Slowly, pain was replaced by light. Silence by sounds. And finally, the world swung back into focus, a blurry, grayish sort of world where if she moved her head or opened her eyes too fast, it all spun around and everything faded back into a deep, black pit. Until the day her eyes flickered open, and she found Morgane Burke watching her with cool anticipation.
“Hello there, bitch, how are we feeling today?” Morgane purred, looking for all the world like she was ready to slide a knife into her heart.
Blurry bits of the past came to her, but none of them fit together neatly. Or at all. “What happened? Why am I here?”
“Excellent question. One I’ve asked several times now.” Morgane’s smile narrowed into a flat, snarl. “What did happen, exactly? Lose your spot at the table?”
Where was the woman with the gentle voice? Where was she?
Hel’s eyes drifted over to a pitcher. A glass. She licked her lips. Morgane smiled an adder’s smile. “I’ll trade you. Water for answers. You can start anytime.” After a moment where she thought she might die of thirst, Hel realized she was absolutely serious.
“I thought it would be the work of the moment to join the entity you call the Orobus and destroy you. It did not work out the way I had planned.” She eased herself up, so at least she didn’t feel quite so vulnerable. “It also appears I miscalculated my worth to him.”
Morgane measured her, waited a moment, and filled the glass half full. Offered it to her. Hel drank greedily. Gods, it tasted better than anything she’d ever had before.
“How did you miscalculate?”
“I thought we would work together. Rule together. But he’s not interested in rule. He only wants to conquer or destroy. I wanted out of the Underworld, you see.” She glanced longingly at the pitcher again before continuing, “I wanted to walk in the sun again. But he… The Orobus doesn’t want the Earth or any of the other worlds. It only wants Chaos. We?” Hel pointed at herself and Morgane. “We don’t figure into his long-term plans. Nothing does.”
“You rule the dead, why do you care?”
“Because the Underworld is the place where the living go when they die. If everything ends, that won’t exist, either.” She waved a hand in the air. “None of this will. Everything, this world, all life, Vanir, Svartlheim, Niflheim, ice, snow, fire, air… None of it will exist. Only nothingness. A void.”
Silently, Morgane poured her another glass, offered it to her.
“I balked at the idea. I thought I could push him, for lack of a better term, toward something less…drastic. I found his vision of the future to be unacceptable. He found me to be…disposable, and then he brought in your sister. Ava.”
Hel bowed her head until her snarled hair fell around her face like a shield. “When he brought her to see me, weeks ago, perhaps? That day he showed me off like an animal in the zoo.” Her voice dropped to the barest whisper. “And she said it was like kicking a puppy.” Hel’s shoulders shook. “I begged her to kill me, that day. Begged her. And she laughed.
“There is something inside of her, the same magic that makes up the Orobus. Something that’s not from any of the nine worlds. I sensed it, you know, when I took her back with me to the Underworld. Sensed it inside of her for those years I imprisoned her down there. I just didn’t know what it was.”
“They should have left you in the dungeon to die.”
Hel nodded, slowly turning her face to Morgane’s. “They should have. But you can finish the job, right now. Avenge your sister.” Her gaze drifted down to Morgane’s hand, clenched around the hilt of the knife in her pocket. “You can do it,” she crooned. “Finish this between us. Take back everything I stole from you—your sister, your mother, your family…”
Gabriella stepped into the room, eyes darting between the two women. Seeing exactly what was happening between them.
“No one is finishing any jobs. Morgane, thanks for helping me out. You can leave now.” Not a trace of the gentleness from before was in her voice. Now it was every bit as cold and hard as Morgane’s.
“She’s all yours, Gabriella. But I wouldn’t waste your time.” Morgane’s hand was on the door handle when Hel stopped her with a word.
“Ava planted a thought into my mind, just as she was begging the Orobus to take her off world. Getting him out of your way, if you ask me. She told me, Hang on for just a little longer. Not to die, just yet.” She slid dark, knowing eyes over Morgane’s back. “If she’s playing the same, wicked game I thought to play with the creature, I hope things turn out significantly better for her.”
