The Afterlife Series Omnibus: Heaven, Hell, Earth, Wasteland, War, Stones

by Mur Lafferty

  I blinked. “Ragnarök? You’re not messing around.”

  “Would you prefer a more sedate end of the world myth? Everyone lying down and going to sleep, maybe?” he asked. “I can’t think of any that predict that.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, and got up.

  “Hey, Kate,” he said, grabbing my arm. “I’m sorry.”

  I looked down, embarrassed. “I know you are, Daniel. Just give me a little time, okay?”

  He nodded.

  One of the roads exiting the roundabout was made of choppy water, and a Viking skiff bobbed at the edge. We stepped aboard and let the current take us away.

  BOOK TWO: DANIEL

  CHAPTER NINE

  I moved to Tennessee when I was twelve. My father had transferred there, taking me with him after the incident with my mother. He felt that leaving the shadow of Boston and its prying newspapers would be the best thing for us. My dad kept me out of school for as long as he could, but as soon as I did return, the reporters followed, snapping pictures of me outside the school, shouting questions at my father, asking if my wounds had healed. They tried to depict me as a hero, but when my father wouldn’t allow them any interviews, they didn’t have a juicy enough story to continue the sensationalism. So they made stuff up.

  Of course, they got all the details when I had my time on the stand, and the newspapers went wild again. After the trial, we moved, and they didn’t follow. We settled in Tennessee, laid low, and Dad found me a good child psychologist. I entered middle school and was seated beside a girl named Kate.

  She hated me at first sight.

  #

  One thing He told me was that I would go where I was meant to go. And He was right. It was easier, now that she knew. I felt like things were clearer. I tried not to think about her, how angry she was, and what she had revealed to me, but that was like not thinking of a white elephant. Standing on a huge lime gelatin mold. That was full of cats. Hairless cats.

  I hated cats.

  We stopped for a break. She sat a little away from me; the distance was noticeably wider than when we usually sat together. I didn’t push for conversation. I don’t know if she was still mad at me or just absorbing the truth of what we had to do. I looked in my backpack; it was always emptier than Kate’s. Her backpack always had things in it that meant something to her, like her teapot and that foul tea she liked. Whenever I looked in my backpack, I had what He had given me. A water bottle. Clothing to fit my surroundings. Sleeping bag when I needed it. And a large lacquered container resembling an elaborate jewelry box. I had not delved into the box yet, although the things that happened in Elysium had showed me that I didn’t necessarily need to.

  I did have one thing that was mine, something He had given to me. You know how when you were greedy on earth, people would say you can’t take it with you? That’s a lie-you can, as long as your specific deity thinks it’s a good idea. At the bottom of my backpack was a small glass bottle with a wax seal. This bottle had sat in a drawer beside my bed ever since I moved to Tennessee. Kate found it once and asked me what it was-I’d lied and told her that I had picked up some sand from the last vacation my family had taken together.

  I shivered – the air had turned thick and chilly, and the road was enshrouded in mist. “Great,” I mumbled, disliking the sound of my voice here; I felt alone even though she was with me.

  “Kinda feels far from Heaven, doesn’t it?” she asked, and I was glad for her voice.

  “I know. Colder, too. We should probably get going.”

  She finished her sandwich and stood up. I squashed a momentary fear of undertaking this mission and momentary guilt about lying to Kate. All right, these were not momentary. But I finally got to my feet and started walking, pulling the chain of the sign of the Traveler out of my shirt. I didn’t recognize the symbol.

  “Kate, you know all the mythology; what’s this supposed to be?” I asked.

  She pulled out her own necklace. “That’s Yggdrasil, the World Tree. A Norse symbol.”

  “So we’re headed in the right direction. Good.”

  She chuckled. “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “No, you’re wrong, I’m thrilled to be walking straight into Ragnarök, the end of the world. Why would you think otherwise?”

  She actually laughed, and my insides unclenched a little.

  Voices in the mist caught our attention, but I couldn’t tell how far away they were. They seemed disembodied and yet right next to me, and then thirty feet away, barely audible.

  “What are you doing here, Old One?” A young woman.

  “I came to learn, Urd. That is all.” An older man.

