I scraped my hair into a high bun, winding it quickly and securing it in place. Wild hair was never the answer on such missions, and I could not risk it blowing in my face or moving at the wrong moments. It needed to be as secure as the rest of my body.
I rolled my shoulders and left my room, heading downstairs to where my mother sat on the couch working on her own beautiful needlepoint. Even if she had other, better talents, Mother claimed the work relaxed her. It did the opposite for me.
She looked up over her glasses, took in my attire, and continued her work as if it wasn’t a strange sight to see. It wasn’t, not in our home.
“Be as swift as the wind,” mother murmured, nodding her head.
“And as quiet as a mouse,” I finished. A small smile pulled at my lips as I stepped towards the door. “I’ll be back soon.”
Mother flashes a soft smile to me, before I slipped out the front door into the darkness claiming the streets, and I disappeared.
Big Ben chimed, beckoning, and I headed towards its sound.
Chapter Five
I heard the screaming first, the high-pitched screams of those still out on the streets at such a late hour. Though it was still early for bed, there were still many people heading home or drinking their sorrows away. There was no moon out at the moment, the orb hidden behind thick clouds, and it made the night darker than it normally would have been. That made it perfect for me. It was much easier to go unseen in the shadows as I made my way towards the main square, drawing closer to Big Ben.
Creeping along the alleys of buildings, I knew I would not have a great advantage from such a low point. I needed to get higher, get somewhere that could see the entire square in one spot, so when I found a rusted metal ladder leading up the tall building on my right, I smiled. Quickly scaling the rungs with hardly a sound at all, I crept along the gravel, careful to not crunch the stone, until I reached the edge that overlooked the square. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but what I found was nothing like I could have imagined.
Unnatural disturbance, indeed.
A woman as pale as snow spun in circles, firing a fancy-looking crossbow and kicking away swarms of. . .people? They didn’t look like any people I had ever seen before. Even from my vantage point, I could see the blue tint to their skin, but with how many there were, it was hard to see. The woman, she stood out easily among the darkness the others brought.
I pulled the looking glass I kept for such instances from my pouch and lifted it to my face, trying to peer closer at them. The details came into focus, and I wrinkled my brow.
The people attacking the snow woman were attempting to reach her, violently so, and they held strange-looking weapons in their hands. She did not waver from so many creatures swarming her, even though she held one of her arms too close, as if she had injured it already. The urge to help her speared through me, making me want to leap down and do something, anything, but even I knew my limits. I would be no match against hundreds, not against the mass of bodies. I would never even make it to the woman’s side. There was no way my weapons could take on so many. I looked up, searching for a way to drop in from overhead, but they were in the center of the square, with more of the blue-skinned people swarming in to fill it. There was nothing I could do, not without giving away my position and getting myself killed.
“Fuck,” I whispered, peering through the looking glass again. My mother would be aghast to hear the word slip from my lips, but it fit the situation too well. Besides, I never said it in front of her to warrant such emotions. I was going to witness this woman brutally murdered and I could not help.
And that was when I saw the pointed ears.
I blinked and pulled the looking glass away from my eyes, trying to clear my head just in case it was some sort of trick, but when I looked again, it was the same. The people with a blue tint to their skin had pointed ears. They weren’t normal people at all. This was not a riot or some human fight. It was something else.
Twin howls pierced the air somewhere further away and I jerked my eyes in their direction. Wolves in London? I crept along the roof to the other corner and looked down, squinting my eyes. Two pure white wolves ran alongside two men, and I blinked hard at them, too.
“What in the bloody hell—” I whispered so softly, it was snatched by the wind, but one of the men, one with flaming red hair, snapped his eyes in my direction. I ducked in surprise, keeping my position as hidden as possible. There was no way he could have heard me, not with my height and the whisper I had murmured. I still had a job to do, to observe what was happening and report it. I just had to figure out exactly what was happening first.
Moving back quietly to my original position, I pulled the hood of my shirt—a fancy addition, indeed—over my head and braved a glance over the edge again, at the battle that still raged. The snow woman was still fighting, still holding her own, and that alone told me that she was something else entirely, just like the creatures attacking her. There was no way a single woman could hold off so many, even if they were slowly closing in on her.
Movement to the left drew my eyes and I glanced over just in time to see the two men and wolves standing at the edge of the attacking creatures. Somehow, I heard their words as clear as day, even with the commotion around us.
“Kill them?” The one who spoke first was large, his frame built with stacked muscle. I peered closer with my looking glass, taking in details. He was attractive, long lighter hair tied at his nap, a trimmed beard on his jaw. He was dressed like a commoner, his shirt dirty as only a factory worker could be. The shirt stretched across the defined muscles of his chest and shoulders. In his hands, he held some sort of large hammer.
