The Deception Dance

by Rita Stradling

  “Fenrisúlfur... wait,” He squeezes my hand, “Raven, before I do this, you need to understand something. No matter what I say, do not, under any circumstance, touch Fenrisúlfur’s teeth.” He tugs me towards him, “Not under any circumstance, not even if it’s to save my, or Nicholas or Albert’s life, or all of our lives, or your own life. Understand?”

  I gulp and nod, “Yes.”

  He inhales deeply through his nose and turns back to his circle. “Fenrisúlfur...” Stephen speaks in a deep voice and language I do not understand. He breaks the long stream of words and whispers, “Chant with me.” Then louder, “We offer you the blood of a Christian!”

  My gaze snaps back to him and my eyes open so wide they would fall out if they weren’t attached. I’m not going to say that.

  “We offer you the blood of a Christian!”

  This is evil, entirely evil. Why did he have me talk to a priest if he was going to pull me out here to damn my soul interminably?

  “We offer you the blood of a Christian!”

  Now I see; I see why he told me to ice my insides over, and do what has to be done. But, I can’t say that to a demon, I won’t. It just feels so deeply wrong.

  Stephen must realize that I’m not going to chant with him because he switches to chanting in that same unknown language.

  The haze of smoke has not invaded the sky above, and the night is beautiful, too beautiful. It’s as if the weather didn’t get the memo that the world we know is disintegrating like a threadbare curtain, exposing the horrors it hid for so long on the other side. Shouldn’t the climate be as bleak as the rest of Copenhagen? But, no, it’s warm with the lightest breeze. But, this breeze doesn’t carry the scent of the rose bushes surrounding us; it delivers the perfume of rot, fire and old blood.

  The giant empty salt-rimmed circle and fighting forms beyond reflect the searchlight’s glare. Maybe it’s not going to work; maybe the circle will stay empty. Stephen said he only knew the theory, maybe...

  I blink and he’s there. I jump back but Stephen’s tight grip on my hand doesn’t let me flee. I have to crane my neck to look into his face, his slathering, snarling mouth. The wolf Fenrisúlfur is taller than any horse I’ve ever seen, and about three times the girth. His thick glistening coat is ebony black. His mouth drips with an oily substance that pools on the grass at his feet.

  He must still be inside the circle, but I feel as if he’s looming over me, his row of six-inch spears, where teeth should be, are positioned to snap me in half. And his growling maw descends.

  I turn to run, heading back into the church; but Stephen’s grip won’t loosen and he tugs me back to him. We’re going to be eaten.

  But no, Fenrisúlfur’s teeth don’t sink into my flesh. A big red tongue lulls from his jaws and with one lick the plate is clean of Nicholas’s blood.

  My stomach rings out like a towel; bile burns my throat.

  “Fenrisúlfur we have called you forth to parley!” Stephen yells up at the hell-beast. “We offer you this compromise: give us safe passage to where Andras the Grand Marquis holds court without harming the men who protect us and Raven Smith will not impale her palms on your fangs.”

  The wolf’s face turns to expose his bulbous black eye. He leans his head to where I’m sure he’s pushing against the salt barrier.

  I straighten up knowing I have to look confident; as if I could actually have the courage to stick my hands into those jaws. I hold out my palm, but not far.

  He, ever so slightly, pulls back. He’s scared of me; this towering demonic monster is scared of me.

  I push my hand farther out.

  He stands to his full height and cocks his head to examine us.

  “Do you agree to our terms?” Stephen sounds amazingly steady.

  Fenrisúlfur just examines us while panting and dripping oil but, after seemingly forever, his snout bobs once.

  “If I open this circle will you attack me or my brothers?”

  The wolf shakes his muzzle slowly, like the swing of a pendulum.

  “Will you protect us until we are safely inside Andras’s demonic nest?”

  The wolf’s head swings down toward us in a nod.

  Stephen doesn’t let go of my hand as he crosses to the salt circle.

  The cries of battle must have drowned out Albert’s approach because suddenly he is beside us. “I’m going,” his voice booms at Stephen, grabbing at our clasping hands.

  Stephen swings our hands out of the way and wheels on his brother. The snarl on his face is worse than Fenrisúlfur’s, and Stephen’s scar is all the more defined from it. “You left Nicholas to defend us against a hundred demons?” He shouts, “Is there no end to your selfishness, Albert?”

