“He’s not going after Jormungand at all. He’s going after Loki.” Sabastin swallowed. “But Loki isn’t trapped in some nether realm like we figured. He’s in the middle of a major city. If he tries to stop Loki there, the collateral damage will be immeasurable.”
“Maybe I should go help him?” Amy asked as fear welled up in her. If the choice was between going after Jormungand alone or facing Loki with Malcom’s help, well, weren’t two better than one? “Because, honestly, taking out Loki sounds like a great plan, all things considered.”
“No. Loki can’t be killed unless all three of his monstrous children are destroyed. For Malcom to succeed in killing Loki, Jormungand, Hel, and Fenris have to be dead. All Malcom will do is release Loki and get himself killed.” He sighed. “Hopefully, you can see why that is bad.”
“If I kill Jormungand would that weaken Loki enough for Mal to stop him?” Amy asked even though the idea of facing off against a Norse Deity alone made her blood run cold. Next to her, Caden got slowly to his feet, steam curling off his skin.
“I could get used to magic healing,” he said, running his hands over his body as a smile flashed across his face.
“No. Loki’s an immortal god, and unfortunately, his immortality is tied to his children. As long as one of them lives, he can’t actually die,” Sabastin replied, shaking his head. “It doesn’t even matter anyway because it’s going to take all four of you to kill Jormungand. That’s not really the problem, though.”
“The problem is Mal is broken in his head.” Caden flexed his hand. “He may have healed me somehow, but he’s gone dark. If Mal is going after someone, well that someone is in trouble.”
“What do you mean?” Amy asked. Mal always seemed pretty normal to her. Granted, she’d never really been around him one on one, but they were in all the same classes and he’d never so much as raised his voice.
“Mal has these blackout periods sometimes where he gets really angry and can’t remember what he did. It was never a big deal, really because…” Caden steeled himself. “Because he wasn’t some kind of god before… but now…”
“But now he’s got a whole lot of power and a lot of anger issues,” Sabastin said solemnly. “And the others won’t awaken for a long time. Not soon enough for you guys to stop him, assuming you could.” Sabastin gritted his teeth together.
“So what do we do?” Amy asked, already dreading his answer.
“I’m going to send you to Jormungand’s realm. When your friends Fames and Victoria awaken,” he gestured at Ian and Kim, “I can send them right to you. Maybe the three of you can defeat Jormungand before Mors does something stupid.” Sabastin smiled weakly, and it was anything but reassuring. “The three of you should be strong enough if you work together…”
“That’s my kind of plan. Kicking ass and taking names,” Caden said, reaching out and gripping Amy’s hand. He was trembling.
“You’re not even part of the team,” Sabastin said, glaring at Caden. “You have no useful skills, no magic. You’ll only be a hindrance.”
Caden smiled, his grin so big it practically engulfed his face. “But I can offer Amy one thing on her trip that no one else is able to right now.”
“What is that?” Sabastin asked as Amy turned to look at him. What could Caden possibly offer her but a chance to get killed like Jesse? The thought chilled her. She couldn’t be responsible for another of her friend’s deaths, she just couldn’t.
“Companionship.” Caden pointed at the tank. “Those two are out of commission, and I’m reasonably sure you aren’t going to leave to go with her because someone needs to stay here to watch them. I could stay but I don’t know how stuff works. So unless you want to send a high school girl after a Norse Deity by herself, well, I’m pretty much your only option.”
Sabastin stared at Caden for a long time before nodding once and looking at Amy. “It’s up to you, Bellum.”
“I don’t want you to die, Caden.” Amy shook her head, tears filling her eyes.
“I won’t die. You’ll protect me,” Caden said, clapping her on the shoulder, and strangely it was more comforting than she expected. “Now let’s go kill us a giant snake. Besides, there’s no way I’m going to sit here and let you go alone. We’re supposed to be friends.”
“Okay… if you think that’s the best plan…” Amy said as something inside her shook its head, receding down into the depths of her soul. Whatever it was agreed with her. This was a horrible plan.
