Freya

by Matthew Laurence

  “You oversee the afterlife, don’t you?” I ask.

  She cocks her head to the side, studying me, then inclines it in a little nod. “You are a god,” she states in a soft, almost fragile voice. It’s practically a whisper, but a hidden speaker broadcasts it into the hall for me to hear clearly.

  I return her nod. “I am Freya. I know of another who watches over the dead of our lands. You are both … similar.”

  Her expression doesn’t change, but I get the impression she’s irritated with me. “And yet not. They can only hope to be a pretender before the darkness of my domain. I am Izanami, queen of Yomi and mother of the gods. Once giver of life, now its destroyer. All others are but pale shadows.”

  “That’s nice,” I say, deciding this girl might be a bit far gone for my needs. “Let me know how that works out for you.”

  I walk on to the next set of cells, and here the sense of anxiety and unease in my heart grows to a fever pitch. I find myself looking at a young man, muscular and fit, with lengthy, unkempt black hair and a tangled beard. His eyes are large and seem to stare too long without blinking. He radiates a palpable aura of alarm and crushing terror, so strong it slips around whatever wards were built to contain him. He wears nothing but a set of gray boxers. He stands as I approach, a frown creasing his features. I narrow my eyes at him. I know who this is; I have unfinished business with his father and recognize the divine horror that clings to him like a shroud.

  “Hello, Deimos,” I say, pleased to see a creature of fear and misery like him imprisoned. “Any idea what your dad’s been up to lately?”

  “Should I know you, insolent little girl?” he asks, frown deepening. His voice echoes and multiplies, a thousand susurrations bouncing off the walls, hiding in dark corners, and crawling up my spine.

  “She is the Lady of the Slain, Olympian mongrel,” a voice snaps behind me, angry and commanding. I turn, smiling as I see its owner, and walk away from Deimos. “It has been a very long time since I have stood in the presence of one worthy of my respect,” she says as I approach.

  “Too long,” I say, bowing at the waist and sweeping out an arm. “Hail, Sekhmet. Most honorable and courteous greetings to the hand of Ra. May your land be an unbreakable sanctuary to its people, and may your claws and vestments be ever soaked in the blood of the unjust.”

  She smiles, showing off an impressive set of gleaming canines. Sekhmet is ferocious and merciless, easily as dreadful as Deimos back there, but a protector as well as a destroyer. She has the sinuous body of a supermodel—thin, fit, and blessed with perfect olive skin—but her head is that of a lion’s; a sleek savanna huntress melded perfectly at the neck with her feminine form. She’s missing the bejeweled finery and snake-headed crown I remember from centuries past (little else sticks in my mind like fashion), but I don’t think she’s even a smidge less imposing or regal for it. She’s wearing a sleek red dress accented with golden hieroglyphs, and while I can’t fathom ever wanting the head of a cat, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy the body it came with.

  “Little comforts me in this wretched place, Lady Freya, and so I find your words all the more gratifying,” she says in a satisfied purr. She speaks with a thick accent, but her voice is light and wholesome—at least, while her anger is restrained. Few can rage like Sekhmet. “How long has it been?”

  “At least five centuries, if I had to guess,” I say after a moment’s thought. “I remember parting ways after the Ottomans invaded.” Wow, where’d that come from? I have trouble remembering much of anything past the 1800s. I thought most of my memories had faded along with my power. I’m a little proud of my recall, chalking it up to my returning strength and Sekhmet’s presence.

  “Ah, yes,” she says, lightheartedness descending into menace. “Dark days.” She pauses, and I can see the anger begin to rise behind those captivating feline features. “Part of me does not wish to know the answer, but as I see no guards accompany you, I must ask … are you an ally of my captors?”

  I fix her with a stare that should—hopefully—speak volumes and say in a flat voice, “Yes.”

  She holds my eyes, and while I can see that anger rising further, there’s a wonderful hint of understanding there as well. “They have made you their offer, then?” she asks. “And you accepted it?”

  “It was the only way to get what I wanted,” I say carefully, still holding her gaze.