  “You do not understand!” Albert roars back.

  Stephen’s voice turns colder than his glare, “I understand perfectly. You’re about as subtle as that mallet you swing. Do you honestly think I don’t know about the wife you shame by hiding away? The last thing Raven Smith needs right now is a hammer swing and, at the moment, that’s all you’re good for.”

  Albert doesn’t move. He’s dripping with sweat and what looks like the same oily substance that spills from Fenrisúlfur’s mouth. He might have the appearance of a thunder-god but the expression on his face looks more like a little boy who just got scolded by his mother.

  “You go back and protect our brother. Help him, carry him if you need to, and get him to the doctors in Kastellet.” Stephen swings his arm toward where I can see Nicholas and the surviving commandos overwhelmed with adversaries, then drops his arm to return his glare to his brother. “Remember Kastellet? Remember the thousands of people in there? Your selfish acts have condemned them to a fate worse than death. If you were any kind of worthwhile human-being you’d go protect them now.” He points into Albert’s face, “You choose how many people are going to die because of what you’ve done.”

  Albert just stands there.

  “Get out of my sight,” Stephen’s says, voice cold.

  The expression that Albert gives us almost makes me feel sorry for him… almost.

  Stephen sighs as Albert turns, “You already know I’ll do everything in my power to save Hayvee.”

  Stephen turns back to me, any trace of his uncharacteristic rage gone from his marred but kind features. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He steps into the salt circle with one foot and drags it back displacing the salt underfoot.

  Fenrisúlfur’s mouth opens wider, his panting almost sounds like chuckling. He swipes his paw over the edge of the circle and steps down on the other side. He turns his side to us like a horse, but unlike a horse he crouches down for us to mount.

  My heart is fluttering so fast it feels like a humming bird trapped in my ribcage.

  “Ladies first,” Stephen doesn’t let go of my hand when he helps me up but he switches hands quickly as he mounts behind me. Fenrisúlfur is so wide only the lower halves of my legs hang over his sides. I can feel the rock hard muscles under his skin shift as he stands.

  The giant wolf crosses to the edge of our little clearing where Albert, Nicholas and their men are still slashing, swinging, and shooting to hold back the tide of demonic beasts. Fenrisúlfur’s chest expands seconds before a bone-shivering growl shakes the night. The effect is immediate; the demons scatter like cockroaches in the light.

  Nicholas slumps forward.

  Stephen’s hand clasps my shoulder.

  Albert crosses our path, grabs his brother and throws him over his shoulder roughly. He barrels away from us toward a distant gathering of small fires: Kastellet. I hope they make it there. I hope they defend it.

  Path cleared, Fenrisúlfur canters forward. His paws make a smacking sound with every fall on the oil and blood soaked grass. We cross into a street where neither the scattered demons nor the soul-bound rush us, they are perhaps following us, but I don’t turn to see.

  The street has no demons or people but it is by no means desert
ed. On every overturned trashcan, crashed car and burnt storefront ravens perch. I can feel their many black eyes watching me; their gazes are like thousands of beetles boring into my skin.

  I shiver. I need to talk about something (anything) to distract me.

  I lean back into Stephen so he can hear my whisper, “So what does Fenrisúlfur’s bite do?” Even though I’m only leaning into him for privacy, feeling his body pressed against my back is both comforting and… a little awkward.

  Stephen whispers back, his lips right next to my ear, “His saliva is infectious. If he bites you, you’re infected with Lycanthropy.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  His voice lowers even more, “It means you’ll turn into a hell-wolf, like him.”

  “Like...like a werewolf?”

  “Werewolves have a diluted form of lycanthropy, but the people that Fenrisúlfur bites don’t ever turn back into humans, if they survive at all. Also,” He pauses, “Andras would not thank us if you sent Fenrisúlfur to burn in the ashes of hell. Fenrisúlfur is Andras’s dearest ally; and therefore possibly the only other demon that doesn’t want to kill you, but, we can’t be sure of that. Andras rides Fenrisúlfur into battle and always keeps one of his elite progeny as a personal guard.”

