Freya

by Matthew Laurence

  At first I’m worried she’s trying to impale herself on the little thing, but her motion is so delicate and slow it doesn’t seem like it could do any harm. There’s a moment where it’s just sitting against her ragged skin, and I can see something’s torn through her scrubs to leave a long, curving wound across her belly. Then the screwdriver flares with a bright golden light. It reminds me of the burst of color from Garen’s bracers back at the steakhouse, but it’s far less harsh. The jagged edges of the cut in her midsection flutter as if caught in a breeze, then stretch toward each other. They fuse as they meet, and new skin flows between the gaps, filling in the damage and rippling like liquid. Epidermal eddies spread away from her abdomen, crawling underneath her medical scrubs and banishing various other cuts, burns, and bruises. Fresh, healthy pink skin follows in their wake.

  She inhales deeply as the light fades, then stretches, rotating her arms and legs to test them. Seeming satisfied, she nods to herself and sets the screwdriver back on the shelf. “So much better,” she says, turning to me. The scrubs around her lower torso are still soaked with blood, but there isn’t even a scar on the skin beneath.

  “Nice trick,” I say. “What would you have done if that were not here, though?”

  She shakes her head. “Unlikely. They stock these rooms with all kinds of useful gear. I knew there would be something to help me.” She sweeps out a hand, pointing at the shelves. “Everything in here is enchanted in some way—it’s just hard to tell because the Ahrimaura’s so strong.”

  I pause for a second, trying to figure out what she’s referring to, then groan. “Tell me you people didn’t name it like that on purpose.”

  “What? What’s wrong with it?” she asks, brow furrowing. “Ahriman’s aura. Ahrimaura. We use it everywhere. It’s very self-explanatory.”

  “Forget it,” I say. “What are you doing here? What happened to you?”

  Her mouth clamps shut and her eyes dart away. “Nothing,” she squeaks.

  I give her an incredulous look. “Nothing,” I repeat.

  Her expression becomes pained. “I don’t—I can’t tell you, Miss Freya, I’m sor—”

  “Sara,” I interrupt. She frowns, seeming confused. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” I say. “I’m Sara to my friends.”

  She groans. “I can’t, Sara,” she says softly. “I’ve known you for all of what? Half a dinner? My dad will literally kill me if he—”

  “So who’s going to tell him?” I say. “I don’t give a damn what he or anyone else here wants.”

  A look of incredulity flashes across her face. Then she grimaces as some troubling insight hits her. “You’re new,” she says, more to herself. “Just started training, calibration, all those things, right?” She sighs. “I’m really sorry, Sara, but I can’t trust you. Please believe me, I’d like to tell you, to have someone I could tell, but you’re—” She looks like she badly wants to explain further, but she settles for blurting out, “I just can’t.”

  I’m stunned for a moment until the truth of it hits me: She knows Finemdi twists its gods into submissive pets. Samantha doesn’t think she can trust me to keep anything from her father, because by the time their trained believers are through with me, I’ll have to obey him. That also explains why she won’t even say why she can’t confide in me—because it would mean explaining what Finemdi’s really doing to its deities. Best of all, though, is the fact that her desire for secrecy means whatever she’s been doing is probably very, very naughty. She’s up to something, and that could make her an ally. The only problem is that to find out, I’m going to have to be the one to make the first move.

  I look her over. Can I trust you, Samantha Drass? Once again, I regret not being more skilled at separating the sneaky from the sincere. Overt evil, I can handle. Hidden double-crossers, on the other hand, tend to fool me until it’s too late. But I have dirt on this girl now, don’t I? I mean, sure, I have no clue what she was doing, but by her own admission, it was bad enough to make her terrified of her father ever finding out. Just knowing I can hold this over her head doesn’t make me trust her implicitly, of course, but right now it’s the little bit of insurance I need to feel comfortable.

  Okay. Here goes.

  “I refuse to be enslaved, Samantha,” I say. “What they’re doing to gods goes against everything I stand for.”

