by Linsey Hall
She sucked in several deep breaths to calm herself, then reached for the cabin door just as it swung open. She dodged out of the way.
Esha stood in the stairwell. “Hey. I was just looking for you. It’s about time for dinner. Lutefisk calls.”
At her feet, the Chairman’s ears perked up. He liked it as much as Sylvi did.
Sylvi tried to mentally shake off her disquiet. “Sure. Let’s go eat some freaking lutefisk.”
Esha gave her a weird look, like she knew something was up, but wisely didn’t pursue the topic. Instead, she said, “I don’t know how you can eat that stuff.”
Sylvi was grateful for the distraction and ready to play along. “Come on. I’m Norwegian. And he’s a cat. Of course we can eat it. And mind your own trough. You can eat the potatoes.”
They made their way to the stairs. The Amerfisk was relatively large at over a hundred feet. It meant there were enough cabins for each of them and the two crew members, for which Sylvi was grateful.
By the time they reached the galley, dinner was almost served. Lutefisk, potatoes, and tinned peas sat on chipped ceramic platters on the main galley table.
“Hey! Back from enjoying our fine Nordic weather?” Aurora asked from where she was spooning potatoes onto her plate. She was so different from Esha that it was hard to believe they were sisters. Aurora was short and curvy, with golden skin, eyes, and hair. Though they were both soulceresses, Sylvi was almost certain they were only half sisters.
“Nothing finer,” Sylvi said, appreciative of anything to talk about that would distract her from thinking about Logan. She studiously avoided looking at him.
Warren leaned over to kiss Esha. Chairman Meow sauntered under the table to sniff at Aurora’s familiar, a sleek black cat who Sylvi figured was a girl. She hissed at the Chairman.
Sylvi grinned and glanced up, only to catch Logan’s gaze on her. He’d adopted his false face again, but his eyes were still so familiar. She glanced away and set about filling her plate, proud of herself for acting like everything was normal when it seriously was not.
Though her conscious mind was determined to pretend that she was over him, her body wasn’t. He still made her breath come quick and it pissed her off. Though, in fairness, her breathing problems could be from anger.
She shoveled too much lutefisk onto her plate and thanked the smiling cook. The scruffy blond man smiled and nodded. He was the captain’s all-around helper, attending to both the ship and the cooking. She assumed mortals would need a larger crew to run a vessel this size, but both the captain and his mate were some type of Mythean species that dealt well with water, though they hadn’t said which. Her gut said some kind of fey, but she wouldn’t pursue it if they didn’t want to share. Some species were secretive and it was safest not to press them.
She carried her plate to the U-shaped bench that surrounded the main table where everyone was sitting. Esha and Aurora blinked at her and smiled innocently.
The only seat left was next to Logan. Which they’d planned, of course. Their loss though, because she was a damned adult and she could simmer in anger as silently as the next person.
She slid into the bench and tucked into her lutefisk.
“The captain said we’ll arrive in Svalbard tomorrow morning,” Warren said.
“Good,” Sylvi said. “I’ll get up early and try to perform a spell to help us locate the Retaliator’s island.”
“Once we find it, we’ll take a skiff and beach it,” Logan said. “With any luck, this’ll be done quickly and the Retaliator’s spell will only stop us from entering Svalbard via aetherwalking. We could be home by tomorrow evening.”
Everyone nodded. There wasn’t much else to plan in their attack other than everyone else acting as a distraction or backup while Sylvi tried to suck out the Retaliator’s knowledge with her staff.
Aurora and Esha started chatting about the witches back at campus—who they both mutually despised—and Warren slipped the Chairman all the lutefisk from his plate. Aurora’s familiar stood with her paws on the table between Aurora and Logan. Her head was buried in the lutefisk on a distracted Aurora’s plate.
“I like your friends,” Logan said softly at her side.
She jumped a bit in surprise and scowled. “You’d be an idiot not to.”
“I’m not sure this rules out idiocy for me.”
She scowled. No matter how angry she was at him, she’d missed him. It just made her madder. “I believe that.”