  So there are werewolves, and probably thousands of other mythical creatures roaming among us. Then I remember, I saw a giant dog with Andras in his house in Italy; or, should I say his very own desecrated church. Now I know what desecrating a church entails. Cold prickles run down my back and arms.

  I peer around; every storefront window gapes open like mouths with glass shard teeth. There’s blood everywhere, but only ravens walk the streets until we turn onto another wider avenue. There’s a crowd up ahead. The people I see... I can’t understand what I’m seeing. My eyes sting. I can’t breathe. What are those demons doing to all those people?

  “Close your eyes,” Stephen says into my ear. “Close them; you don’t need to see this.”

  I do as he says. I pinch my nose too, before I get sick. My breath slowly returns. My voice is a bit nasally when I speak, “Soon, I’ll get to Andras and all this will be over.”

  Stephen wraps his arms around me, pulling me closer against him. I’m not sure whether his embrace is to comfort me or to gain even more privacy for what he says next, “You have to know...” he whispers, “…that just getting to Andras is not enough. He’s a Demon Raven, to him only the ends matter, you have to remember that. You need to convince him that the only way for you to be together is if he doesn’t break the seals of Solomon and open the gates to Hell. He has to believe that you love him, that you want to be with him, and that you’ll wait for him to find another inhabitable body.”

  “I’ll...” my voice falters, “I’ll lie.”

  “No, you can’t lie.” He says this with force. “Demons know if you lie, they have an internal lie-detector that is never wrong. You have to do what they do, lie with the truth. Think about it as… as a dance, you have to dance their dance, their dance of deception. You have to twirl around the truth, dip under it and tread around it ever, so, lightly. You can’t even put one foot out of place, because if you miss-step, if you slip, the gates of Hell will open.”

  I’m shaking now. “I’m so tired. I don’t even understand what you’re asking of me and I’m sure I can’t do it.”

  “Stop that,” he says harshly. “This is not the time for that. You can have doubts tomorrow when this is all over. Right now, you need to be strong, sharp and confident. I’ve seen you dance, and it was beautiful, you were graceful and coordinated and careful, those are the things you need to be now... but with words. You’ve been dancing within their deceptions, dancing their dance all along, Raven. They’ve been leading you, pushing you and spinning you around. Now it’s your chance, it’s your time to lead the deception.”

  “Won’t you help me, cue me what to say?” I ask.

  “I will, if you want me to. But if I accompany you in there, it’ll only cast doubt on you.” His arms tense around me. “And if I enter City Hall, Andras will kill me.”

  So, what he’s saying is that I have to go into a Demon nest, alone? I should have known, should have known all along that only I can face Andras. “What do I have to say? I mean...how do I lie without lying?”

  Stephen hisses instructions in my ear while Fenrisúlfur’s shoulder blades shift beneath me. Stephen, my choreographer, whose “dancing” with the damned rewarded him with his face nearly being split in two; but he’s right that this is my only option: I can’t fight my way out of this one and I can’t lie. I’m falling into the snake-pit with only my wits to get me out, and I’m so tired.

  I concentrate on everything he’s telling me, I try to internalize every word, but there’s a chorus of screams and it’s getting louder. What is happening to those people to make them cry out like that?

  I don’t want to know.

  I move my hand from my nose to cover my eyes, just in case some image could slip through my eyelids.

  I realized I missed something Stephen said, but I shouldn’t interrupt him. Should I? The screams and cackles and… oh, what is that sound? The noises are getting so loud that Stephen’s yelling in my ear and he’s still drowned out.

  Fenrisúlfur jumps forward, probably over something, and I grab his fur to keep my balance.

  Stephen’s arms pull away; his hand squeezes my shoulder. “We’re almost there, I have to dismount.”

  I sound breathless, “You’re leaving already?”

  “Unless you don’t want me to, I’ll stay...”

  “No, no, go,” is all I can manage.

  “I’ll be close, just out of sight, I promise.” He gives my shoulder one last squeeze; then, I can’t feel his warm, comforting body behind me any longer.

  I open my eyes. But the sight ahead is not as gory as I feared. As in the church yard, the demons and humans have cleared out of Fenrisúlfur’s path and all that’s left on the street is blood and garbage.