  Her eyes widen. “What? I never said—”

  “You didn’t have to,” I say, spreading my arms. “How else would they keep all their free-spirited gods in check? How else could they trust any of us? That offered belief of theirs has to be tainted. Nothing else makes sense.”

  She gives me a long, hard look. “What are you doing here, Sara?” she asks at last. It’s in an entirely different voice from before. In fact, her whole demeanor has changed with that sentence. “When I first met you, you were innocent and fragile, just another god of beauty and love, but the more we speak, the more that seems like a mask.”

  She’s one to talk—I have the sneaking suspicion the “timid lab nerd” routine she’s been running since we met is just as much an act as my own.

  Well, there was a damn good reason for my duplicity. “Cooperate or die, wasn’t it?” I say, making a fist. “Hardly a choice. I had to act like any other grateful god who just couldn’t wait to have new believers.”

  “But that’s not what you’re really after, is it? You’ve figured out how we … ‘pacify’ our gods, so now what? What will you do?” Her words could easily be accusing, but she seems legitimately interested in hearing the answer. I can’t help finding this a little flattering.

  “You’re actually curious, aren’t you?” I ask.

  “I’m a scientist,” she says, as if that explains everything. “And you’re not acting like any god we’ve ever had. You know what we do, but you haven’t tried to take revenge or kill anyone. You could always have tried to run away again, but you’re still here. What are you up to?”

  “Maybe I just like being around other gods,” I say. It’s clear from the exasperated look she gives me that she can hear the evasion in my voice.

  “I’ve seen you in the cafeteria,” she says, pushing her cracked glasses up on her nose. “The three Hawaiian girls are the only ones you ever talk to.”

  “Okay, this is silly,” I say, crossing my arms. “How about I make you a deal? You tell me what you were doing, and I’ll tell you what I’m doing.”

  She frowns, thinking it over. “You first,” she says after a few seconds.

  Ah, the moment of truth. Can I really just tell her I plan on destroying her father’s company? Well, I can always kill her if it seems like she’s going to rat me out. Still, if they manage to pin that on me, I’m done. Best make sure I’m completely in the clear, in case it comes to that. “Is it safe to talk here?” I ask.

  “Oh, absolutely,” she says, blissfully unaware her answer could be life-threatening. “One of the few places in the entire complex they don’t record, actually; magical detection weaves would interfere with the Ahrimaura, and the teleportation effect scrambles electronics.”

  “Good to know,” I say. Then I grimace. “Wait…” I pull my Mim out of my bag and try to bring it out of standby. Nothing. The screen is dead.

  “Don’t worry,” Samantha says. “It’s just resonance from the translocative field. It’ll dissipate in a few hours, though the batteries might be drained. Plug it in to recharge and it should be fine the next day.”

  “Thanks,” I say, returning the poor thing to my bag. “All right, Samantha. You want the short version or the long one?”

  “Everything’s better with an abstract,” she says, leaning against one of the shelves and clasping her hands.

  I cock my head at her, one eyebrow raised.

  She sighs. “Right. God. Never had to write a research paper, did you? What I mean is, give me the short version to start, and let’s go from there.”

  “That works,” I say, wondering if I’ve just made myself look foolish. Well
, this next bit ought to make her see me in a slightly more serious light. “I’m going to destroy Finemdi. What they’ve done is an affront to nature, to say nothing of the personal wrongs they’ve committed against me.”

  Her eyebrows look like they’re going to shoot off the top of her head. “Wow,” she says, clearly taken aback. “Okay, I’d really like to hear the long version of that one.”

  I smile. “Bet you thought all I wanted was to steal some artifacts, maybe break out a few gods.”

  She shrugs. “Well, those would at least be realistic goals. I’m not sure you’re aware of how big Finemdi is at this point, but even if you fully understand the magnitude of what you’re trying to accomplish, I don’t think you quite grasp just how difficult it may be.”

  I hitch my shoulders up in a shrug. “Reach for the stars. So do I get to hear your side of things now?”

  She nods. “I suppose we did have an agreement. I’d still like to hear more about your plans and motivations, though. You’re quite unique, you know.”

