"As it should be,” he responded. “If they believe the goblins are something to fear, wait until we are able to get some of my greater minions through the gates. Two goblins return now with the items you requested—if all goes well we should be able to destroy the seal before the end of the day. Or so you assured me."
"I believe so, Hades, though, as you know, magic isn't exactly my forte."
"As you've said. It has, over the millennia, become one of mine, but if it was in my power to shatter the seals, I would have done so long since."
She knew only part of the tale and, for some reason, Hades wasn't particularly willing to share with her the parts she didn't know. He was one of them, one of the immortals who'd arrived on the Mythrender, though she did not remember him. That, he told her, was due to him exercising his power of forgetfulness on all the immortals after his battle with Deryk Shea and the magus Thorne. As far as he knew, Shea was the only immortal who even recalled that he existed, and, after his exile, had probably just as soon forgotten it himself.
The mortals remembered, dimly. Legends of the Lord of the Underworld took on new meaning when one stood here, looking upon the face of Hades himself, and seeing his creatures with one's own eyes.
"While we wait, Hades, may I hear more of your story?” she asked carefully, not sure what his reaction would be. At times he seemed amused by her probing. At others, he grew infuriated and sent her from his sight.
Maybe now, as they approached the moment when his return became inevitable, he would deign to speak of things he'd long kept hidden. He stood, a massive human shape emerging from the cradle of his throne and slowly descending the steps of his dais. “You wish to know more, Sif? Should I tell you how I once sat at Shea's right hand, how I was once the First Officer, the Science Officer, aboard the Mythrender? How when Loki created his army of monsters, I lent him the service of my equipment, my own knowledge? How they have all forgotten that there were three bio-tech experts aboard?"
One of the small glowing orbs disengaged from the wall and followed him, to hover some ten feet above and behind him. He loomed over her, dressed in a shimmering blue robe, black hair falling in midnight waves over his shoulders and down his back. For the first time she realized that Hades was nearly twice her height, and probably weighed three times her own hundred and five pounds.
"After Loki was forced to aid in the destruction of his monsters, I continued our work, in secret. I am much more ... circumspect ... than the Trickster ever was. He is not half as clever as he believes.
"My first success came with the dragons. Yes,” he said, noting the shocked expression on her face. “They were my doing. I took the genes from dozens of earth-bound remnants of the dinosaurs, and crafted them into intelligent, magic-wielding beasts of great power.
"I never meant them to escape me, but I underestimated the skill with which they were crafted. They were clever beyond my expectations, and found a way to flee my dominion. But our kind hunted them across the world, killing them where they were found, except for a few they were able to parlay with—mostly the ones who settled in the Far East.
"They betrayed me to Shea, of course, and he confronted me. What could I do? I admitted my part, and accepted his censure. But I did not tell him of my other work. That I had found the last remains of the Old Ones—the Faerie Folk—and promised to restore them in return for them granting me power and status among them.
"Our alliance lasted nearly a thousand years, during which the rest of you knew nothing of what I was doing. Out of a few marginal bloodlines, interbred to the point where congenital diseases were slowly driving them all to extinction, I helped them adapt and change as they needed to do.
"How was I to know that the courts had their own agenda? That they wished to take back the world that was theirs before the humans came?” He shook his massive head in a gesture that remotely resembled contrition. “When that war began—the war that humans barely remember at all and our own people have been forced to forget—” he smiled thinly, in consideration of his own power that made that possible, “I was forced to make a decision. Either I could fight on the side of my people—the immortals—or I could finally throw in with the Fey and take my rightful place as a ruler among them.
"Which would you have chosen?"
She took it as a rhetorical question. The answer was, after all, quite obvious. He'd apparently meant it as such, since he continued without waiting for a reply. “The rest of the immortals, with their human allies, won the war, as they had to do. They had iron, and steel, which half of the Fey cannot abide. Their human mages, though not as powerful as those of the Fey, were far more numerous. It was a fucking slaughter."
She found herself nodding, though she remembered none of this.
"Shea, and Thorne, punished us by creating this sub-dimension—this Underworld—and exiled us to live here for eternity, cut off from the outside world.
"And here we would have remained, if not for you finding your way here. If you don't remember—and I know you don't—how did you manage it?"
It had been purely by accident. She'd been meaning to travel to one of the Enemy stronghold universes, where she'd planned on picking up a few artifacts to help her in her own war against her brethren. Something had gone wrong and the gate that opened had led here, not outside of this universe at all. She still didn't know what had caused it.
That had been a long time ago, of course. Nearly twelve centuries. Not long after she'd decided she'd rather serve the Enemy than spend one more day living under the restrictions of the Pact. She wasn't about to tell Hades that, however. “I have my resources. So, where are those goblins with our treasure?"
He frowned. “I don't know. They should have returned by now."
Only one real doorway to the Underworld existed. It had been fashioned at the beginning, and sealed by some spell of Thorne's, but had, rather shortsightedly, as far as she was concerned, been designed to specifically trap Hades and anything with a purely Fey signature. A human, or another immortal—assuming they knew how to find the gateway—could come and go at their leisure.