The sleek black cat who’d been eating off Aurora’s plate turned her big yellow eyes on Logan. Sylvi glanced at Aurora’s plate to see that it’d been cleaned.
“What’s this cat’s name?” Logan asked.
“Mouse,” Aurora said.
His brows rose, but he scooped up a big bite of lutefisk and put it on the paper napkin in front of Mouse. “Here you go, Mouse.”
The cat didn’t spare him another look as she set about devouring her prize. Because she was a familiar rather than a normal cat, Sylvi figured Mouse could probably eat the entire serving platter of lutefisk. Still, she didn’t think she’d have to share as long as Mouse had a mark like Logan.
“I hate that you’re not always an asshole,” she said to him.
“It’s my flaw.”
“Yeah.” Sylvi shoveled potatoes into her mouth to keep from having to say anything else.
Mouse put her paw on Logan’s sleeve. He sighed and gave her more lutefisk. Sylvi shoved more potatoes into her mouth.
Logan leaned against piles of crates stacked in the middle of the deck and watched Sylvi, feeling like a hungry mutt staring at a feast of delicacies. When he’d heard her leave her cabin, he’d followed her. She’d avoided him all last night, though he hadn’t been able to figure out the reason for the shift in her mood.
She stood at the bow, the cold wind whipping her blue cloak back from her shoulders. Her pale hand gripped the staff at her side and early morning light gleamed on her golden hair.
The mountains of Svalbard rose tall and sparkling white in the distance. She’d been attempting to determine the Retaliator’s position for the last fifteen minutes, ever since they’d gotten close enough to see the mountains.
He doubted she knew he was watching, but it didn’t stop him. Finally, she spun and saw him. Her cheeks were red from the cold. Her magic had dissipated and the blue cloak had disappeared, revealing only jeans and just a sweater to protect against the cold.
“You didn’t dress warmly enough,” he said.
“I’m fine.” She walked toward him, but didn’t stop as he’d expected. Instead, she brushed by him and headed toward the cabin.
He trotted to keep up. “Did you find the Retaliator?”
She nodded. “He’s on a small island to the northwest of here. Only a few miles away.”
“Good. Let’s get you some coffee to warm up, then we’ll tell the captain.”
She followed him down into the galley where they found everyone else digging into plates of cold cuts and bread. He poured a cup of the ship’s volcanic coffee and handed it to her. She scowled and took it.
A streak of satisfaction shot through him when she drank it and sighed in pleasure.
Sylvi looked at Jorgen, the first mate, and said, “The island we’re seeking is about two miles northwest of us. Will you tell the captain?”
He nodded, set aside the dishes he’d been doing, and headed for the door.
“Everyone ready?” Logan asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. I’ll just go get my coat. Cold as a witch’s tit in here.” Aurora stood. Mouse was draped around her shoulders and didn’t budge.
“What’s with you guys and witch’s tits?” Sylvi whispered at Esha.
Esha shrugged. “Don’t like witches.”
“I’m a witch. And you kind of are too,” Sylvi said
“The hell we are! We might have magic, but we’re not freaking witches. And neither are you. Don’t talk that way about yourself. You’re a demigo
d with magic, so you’re an exception.”
“I’ll take it.” Sylvi downed the last of her coffee and left the galley, hopefully to go get her jacket.
They all met on deck ten minutes later. Logan helped Jorgen lower the skiff over the side as the wind whipped across the Barents Sea.
One by one, they climbed down the rope ladder into the bobbing boat. The Ankerfisk would wait for them here where the water was deep enough.
The ride to the island was slow and wet. Choppy waves splashed over the bow and the small island ahead of them took its sweet time getting bigger. The outboard engine on the Ankerfisk’s skiff wasn’t suited to carrying five Mytheans and two cats, both of whom had turned to smoke to avoid the spray. They hovered ghostlike near their mistresses, waiting to do whatever it was that a soulceress’s familiar did.
“Watch out for the rocks!” Sylvi cried.
