But as soon as we entered the lobby, the doors slammed closed behind us. I spun around and tugged on the handle, but it refused to open, so Agnes struck the glass with a club that she’d magically produced from thin air—seriously, how did they keep doing that?—but it didn’t shatter. We’d just been trapped inside the hotel with no way out.
A howling from the hallway on our left warned us we weren’t alone after all, though, and I groaned, knowing I was about to end up fighting yet another freakish animal. What emerged from the hallway caught me off guard though, and as the pack of dogs, which weren’t really dogs, flooded into the lobby, I might or might not have yelped a little. I wasn’t scared of dogs or anything, I just hadn’t been prepared for a bunch of canines with remarkably human features. Their eyes, mostly brown irises surrounded by a sea of white, just like a person’s, were the most haunting aspect of these monsters, but their faces weren’t a whole lot better. Instead of a snout like a regular dog, their faces were flatter, like a pug’s but with a human’s nose. They had the lips of a man but the teeth of a dog, and their ears were some unholy combination of the two.
The creatures snarled and barked, but beneath the normal canine sounds was a whispering of words that sounded like “die” and “eat.” Goose bumps broke out all over my arms as I faced the pack of devil dogs. Of all the gods and monsters I’d already fought, none had scared the shit out of me like those mutants. The alpha fixed me with his disturbingly human eyes and smiled. I fought the urge to throw up or scream or both.
The alpha attacked, which apparently gave the rest of the pack permission to attack us as well. Like the lions in Baton Rouge, these canines had long claws, and he swiped at me as he lunged toward my neck. I swung my blade at his foreleg and only managed to nick him. Cursing, I stepped out of the path of his attack and brought my sword back to his body, which caused him to scream like a wounded man. So I screamed back at him. “Dude, not cool!”
Apparently, he didn’t care that I found his human characteristics so disturbing. He bared his teeth and leapt at me again, entirely too fast because his claws got ahold of my arm this time. I swiped my blade across his paw, forcing him to let go, and backed away, bleeding all over the lobby’s perfectly polished floor. “Son of a bitch,” I complained, which apparently was a bigger insult when battling a dog because that really seemed to piss him off. He growled and lunged, so I growled back and ran my sword into his chest. His eyes widened like he was surprised I’d just struck a fatal blow, and I pulled my sword free, only then realizing I’d heard John firing his handgun when the dogs first attacked but he’d been far too quiet since.
Tyr speared the monster he’d been battling, and as the dog fell to the floor, I saw John’s mangled body lying beside it. We’d warned him, of course, that bullets wouldn’t work against gods, and presumably, any creature they threw our way. But John hadn’t been a demigod with the knowledge of ancient weapons somehow embedded in his DNA. It had been our job to protect him, and we’d failed.
Agnes freed her blade from the last of the dogs still standing and cast an apologetic glance in John’s direction. We’d have to leave him as we ventured farther into the hotel in the hopes of finding Frey, or at the very least, a way out. I stepped over the body of one of those freaks that would forever ruin my love of golden retrievers and followed Tyr into the hallway.
The elevator dinged as it reached the lobby, and we froze in anticipation of a new horror awaiting us behind those metal doors. When they finally opened, the car was empty. I was about to tell them we should take the stairs anyway when a mist began to fill the empty elevator, a thick white cloud that quickly filled the car and leeched into the hallway, tendrils of the vapor reaching toward us like it was alive. And not really being stupid, I backed away from it but not fast enough. Some of the milky white gas touched my bare arm, and I screamed as if it were fire burning off my skin.
Some of it must have touched Agnes as well, because she also screamed and bumped into me as we tried to get away from it. Tyr used his prosthetic hand to wave away the closest cloud, but the more he tried to disperse it, the thicker it seemed to coalesce until we were confronted by an opaque wall of poisonous gas. My forearm bore a bright red spot where the fog had touched me, and I couldn’t imagine what it would do to our lungs if we inhaled it. I could, however, imagine it would be a terribly painful way to die.
