Lolita – or Frigg – laughed. ‘Thor’s misbegotten? Clemensen, is it, gone rotten? I see…I see now, you’re a creature of Hel’s.’
‘No! I don’t want Loki’s damned army here! Tell me what I must do!’ I stood up, buffeted by the strange wind.
‘Give me the sacrifice.’ Lolita reached out for Ava but I jumped in front of her. ‘The hair! Give me my daughter’s hair or be ruined by the nets in the Black Widow’s lair!’
Ava passed the knot around my back. I chucked it to Frigg. She moved so fast I didn’t even see her catch it, but she did. We watched as she rubbed it against her lips. ‘Odin used to say he created rainbows to match the seven colours of my hair.’ Frigg brought Ava’s knot to her scalp and Lolita’s brown locks shimmered like frost at sunrise, the rainbow colours refracting over the surface of her head. ‘The Daughter Prophet sees and knows beyond her ken. Heed her warnings and save the Anchor’s Friend. He will save your life and be your end!’
Lolita howled, the joints in her limbs popping.
‘I can’t take it, Theo!’ Ava scuffed the salt aside and slipped under my arms, tossing Tina onto the bed. ‘Mum, I’m here.’ But it was Frigg who reacted, her hair spreading out like fingers, latching onto Ava’s head and trapping them face-to-face. I could only see the fiery glow of Frigg’s shining eyes burning into Ava’s, singeing hair. The words flew from Frigg’s mouth – nonsense – as I tried in vain to reach them.
‘Let her go, I’m the one who petitioned you!’ I struggled against the wind that twisted around their feet, but this gale refused physics.
‘…from the void, All Things were beheld at once, but the Light blinds all those who see it! My Daughters, ripped to shreds by Fate’s runts! Oh…but the gods alone must obey what’s writ…’
Frigg screeched and Ava’s knees buckled, dread-filled groans racking her body. I jumped back into the circle and gathering the electric spears that the Gatekeeper was discharging across the room, I drew it in tight. The raw energy created a magic-carpet effect and my feet peeled away from the floor. The day’s shock and anger billowed up like a column of hot smoke: Menelaus’s identity, Elspeth’s death, the coven cajoling me to raise an army from the Underworld. Frigg holding my woman hostage was pouring on the gunpowder.
‘Mother Frigg, I warn you! Let the next Mother of Gatekeepers go!’
The blue sparks that had appeared during my night with Ava scattered like electric spiders over my skin, snapping out in rods through the air and spitting at Lolita’s sides. Any more than this, I risked killing her. Something unforgivable, if personal experience is anything to go by.
To my surprise, Frigg’s hair shot back, and they snapped apart, Ava falling backwards, hard and rigid onto the floor, inside the circle.
‘So sure, Gatekeeper? Let’s hope you live that long, for all our sakes.’ She threw her arms into the air. ‘Before you die or before fate kills you.’ She pointed at Ava. ‘The Prophet will say if this path is true.’
Frigg clapped, and diamonds and rubies burst from the ceiling, precious hail in the wind. The shockwaves obliterated the bedroom windows. I dived forward and grabbed Lolita, pulling her into the circle just in time. Though the salt barrier was broken, it gave us some protection. She convulsed as I held her, while Ava remained petrified, only her eyes moving, wide open.
Those two minutes, sticking my fingers into Lolita’s mouth so she wouldn’t bite her tongue off while she convulsed, shaking Ava’s shoulder when I could, pleading for her to move, sucked time itself from the room. ‘Odin, Thor, and Freyr, what have I done?’ I called out to those names, as we suffered the aftermath of a goddess’s reply. ‘What have I seen?’ The hologram replayed in my head as I waited.
They both had a pulse, at least. That was enough.
I lost time in the panic, until distant sirens pulled me back to reality. Someone must have phoned the police. I prayed the Praetoriani wouldn’t be the ones knocking at Lolita’s door.
Tina licked Ava’s face, and at last she stirred. ‘I’m okay,’ she said, and together we carried Lolita, still unconscious, over to the bed.
Ava collapsed into my arms.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but we have work to do.’ Two or three voices, neighbours most likely, gathered outside of the cottage.