When the door shut with a bang, Gabriella went still. “Wow. You really are a bitch.”
Well, that was the second time in less than half an hour.
“Both of you need to work on your bedside manner,” Hel groused. “I’ve been through the wringer, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed, all right. I’m the one who sewed you back together. I’m the one who cleaned shit and piss and blood off you.” Hel winced a bit at that. Not something she needed to be reminded of, not when she was still only a bedpan away from her very lowest point.
“Uhm. Thanks?”
“And you, moron, if you think—for even a second—I’d allow you to goad Morgane into slicing your goddamn throat after all my hard work, you are sadly mistaken.”
Hel loosed a shaky breath.
Gabriella brought her face close until she was nose-to-nose with the goddess. “Let me tell you something. You fucking try anything like that again? I’ll come in here and make what the Orobus did to you look like a fucking picnic. I’ll slice and dice you so good you’ll scream in your sleep for years. You will not put that burden on anyone else, do you understand? You want to die? Throw yourself off a fucking building. Don’t you dare manipulate someone into slipping a knife between your ribs.”
Who was this woman? “No,” Hel said slowly. “No, that was not right of me to do.” She began picking at the covers. “I just feel…” Her eyes drifted helplessly back to Gabriella’s face. “In truth, I don’t know how I feel.”
“You’ve been starved, and tortured, and experienced a total loss of control for months now. For someone like yourself…” This Gabriella person didn’t seem at all intimidated by who Hel was. Or had been. “For someone like you, control is important. You need to get some of that control back. First things first, let’s get you up and walking.”
23
Balder watched the stars flicker above the sheet of snow that blanketed the field behind the house.
Heard the crunching of the ice as she walked up beside him. Found himself counting each step, the seconds it took for her to arrive until she finally stood beside him, gazing out in silence.
“She’s awake.”
He’d kept his own council for eons. For so long, it seemed odd at times to talk to anyone else. But now, conversation seemed so easy. So natural, as if she were a thought in his head or part of himself. “And how did it go? I doubt smoothly.”
Gabriella sighed, which came out in a frosty puff. “Oh, as you’d imagine. She tried to manipulate Morgane into killing her. Thinking, I’m sure, that it would solve all her problems. Hoping that everything would go away.” Her voice grew softer. “The pain has to be awful, but she’s refusing painkillers. Her head’s not in a good place, so I’m having someone watch her twenty-four seven, just in case.”
Balder reached out an arm, intending to pull her in, but she moved, ducking outside of his reach. He heard the exhaustion in her voice, knew she was beyond tired. Gods, why did she keep pushing him away?
Gabriella felt the cold bite of snow beneath her collar as she ducked out from Balder’s arm. When was the last time she’d been held? Comforted? Loved? She squeezed her eyes shut. This was not where she thought she’d end up. Not here, in the middle of nowhere, doctoring these broken people who had no chance of winning anything. Risking a sideways glance, she found Balder’s bleak stare. And a part of her howled for him. For everything he was,
what he stood for. His light to her dark.
She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. “I should go back inside. I just came out to tell you she was awake. In case you had questions.” She offered him a faint smile. “I even cooked tonight, there are some left. You should eat, before Freyr snaps the rest of it up.”
When his hand caught her arm, she almost turned into him. Just gave in and buried herself in his strength. How wonderful it would feel, to have him hold her. To lose herself in him. A stronghold against all this unending evil.
But instead, she offered another weak smile and nodded toward the house, yellow light painting the snow. “Come on. Mir said if I couldn’t get you in, he’d send Loki out, and I don’t want to see what he’d do to get you inside.” When he only looked at her, she tugged against his hold. “Come on, Balder, come inside. It’s cold and you’ve been out here all night.”
“Are we to do this forever, then?”
She ignored the question, the implications, the meaning. “If you want to freeze your ass off out here, then fine. I’m going in,” she snapped, and he let her go without another word, turning back to the stars.