Death by mysterious poison gas was also unacceptable, by the way.
We stumbled down the hallway and reached the stairwell, and I had a momentary lapse of sanity when I actually thought, “Finally, we’ll be safe in there.” Of course, I immediately wanted to kick my own ass, but I had a toxic death cloud chasing me. Instead, I pulled the door open, and Tyr cursed and backed into Agnes, pushing her away from whatever lay beyond that door. I peeked into the dimly lit stairwell and muttered, “You have got to be kidding me,” when I saw more of that strange white mist creeping down the stairs.
“We’re trapped,” Agnes breathed. “We’re going to be killed by a cloud.”
“No way,” I insisted. “I’m only going to die one way and this ain’t it.”
In one of those rare moments of sudden Superman strength, I hurled my body into one of the closed doors, and the locks snapped, allowing us to spill into the cool, clean air of an empty hotel room. Agnes yanked the bedspread off and stuffed it at the bottom of the door while Tyr shut off the air conditioner. And me? I stood there rubbing my shoulder and wondering what kind of dumbass wouldn’t have tried kicking the door down first then realized I was the kind of dumbass who wouldn’t try kicking the door down first.
“I don’t think Ninurta’s here,” Tyr sighed. “And neither is Frey.”
“Help me break the window,” I said. “If we stay here any longer, none of us will get out of here alive.”
A ticking sound beat against the door, and each of us squinted at it like it was the door’s fault something else was out there trying to kill us now. When the ticking sound became louder and more insistent, I shouted, “We didn’t order room service.”
“Gavyn,” Agnes groaned.
But whatever was making that noise didn’t appreciate my polite attempt to send them away. The door began to dent as those ticks became violent and incessant. “Is it just me or does that kinda sound like a million scarabs or something?” I asked.
“Not just you,” Tyr agreed.
“And does anyone else hate bugs?”
Tyr slowly raised his prosthetic hand while keeping his eyes glued to the pockmarked door.
“Window,” Agnes reminded us.
I pulled the curtain back and ran my fingers along the seam. “It’s cemented closed.”
“We don’t have time to break the seal,” she said. “We’ll knock out as much glass as possible and try not to open a major artery on our way out.”
The clicking of all those little legs against our door mixed with an unnerving whirring sound, like millions of beetles flapping their wings to take flight. Or worse, using their wings to communicate with each other. Tyr lifted a floor lamp and struck the glass until it shattered, then wrapped a towel around his good hand and broke off the jagged edges. So naturally, I reminded him to be careful that he didn’t sever that hand, too.
The door burst open and a pulsing black mass swarmed into the room. I may or may not have screamed like a nine-year-old girl and dove out the window, but if I did, Agnes and Tyr were right behind me, and Tyr may or may not have landed on me, which would have been worse than the screaming like a little girl thing.
As we scrambled to our feet, prepared to run from the Hotel California, the weirdest thing happened. All those scarabs hit some invisible barrier where the window used to be and piled thicker and thicker against it. But not one of them escaped the hotel room.
“Enchantment,” Agnes hissed.
“Do we have any kind of army of freaks?” I asked.
She shrugged and said, “We have you.”
“Yeah,” I pretended to agre
e. “But I’m not an army.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not. And we’re down one CIA agent and a powerful god while the Sumerians have the advantage of more and more distractions popping up all over the world.”
“Then I guess,” Tyr offered, “it’s time we get an army.”
Arnbjorg Challenges Odin
(And Áki has to be connected to Havard’s fate)
For days, Arnbjorg moved around our palace as if in an enchantment, keeping her brother close during the day in case he might disappear again or she might wake up and discover his presence had only been a dream. She was happier than I’d ever seen her, and to me, that made our entire expedition and even Gunnr’s insistence she bring this mortal boy back to Asgard worth it.
On the third day after Finn’s arrival, Arnbjorg asked to meet Áki, the son of the wealthy farmer who’d purchased Finn and would now be raised by a Valkyrie. I’d asked a few gods, but none of them could remember a Valkyrie ever raising a child. But unable to tell my wife no, I brought her to Gunnr’s home so she could meet the boy.
