Thor turned to find Freyr. “Can you do that thing you do? When you distract the bad guys by annoying them?”
Freyr frowned. “I didn’t realize that was something I did. But sure, I’ll give it a shot.”
“Interlopers.” The ground shook with the triple harmony of the North Sister spirit’s voice as she left her ramp of solidified ash and stepped into the clearing. Nearby patches of new grass browned and curled into brittle black tendrils before crumbling to hot dust. Evergreen limbs turned crispy and actively shrank back from the lava spirit’s presence, and wisps of smoke rose from the ground beneath her feet. “Explain your presence. Why have you taken our beloved from us?”
Heimdall looked to his kin and allies on either side. “Anyone have a good answer to that?”
“Faith.” Nanitch stepped out from behind the others to stand before the North Sister. Keeping the quarterstaff level in his strong hands, he nodded to each sibling in turn. “Hope. Charity. Jonathan was never yours. No one has taken him from you. Mourn him, but do not avenge him. He has fallen as a consequence of his own foolish actions.”
A wind gust stirred around Faith and lifted her dark hair in wild plaits that snaked in the air around her head. Thor suffered an uncomfortable flashback to the sharp-featured and wild-haired Badbh standing over her sacred cauldron, except The Morrigan hadn’t shot sparks and soot into the air or dripped fire from her fingertips.
“You think you are the keeper of the Bachelor’s heart?!” Faith’s voice was an untamed shriek, echoed by a massive spray of lava shooting into the air above the peak that bore her name. “Guardian, you are as guilty as the rest of these heathens. It’s the time the lot of you was dispatched.”
“Heathens!” Thor grumbled behind Nanitch. “I’ll show you who’s heathen, you overcooked wench.”
Thor started to advance on the Sisters, but Heimdall grabbed his arm and held him back.
“Starting to feel hot?” Heimdall asked.
Thor nodded, and his face brightened into a grin. Hints of impatience and aggression tickled his muscles. This was more like it. Maybe all he needed was an immediate threat to family and friends to spark his anger. Thor stretched his beefy arms out to his sides and laughed, but Nanitch glanced back at him with a stern expression.
“What?” Thor asked in genuine irritation as he flexed his muscles. “You dragged us up here for a face-off with the inferno sisters. Let’s get to it already.” He held up his fists and puffed out his chest. “Beating back a trio of fire beasties sounds like a fine bachelor party to me.”
Faith’s eyes narrowed as her gaze shifted to Thor. “You are a bachelor?”
Thor’s smile widened and he rounded his shoulders back. Heimdall knew the progression well. His brother was set to start boasting about his personal prowess in a way that would not improve their situation. Before Thor could utter a single swaggering syllable, Heimdall grabbed him by the elbow and yanked him backward. Thor tried to fend him off, but his sock-covered hands kept sliding over the fabric of Heimdall’s shirt. Similarly handicapped by his own sock-mittens, Heimdall hooked a foot behind Thor’s ankle and toppled the thunder god to the ground.
“What did you do that for?” Thor growled from the dirt. He gestured toward the expectant mountain spirits with his dirty sock-hands. “The ladies want to get to know me.”
Heimdall tightened his jaw. “Mere seconds ago, you were calling them fire beasties and wanted to fight them. Now you want to flirt?”
Thor dropped his hands into his lap. “I don’t know what’s going on. I’m calm, then I’m angry. I want to punch a mountain in the face, and now I’m sitting in the dirt.” He took a deep breath and looked at his bootlaces. “My head hurts.”
Heimdall winced. He hadn’t forgotten the nausea and fuzzy thinking that followed getting knocked out by a Frost Giant. But telling Thor he probably had a concussion and that he should quit his grousing would quickly devolve into a violent argument or a rather public family therapy session—or both; the two tended to go together.
Heimdall turned his back on Thor and approached Nanitch. He clenched his hands into fists inside his mittens, though he doubted his usefulness in a real fight. “You want to let us in on the plan here?”
Nanitch ignored him.
“A bachelor?” Faith asked again. Her sisters crowded in around her, and three pairs of fiery eyes flashed on Thor.
“Just for a few more hours,” Heimdall replied loudly. “Spoken for.”
