The Immortal Queen

by Jennifer L. Hart

  “Aiden.” I open my eyes and see Nahini before me. “Aiden’s on the front porch of the farmhouse.”

  She tilts her head to the side. “How do you know?”

  “It’s like there’s two souls within one form. The energy patterns are conjoined but move in different directions.”

  Nahini nods. “You’re right. Study him and you’ll be able to pick up some of the nuances between animal spirit and human.”

  I close my eyes again and focus on Aiden. I’m hardly an expert, but his energy outline appears to be brooding. Or at least part of him is, the part that has man shaped shoulders. The wolf is lounging within him, though ready to leap up at a moment’s notice.

  Someone else comes out onto the porch. The color is lighter, more innocent than Aiden or the wolf, as though untainted by the world. Jasmine, I’d bet my left boob on it. She sits down next to Aiden, as though trying to engage him in conversation.

  “There’s something else,” I say to Nahini after a moment of studying the two patterns. “It isn’t just the wolf. He’s different from Jasmine somehow. His energy is...heavier.”

  “You’re right.” She doesn’t explain why. “Now, look for Chloe or Addy.”

  I linger on Aiden a moment longer before skimming over the landscape in my mind to the clinic. Now that I know what I’m looking for, it’s easy to distinguish between animal and humanoid. There are three people in the clinic, and two of them....

  “Their energy is white, not blue.”

  “The Norns aren’t tied to the Veil. Much as the water on the earth’s surface gives the planet a distinctly blue look, the Veil gives all souls a blue reflection. Except for those souls who aren’t a part of the system. It’s why even the gods fear them. The rules do not apply to them.”

  “Where did they come from?” I ask, curious.

  “No one knows. Fey scholars have researched and studied, looking for the answer to that question for eons. I doubt even the Fates themselves know. None have been bold enough to ask.”

  “Everyone really fears them that much?” Sure. Addy could be gruff, but my aunts were both marshmallows deep down. Way, way, way deep down.

  Nahini tilts her head to the side. “Haven’t you seen demonstrations of their power?”

  I had. An image of their swirling eyes and deadly pronouncement pops into my mind. If that had been all I’d ever seen of Chloe and Addy, I would be scared of them, too.

  Wanting to change the subject I ask, “What about creatures like the Valkyries? Can I soul walk to detect them?”

  She nods. “Look for something similar in appearance to Aiden, although not two souls, but a mortal-animal hybrid. They’ll appear misshapen, even while hiding in a mortal guise.”

  Well, that would make it easier to find the other one, even if it is still using a glamour. “Is this how you’ve been searching for the dead souls missing from the Hunt?”

  The beads in Nahini’s braids clack as she nods. “Yes. They are more difficult to distinguish than souls tethered to bodies. They dissipate quickly when not held up by an iron will. The Wild Hunt keeps them intact, though not always visible.”

  After soul walking myself, I can see that her task is essentially searching for several needles in a multitude of haystacks. Every blade of grass, every tree and animal possess the same color aura as the missing members of the Hunt. And Nahini must scour the entire world tree, Yggdrasil, to find them.

  “Maybe I can help.”

  She shakes her head. “It will take time, my queen. And you have much to do, many obligations.”

  She isn’t wrong, but still. “Those souls are my responsibility. Tell me what to look for and I will set aside time every day to search.”

  Nahini’s eyes widen slightly, but a small smile curves her lips. “As you insist.”

  She explains her grid method search for the souls of the Wild Hunt as we walk back to the farmhouse. “You’re looking for a cluster of untethered souls. They won’t have any discernible shape, not like a tree or a horse or a mortal. It would be simpler if the souls of the damned were black, like in all the stories. But they aren’t. Only the Fates have different colored souls.”

  “Where do I begin looking?” My muscles, stiff from sitting still so long, start to relax as we move.

