by Ben Zackheim
“Correct, darling,” the Traveler said. His familiarity with Hilde made Rebel and I lift an eyebrow at each other.
“Well, it’s a good thing we have Kane and Rebel on our side then.”
Now we lifted both of our eyebrows. Four dancing eyebrows.
“I’m sorry. Do we know you?” I asked. I could feel Rebel coil up. Rebel does not like surprises. Surprises usually lead to attacks in our line of work.
“Everyone knows you after the Excalibur adventure, Kane. Oh my, yes, your eyes are lovely. One silver and one, what is that, green?”
I think I blushed because Rebel snickered. I shot her a frown which just made her shrug.
“Shlkxchrslew, you will need some healing tea. Stay here.”
“I’m not going anywhere. But do hurry, Hilde. We must get them to the door.”
Hilde’s smile faded, replaced by a sullen look that I didn’t like. Not a bit.
When Hilde was in the kitchen, Coleslaw gestured for me to come closer.
“Do not let her near the organ when we get there,” he whispered.
“What organ and get where?” I asked, irritated by his cryptic bombs.
“Just… you’ll know when you see it. She is a very strong woman. Very dedicated to her job. You must make sure one of you is the first to touch the organ.”
“Fine,” I said. “But when you decide to speak clearly, let me know, and we can have a real conversation.”
Hilde tip-toed in with her hands full of tea cups. She was balancing two on her wrists, too. With a smile she gave a small bow to Rebel who nodded and took the teacup from her.
I watched Rebel drink first. She was The Taster on the team. Poisons didn’t harm her for some reason that I’d stopped trying to figure out years ago. That meant she can partake of victuals and let us know when something was okay to consume. She smacked her lips gently — the all-clear sign.
“Those are incredible fingernails,” Hilde said, moving on to me and Coleslaw with her aromatic tea. It smelled like a flower had pissed all over the cup. “Can they really cut through steel?”
“Only if I’m jacked up on Poppycock Juice,” Rebel said. Hilde laughed a gentle laugh.
“Pardon me for asking, ma’am…” I started.
“Hilde, please. I’m not so old that you have to call me ma’am, I hope.”
“Hilde, what are we doing here?”
“Shlkxchrslew didn’t tell you?”
“Slaw is being coy.”
“Just like a Travelers’ Friend,” she said smiling.
“Which makes sense, being that I am a Travelers’ Friend,” Coleslaw said, pouting.
“I think the reason he’s being this way is that I’m determined to play my role in this little adventure you’re about to go on.”
“What role is that?” Rebel asked. She leaned back against a large shelf packed with dusty books. It was hard not to check what titles were peeking out at me.
“I’ll need to be there when we get to the organ. I need to…” She gave her next words careful thought. “Brave. I need to be brave.”
“You are brave, Hilde,” Coleslaw said. “You don’t have to prove…”
“Don’t you start with me, you. You know why I must do this.”
“You two are going to have to tell us what’s going on,” I said.
“I am going to finish this life so you can get to the hammer.”
“No you’re not,” I said. “We can’t take you with us. It’s against Spirit rules.”
“Of which you’ve broken every single one. Twice,” Hilde said, smirking.
“Twice today,” Rebel had to add because she can be a real jerk.
“Can you try helping for once?” I asked her.
“I don’t think so, no. ”
“I am the last in a long family line. I am the only one whose sacrifice is enough to let you in.”
“Into what?”
“That I don’t know. Some say it’s Valhalla. Some say it’s Hell. But the way there is through the organ.”
“The one that you take care of,” Rebel said.
“Yes, the one that I take care of. The one my grandmother built to protect the hammer.”
“Who was your grandmother?” Rebel asked.
Hilde just smiled and picked up our cups. She walked to the kitchen and Coleslaw leaned toward us.
“Go. Go now,” the Traveler whispered.
“Where?” I asked.
