I watched it happen in slow motion, heard the screaming as if underwater, unable to react. Malachi tumbled into Father as he charged into the aisle, Praetor Cullen’s lictors unsheathing stakes, wielding axes.
Lorenzo, no! I roared but it came out as a squeak, lost in the din. His jaw slackened and his teeth snapped out, and oh so fast he was on Cullen, his feet planted onto the magistrate’s shoulders, his preternaturally strong grip under his chin.
The snap. The crunch. The blood. Lorenzo stood high on the dais, the head held up beneath the frescos, a macabre trophy presented to the heavens.
Malachi and Michele did nothing as the lictors clambered up the steps, and Father untangled himself from the Lorenzo’s blood-father, too late to prevent the stake lunging into my friend’s heart.
My best friend.
He dropped the head onto the marble and toppled, falling next to it.
For a heartbeat, no one reacted. The grief numbed my heart quicker than the drugs in my veins. The courtroom condensed in my vision under the pressure of hopelessness. I had maybe a minute before Lorenzo would crumble to ash. Less than a minute to regain control and prove in front of the entire court that Akhen was right to suspect me.
Precious seconds ticked by.
When I returned to my senses, Malachi and Michele already had the jury hostage, threatening the lictors and guards enough to prevent them charging. Father was shaking my arm, pointing to the door, shouting something that sounded far away.
People were fleeing, but suddenly they were running back down the aisle, herded by armed men who joined Julian, at his orders handcuffing Ella Strand and her team.
Twenty seconds, I thought. A bolt of panic flooded my body and I wriggled my toes. At last, sensation. As fast as the serum had immobilised me, it wore off. Malachi shook his head in disbelief.
I yanked Penny from the bench. ‘Keep those men away from me, understand?’
‘Theo…’
I projected to Lorenzo, the veins in his skin blackening as I crouched beside him. No time for talk, for reassurance. I know you can hear me, Gatekeeper. We’re saving him. Now!
Hel wants him. There will be a price.
Ten seconds.
Whatever it is, I will pay it. No one else is dying on me.
A lictor flew past and crashed into the wall. So Penny had obeyed.
Someone clawed at my back. I cast out my arms and Jörð’s protective fire encircled us.
Seven seconds.
I ripped out the stake and plunged my hand into his chest. ‘Your heart is a fist, Lorenzo,’ I roared. ‘You punch that bitch of a Black Widow for me.’
The floor shuddered. Men and women toppled, weapons skidded along the marble, rolling in the same direction as Praetor Cullen’s head.
Four seconds.
‘Come on!’
The snake lashed out its tail. The marble cracked and flooded. Water and lightning – a storm on the ground, the Lífkelda – surged up and swirled around us, and the fire died away. I couldn’t fathom how I could breathe in it.
Two seconds.
My neck snapped back as Hel ripped away more hair. It dissolved in the air as the lightning fused with Lorenzo’s skin, like the crack of a whip.
One second.
He opened his eyes and howled. I pulled my hand out of his chest, bone and flesh knitting together. ‘Oh, Jesus, fuck that hurt!’
I scooped him up and hugged him.
‘Theo, why am I wet?’
The water seeped away into the floor. I was bone dry. He wriggled away, shocked to see one of the surging lictors holding the severed head. ‘Oh God, what have I done?’
‘It’s my fault,’ I said, wiping my bloody hand on my cloak, ‘I shouldn’t have let you come here.’
Lorenzo scrambled to his feet. ‘No, no, no! No, Theo, I saw him down there. I saw him!’
‘Praetor Cullen?’
Penny yanked something out of her bra and lobbed it at a guard, knocking him over the top of the pews and exploding wood-splinters in all directions.
‘Menelaus, Theo. Menelaus. He’s dead.’
No. ‘You’re wrong,’ I snapped, ‘He can’t—’
Oh, but of course he could.
Lorenzo sank to his knees. ‘It’s all true. I killed them all. I sent them to Hel. I remember it!’
‘The Lethe,’ I said, ‘the river of forgetting.’ I had drowned in those currents, desperate to rescue Anna. And as those memories died, I’d remembered everything piece by piece.
