Wraithsong (40 page)

The second Olaf falls to
the floor, Anthony runs over and takes Olaf’s gun from him,
pointing the gun at the Darkálfar. But before Anthony can shoot,
the Darkálfar vanishes into a puff of smoke. Anthony ties Olaf’s
hands behind his back.

Trembling, I hobble toward
Anthony. Without lowering his weapon, his eyes glued on Maureen and
Olaf, Anthony moves toward me. Gently, I lay my head on Anthony’s
chest while I wrap an aching, bleeding arm around him, careful not
to touch his wounded shoulder. He takes my other hand in his and
our fingers interlace, and for a moment I close my eyes and exhale
slowly. His lips press against my temple and my eyes are drowned in
tears.

“
Thank you,” I
croak.

“
You are my life; how could
I not come for you?” he whispers while lifting his arm to wrap it
around me ever so gently.

“
I gave you life, wretched
boy!” Maureen’s voice rings through the room. Horrified, I open my
eyes and see Maureen standing up, completely bald, having lost her
wig, pointing a machine gun toward us. Her hands and clothes are
covered with blood, and half her face is smeared with it. “This is
how you reward your mother for all she has done? What made me
deserve your betrayal?”

“
Mother,” Anthony says,
releasing me, his gun quickly aimed at her head. “It’s finished.
Drop the weapon.”

“
It’s not finished until I
say it’s finished!” she screams. “Why did you have to be such a
disappointment? I gave you everything, and you turned against
me!”

Anthony blinks fleetingly.
“You didn’t give me everything, Mother. You didn’t give me love,”
he whispers, his voice breaking.

Her face expresses
revulsion. “Love,” she spews, and then she laughs. “You never
did
anything
to
earn my love.”

“
Love doesn’t need to be
earned!” I exclaim, disgusted by her comment, my heart pounding in
my entire body, fearful of what damage she could cause Anthony or
me.

“
The lovesick fool speaks
on behalf of her lover—how touching, but how tragic that Anthony
never was man enough to speak for himself.”

I wonder how a mother can
be so cruel.

“
I will not shoot you,
Mother, no matter what you say, so just drop your weapon so we
can—”

Maureen interrupts him
before he finishes speaking. “Always so self-sacrificing. You may
not have the guts that a man needs to shoot his enemy, but I don’t
share your weakness.” She shoots several rounds into Anthony’s
abdomen and he falls to his knees.

Chapter 43

Anthony falls all the way
down to the floor and I stoop over to him. Blood is everywhere, on
his clothes, on the floor, and on his hands, but I don’t know what
to do to stop it from coming. He grits his teeth as his face tenses
in pain.

Tears stream down my face
and I collapse over him, sobbing uncontrollably because I know how
much pain he’s in, remembering that just a short while ago I was
shot. “Why didn’t you shoot Maureen?”

“
I couldn’t shoot my own
mother, Sonia, even though...” He reaches his arm up and strokes my
cheek.

Even thought he knows how
evil she is. “It’s because you’re so good.”

“
No, it’s because you’re so
stupid,” Maureen interjects. “Olaf, be ready to depart through the
Portal of Blufire with Sonia.” Maureen undoes Olaf’s hands and ties
a piece of fabric around his wounded leg to stop the
bleeding.

“
I’d rather kill myself
first than come with you,” I say.

Anthony coughs, blood
sputtering from his mouth, and I cup my hand over my mouth to
stifle a cry. Glancing up, I see that we’re only a few feet away
from the door. Do I dare try and open it to let the others in?
Maureen might shoot me if I do, but it’s the only chance we have at
surviving. I arise abruptly, run to the door and unlock it. Skuld,
Mani and my mom are right there, their weapons immediately aimed
toward Maureen and Olaf. Maureen shoots at my mom, but misses. Then
she grabs Olaf’s hand, and right as Mani’s and Skuld’s weapons go
off, Maureen and Olaf disappear, their bodies disbursing into thin
air.

