‘Now you understand how dangerous that would be…’ Nikolaj said, breaking my reverie.
I shrugged. ‘I was a boy. I wanted his power. I didn’t understand the price.’ The price that, on my birthday, the Gatekeeper beast had left Father and slithered into me, granting my secret desire and taking away the freedom to chart my own destiny in one fell swoop.
Be careful what you wish for I guess.
My hand hovered over the library’s doorknob, the lion-knocker protruding from the polished wood with a gaping jaw.
‘Theodore.’ Father threw his voice like a ventriloquist, deceptively close, from inside the library.
I swear Hellingstead Hall is rigged with an automated alarm system, wired into his brain. Surely no one could be all-knowing, not even a Clemensen warlock.
After Nikolaj’s visit, I’d ventured from my sanctuary – my chambers, comprising a bedroom, a bathroom, and a reading room that overlooked the rear gardens, occupied the upper west-wing of the house – into Father’s domain.
I stepped inside, an immense conclave of texts greeting me with their inky hymns from bookcases that soared into the rafters, three floors high. Pockets of Tiffany reading lamps – a relic of a mother’s touch – bathed the library with a light as soft as candle flame.
Defying Father’s knowledge of my whereabouts, I shrank back, masking my face and coppery-golden hair in the groove of darkness to the side of the door. It was a pointless exercise. We both knew each other’s location.
‘Please, Father, drop the “Theodore”. It’s Theo,’ I said.
Bookshelves intersected the tapestried carpet dividing the library in half, carving out a private study in the left corner of the library, in front of the floor-to-ceiling mullion windows at the back. I stalked along the carpet, curving past the fireplace between the windows, and approached his monstrous mahogany desk. The matching chair could have been mistaken for a throne, wider and taller than him – and he was all legs, arms, and hewn muscle. It looked ridiculous.
‘What’s so terrible about the name your mother gave you?’ he huffed, adjusting his cloak over his shoulders.
He’d conditioned me into automatic obedience, so I stood at attention in front of his desk. Annoyed with myself, I slouched my broad shoulders, trying to act as disaffected as possible. ‘You have no consideration for my street cred.’
He thumped his fist against the wood, a rustle of paper shifting under the force of the blow. I flinched. His trademark smirk dented his cheek. ‘What does a Clemensen care about “street credit?’
I rolled my eyes into the back of my skull. ‘Credibility, Father, not “credit”. Have you never read that quote amongst your thousand books? No man is an island. Some of us need a social life.’
He continued as if I hadn’t replied, ‘The ancient clans of the North rule this hemisphere.’ Blah. ‘The hoi polloi of the supernatural world look to us for guidance.’ Blah. ‘Your name is entirely appropriate.’ Blah.
‘Only this hemisphere?’ I snorted. ‘And I think the proper term for them is the Pneuma, Dad.’
He hated it when I called him Dad. He prickled. I returned a pointed look. At last, his frown smoothed out. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
Just when I was on the verge of bashing him on the head with the heftiest book in the library, he went all soft and gooey and caring, and I was back in nappies, staring up at him with awestruck, googly eyes, craving his attention. I sighed and slid into the rickety old chair behind my knees. It was a joke compared to Father’s throne, but I guess he liked the not-so-subtle power play on the rare occasions we had visitors, and the even rarer occasions they were permitted into his study.
‘How do I feel? Like the plague has tag-teamed with influenza and mugged me.’ As I sat teetering on the wobbly legs, I realised how clammy my skin was, how many strands of curly, buttery hair stuck to the back of my neck. ‘I’m death warmed up.’
Father cringed.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’ I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him waiting for me to come back to life, limp and cold in his arms. For a moment, he was alone in the world, separated from his wife and son. Oh, great. He hadn’t even said anything and he’d made me feel guilty again.
I swallowed hard, and feigning melancholy, moaned in a way only a son can to his father, dragging up classics from my teenage years such as ‘I’m so bored’ and ‘I have no life’ ending with a record that had gone platinum in my own head: ‘I need to get out of here, Father.’
