by Ann Gimpel
Nothing specific came to me, but I battled a growing sense of unease. Keeping the walls from moving together required a constant infusion of power. They were changing in consistency. The spiny protuberances had almost vanished. Thank all the gods. I’d have had to cut each one off individually at this point, or we’d have had no way to move past them.
Where the walls had been dirt like, now they were more spongy. I experimented with pushing against them, hands splayed, and they moved aside sufficiently to allow me to pass. At some point, air had returned. Not a lot, but enough.
“How is Geir managing?” I asked Rowan.
“I’m fine,” he answered. “The walls don’t like me.”
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
“They appear to not like touching him,” Rowan confirmed.
The channel took a hard right turn followed by a hard left. I tried sending out directional vectors to determine how far we were from the outer borderworld where this passage originated, but came up dry. Time passed, so much time keeping my guard up became a challenge.
To deal with growing inertia that alarmed me, I set up a round robin of different magical approaches. One pushed the walls out a bit. The next scanned for threats. The third kept my mage light from foundering. The outward pressure had increased until I felt like I was swimming through thick mud. I could breathe, however. That last part helped.
“How much farther?” Geir asked.
“Probably not much.” I aimed for an upbeat note. Not having any fucking idea where we were was taking a toll on me. Had the other groups arrived on the borderworld by now? How was their frontal offensive going?
They basically had two tasks. Rounding up the shades and closing the fissures that had allowed two-way travel. Dealing with the Morrigan, and possibly Loki, felt far less critical. Neither of them were going anywhere. My mind was wandering. I went back to my threefold magical round robin.
Push. Scan. Light.
Despite my efforts, my light was definitely weaker than it had been. I did a quick once-over to check my magical reservoir, not surprised to find it depleting far quicker than I’d assumed it would. I had no idea how long we’d been in the tunnel, but if a similar span clicked by, I’d be down to bedrock. Not an appealing proposition. If the hairs prickling the back of my neck were any indication, threats were closing on us with a whole lot more stealth than the walls.
“Report. One at a time starting at the back,” I said.
“Move faster.” Thor’s tone was terse as he essentially repeated what he’d said earlier. This time, he added, “I’m closing the passageway once I’m through.”
My eyebrows shot up. Not that turning around had been an option, except perhaps with a tightly executed somersault, but Thor had apparently sensed danger behind us and wasn’t taking any chances.
“Good call,” Gwydion said, followed by, “Bran and I are surviving, but my staff suggests we have…company.”
“Okay from my position,” Rowan said.
“Me too.” Geir sounded tired. I didn’t blame him. Lethargy dogged me, coming from far more than fighting for every meter of progress.
I’ve never been overly reactive. Good thing, or the endless bleakness with soft, spongy walls pressing in from top, bottom, and sides would have been a deal breaker. A ragged laugh forced past my throat. More like a bad joke. Deal breaker suggested I had a choice in the matter, and I didn’t.
Pull it together, fast, an inner voice ordered. It was very much like something my adoptive father might have said, and it steadied me. An idea bloomed, and I projected my mind voice in front of me this time. “Quade?”
“Aye. What is taking you so long?”
Men are supposed to be stoic, but a relieved whistle pushed past my lips.
“What?” Geir asked.
“We must be near the end. I can communicate with Quade.”
“Smart,” Rowan called. “I never even thought about raising Zelli.”
“Well?” Quade was back sounding every bit like his imperious self.
“Close quarters and a brisk headwind that’s done nothing but grow worse,” I replied.
“Keep coming,” he told me.
Seemed curious. What choice did I have?
“What do you know that I don’t?” I pressed.
He repeated himself. This time, he added, “Hurry.”
I narrowed my focus to the undulating walls. I was still using my hands to push off and keep the spongy material as separated as possible. At first, I’d thought I was hallucinating about it getting harder to push the sides apart, but the struggle was real.
Breath came faster, and my heart pounded against my chest. Heedless of my dwindling magic supply, I added power to the mix to make it possible to continue forward.
