by Rick Riordan
With Eggther safely out of the way, I checked on the egg. Not a crack anywhere on its bright red shell. I was no bird expert, but I figured that meant Fialar wasn’t hatching anytime soon. I was tempted to fly back to Asgard with it so we could keep a close watch on the future rooster of doom.
But I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Fialar would hatch in Jotunheim as foretold, and it would crow someday, and Ragnarok would come.
So, I did what I was sent to do.
“Say cheese!”
“I’VE SAID it before, and I’ll say it again.” I flumped back onto the battered sofa of floor nineteen’s lounge and patted my stomach. “Santarpio’s pizza is worth sneaking out for.”
I reached for another slice.
“Uh-uh. You’ve had plenty.” Mallory dropped the pizza box lid over the remains and stood up. “I’m taking this to Halfborn. He’s been holed up in his room all day doing who knows what. Probably forgot to eat, the big dumbo. Catch you later.”
I gave her a lazy wave, then stretched out on the sofa with a sigh of contentment, my trusty rifle and bone-steel bayonet by my side. The warmth from the fire flickering in the hearth enveloped me like a soft blanket. My eyelids grew heavy. I dozed off and, as my mother used to say, fell into dreamland.
At least, that’s where I thought I’d fallen. But the desolate rocky terrain, the bone-chilling dampness, the low moaning carried by the wind—they seemed too real to be just a dream. Real, and frightening. Somehow I had entered another world. I’d heard that eating pizza before bedtime can cause nightmares, but I didn’t think it could transport a person.
Then I heard a yell.
“Coming through!”
I spun to see Thor charging toward me like a runaway locomotive. Arms pumping and leather Daisy Duke shorts riding up where the sun don’t shine—dream or no, I wasn’t stupid enough to stand in the way of that. I leaped back as he blew past me, and then scrambled away even farther to avoid being clubbed by something bouncing along behind him. A tree—and was that a harp?—on a long rope attached to his ankle, near as I could make out.
“Well,” I murmured, “that just happened.”
I watched as Thor zigzagged through a hardscrabble landscape at the base of a jagged outcropping. Suddenly, there was a sharp bark. An enormous hound emerged from a cliff-top cave, far above Thor. As big as a Mack truck, with black fur dotted with red splotches, the dog stared down at the oblivious god and his toys-on-a-rope, panting with an openmouthed dog-smile on its face. It barked again—joyfully, I thought—then chased after Thor and the tree. Flecks of red dripped off its body as it picked its way down the steep incline.
I suddenly realized what the red splotches were: blood. The hound’s muzzle, fur, and paws were stained with it.
Recognition clicked in my brain as first Thor and then the hound disappeared in the distance. I stumbled back onto the nearest boulder and sat down hard.
“Garm,” I said aloud to myself. “The guardian dog of Helheim. And—”
“Your father’s killer.”
A woman spoke close to my ear. I whirled around. A kaleidoscope of colors spun and twisted before my eyes. When it cleared, I was no longer standing in a barren moonscape but in a grand hall next to a throne made out of charred logs. Gray drapes hung from the ceiling to the polished black marble floor. Grotesque bronze statues, the bodies contorted in postures of agony, sorrow, and terror, lined one wall. More statues lined the opposite wall, but these were rendered to express joy, love, and humor. I chose to look at that side.
A figure in a hooded ermine cloak appeared on the throne. The woman’s voice spoke again. “You’re not dreaming, einherji, but having a vision. You’re here in mind, not in body, and seeing recent events I’ve chosen for you to see.” She pushed back the hood and smiled.
“Oh,” I said. “Hel.”
I’d seen my share of horrors during the War Between the States. Rotting corpses torn apart by scavenger birds. Legless soldiers staring dead-eyed at the sky. Bloated, waterlogged remains floating in stagnant ponds.
The right half of Hel’s face beat them all. Blackened teeth, cataract-filmed eye, pocked skull, open ear hole. Not even the beauty of her left side—and it was stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks beautiful—could offset the horror of her ghoulish half.