I looked around the room; the walls and ceiling were singed, pictures had fallen, let alone the diamonds and rubies. I’d left my phone on the bedside table, but I picked it up from the floor.
Lorenzo answered. ‘How soon can you get to Ava’s house?’ I said.
‘Malachi’s pretty pissed at you.’
‘I don’t have time. I need a favour – quickly.’
‘Be there dreckly.’
Jörð, was that the truth. By the time we had deposited Lolita in her bedroom – she had awoken and was groaning incoherently – Lorenzo’s voice joined those gathering outside. I ran to the window and spotted police lights flashing through the trees between the row of cottages and the park. Someone was ringing on the doorbell. I ducked my head back in. ‘Don’t open it!’ I called to Ava.
‘What the fuck happened?’ Lorenzo shouted from the front garden.
‘Inform these good people everything’s fine and they really want to watch TV right now.’
That’s another good thing about vampires – they’re very persuasive. Lorenzo walked to the pavement where the neighbours had huddled together, crunching glass underfoot. I stepped back.
How should I replace the windows? Repairing them was out of the question; the glass was pulverised. In the end, I performed the same trick I used to manifest Ava’s Caribbean cocktail. Gluing them into the frames was a little harder, and once I’d started on the other one, the police car parked up on the other side of the street.
‘Shit.’
‘What about the glass outside?’ said Ava, broom in hand. At least she’d swept up most of what was inside, along with the diamonds and rubies, concealing it all under the bed.
‘I’ll tell them I was replacing the window and accidentally dropped it.’
Two men climbed out of the police car.
Lorenzo appeared beside us. ‘Back door was open. Want me to hocus-pocus them too?’
‘Please,’ said Ava.
‘No. They might be Praetoriani. They’ll know what you’re doing.’
The doorbell rang through the house. ‘Go answer,’ I said to Ava. ‘Tell them your mum has the flu and she’s delirious. I’ll fix the burns.’
‘What about my hair?’
‘I don’t have time to heal it. Say you caught it on a flame and screamed, which made me drop the glass.’
She smoothed out what was left of her eyebrows. ‘Lorenzo, go with her,’ I said, and turned towards the back wall. My stomach flipped and my lungs burned as if I’d inhaled smoke, which come to think of it…
Don’t rely on the Gatekeeper. Father’s warning chimed through the panic. The more of its energy you draw upon, the easier it will be for it to break out of its box and lock you in there instead.
Sorry Father, I don’t have a choice. I shot a bolt of energy at the walls, casting the illusion of smooth flowery wallpaper and crisp white ceiling.
Footsteps on the stairs. The door opened and I realised I hadn’t fixed the busted lock. Ava and Lorenzo came in first, followed by the two men in uniform. At that moment, I remembered I was shirtless, hair half tied back and the rest randomly hanging out.
‘Good evening, officers,’ I said.
One had a small notebook. He pulled the pen from his short pocket. ‘Your girlfriend told us you were fitting windows and dropped the glass.’
‘Yes.’ I said.
‘A lot of glass out there, wouldn’t you say?’ I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me or his partner – or both.
‘I ordered the wrong size. Old houses are deceptive.’
The policemen glanced around. ‘And where are your tools?’ asked the younger bloke with cropped hair and no notepad.
Odin, Thor,
and Freyr, give me a break.
‘He’d finished for the evening,’ said Ava, ‘but just wanted to check the sizing.’ She pointed to the tea lights now stacked on the dresser. ‘I was lighting candles for a romantic evening but caught my hair. Really, it’s just a false alarm.’
‘Where do you fit into this?’
Lorenzo shrugged, non-committal. The officer replanted his attention on Ava. ‘Unless you were planning a romantic evening for three?’
I smirked, toying with saying we were polyamorous, but Lorenzo cut in. ‘I volunteer at Hellingstead Hospital. Call Doctor Smyth, if you want. Ava asked if I’d look after her mum for a bit.’
‘Who has the flu?’
‘Yeah,’ said Lorenzo.
‘You lot are a walking disaster this evening.’
‘Sorry for wasting your time.’
The older one with the notepad smiled at me. ‘I wouldn’t say that, Mr Clemensen.’