Ian 01:11
Ian awoke screaming, his limbs flailing wildly in what seemed to be raspberry jelly. The mask on his face clung to him tightly, almost suffocating him. A face bobbed in the goop next to him, and he tried to cry out as his heart nearly exploded in his chest. He reached up, grasping for something to pull himself free when something wrapped around his wrist with the force of a vice and jerked him upward out of the slime.
He hung there, blinking in the suddenly bright light as the mask was torn from his face. Cool air hit him at once, and he shut his eyes against it as he sucked in a breath that tasted like bubblegum and jasmine perfume. Before he could orient himself, he fell forward, tipping over the edge and plummeting to his doom.
Ian slammed into the steel floor a moment later, pain shooting through his shoulder as he lay there, trying to blink the world back into focus.
“Nice of you to join us,” Sabastin’s too loud voice rumbled. “Get up. I have a job for you, Fames.”
“I feel like I’ve just been born,” Ian replied, crawling to his hands and knees as slime dripped drown his body and pooled on the cool metal beneath him. “I don’t remember being naked.”
“If the world revolved solely around our memories, it’d be a very sad world we lived in,” Sabastin told him, handing him what looked like a skintight black jumpsuit. “I pulled one of my people’s uniforms out of storage while you were sleeping.”
“My mother once told me that sometimes all we have are our memories. Once those are gone, we’re just shells,” Ian said, getting slowly to his feet and accepting the outfit. He stared at it for a moment before reluctantly pulling the clothing on. The jumpsuit clung to his gel-covered body, accentuating it in a way that wasn’t exactly flattering. Whoever these jumpsuits had been made for were in way better shape than he was. He sighed miserably and rubbed his hand over his belly. The spot where Amy had stabbed him ached, and he could feel the hard knot of scar tissue from where the steel had penetrated him.
When he finally looked up, Kim’s face stared back at him from within the tank. “So that’s who it was…”Ian placed his hand against the glass and watched her bob. She looked like a corpse, and the thought chilled him.
“Where’s Amy?” he asked, and Sabastin shuffled behind him.
“You have two options, Fames. The first one is for you to sit back and wait for her to wake up,” Sabastin said, holding out his hand and sticking one finger in the air.
“That wouldn’t really help me. I feel like I should be doing something,” Ian replied, turning to stare at the scarred old man. “What’s the second option?”
“You can go after Mors and try to stop him from doing something incredibly stupid.” Sabastin shrugged at him. “It’s the more dangerous of the two options. If it was me, I’d go with option one.”
Ian felt his skin flush. “Am I really so useless, you’d rather I sit on the sidelines instead of helping?”
“For now.” Sabastin sat back in his chair. He seemed to age ten years in the space of a minute. “Don’t bet your self-worth on right now. Base it on what you do when it matters.”
Ian stood there, and the air around him grew colder. “So I’m waiting, then?”
Behind Sabastin, something pinged on the large screen in the center of the room before bursting into a cacophony of blues that sort of reminded Ian of a lava lamp. The screens on either side of it blazed to life a moment later, casting purple and red light respectively across the floor.
Sabastin whirled and stared at
the three monitors. Before he could do anything, text in a language Ian couldn’t read scrawled across them. The same text. Three different colors. While he watched, a bad feeling crept up his neck and settled there on his shoulder, whispering doubt in his ears. Something was wrong…
“You have to be kidding me!” Sabastin heaved himself heavily onto his feet. His chair fell to the ground, clattering on the metal. “Are you sure you want me to do that?”
The word “Yes” flowed across them in at least three languages Ian could understand, filling the screens up with endless repetitions of the word in every language imaginable. Sabastin let loose a breath that seemed to hang in the air.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he told the machines before picking up an object wrapped in black fabric from its perch beside the keyboard. “Are you sure?” he repeated.
“Yes!” filled the center of the three screens, huge and imposing. Sabastin shut his eyes for a long moment.
