“No, not happening.”
“Jesus H Christ. So we’re going to just sit here?”
“For a little while longer.”
“I have about had it with all of your ‘patience grasshopper, bullshit’. Either we go north or we go south. Not brain surgery at this point. We can’t stay put any longer. The weather’s breaking. Scratch that, it’s broken.” Tyr paused, and Odin knew he was regrouping, reworking his argument. “We’re out of food, in case you haven’t noticed.”
He had.
“And firewood, too, which is perfect timing, since we don’t have anything to cook anymore.” He paused again, as if Odin was deaf. “And water, I expect that will be the next thing to go.”
It would be.
“Three days.” Odin murmured. “We need to hold out for just three more days.”
This was the awful moment of quiet right before the storm hit. When the air was calm and still, when anticipation made you think better days were coming. You think you’re safe, where ever you were.
But there was always the chance you might not be. That the monsters might get to you.
Another set of boots, a new voice joined Tyr’s. Mir. “I don’t like all of this waiting. Doesn’t feel right to me. Something’s off.” He wondered how long Mir had been up this time. Days, probably. Ever since the debacle in France, the dude had been wired so tight he was driving everyone crazy, himself included. Memories, all his memories, an eternity’s worth, had returned, and his head was close to exploding.
“I don’t get it. Why doesn’t Domenic just attack?”
Tyr agreed. “Just sending the occasional scout up here doesn’t seem hardly worth the effort. It doesn’t appear he’s in any real hurry to route us. Or wipe us out.”
Odin heard scuffling behind him as they both jockeyed for space in the small, cramped room. “The weather’s only just broken, maybe he’s working out a route from Chicago.”
“The weather wasn’t what was stopping him.” Odin didn’t turn around. Couldn’t face them, not right now. “Slowed, maybe. But stopped? No.”
He felt someone else slip into the room. “He knows exactly where we are, how weak we are, he knows everything about us.”
“Because of Ava.” Thor said quietly behind him.
Odin succeeded in not reaching up and rubbing the burning knot in his chest. “Because of Ava.”
Took a breath and gave them the rest. They deserved it. “Because of her, yes. I expect, by now, their combined power extends to her memories.” Another flicker of pain, stronger this time, constricted his chest. “Every meeting she sat in, everything she saw and heard, belongs to him now.’
“So what’s he waiting for?”
“He’s rebuilding.” Odin’s hands tightened on the sill of the window, his gaze still fixed southward.
“Don’t forget, we took out legions of his army, right before we left Oak Park. Eleven weapons caches, too, that same week. Which only slowed him down. No, the only thing that bought us time was something he could not replicate, steal or create.”
A cold, satisfied smile crept over his face. “We have his gatekeeper on our side. And it’s taken him awhile to rebuild.” Thanks to Balder’s soft heart. Back when he had one, that is.
“I seriously doubt Hel’s on anybody’s side but her own.” Thor muttered, his gaze cold as ice. “That bitch would eat her own young if she was hungry enough.”
Odin didn’t disagree. “She’s here, with us, which is enough, for now. Her monsters protect us, for now. She’s bought us some time, which means we’ll claim her as ours. For now.” Odin turned from the window, meeting Tyr’s eyes, Thor’s, and Mir’s eyes, steadily. “Domenic’s spent the past three months rebuilding. Raising an army. One worthy of ravaging the Earth.”
“And to think, we’ve been up here, sitting on our asses.”
“There was no stopping this.” Had he let them go, any of them, they would not have returned, that was the problem with second sight. It tied your hands, hobbled you. Made you weak when it should make you strong. “Besides, it’s done now. He has his army, and we have ours.”
“Seventeen of us, Odin.” Tyr’s voice was a rough growl. “In case you can’t fucking count. Oh, and a baby. And unless he’s going to become incredibly competent with a weapon in the next few days, I don’t think he’ll be of much help.”
“No. We hide Celine, the baby and Lilly. Like before. Sydney, too, although I expect she’s going to fight you on that, Mir. You’ll have to make her leave this time. I have a place in mind to send them.”
The rest of us stay and fight?”