Lorenzo escorted them out.
‘You told them my name?’
Ava frowned. ‘No, I mean, I don’t think so. I’m so tired, maybe I did.’ She clambered onto the bed and as Lorenzo came back in, she was shaking.
‘Now, what the hell really happened?’ he said.
We recounted as much as we could, Lorenzo becoming deathly still and quiet as we told him about his murder in the courtroom, about Menelaus with a cut throat, dying in a mass grave. I made him promise to be careful, to follow his Guardian, and extract as much information as possible. ‘There’s something else,’ I said.
Lorenzo curled his fingers. ‘What?’ he asked, voice rough.
‘Raphael is in danger. Somehow, someone will trap him and hurt him. You know where he is. Warn him.’
‘I’ll do to that person what you saw me do to Praetor Cullen.’ He snarled – a fox, or maybe a wolf, with fangs, tense and hunched over. Ava pointlessly held a pillow in front of her.
He’s like the gargoyles at the gates. When I finished the thought, Lorenzo was gone.
‘He really cares about Raphael,’ said Ava. I crawled over to her on the bed, about to reply. ‘I see it now,’ she continued. ‘I see him running – Lorenzo, I mean – I can hear him cursing…feel his longing. For Raphael.’
I touched her chin. ‘What did Frigg do to you?’
‘She showed me the decaying barrier between Hellingstead and somewhere awful.’ She sat up, throwing the pillow on the floor. When she looked at me, her eyes clouded over. ‘The poison is spreading, Theo.’ Tears leaked down her cheeks. ‘Guillaume is dead; he died a hero. But the sea will still run red.’
I held her arms as she moaned and shook, caught in another world.
15
Supply Run
‘The cavalry has arrived.’
Malachi was sitting on the hood of Penny’s car in the Red Hawk’s carpark.
Lorenzo ignored Penny’s comment. ‘Why did you summon me?’ he growled. ‘I have somewhere else to be.’
‘What did Theo want?’
Lorenzo stared at her as she leant, arms crossed, against the passenger door. Anger focused his mind. The thoughts came like an avalanche these days. ‘He wanted me to let the servants out of the attic and make sure you didn’t hurt them,’ he said. Really, it was a guess. Penny had ranted to Malachi enough about the evening’s events, which he had luckily missed; Grace’s blood had proved too much a temptation once Theo had left the Red Hawk. He had overheard most of it from his bedroom and surmised the rest. ‘He’s mad you cornered him.’
Penny pulled a face. ‘Haven’t you got a shift yet, barboy?’
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, looking at his Pater Sanguinem, ‘during daylight hours. So I’d like to get on.’ He eyed up the roofline and prepared to jump. Raphael couldn’t wait. What if someone else knew the boy was at Steart Marsh?
‘We’re wasting time,’ Malachi said. He pulled out a knife from his jacket and threw it at him. Lorenzo snapped it out of the air.
‘Be a good boy, Lorenzo.’
Anger dropped away.
Only blankness.
Blank clay.
Moulded in Malachi’s palm.
Hellingstead broke into leaves swirling in the storm, houses and shops, Hamstone and timber, cars and cobbled roads…
Funeral parlours.
Morgues.
Slice. Slice. Slice.
Death’s scent clung to his nostrils all night.
16
Hellingstead Hair Raids
The good night’s sleep we needed didn’t materialise; Ava’s bed was old and creaky, and Lolita wailed and called out all night, several times sleepwalking into our room. Ava wanted to take her to A&E. I refused. Doctors couldn’t fix the aftereffects of divine possession.
Neither could a priest.
The nightmares that plagued Ava during her brief dozes haunted her at sunrise. She tried to tell me what she saw but her thoughts came out scrambled. With her wild bed hair, clouded eyes, and incoherent ramblings to match her mother’s, she resembled the Oracle of Delphi more with the passing hours.
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’ The only thing I could say while I held her. Worthless. What had we gained by petitioning Frigg? What if the Hordes of Hel was the only way out of this dreadful maze?