A steady eyebrow rose. ‘Have you forgotten the storm clouds overhead? Where do you propose to go?’
Why did he always use reason? It was so damn effective. ‘There’s no point being as powerful as the Norse gods when you won’t even let me outside!’
‘Don’t raise your voice.’
‘Why not? Are the Guardians about to descend upon us like a nest of bats?’ I pointed theatrically up into the rafters. I recoiled as Father’s pen snapped in his bear-like hands, spilling ink over the papers on his desk, and on his nail-bitten fingers. It was those kinds of reactions that made me so suspicious. Why did the mere mention of them make him so angry?
A tide of unspoken words and confessions contorted his stern features. They smoothed out, a raging torrent slowly becoming a millpond. He cleaned himself with a napkin and acted as if nothing had happened. ‘Outside, hey? We have a perfectly good barn in the garden.’
I face-planted the desk, fingers twisting around my hair. ‘I’m kidding, Theodore… Theo. Go if you must. I hear the Red Hawk has an open mic night tomorrow. Why don’t you go along?’
I searched his sky-blue eyes. They had glittered once, a thousand iridescent shades, as Uncle Nikolaj’s had during his stint as the bearer of the world’s magic. I was stardust then, yet to be born. Now it was my turn to be the Gatekeeper of the Lífkelda, my eyes shimmered opal, as if I’d bought some of that stardust with me. ‘Really? Alone?’
He nodded. ‘You’re of age, why not?’
As tempting as it was to tie Father to his throne and examine him for the plague-flu combo, I dashed out with the swiftness of Hermod, the Norse messenger god. Permission for fun? I wasn’t about to hang around and let him retract a gem like that.
As the library door swung shut, I felt uneasy; our conversation had unravelled like a rug across a floor, and I’d walked blithely in the direction Father pointed me. My elation turned to confusion in the short journey back to my room. Who’d told him about the open-mic night? Father stepped foot outside Hellingstead Hall about as often as he let people in – that is, he didn’t. Was it possible my brief death prompted him to put neuroticism to one side? Unlikely. I expected him to be more protective than ever.
I considered interrogating Uncle Nikolaj but then thought better of it. Nikolaj could send a hound dog on a wild-goose chase, and not the kind that ended up with a tasty bird on the table, but one in which the result was a level of exasperation so profound that shutting up and going to bed seemed like your best option.
Let it go, Theo. I smiled to myself. I’m gonna meet actual, normal people.
It didn’t work out that way.
I’d let my father and ridiculously old, Elven uncle dictate my style for too long. I would walk into the Red Hawk in a lush green cloak and silk tunic right about the time hell froze over.
I tried to ignore the fact I could probably make hell freeze over.
‘Hmm…’ I shoved my head into my vast, antique wardrobe, trying not to think too hard about Narnia, and pulled out reams of clothing, chucking the rejects onto the floorboards of my bedroom.
I resurfaced, coppery mane the worse for wear, or as my mother always said, ‘Dragged through a hedge backwards.’ Hardly an hour passed when I didn’t swallow back a thought about her. In the ten short years we’d spent together, she had rubber-stamped her mark on my heart in a way only a mother can.
What would Mum tell me to wear? That feeling – that if I walked downstairs, I’d find her whipping
up pancakes in the kitchen, her flaming red loops gathered on her head, strays framing her moss-green eyes and generous mouth – I could never shake. I still remembered her slender figure and the softness of her chest, the cushions upon which I’d wept and laughed. Even on an off day, Mum belonged with the fashionistas in a Paris boutique, or with movie stars sipping cappuccinos in the heart of Rome.
I didn’t stray far from silk, choosing an Italian shirt Nikolaj had sent to me after his last trip to Europe – of which he took many, and for apparently top-secret purposes – but deciding it was too showy, I rolled up the sleeves to fit snugly at the crease of my sinewy forearms. Black jeans and leather shoes completed the outfit.
A few squirts of Issey Miyake later, I descended the grand entrance stairway, hand hovering over the bespoke bannister – my uncle’s handiwork – made from an ancient tree pillaged from Alfheim. Also known as the Summer-Lands, Alfheim was one of the Nine Realms supported by the great World Tree, Yggdrasil, and home to Elves and Fae.