Logan directed the little skiff around the protruding rocks and aimed for the least dangerous bit of shore. When the bow scraped against the beach, Warren leapt out and dragged it ashore. Sylvi, Esha, and Aurora all jumped out and he followed, pulling the boat a few feet farther onto the beach.
They made their way quickly through the snow, which was easily ten inches deep.
“There!” Sylvi pointed to a large stone building sitting at the center of the small island. There were no trees for cover. They set off running, Esha and Aurora in the lead. Because they unconsciously stole the power of any nearby Mythean, they’d make a point to stay at least ten yards from their compatriots. The odd sense of weakness that had surrounded him faded as the two soulceresses pulled ahead.
As he raced across the snow, Logan thanked the fates that the Retaliator lived on one of the smaller islands without mountains. Within minutes, they reached the front gate of the compound. Stone walls rose thirty feet above the iron gate.
He, Warren, Ian, and Sylvi stood a short distance from Esha and Aurora as they turned their magic toward the gate.
“Holy shit! Hurry up!” Sylvi hissed. “There’re polar bears!”
Logan glanced up to see two enormous white beasts lumbering around the side wall of the compound like guard dogs, their black eyes locked on them.
“Zap ’em with your magic,” Aurora said, her voice tight with strain. “We need a sec.”
“I can’t kill a polar bear. They’re endangered!” Sylvi cried.
“What the hell does that mean?” Aurora grunted. The iron was starting to glow red and distort. They were melting it.
Logan remembered that Aurora had been locked up in the witches’ aether prison for three hundred years. She was a bit out of touch with things like endangered species lists.
“Got it!” Esha said. “Come on.”
They all jumped over the melted pile of iron that was hissing its way through the snow.
“Better move. I think those polar bears can jump too,” Aurora said. She set off at a run, Esha at her heels.
The rest of them gave the soulceresses a few seconds’ lead time and followed. The courtyard was wide open and empty save for a large building at the back. It loomed tall and gray over the gleaming white snow. The stones used to construct it were so huge that the building could never have been built by mortals.
The great double doors opened and dozens of people spilled out, charging straight at them. Their woolen cloaks flapped in the cold breeze, revealing ancient garments below. The swords and daggers in their hands were beaten iron, as ancient as their clothes.
“It’s a blast from the past!” Esha yelled as she charged them. Chairman Meow galloped along at her side, the ridiculousness of his house cat size defeated by the fierceness of his gait.
“Let’s go bowling for bodies!” Aurora laughed crazily. Her cat Mouse charged ahead of her and leapt upon the first enemy to reach them. Mouse tore out the man’s throat and sprung off his chest onto the next attacker.
Blood gushed from her first victim’s throat, but seconds later, he disappeared as if he’d never been there at all. The Chairman followed Mouse’s lead, and soon the familiars were black blurs of fur and fangs, tearing through the horde.
“They’re not real!” Esha yelled. She blasted the oncoming horde with balls of flame. “They have no souls. I can feel it. They’re not affected by our power.”
“They die just fine, though!” Aurora yelled as she cracked holes in the earth with her magic. The horde that never stopped spilling out of the doors fell into the earth. But there were too many. Some leapt freakishly high over the cracks in the ground.
Logan got close enough to start sending jets of flame at their enemy. Their eyes shined with wildness. One charged straight at him, yelling, “You shall not harm the divine one!”
The others gave a great cheer and surged toward them.
Divine? A god had created these sycophants?
Logan continued to shoot jets of flame, incinerating pockets of the horde. There were still hundreds, though, and for every one that died, another filled its place.
He caught sight of Warren wielding a long blade and Sylvi streaking impossibly fast through the horde. She’d used her magic to enter the aether and danced through it faster than the mortal eye could see. Her blue cloak swirled around her shoulders and her staff whirled through the air, crushing skulls and severing spines. She was magnificent.
“They won’t stop coming!” Sylvi yelled. “If a god created them, they are infinite. They are the madness of blind worship given form!”
