Dark Horse

by E. A. Copen

  “And how do you plan to get that?” Foxglove turned up the wipers.

  The rain had really picked up. It probably wasn’t helping the evacuation efforts, since traffic on the other side of the highway was backed up. The roads going into town were mostly empty. Every shop or business we’d passed had boarded up its windows and closed to flee. By morning, anyone with the means to leave New Orleans would have.

  That didn’t mean everyone would be gone. Some folks—the poor, the elderly, the stubborn—would try to shelter in place. The city had learned its lesson from Katrina and wasn’t opening any so-called shelters of last resort and instead trying to bus people out who didn’t have the means to go otherwise. This time, it was leave or die, which meant the death toll could be even higher if I didn’t finish the spell in time.

  I shrugged and watched the downtown skyscrapers pass by in the distance against a gray sky. “Moses is my only lead into that world. I have to appeal to him.”

  “What if he doesn’t change his mind?” Emma asked.

  “He has to.” If he didn’t change his mind, I hated to think about what I’d have to do. He was the only angel I knew. If I were a less honorable person, I’d rip his soul out and use it without his permission. But that was the difference between me and Beth. There were lines I wasn’t willing to cross, not even to save the world.

  Less than ten minutes later, we pulled into the driveway of the house at Algiers. Beth’s rental car was in the drive already. I hesitated getting out, but not because of Beth’s car. It would be my first time back in the house since Pony died. Just looking at it, the building somehow seemed to slump against the rain, lesser for losing its owner.

  Gone, but not forgotten, I thought and rubbed my thumb over the silver band containing his soul. He’d get to be part of the spell that saved the city and killed a Titan. Couldn’t think of a better send-off than that.

  Foxglove adjusted his mirror to squint at Emma in the back. “Do you need me to accompany you, my king?”

  I let out a heavy sigh. “No, they’re not going to kill me, not as long as they need me. You should get out of town, Foxglove.”

  “Out of town?” He twisted in his seat to frown at me. “You mean because of the mandatory evacuation. Why should I leave? That hurricane is never going to hit New Orleans. You’re going to finish this spell and destroy it before it has the chance. All this silliness is for nothing. Of course, when the public finds out the hurricane didn’t hit the city, they’ll all be pissed and have you to thank for it.”

  I wished I had his confidence. “No good deed goes unpunished. At the very least, get to higher ground.”

  He shifted his grip on the steering wheel, smiling slightly. “I think I’ll go and check on our people, make sure they all found a route out. It would be unwise of any of them to remain.”

  “Good idea. Stay safe, Foxglove.” I extended my hand.

  Rather than shake my hand, he stuck the handle of a very damp umbrella in my fist. “Me? I’m not the one planning to sail out to sea and blow a horn at a hurricane.”

  Beth opened the front door as Emma and I came down the walk under the umbrella. “About time. I was beginning to worry about the two of you. You didn’t come back last night.”

  That did it. I handed the umbrella off to Emma and stormed to the door in the rain to push Beth back inside. “I’m onto your little game.”

  Fear flashed in her eyes as I stepped in, closing the space between us. She tried to back up and swing to the left, but I didn’t give her any reprieve, keeping the distance close until she backed against the counter.

  I stepped forward, close enough now she had no choice but to lean back to look up at me. “Let us go off alone, figuring old habits die hard. You know me so well, don’t you? Thought you could just use the woman I love against me. Throw her at me, remind me of everything we used to have and grind it in my face like dirt under your heel, promise me I can have it back. All I need to do is give up everything I believe in, right?”

  “That’s not—”

  I cut her off with a swipe of my hand that made her flinch. “Yes, it is. That’s been it all along, hasn’t it? I’m supposed to sleep with her, right? Because why the hell not? That’s how it’s going to wind up anyway, me and her, repopulating Loki’s perfect world. Or was he planning on throwing you in with it, too? Tell me you didn’t go along with it.”

  “I—”

  “Tell me you didn’t know!” I barked.

