Carl frowned at me. “We’ve been here for hours. I thought they had caught you!”
I blinked at him, utterly baffled. Just over Carl’s shoulders, I spotted Roofie Ruxpin. He was silently laughing at me, grinning with demonic glee. “You,” I hissed to my arch nemesis. Roofie Ruxpin had knocked me the fuck out, putting me in a coma. I must have dreamily crawled up onto the forklift, searching for a nice place to nap. Carl was obviously shit at hide-and-seek, and had somehow overlooked me.
I remembered snapping out of my sleep to find the bear on the ground. Dropping him must have woken me up. Carl had followed my attention and was frowning down at the teddy bear beside him. He began reaching for it and I slapped his shoulder. “Don’t. That thing is dangerous,” I warned.
His frown turned to a scowl. “It looks cute. I want to touch it.” He stubbornly reached back out for it, ignoring my warning. I slapped at his arm and he bumped into the forklift with a grunt. Then, surprising the hell out of me, he shoved me back, lunging for the deadly bear.
Roofie Ruxpin laughed and laughed and laughed, watching the world burn in his wake.
I grabbed Carl’s ankle and knocked him on his ass. Within seconds, two grown ass men were in the middle of a slapping contest, wrestling over Roofie Ruxpin’s friendship.
“Carl! Stop!” I demanded in an adamant hiss.
“No! I want it!” he snarled back.
“It will knock you out!” I argued, gripping him in a choke hold as he scrambled to grab the cursed bear. I knew I couldn’t hold out for long before he overpowered me or we drew attention. “I touched him and passed out. That’s why you couldn’t find me.”
Carl froze, jerking his hand away as if burned, which sent us both crashing into the shelf behind us. I shoved him off as I heard something rattle on the shelf above me.
Of course, it was something loud and metallic, seeming to echo in the cavernous warehouse. Carl’s eyes widened as he looked up towards the sound. Then he lunged forward to catch it.
He missed, and the item crashed to the ground nearby.
The warehouse instantly went silent and the lights blinked out, plunging us back into darkness. I cursed, jumping to my feet and peering towards the breakroom, ready for the fight of my life.
The Man against the working man—his employees.
22
I continued staring towards the breakroom, wondering how they planned to attack. My shoulders slowly relaxed as I saw that no one was coming for us. The wizards still in the breakroom, huddled around the woman with the plate. Except it was now on fire and her followers…well, they followed her out as if in some dark, nefarious ritual. Maybe she held was some kind of divination device to find the source of the sound.
Or they were offering a sacrifice to Roofie Ruxpin.
To finally bring him back to life after thousands of years so he could lay waste to creation—
I checked over my shoulder to find that the bear remained inert, and that my imagination was getting the best of me.
Still, I kept him in my peripheral vision as I turned back to the gaggle of wizards. Maybe they were pooling their magic for one ultimate finishing move. Since I didn’t have access to my magic, I couldn’t sense if they were holding theirs or not. A slow smile crept across my face as I realized that they weren’t looking at us. Had they not heard the commotion? They were still a problem, but at least we still had the element of surprise on our side.
Carl shifted beside me. “What do we do? The only way past that many wizards is to kill some of them.” He glanced down at Roofie Ruxpin. “Are there more of those? We could throw them at the wizards.”
I shook my head. His shelf had been empty—for good fucking reason, apparently. What the hell else had I inadvertently grabbed that might incapacitate me? “The Vault isn’t for mass production,” I whispered, “it’s experimental. They usually only make one or two of each item.”
The horde of wizards were slowly approaching the entrance, whispering conspiratorially. Maybe it was some kind of protective fire magic and they were simply evacuating before sending in security. Attacking them might just get us killed.
At least they weren’t heading our way. My eyes settled on two strangely out of place items on the shelf above the machinery. Two eyepatches made of a rough metallic ore. I glanced down at the placard and saw an emoji of an eyeball with a red line bisecting it. I grabbed the pair and shoved the placard into my satchel. “Put this on,” I whispered to Carl, hoping I was fluent in emoji and that it wouldn’t stab out his eye or something.
