He dropped the wrecked rag at the threshold of the hall and said, “Better?”
Mason felt herself smiling broadly for the first time in what seemed like forever. She stopped him before he could leave Odin’s mighty feast hall and slowly ran her hands up his bare, scarred, beautiful chest. She felt him shiver at her touch, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers.
“Definitely better,” she murmured against his lips. And when he kissed her back, for a long, lovely moment, she let herself forget about everything else that was waiting for them beyond the doors of Valhalla.
XII
Outside the hall, the ground was littered with lank gray body parts and splashes of thick black blood. The field was ringed with Einherjar who stood like sentinels, weapons lowered, but still ready at hand. And Rafe was cleaning the edge of his bronze-bladed sword with a tattered rag that must have come from the tunic of one of the dead zombie warriors. Deader zombie warriors.
“Wow,” Fennrys said drily. “What did I miss?” “You mean, aside from your shirt?” Rafe raised an eyebrow at Fennrys’s lack of apparel. “I gave you that shirt.” “Fine. I owe you a shirt.”
Rafe turned and winked at Mason. “Mason. Nice to see you again.”
“You too. I think I owe you—”
“Unh!” Rafe held up a hand. “Never say that to someone who might just collect one day. Do you hear me? Never say ‘owe.’”
He smiled to soften the admonishment, but Mason remembered that she’d done something similar with a bunch of river goddesses. They had yet to make good on their claim, but hearing Rafe say that gave her a fleeting rush of worry, nevertheless.
Rafe glanced back at Fennrys. “The shirt-owing thing, I’ll probably just let slide. It was just a promotional item anyway.”
The coppery blade wiped free of gore, Rafe held it out in front of him and, with a flick of his wrist, made it disappear. Mason wondered fleetingly why he would need to clean a blade that was made of magick anyway, but she appreciated the gesture. She’d certainly never left a fencing practice without oiling and checking her weapon, filing it for stray burrs, making sure the hilt was properly tightened… .
At the thought of swords, Mason turned suddenly and ran for the stacks of weapons piled up outside the doors of Valhalla. She sighed in relief to see that her sword was still there where she’d left it, resting on top of a heap of old rusted weapons. She plucked it from the pile and slung the black leather strap over her head so that it hung properly across her torso. The weight of the sword hanging at her side made Mason feel instantly, infinitely better.
Until she turned back and saw the tall, black-cloaked figure of Hel gliding through the ranks of the Einherjar, who shifted uneasily to make way.
“Daughter.” Hel’s eyes flicked over Mason, her glance taking in the sword at her hip and the obvious lack of Odin spear in her hands.
Mason lifted her chin and steeled herself for whatever wrath was about to fall upon her, but before Hel could say anything, Fennrys stepped forward, almost—but not quite—interposing himself between mother and daughter.
“Hello there,” he said. “Again.” There was a wary edge to his voice.
Mason looked up at him and then back at her mother. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Rafe had quietly circled around so that he was standing on Mason’s other side. She suddenly felt like she was flanked by bodyguards.
“You two know each other?” she asked Fennrys.
Fennrys nodded, his eyes never leaving Mason’s mother. “This … lady looks an awful lot like the one who busted me out of Asgard the first time.”
“She’s my mother,” Mason said to Rafe. “Can you believe that?”
“Huh,” Rafe murmured. His gaze, too, was fastened firmly on the slender, dark-haired woman. “I really can’t… .”
Hel turned a bleak, frosty glare on Rafe. It was fairly clear to Mason that she knew she was in the presence of a fellow deity. And wasn’t very happy about it.
“I dunno. I can see the family resemblance,” Fennrys said. “The eyes … the hair. Can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together, but it’s all starting to make a bit more sense now. Listen … I never got the chance to say thanks for the jailbreak last time.” His posture belied the casual tone of his voice. “So, y’know … Thanks. And now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to go.”
Mason was a little startled by his reaction. For one thing, it was her mother he was talking to, and even if Mason herself didn’t exactly harbor warm, sentimental feelings toward the woman, she would have thought that Fennrys would have exhibited his usual gruff charm. Especially if, as he’d said, she was the one who’d helped him escape from the torturous dungeon he’d been confined to. Just knowing that, in fact, went a long way toward softening Mason’s feelings toward Hel.
