Odin's Murder (26 page)

“See, children?” Anders says, “You were never meant to be human, and never truly have been. You are all merely pawns in a greater, older war.” He flings the eye onto the altar and rinses his fingers in the stream of water, and then the blade, which he holds out.

Ethan looks as revolted as Julian, who is still gagging, but he takes the little dagger.

“What are you doing?” Julian gasps.

“He’s helping me.” Anders says. “Just as you are. But Tyr, with his unavoidable chaos, is more useful to me human. His so-called weakness will be my strength. Unlike the rest of you, where I must take what I need.”

And then fast, faster than I would have thought possible, he’s behind Faye, gripping her by the hair, jerking her to her toes. “Mimir! I’m tired of waiting. How much will you make me hurt them?”

My roommate’s chant breaks off with a squeal, then is nothing more than a crow’s caw, as she vanishes into black down and wings, rising up in a dizzy circle around the waterfall.

“Faye!” I scream, too late.

Anders reaches for my brother, and I jerk on the hand still holding mine, but I’m too late again. The lunatic has the twine around my brother’s neck, twisting it hard, cutting into his skin, like a garrote, the rune sticking out, obscene.

“No!” I cry, but Julian’s hand tears from mine, and the eyes I’ve looked into since the womb fill with terror but I’m helpless, and in an instant, my brother is gone. The raven in his place attacks Anders, and then rises to the sky.

“Bring him back. You bring him back!” I shout. I turn to Ethan, who is rooted to the spot, watching Miriam. “Why?” I yell at him. “Why are you letting this happen?”

“You mean, why would I take an offer to live rather than die? I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but if helping him means I wake up in the morning, then what other choice do I have?” His words sting like a slap. “And if he is a god? What do I have to lose?”

“You have me! You have them.” I don’t look up, at the three crows circling the cavern.

“What, until you go back to your stuck-up college and start dating the next Jeremy, and I go back to prison, where I share a cell with a guy who may slit my throat at any minute? My life isn’t yours, Memory. We’re on a different plane of existence.”

“You really think I’m that petty?”

He shakes his head. “For once in your life, realize that something is not about you. This is about me. He’s offering me freedom, and a future, and a purpose!”

“I can’t believe you.” But I do, I see the glint of silver tucked into his belt.

“I’m a liar. And a thief. No one told you to trust me.”

“This little break up is lovely to watch, but we have business to finish,” Anders says, avoiding another claw attack from the raven.

“Shut up,” I tell him. “Don’t you come near me. Change them back. Right now.”

Jump
. The word bounces into my head, a light consciousness, fairy-like, curious but sure.

“Tyr?” Anders ducks again. “Hold her.”

Ethan grabs me, the dagger in his hand, turning the tip to my throat. The blade presses into my skin, bringing tears to my eyes but I refuse to cry.

Jump.
The second voice in my brain is female too, but full of sorrow and pain.

I try to twist out of Ethan’s arms, to see his face, but he grips me tighter. Anders smiles, one hand reaching toward me. I look up to the swooping raven, so I won’t have the psycho’s face as my final memory.

Jump!
The mind is the twin of my own, a voice I’ve known all my life.

Before I can jump, Ethan flings me behind his body, shielding me from Anders, the knife pointed at him now, not me.

“Did you really think I would choose you over her?” Ethan asks him. Then lower, to me, “Get it off my neck.”

I grasp at the twine at the nape of his neck, fumbling at the knot. It loosens as Anders lunges at us, and I stagger backward, the necklace in my hand. Not a rune but an orb, smooth like glass, and gold.

“No!” Anders shouts, flailing in our direction, hand outstretched to the ring with the amber stone.

Ethan shoves me out of the way, hard. I fall to the ground and the stone tumbles from my palm. I roll toward it. Fingers I know aren’t Ethan’s grab at my ankle, but they let go with a curse and the screech of a bird. I gasp for air and look at Mimir. She screams words I almost understand, a ball of fire in one bare hand and the disembodied eye in the other.

Crawling across the rocky floor, my fingers questing for the amber ring, I’m almost there when the men collide, tumbling over my legs. I scramble away, the stone tight in my hand.

JUMP!
Ethan’s voice ricochets in my skull.