Lorenzo ran towards Malachi, who by now had a small pile of bodies at his feet. ‘You’re a dead man!’ he screamed.
‘Been dead for centuries,’ Malachi laughed, a deranged edge to it. ‘Nice to have you back.’
Michele intercepted and shoved Lorenzo away, and Julian held him back.
‘You’re with that monster?’ Lorenzo hissed. ‘He forced me to murder your son!’
Julian held a thin, gleaming sword in his free hand, drawn from the cane he used as a crutch. ‘You’re lying!’ He let the blade go, and it hovered in the air at Malachi’s throat. Telekinesis, right.
‘Michele, it’s true!’ Lorenzo twisted and confronted the old vampire, his expensive Armani suit blood-stained.
The two fathers exchange a desperate look, then snapped their attention to Malachi. ‘There’s dead, then there’s dead,’ he snarled, leaning over to where Ella Strand was restrained, lodging her under his muscled arm. He grazed her neck with his fangs. ‘Unfortunately, he belongs to Hel now. Julian, you need this woman alive to interrogate, so back off. Padre…’ He met the rage in Michele’s eyes and for a fraction wavered. ‘Padre, you need me to raise the Hordes.’
‘You are not my son! Menelaus is my son!’
‘One, I didn’t kill him, Lorenzo did. Two, ouch. Three…’ He placed his thumb against Ella’s pulse. ‘Raise the Hordes and you’ll get the half-breed back. He’s been recruited into the army, so to speak.’
‘After, I’ll kill you,’ Michele bit out.
‘After, you’ll try, Padre.’
The room whirled with action as they argued; the guards seemingly under Julian’s control had blocked off the exit, and Belle was up there too, demanding that the Praetoriani’s staff remain on the prosecution’s side of the court. Julian plucked his sword from the air and turned to block one of Ella’s team from escaping over the bench.
No one can get out.
The side door. I reared round but that was locked down by a mixture of guards and three other jury members, wielding the axes of the fallen lictors. The aisle was littered with smashed walkie-talkies...and body parts.
So many faces were locked on me, horror and awe and something else. Disgust?
‘The Syphon! The Syphon is here!’ A red-faced man was shrieking from the benches, jabbing his finger at me.
‘Necromancy…’
‘What was that lightning? It looked like…’
‘Life…’
Father shot a bolt of electricity at the shrieking man, knocking him unconscious. ‘Theo, what have you done?’
‘Don’t you dare lecture me right now…’
‘Only we can get out. Do you understand? The only people leaving this court are those we transport away.’
I pointed at the guards. ‘Did you know that Julian—’
‘Was on our side? Yes. He has been spying for me since Isobel’s death.’ He touched my head, a mess of missing hair curls. ‘Did I know he was working with Malachi? No.’
Julian. His walkie-talkie was the only one left. ‘The Cultri Aurei are near,’ said a voice that crackled over the radio. Julian strode over to Malachi and wrenched Ella away. He ripped the necklace from her neck.
‘Whatever it is you have planned,’ he shouted towards me, ‘do it now, or we’re all dead for real.’
With pure loathing I gathered Penny, Malachi, and Lorenzo together.
‘Who are the Cultri Aurei?’ Lorenzo asked, his complexion still an awful yellow-green, the veins still
faintly visible.
‘The Golden Knives. Akhen’s army,’ I said. ‘They’re after me.’
‘Because you’re the Syphon.’ Malachi grinned and slipped his arm around Penny. I wanted to snap it off. ‘My dark priestess, you were right all along.’
‘Go!’ Julian yelled.
Father brushed his lips against my cheek, his tenderness evanescing into sadness, a beat before he fizzed away.
It took a minute to transport them all back to St. Michael’s crypts. The coven had assembled, each one of them stark naked.
Arabella held the dreaded Libros Carminum in the centre of the Celtic knot drawn on the floor and lined with beech twigs, the book hiding her breasts from view. Every inch of wall and floor was covered in runes and symbols, many painted in what looked like blood mixed with crystallised salt.
The flaring of Lorenzo’s nostrils proved my suspicions.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ I said.
END OF PART THREE
Interlude: Raphael
Gilded Prison
And so fate draws its noose so easily around my neck.