  “Step back from her,” Emma demanded behind me.

  I turned my head to see her pointing her spear at me. “You can’t kill me. Loki needs me to complete the spell.”

  “Maybe.” Emma shrugged one shoulder. “But does he need both your arms for that?”

  Slowly, I stepped back. I’d gotten my point across.

  Beth relaxed, but only a little. “Of course I knew. There’s something special about you, about your magic. Loki called it an anomaly. You should be honored to be chosen.”

  “Are you honored?” I gestured to her and then turned to Emma. “What about you? You honored to be chosen as Loki’s favorite breeding mare?”

  They were both silent.

  I turned back to Beth, waving a finger in her face. “I’m not okay with this.”

  She raised her chin. “Would you rather we use Haru? That’s still an option, though a less desirable one. We know he can produce viable offspring just as easily.”

  It took all my willpower not to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. “Do you even know what you’re saying? What you’re doing? No, you can’t. Maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet. You two aren’t in your right mind. You’re basically walking, talking Loki puppets. His hand is so far up your ass, it’s coming out your mouth! In my book, that makes you incapable of consent. The idea...what you want me to do? It makes me feel sick. I’m not that kind of person, Beth, and if you were yourself, you’d know that.”

  She gripped the counter behind her and leaned forward. “It doesn’t matter what kind of person you are. In the end, Loki will get his way. He always does.”

  “Not this time.” I shook my head. “I want that to be clear. And don’t think about trying to seduce Haru either.”

  She smiled a disturbing, dark smile. “You think we don’t have spells? And even if we didn’t, do you really think he’d resist? With his reputation—”

  I punched her in the face before she could finish the thought. It’s normally my policy not to hit women, but when there’s the implied threat of sexual assault, I won’t stand for it, no matter whose mouth it’s coming out of. Threatening to use magic to seduce anyone was nothing short of rape, and I wouldn’t hear it.

  Beth’s head snapped back, smacked a cabinet and then whipped forward. She crumbled into a bleeding puddle, eyes wide, hands shaking. The point of Emma’s spear jabbed into my back, reminding me it was there and very, very sharp.

  I spun with my staff out in front of me and knocked the pointed edge aside. “I’m done. We’re done. I’ve got nothing more to say to either of you two until you get some sense back.” Staff in hand, I fled to the back bedroom and locked the door behind me.

  When I was sure they weren’t going to try anything, I got out my phone and called Moses. The phone went to voicemail the first time, so I hung up and tried again. A chill went through me as it rang and rang. What if Beth had gone over there while I was out? What if she’d taken by force what I asked to be given freely? She could rip out a soul just as easily as I could, and nothing was stopping her from taking his.

  Relief flooded me as Moses’ sleepy voice cracked, “Hello?”

  I collapsed on the bed. “Man, is it good to hear a friendly voice. I’ve had a hell of a day.”

  “Laz, if this is a social call, can it wait? I’m due downtown in three hours to help with the emergency evacuation points. I’m doing crowd control.”

  “With your knee?” I frowned. “They’re really going to make you stand out in the rain?”

  He sighe
d. “I volunteered. I’ll be one of the last ones out of town. You seen the news?”

  I searched the rumpled blankets for the remote, found it and clicked on the tiny television tucked in the corner of my bedroom. The weather was on every channel. Albus had gotten bigger and meaner, upgrading to a category five with winds over 160 miles per hour. It was scheduled to make landfall inside forty-eight hours. “Watching it now.”

  “It’s big. You might be right about it wiping New Orleans off the map.”

  “Did you reconsider my request?” I lowered the remote to my lap. “All I need is to talk to someone higher up, Moses.”

  The power suddenly flickered and the cable went out. I pulled the phone away from my ear a second to listen to thunder boom outside.

  “...there? Hello? Laz?”

  “I’m here,” I said, putting the phone back up to my ear. “Maybe this is a conversation best had in person.”

  Moses sighed again and grunted as if he were sitting up. “I suppose so.”