I missed out the creaky steps, avoiding Father in case he retracted his permission slip before I left. His goodwill is fickle like that. But Father appeared by the heavy front door, his body knitting itself together out of atoms, conglomerating into a mass of familiar features and limbs. I had yet to master that skill – and that made it infuriating.
‘Who are you, my jailor? Move aside unless you want to be slain at sword point.’
‘More like a gatekeeper.’
‘Ex-Gatekeeper,’ I smirked.
He folded his arms as my uncle arrived at his side. Father was tall, but Nikolaj towered over him. High, amber-dusted cheekbones and deep, seaweed eyes betrayed inhuman ferocity common to his father’s Elvish race. Nikolaj had inherited one pointed ear from him, and it poked out from his glossy, straw-coloured hair, softening his otherwise severe features into something princely and playful. His other ear was more human – Clemensen in fact – although it peaked a little at the tip as if for symmetry’s sake.
‘Ha! Espen is an old dragon. All puff and no flame. I grant thee free passage, Nevø.’
‘I’ll avoid patricide then.’
‘A wise decision; you’ll never get blood out of that shirt.’
Father shrugged, as reticent to our uncle’s humour as possible. At least, he pretended to be. I wasn’t so immune.
Father grabbed my arm as I attempted to slip between them. ‘Be back by midnight. And for the sake of Odin, Thor, and Freyr, take a decent raincoat and an umbrella.’
‘No need to invoke our gods, Father. How about I take the Jag instead? Even Cinderella needed her carriage, right?’
Father stalked off muttering to himself, but Uncle Nikolaj, bless him, slipped the keys into my pocket and shoved me out the door with a hearty pat on the back. I broke into a run through the rain, cowering under the hood of my coat, which was ridiculous because I was causing the rainfall. I reached the garage on the sweeping bend in the driveway and liberated the Jag.
Alone at last, I sped into the night. I tried to imagine going home in a few hours’ time but couldn’t. I didn’t want to. Later, when I looked back on that night, I realised it was the start of one long getaway. The warning sirens were there, flashing in my rear-view mirror as if in a high-speed cop chase. Pursued by my demons, by genetic destiny, I drove.
2
The Red Hawk
Twilight clawed through solid cloud, ripping open rain-swelled bowels to spew over our already waterlogged town. The Jag glided downhill along Market Road and the easy motion brightened my mood. It wasn’t a coincidence that just then a swift gale drove the cloudbank away, allowing the setting sun a brief chance before it was beat. Try not to be too chipper, Theo, otherwise you might cause a drought next.
I connected my phone to the car’s speakers, craving a background chorus to provide suitable levels of drama to my bid for freedom. Sometimes only pirate metal will do. I whistled along to tales of pillage and plunder, as the fir trees bordering my family’s estate ran at my windows, threatening to claw me back.
Suddenly, I was released from its clutches, sailing past the Old High Street with its cobbled pavements and atmospheric shops, a blur of sandy Hamstone and timber. When I was little, I called it ‘Rocky Road’ and was embarrassingly old when my parents convinced me that was a flavour of ice-cream. At least I didn’t get confused and call Piccadilly Circus ‘Little Pig in a Circus’ like…
Like…
Who? Who used to say that? I clutched the wheel as I rattled dusty, childhood memories. The harder I tried to focus the more elusive it became. By Loki, the trickster god, it would really annoy me, like when you’re lying in bed and can’t remember the names of all your old school friends. Considering I hadn’t been to school since Mum died, Father educating me at home with the help of private tutors, that ability was a point of pride. I decided it must’ve been one of those fading school pals who had said it. It didn’t ring any bells.
The tyres screeched round the final bend, squat cottages on the right, which had housed townsfolk since Hellingstead had been a village in the middle of nowhere, and the back of the shops supplying the town on the left. Ahead, gleaming under gas-effect lighting, its fierce talons curling around the sign, a deep scarlet hawk swung violently in the wind.