“I’m going to trust you this one time,” he whispered to the computers. Sabastin’s words were barely audible to Ian’s ears as the man turned woodenly and held the bundle out in front of him.
“Last time you wielded Haijiku, you let it control you. The spirit within is incredibly dangerous. If you let it, the spirit will be able to commune with your mantle, Fames. Last time, it clouded your vision, drawing on the hunger of your mantle.” Sabastin pulled the black wrapping away and let it fall to the floor. Sabastin thrust the hilt of a katana as black as the darkness itself and twice as menacing into Ian’s hands.
Hunger exploded through him, unrelenting and all consuming. The world around him faded, distilling into one aching cry. He needed to feed. He had to devour… everything.
Sabastin slapped him, and Ian staggered backward. His grip tightened on the sword, knuckles white with the effort. “I know why Jormungand gave you that sword. The spirit inside seeks to devour everything, and your mantle seeks to do the same. If you can learn to work with it, well, you’ll be strong enough to stop Mors.” He turned, pointing to the screens. “That’s what the computers say. It seems they don’t want you on the sidelines after all.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ian asked as sweat beaded on his forehead. The sword felt like it was burning a hole into him. He tore his eyes from the weapon and stared at Sabastin. “What do you mean the spirit within the sword is communing with my mantle? What mantle?”
“You are one of the four horsemen. Famine to be exact. That’s why you’re always so hungry, but no matter how much you consume, you’ll never be satisfied. Even if you sucked the entire planet dry, it would not satiate you. You are like the personification of the hungering dark, the unyielding, unrelenting winter that devours all life.” Sabastin reached out and touched the katana’s edge with one scarred finger. “That sword is Haijiku. It was crafted by one of the most powerful of my people long ago. I had thought it lost, but my foolish daughter managed to recover it. Now, it has been given to you by her captor, and you need to learn to control it before it destroys you.”
Ian dropped the weapon, and it clanged to the floor. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “What if I leave it here?”
“It would be wise for you to give up power, Fames. Your mantle makes it so you will never be satisfied. You will always want more, but in this case, the computers are telling me Mors has already located Loki’s resting place. You must stop him from unlocking that vault. You must buy time for Bellum to reach Jormungand.”
“What are you on about? Loki? Who is Loki and…” he trailed off as he stared at the sword. He could feel it watching him, like the steadfast stare of a slowly circling hawk.
“Loki, the Norse god. Don’t they teach you people history on Earth?” Sabastin asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.
“We call that mythology,” Ian replied, and without realizing it, he knelt down next to Haijiku.
“A difference without a distinction.” Sabastin shrugged. “You need to stop Loki because he’s been buried in a hole with acid dripping on his face for a couple thousand years. When he gets out, let’s just say his vengeance won’t be honey and cream.”
Sabastin’s words faded into the background as Ian reached out and wrapped one hand around the hilt of Haijiku. Butterflies seemed to flap across the surface of the black blade with frenetic energy.
“Have you ever eaten a god?” the spirit within Haijiku asked, and its voice was like a thousand flapping bats.
“No,” Ian replied, his voice strangely distant sounding to his ears.
“If you help me, we can eat the world serpent himself.” A fading grin appeared in the back of his mind, searing into him and making spots dance across his eyes. “Then we’ll eat Loki too.” The grin widened, filling up the entirety of him. “We shall save the day.”
“Okay…” Ian said, and the blade throbbed in his hand like a living thing. Its satisfaction cooed across his brain before receding down into the depths of his soul.
Ian swallowed and looked up at Sabastin, but could not read the expression on the man’s face. Without saying anything, Sabastin hit something on one of the keyboards, and a large portal opened itself in front of Ian, rippling like a giant golden rain puddle.
“You’re probably used to being the outcast. Even though you try and keep your friends and family together, they always seem to slip through your fingers.” Sabastin shook his head. “Your path is in some ways, the most difficult. You will always crave more, will always crave to have everything, but unfortunately, you’ll never have enough.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Ian asked, staring at the man as the truth of his words hit him like an anvil to the face. All his life, he’d struggled to be part of a group, to find friends and be happy, and always, always he just wasn’t enough to keep anyone orbiting his little world. Hell, he failed at orbiting other people’s worlds. Was that because he was Famine? If so, that was bullshit.