  “I’ve been casting out to the far-flung spots where untethered souls congregate. Like calls to like. Large cities, especially near cemeteries or hospitals, where their mortal bodies passed.”

  “Don’t innocent souls move on?”

  Her lips twitch. “Are you asking about an afterlife?”

  I guess so. When I nod she explains, “Souls are as individual as the beings they inhabit. Trees, plants, even animals don’t tend to linger, but are absorbed into the Veil. It’s the next natural step. They don’t have the same feelings as sentient beings, that there are things left undone. They know they have given their all and it is time to go. People leave loved ones they want to say goodbye to, or regret over a mistake. Remorse and a feeling of unfinished business will keep a soul in this world for a time, but eventually they understand that they can affect nothing on this plane and be forced to accept their new reality. That’s when they move on.”

  I drink in all she’s said. “What makes the souls bound to the Wild Hunt different?”

  “For one thing, the Wild Hunt is the damned soul’s new place. They who have been selected to serve forfeit the right to linger the way a free soul could. They were handpicked by you, in either this life or your last, and will serve until you dismiss them to the Veil.”

  “Is it possible that’s where they’ve gone?”

  “Possible yes, but unlikely. The Veil isn’t mending itself. If it absorbed all the souls from our missing dead, the hole would have sealed up by now.”

  “The hole.” With everything else going on, I’d forgotten about the tear in the Veil that separates the mortal world, what Aiden referred to as Midgard, from Underhill, the land of the fair folk. “Where exactly is it?”

  Nahini stops and turns to the west then points to the sky. “Several hundred feet above the surface.”

  “Could a plane fly through it?” That would be one hell of a ride, a connection between Atlanta and Louisville that ends up in the hall of giants, or the dead forest.

  She begins walking again. “It’s possible, but it’s lower than most of the human aircraft fly. Freda sent scouts to monitor it. So far the only reported crossings are birds.”

  I stop dead.

  “My queen?”

  I look her in the eye. “Valkyries can fly, but can’t wield magic.”

  She blinks. “Yes, of course.”

  “No one reported them crossing.” I look around quickly and move closer to her so I can whisper. “Our traitor stood guard duty over the tear when they came through. How many have been assigned to watch the tear?”

  Nahini’s dragon scale armor shimmers in the late afternoon sun as she turns to face me. “Maybe half a dozen. If you’re right, that narrows our pool of suspects considerably.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Aiden heading in our direction. “I need to go take care of the other Valkyrie. Have Freda call a meeting for midnight with the scouts. One way or another, we’ll catch the traitor tonight.”

  Valkyrie Village

  “Are you sure about this?” Aiden asks as he stops the truck in the lot of the apartment complex where Vice Principal Steinburg moved after his divorce six months ago. It’s a U-shaped building with a center office in front, with two squat buildings sitting on either side of the parking area.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind.” He puts a hand over mine and squeezes gently.

  “The Valkyries came here for me.” I stare out the window to the second-floor apartment. “And we need to find out who helped them.”

  Aiden studies me closely. “You look a bit...amped up.”

  “I want to hunt.” My fingers curl into fists. “It’s been weeks since I’ve hunted or killed.”


  “And you miss it?” he asks.

  “Miss isn’t the right word.” The need for it claws at me like a wild thing held in by nothing but my ribcage. If I don’t let it out periodically, it will consume my heart. “I don’t know how to describe it without sounding like a monster.”

  He offers a small smile. “Takes one to know one.”

  I look over and hold his gaze. “I’m trying to be everything I’m supposed to be and I’m failing. No one expects me to do the one thing I’m best at doing. I don’t know how to lead, how to negotiate with the Seelie kings, how to do anything but kill.”

  “Nic, no one expects anything from you.” Aiden says softly. “You can forge your own life.”

