by Poppet
Throwing Marcy at my son, the shredding of her nightdress is sweet music for revenge's opera. She already knows her fate, but I hold up my hand, asking my boy, “Where is Lara's phone?”
He bays, giving me short wolf calls, explaining he left it at the front door.
Holding up my hand, I mutter, “Hang on, let's film this and post it on their creation. That interweb thing. Let the whole world witness their shame. Those who prey on the weak and defenseless deserve for their families and churches to know.”
Retrieving the tiny contraption, I'm forced to reshape, morphing back to accommodate human proportion, stalking through the dark carnage to the two who wait for me, her screeches now wails of despair.
Leaning over the prone woman, I slap her, hard, “Tell me how this works. Show me how the film function works. Karma isn't a bitch, you are. I'm the king of the dead and before you die you will be swallowed by a viper, you will be crushed and suffocated the way you crushed and suffocated the young women in your care.”
She's too hysterical, shaking too much, her words no more useful to me than maggots in shit.
Abandoning the idea, I wave my hand for Fenrir to continue, laughing when he shunts his enormous flanks between her thighs, panting her husband's stench into her face, riding the bitch so hard she slips in and out of consciousness with the sundering of her flesh.
She just revives, her screams so beyond bearable that it's only because the device vibrates in my palm that I realize it's ringing.
I know they use green for go and red for stop, so I press the green side of the bar, lifting the rectangle to my ear, “Mmm?”
Marcy's soured wail and soul searing keen make hearing impossible, so I tell the phone, “Hang on.” Stomping back to the perimeter outside, I pause once to yell to Fenrir, “Keep her alive! I want her ended properly!”
Shifting like a shadow between the trees at the edge of the property, I lift the phone, “Yes?”
“Where are you you fucking bastard! You leave her alone! I'm going to tear you apart, I'm going to make you suffer, I'm–”
“Hello Ewan, greetings brother. You still liking the sound of your own voice I see. If you want her, you come and get her.”
But she'll be snake shit by the time you reach her.
“Where are you,” hisses at me, his anger so wretched he morphs to eagle chief speech.
Damn, what is this place again? Scratching my head, I look up at the stars, plotting the ground via the map of constellations, finally arriving with my location. “I'm in Amberley, but not for long. If you want her alive, best you come alone, and chop chop darling berserkr, she bleeds like the feast goat. You and me Ewan, just the two of us. I'll give you a nice big kiss to give to your grandfather for when you die and go to Asgard.”
“Fuck yo–”
Delighted, I figure out how to disconnect the call. Accidentally of course, I touched the screen, but still, that should enrage him. The end is upon us, the final days are here, Ewan wants my blood and bones, how little the young learn from history. If Odin couldn't kill me, why does he think he'll be any different.
Stalking inside, I thump Fenrir in thanks, lifting the woman, shifting into air, blowing away across the sky, the air holding a woman on the precipice of death.
I'm the only god who can become air. Few recall that about me, and air cannot be caged, or slain.
*
Ewan:
He's torturing her! The sick bastard is torturing Lara! He can only be holding her in three possible locations, and I'm hedging my bets it's either Jotünheim or Hel.
Looking up at the thick bank of clouds, I beg them for a clue. They prefer to watch us outwit each other, they probably won't intervene, but it never hurt to try. I'm in Amberley, so I take to the sky, shifting into Eagle form, looking for evidence of a wolf and his master.
The air smells like blood.
Odin, please don't let me be too late!
Chapter 12
Witnessing death makes us need to celebrate life, carnally.
Therefore is war foe, or friend? For it does indeed fences mend.
~ The Gemini Journal
Leug:
Blowing in through the north entrance, I drop the foul human, sniffing the air for Jörmungandr. Reaching out through the rock, I feel for him, calling him up and out of the cavernous catacombs. I gave Lara my word, that means this woman must die outside the gates to Hel, not within them.