When Sif had agreed to help in the creation of an army of creatures that could pass between the two worlds, the bargain had been sealed. For her help, Hades promised the help of his court on behalf of her masters.
And so it was. “Can you trace them? If you can find them, I can go to them and retrieve the objects, if nothing else."
He considered it, then nodded. “Give me a few moments.” He whirled, and stalked back to his throne. The little ball of light followed him and she was once again plunged into twilight.
* * * *
Deputy Sheriff Sarah “Nemesis” Breed crouched in the alley behind her squad car, a twelve-gauge Remington cradled in her arms. The goblins crouched behind a dumpster, giggling. She fumbled at her belt for another pair of shells.
She aimed a glance toward the alley mouth, where another car sat, providing cover for a similarly crouched a pair of city cops. She motioned with her left hand and they came around the car, their weapons out and ready. The moment they were the most vulnerable, she popped up and fired the shotgun at the dumpster.
The plan had been to have them join her behind her car and help pin the creatures until one of them could creep into good firing position. As the two cops sprinted down the alley, a strange swirling mote of light appeared a few yards in front of them, quickly coalescing into a human figure, that of a short blond woman with a long sword hanging from one hip.
She clothes-lined one of the cops, her arm striking across his chest with shocking impact. She kicked him in the head as he crashed to the ground. The other, attempting to turn his pistol on her, barely had time to swivel his upper body before she was no longer there. Moving like light made physical, she slipped around beside him and, drawing her weapon in one casual motion, sliced him nearly in two with one powerful left to right back-slash.
Aiming a glance back at the dumpster, Breed assured herself that they weren't ab
out to come out firing, and quickly loaded as many shells into the shotgun as it would hold. She stood, raising the stock to her shoulder.
"Ordinarily I don't have any real interest in the fate of any goblin,” the woman said, flicking blood from the end of her weapon onto the cold concrete of the alley. The sword, Breed realized in a flash of disjointed reality, wasn't formed out of steel, but out of some kind of purple glass. “But these two carry items of importance to me, so I'm afraid I can't allow you to destroy them.” The purple sword seemed to throb with some inner light.
Breed knew what she was immediately. One of the immortals, though she couldn't put a name to her. Her shotgun was a paltry defense against such a creature as this. She knew it, but she had nothing else. “Stop. I'm warning you."
The woman laughed and did stop, a wide, disbelieving smile spreading across her face. “You have courage, woman. I respect that. Too few women do, and I am reluctant to slay a superior example of your insipid species. But I am running out of time and you are wasting entirely too much of it. I must have those goblins."
No human eye could have tracked her charge. No normal human eye. But Nemesis Breed was a para-human, her primarily mortal DNA mutated by Loki's virus into something not quite mortal anymore.
She aimed carefully, waited until the immortal was nearly within striking range, and squeezed the trigger. The tight spread of the buckshot, coupled with the blond woman's incredible momentum, was enough to nearly decapitate her.
She lurched back away from the impact, blood spraying from her ruined neck, head hanging at an awkward angle, nearly severed completely and held on by only a slender cord of tissue. Breed jacked the pump and fired two more times, aiming directly for the eyes.
* * * *
Sif screamed, blinded and nearly paralyzed by the multiple shocks to her system, one after the other. Impossible! her mind screamed. No mortal should've been able to target her.
Even blind and severely injured, she was not completely vulnerable. She pawed at her belt, found the small gemstone hidden there, and willed it to life.
* * * *
A form of light so dark as to be almost black surged outward, enveloping the whole alley for the merest fraction of a second. When it faded, the woman had gone.
Breed fell to her knees, breath coming in deep, harsh gasps. She knew she shouldn't have survived this, and had only Loki to thank that she had. The thought was sobering.
* * * *
Shea hurled the newspaper across his office, where it exploded into multiple sheets that swirled softly to blanket the place like dirty snow. “Goddam it!"
"Oh, I'm sure that's helpful,” Athena murmured, unruffled by this uncharacteristic display of temper.
"Well—dammit—you mind suggesting something that will be helpful? Like how a single thrust through the chest could have killed that Malice character? Or who's behind these bloody goblins?"
"I wish I knew,” she replied tersely. “But we'd best keep in mind that something does exist that can kill us that easily. And I already shared with you what Loki and I learned about the goblins."
Shea's face twisted in disgust. “I hardly want to credit that,” he growled. “Who would do that to children?"
She shook her head, not in denial, but in an echo of his disgust. “I don't know. Loki says he could have done it, but he wouldn't. I believe him."
"Yeah. He's a dipshit sometimes, but not an asshole of that caliber."
"There's something else. Some of them have shown signs of being several hundred years old. They don't suffer from cellular decay."
"Immortal?"
"Uh-uh. Not like us. Just immune to aging. They can still die, fairly easily—all things considered. They're hardy, but nowhere near as tough as we are."
"That's good, I guess. Fuck. Children.” He sighed heavily. “I assume it's irreversible."
She nodded hesitantly. It wasn't something either of them wanted to think about at the moment. “They're strong, fast, and tough. If they were any more intelligent, they'd be seriously dangerous. As it is they're causing more trouble than the human authorities can deal with."