  “Belief?” she asks, and I can tell a great deal rides on my answer.

  “Revenge,” I reply, nodding ever so slightly at her and spreading my arms.

  She keeps me waiting like that for seven terribly awkward seconds, eyes locked on mine as if they could peel the truth from my soul. “I see,” she says at last, and to my vast relief I realize she gets it. She was never one to hide her anger, after all—if she truly thought one of her ancient allies had gone over to the dark side, I imagine she’d have lunged at the glass, snarling with fury beyond measure. Her subdued reaction is all the confirmation I need.

  I release a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and smile at her. “I take it you couldn’t bear to compromise your values?”

  She grins. At least, I think it’s a grin. She’s showing off a lot of teeth. “Of course. Even if I had, I would never have been able to maintain the charade. This place is vile, little fighter.”

  I give another microscopic nod and then shift myself, preparing to move away. “Perhaps you will get a new chance to prove yourself a useful ally. Perhaps you will not have to spend eternity in that cell.”

  “One can only hope, Freya,” she says softly. “One can only hope.”

  I give her another bow, then walk to the last occupied room, located just beyond Sekhmet’s on the right-hand wall. The rest of the cells are dark, lights turned off and their doors unlocked. I pause outside this final room, a strange mix of emotions barreling through me as I take in its occupant. There’s an incredible sensation of disgust, irritation, and … jealousy?

  “Oooh, hel-lo there, chica linda,” the woman in the cell says, getting up and sauntering over to the glass. She’s drop-dead gorgeous—a voluptuous, bronze-skinned mirror of myself. Her raven hair cascades around her shoulders, ending in little ringlets, and her features are inviting and pert. She’s dressed in what used to be a gray jumpsuit marked with Finemdi’s logo, but she’s clearly made a few modifications to it, tightening, hemming, and flaring the fabric until it reads as more of a pit crew cheerleader’s uniform than a prisoner’s. All that’s left of the original outfit are a sleeveless, midriff-baring top and very, very short shorts.

  I hate this girl with every fiber of my being.

  She’s so like me, yet so twisted. They say familiarity breeds contempt, but what I’m feeling is more like territorial rage. It’s hard to explain, but there’s just something off about her, a sense of overloaded excitement that makes me feel like something sinister hides behind that promise of adventure and carefree pleasure. If you take the time to think about it, you realize this girl is not to be trusted. Something tells me she doesn’t inspire people to sit back and reflect, however. Everything about her is impulsive, fast, and vaguely deadly. It’s like looking at a glittering treasure in the middle of a tomb, knowing it’s defended by traps and curses, yet desiring it all the same.

  “Well, don’t be shy,” she says, looking me up and down and biting her lower lip. “I’d love to get to know you better.”

  “Who are you?” I ask, glaring at her.

  She pauses, then tosses her head back and laughs. It’s not a pleasant sound. “Shame. You would’ve been fun. I bet you’re full of the most delicious secrets.” She waits, grinning, for my anger to become visible on my face, then pushes herself up against the glass. “Call me Tlaz,” she moans, her breath fogging the acrylic.

  “Freya,” I spit. I rack my brains, trying to figure out who this is. I’m guessing it’s another deity from the southlands, though, which means I’m stuck. I really need to get more familiar with those gods.


  “No wonder you’re so frigid,” she says, slithering against the barrier between us. “Give me a chance, child of the Vanir, and I can warm those proud bones of yours.”

  I must know who this is. It’s like she’s another god of love, but home to the darkest aspects of the concept—sensual and alluring, yet tainted. “You obviously know who I am,” I say, trying to bury my disgust. “So why not make things even and tell me who you are?”

  “How is that any fun?” she pouts. “What will you do for me in exchange? Or”—she tilts her head and looks up with a coy expression, fluttering her long eyelashes—“what will you do to me?”

  I’m about to lose it and do something a little drastic, like try to put a fist through the glass, when Sekhmet’s exasperated voice comes to me from down the hall. “Her name’s Tlazolteotl. She’s an Aztec god of sex and filth. Temptress and purifier, able to forgive sins and punish them as she sees fit.”