She will feel the same helplessness her victims felt, having someone big and strong hold them down, crushing their internal organs with his distended gut, forcing himself through their hymens, coating his dick with their virginal blood, suffocating their existence with his ruthless ego and sadistic libido. Digestive juices and the strength of a snake's constriction will certainly replicate some of that.
How dark and desperate must Marcy's victims have felt? How utterly helpless when everything in the world kept them his victims, the human system allowing this to permeate society where innocence is harvested for fun. This will be fun for Jörmungandr, and justice will be served.
The thought of that man's sperm festering inside the womb of the woman I love makes me angry enough to run to meet Ewan, to have an excuse to deliver my rage in all its might on a worthy opponent. But war is Odin's way, it was never mine. Sometimes I feel anger; this is one of those times.
Jörmungandr comes, his smile still one of love and trust. He knows his fate was not my doing, he knows who holds the blame for his incarceration, chained at the bottom of the ocean for a thousand years to appease a god scared of his own shadow, so he created an environment where he doesn't have a shadow – or shade.
Pathetic.
I point at Marcy, speaking mind to mind with my son, as his chief and father I can exercise this ability with ease, and he complies without question, swallowing the bleeding yet still breathing woman, not even pausing in his passage to slither outside, her inside him now, her last screams will be in the silence of his body, no one hearing them in their isolation, just like she and Steve kept the girl's isolated so no one could hear their shrieks of frustration and pain.
Carving a wedge through the snow, he leaves to digest her beyond Lara's haven. Hel is Lara's home now, and keeping her safe starts and ends with me.
Shifting to falcon, I fly through the tunnels, eager to get back to my celestial mate. As I round the corner to the gallery, Carmen waits with the biggest book this world has ever seen. It's giant sized, its original owner the very coward I wish to destroy; Odin.
I call to her, alighting on her arm out of old habit, catching a strand of her long silver hair and tugging it playfully through my beak.
“Chief, we don't have time for inconsequential flirtation. You must read this, and read it now.”
Women, they really do take life far too seriously. Acquiescing, I stand next to her as myself, the shift taking a moment to settle my vision and vertigo.
“Yes?” I ask, looking from her to the book.
She flicks it open, saying as she points, “Macala has thundereggs. If Ewan comes he will no doubt be bringing lightning with him as those two are thicker than pirates now, so be warned. And speaking of Ewan, he's closer than you think, a few hours at most–”
I cut her short, interjecting the biggest issue on my mind, “Are Lara and Deliah twin sisters?”
She nods, releasing the book to thud heavily in echo around the tektite cave, saying, “Blood sisters, born together, neither of them being born first.”
“Who is their father?” I push, urgency gripping me.
“Búri.”
“Their mother?” I pry, wondering who should be so lucky.
She closes her eyes, pinching the top of her nose above the bridge, “It makes no sense. He chose a human. Her name is not in the book, which is in itself impossible. She was fifteen, it says he came to her in a dream, and the shame was too much for her family when she was pregnant and unwilling to name a human boy as the father, sticking to her satanic story.
They sent her to a Magdalene facility, giving her children up for adoption. She is a cripple because they tore her open to enter into this life as one, together.”
Immediately I'm overcome with emotion, the enormity of my precious maiden is so vast in my persecuted existence. Hel is a small place compared to home, it can be constricting, but Lara has left a scent of holiness in my realm, washing the old away with a breath of beatific purity.
She has rejuvenated my holy spirit in ways only her quintessence can explain, as if she was sent to spiritually fortify me for the conflict.
Before Ewan comes I must show her what she means to me, and I must do so now as time on this plane is fleet of wing. If he harms a hair on her head I will shut Hel down, with him inside it. I will imprison us both to wage war for eternity if he harms the one already so wounded by ignorance and ruin. Then the dead will walk the Earth with the living, for this vendetta I will forsake all other responsibility, incarcerating the two gods born to clash.
I nod, dismissing the crone, saying after her, “Fenrir will return with his sons Sköll and Hati. Call Hel, assemble the family, she must greet you tonight for the hour of reckoning fast approaches.”