He snapped it on so that the patch hung over the top of his forehead and he stared at me.
“No. Put the patch over your eye, Carl,” I muttered, reaching out to shift it into place for him. I accidentally released it when he moved, and the stone patch thwacked him in the eye. He cursed and immediately vanished. I gasped. “Carl!” I hissed. “I’m so sorry!”
“What?” his voice whispered, sounding terrified. He suddenly reappeared in the same exact spot, having shifted the eyepatch to his forehead again.
I stared incredulously. “You vanished!” I hurriedly snapped the other eyepatch over my head.
Carl hissed, his tongue flicking out to taste the air for me or something. He cocked his head warily, obviously not sensing me. Was that because of the eyepatch or his Titan Thorns? I watched him put his back into place, and his form suddenly shifted to a hazy silhouette, like he was made of glass. He hissed again, probably seeing me as a glass silhouette as well. “I can see you now,” he whispered.
I grinned excitedly, slapping him on the shoulder. “We’re invisible! Maybe we can walk right out of here! Only we can see each other.”
He nodded excitedly, flicking out his glass tongue. The center of his eyepatch seemed to shine like a polished mirror under my current vision, even though it had been rough stone before we’d put it on. I frowned, wondering why that sparked something in my mind. Moments later, it hit me. “It’s a dragon scale, not an eyepatch!”
Carl grinned delightedly. Regardless, there was no reason to tempt fate and stay any longer. We needed to get out.
Thanks to Carl’s claws, part of my shirt had been ripped during our wrestling session. I tore off a large strip and wrapped it around my hand. Then I cautiously reached for Roofie Ruxpin.
I didn’t black out, so I let out a sigh of relief. I waved the bear at Carl. “Non-lethal defense if we run into guards. But we might be able to walk right past everyone.”
He nodded excitedly and followed me as I slipped from our hiding spot and out into the center aisle. The gathering of wizards had silently congregated before the entrance, their backs facing us. Whatever hellish ritual they were up to, I wanted no part of it. Maybe it was a cabal of traitorous Academy wizards spying on my company, and I’d caught them in the act. I could actually do some good as a CEO later when I told Othello about it.
I took us back towards the wall with the door, keeping our distance from the group so we could flee if they saw through our eyepatch disguises. I held the bear out before me, glad to see that it was also similarly invisible, looking like glass.
I felt like I was dripping with sweat as we finally came into their peripheral vision. If they were going to spot us, this would be it. They remained unaware, and I let out a soft breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. What the hell were they doing all huddled up in the dark around the woman with the fiery plate like psychopaths? She was buried within the huddle, so I couldn’t make out anything specific, and I didn’t care to get close enough to figure it out.
We crept along the wall, making our way towards the door. Not one of them looked at us, even though it felt like we were in plain sight. Most of them were staring at the door expectantly.
We came to a nervous halt about five feet from the large door. Thankfully, I knew it opened inwards, so we would be able to slip out if any conspiratorial stragglers slipped in. I couldn’t very well walk up to the door and open it—not with all of them staring at i
t.
So, we waited. They waited.
Roofie Ruxpin silently laughed his mad cackle.
The group shifted as if someone had thrown a pebble into their midst, and I finally got a clear look at the fire on the plate. I blinked rapidly, my brain short-circuiting for a moment.
The door opened and the Reds—shifter dragons—backed into the room, only a few feet away from us. I could have taken a step forward and touched them. They were giggling excitedly as they tugged a familiar, tall, blonde-haired man behind them. He had a blindfold around his head and he wore a paper crown. He also wore a gaudy sash crossing his body from shoulder to hip.
Shit. Shit. Shit. I suddenly realized why the dragon scale eyepatch had looked familiar. I only knew one dragon who could make himself invisible. And, out of all the people who could have walked through this door on this day—
“Happy Birthday to you,” the crowd of wizards belted out in a startlingly loud, mismatched chorus. The Reds tore off the man’s blindfold, joining in on the song. “Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Yahn. Happy Birthday to you!”