I glance at the well, deep and endless. Anders lunges at me again, and Ethan throws himself between us, slashing out with the knife, adding another scratch to the ones Faye left on the madman’s face.

The raven strikes down again, driving Anders back, but knocking the knife from Ethan’s hand. It clatters across the rocks, and both men race to grab it, but Anders is nearer, and he slashes out in a wide arc, and then it’s red with blood and Ethan swears, gripping his left arm.

Anders swings again, off balance and wild, and Ethan throws a punch, a clumsy hit, but enough to knock the other man down. I grab Ethan as he stumbles, and drag him, my left hand fisted in his shirt, the other gripping the stone gem, away from the knife’s reach, backward, toward the well. The ring of blue fire leaps high, closing around me and the boy who holds me impossibly close, and the crows that fly above the flames.

“JUMP!” Mimir, hands working the blaze into a frenzy, yells with a force that makes me stagger sideways. Without hesitation, Ethan spins, his arms tight around my ribs, and leaps toward the waterfall. Together, we fall.

27.

Encircle

We fall.

My arms tighten around Memory. Her face is mashed into my chest, her hair flying up, tangling around my neck. Her scream is in protest and anger, the deep revulsion that this is
not
a dream. She’s not afraid, though. Fear is facing the unknown, and she’s dreamed this vicious plunge already.

“Hang on,” I say to the girl in my arms, and I don’t just mean to me. I mean to the stone and its strange power guiding our way. She needs to hold on to her mind, to everything in this moment, because if we can just keep it together we can get through this. But most of all I need her to hold on to me. Once we get to the end, I know I’ll lose her.

Seconds pass, or maybe minutes. Hours.

I count to measure time: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Stop when I realize I don’t dare get to zero.

Memory’s hair whips across my eyes, and I bury my face in her neck, trying to ignore the dark and the things that brush past my body.

Are we really going this fast, or is gravity getting stronger?
The thought flickers in my head, but it’s not mine.

The dark fades into a soft glow. We’re coming through somewhere, but the light isn’t from below, it’s from the amber stone in Memory’s hand, burning brighter with each second we fall.

Something glances off my head again. We aren’t falling unaided. Three crows swirl above us, wings working hard, a black silk parachute half-furled. One tiny magpie darts in and out, steering under the vast wingspan of a huge raven. We are held in their grip by invisible cords, marionettes without strings. The third flaps into me again, tangling in Memory’s hair.

I throw my injured left arm up over my head, cinching my right even tighter around the waist of the girl with me. She gasps, grips me so hard the air rushes from my chest.

I can’t see!
a voice sobs, but claws wrap my wrist, dig into the skin, and the crow steadies, spreads its wings, and our descent slows. We float into fog, a barrier that envelops us in cold, swallowing our air, thick and unyielding. The talons on my arm lock hard, drawing more blood.

Memory screams, but the noise is choked off in the mist. I can’t breathe either, there’s no air in this cloud that traps us. She begins to writhe as she suffocates, twisting, knocking the last of my air from my ribcage.

“
Perth, Ansuz, Kaunan, Mannaz, Tyr! Perth, Ansuz, Kaunan, Mannaz, Tyr!”
the tiny bird shrieks, a litany of names like a password. “
Perth, Ans—”

It works, the fog retreats, curls out of my nose and mouth like smoke in reverse, and we slide through. I gulp at the air as we pick up speed again.

Memory still struggles, legs flailing against mine.

“It’s getting hot!” she cries. “The stone is going to burn me!”

It’s a ring,
the crow on my arm says.
Turn it away from your skin.

“I’ll drop it!”

I shift, bring the crow around to hold Memory’s shoulders, and catch one leg with the free hand, pulling it up to wrap my hips. She gets what I’m doing and coils around me. She has one arm tight on my neck, bringing the other between us.

The jewel shines so bright I have to look to the side in order to see it, and it is hot, a light bulb burning white.

I take from her palm, slide it on her finger.

She looks up at me, eyes wide, face so close I can feel her lashes on my cheek. I fold her fingers down into a fist, raise her knuckles to my lips, but she pulls it away, mouth on mine, hard, urgent. I kiss her back, just as desperate.

Ugh, really guys?
the raven complains. Then he warns,
We’re here.
   