Carmen smiles, crinkling a face as aged as primeval vellum, “What will be will be, Logi. You are free, you are the only one who is. You are here to free us all.”
She says it like a solid fact cast through Odin's hagstone. The oracle has spoken, then let it be.
Turning on my heel, I rush to the refreshing chamber, to wash away the scent of bloodshed and a victim's petrified sweat before sneaking into bed with my sváss, ready to expose my aura to her, to lay all my lights at her feet, to instill my love in her eternally.
*
Emma:
Deliah and Ewan have been missing for ages. My sixth sense is in overdrive and I intuitively know something is amiss.
Leaving the beer hall where warriors are getting louder as the vats get emptier, I walk through the black glass tunnels of Buachaille Eite Mòr, heading for Ewan and Liah's chambers inside the highland mountain.
Knocking softly before I enter, unwilling to surprise her the way I did this morning, I call in, “Deliah? You here?”
She mumbles something I can't hear, so I step inside his gloomy chambers to investigate. She's in the middle of his bed looking like a widow, her eyes puffy from crying, blatantly distraught.
“Oh my god, what the hell happened?”
*
Deliah:
Oh fucking hell. What does she want? Like I don't have enough problems snowing me in without Miss Golden Eye adding to my issues.
What happened is none of your fucking business. Is she always this nosy? Instead of answering I give her my shrivel up and die glare. She's an overachiever getting on my tits.
“Deliah? Where's Ewan? Are you okay?” she persists.
There's no getting rid of this type of female, they're so busy playing the saint and rummaging in other folk's business. I need her the same way I need an enema.
Sarcasm is my friend, so I screw up my eyes and give her the look, “Do I look okay?”
“No. I'm alarmed. Can I help?”
Yes, you can fly after Ewan and flatten the mountain where Leug lives.
Akshly, that gives me an idea. I like saying akshly, it's my accent, and I hope I never lose it.
*
Leug:
Inside my respite cave I stare down at the sleeping angel. Her long frost-fair hair laces my pillow, her chest lifting with every breath, the shapes underneath her cotton vest enough to make me dizzy with blood loss. It's time to be a giant, to be strong, to be myself so I can adore her without getting faint with desire.
I'm supernatural, so is she. Unlike the other clans we don't wear the mark of Valhalla as we never gave Odin that kind of allegiance. Instead I gave her my fire, and tonight I must give her my ice. Then our fates will be intertwined tighter than guilt.
She's as rare as a hornfel, and just as enchanting.
Chapter 13
The powers rose,
the Alfs’ illuminator
northwards before Niflheimr
chased the night.
Up Argjöll ran
Ulfrun's son,
the mighty hornblower,
of heaven's heights
~ Hrafnagaldr Óðins
Leug:
Climbing into bed with her, I'm grateful to be back in Niflheimr.
It would have bored her to learn that it's the original name for hel, the place. The domain of those spirits without bodies, the ones who didn't die in battle for Odin, the dump of the surplus because he only collects warriors. He doesn't want the rest of the dead as they serve no purpose for him.
Niflheimr is a place of mist, ice, and darkness. Or as the human prophet Isaiah once wrote of it, that mountain in the north where the gods assemble. It is the most northern aspect of this place, where winter has no sun. Skadi's home. She was born in these mountains, and she loved the snow as much as I loved the way her hair seemed spun from it. Niflheimr, in the new language, would be considered the home of the Nephilim. The giant gods, Odin's halfbreeds and their offspring. The beautiful, the rulers, the makers and breakers.
It is the primordial mist world of fog and ice, and that's why hel is white. It reflects the glory of the forefathers, this is their original domain. Now it's the outer edge of the Sami region, they being the tribe who still live like Skadi did before she went to Asgard and confronted the murderer of her father. So Odin took Thazi's eyes, threw them into the sky, and made them stars to shine down on her. Skadi accepted it, because she loves the dark and the light. Odin knew her heart. He knew she'd never forget such a gesture, it resonated with her.
