Monster Born (Northern Creatures Book 1)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  At last count, there were about twenty-five normal people in Alfheim whom the elves trusted. Most of them were connected to the werewolves. Ed knew, as did his wife. And me, though I wasn’t normal by any means.

  “No,” I said.

  Her ponytail swayed behind her head. “The mundane gathered warriors. They trapped the elf family. Burned them alive except for their daughter. The man used her magic to make himself king.” She glanced at the door. “They had many children.”

  Elves did not have babies with normal humans. The outcome was bad. “But…” Quite bad.

  Dag closed her eyes. “Every single witch in the British Isles is descended from those children. All of them.” She tapped her desk again. “The mundanes cannot overrun Alfheim. We cannot be outed to the wider world. Imagine what they would do to us now, with their technology.”

  Nothing good. But how could sending Maura and Akeyla away help? “This wasn’t Akeyla’s fault,” I said. “How is sending her back to her father going to protect anyone? If he caused this, you’re giving him what he wants.”

  Dag watched me with her stone-gray eyes. “Maybe he did this. Maybe not.” Her voice held no hint of condescension, though it did hold weariness. “No other elf enclave will take Maura and Akeyla because of the video.” Dag’s melodic, crisp—though slight—Icelandic accent made it difficult for her to disguise her undercurrents of emotion.

  Or, more likely, she did not bother with people she considered family.

  The Icelandic elves would not take Dag’s daughter. Nor would the Norwegians. Nor the kami in Japan. And there was no way Dag would send her daughter to the Siberian elves or either of the new colonies in New Zealand and South Africa.

  So back to Hawaii they went.

  “I have a gut feeling,” I said. How else could I describe what bothered me? My hauntings, Maura’s instincts. Ivan’s convoluted warnings. They pointed to something different.

  Dag nodded as she sat on the edge of the desk. “In the old days, we would have killed those men for what they did and stopped the rumors there.”

  “In the old days, the mundanes would not have shown such disrespect.”

  She looked up at the ceiling. Slowly, she raised her arms and turned the inside of her forearms upward.

  For one brief flash, her tracers glowed green-blue.

  “My husband has made his judgement.” She dropped her arms. “He had no other choice.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Frank.” This time Dag’s voice did hold admonishment. I was not to interfere in elf business.

  “But—”

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Dag suddenly glamoured. Her ponytail vanished, as did her tattoos. Her linen and leathers became a blouse and khakis. She became the middle-aged matron of a small, Minnesota town. “Yes?” she said.

  Ed poked in his head. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I need to get a statement from Maura.”

  Dag nodded. “I will pass on your message.” She waved him away.

  Ed frowned. “Mayor Tyrsdottir, I understand there’s family politics here, but if the reports aren’t thorough, we could be risking reprisals if the two who shot that video decide to lawyer-up.”

  Dag’s eyes narrowed. I didn’t think she’d thought through the legal implications of the modern mundane world.

  She didn’t respond.

  Ed placed his hat on his head. “At least pass on my request, ma’am. That’s all I ask.”

  She waved him away again. Ed looked at me, then at Dag, nodded once, and closed the door behind as he left.

  “There has to be another way,” I said. What if the video followed Maura and Akeyla to Hawaii? They couldn’t stay sequestered forever.

  “They’re at The Hall,” Dag said. “Say your goodbyes.” She waved me away, too.

  Chapter 10

  Like all things elvish, Alfheim’s Hall was glamoured. Any mundane driving through town saw only a slightly rundown, early-eighties designed, three-story hotel with an attached large restaurant and meeting room complex. The entire structure appeared to be poured concrete and painted beige as an afterthought. A couple of unkempt bushes dotted the landscaping rock surrounding its foundation. More bushes braved the scattered small islands in the seemingly empty parking lot.

  The overall effect was “Ignore and pass by.”

  The rest of Alfheim’s open commercial districts—Center Square, Wolftown, and the artsy bed and breakfasts that have popped up around the college campus—carried other glamours, though Center Square attracted visitors more with its 1870’s architecture and tourist-oriented trading posts than anything magical.