“My granddaughter’s fiancé,” Grace added in a warning tone.
The Middle Sister, Hope, stepped forward to get a better look at Heimdall. Though the Sisters’ features and coloring were nearly identical, Hope was the smallest and appeared to be the most delicate of the three—which meant that she was only mostly terrifying.
“And you?” she asked in a soft voice pleasantly devoid of the brain-battering harmonies of her sisters. With a shy smile she lifted a hand and reached for Heimdall’s cheek with her slender, red-brown fingers.
Heimdall flinched away before she could touch him. “It’s complicated. I mean, I have a girlfriend.” Heimdall coughed on the heated, sooty air that accompanied her. He and Maggie were often barely on speaking terms, but he got the distinct impression that the technicality of his being in a committed relationship was an important one right then. “But thanks for asking.”
Hope’s face fell, and she blinked back fiery tears. Were all volcano spirits this touchy? Heimdall watched Hope as she looked past him and Nanitch to the others in their party. Her gaze fell first on Odin, and she frowned at the patch over his eye and the silver-white of his hair and beard. She then shifted to Rod—still a patent hottie, even caked in dirt and wearing stained socks as gloves. A flicker of expectation played across her features. “You are a bachelor.”
“Uh . . .” Rod looked to Heimdall for help. “Well, I suppose, strictly speaking . . .”
Nanitch raised his quarterstaff to shoulder-height and stepped into Hope’s field of vision. “You will not enslave another to take Jonathan’s place.”
Faith’s eyes narrowed as she and Charity advanced to stand on either side of Hope. A low rumble shook the ground just before a large plume of volcanic ash blew into the air from the south. “His mountain cries out for justice.”
Heimdall leaned close to Nanitch. “If we can get them to shut down Mt. Bachelor, we need to do it now.”
Nanitch edged away from him. “That is not how this works.”
Rod moved forward and stood on the other side of Nanitch. “Is that what they need? Just some unmarried man to live on the mountain? I can do that. I mean, sure, if it’s going to help. If it’s going to save people. I like mountains, and the forest. It shouldn’t be too bad.”
“There’s a bit more to it than that,” Nanitch said. “You don’t know what you are volunteering yourself for.”
“Listen to the siatco, Rod,” Heimdall said, even as Mt. Bachelor blew another torrent of smoke and gas into the air. The triple peaks of the Three Sisters answered with their own sparks of lava.
“He offers himself,” Hope said with a smile. She stepped forward again, her arms open wide to Rod. The freshly desiccated ground cracked in spiderweb patterns around each of her footsteps.
Rod took a deep breath and stood tall, waiting for Hope to reach him. She was nearly a foot shorter than her sisters, but she still towered over even Nanitch. She lifted her hands as if to cup Rod’s face.
Moving quickly, Nanitch lunged forward and struck Hope in the solar plexus with the quarterstaff. Hope stumbled backward and looked down at the siatco with an expression of surprise.
“You struck me?” she asked without a trace of anger or pain. She looked genuinely baffled.
Her sisters weren’t as unruffled. Deep scowls darkened their purplish faces as Faith and Charity marched forward and took up positions on either side of their slighted sibling.
“You dare strike a mountain spirit?” Faith demanded. Nanitch responded by r
aising his quarterstaff, but then held steady.
“You would punish a human being for Jonathan’s folly,” Nanitch spat through clenched teeth. “Jonathan did not want you. Any of you. He never did. Accept this as fact and move on.”
Faith pushed past her sisters and grabbed the upper end of Nanitch’s quarterstaff. The wood blackened under her touch. “If you had not interfered, he would have chosen me as his bride.”
“You think too highly of yourself, sister,” Charity growled from behind her.
“Wonderful.” Grace sighed and sat down in the dirt. She balanced her walking stick across her knees and glanced at Heimdall. “You might as well get comfortable. This could go on a while.”
Nanitch kept his quarterstaff at the ready. “I am telling you the truth. He toyed with you for his own amusement. It was his nature.”
Charity shot the siatco a glare blackened by enough venom to kill a creature twice Nanitch’s size. “You think you knew him so well? Perhaps he was just toying with you!”
Thor rested his socked hands on top of his head. “I don’t think I want to know.”