Áki had apparently won the hearts of many in Valhalla. We found him in the field where our fallen heroes prepared for Ragnarok, a few of them gathered around the small boy to teach him sword fighting skills and how to engage an enemy when disarmed. Gunnr watched him with so much adoration already that I felt guilty about our fight over his fate.
“Odin hasn’t bothered either of you, has he?” I asked.
Gunnr’s expression hardened and she crossed her arms, her eyes all fire and storms. “He says we’ll put the boy’s fate in Forseti’s hands, but how can we know Odin isn’t directing Forseti’s judgment?”
“We can’t,” I answered. “He’s always ruled fairly before, but no one has so directly challenged Odin before either.”
“And if he decides that Áki cannot stay here?” she asked.
I was about to tell her that if we couldn’t find a suitable home for him in Asgard, surely mortals would open their doors to the will of the gods, but Arnbjorg responded first and I wouldn’t contradict my wife. “Then we will take him in,” she said. “And we will raise him as our own.”
Gunnr looked at me for confirmation, so I told her whatever Arnbjorg decreed, I’d support. Róta, another Valkyrie, called for Gunnr and waved us over. Before we even reached her, we could tell she’d summoned her sister because Forseti was ready to judge whether or not Áki could remain in her care.
As a god of justice who settled most disputes between us gods, we trusted Forseti’s judgment and generally agreed to live by his decisions. But as we ventured to his palace so he could hear Gunnr’s case, I was already scheming how I’d get Odin off his throne. By the time we reached Forseti’s palace, the All-Father was already there, and he gestured angrily toward me, demanding I leave. “You have no business here. This doesn’t concern you.”
“It does,” I argued. “Arnbjorg and I have agreed to raise the boy if Forseti’s judgment is in your favor.”
“And,” Gunnr added, “Havard was with me when I decided to bring the child home. Forseti may wish to speak with him.”
Odin wouldn’t even acknowledge his daughter, which infuriated me, but what could I do? Forseti entered his hall and greeted each of us, even Arnbjorg, a human, and Gunnr, a Valkyrie, all of whom most gods regarded as nothing more than servants of the All-Father rather than women with minds of their own. But Forseti was always fair to everyone, and this simple gesture of acknowledgment served as a reminder that his decision would be fair as well, although he followed our laws. And Gunnr had broken our laws.
He listened patiently as we recounted our destruction of Áki’s father’s farm, our rescue of Finn, and Gunnr’s determination that this child shouldn’t be punished for the sins of his father. When our story ended, Odin folded his arms over his chest and said, “She’s a Valkyrie, and as such, she’s forbidden to have children.”
“But,” I countered, “she has not had this child. She hasn’t violated any law.” It was a technicality, a flimsy hope that Gunnr could keep Áki over one word and its interpretation. And honestly, I couldn’t see how this would end in her favor.
“It would set a bad precedent,” Odin said. “The Valkyries have rules that don’t apply to the rest of us—”
“Rules that you created and forced on them,” I interrupted.
“But rules nonetheless,” he insisted. “Do we gods not have rules that we’ve inherited and must live by even though we never personally agreed to them?”
I gritted my teeth and silently cursed him. Odin was a god of war and wisdom, and I was out of my depth in this hall… and he knew it. But Arnbjorg stepped forward and bowed politely to Forseti and addressed him. “My lord, may I speak?”
Forseti smiled and obliged her.
“Good men must live by two sets of laws, which don’t always agree,” she said. “One is the set handed down to us from the gods, and ignoring those laws can result in catastrophe, which is how Áki ended up in Asgard in the first place. But the second is just as important. It is the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. When our ancient laws compel us to do evil and we don’t fight against it, we risk our own moral corruption. And tarnishing the soul is as catastrophic as any punishment from the gods.”
Forseti raised an eyebrow and lifted a hand in Odin’s direction. “And your rebuttal?”
