by A. J. Aalto
Harry nodded at Golden's perspicacity. “The Strongholds were built atop mountains, cliffs, rock faces, and spanning ravines. I think you should find that, much like an iceberg hides its bulk, most of the living space is hidden within the heart of the stone itself, with only the proud towers showing above.”
“A place to fly their banner,” I guessed, and judged by the look on Harry’s face that I was right. “The houses are not always… friendly with one another. Immortals are territorial. Power, position, and the ability to impress and manipulate is everything to them. If they cannot awe you or seduce you, you end up something they must dominate. My advice: if something makes your jaw drop open, don’t bother hiding it. There are plenty of egos to be fed where we’re going, and you couldn’t possibly feed them enough.”
Harry’s eyes slid sideways at me, and I felt a surge of hunger through the Bond that titillated me, hooking me like a barb in the chest. He was pleased and annoyed at once, irritated that I knew his kind well enough to peg them with less than flattering words, but proud as well. If we’d been alone, I had no doubt that he’d have been out of his seat in a flash to take his pet in his arms. And then what? That, I wasn’t sure about, but there would no doubt be fangs involved. I smirked and ran a finger along the collar of my shirt to tease him.
But we were not alone, and the silence had stretched long enough to make Golden squirm in her chair and politely drop her attention back to her papers. Harry caught my gaze with his and his pierced brow twitched playfully. “Perhaps you ought to try to sleep for a bit. ‘Tis a long trip, and I’d hate for you to wear out your tongue.”
I took the hint; I had claimed Harry’s old iPhone for the music feature, and put the earbuds in to fall asleep to the new Rusty Underboob album, R.U.B. It Out, featuring the hit “Bad Case of the Chid.” Like all hardcore Underboob fans, I was a Roobie. Their lead singer, Rob Bobby, also sang for the Harshmellows in the late nineties, and had co-written my favorite song ever: “When Babies Eat Babies.” I could never eat veal without humming it.
I drowsed a bit but it was broken and restless, though Harry’s closeness did settle me whenever I jolted awake. Twice, he pushed a dollop of reassurance through the Bond and lulled me back to sleep. Twice, I dreamt of gross old tongues and busted teeth, of gunshot ringing out in a fog-choked alley, of the knotted scar high on Batten’s inner thigh. When I stirred for good, I tried texting Batten again. When there was no reply, I felt Harry’s hand alight softly on the top of my head. I didn't bother hiding how glum I felt, nor the fact that Harry was partly to blame.
“He has not spoken to you yet, my love?”
“Nope.” I made sure Golden was sleeping before saying, “I still think Batten would have been a good choice for Second. I know you think so, too.”
“This shared faith in Our Mark may be a folie a deux, ducky.”
“We could have brought him along for some of it.”
“This was for the best. Many a pickle makes a mickle.”
I nodded as though I knew what the fuck he was talking about. “And what is a mickle but many a pickle?” I tossed back, feigning wisdom.
“I ask you,” Harry agreed, though what he was agreeing to, I didn’t know, as I was still blissfully lost in his nonsense.
“I once had an excellent pickle in a town called Micklewallop,” Golden added sleepily, coming to with a stretch of her arms overhead.
“Did you indeed?” Harry said, removing his pince nez. Golden grinned teasingly.
“Of course she didn’t, Harry,” I said. “Evening, sleepyhead. Just in time. We’re almost there.”
“What time is it? What day is it? Where are we?” Golden asked.
I checked my watch, because the sky was a grim blue-black and gave no clues. “Four in the afternoon, Sunday the twenty-eighth of December. Somewhere over Norway.”
The plane descended toward a silent, snow-covered cape, and we landed in Hammerfest, population ten thousand if you didn’t count the reindeer. I watched the runway lights rise to meet our wheels and was filled with a sad, insidious thread of trepidation. As Harry’s cool hand landed atop my gloved one, I realized I’d been clutching the armrests and fractionally loosened my grip, my misgivings doing likewise. Harry patted me then put his copy of Proust’s Swann’s Way in his bag.
We came down the plane’s steps to the runway to a frigid but mercifully windless night, a dusting of snow falling through the still air, and hurried into the warmth of the Hammerfest lufthavn. It was a reassuringly typical airport writ small, lots of chrome and flight info, and even a phone-booth-sized installation of a familiar coffee shop.