  Tlaz lets out an irritated sigh. “Who made you hall monitor, freak?” she yells. “Mind your own damn business!”

  “When I am free of this place, I will bury my fangs in your throat, Aztlán savage!” Sekhmet shoots back.

  “Brilliant plan! I’ll enjoy watching you choke on a thousand infections, you absurd relic!” Tlaz screeches.

  Sekhmet replies with a string of curses and the sound of claws against glass. Then Deimos cuts in, saying, “Will you mewling wenches shut up? I can barely hear myself think.”

  Tlaz unleashes a torrent of curses at both of them, and then the dog from the first cell begins barking. The ruckus continues for a few more seconds until there’s a crackle from a hidden PA system, and the guard’s voice blares out across the hall, saying, “Everyone, calm down immediately or I will activate the current for all of your cells!”

  Silence falls in an eyeblink. Tlaz bites off the last string of insults, gives me a glare, and stalks back to one corner of her cell. She crosses her arms and sits down, fuming.

  “Good,” the guard says after a moment. “You’d better come out now, little lady. It’s almost closing time, and I don’t want them getting any more riled up.”

  I spare a last glance at Tlaz, who sticks out her tongue at me, and then turn on my heel to leave. Sekhmet’s pacing in her cell, obviously worked up, but she pauses to fix me with another calculating stare as I pass her. I don’t even give Deimos a look, but I can’t help glancing at Izanami as I’m about to leave the hall. She’s watching me with that same vaguely irritated expression. I give her a perky wave before wrenching the door open and leaving.

  “Gotta be careful in there,” the guard says as I enter his little waiting room. “Every one of them’s different, but give ’em half a chance and they’ll all kill ya.”

  Really? That’s pretty obvious for most of them, but … “Even the Aztec fashion plate?” I ask, voicing my curiosity.

  He shudders, reliving some particularly painful memories. “Especially her,” he says in a soft, distant voice.

  10

  EYES ON THE PRIZE

  Breakfast is, of course, spectacular. Blue corn waffles with bourbon syrup, crème brûlée French toast wedges, blueberry scones, lobster omelets perched on seared fingerling potatoes, and more. It’s a fine consolation prize for having to spend another day in this blasphemous labyrinth. As much as I wanted to leave and spend the night in my own bed, I haven’t yet gotten my off-site permit and, more important, I’m not going anywhere without Nathan, who’s still unconscious. Considering how angry this place makes me, you may be wondering why I’m not fuming over this delay, but that’s only because you’re not eating these waffles.

  I enjoy every last morsel with the Hawaiian sisters, chatting about the modern world and trying to wake myself up with a steaming cup of freshly roasted coffee. I also try to avoid looking at Samantha, who’s sitting in her usual corner, sad and withdrawn as ever. I feel immensely guilty, but snooping around the facility is already going to start making Finemdi wary of me—if I want to lie low, I need to avoid other suspicious activities, like hanging out with their leader’s daughter.

  “So what’s the deal with Tlaz?” I ask my companions after our lighthearted griping about modern man runs out of steam.

  “Who?” they say together.

  “The Aztec floozy in the detention block.”

  They all make various sounds of disgust. “Better off staying away from those people,” Nāmaka says. “They’re all trouble.”

  “I gathered,” I reply. “But she’s weird, and I want to know more about her.”

  “You mean she feels like competition and you like to know your enemies,” Pele says, glancing up from her pancakes with a shrewd look.

  “Or that,” I say, smiling.

  “Oh, come on—we can tell her,” Hi‘iaka says. “It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.” Pele and Nāmaka shrug, and Hi‘iaka gives me a look that says See what I put up with? before continuing. “She used to be a teammate here. Joined about half a dozen years ago after they picked her up in Costa Rica, I think. Everything was fine for a few months. Just another god, right? Then the deaths started.”

  “The human staff began dropping like flies,” Nāmaka says. “Mostly the men, but some of the women, too. All of them succumbed to a terrifying combination of diseases. No rhyme or reason to it. They lost a lot of people until they began combing through security footage and put two and two together.”

