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

by J. A. Cipriano

  “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

  Amy stumbled in the snow as the ground beneath her wrenched violently sideways, nearly burying her in the waist deep snow.

  “Damn it!” she cried, hauling herself back to her feet. Ian’s trail was getting nearly impossible to follow, especially since she had to keep one hand wrapped around her knife while using the other to block the snow stinging her eyes. She’d tried to sheath the weapon after Ian had seen it and freaked out, and not just because the look in her eyes when he’d seen the weapon had made her blood run cold.

  No, it was because when he’d stared at the knife in her hand, something cold and dark had moved just below the surface of her mind, not quite calling upon her, but still letting her know it was there just the same. It was like when she remembered watching an air show where they’d detonated a bunch of rockets high up in the air. Fire had filled the sky, blasting her with heat, but what had really shaken her was the force of the blast. It had been miles away, and still the power of it was enough to reverberate in her gut.

  This had been like that, only about a billion times worse. So as she’d chased after her fleeing boyfriend, she’d tried to sheathe the weapon, tried to ignore the presence of the cold, dark thing lurking within the knife. Unfortunately, the moment she’d unhanded the weapon, cold unlike anything she’d ever felt chilled her to the core of her being. She’d fallen, unable to move as the arctic gale-force winds piled snow on top of her. Her fingers had reached out as if drawn by some mystical force and wrapped around the hilt of the knife. The moment she’d touched it, the chill had faded and her strength had returned.

  Since then, she hadn’t dared to let go of it. Still, it wasn’t like she was making good progress through a blizzard. The ground shook again, filling the back of her shirt with snow, but she shrugged it off, impervious to the cold as long as she held her knife. It was sort of funny. She’d never really gotten cold before, probably because her mantle, War, held so much heat within itself. Jotunheim was different. It was like the complete absence of heat, and it wanted nothing more than to take hers as well, to spit her essence into the ether and distribute every ounce of her being across the whole of its world.

  She wondered briefly if this was what the sun felt as it sat within the vast emptiness of space, its heat and light leeching into the final frontier. She shook off the thought. It wouldn’t help her. She needed to focus on finding Ian. He had to be around here somewhere. Even if he could move through this blizzard like a penguin on steroids, he hadn’t had that much of a head start.

  “Stop!” Vidar called from behind her, and the sound of his voice startled her enough to follow his command. “We must leave before it is too late.”

  “I need to find Ian,” Amy stated flatly, although she wasn’t sure if the sound of her voice was drowned out by the howling wind.

  “If we don’t leave now, we’ll be trapped within Jotunheim forever. Hel may be able to keep you safe for a time, but eventually you’ll need to eat. You’ll die a lonely death out here in the tundra,” Vidar replied, although Amy wasn’t sure if he’d heard her or if he’d simply carried on speaking.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, turning to look at the god. He stood there, his bloody furs covered in snow and sleet. Ice striated his beard as he pressed through the snow like he’d done it a thousand times before, crossing the distance so quickly, she worried she’d been wrong. If Ian moved even a fraction of Vidar’s speed through the snow, she’d never catch up to him.

  “At this very moment, Fames is sealing off this world to outsiders. He has a good reason for doing it, I assure you, but if he does it while you’re here, you won’t be able to escape.” Vidar held out his hand to her. “Come with me now, and I’ll take you to safety.”

  “How do you know he has a good reason?” Amy asked, trying to decide if she believed the Viking. Truthfully, she had no reason to doubt him, but then again, she had no reason to trust him either. After all, he was the one who had brought Ian to this place. He had to have known what would happen. Then again, she’d been the one to bring Haijiku here against the express wishes of Sabastin’s computers.

  “When the world started to shake off its axis, I went and found Fames. He was with your friend, Caleb. The two of them are going to seal off this world from space and time. Evidently, Freyr is still here, but he is too weak to do much more than die. If they succeed in stopping time here, Surt will not be able to kill Freyr until that seal breaks. Caleb will take Surt from here before it happens. That is why we must leave.” Vidar gestured for her to come to him. “We haven’t much time.”

  “And what of Ian?” Amy asked. “D
o you really expect me to leave him here?”

  “Yes,” Vidar replied. “But it’s not forever. Caleb promised he would see to Ian’s escape if, and only if, you agreed to come with me.”

  “Why would Caleb do that?” Amy said, trudging forward to take the god’s hand even though everything inside her told her not to leave Ian behind. Still, what choice did she have? If she stayed, she risked being trapped here, and what’s worse, Ian might not even be here to be found, not if Caleb took him off world before the glue dried. No, that was inconceivable.

  “He says he feels bad for being a dick to you about his sword.” Vidar clasped her wrist. “And that only you can bring back death.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Amy’s words had barely left her mouth when the world exploded into twisted fragments of scarlet light. Her eyeballs burned in her head as the knife in her hand throbbed and hissed. Her veins filled with acid, burning her up and leaving nothing behind.

  As the feeling passed, she found herself lying on her back. A large table stood off to her left with four wooden chairs surrounding it. One had a blue bunny rabbit sitting atop it, while the other was filled by a threadbare teddy bear with black buttons for eyes. Between them sat a woman with hair like dried blood and a face that could have stopped hearts with its beauty. She had a teacup halfway to her lips, but it was frozen in place as she stared at Amy, eyes wide in shock.

  “Where am I?” Amy murmured, forcing herself into a sitting position. The last thing she remembered was Vidar trying to take her out of Jotunheim, only somehow she’d wound up here, and Vidar was nowhere to be found. Shouldn’t he have been here too? Then again, she’d moved through worlds a few times now, and it’d never felt like that. Something had gone terribly wrong. She knew it in the core of her being.