“Take the keys on the wall over there and go to Hallgrímskirkja .”
I didn’t expect that. “The church in Rekjyavik?”
Rebel leaned forward. “The organ is hiding Mjölnir?”
The church was the highest building in Iceland. It was a tourist trap but it also had an elegance to it. Something that put it above the fray. I’d heard about its organ but hadn’t seen it yet. Too many great bars to visit. I have my priorities.
“The keys will get you into the building and into the organ,” Coleslaw said. “I will meet you there. I’ll hold off Hilde. Go.”
If the choice was between having Hilde sacrifice herself and abandoning her, I’d choose the rude route.
I grabbed the keys off the wall and followed Rebel to the entry hall.
Hilde was putting on a jacket near the front door.
“I see you’re all ready,” she said, throwing her purse over her shoulder. “Shall we?” She gestured to the open door.
Rebel looked over her shoulder at me, impressed.
Chapter 6
Dark, empty churches are filled with an energy that always made me nervous. That desperate urge to understand our place in the world is everywhere. But it was suppressed there, pushed down to the point of a whimper. My gut told me that Christianity was fighting the older history of Iceland.
Odin versus Jehovah.
The battle was close.
“Wow,” Rebel said. “This is one hell of a church. It’s like a rich man’s Ikea catalog.”
Hilde laughed a little too hard. A nervous laugh. It made me watch her. I waited for her to lunge at the organ. I wasn’t going to let her do anything stupid. Doing stupid things was Rebel’s job.
And, as if on cue, Rebel walked straight to the organ and started knocking on the pipes.
“Rebel, hold off,” I said.
“I’m just checking it out,” she said. “Plus I have the keys.” She held them up and smiled. She’d picked my pocket. My Rebel-proofing needed some work.
The organ’s wood was smooth as oil. The glistening surface didn’t outshine the steel and brass ornaments, but got damn close. I wished I could take the organ home. It was a treasure itself. The pipes shot straight up into a pyramid, almost reaching the church’s ceiling.
“Don’t use the key on your own,” Hilde said. “If you don’t do it right…” Her voice trailed off.
“If I don’t do it right, what…”
“I’m not cleaning it up, that’s all I’ll say,” Hilde said. I looked for her smile to appear again. It didn’t.
“Okay, then,” I said. “Coleslaw, what’s next?”
“Oh, I’ll be the one to tell you that,” Hilde said.
“Not if that means you’re opening it yourself,” I quickly responded. Rebel was with me on this. She slipped the keys into her bra.
“You cannot stop me, you three,” Hilde said. She held up her hand and showed us the keys. Rebel checked her bra. They were gone.
“I feel so violated,” she said.
“Come,” Hilde said.
“Hilde, please,” Coleslaw pleaded. He put his hand on her elbow gently.
“Traveler, please,” she said softly. She kissed his forehead.
We followed her to the organ. She played an F key. Then a C, an A and then all three together. Simple but beautiful. The sound filled the space, lightening the heavy load of silence I’d felt when I’d first walked in.
I heard a small click somewhere on the organ. Hilde let the note fade and walked to a pipe on the right side. I spotte
d a tiny opening in the brass. She slipped the key in.
Coleslaw bowed his head and whimpered.
The pipes of the organ parted from each other. The pyramid shape they’d made moments before glided into a square shape before our eyes. And all of this happened in almost complete silence.
Then the organ played every pipe at once. The keys moved on their own like an old west piano player on steroids. We were knocked backwards by the sound. Literally. All of us were thrown across the room. I landed on the back pew with a bible on my face.
“Everyone okay?” I yelled without hearing myself. No one heard me but I could see them standing and gathering themselves.
Hilde stood at the organ. The sound hadn’t touched her.
The pipes were now open like a giant brass door. The room it hid was draped in pitch black darkness.
Rebel, Coleslaw and I walked to Hilde. She looked different. I wasn’t sure what it was. Determination. The lightness had gone out of her face.