  “Mind if I come to your place?” I asked. “There’s kind of a hostile work environment thing happening here. Maybe the ladies will behave if I’ve got backup.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll put on the kettle.”

  “Hold off on that, Moses. I’m beat. I need at least an hour or two of sleep. I’ll be over an hour before your shift downtown starts though. How about that?”

  “Sounds like a deal to me. See you then.”

  I said my goodbyes and hung up. Red numbers flashed on the face of the alarm clock next to my bed and the time ticked over. One more minute lost. I should’ve gone straight over, but I couldn’t even think straight. If I could’ve, I never would’ve hit Beth. She didn’t know what she was saying. Loki had gotten to her, scrambled her brains until the sweet, kind, smart Beth I knew was gone. Or mostly gone. I had to believe that part of her was still in there, that she could be saved. Maybe I could strike another deal with Finn. If he could undo what Loki did to Emma, he could do it for her too.

  I stretched out on the bed, arms folded behind my head, listening to thunder roll. One hour, maybe two. That’s all I needed. And then I’d get up and save the world one last time.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A loud sound woke me, a metallic clang like one of the garbage bin lids had slammed into the side of the house. I sat straight up, back rigid. Inky darkness filled the room, so thick and humid it almost felt alive. Magic buzzed in the air too, ebbing and flowing like ocean waves, rising and falling, crashing into me.

  I lifted my hand and ran my fingers through the wave of power. Like water, it passed between my fingers, untouched, unharnessed, unspoiled. This power wasn’t meant for humans. It was for something...greater.

  This was the same power I’d felt before, the last time I’d died. Loki?

  Angry, I pushed up out of the bed and marched for the door, except the door seemed to get further away with every step. No matter how fast I ran, it was always fading away, moving toward the horizon. The room stretched to an unnatural length everywhere but the ceiling which tore away to reveal a strange night sky. In place of stars, there were galaxies. Where the moon should’ve been shining, a silver giant rode his chariot through the sky, driving his horses on with the snap of a silver whip.

  Two ravens flew, weaving back and forth in the pattern of a double helix. Their flight path was marked behind them in threads of gold that fell from the sky and caught fire, burning to ash before they hit the ground. I extended my hands and watched the ash collect in my palm.

  “Knowledge,” spoke a voice that was both everywhere and nowhere at once.

  I turned a full circle, searching for the source but only found it once I turned back the way I’d been.

  He was a big man wrapped in a loose cloak that obscured his face. His clothes were worn, the kind you’d expect a homeless man to be wearing, but his shoes were too nice for that. He clutched a walking staff in one hand. No, not a staff. It looked like one, but the end of it had been broken off. If I looked close, it resembled the spear Emma had been carrying around.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  The man lifted his head, revealing a full white beard and an expressive smile. “I have many names. Ancient One. Spear God. Hanged One. Foe of the Wolf, Ruler of the Gallows—”

  I raised a hand. “Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons? You look a little old for that. And male.”

  His grin widened. He pulled back his hood, which did little good considering he was wearing a wrinkled wide-brimmed hat underneath it. When he lifted his head again, he peered at me from behind one glassy eye. “You may call me Odin.”

  “You know how to make an entrance.” I gestured around me.

  “I’ve had many years to practice. It’s a pity, you know.” He gathered some ash in his hand and smeared it with his thumb. “Once, the gods passed knowledge to man. It was slow, painful. But you learned. Now, you have knowledge at your fingertips, and you know nothing.”

  “I know I need help.”

  Odin turned his palm upside down and let the rest of the ash fall. “You seek knowledge. It’s a dangerous thing to look for. Much easier to find glory with a sword or spear in your hand. Those who seek knowledge are, more often than not, disappointed by what it costs to obtain. What price are you willing to pay, Lazarus?”

  “I haven’t even told you what I want.”

  He leaned on his stick. “Nevertheless, you must pay for it first.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, what do you want?”

