by M. K. Gibson
“. . . I got punched the face by a dinosaur dick, didn’t I?”
“HA!” TJ pointed and laughed even harder.
“I hate you both.”
“Come on, you have to admit that was funny.”
“Har-de-freaking-har.” I made a sour face at the kid but shot him a wink. It was a little funny.
I pulled out a smoke and lit it, letting The Collective finish its work. “OK Chael, which way?”
Chael pointed. “The Tears lie that way.”
The wind kicked up, blowing cold air across the open plains. Pulling my coat tighter around me, I stood and looked around.
“We need to find shelter,” I said to Chael and TJ. “I know we’re on the clock, but we’re not going to get anything done flailing around in the dark.”
“W-works f-for m-me,” TJ said through chattering teeth.
“Get back in the Outrider, kid. The energy shield temperature control system will keep you warmer than standing out here.”
“Y-you g-got it.”
“What do you think, Chael?” I asked the big man as he stood shirtless with his arms crossed, surveying the landscape.
“We are in an old land with old gods whispering for our deaths and worse.”
“Really?”
Chael shrugged. “Or we’re lost.”
“Maybe both,” I said. I switched my eyes into night vision and telescopic mode. Scanning the relative plains, I saw several rock formations and mesas on the horizon. The natural formations seemed safe.
“That way,” I said, pointing. “Let’s look for a cave and hunker down for the night.”
“The land here betrays us. It calls out to winged death and thunderous vengeance,” Chael said.
“Well that’s perfect,” I said, walking towards the Outrider. “Winged Death and Thunderous Vengeance was the name of my old metal band in college.”
Chael got into the back of the vehicle and looked me over. “You preferred the Spice Girls in college.”
“Three things, butthole,” I said, squinting at the giant in the rear-view mirror while holding up three fingers. “One, the Spice Girls were a phenomenon. Two, they had Girl Power. And three, I have a gun, so watch your mouth.”
“Just drive, Posh,” Chael said with a lopsided smirk.
“Just for that, you get to be Baby Spice. You like that? Big freaking baby.”
“Salem?” TJ asked.
“What?”
“What’s a Spice Girl?”
Sigh . . . kids.
I drove towards the rocky range I spotted earlier. Once we were concealed for the rest of the night, I could get my head in gear and figure out just what the hell I had to do.
Come sunrise, the clock would be ticking. I had a week to find the tears and get them back. When I was in prison, I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of thinking of home and the people of Löngutangar.
Now?
Now it was all I could think about. I thought about Gh’aliss. About her last words to me before Mastema slaughtered her. I thought about her daughters and how they died: Khlabra’s killed by Chael’s hand and Yeela in an explosion with Twitch.
Damn . . . Twitch. I couldn’t have escaped without the cyber-hacker’s skills. She deserved better than to die in Flotsam. But I had to bury those thoughts and feelings. I had to focus on what had to get done.
I looked momentarily at TJ. They boy was supposed to be with the rest of the kids. If Khurzon had done her job, then they should be making it home by now.
Damn it. TJ was supposed to be safe.
The kid caught me looking at him. “What are you thinking about?”
“Kids,” I said, puffing my smoke.
“Pervert.”
Sigh . . . fucking kids.
Chapter Three
Forty-Four Reasons
Now, in Löngutangar
“I hate you,” Vali said. “I hate you so much.”
Vali shifted at his desk. Rubbing his hands over his eyes, he chose his next words carefully. “I want nothing more than to hold you. But I can’t. If I do, you’ll destroy me.”
The whiskey bottle sitting on his desk said nothing in return.
“Gods,” Vali said with a sigh, sitting back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling. “Who ever heard of a Viking deity who doesn’t drink.”
“No one,” Vidar said, walking into Vali’s quarters. “Wimp.”
Vali said nothing in return, instead giving Vidar the finger, which only made the other god chuckle.