“Okay, what’s first?” I yelled, trying to hear my own voice. My hearing was coming back little by little.
“You go in there and get the hammer before the vampires do,” Coleslaw hollered.
“Yeah, but what are we going up against? I need to know so we can prepare.”
“You didn’t tell him?” Hilde asked Coleslaw.
“Why am I the one who needs to tell him? Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Tell me what, dammit?”
“We can’t tell you,” she said.
“You can’t tell me what we’re up against?”
“That’s correct,” Hilde said. Coleslaw was behind her shaking his head, more comfortable now that he didn’t have to do the hard work.
“So you want us to go in there on your word alone that you are who you say you are. Without any clues or help of any kind?”
“That sounds right,” Coleslaw said, nodding his head.
“Oh boy,” Rebel said. “Here we go.” She knew I was stepping up on my soapbox but I couldn’t help myself.
“Listen to me Traveler and organ-fixer,” I yelled.
“Trust is a two way street,” Rebel and I said together. I glared at her over my shoulder. She was stepping on my lines now.
“Well, it is!” I said. “And now? Now I don’t trust you. So you know what, you can take your organ and shove it into, I don’t know, a place with no light.”
“Which is just about everywhere in Iceland right now,” Rebel added, not helpfully.
I shot her another look. ““Because I’m not doing a thing until you help me in a way that actually helps. I need to know what we’re headed into so I can plan.”
“Oh dear,” Coleslaw muttered.
“Oh dear. What do you mean, oh dear?” I yelled at him. “Is this an alien fucking idea in Traveler-land? I thought you were supposed to guide us when we needed it. We’ve been following you all night long and we have nothing to show for it except…”
Hilde waved her hand and I clammed up. It’s not like I wanted to. I was still yelling in my head but my body wasn’t following suit.
“Listen here, young man,” she said. “We can’t tell you anything because of a spell that the hammer is under. We may know what is there but if we utter one word of aid then the hammer will disappear forever. That’s the burden we have lived with for many years. I will accompany you and help with actions, but not words. My words are tied. I can open the door for you, as I’ve done. I can guide you in, as I will. And if you die then I will shed a tear for you, too.”
“That’s comforting,” Rebel said.
“Are you ready?” Hilde asked us. “Or are you willing to lose the hammer to the undead without a fight?”
I shone my flashlight in the room behind the organ. Even that didn’t break through
“Rebel?” I said.
“Yeah, it’s magic. But it’s probably just a Dark Spell. It’s probably not going to hurt you.”
“Probably.”
“But whatever it’s hiding could kill you and eat you and spit you out in disgust. No way to tell.”
“Great, I said. “Hey, Rebel, ready?”
“Sure. Why not?’
“Use your talents to light up the darkness.”
“If I had a dime for every time someone said that,” she said.
She lit up her fingertips. The orange and white glow was so intense that I could see the veins in her fingers.
“Not too bright,” I said. It was a simple spell for her, but I didn’t want her wasting herself on the small stuff. We may have been looking at a long night ahead of us. We needed to be fresh. Whatever was protecting Thor’s hammer would not greet us with open arms.
Even Rebel’s magic revealed nothing but pitch black.
“That room seriously wants to hide its secrets,” she said. “Strong magic. Old magic.”
“Old as the Norse Gods I guess,” I said.
“The Gods didn’t have magic,” she said.
“All that lightning and transforming shit wasn’t magic?”
“No, it was God stuff.”
“Sounds like magic to me.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s God stuff.”
“That’s the name of it? God stuff?”
“Do you two always bicker like this?” Coleslaw asked, watching us like we were playing a tennis match.
“Yes, they do,” Hilde said, her old brightness flashing back for a second. “Isn’t it cute?”
“Shut up,” Rebel and I said at the same time.
I took a step toward the door when Hilde called out, “You’re going in?”
“That’s why I’m here isn’t it?”
