“What do we do?” Clarice asked anxiously, staring at the huge structure.
“Odin!” Magnar roared. “You swore we'd get through! Is this some joke to taunt us?”
A rumbling noise sounded as the cave trembled with the intensity of Odin's power falling over us. The door clunked heavily and swung open, leading to another black tunnel beyond.
I sighed my relief, darting through the doorway with Magnar tearing along ahead of me. We quickened our pace until we were flat out sprinting. My lungs laboured and my skin grew slick with sweat. Heat invaded my veins and I relished every inch of it as it poured through me like liquid fire.
We tore into a cavern which stretched out ahead of us. I stalled as Magnar came to a halt and we stared across the incredible mound of treasure that lay at the heart of it.
My gaze raked down it to the base of the stairs. And there, at the very point my eyes landed, my world came apart.
Montana lay at Callie's side, the two of them lifeless and so still it sent a wave of terror through me which I wasn't nearly strong enough to face.
“No.” I refused the situation, willing it out of existence. But it wouldn't leave, it stared back at me and dared me to face it.
I half tumbled down the stairs as I ran to her: my light, my universe, my everything.
I crashed to my knees and reached for Montana's pulse. No beat fluttered beneath my fingertips. Her eyes were shut as if she slept and I started to hope, beg, plead that she was still in her vampire form. That this was not her mortal body in my arms in the clutches of true death.
I pulled her against my chest, her limbs limp like a doll's. Her head lolled and her hair tumbled out behind her like a waterfall of ink.
Magnar bellowed so loud the walls shook. But I wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't accept it.
“Wake up,” I demanded, shaking her then pressing my ear to her chest.
Beat, dammit, beat!
“Erik...” Clarice said tentatively but I refused to acknowledge her.
“This is not the end,” I snarled at Montana. “We made a promise to each other and I need you to fulfil it, Rebel. Just open your eyes.” I shook her again and the pain found me, burrowing deep, trying to drill the acceptance of it into my newly beating heart.
“NO!” I laid her on the ground and threw my fist into the stone beside her head. My knuckles flared with agony but I didn't care. Nothing mattered but her coming back to me. Her laughter, her kisses, her smile. They were all so out of reach. Losing her was akin to extinguishing every ounce of hope to grace the world.
“You don't get to leave,” I insisted, cupping her cheek as tears seared my eyes and threatened to unravel me. “They can't take you from me.”
I rested my forehead to hers as grief threatened to devour me. And once it bit down, it would never let go. I tried to reject it but it burrowed deeper with sharp teeth. Every inch of my body hurt and I despised it.
What good was a mortal body without her to share it with? She owned it anyway. How could she not be here to claim it?
“I lost you once, I won't lose you again,” I growled, the emotion in my voice cracking and breaking every word.
“This is the debt,” Fabian breathed in realisation and I winced at his words because if they were true, it meant she'd done this for us. She'd paid this price willingly and that was an even more terrifying thought than the gods simply taking it.
“Not for me,” I breathed as I clutched her tighter, her skin cold and unforgiving against my hands, not offering any of the electricity her touch had always charged in me. Because she wasn't here. She wasn't in this body anymore. I was left with a shell and an empty heart that would pine for her eternally. “Not for this man who owes you everything and you owe nothing,” I insisted as if I could somehow undo the decision she'd made.
This mortal body was worthless without her. I'd sought to break the curse without true cause until I'd met her. But I'd finally had something to live for and she had been it. The sole desire of my being, the reason for my existence. And now she was gone. And that made me into nothing but a broken being in a cursed body once more.
I shook my head as the pounding agony in my veins turned to rage, hatred. A magnetic desire for revenge pulled and tugged at my heart and told me to find the one responsible for this.
Andvari.
I'd hunt him down and rip him from every world, every dark shadow he tried to hide in. And when it was done, I'd cast this body to ruin and join my lover in the afterlife. I'd set my soul free and seek her out in the depths of the gods' halls and stay with her for all eternity.
I pressed my mouth to Montana's icy lips with the most desperate and earnest vow I could make.
Andvari's death is written.
Mine is too.
I pledge the final hours of my humanity to avenge you.
I stayed crumpled on the floor with the body of the girl I’d waited a thousand years to love cold in my arms and the weight of her death crushing my soul.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think or feel anything beyond this pain which was devouring every inch of me.
This can’t be real.
I took Callie’s hand in mine and pressed it to my cheek, her fingers unresponsive against my flesh. I placed a kiss on her palm, her wrist, her lips which were so, so cold against mine.
Her weight hung loose in my grasp, her head lolling back as soon as I released my grip on her face.
This pain was more than I could bear. It felt like the weight of a thousand souls were bearing down on mine, determined to reduce me to soot and ash and I didn’t much care if they did.
I wanted nothing from a life without her in it. There could be no joy, no satisfaction in a world where she didn’t exist.
I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. Where the chasm of pain had ripped through me, there was nothing left which was strong enough to feel grief.
I was hollow. Empty. Undone by the absence of her.