“I see thoughts running through your head, Fames. It’s an unfair mantle you wield, however, it makes you uniquely suited for your next task.”
“Why is that?” Ian asked, wondering what it could possibly be.
“If you step through that portal, you will go to where your friend Mors is. You must stop him before he locates the statue of Loki. If he finds it, he will try to release Loki because he is trying to stop everything himself, but he cannot. That’s his fatal flaw. It’s basically the opposite of yours, and because of that, I think only you can stop him because of the two of you, only you are used to being truly alone. He is not.”
“So my loneliness is a strength?” Ian asked, raising an eyebrow at the old man. “That’s a new one.”
“Everything is a strength if you view it correctly, Fames. Now go, your destiny awaits,” Sabastin paused, swallowing. “There’s just one more thing, I ask of you.”
“What?” Ian asked, exhaling through his nose. What more could this guy possibly want from him. Already he was asking him to do the impossible…
“When you confront Jormungand during the final battle, please don’t kill my daughter.” Sabastin looked at him, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. It was enough to make Ian’s icy heart wrench.
Ian said nothing as he reached out toward the golden rift in the space between them. It warbled there, like a glistening blob of liquid gold.
“Please.” Sabastin looked away as a tear dribbled down his cheek and spattered on the cold floor. “She is all I have left.”
Ian stared at the man for a long time. He knew what it was like to lose family, and the thought of not trying to save this man’s daughter made him ache in a place deep inside him where the memory of his mother lived. Besides, he’d just killed his childhood friend. It was something he’d never be able to forgive himself for, but maybe, just maybe saving this girl would be ease his guilt, if only a little. Saving this man’s daughter wouldn’t bring Jesse back, but it would be a step toward redemption, albeit a very small one.
“Okay, I
will stop Mors and save your daughter. I promise,” Ian said, and with that, he stepped through the portal.
Ian 01:12
Every cell in Ian’s body felt like it had been invaded, torn apart, and reattached by several disgruntled elves with rusty tools. He fell to the ground, retching violently, and while he didn’t remember eating anything, his body didn’t seem to care very much. His guts twisted up into a hard, clenched mass, leaving him unable to do more than lay there heaving.
Ian was standing in the middle of a city. But from the look of it, the portal had taken him into the middle of a war zone. Fire seethed in wreckage around him, slowly consuming buildings and shops all around him. It looked like a tank had bulldozed its way through a city block. As he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, he stumbled along the path of destruction, nausea still swimming in his gut. Off in the distance, he heard screams. He ran toward them, but when he arrived at the scene, Malcom held a woman by the throat with one hand as he gestured with the nuclear green hammer in his other hand.
“Malcom, you need to stop this,” Ian yelled, his fingers reaching down and brushing across the pommel of his katana. Hunger rose inside him, filling his vision with red and making him stumble. He jerked his hand away and held it out before him, staring at his fingers. Though they looked normal, he could still feel his skin tingling from their brief contact with Haijiku.
Malcom tossed the woman into a group of spectators. They scrambled about, pulling the woman into their ranks as they huddled beneath the archway of an enormous stone building. The bodies of several would be heroes, their skin tinged a sickly green, littered the ground in front of Malcom. Malcom kicked one absently.
“Oh, on the contrary.” Malcom walked toward him, eyes feverish and angry. His grip tightened on the hammer, the muscles in his forearm tensing. “This is exactly what I am supposed to do. I am death.” He waved his hammer around him, gesturing. The sky above them crackled, lighting exploding across the sky. “We were told we need to kill a god.” His lips twisted into a horrible snarl. “Who better than I? Why should we go stop the snake? Why really? We can end this here and now. Ian, we can take on Loki and avert this whole thing now…” He held his hand out, palm up. “Together.”
Death's Mantle: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Revelations Book 1) Page 13