She snapped her skeletal fingers. Double doors at the far end of the hall blew open. Two demons dragged a ghostly woman in chains before the throne and forced her to kneel. The woman lifted her head and glared daggers at Hel.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
The woman was my mother—my sweet mother, who sang me to sleep and smelled like warm corn bread and butter. I hadn’t seen her for more than a hundred years.
I choked back a sob. “Mom.” My mother’s gaze didn’t waver from Hel, and I remembered that my body was back on the hotel couch. To see her after so long, and for her not to see or hear me . . . it just about broke my heart.
Hel noted my reaction and smiled. “Oh, good. You still have feelings for her.”
“Feelings for who?” my mother demanded. “Who are you talking to?”
Hel ignored her. “So you won’t want her to suffer,” she said to me.
I stared at Hel with loathing. “Of course I don’t!”
“Who is going to suffer?” my mother cried.
“Then come to me, einherji,” Hel said. “In the flesh. I have a job that only a child of Tyr can do. Oh, and don’t tell a soul . . . or she will pay.”
Hel inclined her head. The demons pulled the chains in opposite directions. My mother’s body spasmed in pain. But her eyes never left Hel’s face, and she didn’t cry out.
I did.
I woke up on the sofa drenched in sweat, with the scream still in my throat and the vision of my mother suffering in my mind’s eye.
“Hang on, Mom. I’m coming!”
I grabbed my rifle and bayonet, ran down the hallway, and banged on Alex’s door. “I need tree access!” I bellowed. When Alex opened the door, I pushed past and shinnied up the trunk of the World Tree, searching for a branch to take me to Helheim.
YARK!
Ratatosk, the evil giant squirrel, was lying in wait. It let out a stream of insults that pummeled me like body blows to the psyche.
You couldn’t help her when you were alive. You won’t save her now that you’re dead. Your friends mock you for hiding behind that ridiculous bayonet. They think you’re stupid. Weak. Brainless.
I kept moving despite the barrage, but my thoughts sank deeper and deeper into a black pit of despair.
Suddenly, the insults ceased. I tumbled through an opening in a branch into Hel’s grand hall—for real this time. Hel was on her throne, but my mother and the demons were nowhere to be seen.
“I see you discovered the key: the despair that Ratatosk induces helps one gain access to my world,” the goddess said. “Now kneel before me, einherji.”
I hesitated, then did as the goddess of the dishonorable dead commanded. For my mother’s sake.
She studied me. “You are aware that my hellhound, Garm, will devour your father, Tyr, when Ragnarok is unleashed?”
I nodded.
“As Tyr’s spawn, you have his blood in your veins.”
I nodded again, wondering where this was going.
“Well. Garm has run off,” she told me. “You, son of Tyr, are the only one who can find him. Or rather”—she treated me to a ghastly smile—“he will find you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Why, it’s very simple. My hellhound will smell the blood of Tyr and come running.”
I clutched my rifle more tightly. “So basically, you’re using me as bait.”
“More like a moving target,” Hel amended.
“Why me?” I dared to ask. “Why not just, I don’t know, poof Garm back to his cave yourself? Or send your demons to retrieve him?”
“Garm can be . . . elusive,” she said evasively. “He’s run off before, and past attempts to bring him
home with magic and demons have failed.”
I was going to suggest she use a hellhound whistle, but I thought better of it. “If you don’t mind my asking, why not just let him stay lost?”
Hel’s expression darkened. “And risk word getting out that my dog is beyond my control? No. There is only one solution. You must lure him back to his cave.”
I scowled. “Let me guess. If I refuse, you torture my mother. If I tell anyone Garm didn’t come when you called, you torture my mother.”
“Oh yes. And Thomas . . . T.J. . . . if you think killing Garm will stop the hound from killing your father, think again. You cannot stop destiny. Now, away you go!”
The double doors blew open. I shouldered my rifle and set off to search for a lost dog in the land of the dishonorable dead.
One thing my earlier vision failed to reveal? The doomed residents of Helheim. As I crossed the landscape, their ghostly forms swirled and brushed up against me, as if sensing I didn’t belong in their afterlife. Most drifted off when I ignored them. But one ghost refused to leave me alone. It poked me repeatedly with something prickly.
“Listen, pal,” I snapped, turning to confront him, “I don’t know what your deal is, but . . .”