“But what about that whole diatribe about trust being a two way street?”
I smiled at her. “Just venting,” I said.
Chapter 7
The darkness didn’t just affect my eyes. My ears could only hear the ringing of explosions past. My skin felt dead, as if the room was the temperature of the afterlife. Limbo is maybe more like it. I was awash in nothingness. The only sensation I felt was dread. The darkness couldn’t snuff that out. In fact, I’d say it was enjoying it.
I kept walking forward even though I had no real sensation of walking. I was going through the motions of taking steps but I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out I was just standing in place.
But when I emerged from night’s darkest night, I saw the tunnel of tombs.
The arched ceiling was only about a foot over my head. To my left and right were lines of stone coffins trailing off into the distance. Each one sat under a stone arch of its own. The only light was an eerie yellow-green glow from behind each sarcophagus.
Best I could tell, the place went on for a mile. Clips of light ran straight ahead and then looped upward. I was in a tunnel of graves. No end in sight.
Rebel stepped in behind me and shivered.
“That was like death,” she said.
“Something to look forward to,” I whispered.
“Oh, you’re in a mood. Look dead people forever,” she said, pointing at the long line of souls at rest. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that their rest was restless.
“Warriors. Vikings,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
I pointed to the etchings of wolves in the stone coffins. She studied them for a while.
“Wow, Ulfhednar warriors.”
She was right. The Ulfhednar wore the heads of wolves and would work themselves into a frenzy before battle. “And how do you know that?” I asked.
“Been hitting the books, Kane. Need to keep up with you.”
She studied the first couple of tombs but then walked steadily ahead. I’m not sure what came over me but I just watched her. She would have thought I was being creepy. But the way she moved, even when she was just walking and off-guard, was like an animal. She was ready to fight at any time. There was also something about her newfound habit of honing her
education. I teased her about her new long words, but mostly because I had no idea what she was talking about half the time. Truth was, I admired her. I didn’t know she thought she needed to be better in any way, much less well-read. Rebel didn’t exude any trace of insecurity, so slamming her nose in a book instead of her dagger into a heart was, I don’t know — impressive?
Yeah, I was being an uppity, stuck-up asshole. So what? She was a judgmental, temperamental bitch.
We made a good team.
Rebel glanced over her shoulder. Women have that way of knowing when they’re being looked at. But when you look like Rebel it’s a pretty safe bet for her to assume anyone in the room is eying her.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
“No! I mean yes.” I said. Goddammit. She smiled and her step got perkier.
The last thing I needed was to give off vibes. That would lead to talking about it. And that was dangerous. I didn’t want to lose my partner because of loins. First of all, she was the best fighter in the world and I was a crappy fighter. Marksmanship was my thing. Give me something moving fast and give me something that can fly through the air and the target is good as got. Second, I didn’t want her to know how I felt. That would just suck on so many levels that I didn’t want to even think about it. Of course, if Skyler ever found out how I felt I’d never hear the end of it from him. He’d be sure to make it a mark for years to come.
And then there was Fox. Or Lancelot. Or whatever his name was. He’d been laying low since the Excalibur gig, but the undead dick had a way of showing up when I wasn’t around, and when Rebel was. She brushed off my teasing, but I knew something was going on.
Her knuckles popped as she straightened her fingers and slashed the cobwebs out of the way. They were quick moves and the delicate strands fell to the floor riding the breeze of her fast attacks.
That’s when I saw a human jaw, skeletal with long front teeth, emerge from the air in front of her. It took a bite out of her forearm. Rebel screamed and ducked under the next attack.
I wasn’t sure what was attacking her, but they were swarming.
I pulled out my two Glocks, both secured to my back on the right side. The holsters are custom-made to have the grips facing the same way. I can pull them both out with one hand, shoot with one while the other one is midair and on the way to my other hand. My right hand grabbed the flying Glock and aimed at the head of the beast closest to me.