Charity grabbed Faith by the shoulder and yanked her around to face her. Nanitch backed away a few paces. “Give some room,” the siatco muttered to the others.
Charity lifted her chin and glared at her oldest sister. “I have the most to offer. You are old, and eroded.” She gestured toward the craggy peak of the North Sister volcano. “Even your mountain betrays your age. Worn down, not even a shadow of your former self. Not that you were anything to compose sonnets about to begin with.” She taunted Faith with a wicked smile. “My rock is newer, and sharper in its angles. My mountain is grander and reaches higher than either of yours.”
Their voices escalated into high, ear-piercing shrieks as they derided one another, some wailing notes sounding to Heimdall like language that maybe only dolphins would be able to understand.
Hope stomped her foot at the insult. “You think being tall is such an asset?” she complained. “You are ostentatious and waste your time on preening and posing. I am a mystery! I have depth and contour that have never been studied by human or spirit!”
Heimdall crouched down behind Grace. “This is common behavior?”
Grace grunted. “You have no idea.”
Heimdall settled onto the ground but didn’t let himself relax. He wasn’t sure if he should be entertained by the volcanic cat-fight, or anxious. Grace seemed sedate enough, but he wanted to be ready to spring into action.
Hope grabbed a handful of Charity’s dark hair and violently yanked her head back while Faith swiped red-orange fingernails at both her sisters’ cheeks. Rod, Thor, and Odin collected behind Heimdall to watch the ruckus, and Nanitch dropped back to join them. Freyr kept his distance in the shadows of the trees.
“This is not the fight we anticipated,” Odin said dryly.
The three volcano peaks grumbled loudly and belched ash and lava into the sky with increasing frequency and momentum, matching the commotion on the ground. Heimdall coughed on the thickening gases and tied his makeshift kerchief tighter. There was nothing he could do about his stinging eyes.
“Girl fight.” Thor nudged Heimdall with his elbow. “Not quite the usual stag party, but it will do.”
“You know there isn’t going to be any party, right?” Heimdall asked. “Nothing I could organize would compare with your past exploits. And, frankly, I’d hoped you were beyond that kind of thing by now.”
Grace looked back at Thor and chuckled.
Amid a flurry of squeals and grunts, Faith kicked Hope to the ground and then elbowed Charity in the nose. Bright purple blood spurted from the center of Charity’s face, and she retaliated with a quick knee to Faith’s stomach before bringing her heel down into Hope’s soft midsection.
Rod glanced at Thor. “You like this kind of thing?”
“Eh.” Thor shrugged. “It’s more interesting when it’s a pair of Valkyries fighting over a fallen hero’s broadsword.”
Heimdall eyed the volcanic ash that was collecting at his feet. He glanced at Odin, waiting for his father to at least give him a hint of direction, but the one-eyed god seemed more intent on watching the sky.
“As fascinating as this scene is, I think we’re going to have to break this up.” Heimdall nodded toward the mountain peaks and the thick lava streams creeping down the rocky slopes.
“It’s like hockey,” Grace answered quickly. “We’re the refs. We wait ’til all three are on the ground. Then we can go in.”
Heimdall crossed his fabric-covered arms over his chest and settled in for a long delay, but Hope wrapped her hands around Faith’s ankles to pull her down onto the crispy grass. As she fell, Faith grabbed at Charity’s neck to drag her down as well. The formerly elegant hellions were now a screeching scrum of plum-colored knees and elbows writhing in a heap.
With a groan, Grace rose to her feet and lifted her walking stick. “Now,” she said.
“Okay,” Heimdall replied flatly. Again, he looked to his father. Odin nodded and glanced away. Heimdall turned back to Grace. “So, what do we do, exactly?”
Nanitch and Grace marched together toward the flailing, squawking sisters. Nanitch lowered the tip of his quarterstaff and started poking at the thrashing legs and arms. Grace did the same with her walking stick.
“Back!” Grace shouted at the misbehaving mountain spirits. “Go back to your peaks! You’re a disgrace to this land, silly children!”
Faith, Charity, and Hope recoiled from the sharp jabs.
“This is not your fight, old woman!” Faith spat, shooting daggers of surprised indignation at Grace.