“What’s wrong?” Thor asked softly into my mind. I recognized Norse shielded telepathy and understood he didn’t wish to alarm the others.
“Something doesn’t want us to get through.” The words had no sooner left my thoughts than I read incontrovertible truth in them. It rattled me, but I shunted everything except progress to a distant back burner. One of the first tenets of magic is you have to believe what you’re doing will work.
“Visualize and make it happen,” I muttered out loud to give myself momentum.
“No shit,” Thor hissed back. “Ye’re using Norse magic. Switch it up to dragon. Should solve one problem.”
I cursed myself fifty times over for being an idiot. Geir had told me the walls weren’t bothering him. Why hadn’t I put two and two together? Probably because employing my less familiar side was far from automatic. I took a few deep breaths, centering myself as I searched for Nidhogg’s contribution to my character.
As if it had been hovering in the wings, eagerly awaiting its turn on stage, dragon magic roared from me. The unwieldy tunnel jumped back a meter, and I sailed through with everyone else behind me.
“More like it,” Quade bellowed so close he nearly deafened me.
I took a shot at the calculations that had always carried me through, but my current rate of eating up magic was unprecedented. For once, I’d have to trust to fate there’d be enough to guide us to the other end. The next time I felt for Quade’s solid presence, my magic pinged back cleanly.
“Almost out,” I yelled. I had very little magic left and didn’t want to waste it on telepathy.
“Yay!” Geir crowed from behind me.
Pride for him filled me to overflowing. He hadn’t complained. Not once. A patch of brightness hovered ahead, contrast to the gray undulating channel. It took longer than I expected to reach it. I was still working hard, breath rasping as I forced my lungs to pump faster.
The sense of urgency I’d been fighting almost since we entered the channel had grown exponentially. “Get ready,” I cried. Probably a wasted warning. Everyone else’s magical hackles must be at full mast, right along with mine.
Finally, finally, when I was running on fumes, the brightness crashed over me. I spun as fast as I could and grabbed Geir, tossing him to what I hoped was safety. Dragons bugled behind me. I held the gateway, a portal that made it a personal mission to crush the daylights out of me, while Rowan, Gwydion, and Bran hurried through.
“Thor!” I bellowed.
“Coming. I’m shutting it down behind me.”
His enormous body crashed through about the time my arms refused to hold anything beefier than a matchstick. Shockwaves from an explosion tossed me three meters in the air. Pain seared my eardrums. I had the presence of mind to weave air to cushion my fall. Even with that, I hit hard enough to squish breath from my lungs, but at least I didn’t break anything.
Before I could take stock of who was where, a blast of familiar magic flung me into the air and onto Quade’s back. “Ready yourself. We must fight.” He punctuated his words with a warning bugle that should have chilled any enemy.
“Where is Geir?” Frantic to locate my son, I whipped my head in every direction until I saw him flyi
ng next to Zelli and Rowan. Questions battered me. We’d had a close call with the tunnel that probably would have been a hell of a lot closer if Thor hadn’t had the presence of mind to seal it behind us. His quick thinking meant our enemy couldn’t sneak up from behind.
“Annihilate them!” a deep voice thundered. When I looked at the ground below, it burst upward and hordes of shades flowed from every opening. They held the burnt ochre gleam characteristic of the dead, and flowed under and through each other.
“What the hell?” I shouted. “Arawn and Hel were supposed to take care of them.” And then, I shut up. Talk about rhetorical commentary. Me saying the enemy arrayed below us shouldn’t be there was like telling an extra sun it had no place in the skies.
A line of creatures so ungodly beautiful they had to be vampires sashayed out of nowhere, urging their army of shades forward.
Gwydion, Bran, and Thor formed a circle and lit it with magic. It held the shades at bay, but it wouldn’t last forever. Grinning and laughing, the vampires hustled forward, their bare feet gliding over broken ground.