“Of course you must leave.” Hel inclined her head. “For the good of all. But my daughter still needs the spear of Odin to return to the mortal realm.”
“Yeah … I’m a little bit fuzzy on something here,” Fennrys said.
He didn’t sound the least bit fuzzy on anything, Mason thought. Instead, he just sounded a little bit dangerous.
His voice lowered to a warning growl. “I didn’t need a spear.”
Hel’s expression suddenly turned from hard and cold to blazing with ill-repressed fury. Mason could see it smoldering in her eyes.
“All I needed,” Fennrys continued, “was your rainbow pal.”
“My rainbow pal,” Rafe interjected.
Fennrys ignored him. “I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just call her up again to get your daughter home, if that’s what you wanted.”
“Iris is a goddess in her own right.” Hel shrugged. “She does not always come at my bidding. Nor should she.”
“But she did. For me. Because you asked her to,” Fennrys said. “Didn’t you? I find it hard to believe that getting me out of Hel was more important to you than getting Mason home.”
“Fenn …” Mason put a hand on his arm. Where is he going with this? she wondered.
“You were needed to protect her,” Hel said. “Time was of the essence.”
“Right,” Fennrys said. “But I recently got to thinking … I mean … here’s Bifrost, the rainbow bridge between the mortal realm and Asgard, and it comes out right smack in the middle of Manhattan. So then I got to thinking that maybe you—maybe Hel, that is—had some kind of beef with the bridgekeeper of the Aesir. What’s his name again? Heimdall?”
On the other side of her, Mason heard Rafe draw in a sharp breath.
Fennrys ignored that, too, and continued on. “I remember him from the stories. Grumpy sort, I seem to recall. Didn’t really get on with some of the other gods, like … Loki. But this Heimdall guy is a bit of a slippery character too. Isn’t he?”
Mason was listening very carefully to what Fennrys was saying, even though she still wasn’t entirely certain what his point was. But then he glanced sideways at her, and his meaning became crystal clear with the next words out of his mouth.
“A couple of the Aesir are kind of like Rafe, here. They’re shape-shifters. Heimdall is one of them. Could turn himself into a seal, among other things, which never sounded particularly useful to me, but there you go.” Fennrys’s voice was hard and blunt, his gaze flinty as he turned it back on the Asgardian standing before him. “The thing is, Heimdall always had this horn that he carted around with him everywhere, so no matter what shape he wore, you could always tell it was him. Dead giveaway …”
Mason’s gaze went to her mother’s belt, where a polished, gold-chased horn hung at her side … right beside the silvery-furred sealskin pouch. She felt the blood draining from her face.
That’s not my mother.
A crushing weight of disappointment descended on her. All this time, Mason had thought she’d found her mother, when really, she’d just been played for a fool. The idea of her mother slipping away from her again was almost too much, and she felt a
tightness in her throat that threatened to become a flood of tears.
Hang on, the voice in her head interrupted what was about to become a full-fledged bout of self-pity. All this time you thought this was your mother. And all that time you thought your mother was kind of a jerk. She took a step toward the imposter god. Anger instead of regret boiling in her chest.
“Take it off,” she snapped. “Now.”
“Speakest thou so to—”
“Don’t ,” Mason snapped, “give me any of that wrathful god-speak thee-and-thou bull crap. Take off my mother’s face before I take it off for you.”
She loosened the silver rapier in its sheath.
Not-Hel’s eyes glittered wildly, glancing back and forth from Mason’s face to her fist, wrapped around the hilt of the silver sword, and Mason drew the sword an inch or two from the scabbard. As she did so, a wild wave of energy pounded like a riptide, surging up her muscles from her fingertips all the way to her shoulder.
“Whoa there,” Rafe murmured in Mason’s ear as he stepped forward and gently drew her hand away from the sword. “Best not brandish a weapon on the steps of Odin’s house unless you absolutely have no choice in the matter. Even if Odin’s not here.”