“Who, or what, is that?” I asked, jerking my chin at the giant holding a sign that said only “FV.” The guy was doing a fairly terrible job of pretending to be human. He parted the modest torrent of people on the concourse, and they flowed and eddied around him, bumping into one another and off of him as though he didn’t exist. Maybe they were incapable of noticing him. Never once did a mortal look up at him, though if he’d been a normal human, they would have, if only in awe of his height. He reminded me a bit of Viktor the ogre in shape and size, broad and tall and thick, but there was nothing of the ogre in his jaw. Pale blond hair hung long and poker-straight on either side of a weathered, bearded face.
Golden elbowed me gently in the ribs. “He should just bellow, 'Hey, errybody, MOOOOOOVE!' like Fezzik in The Princess Bride.”
I managed, barely, to stifle a giggle, but not before Harry cut his eyes sharply at me before glancing back at our apparent welcoming committee slash Brute Squad.
Blondie didn’t look at the humans, either. His eyes, an unsettlingly bright grey-blue even from a distance, had pinpointed Harry immediately as my Cold Company swept down the hall, and, as though mesmerized, he tracked the path of Harry’s elegant step.
“Okay, Harry, seriously, this guy is openly ogling you.” I bristled, my DaySitter alarm bells ringing. I did a mental check of my protocols, found nothing about defending one’s revenant against possible ice giant attacks, and came to grips with the fact that I’d just have to wing it. I might be able to wrap myself around one of his ankles enough to slow him down for three, maybe even four whole seconds. Unless he was ticklish behind the knees, then I'd totally be able to take him.
Harry allowed himself a bemused murmur. “Such a fuss you make,” he said with a cluck of his tongue. “That is Captain Konrad Rask, who will take us beyond the Bitter Pass.”
“Captain… like, of a ship?”
“Yes, of the Enterprise, like your beloved Captain Picard,” he teased. “Of course a ship, Dearheart. The Meita.”
That made sense. The Falskaar Vouras would want to keep their king separate, so it wasn’t like they’d have direct commercial flights. Did they have a helicopter pad? I wondered if the island had jagged shorelines and guards at the harbor. I glanced at Golden; she was taking in all the details of the airport and the mundane scenes of passengers collecting their things, milling around, greeting family, sorting taxi rides, counting luggage, talking on their phones, and taking pictures out the huge windows.
Golden said, “Okay if I hit the vending machines? I’m guessing you need coffee, too?”
I nodded but didn’t watch her go. I didn’t want to take my eyes off Konrad Rask just yet. “So, Harry? Not going to tell me what he is?”
Harry replied crisply, “Does it matter, ducky? Does his racial background inform how you will behave toward the man?”
I picked up playfully smug teasing through the Bond. Usually, I was the one suggesting something Harry said was borderline racist; four hundred-year-old men are far more likely to have histories upon which to base prejudgments, and any bad encounter gets registered in the mind of a revenant as a safety mechanism to alert and temper their future interactions with certain people. It tended to make Harry suspicious of entire swaths of humanity. Not that humanity didn't deserve most of it, but it was still rude to jump to conclusions.
I gave him the
stink-eye. “I am your advocate, Harry. I am your DaySitter. It is my job to spot and mitigate danger before it reaches you.”
Harry’s arm curled affectionately around my lower back as we approached the massive man holding the sign. “And when I am at rest, my cricket, I depend greatly upon the searchlight of your senses. Please allow me to reassure you, the danger posed to me by the likes of Captain Rask is as a Welchman’s hose.”
I blinked at him once, hard, to indicate my dismay. “Uh, I don't think I want to see his hose right here, Harry.”
“The dress of a naked Pict,” Harry clarified, though clarify it he did not.
I sighed impatiently.
“Which is to say, my angel, non-existent.”
“I dunno…”
“What don’t you know?” Harry clipped, followed by, “Heavens, a more loaded question, I have never asked.”
“How do I say this in your language, Harry? That naked Pict might not be as nude as you think.”
“What a fuss you make,” Harry said with a not-displeased tsk.
