Arthur Quinn and Hell's Keeper

by Alan Early

  Two days ago, the gods shamed him. They sat and laughed as an ugly giantess abused him, stitching his mouth shut. He stormed out of Odin All-Father’s great dining hall then, vowing vengeance on them all. He rose the following morning and created the World Serpent, sending it to the world of man to wreak devastation. Next, he transformed an injured and pitiful beast into the Fenris Wolf – a wolf who could change himself into a man – and charged him with building an army of men with similar powers, with which he would rule. And now, finally, he will create his third – and most powerful – child.

  He glugs some mead and throws the now-empty horn aside. It cracks in two and golden, syrupy droplets spill out. He stands, stretching his back and neck with a crack, then turns towards Bifrost. Suddenly he breaks into a run, faster than any man’s legs could carry him. He sprints up the bridge and, even though it appears to be nothing more than a translucent rainbow, his footing is solid.

  As he reaches the apex of Bifrost, he leaps into the air, landing on his backside with a thump. Then he slides down the other side of the bridge, arms splayed out joyously and screaming ‘Wheee!’ all the way down. The sky grows darker as he descends, until his feet land in Midgard. It is night in this part of the world of man and the village he has arrived in is totally silent. All are asleep here, for which Loki is thankful. If anyone had been awake and seen the rainbow in the middle of the night, they might have raised their weapons against him. And though he could easily have dealt with them, he doesn’t want the inconvenience.

  The village is called Roskilde and many worshippers of the gods reside here. What a suitable place to steal from Odin, Loki thinks as he walks between the low huts. They are constructed from wood, with straw and earth roofs. A narrow hole has been left in the centre of each roof to allow smoke from the cooking fire within to escape. His footfalls make no sound on the twigs or pebbles scattered about and, apart from some heavy snoring from a few huts, the only sound to be heard is the light lapping of the nearby river and a couple of longboats knocking gently against the wooden quay.

  He stands stock-still in the centre of the village, closes his eyes and listens. Slowly he turns his head, searching for a particular sound. And then–

  ‘There!’ he hisses to himself, following the direction of the noise. It had been a whimper, tinny and in the distance, but distinct nonetheless. A baby’s whimper.

  He arrives at the hut where the sound came from, and enters noiselessly. Although it is pitch black inside, he can see perfectly. A man and woman sleep soundly on one bed-roll. Straw has been gathered in a pile for the mattress with some deerhide laid over it. The couple are snuggled together underneath a warm bearskin. Loki looks down at them pitilessly. They don’t even stir at his arrival in their house, but continue to dream peacefully.

  The baby lies next to them. She is wrapped first in tight swaddling and then in another piece of the velvety bearskin. The fur blanket is so thick around the babe that she has no need of bed-roll straw like her parents. Her eyes are wide open, staring up at Loki, and she whimpers again – this time Loki can sense her fear – spittle bubbling out at the side of her lips. It’s intoxicating. She’s clearly terrified, more scared than she’s ever been in her short life, too frightened to cry for her mother and father. A third whimpering sound is all she can manage.

  He leans down and picks her up, cradling her in his arms. Then he swivels and leaves the house.

  ‘You will be my most terrible child,’ he whispers to her as he strides back through Roskilde. ‘I will give you a part of myself. For generations to come, people will whisper your name around campfires and in the dark of night. You, Hel, will be the thing they fear the most.’

  The baby girl finally starts to cry – a high-pitched shriek that pierces everyone’s dreams in the village, waking them. But by now it is too late. Loki steps onto Bifrost and the two of them are gone. The anguished cries of the child’s parents rend the night, while the wails of the lost babe echo throughout Roskilde. And that sound echoes through all of Midgard for all of time. The sound of a taken baby. The sound of Hel herself.