Grace responded with a quick slash of her stick across Faith’s cheek. “It most certainly is. Your squabbling puts my people and my friends at risk.”
Odin gave Heimdall a quick pat on the shoulder. “We’re the support troops here, not the main players, I’m afraid.” Then he moved up to help Grace and Nanitch herd the thrashing trio back toward the base of South Sister.
But the spirits were still at each other with sharp elbows, flailing knees, and hands bent like claws. Charity kicked out at Hope but missed her sister and caught Odin in the ankle instead. The one-eyed god went down with a strangled cry.
Heimdall ran to his father’s side, but Odin waved him off. “I’m fine,” he hissed through clenched teeth as he held his ankle in both hands. “Go help Grace.”
Thor shuffled up beside Nanitch as the siatco prodded the sisters with his quarterstaff to get them back on their feet. Hope threw a punch at Faith’s back, and her fist glanced off her sister’s shoulder blade. Thor caught her wrist between his socked hands before her knuckles could cut into his jaw.
“Careful, now,” Nanitch said.
Thor took a deep breath. He struggled to keep his grip on her searing flesh as Hope unfurled her fingers and tried to scratch his face, mere inches away.
“Unhand me, you beast!” Hope shouted, still trying to rake her fingernails across Thor’s cheek while she tore a clump of hair from Charity’s head with her other hand. At close range, Thor could feel his exposed skin tightening from Hope’s heat. He even smelled his hair burning. Thor decided this would be the perfect time for Freyr to shout out some perplexing barb to divert Hope’s attention, but Freyr remained at the back of the pack, lurking at the edge of the clearing.
Thor backed away from the volcanic melee before he released Hope’s arm. He dodged a flying fist—he wasn’t sure whose—that swung at his head, then ran a sock-covered hand over the fresh burns on his cheeks. That had been much too close for comfort.
“ENOUGH!” Grace shouted in a raspy voice. The Sisters ceased their hostilities and stared at the old woman. Grace, evidently surprised by their compliance, cleared her throat. “That’s enough now.”
Charity thrust her shoulders back and lifted her chin in indignation. Her dark scalp showed in the bald patches where her sisters had torn at her, and dried rivulets of fuchsia blood caked her cheeks and ch
in. She was an even more imposing presence in this ravaged, disheartened state, and Thor took a couple of involuntary steps back.
“Our complaint has not changed,” Charity announced with the hint of a smug smile. “You owe us a bachelor.”
Hope pushed past Charity and moved toward Rod. “And you have volunteered!”
Nanitch lurched into Hope’s path and prepared to strike her again with the quarterstaff, but Grace called him off.
“She’s right,” Grace sighed in defeat. The volcano peaks above had quieted to an aggressive simmer, but lava still spilled down their sides. It was only a matter of time before it reached the vulnerable forest. “There’s only one way out of this.”
The old woman turned to Rod with regret in her eyes. “I’m sorry, young one, but you did make the overture.”
Nanitch assumed a defensive position in front of Rod, but Grace looked up at the siatco and shook her head. With obvious reluctance, Nanitch stepped aside and allowed Hope to pass. The volcano spirit opened her arms and reached for Rod.
“Wait, I thought I wasn’t supposed to let you touch me?” Rod ducked out of Hope’s grasp and stumbled toward Thor.
Hope gave Rod a patient and encouraging smile. “You offer yourself.” She moved toward him again, arms still outstretched.
With Thor at his back, Rod took a deep breath and stood his ground. “I did. Yeah.”
Thor clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Rod?”
“I got this,” Rod replied. This time when Hope extended her fingers toward his jaw, he didn’t flinch away. “You’ll leave everyone else alone, right? The Lodge, the forest, everybody in the towns, they’ll all be safe, right?”
Hope cooed to him and framed his face with her hands. But she stopped just short of making contact with this skin. She looked deeply into Rod’s eyes as a frown darkened her features.
“Sister?” Faith and Charity asked in harmonic unison, their blended voices sounding like a multi-layered lullaby.
Hope dropped her hands to her sides, her shoulders sagging in disappointment. She turned to face her sisters. “This one is not for us.” She retreated to stand again with Faith and Charity.
Raven Quest (Valhalla Book 4) Page 23