Odin hardly seemed concerned that my wife’s contribution could be anything but a delay in Forseti’s judgment in his favor. “We aren’t human. Our world doesn’t operate the same way, nor do we.”
“Do you not have souls?” Arnbjorg asked him. “Do you not have a conscience or a moral obligation to do what is right?”
Odin had the nerve to laugh at her as he said, “You’re just a girl. What do you know of moral obligations?”
Arnbjorg remained as stoic as ever. “I am just a girl, and I don’t possess your years of wisdom, my lord. But I know Áki is just a child in need of a home, and Gunnr is following her conscience. I’ve seen the way they look at one another, how much love exists between them already. And I know it would be an act of evil to separate them for no other reason than to abide by a rule that doesn’t always make sense.”
“Be careful, girl,” he warned. “You forget to whom you’re speaking.”
“No, my lord,” she responded. “But no man or god will change my heart.”
Forseti rose from his chair before Odin could respond and declared, “I’ve reached a decision. We will proceed with the understanding that Valkyries are neither to bear nor adopt children, but Áki may stay until he is old enough to care for himself.”
“Forseti—” Odin began, but the god of justice stopped him.
“This is my judgment, Odin. All of Asgard will uphold it.”
Odin’s single eye settled on my wife, narrowed and filled with loathing. My stomach turned, and a voice within me that sounded so much like my mother whispered, “Kill him now, Havard. No harm shall ever come to your bride.”
But Odin turned on his heels and stormed out of the palace, leaving us with the god of justice who’d given Gunnr permission to become the only mother to ever exist among the Valkyries. She bowed respectfully and thanked him, but before I could follow Arnbjorg and Gunnr outside, Forseti grabbed my arm and told me, “Havard, Odin will most likely calm down. But you should have your wife attempt to reconcile with him.”
“I cannot control her nor do I want to,” I said. “I can convey your advice, but if she believes she owes him nothing then I will support her decision.”
Forseti nodded as if he’d anticipated my response. “I don’t disagree. Odin simply isn’t used to anyone challenging him, and now, all three of you have in a very public way. Just encourage her to demonstrate a bit of humility toward him.”
I promised I would even though I felt sick even thinking about it. Humility toward Odin? I’d rather die than subject Arnbjorg to such humiliation. But as I caught up to her and Gunnr, she took my arm and su
ggested, “Let’s have a feast for Odin and Frigg as a thank you for their generosity in opening Asgard to Finn and me.”
I laughed and told her, “Asgard doesn’t belong to them.”
“That hardly matters, Havard. We will keep the peace between our families.”
So I smiled and assured her I would do my best to honor her wishes. We escorted Gunnr back to Valhalla where Áki still played happily in the field with our fallen heroes. The sun was beginning to set now, and soon, all of Valhalla would enter the dining hall and celebrate that the world continued on and Ragnarok had not yet consumed us.
“If becoming his mother kills me,” Gunnr said quietly, “you should know it was worth it.”
“Yngvarr and I will protect you,” I immediately replied, but could we? We’d openly defied the All-Father and convinced Forseti to rule against him. We’d inflicted enough insults for him to use against us should he decide to raise an army, which meant there was really nothing we could do except raise an army of our own.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We’d survived Ninurta’s Haunted Hotel of Horrors, so I assumed Frey wouldn’t make it much longer, if he were even still alive. As soon as we returned to Baton Rouge, I checked on Yngvarr then pulled Keira into the hallway to find out what Odin was up to. He was still in town, and the more I dreamed about Havard, the more convinced I became that Odin was responsible for his murder.
But really, I had a lot of questions about Áki. “What happened to him?” I asked after filling her in on Forseti’s decision and Odin’s response.
“Nothing,” she said. “He grew up and eventually returned to Midgard.”
I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like we were missing a huge piece of Havard’s and my puzzle, and Áki had played a big part in it. “Once he returned to Earth, did you visit him?”
“Of course, but I really don’t remember anything unusual. He married and had kids and lived a normal, mortal life. I was always so proud of the man he’d become.”
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