Vali returned to staring at the bottle. In the last fifteen minutes, the bottle had not moved an inch. He had not put it away, nor had he moved it in his direction. And blissfully, the bottle refused to whisper in Vali’s mind about how much better he would feel if he were to have just a sip.
Vidar plopped down into one of the handmade wooden chairs in Vali’s quarters. The wood creaked under Vidar’s weight as the Slayer of Fenris pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up.
“Do you have to do that in my room?” Vali asked.
“Do you have to talk to a bottle?” Vidar asked in return.
“It’s aversion therapy,” Vali said to his brother.
“At three in the morning?”
“It’s something Grimm told me about. Forcing someone to face the thing they are either scared of or addicted to. Especially during time of personal weakness. It’s late, I’m tired, I’m frustrated, and I want to drink. Hence the bottle.”
Vidar raised an eyebrow. “Work?”
“So far,” Vali answered. “Grimm used to be a psychologist. He forced patients to practice it a lot back in the day. There were success stories.”
“For humans,” Vidar rumbled. “We’re not human.”
Vali shook his head. “Technically, no. But as gods go, the Aesir and the Vanir were closest to human. Without the apples, we died like them.”
“Even with them,” Vidar said, to which Vali was forced to nod in agreement.
Vali thought of their pantheon, long gone. “Do you still feel like a god? When was the last time you even dreamed of Asgard?” Vali asked.
Vidar’s face darkened, and he couldn’t look at his brother. Instead of answering, he found a spot on the floor and stared at it.
“Me too, brother. Me too,” Vali echoed the silent sentiment.
Moments went by in silence before Vidar broke it. “How long? How long since Bilskirnir? Watching Thor boast and battle? How long since Freya’s field of Folkvangr?”
“Too long,” Vali said. “But to answer you, I don’t have a clue if staring at the bottle helps. But it keeps my mind focused on what I need to do rather than what I want to do.”
Vali grunted in understanding as he lit another smoke. “The kids.”
“Of course the kids,” Vali said, pushing himself away from the desk and standing. “I want to find them and then hurt those who took them. I want them to suffer in ways that Surtur himself would find horrifying.”
Vidar said nothing. He simply stared at his brother with his dark eyes.
Vali shook his head. “You know I can’t. I have to be here. To . . . lead.”
Vali walked to the holo projection along the far side of his quarters. Swiping the air caused the ultra-def video to rewind to the beginning of the security footage.
“Play,” Vali commanded.
The video once again unfolded before him. He watched as a strike force comprised of demons and human conscripts detonated charges outside of Löngutangar. Swiping the air to forward the recording, Vali watched as Vidar and his response force rushed out to meet the threat.
But it was what he did not see that troubled him. Over numerous viewings, and under the technomantic tutelage of Tesla, Vali reconstructed the other videos. As Vidar’s forces engaged the demons, Vali brought his hands up then brought them together, shrinking the display. Raising his left hand, Vali brought up other camera footage from all over Löngutangar.
These supposedly secret cameras caught glimpses of sma
ller secondary and tertiary forces sneaking in. Once they were inside the land, they immediately detonated—what did Tesla call them—EMP devices? Something to do with electricity and how to negate it.
Vali had no mind for the humans’ modern marvels, but he did have a mind for the things he was literally born to do.
Killing.
When Allfather Odin lay with Rindr, it was with the sole purpose of siring a killer. In one night, Vali was born and grew into adulthood, as the myths claimed. What the Edda did not convey was what Odin poured forth into his unborn son: the sum of his knowledge of warfare, death, and deceit.
The Allfather was the highest of Aesir. The wielder of magiks and the god of war. Odin’s mind for war, coupled with his devious nature as the Grey Traveler, made him, and therefore Vali, a formidable presence.
While his brother Vidar was a great raging beast of a warrior, Vali’s mind looked elsewhere. It looked for angles of attack most would not look for. So when Vidar led the response force, a few days prior to fend off the attack, Vali looked at it as an assassin would: as a feint. A feint hiding the attack’s true purpose.