  The monumental red building ahead fared better than the streets that led us here (as in, it’s still standing). Dark stains splatter the red brick walls. A golden statue lies below its pedestal on a bed of smashed cobblestones. But somehow, the building still retains remnants of its majesty. Copenhagen City Hall is withstanding all the forces of Hell.

  A laughing shark toothed couple spill out of the gaping door-less entrance but with a screech of terror they hasten out of our path.

  Fenrisúlfur stops at the foot of a shallow stair that sweeps up to the entrance of the city hall. I know it’s time to dismount, but my legs aren’t listening to my commands. Okay, Fenrisúlfur will protect me until I’m inside; when I’m inside, I’m on my own.

  I slide down Fenrisúlfur’s heavy coat and land beside the golden statue; the statue, a nose-less priest, stares unseeingly heavenward.

  I pull my sword out of its scabbard. I’ve never held a sword before; it’s awkward and heavy for my wrist. The blade is plain but I can see the edge is sharp as a razor. I hold my sword out, as Madeline did, but there are no adversaries to threaten, they’re all cowering somewhere far from Fenrisúlfur.

  “Thank you for the ride,” the words sound foolish as I call over to the hell-beast, but no good being ungrateful. He doesn’t acknowledge me in anyway, just stands sentinel.

  I turn. The stairs are deserted but inside I can see hundreds of moving figures, demonic or humanoid, or probably both.

  I straighten my posture, raise my head, and pull a gun from its holster. I don’t know how to use it but I can wave it around, that might help. I take my first step, and then the rest are easier. I skip every other step until I reach the massive entrance. The moment I step through the door I hear the scrape of claws on pavement, it’s probably Fenrisúlfur leaving, but I don’t turn around to check.

  I keep my gaze fixed forward as the crowd of demonic bulls, dogs, beasts of every sort, disheveled humans, humans with wings, claws, horns, shark-teeth, some with
all of the above, all turn to stare at me. Most of them press back to clear out of my path, acting as scared of me as they were of Fenrisúlfur; but somehow, I don’t think it’s because of my fearsome butt-kicking abilities (or lack thereof).

  One lanky human man, jumps into my path, he giggles and does a little dance where all his joints bend in the wrong direction, he ends the exhibition by farting fire at me. The demons pressing in a line at both my sides screech with laughter and they fight each other to either get closer to the path, or farther from it. They start to press in; I swing my sword out and manage to push back the line a couple of inches.

  The square room I enter is massive, and completely filled with screaming, dancing fighting, and cackling demons. All the humans I can see are somewhat demonic: puppeteers, hundreds of them. Fires flicker from heaps and trashcans scattered throughout. The flickering light illuminates the second level balcony where a pack of giant wolves slather and prowl. The third story is made up of an encircling colonnade each column meeting in decorative rounded arches.

  On the third story, a man with giant black feather wings slumps over the balcony in the middle of the center arc. He rolls his head back to his shoulders stretching. I’m probably thirty feet below him, but I can tell from this distance that the face is not Andras’s. The man’s eyes snap open and fix on me (as if he knew exactly where I was), his emerald colored eyes.

  We just stare, locked in each other’s gazes. The screeching demons surrounding me might as well not exist (for all the attention we pay to them). The man, whose eyes alone mark him as Andras, leaps onto the balcony railing. He throws back his head and screeches so loudly it silences the demonic rabble. Andras doesn’t fly down to me; he springs. Where his bare feet hit the marble a crater buckles in.

  The demons might have backed away from me, scattered away from Fenrisúlfur, but these reactions are nothing to what they do in Andras’s presence. They stampede, as if their existence completely relies on them not being whatsoever in Andras’s way.

  Andras raises his gaze to me; his eyes are ringed in dark circles. The line of his nose and shape of his face suggest that the body Andras stole was probably handsome and young, maybe even younger than I am; but now, his skin hangs from his cheeks, gray and sallow. Cracks fissure up his leathery dehydrated skin on his neck and chin. With no shirt to cover him, his black and charred chest and scorched pock marked arms and throat are hard to look away from. My guess is the burns continue to venture down his legs where his black suit pants cover. The only visible feature of this body unmarred by Andras’s demonic-occupancy is a head of perfect blond curls, the trashcan-fires light the edge of his hair. His dark wings span out nearly fifteen feet in each direction, but they quickly sag to the floor.