  The Great Hall occupied a wedge of land between Center Square and the river. A trail ran along the banks, which mundanes biked and walked, but The Hall’s glamour made it appear unwelcoming, and no one ventured into the parking lot.

  Maura once told me that the elves could not truly see the glamours they built. That, for them, a glamour slid along their skin like a prickly piece of silk. Most of them shook when they walked through one—Maura called it “heebie jeebing”—though I have never in my two hundred years with the elves seen one visibly react. They were a warrior people, the elves. Traders and fighters—much like their Norse ancestors and gods—and did not show weakness.

  I parked my truck in the real lot across the street from The Hall. I try to be courteous parking my one-ton vehicle, but tonight the small lot was full, and I slid in next to a boxy sedan. Gerard and Axlam’s larger sedan sat in the corner next to Remy’s smaller truck. Arne’s fuel-efficient hybrid sat under the light in the center of the lot.

  I must not be the only person who’d come to say goodbye to Maura and Akeyla.

  I wiggled out and held my door for Marcus Aurelius, who bounded out to the street. He stopped at the curb with his big tail wagging, and looked over his shoulder. My dog waited for me to catch up.

  “What do you think, boy?” I asked as I looked both ways before crossing into The Hall’s glamour.

  Marcus Aurelius barked.

  “I suspect you are correct.” I patted his head. “We will fix this.” What else could we do? I was old enough that I knew a mistake when I saw one.

  The emperor wagged his tail.

  I scratched his ear. “You are utterly predictable, you know that?” My dog was hungry. “Axlam undoubtedly has a treat for you.”

  Every dog loved Axlam, and even most cats. Arne’s lynx purred for her, and he otherwise sat on the back of Arne’s chair and glowered at everyone within pouncing distance.

  Marcus Aurelius barked again and bounded through the glamour veil.

  No bounding for me. I swept my hands before me as if parting curtains.

  The gesture wasn’t necessary, but over the years, I’d found that orienting my body to the magic helped me to understand it better. Here, parting the “curtain.” At home, “throwing” a tracer spell. The elves thought my movements odd, and at times laughable, but it worked for me.

  I stepped through into a different world—or, more correctly, a more natural world.

  The land around The Hall was still the same virgin forest that was here seven hundred years ago, when the elves’ Norse mundanes first stepped foot on North America. Not exactly the same—the trees, plants, and animals continued to grow and change—but The Hall sat on a riverbank that was otherwise untouched by European humans. Arne’s lynx lived here, as did deer, fox, ravens, snakes, and a pair of bald eagles. The fishing along the shore was especially good.

  The land itself was considerably larger than its external glamour. The Hall was a good quarter mile from the veil.

  The strongest of the elves’ magic warped space, but on which side of the glamour, I did not know. Perhaps both. I was not privy to the specifics of the spell, or who placed it originally, though I suspected an organized effort by Alfheim’s first elves. I knew only that each step through the veil surrounding The Hall was a blessing bestowed on me by a magic that shimmered with as mu
ch life as the blue jays flitting between the branches.

  Marcus Aurelius and I started down the trail toward The Great Hall of Alfheim.

  No squirrel distracted my hound, and he trotted ahead. The birds inside the veil sang louder than the birds outside, and with more melody. More critters scurried between brambles and bushes. The evening sky here was also a deeper, richer, indigo blue, and I often wondered if the place behind the veil was Vídbláin, the Wide-blue heaven of the Eddic poems. Arne only grinned when I asked, and more often than not distracted me with an offering of food.

  Torches lit the way as the trail curved around a dense stand of ash and birch, and opened before The Gate, a truck-sized, purplish granite boulder broken in two by real-world forces.

  Dag once told me that the rock spoke of a cold, harsh world, one scoured of all life but lichens. It whispered of ice, and how the cold flow of the world carried it here only to crack and abandon it where it now stood. No magic. Only the power of glaciers.

  She touched the stone and told its Ice Age story.

  Sometimes Dagrun Tyrsdottir’s ability to see the truth of the world frightened me more than her husband’s immortal magic.