What had it all been for if this was the cost of it? How could the curse have required such a sacrifice? The gods could hold no sense of justice if they could steal such innocent souls in payment for the freedom of humanity.
What had Callie and Montana ever done to be selected for such a role? They were good, kind, brave and loyal. And their reward for such qualities was death?
Julius laid a hand on my shoulder, his grip firm but his hand trembling as he tried to comfort me in some small way.
Clarice was crying. The sound of her muffled sobs echoing off of the stone walls of the towering cave.
“Damn the gods,” Fabian swore behind me and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground resounded off of the walls. “They deserve the foulest of deaths for all they’ve done!”
A glimmering golden coin rolled across the floor towards me, striking my boot before starting a tailspin. The noise of the coin circling faster and faster drew all of my attention. It was the only sound in the world. The only thing that existed outside of this pain. The coin drew closer and closer to the end of its torment, the sound it made against the stone piercing the silence before it finally fell to the ground with a dull click.
I pushed myself to my feet, lifting Callie’s lifeless body in my arms as I moved away from my brother.
Erik was laying over Montana’s body, whispering things to her which she was far from being able to hear.
A stone altar lay to the right of the cavernous space, its top laid out with a shrine devoted to Andvari. I swept everything from it; the candles, offerings, books and glimmering flowers. Each item holding immeasurable value and yet none of them worth a thing.
I laid Callie down, brushing my fingers through her golden hair one last time
Her face was peaceful in death. No teasing smile pulled at her full lips. Her blue eyes were closed for the final time, never to dance with joy and light again.
The fissure her absence carved in my heart was bloody and raw and I knew nothing in this world would ever fill it again.
�
�You were everything I ever wanted,” I breathed as I trailed my fingertips along the cold lines of her face. “And you were too good for me. Too good for this to be your end.”
I cupped her face in my hand and tilted her chin so that I could kiss her but not even a glimmer of the girl I loved lay within the cold confines of her flesh.
Tears slipped from my eyes onto her cheeks and I pulled back as I blinked them away. If I gave in to this tide of grief now then I knew that I’d never finish what I had to do.
I stepped away from her, leaving my heart in her care as I turned toward the table which lay beneath the shimmering mirror on the other side of the room.
“Brother?” Julius asked in confusion as I strode across the space and my chest filled with the solid strength of my final purpose.
I built a wall of ice around my heart, my pain turning to rage at the injustice done to the girl who’d blazed with the fierceness of the sun and her twin who’d glimmered with the power of the moon.
I paused before the table, looking down at the items which were laid into the stone as if it had been carved from the earth to hold only them.
I could feel the brush of power coming from those items. They were no normal weapons.
I reached for Callie’s ring first, the reason she’d come to this infernal place to begin with. As I pulled it from the recess, a wave of power washed over me. Andvari knew someone was claiming his treasure but he would be powerless to find us here now.
I ground my teeth as I pushed the ring onto my finger and wielded its energy to hide this place from him as I turned my attention to the other items before me.
There were seven in all, including the ring. And I could tell these were no ordinary items. Each piece held the runes of the gods carved into the gold which decorated them. Each sung with a deep well of power which called to me even before I’d touched them.
There was a curling horn, a bow, sword, dagger, an amulet and a huge war hammer inlaid with runes of power and destruction. They called to me with the promise of eternal power and an unstoppable rule but that wasn’t why I wanted them.
I felt someone approaching and looked around as Erik moved to stand by my side. He’d laid Montana on the altar beside Callie, the two of them united in death as they’d always been in life.
My gaze met his and I could feel his anger as deeply as my own.
“I’m going to kill him,” I said and I didn’t need to say who I meant. Andvari’s death was the only thing that held any meaning to either of us now.
“I’m coming with you,” he replied.
I nodded once then reached out to take the hammer.
My fingers curled around the thick handle and power flowed through my muscles as I hefted it into my grasp. It was heavier than anything I’d ever held, the weight of it so much more than just physical. But the power of my love for the woman who lay dead on the far side of the room leant me what strength I required to wield it.
“Is that Thor’s hammer?” Clarice gasped and I could tell she didn’t think I should be wielding such a thing.
My eyes slid past her and I didn’t respond as I stepped up onto the platform beyond the stone dais and headed for the rear wall of the cave.
“This place lies between the realm of the gods and the realm of men,” I growled as I lifted the immense hammer into my arms.
“Magnar,” Julius began, hurrying towards me. “You can’t-”
I swung the hammer with all of my strength, slamming it into the wall with a resounding crash.
The mountain groaned and wailed above us and I snarled as I swung the hammer again. And again.
Julius pulled Clarice into his arms and started backing away from me as the wall resisted my efforts to cleave it apart. But the gods had gifted me my strength and the power to wield their weapons and now they were about to find out just what that meant.
I roared with effort as I swung the hammer at the wall again and a huge shudder raced through the ground at my feet as a crack split the rock apart.