  Odin threw his head back and laughed. It sounded like thunder. “That’s not how this works. There is no set currency, no exchange rate. All that exists is value and want. What value do you place on what you want, Lazarus? Think carefully.”

  I frowned and looked around. I was strapped for cash, but I was pretty sure Odin didn’t want money. There were things I might’ve bartered with, things with sentimental value lying all around me, but they were all out of reach because of the state of the room. All I had was me.

  I looked down at my hands. They were precious. I couldn’t do my magic without them, couldn’t hold souls, couldn’t function. The same could be said for most of my body. I couldn’t just give up parts of myself for knowledge. That was crazy. And yet it somehow made sense in the context of the dream.

  My eyes fell on the floor where my shadow pooled in the moonlight and suddenly, I knew what to give. “My shadow.”

  Odin chuckled. “It’s not as small a price as you think. Your shadow follows you wherever you go. It is as much you as the fingers on your hand or the hairs on your head. A man who casts no shadows has an incomplete soul.”

  I shuddered at the thought of surrendering my soul to a god. Not just any god, but Odin. He was better than Loki, but still one scary dude. And I’d seen what happened to people who were somehow separated from their soul for any length of time. They wasted away, unsatisfied by any of life’s pleasures. But I wasn’t giving up my whole soul, just part of it. How much of a difference could that make?

  “How much of my soul are we talking?” I asked the god.

  “Enough,” he answered simply.

  Wasn’t like I had much of a choice unless I wanted to give up digits and limbs. I was talking to a guy who’d given his eye for knowledge. He knew the price better than most.

  “Okay, do it.” I closed my eyes, winced, and braced for something painful to happen. In my experience, magic and pain often went hand in hand.

  Power rose around me as if I were standing under a giant magnet. I cracked open my eyes and stared up at the spinning sky, brightly colored nebulas and whole galaxies speeding by. The two ravens I had seen before spun, tightening the circle of their flightpath with every pass. Black specks flew up around me, sucked into the invisible vortex they created. The magic brushed against my skin, no more painful than a gentle caress, but vibrating with raw electric power.

  Then Odin tapped his broken spear against the ground, the sound a resounding thud that shook the air.
My legs wobbled and gave out, all the strength suddenly sapped from my body. I fell to the floor, which had turned to black, sparkling sand. It rolled gently over the backs of my hands in the dying wind.

  A gnarled and wrinkled hand appeared in my vision, Odin offering me his hand.

  I looked up at the smug, knowing grin on his face and took it. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  He grunted and pulled me to my feet. “We never truly know the cost of something until we’ve paid it, power most of all. And make no mistake, Lazarus. Knowledge is power in its rawest form. Now, you wish to know about the Gjallarhorn.”

  “Gjallarhorn?” I repeated, testing the word. It was foreign but it did contain the word horn, so I figured he meant the weapon I was after and nodded. “I need it to stop Typhon.”

  “I presume you have the souls you need? It’s useless for that purpose without that kind of power.”

  “Almost.” I shrugged. “I’ll get the last one.”

  “That you will.” He extended an arm and one of the two ravens swooped down to land on it, clutching a black ring in its mouth. The bird dropped the ring in Odin’s outstretched hand and the god reached into his pocket to draw out some crumbs. He let the raven pick some from his palm as he spoke. “The ritual for infusing souls into silver is familiar to you. The Nephilim taught it to you before.”

  “He did,” I confirmed with a nod.

  Odin lowered his arm and the raven took flight, fluttering back into the sky to circle. “Then you need only remove the rings you’ve already enchanted and place them on the horn. Once you do, you’ll need blood, one drop from each of the Four Horsemen. That will seal the spell much the same way you’d seal one of your circles. Then all you have to do is sail into the heart of the hurricane and blow the horn. I’m sure you’ve been advised doing so will kill you?”

  I nodded again. “Loki said as much.”

  “Loki.” He sighed and shook his head. “One of my greatest failings.”

  “So you regret the awful punishment you put him through?”