“The rest of us stay and fight.” Odin agreed.
“With what, exactly?” Thor glanced at his brother. “We don’t have any weapons, unless you have a stash we don’t know about.”
“If you can’t change your hand, then you change the game. I’m planning to lie, cheat and steal. I’ll do whatever it fucking takes to beat him. Kill him. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Perfectly.” Mir said. “All or nothing. Shouldn’t we vote on that?”
“According to Balder, this is a democracy now, or some such shit. So sure, have Freyr make up some ballots. We can all fucking vote.”
“What am I doing?” Freyr shouldered into the room, Balder at his side, Vali in tow.
“Making up ballots to see who’s up for a suicide mission.” Freyr ran a hand through his slightly-longer hair. “Cause you know, this is a democracy now, according to you.”
“Am I seriously going to have to hear about this shit for the rest of my immortal life?” Balder grumbled.
“Not if this is a suicide mission.”
“Besides.” Balder continued. “Don’t put this shit on me. It’s Odin’s fault for pussying out and pulling that disappearing act and leaving us in charge. Clearly, we can’t be trusted with that kind of power.” He concluded, shrugging.
“And if you’re planning on sending Gabriella away with Celine and the baby? Don’t.” he grinned, wide and proud. “She’s been working out ways to get us back into the city unseen, and has a couple of viable options.”
Balder sobered up a bit. “She, Celine and Hunter have mapped out some possible blind entry points that I actually think will work.” His face settled into a mask as he went on, “Actually, I do think it’s time we start seriously talking about going back in. I don’t care what the odds are, we have to see what we’re up against.”
“All right. Start working on it.” As they argued, Odin knew he’d delayed them as long as he could. Thrown every obstacle up in their way he could come up with. This last heavy snowstorm had been a godsend and bought him an extra two weeks. There was no way to stop what was coming.
He had given them all he could. Three precious months together. With their lovers. With their friends. Three months of sweet, uninterrupted life.
Odin felt the warm, wet slide of blood as the gash on his shoulder opened up. A reminder of last night’s bloody battle. Christ, there had been ten of the Domenic’s monsters and they had almost breached the perimeter around this safehouse. Ten of them. The Orobus’s newest, deadliest beasts. Or at least, Odin hoped they were his deadliest. Even with Hel’s dragons above him, slicing and chewing their way through the vicious things, they’d gotten far too close.
Clapping a hand tightly over his upper arm, and shifting position, Odin moved slowly out of the room. Since none of the rest of them were going anywhere. He strode down the hallway to the half bath he’d been making do with and peeled off his sweater and shirt. It was healing, but slow. Some kind of poison his body was slow to counter must still be in the wound. A black, veiny pattern extended down his arm. Up over his collarbone onto his neck. “Fuck.”
The warm, tingling numbness in that hand was new, too.
His knife hand.
Any hope he’d had of keeping this a secret fled. Mir had been right, they didn’t have the numbers. So he’d have to swallow his pride and limp upstairs like a kicked dog, looking for a ha
ndout.
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Acknowledgments
Right now, as I sit in my office, looking out at a world gone mad, it’s interesting to note—The World—a book I wrote six months ago, begins with my beloved characters isolated in a cabin, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Nor does it escape me that like us, they are hoping for the very best.
Despite everything, I’m looking forward to this year with cautious anticipation.
As always, writing a book is a complicated endeavor, and I need a lot of help to get my stories from rough draft to the final, downloadable shiny version you’ll read. My thanks go out to my writing partner—Joanne—as well as all the other Denizens of Imagination for their help and encouragement, my incredible editor—Chris Hall and my fabulous cover designer Brynna Curry.
And I’d like to thank my readers, who have stuck with me throughout my book-baby series. You guys are the best! Much love, L.A.
MORE BOOKS BY L.A. MCGINNIS
The Banished Gods series:
Queen of Swords
The Moon
The Priestess
Death’s Daughter
The Lovers
The World (June 2020)
The Holy City Vampires series:
Shadows of Ghosts
Unrequited Heart
Echoes of Time (Summer 2020)
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