“Find your dragon,” Quade ordered.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re short dragons,” he said in a tone that suggested I’d turned simple. “The three on the ground are done for—unless they teleport out of here.”
A downward glance told me the Celts and Thor had passed the point of no return. They’d never free up enough magic—or time—to teleport. They were immortal, but there were many things worse than death. Being captured by vampires was one of them. If I somehow figured out how to shapeshift, it would provide two dragons. Quade and me.
Geir was too small to ride.
This was a battle that had to be fought from the air, not the ground. Weariness rattled my bones, but I dug deep. If there was a dragon in there—and there damned well had to be—I’d find the son of a bitch.
Big words, but believing in results is over half the battle.
“No time for pep talks,” Quade commented acidly.
“Shut up and let me think.”
He could have tossed me off his back and told me to pound sand. He didn’t. Closing my eyes, I channeled the nascent power that lived within me.
Chapter Seventeen, Rowan
I’d rarely been as glad to leave anywhere as I would be to get out of that goddamned tunnel. About the only bright spot was my son dead ahead of me. The walls recoiled from his touch. Once he made that discovery, he baited them and laughed softly when they beat a retreat. I didn’t connect the dots until Bjorn channeled dragon magic, and the walls drew back as if he’d slathered poison on them.
Whatever encased us was alive. I’d understood that from the beginning. Once I recognized how dragon magic was abhorrent to it, I sprinkled some of my own about. With similar results. A grunt from Gwydion told me he appreciated the extra space.
I sensed Cadir—my father—all through the channel. He’d clearly traversed this pathway, and his dragon magic had forged a track large enough to accommodate him. Lacking dragon enchantment, Odin had assumed the dragons would never fit. Apparently, he hadn’t thought about Cadir’s escape. Or perhaps, he’d assumed Father had help from Loki.
Or had left by some other route.
I’d sensed Cadir all over the chewed-up bits at the opening to the channel, but blood calls to its own. I felt torn about him. On the one side of things, I was infinitely grateful not to have had a second critical parent, but he had a hell of a lot more warmth than Ceridwen. She’d never loved anyone except herself. Cadir had genuinely loved her, and, in his own twisted way, he’d wanted to love me.
That’s the thing with ancient beings. They got stuck in how things were when they came into the world. When he’d told me I could keep his rooms on Fire Mountain tidy, he wasn’t necessarily being a chauvinistic bastard. I ground my teeth. Why was I making excuses for him?
None of it mattered, anyway. He was dead. I still hadn’t quite come to terms with there being a way to kill something I’d been certain was immortal. Did it mean there was a way to do away with me? Or the other Celts?
If so, who knew about it? Clearly, the dragons had harbored their secret forever. If I asked Gwydion point-blank whether the Celts had a similar fatal weakness, would he answer? Meanwhile, a bright spot flickered ahead of me. Partially blocked by Bjorn’s body, it came and went, but we had to be close to an exit point.
We’d been inside this passageway for a whole lot longer than I’d expected, but the transition beyond its spongy borders was so sudden, it flummoxed me. One minute Bjorn jerked Geir through a rip in the gray walls. The next, he grabbed me. I’d barely shot through the gap when Zelli’s power snagged me and threw me onto her back. Panicky, I scraped my gaze this way and that until I zeroed in on my son, flying as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
The tight place in my chest that was making breathing a bitch released its hold on my heart. Bjorn looked as if he were holding the gateway open. Gwydion stumbled through, followed by Bran.
Where was Thor? I’m not sure which came first, but an explosion rocked the world beneath us. Bjorn shot into the air from the spot where he’d been holding the portal open, followed by Thor’s beefy form. This was one of the scruffy borderworlds. Dead trees. Dead bushes. Not so much as an insect or a bird to break the monotony. I bet there wasn’t any water, but there had been at one time or another. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been dead vegetation.
Bjorn barely hit the ground before Quade snapped him up. Thor scrambled to his feet and joined the Celts.
