War and Famine: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Revelations Book 2) (20 page)

“Eat him,” the Emissary whispered in his ear, voice all gumdrops and candy canes. “You know you want to.”

“No,” he whispered, but the word was lost as something grabbed him by the shoulders and hurled him backward away from the bloody, broken thing still trying to escape. Anger flashed through him, and the Emissary seized upon it.

“Will you let them take this kill from you?” it asked, voice high and mighty. Condescension filled its eyes as it stared down at him from a few feet away, nothing but a shadow of loathing and hunger.

“That’s not what’s happening,” he tried to say, but the words came out of his lips in a snarl.

“Yes, it is,” the sword cooed. “Don’t let them take this from us.”

“Ian, listen to me.” A voice broke through the cotton in his ears, and he turned toward it. Amy stood there, her hand gripping a knife that blazed like the furnace of hell itself. Blazing runic symbols were etched across its length, and as he twisted his head to get a better look at it, Haijiku leapt from within his hand like a live serpent. The movement damn near dislocated his shoulder once again. He fell away from her, unable to stop himself.

“Hel’s coming,” the Emissary shrieked. “You must escape her clutches before it’s too late. Even we cannot eat her.”

“Who is Hel?” he asked, his words little more than a choked gasp as the wind between him and Amy picked up speed, blocking most of her figure from view.

“She is death. She is the underworld. She is the cold from which no life, no nutrients can spring. She will take even your hunger, and it will die upon her altar. You must flee before she sees you, before she fills your world with the restless dead.” The Emissary appeared in front of him, one hand outstretched toward him. “Trust me on this. Hel is someone you, especially, can never meet. She will suck the power from your bones and swallow your mantle whole.”

Ian was jolted to his feet in a surge of electricity as pictures and images of a thousand broken battlefields sprang to his mind. A woman in a hooded cloak shambled through the battlefield, kneeling beside warriors too unfortunate to have been killed in battle. She reached out, cupping their heads in her hands. He watched her inhale, sucking up the souls of the fallen, and leaving nothing behind but an empty shell too desiccated to feed even the soil.

He staggered backward as Amy took a step closer, Hel’s marks burning across her knife. He couldn’t let her come near him, not with that thing in her hand. He didn’t know what exactly would happen if Hel’s hunger came in contact with him, but he sensed it would be the end of him. She could not come closer. She. Could. Not.

“Stay back,” he choked, turning his gaze from her as blood began to fall from the sky. It spattered across his face, warm, wet, and full of life. Haijiku burned in his hand as the wind whipped around him. He had to run, had to flee before she used that weapon on him.

“Ian, what’s wrong?” Amy called, but her voice was a distant whisper as he turned and ran through the snow. The arctic winds lashed out behind him, bringing the full force of the frozen wasteland to bear upon her, throwing it in her way, keeping her from him.

The realization of what Hel was filled him with a horrible certainty. He might be the embodiment of Famine, of not having enough and needing more to survive. Hel was more than that, greater. She was the nothingness from which famine would spring. If she found him, she would take every part of him and leave nothing behind at all.

After what felt like forever and not nearly long enough at the same time, he spun on his heel, looking for Amy. He knew she was out there, felt the touch of her mantle in the wind. Still, he couldn’t see anything but snow behind him. Above him, the sky twisted like a kaleidoscope. Below him was nothing but the frozen expanse of Jotunheim’s cold, nearly lifeless world.

“Stop,” said a voice just to his left. A huge blond guy who hadn’t been there a second before stood in the ankle deep snow. Blue light flowed off of him like water as he walked closer, one hand gripping a massive broadsword, the other outstretched before him in a “whoa, there” gesture.

“Who are you?” Ian asked, and the man exhaled in relief, his mouth twisting into a smile that stretched the scars on his cheeks.

“I’m Caleb, and I need you to do me a favor.” His grin stretched wider. “If you want to stop Ragnarok, you’ll help me. If not, keep running, I won’t stop you.”