I snarled as I heaved the hammer back for one final strike and my muscles began to tremble with the effort of wielding such a weapon. But I refused to stop. I wouldn’t back down from this fight. Andvari would pay for what he’d taken from me and Callie’s life would be avenged.
I bellowed my rage, my grief, my pain into that blow and the hammer collided with such force that the wall split apart. Rocks cascaded around my feet and a roughly hewn doorway appeared before me.
I dropped the hammer beside me, no longer able to bear the weight of it.
The space beyond the doorway shimmered with green and blue light like the surface of some deep pool. I knew crossing that threshold would take so much more from me than the movement of my flesh but whatever price I had to pay would be worth it. Andvari’s life would end at my blade or I would die in the attempt of taking it.
I turned back to the room filled with treasure which held no value to me. My eyes trailed over my brother with regret.
I closed the distance between us and he released his hold on Clarice as his eyes met mine.
“I’m coming with you,” he said fiercely but I shook my head.
“You are the one thing I cannot bear to leave behind,” I told him as I caught his face between my hands. “But you still have a life to lead and I will not draw you into death with me.”
I could see the refusal simmering in his eyes and I pressed my forehead to his. My heart slammed against my ribs painfully as I prepared to part ways with him. But he had found something which was truly worth living for. And I would never take such a thing from him.
“I would follow you to the end of the Earth,” Julius snarled, his hands gripping my wrists as I held him.
“And you have, Little Brother,” I replied. “But now my path leads me beyond the Earth and into the realm of gods. It is no place for those with a reason left to live.”
Julius shook his head and I pulled back so that I could look him in his eyes which were glimmering with emotion.
“Love her,” I snarled. “Live for her and die with her when your time has come. And I will wait for you in the golden hall with a tankard of ale and our friends at my side.”
Julius glanced at Clarice as she clung to Erik, having much the same argument as we were. I could see the pain of this decision hanging on my brother but I wasn’t giving him the choice. His path had granted him everything a man could wish for and I would sooner cut my own heart out than let him abandon it for me. I took the ring from my finger and pressed it into his hand.
“Protect her from them,” I snarled. “And know that I love you more fiercely than I could ever put into words.”
“I can’t let you go-” he breathed, his fingers curling around the ring as he refused to accept what had to happen.
“I will see you again,” I growled. “But not in this life.”
Julius opened his mouth to protest and I pulled him into my arms, crushing him in a final embrace which ended our argument.
“I love you, Magnar,” he choked as his hand fisted in the back of my shirt and his tears fell against my neck.
“Then live for me,” I replied, kissing his cheek before pulling away from him.
Clarice fell into his arms as Erik released her and he turned to embrace Fabian one final time. Chickoa sobbed as he stepped back towards her but I looked away from the horror in her eyes.
I moved to the table laden with the treasure of the gods and placed the horn over my shoulder, followed by the bow.
I passed Erik the sword as he approached me and he took it with a nod before claiming the dagger and the amulet as well.
“Come then, enemy of mine,” I said darkly as I held his eye.
“Let us show the gods what we’re capable of when we’re united,” he replied.
We turned towards the fissure I’d carved into the side of the mountain and I took a final breath, glancing back at my brother and the woman he loved one last time, before stepping into the void.
Magnar and I moved into the sheen of rippling blue and green light that I was sure would lead us to the land of the dead. I threw a lingering glance back at my family, knowing it would be the last time I saw them until they one day joined me in death.
We stepped into the waiting clutches of the rift between worlds and it took us in its hold, sweeping us away from every Earth-dwelling thing we'd ever known.
My body was dragged forward through a vortex of swirling light. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't feel. I was nothing but atoms as my physical being tore apart into a billion tiny fragments. I felt Magnar's presence as the foundations of our flesh scattered through a strange wind, dragging us toward our decided fate.
The pieces of myself rejoined and my feet hit soft ground. Magnar stood beside me, raising the bow he'd taken from the gods' trove. My mouth parted as I spied the strange black robes he was dressed in. A red cloak hung from golden crests on his shoulders, falling down his back and making him resemble a king. I glanced down at myself, finding the same clothes on my body.
“What is this?” Magnar breathed, plucking at the cape that hung from his shoulders.
“Who knows,” I murmured, eyeing the landscape ahead of us with a dark scowl.
We stood on the edge of a black river which disappeared into a thick mist before us. The fog pressed in on all sides as if it were all that existed above the bubbling water. A silver chain stretched out into the mist, attached to a huge metal bolt on the riverbank.
I stepped forward and the wind seemed to shift around me as if it were thicker than the air on Earth. The heat was oppressive and the smell of sulphur rose in my nostrils. As I gazed at the river more closely, I realised it wasn't mist but steam rising up from its surface.
Something in my bones told me we needed to cross it but as I stepped forward and placed my boot on the stream, the water hissed and the scolding heat of it made me pull back. My boot was fine, but somehow my skin was scorched within it and I grunted in pain.
I turned to Magnar who frowned heavily, his brows drawn low. “How do we cross it?”
Age of Vampires- The Complete Series Page 187