“
Anthony’s been shot!” I
yell, taking my mom’s hand, dragging her with me. I kneel down
beside him and take his hand in mine. “Anthony, I love you, do you
hear me? I love you!” I know he doesn’t have much time, and I need
to get the words out before it’s too late.

The sides of Anthony’s lips
curve softly upward at the edges and he looks at me with tears in
his eyes. “I love you, too,” he says.

“
You should have stayed
away,” I say. “You shouldn’t have come for me.” Convulsions take
over his body and I sob.

“
I’d rather die than lose
you. Don’t you know that by now?” Sweat runs down his face and his
muscles tense, quivering uncontrollably.

“
Your gift—you must receive
it,” Anthony says, his voice straining as he gasps for air. “Just
remember, all has not yet been said and done, Sonia.”

I’m not sure what he means,
but I intend to save his life before he loses it. “Mom, there must
be something you can do!” I look at her.

My mom doesn’t say
anything, but her eyes expose her thoughts; She’s at a loss for
words, for what does one say when someone is dying?

I refuse to accept this
fact, but at the same time wildly hang onto the few
minutes—seconds—mere heartbeats—we might have together. Gazing into
Anthony’s eyes, I stroke his brow. I just want to see his face for
as long as I can, for now it hits me like a mountain from the sky,
that I’ll never see his face again. “I love you,” I whisper again
and again, as I brush the tears away from my eyes every few
seconds. Every tear, every second, another last moment
gone—forever.

Anthony takes my hand in
his, brings it to his lips, and kisses it as he closes his eyes. He
exhales one last time and then he is gone.

* * *

My heart stops and I can’t
breathe. I look at my mom in terror, grasping for some sort of
comfort in her eyes, some sign that this isn’t happening, that this
is just an illusion, a nightmare that will all go away the moment I
wake up. When I see my mom’s bottom lip quiver, and she starts to
cry, I know that this isn’t an illusion—not a nightmare—this is
real. I wonder if this was how my mom felt when my dad died. His
death was a horrible experience, one I would never want to go
through again, but when I lost my dad, I somehow knew I could
continue on living. Losing Anthony, however, is different. His
death has shattered me.

“
I’m so sorry, Sonia,” my
mom says, wrapping me in her arms. We cry together for a long while
until I think that all my tears have dried up—but I know there are
many more tears.

“
I’m sorry to interrupt,
but Maureen and Olaf escaped through the Portal of Blufire,” Ross
says softly, having just entered.

Skuld also comes over to
us, her white outfit smeared with blood and dirt. “The castle has
been secured, but we were unable to capture any of the
Darkálfars—they vanished as well. We found the other governesses in
the basement and they’re all alive.”

I don’t care about Maureen
and Olaf anymore, other than maybe to have my revenge, but instead
of dwelling on them, allowing them to have room in my thoughts, I
allow myself to be selfish and to embrace the pain of Anthony’s
death. Anthony’s face is lifeless, but peaceful, and I wonder where
he has gone. How can such a being, so full of life, strength, vigor
and love, suddenly be gone? Then, I feel a soft breeze on my cheek,
and I think I hear a whisper. My eyes linger again on his face, and
suddenly I notice that his features are becoming
transparent.

“
When a supernatural being
dies, their body and spirit are removed from the realm of Midgard
and are taken to Helheim,” my mom says.

“
No!” I grab his hand and
cling to it, feeling the warmth that is still there, still
embodying all that we had together. Tears fall down my face, but I
no longer bother to wipe them away. With blurred vision, I keep my
gaze upon his body, but soon, his hand dissolves in mine, and he’s
no more.

“
Sonia, come,” my mom say.
She takes my elbow, lightly pulling it, but I resist because I
don’t want to leave Anthony, even if there’s no body to sit by and
mourn. Instead, there’s only a pool of blood where his body used to
lie; it’s the only proof I have that Anthony was just here a moment
ago.