Kim 02:08

“Not so strong once you’ve had the flesh flayed from your bones, are you, wolf?” Vidar asked, spitting out the last word like a curse. He stood over Fenris as the bloody thing that had once been so mighty tried to crawl off into the snow. It sort of reminded Kim of how her friend’s cat and crawled off into a dark corner to die when it had gotten sick. Unfortunately, she had the sneaking suspicion if Fenris managed to get away, he would, in fact, get better.

Fenris opened his mouth to reply, but the only sound that left his lips was a horrible low-pitched keening. It echoed across the snow, a horrible, pitiable thing that made her heart twist in her chest. She wouldn’t offer the wolf a way out. She would make sure he died here, in this frozen wasteland. Still, that sound almost made her feel bad about it. Almost.

She licked her lips and spat a gob of bloody saliva onto the snow before glancing at Vidar.

“Do you need help?” she asked as the god seized the wolf by the top of the head and lifted him into the air. It was pretty impressive since the Viking only had one arm. Then again, he was a god. So it was probably just par for the course. She half wondered if his arm would regenerate, but thought asking might be rude.

“No,” he replied, and with that one word, he dragged Fenris back toward the stone tomb that had imprisoned the wolf for so long. He flung Fenris’s bloody carcass into the center of the prison, and it hit with a squelch that turned her stomach.

“Please,” Fenris whispered as Vidar stepped onto the platform.

“Please what?” Vidar asked, eyes narrowed in rage as he clenched and unclenched his fist.

“Make it quick,” Fenris replied, and his response must have startled the Viking because he stood there staring with a stunned look on his face for nearly a minute. Then he nodded.

Vidar raised one iron boot and stomped down upon Fenris’s lower jaw, pinning the wolf to the stone. He reached out with his hand, seizing the wolf god by his upper jaw and pulled. The muscles corded in his arm as bone snapped and sinews popped.

Kim looked away. She didn’t need to see this. What she needed to do was get out of here. Caleb had long since disappeared. Even though he hadn’t helped them during the fight with the wolf, she sort of hoped he had found his sword. The thought of it being lost in this frozen wasteland left her feeling a little guilty. Well, if he asked her about it, perhaps he could make amends. As it stood now, Ian and Amy were both gone, having traipsed into the frozen wilderness without so much as a backward glance.

Ian had fled following his attempt to eat the still living Fenris, probably in disgust. Amy had chased after him like a faithful puppy. It was sort of sickening. Kim wasn’t sure if Amy would be able to find Ian in this arctic tundra. Perversely, that brought her a strange sense of relief. Once Ian had gotten ahold of Haijiku, he had taken Fenris down with one attack. The thought made a chill completely unrelated to the cold spider crawl down her back.

It wasn’t just because of the power of his deed. No, it was more because Haijiku was clearly powerful, and in the hands of someone like Ian, made them both nearly invincible. The last time had twisted his mind. What if now was no different? What if even now he was planning to take them all down because he thought they were threats? Sure, last time he’d been controlled by Jormungand, but at the same time. At the same time, he’d let himself be controlled.

She sighed. Either way, there was no way around it. Kim wasn’t about to go off into the frozen tundra to find either of them. What good would it do? Even if she found Amy, there was no way she’d come back without Ian, and Ian didn’t seem like he really wanted to be found. No, the more sensible thing would be to leave before the cold of this place drained the last of her energy.

The sky above her filled with color, reminding her of an aurora as the fragments that had revealed the whole of the nine worlds slowly began to fade away, stitching themselves back together in and endless sea of shooting stars. A hand touched her shoulder, and she turned to see Vidar standing there. The stump of his arm was no longer bleeding, and now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure it’d ever bled at all. Evidently, being a god had its perks.

“I’m assuming Fenris is dead,” she said, gesturing at the sky as the last of the images faded away, leaving the sky awash in moonlight.

“Yes,” Vidar replied, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, that also means Ragnarok is well underway, with the worst still to come.”

Kim shrugged. “I suppose. I did manage to stop Surt from killing Freyr. Small victories, my friend.”

Vidar smiled half-heartedly. “Indeed.” He looked like he was about to say more when the ground beneath them rumbled and shook.

Kim tried to stay on her feet, arms shooting outward for balance. It was a little weird because she knew all she had to do was leap into the air and she'd be able to fly, but something kept her grounded here.

