“What are you talking about, Oski?” Caden whirled around, his hands tightening into fists even though he wasn’t quite sure why. “You’re acting like we’re all going to die tomorrow.”
“Not all of us, no.” The biker chuckled, shaking his head and sending his ponytail whipping around him like a pendant. “I know what happened to your friend, by the way. It was foretold before the world began.” His voice dropped a few octaves. “It was unfortunate Malcom had to die. I feel bad about it because he was your friend.”
“You know what happened?” Caden asked, but couldn’t bring himself to add “to Malcom?”
“Yes.” Oski shook his head and exhaled a cloud of gray mist even though it wasn’t cold enough for that to happen. “My ravens informed me.” Oski gestured toward his motorcycle. It was an immense piece of machinery with way more pieces than seemed quite necessary. It purple with twin ravens painted along its sides. Caden never really cared for the bike because it always seemed like the birds were staring right into his soul and deciphering his innermost thoughts and desires.
“Are you talking crazy right now?” Caden suppressed a shudder and turned back toward the old man and quirked his eyebrow into the air for effect. “That’s a motorcycle. It can’t tell you anything.” Caden shook his head. For a moment it almost seemed like Oski was talking about Malcom’s death, but while he might know Malcom was dead, it was impossible for him to know how. Surely, the man was just rambling about some parable or something Caden hadn’t caught hold of quite yet.
“I was never really sure if I would outlive my son. You would think after so many years, I’d have figured out a way to stop him from dying, but you can only rebel so much against fate.” Oski moved toward Caden, and his face was filled with sadness. “You’d think I’d at least have figured out a way to go into the dark good night before him, but alas, I have not been able to do even that.”
“Your son?” Caden asked, unable to break his gaze from the old biker’s own haunted eye. “What happened to your son?”
“He lent his power to a boy who didn’t understand what he’d been given. Now his power lies lost and forgotten on an unknown battlefield.” A shudder ran through Oski. “It means I will die soon. I’ve spent the last millennia or so trying to delay that inevitability, but now, with my son’s death, I don’t quite see the point in waiting. What’s that saying? No time like the present.”
“What the hell are you babbling about?” Caden cried as fear started to creep up his spine like an icy spider. Caden had known Oski since he was a tiny boy. He’d always stepped in to ask a question or offer advice during pivotal times, but now Oski had alluded to knowing what had happened with Malcom. Then he started talking about a dead son and being alive for over a millennium? What the hell was going on? No, surely Caden was just inferring things that weren’t actually there. Any moment now, Oski was going to start quoting the Bible and teach Caden something important. He just wasn’t quite sure what the wise old biker had in mind.
“I’m talking about Ragnarok,” Oski replied, and the word flew off his lips like a line drive straight to Caden’s gut. “That’s where most of the Norse Gods, myself included, die in a horrible battle that will leave the earth a smoking ruin.”
“You know that’s just a myth and that—”
“You have seen Jormungand the world serpent first hand. You have personally watched the four horseman of the apocalypse in action. Hell, you’ve been to the Valkyrie’s floating city in the clouds, and you doubt my words?” Oski rubbed his face with one hand. “You are supposed to be smarter.”
Caden glared at the old man. It was either that or become so terrified he just died of fright. Somehow, he figured that wouldn’t help much. Now that he was admitting that to himself, a thought struck him. “Why me? I’m just a normal guy. If you’re really a Norse god, you should be meeting with Ian or Amy or—”
“Or Kim?” Oski interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “I’m going to give you a piece of advice about Kimmy. Stay as far away from her as you can. She will come bearing gifts for you, will come begging you to do something only you can do. You must not accept if you want to keep your life and your sanity. To fulfill her wishes is to seek death in more ways than one.”
“What will she ask me to do?” Caden asked because at the moment he was having a hard time swallowing everything that was going on. This was Oski, and Oski was just some biker. Hell, he ran the bible study. How could he be a Norse god? It just didn’t compute.