“The best boss ever!” Someone else crowed, and the crowd burst out laughing and clapping, blowing party horns and throwing confetti at him. Boss? When the hell had that happened. I tensed in alarm, fearing that some of the confetti may have hit us and revealed our ruse. Thankfully, I appeared devoid of party favors.
Yahn was a glass shifter dragon, and could camouflage himself to nigh invisibility. And we were apparently wearing his own scales as eyepatches. Any other time, I would have applauded his endeavor to weaponize his scales. But not today.
Because if he sensed us, I would have to crash this birthday party with fire.
Yahn beamed from ear-to-ear, shaking his head in good cheer. The Reds planted wet kisses on his cheeks as he faced the crowd, laughing. Luckily, one of the Reds had kicked the door stop on her way in, so we weren’t trapped at the birthday party—which I’d always felt was a death sentence, even under normal circumstances.
I held my breath and carefully shuffled past him—only five feet away—paranoid that I would make a single sound to draw his attention. Carl followed me, holding his tail in one hand so it didn’t bump into anyone. Luckily, the cheers and celebration drowned out our movements.
I reached the doorframe, walking backwards to keep an eye on Carl and Yahn.
The crowd of wizards were shouting for Yahn to blow out his candles and make a wish, and the Reds were smiling happily, nodding along delightedly. All in all, a happy moment.
But Yahn was sniffing at the air with a slight frown. Because dragons had good sniffers. Especially when he smelled his own scales sneaking past him.
Carl stepped up beside me right as Yahn spoke in a suddenly suspicious tone. “What is that smell?” I prepared for a wall of flame and claws and birthday cheer to destroy us as we darted out the door, scrambling backwards. The moment we crossed the threshold, sirens and alarms crashed over Grimm Tech.
Shit. The experimental weapons I’d borrowed must have been tied to the ward, setting off an alarm. I shoved my free hand into my pocket and grabbed our Tiny Ball to Niflheim right as Yahn spun and leapt after us with horrifying agility. “You are mine!” he roared. The door slammed closed as a security measure, right as he slipped past it, his long glass claws aimed straight for my face.
I frantically tossed Roofie Ruxpin at him, and shouted, “Happy Birthday!” While simultaneously lobbing the Tiny Ball a few feet behind me. Unfortunately, Yahn had too much momentum to simply catch the dreadbear, pass out, and drop to the floor. He reflexively wrapped his glass claws around the demonic plushie in midair with a perplexed frown on his face to hear his attacker’s parting birthday greetings. Then his eyes slammed shut.
One one-hundredth of a second later, he barreled into me hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs as I scrambled backwards for our escape. His unconscious bulk hammered me into Carl, and sent us all crashing though the Gateway to Niflheim.
I landed atop Carl and bounced off him onto the misty ground. Except I hit a rotten log, snapping it in half with my spine. The Gateway winked shut and silence surrounded us. I lay there for a few seconds, panting wildly, watching the mist dance around me like living tendrils. Then I scrambled to my feet to find Yahn curled up into a fetal position around Roofie Ruxpin.
Carl stared at me in horror, barely visible through the ridiculously thick fog. Much thicker than the last time I had been here. Carl seemed made of the vapor himself since we still wore our eyepatches.
“Fuck,” I agreed.
He shook his head adamantly, holding a long claw to his lips. Then his gaze slowly rose above my head…
And kept right on going—higher, and higher, and higher. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end as a growl as loud as a Diesel engine suddenly made my entire ribcage rattle.
“Looks like we’re having dragon and eggs for breakfast, Father,” a giant growled from behind me, his breath knocking me forward a half-step.
23
I spun towards the threat only to find a colossal wall of mist towering over me, concealing the giant. Crooked trees pierced the darkness here and there, hiding the full tree so that it made the mist look like it was growing gnarled, spooky branches.
Two glowing eyes glared from just within the mist—at least twenty feet overhead. I slowly side-stepped, keeping those eyes in view as I reached into my satchel. The eyes remained fixed on where Yahn lay sleeping, oblivious to the birthday gift I’d given him—certain death. The giant hadn’t sensed us—only Yahn.
My hand wrapped around a wooden shaft. I whipped Gungnir out of the satchel and everything suddenly changed.