I gave Rask a dubious head-to-toe inspection and made an uncertain noise. If Harry was in danger, I wasn’t going to be able to help much with this guy. My gun was stowed in my go-bag with my special permits, and physically, this man — if that’s what he was — had at least two hundred pounds on me. I’d be like a chipmunk on a Great Dane if it ever came to blows.
Harry dropped his voice until it was barely above a sigh. “I find your lack of faith—“
“Disturbing?” I interrupted. “Do ya, Darth Dreppenstedt?”
“Does my DaySitter desire a show of her companion’s fitness and self-reliance?” Harry kept moving forward as my pace faltered and I came to a full stop. He shed his coat with a casual shrug. It fluttered to the ground like a large crow settling on an abandoned dirt road. I picked it up and put it over my luggage in time to see him slip away.
In a single eye-blurring shadow step, my revenant swept through the crowd in a glorious reminder of his grace and power; the sight of him stuttering in and out behind milling shoulders and heads took my breath away. I knew in that moment most of the mortals around him had lost sight of him completely. I struggled to track him, and the Bond kicked in to alert me to my Cold Company’s whereabouts, but no other human would be able to follow him as he stole amongst them. Goosebumps raced up my arms and across my scalp as Harry increased his stealth and speed until he was damn near invisible; darting behind a man in the military green parka, now beside an old woman with a cane, dancing from one shadow to the next effortlessly, a predator creeping behind his prey, slinking alongside oblivious humans, and when he got too close, they’d cast a darting, uncertain look over their shoulder, or shiver and draw their arms close to their bodies as they felt his cold wake. A papery whisper alerted me that Harry was speaking to me and his audiomancy pushed his words at me across the entire length of the airport. You will find me before he does, my Own.
I cut my eyes at Konrad Rask. His lips had tightened into a grim line and his eyes narrowed. He searched for Harry, dropping his sign in a flutter of thick paper, and also stuttered out of view. Revenant? “Shit,” I breathed.
Now, DaySitter, Harry summoned. Come.
I put my bag on the ground, wary about leaving Harry’s unattended valise in an airport, lest security get nervous. I looked for Golden; she was just returning with a tray of coffees. Good. Taking off my gloves and cramming them in my pocket, I aimed my naked palms at the ground and took a calming breath. This was what I was built for. Captain Rask was not going to get between me and my Harry.
I got this. I called up the Blue Sense, felt the swelling of psi as a warm tingle under my hands, lifting like a warm current under the wings of a hawk. I drew the surge of heat into my veins and threw wide the gates of the Bond, accepting as I rarely did the full power of our infernal connection. Harry responded through the Bond as a cold, magnificent lick of undead potential, and appeared as a brief flicker of pale skin and receding sandy hair behind a woman in a full-length fur coat. He turned his pale face and his eyes flashed like high polished chrome. I began to stride forward, not directly at him but confidently to one side, aiming wide.
That’s when I spotted Rask; a shimmer in my peripheral vision, like dry summer heat rising from asphalt, caught my eye near the plate glass of the concourse windows. He blocked the sight of snow softly falling in the exterior lights, turned it into wavy white streaks that fooled the eye. Rask was lurking to Harry’s left, and began to move. I matched him step for step, my small legs doing double-time to his. Harry shifted only slightly, remaining in place but shifting to shadow-step in time with the lady in fur. I altered my trajectory and recalibrated my focus so I could track both Rask’s shimmer and Harry’s shadow. Now I felt excitement through the Bond as Harry anticipated my approach, though I was certain he hadn’t guessed what I was about to do. Keeping airport security in mind, I glanced once behind me to make sure Golden had the bags, and I looked like any other traveler, I picked up speed, and let out a happy squeal.
“Hi, Konnie!” I yelped, and dove at the shimmer of the giant, aiming for center of mass. I felt physical resistance and latched on. He grunted with surprise as I clasped him about the midsection.
Konrad Rask reappeared with a guttural expression of unhappiness and reached for me as he reappeared, stuttering without grace into view and startling a young, bearded man nearby into a choked “urf!” Our surprised bystander probably had the right idea, and scuttled away and did his best to reclaim a dignified, unhurried stride, while I gripped Rask tighter around the middle, which with our height difference was more like his belt line than his true center of mass. It was like hugging a barrel made of moose jerky.