My voice died when I saw who’d been irritating me: the god Balder. The son of Odin and Frigg, Balder had been greatly beloved and, supposedly, invulnerable to all forms of attack. But he had one weakness: mistletoe. Loki had tricked Balder’s blind brother, Hod, into killing Balder with a mistletoe arrow—the same arrow he was now jabbing me with.
“Uh, hi,” I said. “Anytime you want to stop doing that is fine by me.”
Balder smiled, and I suddenly understood why the worlds had mourned his death. Young and handsome, with a mop of dark brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, and killer dimples on either side of his impish smile, Balder radiated warmth and good humor. Being near him made me feel happy. Plain and simple as that.
“Hi! You’re Tyr’s kid, right?”
I shouldn’t have been startled that he could speak—after all, I’m dead too and I can talk just fine—but I near about jumped out of my skin when he did.
“Sorry about the poking,” Balder went on. “We don’t get many full-bodied visitors down here. That’s why I followed you. But when you didn’t react right away, I wasn’t sure you were real.”
I rubbed my sore arm. “I’m real.”
“I’m glad,” Balder said with another warm smile. “I always admired Tyr. Not because he let Fenris Wolf chomp off his hand while tying up that demon dog, but for how he handled himself with Odin and Thor.”
I nodded to show my understanding. Long, long, ago, Tyr had been the chief god of war. Over time, though, Odin and Thor rose in popularity and edged him out. My dad could have mounted an attack to regain his position, but he recognized the turmoil that civil war would have caused. So instead he stepped back and let Odin and Thor remain in power.
“Plus,” Balder added, “Tyr was one of the few gods who didn’t throw things at me to test my invulnerability. I always appreciated that.”
“Enough to save him from being devoured by Garm?” I asked hopefully.
Balder shook his head. “I can’t stop Garm from killing your father any more than I could stop this mistletoe arrow from killing me.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why do you still have that thing?”
Balder pulled a face. “I tried to get rid of the arrow when I first got here. Burned it, buried it, crushed it with a rock, lost it accidentally on purpose. Nothing worked. It always reappeared back here.” He pointed to his chest. “Now I just carry it around. In my hand,” he added for clarity. “It gets in the way otherwise.”
“Mm, I can see how it would. And did the poison in the mistletoe ever make you sick?”
He looked at me with surprise. “Poison?”
“Well, yeah,” I said, equally surprised that he didn’t know. “Mistletoe is poisonous. There was this old hound dog that used to hang around my regiment. One day it ate some mistletoe and—” I broke off.
“And what?” Balder asked anxiously. “The dog didn’t die, did it? I hate stories where the dog dies!”
“No, but . . .” My mind was whirling. “It started walking funny and drooling and throwing up.” I turned to him. “Balder, I need your help.”
I told him about Garm, Thor, and my quest to find Hel’s dog and save my mother from torture.
Balder shook his head. “I’m sorry, son of Tyr. I want to help you, but Hel would never permit me to intervene.”
“Not you. That.” I pointed to his arrow. “If Garm eats it, it might stop him. Not kill him,” I added quickly, “just incapacitate him.”
“It’s true Garm wouldn’t be killed. Not here, in Hel’s realm. But if he ingests the mistletoe,” Balder said, “maybe he won’t feel like ingesting you!”
“Bonus,” I agreed.
A loud baying cut through the stillness. A second later, Garm bounded over a hilltop. He sniffed the air and swiveled his massive head in my direction. The hound of Helheim had smelled me out.
I grabbed Balder’s arrow. “You wouldn’t happen to have a bow on you, by any chance?”
“Sorry. Fresh out.”
“Right. Special delivery it is, then.” I gripped my rifle in one hand and the arrow in the other. “Wish me luck!”
“I can’t! Hel wouldn’t approve!”
I didn’t wait for Garm to come to me any more than I’d waited for Johnny Reb back in the war. Yelling at the top of my lungs, I ran full force at the hellhound.
Garm snarled and pounced. His bloodstained jaws opened wide, giving me an up close and personal view of his doggy uvula. I darted toward him, intending to shove the mistletoe into his mouth. His jaws snapped shut before I could, nearly taking off my hand when they did.