  “Right, and by then, the death toll was well into the triple digits,” Hi‘iaka says, looking disgusted. “I mean, we’re talking full-scale lockdown, quarantine conditions, the whole nine yards. Every day, more bodies got carted out. Things were grim, let me tell you.”

  “What did they find?” I ask, appalled and captivated at the same time.

  “She was sleeping with them,” Nāmaka says. “All of them. Like a kid in a candy store.”

  “More like a wolf among lambs,” Pele mutters. “Most of them were married or in some sort of relationship, too.”

  “She wasn’t even trying to destroy Finemdi, either,” Hi‘iaka adds. “It was just her nature. She looks for infidelity, leaps on the chance to expose perversity and deviance, and then judges them accordingly. Thing is, she would have been happy to forgive the people who were already being unfaithful if they came to her. She would even reward those who spurned her advances. Hell, she could cure other diseases they might have gotten, make them the picture of health. But for those who cheated with her?” She shudders.

  “Biggest set of fatalities they’ve ever seen at Impulse Station,” Pele says. “We’ve had gods cut loose on operations, mystical artifacts overload, and summoned creatures go berserk, but in all these years, nothing has done more damage than one wanton goddess.”

  Until me. “So she’s been locked up since?”

  Hi‘iaka nods. “Straight into Corrections the second they found out it was her.”

  “What about the rest of the prisoners?” I ask.

  Pele waves a hand. “Eh, picked up on various ops. They’re all too deadly or unpredictable for Finemdi to just let them wander around.”

  “And they can’t kill any of them because they might have enough believers to regenerate, right?”

  “Tch. Bingo,” Hi‘iaka says, making a gun with her thumb and index finger and clicking them together with a wink.

  “What about disbelief? Can’t they deny them out of existence?” I ask. “I mean, it took Garen all of five minutes to threaten me with that one.”

  That gets me some frowns. “They’ve always been a little vague there,” Pele says, thinking. “I get the impression they like to hold it over our heads, but actually pulling it off takes some real doing. Easier to just let them rot behind glass, I guess.”

  “Faith is one of the few things in this world that’s harder to destroy than create,” Nāmaka says. “Ideas are rather slippery in that regard.”

  “So they’re just prisoners forever?” How awful. That could so easily have been me, too. Just a little les
s restraint, and I’d be right there alongside them.

  Hi‘iaka nods. “Best they can do is teleport them to another facility if anything goes wrong.”

  “Makes you wonder just how many prisons they have,” I say. “How many gods they’ve captured … or destroyed.”

  She shrugs. “No idea. Probably a lot, though. They have all kinds of tricks.”

  And I’ll need to discover every last one.

  * * *

  The rest of breakfast passes quickly, all pleasantries and pastries, and then I’m off for my first full day as a Finemdi employee. I’m scheduled for something called Divine Calibration in an hour, but my first stop is the Medical wing. I’m really looking forward to talking to Nathan, but when I eventually make my way down there, all I can do is peer at him unhappily through the glass in Recovery. He’s still out cold. His chest rises and falls with slow, even breaths, and I watch him for a while, reassuring myself that at least he’s alive. I hope he’ll awaken soon; it’s uncomfortably distressing, the idea that he might be injured. I look away from his sleeping form, confused. I’ve seen a lot of mortals die over the years, some very close to me. Death is nothing new. So why I am so distraught over the possibility of it happening to this one?

  I turn back for one more look at Nathan. Maybe it’s because he wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. Maybe it’s because he’s the first halfway decent friend I’ve had in decades, or maybe it’s because he’s just a halfway decent guy in general. Maybe it’s some weird combination of all that and more. I couldn’t tell you. All I know is I want him awake and safe.

  With that cheery thought rattling in my head, I begin picking my way through Impulse Station’s insane corridors. It only takes me twenty minutes to make it to my assigned room, which I count as a marked improvement. Still, considering it took me thirty to find Nathan, I’m just barely on time.