  Chapter Two

  Arthur’s eyes shot open. The sound of the baby’s cries faded slowly inside his head. He felt a wetness on his cheek and when he touched it he was shocked to find tears seeping out of his good eye. He sat up in bed and pulled the pendant from around his neck. It had come into his possession months ago, when he’d found it in a tunnel underneath the city of Dublin. It was round, roughly twice the size of a two-euro coin and seemed to be made of bronze. An image was hammered onto the face of the pendant. It depicted a tall, wide tree with bare branches intertwining on top. A snake was coiled around the trunk, strangling it. The pendant protected Arthur from Loki – the trickster god couldn’t touch it without being blasted away – and it was glowing green now as it always did whenever something happened in connection with Loki.

  Arthur wiped the drying tears from his face and threw his blanket off. He put the pendant back around his neck, got out of bed and knelt on the carpeted floor. He reached under the bed, brushing aside the old Beano annuals he had piled there before finding what he was looking for. His hand gripped the handle and pulled out the war hammer.

  He’d found the hammer underneath Dublin, near where he’d found the pendant. The head of it was forged from iron and ancient letters and symbols were embossed into the gleaming metal – runes that even the pendant wouldn’t allow Arthur to read. The handle itself was a simple piece of timber – barely long enough for an adult’s grip – wrapped in fine rope for extra traction. It felt lighter in Arthur’s grasp than it had any right to, as if it was made just for him. He’d held other war hammers and they didn’t suit him. But this one was different – it had belonged to the god and warrior Thor, who’d died battling the World Serpent. The hammer wasn’t radiating like the pendant, but it was giving off a low warmth.

  ‘Ready for battle,’ Arthur murmured, clutching the handle tightly. It had played an integral part in defeating Loki before and he knew it would do so again. It was the only weapon he knew of powerful enough to hurt the god, and it had already saved his life more than once. He slid it back under the bed, confident that it would come to him when he most needed it.

  With the dream or vision or prophecy or whatever-it-was still fresh in his mind’s eye, Arthur knew he’d have to let his friends in Dublin know what he’d seen. He always dreamed of Asgard when Loki was up to something.

  He had barely been in contact with anyone from Dublin since he and Joe had moved last Sunday. Part of him had expected Ash, his best friend, to email or text. But the other part of him realised that she was still hurt by his leaving. On Wednesday evening, he’d had a text from Ellie Lavender, one of their other friends, suggesting that they should all have a video chat at lunchtime on Saturday. Well it was only after eight o’clock now, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He picked up his mobile phone from the bedside locker – about to call Ellie to have her bring forward the video chat – when it rang.

  A JPEG of Ash filled the screen along with the text ‘Incoming Call’. He held the phone at arm’s length, unsure how to proceed. Then, on the fourth ring, he pressed the ‘Answer’ key and put the phone to his ear.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hey,’ Ash’s voice came through the tinny speaker. ‘We all need to talk.’

  ‘I know. Ellie arranged a video chat for twelve-ish. Didn’t she mention it?’

  ‘She did but I mean we all need to talk now.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’ Had Loki done something to her? Or Max or Ellie or any of them?

  ‘We had a dream. We had the dream.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘All of us.’

  ‘Huh? Max and the Lavenders too?’

  ‘No, Arthur. You don’t get it. All of us. My parents, the Lavenders’ granddad, everyone.’

  Loki bit his fingertip with a sharp canine, breaking the skin. A pearl of blood formed on the tip: a perfect, glistening or
b. He pressed his finger to the calendar and drew an X across the day’s date. As he dragged his fingertip across the paper, the wound stung. When he was finished, for a couple of seconds the fingertip was encased in a bright green light, and when the light faded it was healed. He looked down at the calendar. Just over a week to go until the next full moon. The full moon – fundamental to the source of Fenrir’s power – would help him find the wolf.