There was a moment of tense standoff, and then suddenly Yelena Starling’s features blurred and shifted. The light of the day seemed to bend and reshape itself around her, and when it settled and coalesced, Hel was gone, and a tall, regally handsome man with burnished-copper hair and a sharply trimmed beard stood in the place where the image of Mason’s mother had been only a moment before. His eyes—now a deep shade of amber—still glittered fiercely, but he had schooled his features to blankness.
“I knew it.” Fennrys shook his head in disgust.
“Well, well,” Rafe drawled. “Heimdall Bridgekeeper. You must be pretty pissed about the whole Hell Gate kaboom thing, yeah?”
“Mind your own matters, Dead Dog,” Heimdall snarled at the Egyptian god of the dead through clenched teeth. Then he turned on Fennrys. “Had it been my decision, you would rot still in your dungeon cell. Hel deemed otherwise, and for that, there will be a reckoning, doubtless.”
Fennrys’s knuckles went white as he clenched his fist, but other than that, he gave no indication that he’d even heard the insult.
“And as for you, Mason Starling, I sought to grant you a boon. To return you to the world of men. The Bifrost bridge is broken.” There was a note of barely suppressed rage in Heimdall’s voice as he said those words. “How will you get home now without my help? Without the magick of the spear?”
Mason frowned, but Rafe just laughed.
“Don’t worry about that, friend. The Aesir and their toys aren’t the only game in town. Folk seem to be getting in and out of Asgard just fine without crossing over your precious bridge. C’mon, you two,” he said to Fennrys and Mason. “We don’t need the spear, and you sure as hell don’t need to stand here talking to this jackass anymore.”
As they turned and started toward the ring of Einherjar who’d stood by during the whole exchange, Mason heard Heimdall say, “This is not the end. ’Tis but the beginning of the end.”
Mason snorted in disgust and spun back around.
“Thank you, Mr. Cryptic,” she said. “Man. I’m so glad you’re really not my mother. But if you ever try to pull something like that again? I’ll definitely make you wish you were someone else.” She took a step forward. “Fennrys said your name is Heimdall?”
The god nodded once.
“Fine. Heimdall. You just made the list.”
With that, Mason turned on her heel and, grabbing Fennrys by the hand, stalked toward the wall of warriors, Rafe trailing in their wake.
“There’s a list?” Fennrys said, increasing the length of his stride to keep up.
“There is now.”
One last glance over her shoulder showed Mason that Rafe was stifling an amused grin and Heimdall had vanished completely. Which was probably a good thing, because it was getting hard for her to maintain a furiously dignified demeanor as they went. Mostly because she found that she kept stumbling over draugr bits.
“Seriously.” She gestured at the carnage underfoot, which was extensive and more than even a guy like Fennrys could have accomplished on an average day, fighting his way into Valhalla to rescue her from a fate, she now suspected, might very well have been worse than death. “What happened?”
Rafe kicked a rubbery, ashen-hued arm out of his way and explained. “After Fennrys fought his way through into the hall to get you, a whole bunch more of those gray-skinned freaks showed up.” He pointed to where a familiar figure stood among the Norse warriors. “But then your buddy Tag there, sort of … rallied the troops. The Einherjar banded together and kept the draugr from storming the doors of Valhalla.”
Mason stared at the erstwhile football hero in open astonishment. Tag Overlea was apparently much cooler in death than he’d ever been in life.
“These boys haven’t had anything to fight except each other for so long that this was kind of like a holiday for them,” Rafe said. “Once he convinced them that they should take on the draugr, they … well. I mean, look around you. They had a little fun and made short work of your zombie pals. The kid’s kind of a homecoming hero to these boys.”
“Hey, Starling.” Tag waved at Mason a bit shyly.
“Hi, Tag,” she said. “Nice, um, work.”
“Thanks.” He hooked a thumb at the warriors standing behind him. “They did most of it. I just kinda pointed ’em in the right direction. Kinda like quarterbacking.”
Mason glanced around at the ring of Einherjar and noticed that—even though they were all still a bunch of great, grim hulking lumps of muscle and menace—a couple of the glory warriors were actually smiling. And on the whole, there was a kind of … spark about them, a liveliness that hadn’t been there when she’d crossed the field with her mother—no, not her mother, some liar god disguised as her mother—and it made Mason glad to see it. At least, it seemed, something good had come to the Einherjar because of their interloping presence there.