Gabriella made the rounds of her patients. Odin. Pain in the ass. Celine. Cranky. Asking for ice cream, when she knew no ice cream was to be had. Hel. Stubborn and hurting, but not willing to do anything about it. Fine then, so be it. Suffer in silence. Gabriella left two painkillers and a glass of water on the nightstand, where she knew she’d find them in the morning. She’d had it with all these cranky ass bitches tonight.
Are we to do this forever, then?
Balder’s words echoed and echoed in her head. While she moved from room to room, doing her job. Even as she kept glancing out every window she passed, finding that big, dark man still out there, staring out into the distance. All alone.
“Damn it.”
She strode through the snow, the icy sheath breaking underneath her heels, still pulling on her coat, right up until the moment she reached him. “Firstly, we are going to do this as long as I want to do this. And secondly, we are not doing anything. Do you understand?”
Her words came out in angry, white puffs frosted with ice. “Besides, I’m only staying until Celine has the baby. Maybe until Hel gets back on her feet, although I’m not even sure I care to see what that shitshow’s going to be like. And then I’m leaving. Heading as far away from all of this as I can get. And nothing will stop me. Not you. Not Odin, not the goddamn end of the world.” Gabriella realized that somehow, at some point, the air between them had gone taut, her words ringing through the night air.
“Gabbie.” As if he were talking to a feral beast, trying to soothe.
“Don’t you Gabbie me.” Her voice, she was pained to realize, sounded slightly hysterical. “I’m doing exactly what everyone wants me to do. I’m doing the right thing. All of you blasted gods, immortals… Whatever you want to be called, pulled me into this war of yours. I hope your freaking happy.” She felt a shudder go through her, a feeling from the past she never, ever thought she’d feel again. No, I’m not going to war ever again. I’ll never be that person again.
“Gabbie.” His voice sounded strained now, as if he heard her thoughts, knew what she had been, in her previous, wicked life.
She let out a bitter laugh. “I can’t be a part of this, Balder. I can’t go to war again. I can’t do killing and bloodshed again. Anything but this, actually.” Raising her eyes to his, she wished she could tell him everything, explain the whys of it, but if she did—once he knew—he’d despise her. Besides, she was a healer now, she fixed things. People. She’d just move on and do it somewhere else. Like she’d always done.
As if he read every part of that explanation that wasn’t really an explanation in her eyes, his face darkened. “You can stay.” His eyes flickered. “I’d like you to stay.”
Everything inside of her told her to run. Everything. Because nothing good ever came from staying. Nothing. “I know. But I just can’t.” She whispered the words, then listened to his footsteps as he went back in the house and left her outside.
As if a ghost blew across the field, a vortex of snow twisted and spun, blotting out the stars, the sky, everything, until she finally followed him into the dark house.
24
Her hands were so small. And the knife was so big.
“Hold it just so, mi angel. Use two hands, si las necesitas.” Her father’s precise voice was unfaltering. Never to be questioned. Never, ever to be disobeyed. “Now take it and slide it in, just like this.”
She liked it when he called her his angel. Better yet, when he called her his special name—angel de la muerte—his angel of death. A name that was hers, and hers alone.
She felt the slight give as the point of it slid into the thick skin. The edge caught a bit, but when she pushed her weight against it, it went in deep. Right between the ribs. Exactly as he’d shown her.
“Buena, nina,” he said, patting her head. “You’ve been practicing.”
“Yes, papa. Like you showed me.” Standing straight, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the bottom of his suit jacket. Black, it was always black and neatly pressed. And he always smelled good, like darkness and coffee, good things and bad things mixed together.
“Todo bien. Let’s see you do it again.”
She did. Over and over and over again, her small hands slipping at times on the knife hilt, struggling to drive the point home each time, fighting to work past the tough barrier of skin, not hit bone, strive for that shining light of approval in her father’s cold, hazel eyes.
At the end of the day, exhausted and limp, she practically sobbed when he said, “Good girl. I think you’re ready.”