Over and over Vali twisted his hand rewinding and playing the holographic image, watching each angle of the attack the cameras recorded before they were disabled.
“It’s thanks to you,” Vidar said.
“What?” Vali asked absently as he continued to stare at the various images.
“It’s thanks to you, seeing the attack as a diversion, that they didn’t get more of the children.”
“It wasn’t enough, was it?” Vali asked. “They still made off with forty-four of our children.”
“You killed seven of them with your bare hands,” Vidar said.
Vali shook his head. Vidar saw bloodshed as a sign of glory. In that way he envied his brother. While not a simple being, Vidar was perhaps the most Norse of them. Vidar never learned that prowess in battle was not enough. Leadership comes at a cost, and he had his reasons to focus now on what must be done.
Forty-four reasons, to be precise.
“How many times are you going to watch that?” Vidar asked.
“As many as it takes,” Vali said, waving his hand in frustration. “You don’t get it, brother. There is something here. Something worse than the attack.”
“You mean how the attackers knew the children’s location during a lockdown, and where the hidden cameras were,” Vidar said as he put out the cigarette and lit another.
Vali’s hands dropped as he looked at his brother, partly shocked but mostly impressed.
“I’m not an idiot.”
“I know, brother,” Vali said, holding his hands up. “And I’m sorry if you ever feel that I think so about you. I could not do any of this without you.”
“No, you couldn’t,” Vidar smiled, giving his brother a friendly slap in the face.
“Asshole,” Vali said, smiling.
“True,” Vidar agreed. “Don’t worry, you’re still quicker. Only figured it out after you watched that thing a hundred times. What you thinking?”
Vali looked back at the videos. The scene was paused the moment the various demons and humans released their EMP bursts, knocking out the cameras. Vali’s jaw clenched at the only practical possibility.
“We have a traitor here.”
Vidar looked at the monitor once more, cracked his knuckles, and nodded at his brother’s assessment. “Makes sense. Plan?”
“Nothing,” Vali said. “Whoever it is, they think we’re not smart enough to figure it out. We’ll let them think that for as long as possible. Their hubris is our ally.”
“Prefer an ax.”
“I know, brother. But for now, we have forty-four missing children. We have to track them down and get them back. That is all that matters for now. After that, we’ll sniff out our traitor.”
“And then?”
Vali smiled. “Then we use the ax.”
The door to the room burst open as Erik, the former captain of the guard in Midheim, now Löngutangar, burst into the room.
“Vali, Vidar, the children! Demon!”
“What?!” Vali said, crossing the room towards Erik. “Have more been taken?! Vidar, get the response force into position!”
“No,” Erik huffed, shaking his head. For the normally fit captain to be this winded, he must have sprinted to the brothers from the main gate. “No . . . attack.”
“Then what?”
“The kids, they’re . . . here! A goddamn four-armed demon just drove them up to the gate in a transport truck.”
Chapter Four
Eleven Herbs and Spices
Now, in the Waste
The cave wasn’t much, but it was what we needed for the remainder of the night. It was still dark, which means we were west of New Golgotha. Since dawn was still hours away, it only made sense we were several time zones away.
Collective?
//ONLINE//
Any idea where we are?
//IF HOST’S QUERY IS LOCATION-BASED, THEN HOST SHOULD BE REMINDED THAT ANY USE OF PERSONAL TRANSPONDER SIGNAL TO GEOLOCATE COULD BE RECEIVED BY ENEMIES AND RESULT IN DEMISE OF HOST’S HOME - IF HOST’S QUERY IS SITUATION-BASED, THEN COLLECTIVE ASSESSEMENT IS THAT HOST IS AFLOAT AN AQUATIC PATHWAY OF EXCREMENT WITHOUT A MEANS OF MANUAL PROPULSION//
So I’m up shit creek without a paddle?
//AFFIRMATIVE//
I couldn’t really argue with The Collective on that one. What was it Granddad and Dad used to say? When faced with a problem, pick one thing you can control and do that. Afterward, everything will fall into place.