“Okay. So.” Fennrys slapped his hands together briskly and turned to Rafe. “I told Mason that you could get us out of here. How do we do that?”
Rafe raised an eyebrow and pointed over Fennrys’s shoulder. Mason looked and saw a strange, miragelike distortion that was just shimmering into view. Snaking tendrils of arcane energy, writhing up out of the battlefield carnage, began to coalesce … twisting together to form something that looked like a glowing, jagged-edged rip in the air. Beyond it, there was darkness, and flickering weird flashes of light.
“What is that?” Mason asked.
“The rift that’s been growing between the worlds ever since Fennrys crossed over into Asgard the first time,” Rafe explained. “The thing has a fixed point in the mortal world, but now, for some time, it’s been randomly manifesting in the Beyond Realms, providing doorways for entities that have long been absent from the world of men to sneak back in, and compromising the integrity of the entire fabric of reality. It’s like a crack in a car windshield: it starts with one tiny flaw … and then it spiderwebs out in all these different directions.”
“Wait. That’s how you were planning on getting us home?” Fennrys shook his head in disbelief. “A random manifestation? And you’re just telling me that now?”
Rafe lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t want to burden you with uncertainty. I grant you it was a bit of a long shot—the rift’s incredibly unstable—but it seems to draw energy from death and chaos”—Rafe glanced around—“and I figured there might be some of that once we got here. At any rate, it worked. I was right. Let’s go.”
“I don’t understand any of this.” Mason shook her head. “Why did Hel—or Heimdall or whoever—tell me the spear was the only thing that could get me back home? What would it really have done? Why am I even here in the first place?”
Rafe and Fennrys exchanged a laden glance.
“What?” Ma
son said flatly.
Fennrys shot a glare at Rafe, who pinched the bridge of his nose and scowled fiercely, muttering to himself.
“I was going to tell you all of this when we got home,” Fenn said as he turned toward her.
“Why don’t you tell me now,” Mason replied, clearly in no mood to be coddled.
He turned and cast a pleading glance at the Egyptian god. “Rafe?”
Rafe huffed a sigh. “Okay. I’ll try to explain this so it makes sense, but then we have to go.” He gestured at Fennrys. “You already know his story.”
“Yup.” Mason clasped her hands together and nodded. “Viking prince. Raised by Faeries. Saved me from monsters.”
Rafe nodded. “And you accept that.”
“I don’t have much choice. It happened,” Mason said. “It was real.”
“Yeah? Well, so’s this.” Rafe said, waving a hand at the fantastical landscape of Asgard. “I know it seems like a dream—or maybe a nightmare—but it’s not. It’s not an out-of-body experience, or a hallucination. It’s not a trick. You just managed to walk into Asgard, the home of the ancient Norse gods, Mason Starling … and we’re here to make sure you walk right back out again.”
Mason felt a cold knot of apprehension twisting in her guts. “And why exactly did I do that? I mean … how?”
“Well, the how is that you crossed Bifrost,” Rafe explained.
“You mean the Hell Gate.” Mason nodded. “On the train.”
“That’s right. The magick of the Asgardian’s rainbow bridge was woven into the Hell Gate way back in the early 1900s by the men who built it. Men who were the descendants of families who served the Norse gods. Men with ulterior motives and long-range goals, who hoped that one day, such a thing might come in handy.”
“The why,” Fennrys continued, “is that … someone else who currently shares those long-range goals thought you could come in handy, too.”
Mason blinked at the two of them, utterly mystified. “Handy for what?”
“Do you know what a Valkyrie is, Mason?” Rafe asked quietly.
Mason snorted in grim amusement and gestured to the surrounding mythic environs. “Of course I know what a Valkyrie is. Although I haven’t seen any around here, and I’m actually a bit disappointed by that. Winged warrior girls with swords?” She tapped the hilt of her rapier with a fingertip. “I think I might have imprinted on that when I was little. They were the only fun part of the stories my father read to me and my brothers before bedtime. The rest of it bored me—it’s all so grim and apocalyptic—but Rory would freak if he didn’t get his nightly dose of Nordic doom. If he knew this stuff was actually real? I can only imagine what he … uh …”
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