  ‘Good morning, Wolf-father,’ said a voice at the door behind him. The girl was wearing her black hair loose for a change and it hung sleekly down by her shoulders. When Loki had brought her here she’d been wearing an antique frilly dress from the early twentieth century, made grubby and stinking after the explosion. Now she was wearing a pair of denim jeans and a black fleece hoodie that he’d found for her amongst the teenage boy’s spare clothes. Her name was Drysi and she was the first person that Fenrir had turned into a wolf, a thousand years ago. This, technically, made her Fenrir’s daughter and Loki’s granddaughter. She certainly had more sense than Fenrir, Loki thought, and had remained by his side since his return, unlike her turncoat father.

  She rolled into the kitchen in the wheelchair they’d been lucky to find in the attic. Neil had left it there for when his frail mother-in-law came to stay for a couple of weeks every summer. Unlike the bamboo contraption Drysi had been used to, this was simpler to manoeuvre and she was able to move around the house with ease. She’d lost the use of her legs a hundred years ago, during the 1916 Rising, when a roof had collapsed on her. But she believed to this day that Loki, when the world was finally his, would restore her ability to walk.

  ‘Good morning, Drysi,’ Loki said. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  Drysi went to the fridge, where she raided the bag of food the Conifrey family had arrived with the night before.

  ‘I slept well,’ she told him, before adding spitefully, ‘but I suspect our guests didn’t.’

  ‘Oh no?’

  ‘No.’ She smirked as she carried just enough bread and butter for herself to the table; Loki never needed to eat and only did so out of habit, but she had appetites just like any other living being. ‘By the way, they were making a bit of a racket when I passed the living room just now.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Loki. He kicked his chair back and strode down the hallway towards the living room. He paused just outside and knocked on the door.

  ‘Room service!’ he called in a high-pitched falsetto before bursting in.

  The room, like the rest of the house, was quite modern. Not much more than a blank canvas with a few touches from the family here and there: framed photographs, DVDs, old magazines and books. The Conifrey family were sitting in the centre of the floor on a plush cream rug. Each of them had their arms tied behind their backs, their legs bound together with black duct tape and a strip of the same tape across their mouth. They were positioned back to back, with more layers of tape wrapped around them, keeping them all tightly in place. Despite this, Loki could still hear the sounds of snivelling from the girl child.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. He dropped down in front of her and ripped the tape off the girl’s lips, with no regard for the stinging pain that followed. She whimpered more.

  ‘Quit your whining,’ warned Loki, ‘and tell me what’s wrong!’

  ‘I … I had a nightmare,’ the girl, Susanna, said, avoiding his eyes.

  ‘So?’

  ‘You were in it.’

  ‘Oh really?’ He seemed pleased at that and he sat back, crossing his arms eagerly. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘You … you took a baby.’

  As she said this, the rest of the family turned their heads towards her, their eyes wide. Loki noticed their reaction. He moved around and pulled the tape from the man’s mouth, taking some unshaven facial hair with it. The man couldn’t help but yelp in pain.

  ‘Why did you look so surprised just now?’

  ‘Please,’ said Neil. ‘Please, for the love of God, let us go.’

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘Just let my family go,’ he pleaded further, ignoring Loki’s demand. ‘Please just–’

  He was cut off when the trickster god slapped him hard across the face.

  ‘Enough! Answer my question,’ said Loki, struggling to remain calm and keep his anger in check. ‘Why were you so shocked when she told me about her nightmare?’

  ‘Because I had the same one,’ Neil told him, his voice weak.

  ‘What happened in it?’

  ‘You were in some other world. And then you travelled on a rainbow. To … to a small village. It was a long time ago, I think. At least it looked that way. You stole a baby.’

  ‘Hel,’ uttered Loki, leaning away from the man in quiet awe.

  ‘Yes! That’s right. That’s what you called her.’

  ‘Did you all have this dream?’ Loki looked at the rest of the family. They nodded slowly, their eyes filled with fear.

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked Drysi from the doorway.

  Loki stared at the floor, deep in thought. Drysi repeated her question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Loki answered eventually, getting to his feet and striding briskly past the girl out the door. ‘But it can’t be good.’