Then my battle training at Hotel Valhalla kicked into high gear. I spun away before he could take another bite, then jabbed my bayonet into his backside. He yelped loud enough to wake the dead. I pulled my bone-steel bayonet free and raced off in search of cover while he whirled in a circle, trying to lick his wound.
I spotted a ditch and jumped in. Flattening myself against the side, I plotted my next attack. I’d gotten as far as avoid the snapping jaws when I was enveloped in a blast of hot breath. I looked up to find Garm panting down at me, his drool-slick tongue hanging like a thick, wet blanket.
“Gross!” I rolled away just as that tongue tried to lap me up. Springing to my feet, I scrambled out of the trench and took a running leap onto Garm’s neck—and immediately slipped on his blood-soaked fur and slid down the other side. I nicked him with the arrow, though, which must have been irritating, for he plunked down on his butt and vigorously scratched at his neck with his back paw.
Meanwhile, I ran across the field and hid behind a massive two-story-tall boulder, where I took stock of my situation. The straight-on attack had failed. Hiding in the ditch had been nearly fatal. So maybe it was time to take the high ground.
“Right,” I growled. “This ends now.”
One side of the boulder offered decent hand- and footholds. Silently thanking Hotel Valhalla for installing a climbing wall, I slung my rifle over my shoulder, stuck the arrow through my belt, and scaled my way to the top.
“Hey, you overgrown puggle,” I bellowed from my perch, “how about a nice tasty Tyr-flavored treat? Yeah? You want a piece of me?”
Garm stopped scratching and started snarling. He padded over and circled the boulder. He tried to scramble up, but his paws couldn’t find purchase.
“Looks like you’re going hungry tonight!” I taunted.
Garm growled with frustration. Then, eyes locked on me, he backed away and got into a crouch.
I crouched too, slipping the arrow from my belt as I did. Then I waited.
Not for very long. With a loud howl, Garm charged. When he reached the boulder, he pounced. His muscular back legs sent him flying up the side straight at me, paws reaching out and mouth yawni
ng wide.
At the last possible second, I stepped to the side. Then, with a cry of fury, I jammed the arrow straight down his gullet, yanking my hand free just before his teeth crushed it. My attack threw him off-balance, and he landed with a flop on top of the boulder. While he scrabbled to get his footing, I leaped to the ground and ran like Helheim back to where I’d first seen him: the rocky outcrop I assumed was his cave.
At first, Garm chased me at top speed. I stayed one step ahead with a combination of wily zigzagging maneuvers I’d perfected over centuries of combat on Valhalla’s battlefield. That, and sheer dumb luck.
But slowly, the hellhound fell behind. I risked a look back. Garm’s mouth foamed as the mistletoe’s poison went to work. By the time we reached his cave, he was a wobbling, whimpering mess. I kind of felt bad for him.
All sympathy vanished when he threw up. Thankfully, it didn’t splash on me, but the smell was really, really disgusting. Garm tottered into his cave, fell onto his doggy bed of crushed bones, and began snoring.
Balder wandered in then. Ignoring the puke, he pried open the dog’s jaws, waded into its throat, and retrieved his arrow. “So I can wash it off before I wake up with it sticking out of my chest,” he explained.
He was about to say something else. But whatever it was, I didn’t hear it, because Hel chose that moment to send me back to Valhalla. I had no idea whether she would keep her promise to spare my mother.
I got my answer that night. The goddess of death visited me in a dream. “A job well done, son of Tyr,” she said. “Your mother is safe. I may even grant you permission to visit her from time to time.”
Warring emotions bubbled up in my gut then—anger at how my mother had been treated, and elation that one day I might get to see her again. Elation won out.
“I look forward to that,” I said. “And I’m glad your dog is back home, even though he’s destined to kill my dad. But right now, do me a favor.” I rolled over and pulled up the covers. “Go to Helheim.”
“DRAGON SCALES.”
Standing in the floor nineteen hallway, half-empty pizza box in hand, I glared at Halfborn Gunderson. He’d opened his door just a crack. “You’re seriously telling me you’re traveling to Vanaheim to get dragon scales?” I asked. “Straight off a dragon, no less?”