She still remembered the dress. It was red, with a white peter pan collar and a big bow in the back. Long enough to hide the leather knife sheath buckled around her thigh. Mother cut her bangs and put clips in her hair. And told her she looked like a pretty little princess.
She still remembered the young man. He had watched her, from the time she’d sat down at the table, to when her mother had left her, to when he’d offered to get her something to eat from the snack bar. Sliding her hand into his much, much larger one, she’d smiled and agreed, she would very much like a cookie. And when she’d made sure there was no one else in the bathroom, after he had locked the door behind them, she pulled out the knife, and slid it in between his ribs, just like her father had shown her.
It had been even easier than the pig’s torso she’d practiced on.
But the blood.
There was so much of it. It had matched her dress perfectly.
Gabriella kicked and fought against the hands holding her down. Balder’s voice was a roar in her ear, loud and panicked. “Please stop,” he wheezed. “I’m not hurting you, Gabbie. You had a dream, a nightmare. Stop fighting me. Stop fighting or you’ll hurt yourself.”
A calm, steady stream of words, designed to soothe. Designed to pull her out of the horrible, horrible nightmare into this sweaty, suffocating darkness. Something wet and warm dripped onto her face. “I’m…I’m okay, Balder. I’m okay now. You can let me go.” She felt like she was made of Jell-O, with nothing holding her together, falling apart in the dark. “Turn on the light, please? I need light.”
A light flicked on. She took a deep, shuddering breath and felt the world shift back into place. Another breath, and she was back on solid ground. “Oh my God, your face.” Blood dripped from his nose and her hands immediately went to each cheek, turning him so she could get a look. “I hit you?”
“Head butted me, more like.” His words were muffled, as his hand went to his nose, and she tilted his head back.
“Let me find something for the blood.” Scrambling off the bed, she fished around in the bathroom and came back with a towel. Steadied one hand against the back of his head and the other under his nose. “God, I am so sorry.”
“notaprblm.”
“I can’t believe I did this to you. I can’t belie
ve I hurt you.” Panic bloomed deep within her. Both at the thought of hurting him, and the fact that she’d had that dream. Now, after so long.
“S’allright. Imallright. Stpwiththe towel.” Finally, Balder pushed the towel away from his face. “I’m okay, Gabbie, really, it’s just a bloody nose is all.”
“Just a bloody nose? It could be broken. I hit you pretty hard, Balder.”
He captured her hands. “You were having a nightmare, Gabbie. A bad one. It was an accident.” No, not an accident. Blood was her legacy. Blood on his face. All that blood. She pulled away from him like he’d burned her.
“No, I…” What? She was what? She didn’t have a nightmare; she was a nightmare. She was blood and death and murder all wrapped up into one, and now look at them, Balder, with blood all over his face, and she was…
“Gabbie, you need to calm down. Right now.”
Her parents had made her. Honed her. A child assassin. A murderer.
“Gabbie, baby, look at me.” But she couldn’t—not and see all that bright red blood, not and see his eyes, not and see everything she’d ever done and everything she was trying to do to make it right. Stumbling out of the room, she blindly scrambled down the hallway, not feeling his hands as they grabbed her and dragged her backwards into the room. Pushed her firmly onto the bed.
“You can’t go outside. It’s freezing and you’re not dressed properly. You need to tell me what’s going on. Talk to me—for once in your life, tell me what’s happening—damn it. What was the dream about, Gabbie? What are you so scared of?”
It was hard to look at him, hard to see what she’d done to him.
The words hissed out of her. Lies. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
The assessing look in his eyes told her he knew they were lies. But he let it go. “All right, then. Let me get you something to calm you down. Let me take care of you.” She opened her mouth to resist, and he snapped, “For just this one goddamned time, listen to me, will you? Stay here, let me get you something to drink. Do not go outside. Do not leave this room.” He picked up the towel and mopped the rest of the blood from his face before throwing it on the floor. “And that’s a godsdamned order.”
The Tower Page 10