So she agreed. It was likely that a god lurked within that monstrosity of a building, waiting for them. He continued to battle the horde as Sylvi streaked toward the front door, her blue cloak a blur. He pushed himself harder, calling up more flame to create a clear path for himself.
“It’s clear past the doors!” Sylvi yelled.
“Go!” Esha called. “We’ll cover you out here. As long as there is a battle, the horde will keep coming.”
“Sneak up on the bastard!” Aurora yelled. She laughed and opened a crack in the ground that swallowed at least two dozen of their attackers. “Say hi to your maker for me! He’ll be joining you soon!”
It was a setback that Esha and Aurora wouldn’t be able to accompany them, but they’d manage. He’d see to it.
Sylvi slipped through the great doors. Logan’s heart jumped into his throat to see her charge into the unknown. He pushed his way through the last of the horde, not bothering with flame, until he stumbled into the silence of an enormous hall. Gold covered every surface and gleamed in the candlelight. Ancient art covered the walls.
He caught sight of Sylvi’s blue cloak at the end of the hall and sprinted to catch up with her. She glanced at him and said, “He’s somewhere in here.”
“I’ll distract him while you take his knowledge.”
“Agreed.” Sylvi raised her staff and pushed open the gold-plated door at the end of the hall.
Logan stepped in behind her, expecting a receiving room or some other innocuous space, but ready to fight if necessary.
“Welcome!” The booming voice echoed off walls that were tiled with gemstones. Blinding light glittered from all surfaces. “I see you made it past the welcoming party. That’s unusual.”
Before he could blink the blindness away, Logan felt bindings wrap around his arms and legs. They pulled excruciatingly tight, crushing muscles and possibly even bone. He fell to his side. Finally, he could see again, but the sight of Sylvi on her side in a similar position sent a jolt of fear through him. Chains cut into her flesh and she squirmed violently against them.
“Now, now. You’re uninvited guests in my kingdom. This is hardly the worst that I could do to you.”
Logan strained against the bindings, his muscles burning with the effort. Nothing. He attempted to conjure a jet of flame to send at the rogue god, but the chains cut off his powers. They must be enchanted.
“Who the hell are you?” he growled.
“I?” The Retaliator gestured to himself. He wore a cloak of golden fabric. He
was an enormous man with mouse brown hair and beady eyes. Nothing like the gods of Asgard. “I am nothing. I haven’t been much of anything in millennia.” Rage and bitterness tinged his voice.
“Yeah, we get it. You’re pissed about something,” Sylvi said. “Well, spill it. You didn’t create that army of sycophants and make them call you the divine one for nothing.”
Surprise shot through Logan. She was egging him on to get more information, but she wasn’t doing it politely. The Sylvi he’d known who’d bowed and scraped before gods was long gone.
“My, my. Sylvi is quite put out, it seems.” The god gave the smarmiest frown Logan had ever seen. Insanity glittered in his eyes.
They were in trouble.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“What makes you think that, you worthless betraying swine?” Sylvi spat the words, her rage so great that the bindings no longer pained her.
She recognized the son of a bitch and it made bile rise in her throat. Thoreas Swaneton held some type of middle management position in the university prison system. He was so minor, and so unassuming, that she’d never paid much attention to him. If he was a god, he’d found a way to disguise his godhood and sneak onto campus, and he’d clearly been such an ancient, and minor, god that no one recognized him.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. His piggy eyes gleamed at her. “You have a vein just throbbing on your forehead. What? Did you not suspect that simple, unassuming Thoreas Swaneton could be behind the greatest plot in the history of time?”
“Frankly, no,” she gasped out. The chains had tightened.
“Oops!” His piggy eyes gleamed. “Did those chains just tighten?”
Stars were bursting behind her eyes.
“Lighten up, you bastard!” Logan roared.
The chains loosened just a touch. She sucked in air, but the relief was too little.
“Don’t get used to it.” Thoreas’ voice made her shudder. “I want to brag about my accomplishments a bit before I pop your head off and I want you to be able to hear me.”
