Demons (Eirik Book 1)

by Ednah Walters

  Why couldn’t she wait? Now my plan to go with her was shot. She carried things with her whenever she astral projected and my plan had been to wrap my arms around her and go with her.

  I changed and raced out of the room while focusing on Creed. A portal opened before I reached the rotunda. It opened into the front entrance of the castle. My parents were there and they weren’t alone.

  About three dozens guards, Grimnirs, and Dwarves stood around her with torches and weapons. They were all dressed in black and gray breastplates, arm braces, and heavy boots as though preparing for war. The white cloaks meant they could blend with the landscape. More arrived as I crossed the hall.

  Father saw me first and said something to Mother. She wasn’t dressed for battle. He was. He wore all white. From the looks of things, he was in charge. She left his side and met me halfway.

  “Come with me,” she said, gripping my arm. “I thought you were resting.”

  “Celestia is missing. Have you seen her?”

  “She left,” she said impatiently when we were far enough from the others. “I wasn’t there, but your father said she astral projected. The same way she got here.”

  “I don’t believe it, not until I confirm it. What’s going on?” My eyes swept the groups gathered in the hall. “It looks like you are preparing for a war.”

  “Someone dangerous is approaching the hall, and we have to deal with her and her entourage.”

  “Then I shall join you. I can help from the sky. My vision—”

  “No. Stay inside the castle walls.” Her grip tightened, and the runes under her skin appeared and disappeared so fast they seemed to wiggle and whip around in a frenzy. I’d never seen them like this before. My dragon stirred. He could smell her fear.

  Whoever the person was had her rattled. My eyes met Father’s. The easygoing man I’d come to know was gone. In his place was a general directing an army. He gave orders and the guards, Grimnirs, and Dwarves disappeared through portals, each with a team leader. He glanced over at us and a look I couldn’t explain passed between him and Mother. Then he left.

  “What’s really going on here, Mom?”

  “Go practice with your mace, Eirik,” she snapped and raised her scepter. Lightning shot from the crystals and touched the doors and the windows. “Do not leave Eljudnir.”

  I never thought I’d ever see my mother scared. She was directing the new arrivals, all guards, to get ready. Several were to stay with me, she ordered. I ignored them and went in search of Trudy.

  I opened a portal into a room with colorful murals on the walls, all of them landscapes. Sniffles drew my attention to the left. I told the four guards to stay behind, then followed the sounds.

  “The Ironwood Maiden is not coming for you,” Maera said.

  “She said I belong in Jötunheim, not here,” Trudy said between sniffles.

  “When the time is right, we will go to Utgard,” Maera said, wiping her daughter’s tears. “It is not time yet.”

  I cleared my throat and they looked up. They both jumped to their feet.

  “Please, you don’t need to get up. I’d like to talk to Trudy if you don’t mind, Maera.”

  “Of course.” The woman patted her daughter’s hand reassuringly. “Everything will be fine. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  I waited until the portal closed before turning to face Trudy, but she was already on her feet. She yanked on her coat and hat, the tears she’d been shedding a few minutes ago gone. Had she faked those tears? She reached under the couch and pulled out a scepter like my mothers, just not too fancy.

  “Let’s go,” she said, looking at me expectantly.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “To get Celestia back. That’s why you are here, isn’t it?”

  “You know where she is?”

  Annoyance crossed her face. “Of course,” she snapped impatiently. “The Ironwood Maiden took her. Snatched her right in the middle of your father’s living room. One minute she was there. The next, she was screaming as she floated away.”

  My heart damn nearly stopped in my chest. “What?”

  “Creed was there and saw everything. The guards tell me things because they can’t help it. So no, Celestia did not astral project home. No one screams for help when they are going home. She got her.”

  I tried not to panic. “Who is this Ironwood Maiden?”

  She grunted in annoyance. “Can’t we talk while we are in the air? You need to get out there and shift. You’re giving me a ride.”

  “Trudy,” I snapped.

  Her cheeks grew pink. She glared.