*

We glide down, plunge through a shimmery surface that looks like water but leaves us dry. We tumble to the ground with a thud. I land on my knees, hard, and Memory rolls off me in a heap.

“Holy mother,” I say, gripping my bloody arm. It hurts, muscles knotting tight around the slash.

Faye bounces to the ground, jumps up, shakes black feathers from her hair. They melt into the dark stone at our feet. Julian lands on solid legs, arms stretched for balance, a perfect dismount from the sky. His eyes are fierce as he takes in the surroundings.

The bird on my wrist keeps her shape. She’s light, barely any weight on her bones. Memory reaches out with a finger, smoothes the feathers down the bird’s back. Its left eye is gone, empty socket covered with torn skin. She side-steps up my forearm, avoiding the gash that’s crusting over and oozing. I set her on my shoulder and stand, taking Memory’s hand.

“You okay?” I ask her, though she seems fine. My voice carries strangely over the terrain, echoing, but hollow. We’re in the center of a huge circle of standing stones that rise around like skyscrapers.

“Yeah,” she says. “You?”

“Yeah.” I flex my arm. The muscles are still intact, but working them makes the wound open again.

“You’re hurt!”

“I’m fine,” I lie. “It’s not deep. Just stings.”

She tears the sleeve the rest of the way off my shirt, wraps it around my arm. It soaks through immediately.

“That way,” Faye calls, pointing toward two stones that support another on top, like table legs. I don’t bother asking how she knows. The monoliths are etched with rune letters, deep cuts into the rock, jagged lines that run over the surface in ropes and spirals. A ring of fog edges the circle like a fence. She dashes off, dragging Julian by the hand. He reaches back for his sister, and she tugs me along, one line of people, like we’re still in Anders’ chains.

“This isn’t real,” Memory says, like she’s got a secret, like Faye. “This is a dream.”

At the base of every stone sits a dais, and over each, a huge window, or mirror, shimmering with the same water-but-not surface we broke through to get here. The nearest reflects a sea, waves churning with a storm. The one to the right shows some grassland, and a grazing animal with twisted horns.

“They’re portals,” Julian says. “Like the one we just came through.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“I’ve been through them,” Memory whispers. “In my dreams.”

“You were a crow,” Julian says, like he has just solved the biggest riddle ever.

With a thousand lifetimes of memories,
the bird on my shoulder mutters in my head. Memory stares at it, and Faye nods in agreement.

We come to the largest, where a throne sits, carved of solid black rock with blue striations, etched with runes. Two stone ravens perch on the back, and a marble wolf crouches on either side.

“Just like in the
Hrafnafodr
poem,” Faye says. “I wonder which one is Hungry and which is Greedy?”

“They both look pretty fierce.” Julian turns around, scans the clearing in the mist. “So where is he?”

Memory points at the mirror above the throne. “Look. Miriam is in there.”

We all turn as one and peer through the stone. The blood runs down my left wrist, across my palm and drips from my ring finger to the floor.

*

               Mary’s mouth moves, her face contorted with an anger I’ve never seen. There is no sound—it’s like watching a silent movie, but with actors in real living color. Anders rushes at her, the letter opener in his hand. Before he reaches her she slaps fire across his eyes, but he runs forward, blind, slashing with the knife.

The crow whimpers on my shoulder, jabbing her claws into my arm.

In the glass, Mimir steps back, but she’s against the cave wall, with no room to retreat. The man lunges again, but as he nears, a thick fog rolls down the stones and up from the floor, coalescing into the figure of an armored man in a blue cloak. He is cut deep with muscle and age, like a gnarled oak, one eye socket an empty tree knot. I’ve seen him before.

He catches Anders by the neck, hurling him to ground, cracking the stone beneath him. Our professor blinks twice, and then his mouth splits open with a silent scream. The muscles of his neck become rigid and hard.

Odin bends over him, and with a heavy fist, reaches into Anders mouth and yanks, pulling away a lit shadow that resists, then separates from the body, to hang limp in the god’s hand, like an empty skin.

The cloaked man turns, and releases the husk of light into the waterfall at the center of the cave. He nods once to Mary, who kneels, and presses her hand over the corpse’s eyes, closing them.