“She will ask you to pick up the mantle of death. Do not do it. That is not a power you were meant to wield.” Oski let out a breath through his teeth, and the leaves in the surrounding trees whistled. “But that is not important. What is important is that I need you to do something only you can do. It will sound crazy, and if I’m being honest, it is crazy. It is hard, dangerous, and all around batty.” Oski turned and moved toward his motorcycle. He reached into a black leather bag slung over the seat and pulled out a thin tube about the size of a flashlight. He turned and held it out in front of himself. In the starlight, the object looked like it was the color of freshly melted snow. “I need you to take this and release the Fenris wolf.”
“What the hell is that, and why would I release the Fenris wolf?” Caden replied, his breath catching in his throat as he said the name. Something about saying Fenris gave him the heebie jeebies. It was almost like something monstrous was taking notice of him. “Isn’t that the wolf destined to kill you?”
“This is my spear, Gungnir. They say it can never miss its target, and it does not. Although your target may not be what you think it is.” He flashed a wry smile. “This weapon was forged by Brokkr himself, one of the greatest dwarven smiths. You must keep it with you when you break the impossible to break locks placed around the Fenris wolf or the frozen wastes of Jotunheim will freeze you into a solid block of ice.”
“How am I supposed to do the impossible? I’m normal,” Caden replied, swallowing even though he didn’t mean to do so. Was this guy seriously claiming to be holding Gungnir and telling him to use it to break impossible locks? Even though he got the feeling Oski was telling the truth, he wasn’t quite sure he believed he could do it, despite everything he had seen. It was one thing, after all, to know the Norse gods were real. It was quite another to believe he could be anything other than ineffectual to their plans. He was Jimmy Olsen after all, not Superman.
“Indeed. It is impossible to break the locks, but that is precisely why you are the only one who can do it. I have watched you since you were a tiny child. You can do this.” Oski smiled, and Caden felt warmth and courage surge through him. It was like someone had turned on a sunrise inside of him. “All you need to do is gather up nine objects that do not exist and use them on each of the locks.”
“Even if I believed you and thought for a microsecond I could gather up objects that aren’t real, you still haven’t told me why I should release Fenris,” Caden said, taking a step closer to Oski even though he wasn’t quite sure why.
“Because if there is any hope of stopping the wolf from consuming the sun and the moon, he must be stopped before he reaches full power.” Oski looked up and his eye was full of sorrow. “Even now, the wolf slinks about, his mind free to influence and trick everyone. He can get into your head and make you think it’s so real, you’ll never leave. Except for you. You have no supernatural abilities to speak of. That makes you immune to his mind control. Only you will be able to sneak past his whisperings and break the magic rope Gleipnir. Once he is free of that fetter, he can be killed.”
“So your big plan is for me to let a magical wolf free so he can be killed?” Caden asked as Oski strode toward him. “How can I, a mere mortal, kill a god?”
“Caden, we’re standing outside a church. If there’s one thing you should have learned by now, it’s that humans are quite proficient at killing gods. This time is no different. If you don’t stop Fenris, he’ll take out the horsemen one by one, and if that happens, we’re a
ll doomed. Only they will be able to stop my blood brother when he rises. They can’t do that if they are all dead.” Oski pressed the tube he’d taken from his satchel into Caden’s hand. It was cold to the touch, reminding Caden of snowballs hastily packed by gloveless hands. “And he will rise. That is his destiny.”
“So if I don’t let the wolf free, he will kill Ian, Kim, and Amy?” As Caden said the words the truth of them wrapped around him like a warm blanket. “And if I let him out, he will kill you? That’s a terrible plan.”
Oski merely nodded. “Sometimes the best way forward is simply to muddle onward.” Overhead, lightning cracked across the sky, and for the briefest of moments, the sky turned the color of blood. Caden turned away from the flash, spots dancing across his eyes and when he looked back, not only was Oski gone, but his bike was gone too.
Caden approached the spot where the biker had been, still blinking his sight back into focus when a piece of faded yellow parchment flitted toward him in the wind. He reached out, snatching it from the air. Nine items were written on it.