“
Sonia—we must continue,
even despite ourselves, even despite—” She pauses, and then her
face crumples into a thousand shades of grief. She buries her face
in her hands and weeps. I rise to my feet and envelop her in my
frail arms. How gruesome they are, the ties that bind us, and
though I don’t want to continue, somewhere in the depths of my
darkness, I still see the small light of my mom’s love and
strength.

I reach my arm around her
narrow shoulders and we walk out of the room where Anthony no
longer lies. Stepping into the foyer, I see the Viking ship mural
to our left—the Portal of Blufire—I’ll follow Maureen to the ends
of the earth and beyond to avenge Anthony.

“
Does it only lead to the
other portals?” I ask bitterly.

My mom thinks for a moment
and her eyes narrow as if she’s carefully selecting her words. “I
have sworn, as a governess in the Huldra Dynasty, to never reveal
all the places
and
realms
in which the Portal of
Blufire can take you,” she whispers, as if quoting an
oath.

Realms? Chills surge
through me.

“
It’s forbidden,” she
continues, “for a Huldra to travel to the realm of Helheim, but if
she hasn’t been inducted into the Huldra Dynasty, it’s not
considered a transgression upon the law.”

There’s only one realm
remaining, according to what Anthony said—Helheim, and that’s the
realm where all supernatural beings go after they die.

Chapter 44

Skuld, Ross and Mani
descend the stairs with my mom and me to the second floor and there
we join the Huldras and governesses in the Spanish room. Two rows
of mismatched chairs have been set up, facing the mural of the
woman in the flamenco dress. The Huldras sit in silence, as if
waiting for us to arrive. For the most part the Huldras look
unscathed, but some of them are injured and have been wrapped in
bandages or dressings. Two Huldras around my mom’s age, stand at
the front, their clothes worn, their faces looking as if they have
also been beaten. My mom gives me a kiss and joins them.

Layla is in the room too,
but she’s sitting on a chair removed from the group. What’s she
doing here? I want to kill her! I sit down between Skuld and Mani,
wondering if Layla knows that Anthony just died. Looking over at
her, I notice that her eyes are red and swollen. She must know, and
I want her to suffer. Part of me wants to go over and talk to her,
but resentment brews inside and I can’t deny that I partially blame
her for Anthony’s death. How could she not have seen that Maureen
was feeding her lie upon lie? Layla must have been smarter than to
follow Maureen blindly. Then again, sometimes we’re blinded from
seeing what’s before us because we’re so frightened of the
unknown.

One of the governesses at
the front steps forward from the other two and speaks. “I’m pleased
to report that none of the Huldras lost their lives today. Sadly,
Anthony, Maureen’s son, half Huldu, half Darkálfar, but
nonetheless, our ally and friend, lost his life.” She looks at me.
“But now he’s in a better place, his spirit and body transported to
Helheim.”

I restrain myself from
breaking down at the mention of his name and try to blink away the
tears, but they’re coming too quickly. Skuld lifts her arm around
me, which makes it all the more difficult to keep my overwhelming
grief at bay.

“
While trying to escape the
island to get help, Rachael, our third sister, didn’t make it. She
sacrificed her life for us, and her loss is felt deeply. May her
body and soul rest in peace in Helheim with the gods and our former
friends who have gone before us. Now, let us pause for a moment of
silence in Rachael and Anthony’s honor.” Reverence takes hold of
the room and we bow our heads and close our eyes. After some time,
the woman at the front lifts her head, and scans the room, her eyes
shining with tears.

“
Sonia, will you come here
please? We haven’t all had the opportunity to meet you yet.” She
smiles and holds her arms out to greet me.

I stand up and stumble to
the front.

“
My name is Esther, and I’m
the eldest of the governesses.” Esther looks a lot like my mom,
with blonde hair and blue eyes, but her features are slightly more
angular and she has a small gap between her two front teeth. She
also speaks with more authority than my mom, and her voice is
deeper, yet very soothing.

“
This is Tirzah, the second
eldest and the one who makes us laugh,” she says, “and you know
your mother, Hedda, the most lovely and gracious of
all.”