Eventually, Ava shut her eyes and stopped thrashing around. Lolita, too, was quiet. I crept downstairs and rediscovered the dainty kitchen, which hadn’t changed since my childhood. While the kettle boiled, I hunted down three mugs and some coffee – we all needed the extra caffeine. I spooned half a pot of sugar into mine, devoured half a loaf of bread and butter, and switched on the small telly mounted above the counter in the corner.
The little cottage creaked with every movement. I already recognised Ava’s footfall. She staggered into the kitchen, hollowed out and yet ethereal. ‘Do I smell coffee?’
‘Yes,’ I said, pulling out a chair for her. She sat, a faraway expression on her face. ‘I thought you were sleeping.’
‘So did I.’
I kissed her temple, then her neck.
‘Theo, stop it.’
I kissed her more. She pushed me away. ‘No, stop it. Look!’
Sighing, I glanced at the TV. A newswoman was talking, a grainy CCTV picture in the upper right corner of the screen. ‘Breaking news. Local police have been flooded with strange reports coming from Hellingstead and surrounding areas overnight. Funeral parlours, morgues, and even hairdressers have reported burglaries from between 10 p.m. last night into the early hours of the morning. In a bizarre turn of events, only human hair was stolen. This grainy CCTV image is so far the only one released by the police, who are appealing for information.’
‘Is…is that Lorenzo?’ Ava held onto my belt. ‘Why would he steal hair?’
‘It could be anyone,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t wearing a hoodie last night. He was after Raphael.’
But the camera had caught a certain angle of the man’s jaw. The subtle point of his chin, that feral expression…
What if he’s working with Penny and Malachi? What if he’s not really my friend at all?
I sat down in the chair next to Ava. ‘That thing the coven wants me to do. It’s serious. And to do it, they need a lot of hair.’
‘But you said you refused.’
‘I think they’re counting on me to change my mind.’
Uncertainty flashed over her brown eyes. ‘Will you?’
‘If you’d asked me before Frigg, no way.’
‘But now?’
‘Now I don’t want to meet our future.’ I brushed her knee with my leg. ‘Drink up and get something to eat. We have to work out what Frigg meant about you being the Prophet Daughter and what she said about the Anchor’s Friend. She left us with clues for a reason.’
‘Okay, Theo. But you’ve got to tell me why you said I was the “Mother of Gatekeepers”. And before that, when we shared that vision about your mother, she said you inherited the Gatekeeper gene. I know…I can see it, that there’s something unique about your magic,
Theo.’
‘I don’t want to put you in danger.’ It sounded ridiculous even as I said it. She was in as much danger as it was possible to get just by association with me, let alone dating me.
She echoed my thoughts: ‘Too late for that.’
‘I promise I’ll explain, but not here – anyone could be listening.’
‘Then show me. I can almost touch it; your secrets cling to you like mist. It obscures you.’ Ava tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘I want to see you as you really are, not what you’re pretending to be.’
‘I’m not pretending,’ I said, kissing her knuckles. ‘I’m in love with you, Ava.’
I waited, ready to meet her lips with mine. Ready for when she said it back.
I waited in vain. ‘If that’s true, why did you kiss Penny?’
‘I didn’t! I mean, I haven’t!’
‘But you will.’ Ava stood and walked to the kitchen window, looking out at the front garden, still showered with glass. ‘Maybe you just can’t admit how much you like her. Why else would you lead her coven?’
I hesitated, which she immediately took as agreement. She stormed into the hall. I ran after her. ‘There’s no one else who can protect me from the Praetoriani! I need them, like it or not.’
Ava grabbed the bannister. ‘Bollocks. What good have they done you? They’ll be your ruin.’
Of course, after Penny and Malachi had proposed we invite an army of the undead to ravage Hellingstead, and despite my wishes, they must have conducted the hair raids – some coincidences are too big – trust was the dead dog floating in the water. But still, if I didn’t fish it out of the lake, what was next? ‘Penny has her good points but she isn’t you. If I kiss her, I must have an ulterior motive.’
Lolita’s voice called weakly from upstairs. I retreated into the kitchen and fetched the third coffee, handing it to Ava. ‘See to your mum. If she’s not well enough to be left, she’ll have to come with us to the Old Vicarage where we can talk.’
‘Why can’t you just ward this house?’
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 43