‘In my life, I have wandered contentedly alone, deep in the mountains, deep in the forest,’ I sing to the tower birds. ‘Perhaps it is death I crave. Perhaps that is why I choose a Dökkálfar. I did not expect this bond to break so soon.’
Tears mar my vision. ‘Now I know,’ I whisper to the robin peering down at me, ‘that my blood cannot save him. It is not meant to restore him.’
I cannot save him, but I felt his death. Danger – what does that mean to an Elder?
The birds scatter, eager to take flight as I soar into the sky, living wind, hunting Lorenzo as he once hunted me. The sky’s currents blow me about and I tumble into the woodland surrounding the Praetoriani headquarters.
As soon as I step foot on the ground, escorted by a motley formation of sea and land birds, I feel the stranglehold.
The anguished cries of tormented sprites smash against me like a tidal wave of glass.
I fall, powerless.
A carriage appears, a vision of gold amongst the trees, and men scuttle out its doors and swim uphill. Beaks peck at their flesh as they chain my limbs together, hauling me towards the prophesied prison.
Before the doors slam shut, before the men in black and scarlet pile in, I hear the soft howl of an elkhound in the distance.
IV
To Hel and Back
Theo | Alastair | Espen | Menelaus |Ava | Lorenzo | Raphael | Julian | Michele
44
Naglfar
From the east there flows,
Through valleys of venom,
A cutting river called Slid,
Full of daggers and swords.
—Strophe 36, Prophecy of the Seeress
‘Wear this,’ said Lori, looping a sprig of rue, tied to string, around my neck. ‘We call it cima di ruta. It will protect you during the spell.’ Silver charms hung from the bifurcating branches: a fingernail moon, tiny keys, hands, lotuses.
I removed the necklace and gave it to Lorenzo. ‘I don’t need protecting,’ I said.
‘You’ll upset the Grigori!’ Maria shouted from her spot on the centre of an ‘x’. Her cheeks flared, hot with anger, at odds with the soft curves of her bare chest and hips. ‘If the Watchers aren’t satisfied, they can negate the spell.’
‘The Grigori?’ Lorenzo asked, glaring into the shadows like some monster might come slithering out. Lorenzo put on the necklace with a look that said, I’m not going back to the Underworld anytime soon.
‘The gatekeepers that guard the portals between the Nine Realms,’ explained Penny, rolling her eyes at his ignorance. Her nails scraped along the back of my hand. ‘Like Heimdall, who guards the rainbow bridge between Midgard and Asgard.’
‘Oh,’ said Lorenzo.
‘Trust me,’ I said, ‘when it comes to gatekeepers, I know what I’m doing. Arabella, give Penny the book. We’re running out of time.’
‘You both must take off clothes,’ Arabella said, in her charming, Tuscan lilt. Eager eyes watched as we obeyed, the cold air prickling our skin. Penny flung her clothes onto an old tomb, unabashed, while I thanked Jörð it was dark enough to maintain some vestige of modesty.
Satisfied, Arabella approached. As soon as Penny touched the Libros Carminum, the symbols on the walls glowed like blood-orange amber held up to fire. We picked our way into the crypt’s belly, careful not to disturb the delicate patterns of salt, chalk, and beech.
Penny went ahead, but I hesitated, mid-step. Why am I doing this? I can destroy Akhen on my own. I am the Gatekeeper of the Lífkelda. I can do anything.
The voices of the ancestors surged up from the darkness, drowning out the room. The Serpent isn’t so easily beaten.
But we’re playing into Malachi’s hands, I protested.
If the gods are not behind this fight, we cannot win. Yggdrasil will suffer and sicken if we draw too much of its Vital Essence from the Well of Urd for this war.
But the Black Widow? Loki? But of course, Malachi had planned it all perfectly; if I wanted a chance to save my cousin, I’d have to raise the Hordes – my cousin now one of its soldiers.
Just as Penny beckoned, I stepped with her into the centre. ‘Lorenzo will be safe?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he’s wearing the cima di ruta.’
‘I’m choosing to trust you, Penny. I’m choosing to believe that you can control the Hordes when they arrive.’