  I smile, enjoying her inquisitive nature. “I’d be happy to answer your questions, Samantha. Now, if you don’t mind…?”

  “Right. Yeah,” she says, toying with some of the tools on the shelves. I can see her bearing has shifted in a matter of moments, her face taking on a saddened cast as her thoughts turn to what happened. “It’s not all that complicated, to be honest. I’ve been trying to make a special god. It … hasn’t been going well. This last time, I really thought I had something, but, well, she snapped and attacked me. I had to destroy her.”

  She sounds very clinical as she speaks, but even if my gift didn’t let me sense emotions, I could tell those words mask a canyon of sorrow and regret. “A special god?” I ask, sensing this isn’t the part she’s truly broken up about. Best to approach it carefully.

  “Someone I once knew,” she says softly.

  “A friend?”

  Samantha looks at me for a moment, her face unreadable. “My mom,” she says, quick and sharp.

  And she had to destroy her? Well. That’s … ghastly. “Was she a god?” I ask, trying not to let my surprise show.

  She shakes her head. “No, but it’s the only way I could think to get her back.”

  I’m at a loss here. I need to know more, but I don’t want to shatter this girl into a million pieces with too many questions. “Samantha, I know this is hard for you,” I say, picking my words carefully, “but I’d like to understand. I want to help. Can you, um—”

  She breaks into unexpected laughter, a high, nervous titter. “I’m sorry. I’ve never laid it out like this for anyone before. I’m being vague, aren’t I? Bad scientist.” She takes a breath and composes herself. “I was eight,” she says, her voice clipped, emotionless. “Mom and Gideon both worked here, always had. Smart for my age, of course, knew gods were real, but still didn’t really understand what my parents did.” She looks at me, then shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. I was happy, they seemed happy. Everything was fine—childhood. Then one day, Mom didn’t come home. Dad said there was an accident at work, and she died. We had a funeral, and right then, right then, I should have wondered, because it was a closed casket. No body. I should’ve stood up in the middle of my father’s eulogy and demanded to know what sort of accident didn’t leave a body behind. But I was eight. I was a good girl. Good girls don’t ask questions like that.”

  She pulls a carpenter’s level off the shelf, turning it over in her hands and watching the little bubble in its center slide up and down. “I was fourteen when I finally started asking,” she continues in that same haunted tone. “Can you believe it took me six years to work up the nerve? Finally started pulling records, trying to find old security footage. So many dead ends. But then I began looking at my father, sneaking into his files. Everything seemed normal, at first. Then I got to his employment dates. He was hired the day the admission form had been created. Odd, right? They hired him the exact day they approved the form to record new hires? I checked other documents and found clues that didn’t match up—that implied he’d been working for Finemdi a lot longer than that. So I branched out. His files were a joke, but he had his signature on all sorts of other things. I kept looking, going farther and farther back, and he was always there. I found old, old records, and yes, right there, it’s my dad, signing off on forms from the fifties, forties, thirties … back and back, until I ran out of documents.”

  “He’s a god?” I ask. I’m not the best judge of age, but when I saw Gideon Drass, I assumed he was in his early forties. Most gods project an aura of divinity, though, and I didn’t get a hint of it when I met him. Maybe he’s half god, like Garen?

  She shakes her head fiercely, tossing the level back onto the shelf. “No. No, he’s a mortal, if you can call it that at this point. Once I was certain he wasn’t a god in disguise, I did some more research into how any of that was possible. Everything was disturbing—really troublesome stuff. It took me a year, but then one day I finally found the security tapes of what happened to my mom.”

  She looks at me with watery eyes, her professional mask cracking, and I take a step back in shock. It’s not her sorrow that surprises me, but the sheer fury I see behind that front. “He made a deal. A deal. I don’t even know who the god was. Just scales, c-coiling in darkness. Doesn’t matter—what he did is the important part, and I don’t think it was the first time. All conjecture.” She balls her hands into fists, and it feels like she has to physically force out the next part, the words coming quickly like she’s worried if she stops now, she’ll never get through it. “He sacrificed my mother, Sara. Stabbed her in the chest and drained her blood into a bowl and laid her out for the god in the shadows to take, and I j-just miss her so much, Sara. He took her from me. How many other women has he done this to? Did he ever love her? Did he have to love her for it to work? There’s so much I don’t know.”