So for the moment, we needed warmth and food. I checked the back of Grimm’s Outrider. Under the trunk’s false bottom, I found a couple of blankets, freeze-dried food, and a portable heater.
And several more bags of blood. Ignoring the millions of questions running through my head, I gestured for TJ. “Gimme a hand here.”
The kid obliged and grabbed the blankets while I carried the box of food and the heater. I could have carried it all, but one of the things I learned when I was a soldier was to keep the troops busy. If they’re left with nothing to do, morale goes to hell fast.
“Wanna help make camp, Chael?” I asked the giant while TJ and I began clearing an area.
Chael sat cross-legged with his back to us, at the mouth of the cave staring out. His long black hair hung to his waist and he had yet to move since coming in.
“Hey, Chael. You with us, bud?”
“The fountains run cold. The Hall is nearly empty. Void continues to languish in a prison of existence.”
“Yeah, I hate it when that happens,” I said, firing up the heater. In moments, the small cave was bathed in the warm red glow of the heater. TJ finished laying out the blankets and we looked at our campsite.
“It ain’t pretty, kid, but it will do for tonight.”
“I’ve slept in worse,” TJ remarked, claiming the spot closest to the heater as his own.
I had to remind myself that TJ had grown up in the wastelands. Even in Midheim, he never knew the “normal” comforts of the city. So a night on the cold ground was normal to him. Hell, during my time in the first war, we would have killed for the relative comfort this cave provided.
Literally killed.
“OK, let’s see what Grimm packed for dinner,” I announced, opening the box and hoping it wasn’t smaller bags of blood.
I was pleasantly surprised to find a few wrapped packages of a protein-infused granola and a bottle of water. Grimm even had a “Salem Special”: a couple packs of old-world smokes, an extra lighter, base-material composite bars to keep my internal cybernetics running, and a flask of scotch. I tossed TJ some of the granola and water.
“Hey Chael, hungry?”
“It’s coming,” Chael announced.
As he spoke, thunder boomed across the snowy plain. Epic cloud formations rolled in, blotting out the moonlight. Snow mixed with freezing rain began falling in sheets. Lighting crackled in time with the thu
nderclaps, illuminating the winter storm.
“Come inside, bud,” I told the pale giant.
“I was inside once. I was with the others when they came inside me. I am never alone but always afraid. Courage fell to the fear of They.”
“Is he always like that?” TJ asked, nestling into his makeshift bedroll.
“Pretty much.” Lighting a smoke, I crawled into my own spot and tried getting comfortable.
“Salem?”
“What’s up?”
“Are we going to save the town?”
“That’s why we’re here, kid,” I said. “We don’t have a choice. We have to do it.”
“I just wanna save my dad,” TJ said.
“Whatever it takes to get you through it, you hang onto that thought,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Salem?”
“Yes?” I sighed. I was personally convinced kids’ primary function was to keep adults from sleep.
“What was prison like?”
“It was bad,” I said. “Very bad.”
“Did you have any friends? Besides Chael?”
Immediately I thought of Gh’aliss. I thought of lying in bed with her. I thought of the decades we spent together when I was a different person. I thought of the mutual hate, and love, we felt for one another. I thought of her last words to me before Mastema tore her apart.
Her last, incomplete sentence. I L—
A tear welled up in my eye as my throat constricted. “Nope,” I squeaked out, trying to maintain my composure. “Just Chael. Goodnight, TJ.”
“Night, Salem.”
I rolled over and tried to control my breathing. Pushing my feelings away, I forced all my emotions back into the dark recesses of my mind. Burying your feelings may be bad. But facing them, right then, was worse.
“Salem?” TJ said.
“Goddamn it, TJ, what?!” I asked, sitting up.
“I . . . I just wanted to say thank you,” the boy sputtered in shock at my outburst.
“For what?”
“Going to prison for us,” TJ said with earnest sincerity. “And for saving me and the other kids.”