“While I can probably find the beard of a woman, how the heck am I supposed to acquire the sound of a cat’s footfalls?” he asked, but the only response he got was from the yowl of a tomcat in the distance. He let out a slow breath and headed toward it. What did he have to lose?
Kim 02:04
Kim staggered backward in horror, knocking her steel chair to the black and white tile floor as her math teacher, Mr. Matthers slumped forward onto the table between them. One of his white gloved hands gripped the table’s edge for stability as agony played across his face. A grasping hand wreathed in blue flame had burst from his abdomen.
She wasn’t quite sure how it’d happened or what was going on. One moment, she’d been talking with the sequined madman about how he had captured Surt, and the next, someone was trying to tear free of his torso like an alien larva.
“Get back,” Matthers cried, blood spraying from his lips as he pushed himself upward and beat his fist against the writhing appendage trying to claw free of his body like he was suffering from a mild case of heartburn. “I think I can contain him a little longer.”
“How the hell are you going to do that?” Kim screamed, moving around the table toward him as Matter’s onslaught forced the hand back beneath the folds of his broken stomach.
“That is the boy who commands Surt. He is trying to free himself. But I’m pretty good at keeping my food down.” Matthers grinned, showing his pearly whites as the skin over his torso knit itself back together like magic. By the time she’d reached him, there was nothing left of the outburst but some pinkish skin, reminding her less of scar tissue and more of a newborn baby.
“Why don’t you just spit him out?” Kim asked. Her heart was still hammering in her chest and adrenaline was still rushing through his veins. “If that boy is truly a demon fighting hero, he won’t kill you if you let him go, especially if he knows it will start Ragnarok.”
“Perhaps.” Matthers tapped his chin as he dropped his cobalt dress shirt back over his startlingly perfect abs. Leaving the shirt untucked, he put one thumb in the waistband of his sequined slacks. “But I can’t take that chance. Even if he agreed, I fear Surt will not relinquish his hold upon me. Surt is smoldering within me, burning me up a little of a time. It’s not surprising. After what I did to him, he isn’t too fond of me.”
“What did you do to him?” Kim asked, putting one hand on her hip and giving him the best imitation of her mother’s “you better tell me what you did right now” look that she could. Ever since she’d insisted on seeing a gynecologist at thirteen, she’d seen that look quite a lot and had a pretty good idea of how to wield it.
Matthers blanched and slumped in a chair that appeared beneath him. Unlike the others, this one was made from blue steel and was richly appointed in sapphire fabric. A small gasp of comfort escaped his lips as he stared at the ceiling above them. “It’s a long story, but suffice to say, I did it for love.”
Kim raised an eyebrow at her math teacher who was also the god Freyr. How that had worked out she wasn’t quite sure, but she didn’t want to waste time asking about it. In the end, it wouldn’t matter why he’d assumed the guise of her math teacher, and for all she knew, it had nothing to do with her.
Maybe it had to do with Sabastin’s daughter. She had appeared in her class before all this craziness had started. At first, Kim hadn’t recognized the girl, but as memories started coming back to her, she’d realized it was the same girl who had confronted the cyclops, Polyphemus, after Malcom had knocked the creature through the doors. It was curious, wasn’t it? That she would appear when all this started. Still, it seemed like Mr. Matthers had precious little time left. Did she really want to waste it asking questions that might not matter? Then again, they might matter, maybe not now, but later.
“I’m guessing you don’t have a lot of time before the kid you’ve gotten all hot and bothered comes back for a final encore,” Kim said as she knelt down and righted her own chair before sitting in front of her teacher and crossing her legs. “Perhaps you should just tell me the story instead of making me yank it out of you. I mean I’ll do it. My dad is a dentist so I have a lot of experience with extracting things under a great deal of pain, if you catch my drift.”