  “Fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “Celestia told your father about the cave and the woman who hums.” She started to sing. The song sounded familiar just like it had when Celestia had hummed it, yet I couldn’t place it. “That’s the Ironwood Maiden’s song. She ran this hall for your mama for centuries before the Golden One threw her out and Mama took over. Mama said she used to sing the same song to you when you were a baby.” Trudy leaned closer and whispered, “Before she tried to kill you. Now she has Celestia.”

  “Who is she?”

  She looked around again before whispering, “Your grandmother.”

  No wonder Mother was having a meltdown and Father had left with a small army.

  “Can we go now?” Trudy asked impatiently.

  “Do you know where the cave is?”

  “No, but we can find the cave from the air easier than on foot like the goddess’ army.”

  “I’ve been searching for the cave the last week, Trudy. It’s not around here.” I engaged my runes and went into hyper-speed. She didn’t see me coming, but knew what I’d done when she went limp and her eyelids started to close. I caught her.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Because you’ll slow me down.” I lowered her onto the couch, made sure she was comfortable, and headed to my room for my mace. Mother was pacing when I reached the front hall. The guards watched her from afar. The Grimnirs, for once, weren’t parading in and out of the hall with souls. Maybe she’d told them no more reaping and closed the portal to Earth.

  “I’m going out, Mother,” I called, not slowing down. “She has Celestia.”

  “No,” my mother yelled and pointed her scepter at me. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”

  I changed directions and headed her way. The scent of her fear grew stronger. “You know you’re not going to hurt me, Mom.”

  She lowered the scepter, but the fear in her eyes was palpable. “You don’t know what she’s capable of.”

  “I know she tried to kill me.”

  She laughed, the sound dry and brittle. “Kill you? Death would be better than what she wants.” Her eyes became unfocussed and tortured as though she was reliving a painful past. I gripped her arms and tried to make her look at me.

  “Mom. MOTHER!” She blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “The dragon’s kiss. It binds you to her for eternity. I was a baby when she bit me. If your father hadn’t released me from the bond, I’d still be bonded to her, a slave to her every whim. No matter what she says or does, Eirik, never let her bite you.”

  “I’ll remember that. Can you unseal the… What are you doing?”

  Her entire demeanor changed. The love and fear that had shone on her face faded. Fierce eyes filled with hatred stared at me. Runes swirled like slithering snakes under her skin. Her dress and cloak changed into black pants and a top with a breastplate. Even the core of the crystal on her scepter became a pool of churning black mass. A warrior goddess had replaced my mother.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “No, you’re not. I’m the only one who can find Celestia.”

  “This is not about your Witch, Eirik. This is about my mother. She is evil and will stoop to anything to hurt me. I should be out there searching for her, not your father. I’m the one she wants, not you. But she will use you to get to me.”

  �
�Then she’ll have to go through me. She started this by kidnapping Celestia. Now she has to deal with me. Me, Mother. Not you.” The bones on my back elongated, snapped, and reformed. My dragon was no longer restless. He was pissed. My body shifted, the pain accompanying the transformation hardly registering. “Did you hear what I said, Mother?” I bellowed.

  She looked up. My size or rumbling voice didn’t intimidate her. It never did. Possibly because she knew I could never hurt her, just like I knew she could threaten me with her scepter, but she’d never do anything to harm me. Not permanently, anyway. Even when her demons took over, I always caught a glimpse of her love for me. The fear mixed with anger in her eyes said it just as clear as when she stood at the window on the east tower every time I left Eljudnir and waited outside the weapons room as I changed when I returned. She loved me and was scared of losing me.

  I lowered my head until we were eye to eye. “No one touches my family, Mother. No one. I’ll be careful. And when this is over and Celestia is back at home with her family, I’m going after the Norns. Just like you asked. I have a plan for our revenge and it’s going to be sweet. But right now, I need to save Celestia. Will you let me?”

  I thought she was going to fight me, but was pleasantly surprised when she nodded. “I want to talk to your human.”