“What’s happening?” I cried.
“Ye barely escaped.” Zelli didn’t mask the censure in her voice. “Quade and I were trying to see if there was a way we could hurry things up from our end, but we couldna find one. The dead are restless. As are their masters.”
On the heels of her words, the ground exploded. Shades poured through multiple rents flowing into and through one another. Geir shrieked a challenge and painted them with fire.
“Save your magic,” I shouted.
My son flew close, whirling eyes focused intently on the dead who reconstituted themselves from the dregs of his flames. “They can’t die?” he chirped.
“Already dead,” I told him.
“Aye,” Zelli added, “’tis a problem. But there are ways of enticing them to leave.”
Speaking of which. “What do you suppose happened to Hel and Arawn?” I switched to telepathy.
“Doona know,” Zelli said.
Thor and the Celts had formed a magical barrier around themselves and faced outward, keeping an eye on the shades tossing themselves against their protective shield.
Movement caught the corners of my eyes, and I spun my head around in time to see half a dozen vampires gliding our way. All men, their hair was long and lovely in a variety of colors. Their bare-to-the-hips bodies could have been studies in artistry. They may as well have been naked because skintight breeches left nothing to the imagination.
Why were they so gorgeous? Surely, they hadn’t all been centerfolds for Playgirl before they died. Something about the transition to vampire must carry a hunk-gene with it.
“They’re different,” Geir observed.
“Aye, but they’re dead too. Just in a different way,” Zelli told him.
The saber strapped to my body hummed in anticipation. It knew there were ways to kill vampires. Plenty of them, but all required up-close-and-personal attention. Beheading was my personal favorite. There was something satisfying about the crunch of vertebrae as a blade separated head from body. The older ones didn’t bleed at all. They just sank into a heap of rotten bones.
Thor pulled his hammer from where it hung across his back. Mjollnir was fearsome to look at, but had it been forged with enough silver to kill a vampire? I knew less than nothing about Norse-crafted weapons, but I would have laid bets my saber was attuned to vamp destruction. No other reason for it to be so excited.
The vampires were closing on Gwydion, Bran,
and Thor. The dead had formed a tight circle around them as well. Gwydion’s staff blazed red, and he hurled power at the advancing vampires.
Zelli bugled her outrage and sent a broad swathe of fire at the vampires. Their clothing and hair ignited instantly, and their perfect, golden skin blistered. I’ve never understood what makes them different from other shades, but they are. Dragonfire wouldn’t kill them, but it could make them damned uncomfortable.
“I can do that too,” Geir crowed and aimed his own ribbon of fire at their feet. Howls of pain met his efforts. Encouraged, he delivered more fire.
Off to one side, Quade tossed additional flames into the mix. When the dragons were done, the vampires would be bald and naked with huge burned spots. Skin would slough off, hair would grow in, and they’d be back to their old stunning selves. In addition to their other unsavory traits, vamps had incredible powers of rejuvenation. Probably because they weren’t exactly healing what was already dead. More like slapping the illusion they projected back together.
For the millionth time, I damned the Celts to Hell and back. They could have taken a spare moment or two to educate me. The saber vibrated against my thigh again. A downward glance showed vampires stomping about screeching in pain. I’d never get a better opportunity.
“I’m going down there,” I told Zelli.
“Nay. Ye’re not.”
“I am. Beheading them is the only way. Or a silver stake through the heart, and I’m shy on silver stakes just now.”
It wasn’t up for discussion. I turned my mind voice Geir’s way. “Momma is going down there. You will remain in the air next to Zelli. Do you understand?”
“I want to go with you,” he wailed.
“Remember the discussion we had before we left? The one where Da told you to do what you were told, no matter what?”
Geir nodded, but his eyes spun so fast I could barely follow them. Nothing more to say, so I wrapped myself in wards and unsheathed my blade. Its song filled my mind and my heart with the feel of Bjorn’s magic and battle lust. I welcomed its strength.