The giant snarled viciously, even as it leapt back in a hasty retreat. The glowing eyes stared directly at me, suddenly able to sense me now that I held Odin’s spear. The one everyone—including Odin—thought missing. I released my hold on the weapon, not wanting him to attack my general location since he hadn’t sensed me until I touched it. Carl scooped up the sleeping Yahn and I urged him to get the fuck away from our last known location.
Thankfully, the moment Yahn touched Carl, he also vanished. Just like Roofie Ruxpin had.
Moments later, the fog turned into an inferno of fire. I jumped back in alarm, only to realize that the fog wasn’t actually aflame, but that something beyond or within the fog was on fire and the mist had emphasized its size, reflecting the light throughout the mist.
“Fuck off or die!” a new voice boomed through the mist.
I froze, cocking my head. “Loki?” I shouted. “Fenrir? It’s me, Nate Temple! What the fuck are you two doing here?” I demanded, realizing why the eyes had been so high up in the mist. Fenrir was a giant.
Literally. A Jotunn. No wonder he’d sensed Gungnir. It was the weapon prophesied to kill him. Utter silence answered me, as if I’d asked them a difficult trivia question. I heard Loki muttering to Fenrir, demanding answers.
“What did you do when we first met?” Loki demanded, sounding uneasy. “Answer wrong, and one thousand axes will fly at your face!” True to his word, roughly a thousand glinting reflections abruptly formed a wall of death within the fog, aimed at the spot where Fenrir had last seen Yahn and the general area where he had sensed me holding Gungnir.
Carl had hefted Yahn into a fireman’s carry and was sidestepping out of harm’s way, now that we had long distance projectiles to contend with. I silently did the same, catching up to them. The axes remained aimed at the same spot, not sensing our movement.
Taking a risk, I stepped into the fog, hoping to flank the inhabitants of Niflheim in case it was not Loki and Fenrir after all. Or in case I got the answer to his question wrong. Because it was a damned vague verification question.
Despite how all-encompassing the mist had seemed, five steps into the fog, it was suddenly clear. Well, mist hung low to the ground, but nothing I couldn’t see through with ease. I motioned Carl to keep back.
Loki stood before t
he fog, not seeming to notice me. This eyepatch was incredible. He wore a flannel robe and clutched a mug of steaming coffee that I could smell from across the clearing. The mug said Real Unicorns Hate Rainbows on the front with an image of a black unicorn obliterating a rainbow. I’d lost a bet to Grimm, and that had been the price to pay. That, and I’d promised to use it every day.
Odin must have stolen it from Chateau Falco, because that was my favorite mug and I thought I’d lost it. The thieving bastard. Loki looked ridiculous. His hair was tousled in wild disarray and he looked gaunt and exhausted. Almost sickly, as a matter of fact.
Fenrir looked leaner than I’d last seen him, but he was still fucking huge. And he still had that giant collar around his neck—the one we hadn’t been able to remove when we’d broken him out of the manacles around his paws. Well, when Calvin and Makayla had broken him free, technically speaking. Did that mean they were here, too? With Gunnar and Ashley? Alucard? Was the Horseman of War hiding out here in Niflheim as well? Damn it. So much for a discreet hiding place. If they saw me here, Zeus might kill them all on reflex.
“Answer or die,” Loki bellowed. “I have an army of Viking spirits poised to murder you,” Loki shouted. His voice grew louder the moment it hit the fog—the mist acting as a megaphone—making his threat echo like thunder. He was using the fog like the goddamned Wizard of Oz used his curtain.
He didn’t have pants on beneath his robe, and he was wearing dirty fluffy slippers. He barely looked like he could take a punch at the moment. I almost burst out laughing at the ridiculous lie. Then again, he had Fenrir for muscle. The wolf was an army, of sorts.
I hesitated to answer his question. When I’d first met him, we’d wrestled over Gungnir in the Armory—the room where Freya had been preparing to deliver Ashley’s babies. But we’d immediately been teleported to Fae. Camelot to be precise.
I must have considered my answer too long.
Carnage: Nate Temple Series Book 14 Page 16