"Ain't that the truth.” He ran a palm across the three days growth of beard on his cheek and grimaced. “We need more information."
"I don't even know where to start loo—"
The door slammed inward and Breed stormed in, covered in half-dried blood. She had a wild look in her eyes and her on-duty ponytail hung askew and partially unbound. “You two mind telling me why one of yours just tried to fucking kill me?"
Shea fired a razor glare at Athena, who sniffed. He still hadn't quite forgiven her for telling Breed everything she had. She didn't regret it, though. Especially not after finding out she'd been infected with Loki's para-virus. As a para-human she was almost one of them anyway. At least so far as she was concerned. Shea didn't quite agree, but that was between them.
"What do you mean?” she asked the woman, in as calm a voice as she could manage. She really didn't like the sound of this.
"We had two goblins pinned down in an alley, then this little blond bitch shows up with some fucking glass sword and takes down one of the TPD cops I was working with, then cuts the other one in half. She wanted the goblins, she said, and was going to kill me for not falling at her feet when she told me this.
"What happened?” Shea wanted to know. He exchanged a meaningful look with Athena she caught immediately. So what is she doing alive, then?
"I shot the bitch. With a twelve gauge at close range. Nearly took her head off with the first shot, then kept pulling the trigger. I'm not sure what I would've done next, since she tapped her heels together and said ‘there's no place like home’ or some shit and fucking disappeared."
"Wait a minute. Short, blond—did she have a really short haircut?"
"Yeah. So you know who she is?"
Athena could hear Shea's teeth grinding from halfway across the room. “Sif."
"Sif? Like the Norse Goddess?"
"That's her,” he answered, mouth pinched angrily. “I've been wondering where she'd gotten off to. You said she wanted the goblins?"
"Yeah,” Breed answered. “Said that she normally didn't care what happened to them, but these two were carrying something she wanted."
"Huh. That brings a few questions to mind. Hermes!"
The whirlwind flung itself through the open door, the sheets of newspaper tossed about in the sudden gale. Athena beat one out of the way and waited for the wind to die.
The boyish immortal materialized, eyes unmistakably haunted. “What?"
"Feeling a bit over-worked there, Hermes?” Shea asked, a hint of a teasing smile touching the corner of his lips.
"Or something,” Hermes replied curtly. “Half of my couriers are afraid to do their jobs anymore. The goblins have them totally freaked out."
"Well, we might have a line on something that could help. I need you to find Sif."
"Sif?” He shot a glance at Athena. “Last I remember she was all buddy-buddy with Athena here."
"I haven't seen her in months,” she said.
"Sounds about right. I'll see if I can track her down. Be right back.” The whirlwind returned and, in the blink of an eye, vanished once again.
He wasn't gone long. When he returned he swept up the newspaper and handed it back to Shea, neatly folded back together, as the wind died around them. “I can't find her."
"What do you mean—you can't find her?"
"Isn't that obvious? I can usually find another immortal just by thinking of them. I hit the street, concentrated on Sif, and went exactly nowhere. She's not somewhere I can trace her."
"Which means—” Athena began.
"—she's not in this universe,” Shea finished. “Fuck. She's gone over."
"Only explanation,” Athena agreed, a little reluctantly. She'd actually come awfully close to friendship with the woman before she'd disappeared on them. It didn't seem right, but she had to admit it was possible.
&nbs
p; "She'll be back. Hermes—at least once a day I want you to try a search on her. If you find her, return and get me. Understood?"
He gave a mocking salute in response. “Aye, aye, Captain."
"Don't be a smartass,” Shea growled. “Get out of here. Go do something useful."
They stood in silence for a long moment after he'd left. Breed broke the stillness first. “So she's one of you, but you think she's joined the Enemy?"
"It appears that way.” Shea groaned, throwing himself into his chair and glaring at her over his desk. “I want to know what she knows about these goblins."
"You and me both, Deryk. You're a mess,” she told Breed. “Unless you want to draw screams on the street, you'd better get somewhere and clean up."
"I'm heading home—I'm going to do my report via e-mail. The city detective released me from the scene. I didn't know what to tell him, but we did manage to get one of the goblins, at least. Doesn't make up for the dead cop, but...” She blew a long, shuddering breath through her nose, staring fixedly at the floor between her feet.
"Just tell them as much of the truth as you can,” Shea advised. “Describe Sif, but don't identify her. And don't, under any circumstances—"
"Tell them anything about you guys. Yeah, I know the drill. If you find her, make sure to give me a call.” She marched out, back straight but eyes downcast.
"She feels responsible for the cop's death,” Athena observed, after she'd gone.
"She shouldn't.” Shea had an odd look in his eye, as if he'd come to a decision he didn't like very well. “Hey, I've got stuff I need to do. I'll talk to you later."
Recognizing the dismissal for what it was, Athena left.
Eleven
It took him fifteen hours to reach the gate, all the while cursing the lack of foresight that prompted him to have it placed so far from any outpost of civilization. He imagined that, these days, nothing was that far from civilization, but, regardless, the highest peaks of the Himalayas were just about as remote as you could get.
Loki's Sin Page 14