I became acutely aware of her hip pressing into my thigh. Now is not the time to get excited. Picturing Menelaus bleeding to death and Lorenzo beheading Praetor Cullen killed any romantic urges.
‘Children of Diana and Lucifer,’ Penny cried, projecting her sharp shrill into the edges of the crypt. ‘At last the day has arrived. Our sacrifices! The blood that has been spilled! Today we summit the mountain of corpses and claim our rightful prize.’
She gestured to Carlotta, who tossed back her curls and carried over a carved, wooden chest, which she set before out feet. The Thor’s pendant I had given Carlotta when I’d joined the coven, dangled over the box as she unlocked it, not quite hidden under the cima di ruta.
Inside…
She lifted the contents to the torchlight: a Viking longship, two by two feet, crafted out of hair twisted around sticks, and tiny bird-wing bones for oars. The ship’s innards were yellowed by crushed nails – yes, it must have been that, for this must have been Naglfar, or rather a model of it.
Carlotta presented the ship to us, and I took it. The sails, at full mast, were threaded with individual strands of silk, suspiciously like the wings of the coven’s fairies. A work of gruesome art, created with odds and ends and body parts. I peered into the darkness and realised whose blood had been used to draw the wall symbols. The Donne di Fuori are dead.
‘A trinket fit for Hades himself,’ I said, after a deep breath. I pictured the mad Queen Persephone, whom I’d met during my brief half-death, playing with it on the shore of the Lethe. ‘And what are we doing with it, exactly?’
‘Sailing on it, of course.’
My stomach did somersaults as Penny read aloud from the Libros Carminum. I didn’t recognise large chunks of what she said. Just how old was this book? As old as the Book of Gatekeepers? Then came the part in Latin, summoning their ancestor’s spirits – or Lares – to lend their magic to the spell. Old Norse came next.
Forces of Utgarðar,
Coil the essence of Witch and Dökkálfar!
Bring forth the army of the dead,
We seek to sever the Serpent’s head!
The coven easily echoed the chanting, and Malachi – now naked, and annoyingly well-endowed – darted with vampiric deftness over the painted slabs. He brought with him an athamé, and exchanged it for the longship.
‘Your blood, Syphon,’ he said, and I was glad no one else heard over the chanting. ‘Slit your wrist if you’d be so kind, and drip it over the ship.’
With an approving nod from Pen
ny, I cut the vein, holding it above the sails. The blood hissed as it hit the ship, and the stone slabs smouldered beneath our feet, yet didn’t sear the flesh.
Penny shifted the spell book and held out her free wrist. She couldn’t stop reading now; an urgency overtook her, the coven’s repetition growing faster and faster. I sliced the athamé across her skin. Not even a wince. When her blood hit the ship’s deck, the torches petered out, and we were plunged into darkness.
‘You must command the Grigori to open the portal to the Underworld,’ said Penny. ‘Only you can do it. Quickly!’
Lori appeared and pressed a conch into my hands. ‘Blow into it, Liege.’
‘Then promise me, all of you – I do this only if Hel marks the faces of everyone involved in the Praefecti’s corruption. Those without the mark are off-limits.’
‘Yes,’ Penny said, ‘we swear it.’ The promise echoed around the crypt.
No more time to think – the crypt’s roof vanished, like someone cleaning a smudge from a window, and black abyss stared back at us instead, stars burning like a thousand eyes. I lifted the conch to my lips and blew, before shouting above the chanting witches and warlocks in my father’s tongue, for it felt right to use the language of my ancestors. ‘Gatekeepers of Yggdrasil, guardians of the Nine Realms, unlock your doors!’
WHY DO YOU DEMAND THE FORBIDDEN?
The cacophony of voices boomed across the sky, striking a temporary paralysis into us. The chanting died away. Even Malachi hunched his shoulders, waiting for the lightning to match the thunder.
‘I am the Gatekeeper of the Lífkelda! I demand what is necessary to protect Yggdrasil from the Midgard Serpent! It’s time to kill the beast and we need the Spinner’s army to cut out its fangs!’
A rumble built, rolling across the sky. MMMMM…
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 68