“Kill them,” the other replied and threw a brilliant green bolt of. . .something towards the attackers. I blinked in surprise at the man with flaming red hair. Though he was built slimmer than his friend, it was easy to see he was just as in shape. His strong jawline was smooth, clean-shaven. Unlike his friend, he wore a black gentleman’s suit and he had bottles hooked around his waist, bottles that I caught glimpses of as they glowed. With the looking glass, I was able to see that his eyes were green, but I knew I could only tell that because they seemed to glow with whatever energy or power he was throwing towards the creatures. I saw him glance in my direction again, but I held my ground. There was no possible way he could see me, not in the darkness and my hood pulled around me. I held still just in case.
The bigger man roared and swung his large hammer, lightning crackling from the end of it so suddenly, that I found myself ducking to avoid the bolts that lit up the square. None came close to me, but still, I waited until the lightning faded and the square grew quiet. Carefully, hesitantly, I peered over the edge again, not sure what I would find.
The creatures had all frozen, their eyes turned towards the newcomers. The white wolves growled menacingly in the silence, filling the square with their vicious snarls.
“Three Gods,” one of the creatures spoke, and so many of the other ones grinned in answer that it set my nerves on fire. Just what exactly was I witnessing here?
“Go back to the shithole you came from,” the big man commanded. “And I won’t kill you.”
The creature that had spoken laughed, taking a step closer, and with my looking glass, I could see a hint of redness glowing from his eyes. Luckily, I had not chosen a taller building, or I might have missed that detail. The creature was dressed like a gentleman attending the theater, his tailored suit fitting his frame elegantly, but there were pieces missing, as if he had lost them in the fight.
“You think you can command us, Prince?” the creature challenged. Feeling as if I was watching my own special theater, I leaned closer in curiosity. Prince? “You have no dominion over us.”
I pulled the small leather journal from my pouch and an ink pen and began to write down the details I was starting to worry I would forget. There were too many to remember at this point, and I would be forced to burn the notebook later, but it wa
s a necessary evil.
“Then you will die.” The man with the hammer gave no other warning. Without hesitation, he dove into the swarm, lightning flaring around him as he danced in a circle, as if the electricity came from him instead of the sky. But that’s impossible, I thought, though I wrote it down anyways.
The other one threw what I could only call bursts of energy at the creatures, dropping them to the street one after the other, decimating their numbers. He moved far more elegantly than the brutality of the big one, his fingers easily spinning the green glows and throwing them.
The wolves attacked anyone who got too close to them, ripping the creatures apart, but it took me a few minutes to realize they were all cutting a path through the swarm toward the snow woman as she continued to keep the creatures at bay.
“Asgard will fall at the hands of the dark elves!” Green power zipped through the creature that had yelled those words, felling him easily.
I wrote down the words ‘Asgard’ and ‘elves’ in my journal.
“We need to capture one of the bloodletters alive!”
“The one in the suit!” the woman growled, and her voice carried like a blizzard, gently and then all at once. “He’s the one that attacked me first.”
I watched as the two men cut through the elves, forging an easy path to the woman. The lightning and green powers dropped so many of the creatures that I was not sure how they did not decimate them all. How did the men control such power? I could only see the hammer on the big one, could discredit the lightning as coming from that like a Tesla weapon, but the other one seemed to generate power from his hands or the bottles hanging on his belt. There was no explaining away that.
One of the elves got too close to the magician and nicked his shoulder with a blade. I expected the male to be angry. I never imagined he’d lift the elf without any hesitation and thrust his hand through his ribcage. I stared with wide eyes as he dropped the lifeless body to the ground and stepped over it, a black heart slipping from his hand.
“Wicked.” I couldn’t stop the word from coming out and though I worried someone would hear, no one turned toward me during the fray.
The bigger one laughed as he swung his hammer. “You let one of the bastards get you.”
“Oh, shut up,” the magician growled, before he broke through the circle of elves where the woman waited. She pointed the crossbow in his face for a split second before quickly aiming over his shoulder instead. “Never thought you’d call us this way.”
I found it odd that I could hear all their words spoken, even with all the shouting and fighting, but it was as if the wind carried it up to me, allowing me to hear. I was always blessed with good hearing, catching things that others could not, but this was new for me. I wasn’t going to question it, not when it was working to my advantage.
“Didn’t really have a choice,” the woman answered the magician, firing cross bolts into the creatures.
Whatever else they said disappeared with the shouts of the creatures doubling their efforts, but I was able to catch one word that I wrote down in the notebook. Thor. That word rang with some sort of familiarity in my mind and I stared at the word, repeating it in my mind as if tasting it would remind me where I had heard it from.
The big one, who I assumed was Thor from the gestures of the others, threw his hammer into the mass of fighting elves, the weapon obliterating those who got too close to its arc. I tried not to cringe at the crushed skulls it left behind after it slammed into them, but it was difficult. Even for me, this was a bloody battle, and I typically enjoyed a good fight. Someone landed a punch on Thor’s jawline, but I could not tell if it did anything more than make him angry. The three people put their backs together in the center of the circle, the white wolves dancing at their feet and ripping into any elf that came too close to shreds.