Vidar’s face paled as he glanced across the horizon like he could see something in the distance. A frown spread slowly across his lips. “We need to leave. Now.”

“Why?” Kim asked as the Viking god turned away from her and made his way toward Caden’s fallen body.

He still lay in the snow, wrapped in a cocoon of silver light. At the time, Kim hadn’t known if she’d been able to do something like that, but at the same time, she was starting to find that if she did things while expecting them to happen, they did. Saving Caden had been like that. She’d willed her power to save him, and it had. It made her wonder what would have happened if she’d tried the same thing with Malcom. Would he have come back? The thought brought tears to her eyes. She sort of hoped it wouldn’t have. Because if she could have saved him, then she wasn’t sure she’d be able to live with herself.

“Your friend, Fames, is trying to use his mantle to seal off this world from outsiders. If he does that while we are still here, we won’t be able to escape.” Vidar grabbed Caden off the ground, throwing the boy over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “We have to hurry.”

“But what about Amy?” Kim cried as Vidar reached out with his hand and tore the fabric of space and time asunder. Her house peeked back at her through the rent in the air, and without a word, Vidar tossed Caden’s body through the hole. The boy hit the grass with a thud and lay there as the light encircling his body began to fade.

“I’ll find her,” Vidar replied, gesturing at the portal. “Now go before your spell fades completely and your friend dies.” He shot her a grin.

Kim ground her teeth together in frustration. Sure, she’d been about to write off Amy and Ian, but could she really do that? She hadn’t thought she could, but as the ground beneath her feet quaked, she realized she had little choice. After all, she’d left Malcom behind too. What was it to leave Ian and Amy behind, especially when they wanted to be here? Besides, Caden needed her, and she could save him. At least she thought she could save him.

“Before you go, I want you to know something. Even you couldn’t have saved your friend, Mors, the horseman of death. His fall was foretold in the stars.” Vidar grinned at her. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t have more chances at redemption.”

He vanished before she could say anything, leaving her to mull over his confusing words. What had he meant by that? What chance for redemption? She shook the thoughts away. It was time to leave. She could revisit his puzzling statement once she was safely home and Caden was all healed up.

She flung herself through the portal. The first thing she noticed upon stepping onto her lawn was the heat. It wrapped her up, ripping away a chill so deep inside her, she hadn’t known it was there. Caden lay on the grass, eyes half-open as he stared at the sky. His skin still had a bluish tint to it, but he wasn’t shivering uncontrollably anymore. Then again, he had a giant oozing hole in his leg, so it wasn’t like he was in tip top condition.

“Kim, is that you?” he asked, voice hoarse and strained as his gaze fell upon her.

“Yes,” she replied, walking over to him and kneeling down next to him. She ran one hand over his face, brushing his hair out of the way. “How are you?”

“Did you save me?” he asked, ignoring her question as he reached out and took her hand in his own. He squeezed, and that small movement made her heart flutter in her chest, although she wasn’t quite sure why.

“Yes,” she said, smiling at him like an idiot.

“I thought it was an angel,” he replied, and tried to sit up. A gasp burst from his lips and pain flashed across his face. He fell back against the grass as an airplane so distant it was little more than a shooting star flew by overhead.

“It was nothing,” she said, running one hand over his leg and filling the wound with warm, white light. “But how about we get you fixed up? Sabastin has a machine I think can even heal your leg, you know, unless you want to be a pirate or something. We could get you a peg leg and maybe a hook.”

“Nah, I used up all my ‘from hell’s heart I stab at thee’ on Fenris. I’m good.” He tried to smile, but pain filled in the crevices of his face despite his effort to keep it bolted away. “Though I’m pretty sure I’d look awesome with an eyepatch.”

“I don’t think so, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.” She wrapped one arm around his waist and helped him to his feet, amazed at how warm he felt now that he wasn’t in the frozen wasteland of Jotunheim. “Now, how about we go see Sabastin?”

“Sure thing, how do we get there?” he asked, looking around. No doubt, he expected to see a portal or something.

“We fly,” she replied, and with that, she leapt into the air, pulling him along with her.

Amy 02:06