  I crossed between the two halves of The Gate and into the clearing. Moonlight shimmered along The Hall’s grand, golden—yet not gold—roof. The elves had imbued the earthen tiles with sun magic, and the entire building glowed.

  The Hall was, in many ways, a classic Norse longhouse, with a steeply pitched roof, wood walls, and a wide central hearth. Chatter and subdued laughter poured out the open doors.

  I stopped only a step beyond The Gate. The laughter, though subdued, indicated that a lot of the locals had come in this evening. Maura’s melodic voice carried over the conversations. Then Axlam’s sweet-sounding, semi-barked werewolf response.

  Elves and werewolves. People. My shoulders tightened. My eyes blinked. I did not like crowds, even friendly, familiar crowds. Even if I came here with a purpose.

  Marcus Aurelius woofed and rubbed his head against my hand.

  I looked down at my hound. He looked up at me and wagged his tail. “Thank you,” I said.

  I heard Akeyla before I saw her. A glow of fire warmth spread out before her and the little elf I call niece burst from The Hall’s entrance.

  “Uncle Frank!” she sobbed, and as always, jumped into my arms. “I don’t want to go back!” She hiccupped and rubbed her eyes. “I like Ms. Saunders.”

  Ms. Saunders was her third-grade teacher. “It’s okay, honey.” I hugged her close.

  “It’s not okay,” she said. “No one will tell me why we have to go back. I like it here.” She hiccupped again. “They won’t let Jax come, either.”

  Jaxson, Gerard and Axlam’s nine-year-old born-wolf son, trotted out of The Hall, dutifully following Akeyla. The Hall showed a person’s true self—glamours vanished and the werewolves took wolf form—but no one’s souls were stripped naked. Arne understood politics and diplomacy too well to force such a horror on all those who entered.

  Jaxson, who would only be smaller than Marcus Aurelius for another year or two, sniffed my dog, sneezed and sniffled, then took up a protective stance between Akeyla and The Hall.

  Nine years old and he was already showing a mate preference. Thankfully, he didn’t see me as a threat. Akeyla didn’t seem to notice the preference part of his friendship, or at least had yet to find fault with her friend’s behavior. Still, the adults watched them carefully, just in case. As did I.

  “Do you both like your teacher?” I asked as I jostled Akeyla to my hip. Perhaps I could distract them both from their sobbing.

  Jaxson lifted his blue-black muzzle and yipped. Unlike both his parents, whose wolf forms could pass for the real thing, Jaxson’s fur shimmered with violet-blue, icy magic. Born-wolves often “presented,” as Arne liked to say, and Jaxson fully showed both his magic and his Alpha-in-the-making will.

  Akeyla nodded to her friend. “Jax doesn’t like Ms. Saunders.” She put her head on my shoulder.

  “Oh?”

  She shrugged, then hugged my neck. “Are you staying for dinner?” She pouted and blinked her big eyes.

  “I need to talk to your grandfather.” I glanced at The Hall.

  Akeyla hugged me again. “He’s being mean.”

  Jax yipped again. He circled once, then sat again between us and The Hall entrance. His wolf magic wafted off his fur in tiny Aurora Borealis sheets. He rocked from one side to the other, and softly growled.

  Jaxson Geroux was not a wolf who hid his emotions well.

  Arne Odinsson strode out of his Hall. He scowled.

  Out of his glamour, the full power of his magic trailed behind him as sparks in the air. Arne stood taller than most men, though a good hand shorter than me. His frame showed considerable strength, with wide shoulders and a broad chest. His hands, though, appeared elegant, if large. He watched me with deep, intense eyes the same gray as a storm, and wore the black hair crowning his head in a long, twisted, partially-braided ponytail clasped with many bits of silver. His hair, like all the elves’, waved behind his head as if alive. Thick, lynx-like sideburns grew down the sides of his face below the naked sides of his scalp.

  His tall, pointed ears stood out the most. Long ago a beast had notched his left, and he wore multiple piercings in his right, to balance the effect.

  The blue tattooed symbols along the sides of his head shimmered in the light radiated by The Hall. “There you two are!” Arne called. He lifted Akeyla off me and placed her on his leather-clad hip. The rest of the world might see a three-piece suit, or khakis and a sweater, but underneath, Arne Odinsson was comfortable and ready for a fight. “Are you bothering Uncle Frank? It’s time to sup.”