  ‘The exact same dream,’ Arthur muttered, still amazed.

  ‘Yup,’ said Ellie’s voice from his laptop speakers.

  After the call with Ash, he’d promised that he’d video chat with them all in half an hour. He had just needed time to have a quick shower and get dressed. He had also wanted to ask Joe about the dream. His dad had been reading a newspaper when he’d gone downstairs to the kitchen.

  ‘Dad,’ he had said, somewhat coyly.

  ‘Yes, son?’ Joe didn’t look up from the paper.

  ‘Did you have a weird nightmare last night?’

  ‘I did as it happens.’ He peered over the edge of the broadsheet at Arthur quizzically. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I got up to use the bathroom at one stage during the night,’ he lied, ‘and I heard you moaning.’

  ‘Oh.’ Joe seemed to buy it, setting the paper down. ‘It was such an odd dream.’

  ‘What happened in it?’

  ‘There was some guy … this crazy-looking man …’ His eyes met Arthur’s again. ‘And he stole a baby. I felt like I was that baby in a weird way … like I was the one being taken. It was really horrible.’

  After that Arthur had gone back to his room to shower and dress. He was sitting at the computer now, watching the faces of his friends on-screen. One half of the monitor showed the video link-up of Ash and Max Barry. Ash – short for Ashling – was the same age as Arthur and was one of the first friends he’d made when he moved to Dublin. Her wavy auburn hair was tied up in a ponytail, the way she usually wore it. She and Arthur shared a lot of the same interests: similar music, books and films. But, unlike Arthur, she was really into electronics. She could spend hours by herself poring over circuit boards and program coding. In fact, she’d been the one that set up this three-way video chat.

  Next to her was Max who, at eight, was Ash’s little brother. He had the same shade of hair as the rest of the Barry family, but it sat on top of his head in tight curls. He had an excitable demeanour and almost continuously rattled on about football, the one great love of his life.

  So far Ash and Max had managed to keep their involvement in foiling Loki’s schemes secret from their older sister, Stace, and their parents. Arthur firmly believed that this was the best course of action. The more people who got involved with Loki, the more likely they would be hurt by him.

  On the other side of the screen were the Lavenders. At eleven years old, Ellie Lavender was the world’s youngest paranormal investigator. She had a slight frame, which made her seem younger, and her straight black hair was cut into a bob that ended just above her shoulders. Since Arthur had known her she had always worn an oversized adult trench coat. Whenever her parents were off travelling the world, as they had been for the last few months, her mo
ther lent Ellie her coat to wear. Right now they were in Greece. With her knowledge of world mythologies, her abnormally high IQ and her photographic memory, Ellie had all the skills necessary for a great detective. She had even managed to recall Arthur’s face after Loki had wiped everyone’s knowledge of the World Serpent’s attack on Dublin. When she’d seen him on TV the year before, his face had been so familiar that her suspicions had been aroused and she’d decided to investigate him. Now she was as wrapped up in Loki’s devious plans as the rest of them.

  Xander Lavender, or Ex as he preferred to be known, was the polar opposite of his sister. He was a year older than the rest of them but seemed to have been rushed through adolescence. He was as tall and broad as an average man and even had a few wisps of facial hair on his chin. His hair was shaved tightly to his round skull, giving him a fierce appearance. While Ellie was chatty and intelligent, Ex was quiet and brooding. He rarely spoke and when he did it was short and to the point.

  Ellie was just finishing her account of the dream in close detail once more.

  ‘But you mean everyone?’ Arthur said, aghast. ‘Everyone in the world?’

  ‘That’s what the news is reporting. It looks like most of the world had exactly the same Dream with a capital D.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ Ash said. ‘It seemed so real.’

  ‘Are these just like the dreams you always get, Arthur?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘It was definitely another one of the Asgard dreams,’ Arthur said, ‘or visions. Whatever you want to call them.’