Sliding my hand up Lara's thigh, I tug her close, curling over her, sinking my fangs into her neck, injecting my stain into her blood, readying my mate for carnal recreation. Tasting her mind, infusing our souls, I call the fire to her skin, summoning it to ignite the blaze now simmering inside her subconscious, the effulgence visible, detectable, delectable.
Reverence hazes my purpose for a moment when her holiness coats my tongue.
Unprepared for how fast she wakes, the grip in my hair, yanking me over her shoulder, forcing me to relinquish my bite in her skin, I have no choice but to roll with her dominion or crush her under my weight.
“Lara,” I warn, my voice coming out as a chaffing growl, consumed already with the melody of passion.
Maneuvering with me, her hands grip my wrists, showing Æsir strength already blossoming within her when she pulls it off successfully, holding me down, a wicked smile playing her sensual mouth. Her graceful neck arches when she grinds her pelvic bone over my groin, laughing breathlessly, “You're just in time. I was dreaming about you.”
So tonight she wants to mark me, she wants the chase, the conquer, the submission, the sated safety of ownership. You got it girlie.
Summoning my hibernating strength, I sit up with her on me, slamming her flat onto the spread of bed behind her, resting heavily on her, cording muscles and extruding veins to pin her, savagely biting her lip, writhing my erection into the gap where my hips keep her legs open in female welcome.
She laughs into my mouth, gasping, “Don't stop, you know I love the way you rub me hard only to deny me closure.”
Bitch. My bitch.
Gripping her hair, I move fast, slipping a hand under her and flicking her over, shunting her hips up, forcing her onto her knees, biting as hard as Fenrir would into her neck, pegging her to the linen face first, averted for breath, but harnessing her body in an unforgiving lock, ripping her lace panties off with a claw prick, then sliding the finger deep into her, teasing, “You're soft and swollen. It must have been a perverted dream.”
She exhales savagely, trying to bite my wrist where my free hand rests for balance, my legs and our position keeping her contrived and compliant.
Reaching out she clamps her hand around my wrist, sinking short nails in, gouging the skin up my forea
rm, drawing blood.
Laughing gleefully, I retaliate, withdrawing the finger and slamming my penis inside her, shunting her so hard she loses her hold on me. Slamming violently, the glory inside her dripping over and into me like the sacrament of the soul, I lose my peripheral vision, the light within her rising up in effervescent carbonation, the frenzy within her letting me visually see the lust she hides so well.
Pumping, I punch her across the bed with every thrust, abandoning my restraint before her head lolls off the edge, both of us losing our balance and tumbling to the floor while I'm orgasming, my breath harsh and fast, my blood flooding muscle with such ferocity I feel like I've lifted a mountain, my muscles so tight, everywhere.
Fleeing, she pounces away, fiercely staring at me with impudence, “If you won't be a gentleman then I'll do it myself.”
Challenge accepted, I'm pushing up to tackle her when she bends over me and decks me a mother punch to the cheek, snarling, “Wait your turn!”
The she-wolf is in the house. My vargynja.
Giggling, pleased with herself, she seductively pulls the cotton over her head, pitching the vest at me, sitting in front of me on my own bed, widening her legs to the point of obscene, plugging that silken channel with three of her elegant fingers, using the other hand to agitate her clit. I can't help but watch, staring at it, instantly so hard it hurts.
Lying back so all I can see are thighs smooth and pale as Grecian marble, I voyeur on her masturbation, titillated by the noises she's gasping. Holding the perfumed vest over my nose, I inhale her sweet light, the very core color of her, watching and waiting, biding my time.
Her fingers rub in a frenetic arc, the arch of her spine alerting me to her impending climax. Dropping the cotton I launch, snatching her hands away, gripping the wrists so tight I know the blood flow has ceased, covering her sex with my mouth, flicking with my tongue, locking wrists together with one hand to free me into using three of my own fingers. The girth of my hand instead of hers elicits a shaky squeal, a low moan emanating as if she is creating an entirely new universe on the ether. Agitating the hard nub under my tongue, I continue plunging sensuously in and out of her, bending my fingers slightly to make contact with her O spot.