The pub’s carpark was already crammed. I found an available – if slightly illegal – spot near an alleyway with a wide refuse opening for the local businesses, and followed the other patrons towards the noise of reverberating instruments. A group of us streamed together through the head-bangingly low doorway of the Red Hawk.
This place breathed magic. Nikolaj had told me it was owned by a witch-couple, not powerful, but fun and with good business sense to boot. They bathed the low ceilings in bursts of lamps and clever illuminations, made the seating comfortable, and the service instant and amicable. Every corner of the pub emanated laughter, as if someone had a tape of the canned variety hidden behind the bar. It didn’t matter if you arrived dishevelled and weird looking, you’d find a pint in your palm that smelt like liquid honey, and your backside planted on an eat-me-up sofa by the roaring fireplace. It catered to the young and slick, as well as the middle-aged has-beens craving their youth and their old freedoms.
Or so I’d been told. All true. I pressed myself through the door, leaning my considerable bulk into the crowd on my way towards the heaving bar. Despite my fear that the crowd would turn and stare at my entrance, judging my worth, no one even noticed I was there. Just another body to add to the eclectic mix.
Friends, Pneuma, Countrymen. My nostrils flared as I surveyed the crowd. A lot of regular Johns and Janes milled about the pub, but the air also exuded a spicy scent unique to Pneuma. And where the Pneuma went, the varmint were sure to follow.
Energy seethed through my body, an electric current fizzling over the surface of my skin. I made a distracted attempt at controlling it. Since my birthday, each moment pulsed with unseen energy demanding to be expended. I wasn’t ready to unleash my full powers onto the world yet. I kind of liked the sight of grassy meadows and terra firma, and had no desire to build an ark to assuage my guilt for accidentally drowning everyone.
Constant fidgeting helped to disperse it. My teeth often chattered and I was fast becoming liable to tics. It made me wonder how the hell my father had hidden the physical symptoms of being the Gatekeeper from me for so long. It explained the obsessive restoration work of Hellingstead Hall he’d taken on using labour – not magic – and the three rounds of the estate he made every morning jogging. I had horrific visions of doing the same for the next twenty years, an ageing Espen watching on from the window in the library, nodding knowingly, Uncle Nikolaj still a perfect blond against my father’s greyed hair.
Maybe I’ll try meditation.
I arrived at the bar, nabbing a stool, and waved to catch the attention of one of the pretty barmaids. A Red Hawk logo branded her black shirt, drawing out the colour of her vibrant, ginger curls. Her bright blue eyes weren’t enough t
o keep my own from noticing her long legs, sleeked by tights.
Over the din of the live band in the far corner, I combined sign language and smiling flirtatiously to order a pint of Hawk Ale. They made it in-house on a conjoined property, and you could taste the magic fermented together with the hops, at least I could, considering I currently embodied the world’s only source of the stuff. Magic that is, not hops.
The barmaid, Grace – name-tag pinned exactly at breast level – winked at me before sailing off down the length of the bar like a captain taking the helm of her ship. I imagined her wearing a pirate hat and long boots, the lyrics I’d sung along to in the car infusing my fantasies, and ungentlemanly twitches of the non-magical kind started, so I focused my attention on the other patrons.
Naturally, I was jealous of the equal distribution of winking Grace handed out to all the men, but it was when she blushed at the young lad several seats down from me that I really examined the object of her affection. From the roots of his hair to his boots, he alternated between black and grey. I thought I’d mastered bedhead, but this guy was pro-expert. Ruffled like a raven’s feathers, with a few streaks of premature silver hairs, it complemented his pearly-grey irises, but even these were smudged around the edges like charcoal – did I mention that becoming the Gatekeeper had given me faultless vision? His athletic physique made his dark, knitted jumper a garment for a model, his grey jeans no disguise for some pretty hench calves, hooked over his barstool. During a brief lull in the music, I heard his gravelly voice slice through the air, aiming like an arrow with Grace as his target.
Forged in Blood and Lightning: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Descendants of Thor Trilogy: Book One) Page 2