  His words are tempting, the offer to turn my back on the crazy mess that is Underhill. Yet, how can I? When I know all the things I did wrong before, that I’ve done wrong in this life. The tear in the Veil, the loss of the souls I damned to the Wild Hunt, the instability of the Unseelie Court. There are freaking Valkyries disguised as people I know. How can I ignore everyone and everything without trying to set it right?

  All this goes through my mind but I don’t say a word of it to Aiden. Instead, I pop the door to the truck. “Let’s do this.”

  He’s out of the truck and around before my feet touch pavement. “Stay behind me.”

  “I’m armed,” I hiss.

  “And unprepared,” he retorts. “You identify the creature and I can cripple it so you can interrogate it. You already battled one Valkyrie today and barely escaped with your life. Let me help.”

  His green eyes seem to glow in the dim light, lit from within. “Just don’t barbecue it before I give the order. Or in front of witnesses. We don’t need law enforcement poking around in here.”

  “As my queen commands,” he murmurs and then heads up the rickety wood stairs to the second floor.

  These aren’t the best rentals in town. Most of the inhabitants are college students who can’t afford better or the recently divorced. Steinburg’s door is at the corner unit. No lights at all and no sound. It’s possible with the Valkyrie is gone thanks to my tornado and the place is as vacant as it appears.

  Aiden scrunches his nose in disgust. “Do you smell that?”

  I inhale deeply. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Why? What are you picking up?”

  In the dim light cast from a streetlamp I see his muscles clench. “Shit and rotting

  meat.”

  “There goes my appetite.”

  He hesitates. “From the amount of both, I think there’s more than one inside.”

  “How many?” I ask just as an eerie cry echoes from somewhere below.

  Aiden grabs my arm and tries to pull me away. “An entire nest.”

  At my blank look he clarifies, “A dozen or more.”

  “All in this one little apartment?”

  He shakes his head even as he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the stairs. “You don’t understand, Nic. They’ve taken over the apartment complex.”

  “What?” I glance back over my shoulder. “What about the people who were living here?”

  “Where do you think the rotting meat smell is coming from?”

  Horror fills me and I glance back at the apartment complex. “There are at least twenty apartments here.” Even if only half of them are occupied by one person each, that’s double-digit homicide.

  Also known as mass murder.

  “We need back up,” I say. There’s no way Aiden and I can handle a dozen—or more—Valkyries on our own.

  The cry comes again, part bird of prey, part woman scorned and completely blood chilling.

  “They’ve scented us.” Aiden shouts, whirling around. A blade appears in his hand, a sword conjured of pure fire. I draw my own shorter blades. We stand back to back as the first aerial attacker swoops toward us.

  Aiden strikes with the fiery sword and the Valkyrie screams in pain. One wing is ablaze as it flaps up. The smell of barbecued feathers drifts toward us on the wind.

  Its cries have alerted the others though and doors open all over the apartment complex. Some are human shaped, others in the befouled bird like forms. When I shift my vision to the soul walk however, the creatures all have the same avian hybrid glow.

  “There isn’t a mortal among them.” My words are snatched from my throat by a sharp gust of carrion scented air. “Not left alive anyway.”

  “Nic, focus!” Aiden shoves me to the side an instant before two Valkyries try and sink their talons into my arms. They cry out in frustration, but Aiden’s fire sword is there, cooking the flesh from their putrid forms on contact. They fall to the pavement at his feet.

  “Nic?” Aiden’s eyes are on the circling predators, even as he reaches down to help me up.

  “I’m fine.” I bite out the word.

  “Don’t try any of your tricks right now,” he cautions, once again putting his back to me, the fire sword up and at the ready. “They’re fast and determined but not organized. We need to dispatch them quickly, before more mortals get caught in the crossfire.”

  He’s right about their lack of systemization. If the Valkyrie’s attack had been coordinated, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. But these creatures don’t possess the discipline for a planned assault. Their numbers dwindle further with each attack.

  Aiden’s skill with a sword rivals Brigit and perhaps even Nahini. His every movement is fluid, purposeful, as though he fights like this on a regular basis. Wherever he swings, a Valkyrie loses a wing, a foot, some even their lives.