The elves stopped as one, as if they were linked together in some way; many bodies, one brain. I had seen it mentioned by scientists as the behavior of ants, but never had I seen it in people. I looked closer, searching for wire or anything that would explain the odd behavior, but I saw nothing.
The elf wearing a suit stepped forward again, a smug smile on his face, as if he had won even with his dwindling numbers and no harm coming to the ones they fought.
Thor threw his hammer over his shoulder and relaxed into a position that should have been comical, but I knew it was all coiled tension, especially after watching him fight. All it would take was a single sign to act and he would.
“You’ve put up a good fight,” the elf said, clapping his hands in glee. “But you haven’t won.”
“It looks like we have.” Thor raised his brow. “You’re low on fighters.”
Indeed, the bodies scattered along the cobblestones were piling up, far outnumbering the living, and I dreaded the mess that would need to be cleaned up by morning. I would have to send an urgent pigeon the moment I could.
A smile split the elf’s face, so full of malice, I pulled my own dagger out even being removed from the fight. The three straightened at the look, sensing something was wrong. I searched among those still standing, looking for what could be happening, but saw nothing more than blood, bodies, and those still prepared for battle.
The magician said something low, so low I couldn’t catch it, so I leaned forward, just a little.
Whatever he said, the sky suddenly grew even darker with clouds, as if a storm rolled in. It inked out the rest of the calm clouds that had been there before and brought a chill chasing after it. I wrinkled my brow at the sky.
“You see,” the elf’s voice reached me again. “We’ve heard about your legends of Ragnarök, and we thought it sounded perfect.” I scribbled his words in my notebook. “Darkness descends on the world. Asgard dead, the creatures of the night taking over.” The elf grinned. “The gates of Helheim opened. Isn’t your daughter there, Trickster?” The magician did not answer the question, simply grit his jaw.
“Ragnarök is not something you create,” Thor boomed. “Odin has already seen it coming.”
“Is that so?” The elf shrugged. “Well, the Allfather is all-knowing, right? He couldn’t possibly be wrong.” His face twisted with savagery. “We’re tired of living like rats in the tunnels of Svartálfheim. To bring about Ragnarök, we only needed drops of blood from three Gods—a minor God or Goddess, a member of the royal family, and one who does not belong.” He held up his hand with three glowing dots floating there. “How convenient that you three showed up. We never needed to kill you,” he laughed. “We only needed a single drop of your blood.”
The golden spots danced together across his palm before merging into one large one. Thunder cracked overhead suddenly, and I cringed and held on, just in case lightning followed and struck me. It never did, but it lit up London as if it was the sun, coating everything in a blue light. The wind began to blow, violently, sweeping away the smog that always hovered over the dense city. I hoped there were no airships in the sky tonight, or there would be reports of them crashing the next day.
“What have you done?” Thor shouted, loose strands of his hair swirling around his face.
The snow woman looked up into the sky, her eyes wide. Her lips moved but I heard nothing.
“Nothing yet,” the elf answered. “But we’ve just set the gears in motion. Or rather, you have.”
“You’ll all die for this.” Thor took a step forward, but the elf never flinched. “No one will remember that the dark elves ever existed when I’m through with you.” He threw his large hammer, but the elf was too fast for such an attack, anticipating it. He easily stepped out of the way, the grin never once dropping from his face.
“I’d love to stay and chat, but I have better things to do, like prepare for the End of Days.”
And that was when my mind lost the battle with confusion. The elves faded away to nothing right before my eyes, the corpses littering the ground disappearing as if they were never there. No blood was left on the cobblestones, no pieces, no si
gn at all that a battle had taken place. The three people—the elf had called them Gods? —looked equally as perplexed as I was, staring around them in shock.
Lightning crackled again and the magician looked up at the sky. I followed his gaze, staring at a sky painted with vibrant purples and greens, unnatural colors, more common in the northern countries at certain times of the year. I had never seen them in person, but this felt like the aurora borealis Thod once told me about. There was both fear and awe on his face as he murmured something to the others, their eyes following his. I looked between the sky and them, so confused, I had no idea how I was going to report it. Sure, the sky was pretty, but—
None of the three people saw the steam-powered automobile that nearly ran them over for standing in the middle of the square, a horn blaring at them to get out of the way. None of them seemed to hear it when people appeared on the streets again as if nothing had happened at all, completely blissfully unaware, but I saw everything, recorded everything. Even when the officer who asked if they were okay, they ignored the man only for him to shake his head, no doubt dismissing them as being piss drunk and leaving them to their own devices.
None of them were paying attention, I found, because they were focused on the sky, and when I looked up, I saw exactly why. I watched as what had to be a giant shadow of a wolf ran across the clouds, dancing with the colors and lightning flashing there. It seemed to howl with the wind, signaling some great change I had no name for.
Gears of Mischief (The Valhalla Mechanism Book 1) Page 4
