehicle for that kind of terrain. Magnus thoughtfully informed me that the landscape was caused by volcanoes which were still active and tearing the land apart. Also, ice giants throwing giant boulders at each other, but I hoped he was kidding about that part. Nevertheless, I found myself constantly and surreptitiously checking the distance to the ground for hostile beings. Something was tearing the land apart from the inside and whatever it was, I preferred not to be taken unaware by either volcanoes or ice giants.
The cold became a weight on my shoulders, but I soldiered on—cautiously. The land was bare and open but that didn’t mean it wasn’t devious and homicidal. A foot placed wrong could lead to injury and I was carrying the loaded gun besides. I looked at the bleak and dead surroundings and wondered if I were reaching beyond my own mental strength. The body could take more, but my mind felt like it was nearing the end of its tether. Something in my perspective would have to change and quickly. Other humans survived here. Surely I could too.
We were nearing Hekla—the Gateway to Hell—uninhabited now. It was all too easy to imagine the lava sweeping through the land, killing what few souls there were brave enough to face the winter there.
The snow was increasingly unstable, not able to keep its grip on the rock but willing to cling to my feet and legs. The trek was nerve-wracking and I distracted myself by planning what meal I would eat when we got back to civilization. I never considered turning back though. I reminded myself that we were on a quest to rid the world of a monster, a horrible situation that had to be faced, neutralized, or better yet, destroyed. Saint Germain’s death was the only way to ever know for certain that Emerson and I—and my sister’s family—would be safe. It was a benefit that it would also make the world one hell of a better place.
The few other damaged cottages we came across were all the same as Magnus’s, though they were mostly ruins, abandoned stone buildings so old they had architectural dementia and no longer recalled what they were supposed to do or be. I wondered if this was natural decay or if something more personal and malevolent was involved in the abandonment and destruction. We were, I gathered from the brief bits of conversation, going to see someone or something who knew about The Nightside and how we might use it to combat our insane foe. It could be that this person or presence was inimical to normal people. Maybe all but the crazies— like Magnus— had left the area as it grew stronger.
I was curious about all of Emerson’s clan, especially Magnus, since he was the strong one and the other two more shadows without mental substance. But didn’t feel like I could ask them about their histories or the good old days in Iceland— if they were from Iceland and had any good old days to talk about. Nor could I ask Emerson about them since we were all endowed with extra-sensitive hearing, so I bided in silence and speculated about the Hopeless, the Has-been and the Might-have-been who made up Emerson’s extended family…. And I had thought my family Christmases were bad.
There was one surprise on the trek. The church built into the north cliff-face was small but lovely, tall by the era’s standards, a pagen paen of joy where the Christian God had once been worshipped with serpents as well as crosses. It had been beautifully preserved though made of some strange almost black wood. The doors stood open. I did not venture inside though. Something about it felt unnatural and no one else seemed inclined to sightsee there either. If Emerson was wary, it behooved me to be so too. We were venturing into potential enemy territory and anything might be a trap.
The sun came briefly and then was gone, lost in dusty clouds and mountain peaks. It snows in the Sierras, but not like that. We were facing something completely different and horrible. Perhaps it was the ash from the volcanoes mixing with the ice, but it seemed as if the sky was disintergrating, flaking like rotted plaster and falling in pieces bigger and harder than any snow that had ever come from heaven. And in it there were traces of haunted voices. Their message was muffled but the sound of their laments was still unnerving.
We skirted something in the path, a mound of some sort of animal excreta containing suspiciously large bone fragments which looked charred. This made me think of the ghouls we had killed and in turn of the creature we needed to kill.
“Was he ever human?” I asked Emerson. I did not need to specify which he I meant. I also knew that there wasn’t anything new that Emerson could tell me, but I couldn’t leave the subject alone. The why of it was driving me crazy. I wanted there to be a reason for things being as they were. If there was a reason, then there was a solution and also probably a preventative to keep this from happening again. That this horror was merely random was unacceptable.
“If he was then he resigned his membership long ago…. You are having doubts now that you understand more fully? You wish to turn back before there is blood on your hands?”
He hoped my answer was yes. Emerson wanted to fight this battle without me, to protect me from danger as he had been unable to do for his mother and wife. I didn’t like that he thought of me as being that helpless and girlie, and resisted the urge to say something sarcastic like I was thinking about turning back because I valued my manicure over his life, so of course I would leave him to fight the monster alone. Magnus had woken up my snark and I was having some trouble throttling it.
“For starters, I have blood on my hands already. Black blood. Not blood I wanted either. And I am sorry if I seem slow and stupid about this problem. Comprehending the enormity of this task just seemed unwise to my subconscious, I guess, and it has been taking its time. I wasn’t raised to see myself as an instrument of justice, but that is what I need to be now and I want to understand why. Give me until the end of the week. I may have adjusted by then.”
“Precisely my point,” Emerson said with genuine enthusiasm. “You were never meant to be a tool of retribution. Treasure your hope and innocence— protect it. Life will take it away if you are not vigilant and only when it is lost does one understand how necessary it is to survive.”
“This is true, yet she adapts,” Magnus said, deigning to speak English. “And though female and American, she has accepted that ethical nicieties may not be observed because this creature’s guilt has been established and the sentence must be carried out. If we can mange it,” he added, sounding a bit pessimistic. “I have lived a long time, longer than you, boy. Mass murderers are not so common as this news media would have us believe.”
So he had heard of the news media.
“But they’re are not rare either,” Emerson said and I had the feeling they were back at some older agrument. “We know that. And yet we still have trouble dealing with them. Because we— and she especially— have ethics and morals. This creature has none and will show her no mercy if she is captured.”
“Moral clarity is difficult for some people who live a long time.” I couldn’t tell if he was speaking of himself or of Emerson.
“Especially when they had no morals to begin with.”
“Maybe I am old. It seems more moral to let the woman fight.”
I nodded. In civilized countries where we have courts of law, great significance is attached to premeditation in a crime. Greater still is the weight of repeated offenses—hence the three strikes laws. Lack of contrition is also considered. Supposing that one could involve law enforcement, they would bear down heavily on these points. But we had no police, no court, no jail. And this wasn’t someone you could imprison anyway. He had
to die. So here we were, the posse, judge, jury and executioners—a widow, a poet who saw ghosts, and three insane Vikings. We were applying situational morality. Were we really qualified for this task?
But if not us, then who?
Emerson seemed to follow my thoughts and shook his head, but did not argue further. I wished I could promise not to die or be hurt.
Magnus offered me his flask. It had more of the spiked tea.
“I don’t usually drink things that can punch my lights out when I am hiking,” I said as I coughed on the liquid. “But I guess that when in Rome…”
“Drink up, girl. It will make you a man.” Magnus grinned. Emerson shook his head again but didn’t scold. Magnus and I were working out our relationship and I knew this pleased Emerson even if the idea of my fighting beside them did not.
Jón had wandered off but presently rejoined us. He had some kind of charred meat hanging on a spit over his left shoulder. As he got closer I could see it was some kind of rabbit that he had burnt at the stake in the manner of Dak Age heretics and witches. He hadn’t skinned it first.
“Lightning,” he explained when he saw I was staring. “It cooks things quickly.”
Even fur.
“Okay, that does it. From now on I do the cooking. That is no way to treat meat.”
The others blinked at me.
“If you are going to kill something for food, then at least make it edible. That’s charcoal.”
Jón shrugged and I threw up my hands and walked away. He tore of hunks with his less than clean hands and we ate as we hiked. My hands weren’t the cleanest but I didn’t fuss since I was hungry. Charred rabbit was better than shark but it wasn’t going in my recipe box.
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