A lopsided grin played across Matthers’s face as he leaned back in his chair, causing the front two chair legs to rise off the ground. “I’m not sure if you’re familiar with my story, but a long time ago, I fell in love with a giantess. She was so beautiful, even saying her name could summon sprites, pixies, and small woodland creatures. Needless to say, I was infatuated with her. I tried to convince her to be with me, but there was a whole Romeo and Juliet thing going on. Only it was less ‘Why for art thou Romeo’ and more ‘stay the hell away from me you creepy dirt bag.’ Needless to say, my courtship didn’t go well.”
“So you did something, didn’t you?” As Kim said the words, Matthers looked away from her, staring at his pointed shoes, the ceiling, the spilled wine, anywhere but at her.
“At the time, I had an apprentice named Skirnir. I bid him to go and secure the giantess’s hand in marriage for me.” Matthers swallowed hard and paused as if collecting himself. “Skirnir was of the same race of people as the boy within me now. He was quite powerful, as all his people were, but was no match for a giant on his own. For him, it was an exceedingly dangerous journey.”
“Why?” Kim asked, genuinely curious. She’d seen Sabastin take down Malcom rather easily, and while she wasn’t quite sure how strong the man’s daughter was, she was powerful enough to make Polyphemus run away in fright. And then there was the possession by the world serpent thing. It was unlikely Jormungand would have possessed any old weakling. He’d have wanted a strong body to allow him the greatest use of his own powers.
“While strong and full of magic, Skirnir’s people had not learned how to bind spirits to their weapons. In fact, at the time, only one such blade had that power. Mine.” Matthers took a long breath. “It was a gift to me from the king of Muspelheim, forged within its fires by one of the greatest dwarven smiths ever known. Still, even though it was a magnificent sword, stronger than Damascus steel and capable of cutting a rock giant in half in a single blow, it was still just a weapon. Surt took this fine blade and poured a fraction of his essence into it, binding the weapon to him and filling it with his own power. It made the sword able to fight on its own, able to sunder the horizon.” Matthers looked at his fidgeting hands. “I gave this weapon to Skirnir in exchange for his help. His people were able to discern what the fire lord had done and began to create their own weapons. Surt has never forgiven me for that. Although I’ll admit, he may be more upset about me giving away his gift than Skirnir’s people learning the secrets of spirit binding.”
“Just to make sure I have this correct, you took a gift from Surt and gave it away to gain the hand of a woman? And now he’s pissed not only because you did that, but because you essentially gave an
entire race of people bent on killing supernatural monsters like giants untold power,” Kim said, shaking her head. “No wonder he wants to kill you.”
“I did get the girl,” Matthers said, his cheeks flushing so hard even his neck turned pinkish. “That counts for something.”
“Good to know,” Kim replied, not really caring if he got the girl or not. Matthers had basically admitted to giving away his magic sword so he could force a giantess to marry him. It didn’t sound like something he should be proud of at all. “Now, I think it’s time you let the boy out, and we can have a little talk. Who knows, maybe once you let him go, it will save you.”
“I do not share your optimism, Kim.” Pain flashed across her teacher’s face, and he gritted his teeth hard enough to make every muscle in his neck and jaw strain with the effort. “But I am running out of time. It’s sort of ironic.”
“Why is that?” Kim asked as Matthers’s shirt burst into flame, burning away into bits of ash that flitted through the air on invisible currents.
“I may have neglected one tiny fact.” Matthers said before coughing so violently, his entire body shook. He managed to cover his mouth with one hand, but even still crimson spilled from between his fingers. “Caleb, the boy within me, has fused with an entity known as the Blue Prince. He is a god of space and time. If the Blue Prince wanted, he could stop time itself, but thus far, he has let that river flow its natural course. The jerk. If he stopped time, I wouldn’t die.”
“You sure know how to pick ‘em,” Kim replied as something strained against Matthers’s bare flesh again. “So how do we get him out of you?”
“You’ll need to venture inside me, find him, and drag him out,” Matthers replied as the chair beneath him turned red hot and melted into slag. Her math teacher fell backward in a pool of molten magma and lay there as what looked like a size-fourteen-boot pressed outward from his abdomen. “Quickly.”
War and Famine: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Revelations Book 2) Page 6