  My skin crawls. I’m not very familiar with human sacrifices, but I know there are some gods who thrive on them, who exult in every ritual death made in their name. I have accepted sacrifices, but always of pleasant things: of honey and ale, fresh-caught fish, and ripe berries. My rewards for these offerings are small but heartfelt, like the gifts themselves. But what of those twisted deities? What would they grant for the death of another human being? Or worse, a beloved wife? For such an atrocity, immortality might just be the start.

  “I hated him for it,” Samantha continues, “but I’m not like him. I couldn’t fathom taking revenge, so I decided I would just undo it. He took her life away, and I would bring it back. Finemdi can make new gods, you know.” She pauses. “Did … did you know that?”

  I bob my head, remembering Garen’s welcome speech. Just one of many sucker punches he threw my way, trying to get me to refuse their offer.

  “Pseudo-gods,” she says, nodding. “They’re weak, but they’re real. I thought if I could take everything I knew of her, all my love and affection, use it to lay the foundation for a fresh deity and slip it into the belief schedule, I could make her live again. That was three years ago, and this was the sixth one. I almost had her, Sara. She was almost back.”

  “What happened?” I ask, spellbound.

  She sighs and flicks the metal shelf, making a light spang noise where her fingernail hits. “She came out wrong. Crafting a god is a delicate thing. I’ve written papers on it. You can sustain and empower yourselves on a wide variety of belief types, but in the beginning, gods must actually be worshipped, and this has to be done very carefully. They require an incredibly sturdy underpinning of belief to form correctly. A full mythology, a reason to believe in them, a personality … imagine how hard it would be to think a human being into existence, to get every facet of them absolutely perfect. You had thousands of worshippers and decades of time in which to form, Freya. All I have is a handful of drugged prisoners who can’t think for themselves and everything I remember from my childhood.”

  She hits the shelf with her fist and the supplies j
ump a little from the impact. “But I was so close this time! She looked right. Sounded like her, smelled like her. For a second, she smiled and I could tell she recognized me. Then she … she was gone. Destabilized. Just an animal, ravenous, starving for belief and not knowing how to get it out of me.” She bends down and picks the remote off the ground where she dropped it, then straightens up and waves it at me. “I was going to hug her when she snapped. Just barely managed to activate the incinerators.”

  My mind reels at the concept. Samantha is the precocious daughter of an overprotective, possibly immortal executive who sacrificed his wife for dark gifts, and now she’s trying to bring that woman back as a tailored god. Worse, every time she fails, she has to destroy her creation, and each one wears the face of the mother she lost.

  “How are you even standing?” I ask, all attempts at quiet sympathy banished by my astonishment.

  She looks at me wearily, then casts her eyes about the room as if she’s not quite certain. “Clinical detachment,” she says at last. “I’m good at compartmentalizing. Kind of have to be, if I want to hide what I know from Finemdi. My dad.”

  “I can only imagine, Samantha. I don’t know how you can stand being in the same building, let alone work for him. He’s—well, sorry, but he’s a monster.”

  She shrugs. “I know. And I did hate him. Not just for my mom, either. He stole my childhood, isolates me from everyone to ‘protect’ me, and runs this horror show.” Something like pride sneaks into her eyes. “But I can be better than him, Sara. I can fix it all. Where would revenge get me? How can a few minutes of satisfaction make up for a life of pain? Or uplift all the years to come?”

  Part of me—the bloody, furious warrior maiden—wants to tell her that of course it’s worth it, to scream it from the heavens, then help her plan the war she’ll need, train her in the ways of vengeance, and, when the day of reckoning comes, exult in gruesome victory beside her.

  I tell that part of me to cram it, and listen to Samantha.

  “I think it helps that the hate is gone now,” she says. “It’s all gone. I feel nothing for the man because what he did isn’t going to matter. He took something from me, and I’m going to bring it back. That will be my revenge, Sara.”