  “I can hear you, Mom. We are one and the same. Neither one is the true me, because all is me. What’s on the outside doesn’t change what’s on the inside.”

  “Then let me deal with your other self.”

  My clothes were in tatters on the floor, but I felt no shame changing back into my human body. Celestia often accused me of having no modesty, but years of swimming in tiny Speedos had left me comfortable in my own skin. And my mother had seen me shift, even guided me.

  “Twirl your mace,” she ordered.

  “Why?”

  “How do you think your dragon will carry your mace?” she asked. “Lift it up and twirl it.”

  I picked up the mace from where I’d dropped it on the floor during my transformation, raised my hand, and whipped the air with it.

  “Command it to bond with you,” she said.

  “Bond.” She pointed her scepter and lightning shot from the core and coiled around the mace, tugging it, until the chain wrapped around my arm and the spiked head settled on my bicep. Skin and iron blended. The white-hot pain accompanying the joining was nothing compared with what I’d endured shifting into my dragon. The mace blended with my body, until it looked like a tattoo.

  “Now you are ready to shift,” she said, speaking so calmly it was spooky. I was used to her yelling and promising mayhem when in her goddess warrior mode. “I’ll stay. Go find your Witch and get rid of my mother.”

  ~*~

  CELESTIA

  I was furious when I landed in the cave again, but I didn’t scream or yell after the initial shock wore off. It would be pointless. I was back where it all started. Turning, I headed inside. The cold crept under my clothes, but I didn’t care. I knew a fire awaited me at the end of my short trek.

  Mentally, I went through what I’d tell the giantess once I reached the cave. I refused to beg her to release me or make her any more promises. As soon as I said my piece, I was heading back to Hel’s Hall. She wanted me here permanently? She got me. I was done trying to find my way home. Done stressing about my father. Done being afraid. I accepted my fate. I just needed to know one thing. Why?

  I turned the corner and stopped. A giantess sat near the fire. I hadn’t expected her to be outside her dark void.

  “No need to stop now,” she said in a gravelly voice. “Come closer.”

  She sounded ancient like the Idun-Grimnirs and her hair was white, yet when I moved closer and saw her face, she looked like she could pass for a woman in her late forties. There was also something familiar about her face, yet I couldn’t place it.

  “Sit down,” she waved, indicating a folded blanket.

  Anger made me want to tell her no, but pride stopped me. Besides, I was shivering. Eirik’s sweatshirt was warm, but with only my bra under it, I had very little insulation against the cold.

  I sat on the folded blanket with my back facing the tunnel and stared at her with loathing. She studied me right back. She wore a black robe that covered her legs, no jewelry, and no makeup. A large basket was an arm’s length away to her left, and her wand was propped against the cave wall.

  “You are a brave little thing,” she said.

  “And you are an evil soul-napper,” I retorted.

  She laughed. “I guess you could call me that. I did kidnap your soul from Earth. Of course, I would not have done that if you weren’t already marked. So many Witches want to come to this realm they’d do anything. They even mark their own so they could follow them.”

  Marked? At the back of my mind, I knew I should care about what she was saying, but I didn’t. I was never going back anyway, so why ask about the person who’d marked me. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “To help me get back everything taken from me. They took my husband. My children. My home. My dignity. I will have it all and make his children and their wives feel my wrath, and their grandchildren my slaves. That’s the beauty of a dragon’s kiss. You can enslave a whole village. Or in this case, an entire realm. Blood will taint the throne of Asgard.” She smiled maniacally, her eyes a little glazed. “You’ve already played your part splendidly, Mortal Witch. Just like in my vision, all I had to do was keep you in Eljudnir a little longer and he’d become attached to you. Then you’d be the bait. Now, we wait.”

  He? Was she talking about Eirik? I wish I’d listened to Hayden’s nonstop stories about Asgard. I’d know who this giant was.

  “Wait for what?” I asked.

  “For his arrival. I can hear my daughter’s army searching the grounds and the caves, but they won’t find this one. I made sure of that. But he will find it. He will find us.”