  He looked more at Jaxson than his granddaughter.

  The wolf-kid yipped-growled.

  “Grandpa!” Akeyla yelled. She slapped his arm and wiggled until he set her on the ground. She wrapped her arms protectively around Jax’s neck. “Don’t yell at Jax!”

  Arne spoke with a voice as flat as his face. “I have not yelled at anyone, young lady,” he said.

  Akeyla hiccupped again. “Come on,” she said, and tugged Jax toward The Hall.

  Jax’s muzzle twisted downward, as did his wolf eyebrows. He yipped again, and trotted after Akeyla.

  Arne tossed me a look that said We’re going to have a problem with that one.

  “Not for a decade,” I said. Unless Arne did send Akeyla away.

  “I know why you are here, Frank.” Arne crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s nothing I can do.” He inhaled and continued to watch the kids as they slumped their way back into The Hall.

  “Dag told me about Tyr Bragisson’s call,” I said. Arne did not have to agree. The elves did not clue me into their politics, but I had picked up enough to know that Arne and Dag, as a team, were at least as powerful as Dag’s father. Perhaps more so.

  As for the rest, I had no idea where Alfheim fell in the hierarchy of the enclaves.

  “I told Maura a decade. Maybe two. Then we will bring them back with different identities.” He rubbed the side of his head. “I am considering sending Gerard and Remy ahead.”

  He looked me directly in the eyes. “Or you.”

  I fully understood his unsaid order: You’ve fought wars. You’ve protected a daughter. You understand. Take care of the Hawaiian problem.

  No, I thought. No not only for my own sake, but also for Akeyla’s.

  A raven landed in the open yard in front of The Hall’s entrance. A big raven, one with pronounced throat feathers and a strong, stocky body. It hopped toward us, then to the side as it investigated the soil.

  No, I thought again. I understood the pain of loneliness. I knew firsthand what happens when too much vacuum is applied to a young, raw soul. When the promise of connection—of love—is sucked away, even if that love was not real or given. The reality did not matter. Only the potential. And once it burned to death in a cottage, or lay dead on the floor of a v
illa, or laughed in your face, the torrential power of a cyclone stops you from breathing.

  And there is no greater death-terror than asphyxiation by the willful disregard of others.

  I would not enforce Arne’s unspoken order. Enforcing led down a dark path, not only for me, Gerard, and Remy, but also for those for whom we enforced.

  For Maura. For Akeyla.

  The raven cocked its head.

  Arne asked me to do this enforcing because I was ugly. Because I was a monster. Because I was an unsettled—and unstable—soul. Because I lumbered and I frightened easily-scared, tiny men.

  Such enforcing came easily to my unsettled body.

  “Frank?” Arne uncrossed his arms and stepped back.

  My hand encircled his throat, ear to pointed ear, before either of us understood what was happening. My arm tightened.

  Arne opened his mouth, but did not speak.

  “I never thought I would hear you court the darker magicks, Arne Odinsson,” I intoned. Murder caused cyclones and cyclones battered magic. The murder of Akeyla’s father would batter hers for the rest of her life.

  Long ago, murder turned me into the lumbering monster of my birth. Murder and war tore apart my soul. Murder stained me.

  Arne clenched my wrist. He hung from my grip. His face reddened. Magic swirled in precise eddies around his hands. “Release me, Frank Victorsson.”

  The golden glow of The Hall’s roof flickered to orange and hot red. The conversations from the interior crackled and popped. Heat grabbed ahold of my ears and my neck. Heat crawled down my spine.

  Heat blackened the magic around me.

  “Frank!” Maura screamed. She stood in The Hall’s entrance with Akeyla clinging to her waist and Jax between us.

  The little wolf barred his teeth and growled.

  “Put me down, son,” Arne said.

  His hands gripped my forearm. His biceps bulged. He was strong-arming his entire weight off my wrist.

  I’d picked him up by his neck and now held him in the air a good foot and a half off the ground.