One of Rask’s big hands gripped my shoulder and I braced for a Vulcan nerve pinch, or maybe just getting squished like an overripe grape, only to feel Harry’s intensity as a cold press of immortal clout at my back. When I turned my head, Harry had Rask’s wrist between his thumb and forefinger. Rask’s face contorted.
“A hearty good evening to you, Captain Rask!” Harry said with a broad smile that flashed no hint of fang. His eyes were softly human in a show of masterful recovery, having just been shadow-stepping like a fiend among the mortals. “How terribly pleasant it is to be in your kind society yet again, and so soon after my last visit. Oh, and this one, yes…” He cast a tolerant eye at me, showing stiff disapproval while the exact opposite thrummed through our Bond. Harry was pleased. “I should think you’ll find me deeply apologetic about my DaySitter’s unorthodox greeting. I hope you do not find her methods too dreadfully presumptuous.”
I released Rask, but not before my bare hand brushed his jacket. The Blue Sense flared to offer me a rapid mélange of visions, a cacophony of mixed images: thunder booming directly overhead, the thrashing of a ship tossed on wild seas, the distant warning of a foghorn, the rattling clatter of chains being let down over a railing, thumping inside a metal bin, a cold plunge, deep and slow like I was pushing my face through cold mud speckled with grit.
Rask spoke to Harry in an unfamiliar dialect, which didn’t have the same tricky and rolling-tongued vagaries most Northern languages did to my ear. Harry nodded and answered in kind. I took a moment to study the captain while he was distracted; his pale skin had the slightest grey undertone, and his beard would have covered most of the skin of his face if he didn’t shave his whole cheeks. There was faint blond stubble right under his eyes. His brows protruded thickly, as did the wide, solid bones of his cheeks. His Adam’s apple was the size of my fist. Had Harry not just proved he could escape Rask if he needed to? Perhaps. But I doubted very much that I could.
Golden was catching up to us, but not easily. She had the cardboard tray of coffees balanced on one hand and the handles of our small luggage trolley in the other. I went to help her.
“What was that all about?” Golden asked.
“Harry was in a mood,” I said, as though it explained everything. Batten would have
let it drop, knowing what I meant. Golden asked for more with a lift of her brows. “He needed to show me he could escape this guy without my help. He’s feeling awfully playful lately. He’s got a lot of secrets up his sleeve right now. There is mischief afoot.”
“And who's the big fella?”
I eavesdropped for a moment, but since they were still talking in whatever slippery tongue they shared, I couldn't glean any significant intel. Harry showed Rask our names on Rask’s clipboard, flashed his passport, and signed beside where his name was printed. Following that was a brief discussion that looked more heated; there seemed to be a change in plans that Rask wasn’t about to tolerate. Harry slipped the captain some cash, and Rask, making an uncertain noise that transcended language barriers, finally nodded. He wrote two words in the margin of his list, but in a hand or symbology that didn’t even have recognizable letters. I’d seen a lot of written languages around the world, but didn’t recognize this one; its rounded simplicity reminded me a bit of Georgian script, but it had long, tall curlicues, too.
“Come, ladies,” Harry said. “Captain Rask will get us a taxi to a hotel, and we’ll get back on the road to the jiekngasaldi as soon as possible.”
“The what, now?” I asked. But I didn’t expect an answer, so it wasn’t surprising when Harry smiled and took my valise and go-bag without supplying one. He swept ahead of us, his elegant sway a sinuous shadow behind Rask’s massive prow, forging ahead into the cold, Norwegian night.
Golden, in a fair approximation of telepathy, handed me a cup of coffee as we followed them.
Chapter 8
I had not been prepared for how many reindeer were on the roads in Hammerfest, but soon learned from a cab driver with a charming Norwegian accent that the deer were a serious problem. Where I'd grown up, in southern Ontario, spotting a deer once you left the city was a treat. When we were kids, my dad would pull the station wagon to the side of the road, and we’d all crowd against the windows and watch the deer and until it bounded into the woods. In Hammerfest, deer sightings were neither unusual nor a treat. We had to slow down at least a half dozen times to honk to scare them off the road, and there were piles of pellet-like reindeer scat all over the place, but at least the hotel parking lot and walkway were ungulate-free.