  Her daughter? She was the goddess’ mother?

  “Dragons have keen senses,” she continued. “We can see from afar. All we have to do is focus on who or what we want to see. But our most important sense is the sense of smell. We can differentiate the scents of those closest to us from everyone else’s. Follow it, until we find you. He will find us. He will follow your scent.”

  “You did this to get the goddess’ dragon?” I asked.

  “My dragon,” she snarled. “Do you dare call him hers?”

  She extended her hand toward me and her nails grew longer and darkened into claws, her fingers fusing until she had three and an opposable thumb. Pink spots appeared on the back of her hand. Something about them teased my memories, yet I’d never seen them before. They lifted and took the shape of shells, more appearing overlapping with each other racing up her arm, until her skin was covered with them. The realization hit me. Her skin was covered with scales. I watched in horror as her claws continued to grow until one was only an inch from my face. I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry like sandpaper.

  “He is mine,” she repeated. “Even before he was born, he was mine. Not hers.”

  “What are…?” I couldn’t finish the question, my eyes on the talon near my nose. It was still growing—the tip so sharp that one swipe from it and she could carve me up like a turkey.

  As though she realized I was petrified enough, she chuckled. The scales disappeared, her hand and nails retracting and shifting back to a human hand. A giant’s hand. I exhaled.

  “I am the Ironwood Maiden, dragon shifter, and the only woman Loki ever truly loved,” she bragged. “First, they took him from me and trapped him in a cave, where they continue to torture him. Then they imprisoned my children. One boy bound until Ragnarok, another cast to your world, and my only daughter sent to the coldest realm in the nine worlds. When she heard that I’d lost my home, my baby girl invited me to Eljudnir to run her hall. It was the happiest moment in my life. To be reunited with one of my children.”

  She opened the basket and removed
two large apples. They were tiny against her hand. She offered me one, but I shook my head. I’d read and watched Snow White. Besides, anyone who could turn into a dragon was on the run-from-them list. She took a bite of the first apple and chewed. After three bites, only the core remained. She threw it into the fire and started on apple number two.

  “I was happy and content running her household,” she continued, studying me. “Dwarves will rob you blind if you don’t keep an eye on them, and my kind are lazy if you don’t keep them in check. I ran a tight ship. The halls gleamed and the Grimnirs knew what was expected from them. Then Baldur and Nanna arrived.”

  So caught up in her story, I forgot this was an elaborate trap for Eirik. “Nanna?”

  “Baldur’s Asgardian wife.” She demolished the second apple. “First, I made sure she never asked to be disturbed from her place in the Eternal Hall. Then I told my daughter to make him head of her security. Treat him with decency. Make Odin and Frigg worry and rue the day they crossed me. Before long, Baldur fell madly in love with my baby and she with him.” She threw the second apple core into the fire and watched it with a crazy gleam in her eyes. “Then, they bore me a son.”

  The woman was crazy. She actually thought Eirik was her son?

  “A beautiful, golden boy, just like his father. But I knew. One look at him, and I knew he was mine. My son.”

  “Your grandson,” I corrected.

  “No. My son. He replaced the ones taken from me. Hel might have carried him and nursed him, but Eirik got the pure dragon strain from me. That made him mine. Watching him soar these past few days filled me with the greatest joy.”

  My stomach hollowed out. Soar? “Dragon?”

  “My older son only got some of the strain and crawls the waters of Midgard. A dragon with no wings is just a serpent. But Eirik…” She smiled. “He got the full strain, and he makes a beautiful, tawny dragon.”

  The goddess’s dragon was tawny. Surely, she didn’t mean that Eirik was the dragon? My mind raced back to every time I’d seen the dragon this past week. The first time it had appeared, the entire hall had gathered to watch and cheer. Everyone had been there, except Eirik. And since then, he was never around whenever the dragon appeared. And I’d thought he was a lamb. No wonder he’d been reluctant to learn how to create fire. He could wing it, he’d said. He breathed fire.