  I am less graceful, but make up for it with sheer savagery. These...things crossed into my world, showed up in my town and killed an entire apartment building full of people. The rage helps focus my mind as the bloodbath continues. They grow frantic, crying out as they swoop over our heads, talons clutching, wings flapping, determined to take us out or fall in the attempt. They don’t stop, don’t retreat, but keep coming.

  Within five minutes all the Valkyries lay dead or dismembered. The ones on the ground cradle stumps that held wings or feet, their gazes malevolent.

  Aiden scans the skies one last time before turning to assess me. “Did they scratch you?”

  “A bit.” Blood oozes from the scrape on my forearm where one made contact while I was finishing off its compatriot. “It’s not bad though.”

  “Valkyries are filthy beasts. We need to get those cuts cleaned up so they don’t get infected.”

  “There’s a first-aid kit in the truck.” I survey the fallen survivors. “You can go get it while I get some answers.”

  He hesitates, taking one last look around the blood-soaked parking area before jogging off to the truck.

  “Who let you cross?” I ask the nearest Valkyrie, this one missing half a wing.

  “Go to hell, she demon,” it spits at me.

  I smile at it, my predator’s smile, before spearing it through the eye with my sword.

  “Anybody else want to be uncooperative?” I call out while its body twitches on the end of my blade. I yank the weapon free and turn in a slow arc so they can all see me. My skin crawls, and I can feel their scrutiny. Along with...something more. “I’ll let you cross the Veil if you answer my questions. If not...,” I make a show of watching the blood drip from the point of the sword onto the ground.

  Silence. Even the moaning stops.

  “Tell me who let you across,” I lower the sword to my side and do a slow pivot on my heel. “And where the one posing as Steinburg got the glamour.”

  “And you’ll let us go?” This comes from one of the Valkyries in the back. Her foot is missing and she cradles a smaller creature in her lap, its eyes staring sightlessly up at the night sky. From the blood trail behind her, it’s easy to see that she crawled over to where the other fell. “Why should we believe you?”

  I level my gaze on her. “Because I’m not giving you a choice. Either tell me what I want to know and live or die protecting a traitor’s secrets.”

  She glances down at
the dead one, a wing passing over the eyes, before looking back up at me. “I don’t know the name of the one who let us cross. Female, brown hair with a streak of silver woven into a braid.”

  “And the magic?” I prompt as Aiden returns carrying the medical kit. “Who provided the glamour?”

  “The giantess, Angrboda.”

  The first-aid kit clatters to the ground. All color drains from Aiden’s face and his glowing green eyes burn hotter. “What did you say?”

  “She came to our nest and told us of the tear, offered to help us cross the Veil undetected.” The Valkyrie coughs and blood speckles her mouth.

  “Out of the goodness of her heart?” I snap, dividing my attention between Aiden, who looks ready to wolf out at any moment, and the Valkyrie.

  “No, she asked only that we take care of the threat to the Unseelie Court on this side of the Veil.” The Valkyrie pants, her breath growing shallower. She shifts the body of the miniature Valkyrie in her arms to reveal a deep gash.

  She’s dying, I realize. Belly wounds are excruciatingly painful. It speaks highly of the creature’s strength of will that she can negotiate with me while she dies.

  “You will keep your promise, Ice Bitch? I will have your fey word on it.”

  I look to Aiden but his attention is turned inwards.

  “What’s your name?” I crouch down so that we are eye to eye.

  “I am called Nightweaver.”

  “Are you the leader of these people, Nightweaver?”

  When she nods, I hold out a hand. “I vow to you, I will see your people safely taken back through the Veil, given property to colonize in the way they see fit. If you will join the Wild Hunt.”

  Her black eyes flare wide. “What?”

  “I want your word that you will serve me in the Wild Hunt.”