  A shout of laughter from an older woman. “You want to learn? I thought you knew all!”

  The man again, amused. “I do not know how to purl.”

  “Sit, then. There is a little yarn left,” said a third woman.

  “Not much, though. Better hurry.” The older woman again.

  Then, we were upon them. They sat underneath a large respectable elm tree-a young woman about our age, a woman about my father’s age, and a woman about my grandmother’s age sat on a yellow blanket that seemed cheery in the dismal fog. A cloaked old man sat beside the young woman. He wore a floppy hat with a wide brim, perched oddly on his head to cover one eye. All four of them fiddled with yarn and knitting needles. The women were deft and efficient, but the man knitted with no dexterity at all, as if his needles wriggled of their own accord.

  “Holy shit,” Kate whispered in my ear. “I think that’s Odin and the three Fates.”

  “Odin was what, the king?” I whispered back.

  “Yeah, he’s to the Norse what Zeus was to the Greeks.”

  “Oh. I guess you’d better say hi or something.” She looked at me pointedly.

  “Thanks a lot,” I muttered.

  “You said this was something you had to do. So do it.”

  Kate was more assertive now. I didn’t know what to do about it. There was a hardness in her words, not cold, but I got a sense that I’d used up any slack I’d built up in our friendship and she wasn’t letting me slide anymore.

  I took a deep breath and raised my hand in greeting. “Hello, we’re-“

  “Sit down, Daniel, Kate,” the youngest said abruptly, and then smiled at me. She had red hair and brown eyes and had a serious, sexy librarian vibe going on. We joined them on edge of the blanket.

  “I am Verdandi,” the middle woman said. “My sisters are Urd and Skuld.” She pointed to the younger woman and the older, respectively. “Would you like some cookies?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. Kate shook her head.

  “Of course people had to show up to watch,” the man grumbled. “The one time I lower myself to learn a woman’s craft.”

  “Balls,” Skuld said. “You knew they were coming, Odin. And you go and tell those fishermen who worship you that their knitted nets are women’s work. See if you’ll get another sacrifice.”

  “I haven’t had a sacrifice in twelve hundred years, hag,” he said. “And I have to keep face.”

  “You and your face. I have no idea why you’d want to keep that old thing anyway,” she replied.

  Kate snickered, and Urd smiled at us. She pulled and unknotted black yarn from a burlap bag that sat between her and Odin. It went from her to Verdandi, who began knitting it to add onto a large afghan. She wouldn’t get very far, though, because Skuld pulled out the stitches from the bottom as Urd knitted at the top, rolling up the kinked yarn into a fat ball. Other balls sat in a large shallow bowl behind her.

  “I thought we would be entering a Norse afterlife, but it seems we’re in Old Knitters’ Heaven,” Kate said, smiling.

  “You, the herald of my doom, arrive here with jokes?” the man replied. “I guess he has the last laugh, as always, doesn’t he?”

  “You knew he would,” Verdandi said.

  “Who?” I asked, but they ignored me.

  “He’ll be here soo
n, Odin, and you can ask him then,” said Urd, looking closely at a knot in the thread before disentangling it. She raised her eyes to the sky.

  I peered at Odin, who leered back at me and bared his yellow teeth. The skin around one of his eyes was puckered and shiny, and I remembered that he was one-eyed. Norse gods. What was the deal with them? I wracked my brain. I knew the myths were far more depressing than most other folklore. Except for maybe the Japanese. I wished Kate and I could talk in private, but there wasn’t much we could say at the moment, in front of the gods.

  All I could remember was that Thor had a big hammer and there was that trickster god, a real bastard. Locki? Something. Managed to be both a mother and a father to some pretty scary stuff. I glanced at Kate and she shrugged.

  I opened my mouth to ask something – damned if I can remember what – when the ground began to shake. I was glad we’d sat with the foursome, as we certainly would have fallen otherwise. A horn sounded in the distance once the quake had ceased. It lasted a long time, cutting through the fog. Odin tensed, but the three women continued untangling, knitting, and unraveling.

  “What the hell was that?” Kate asked.

  “The sun’ll go out next,” Skuld said.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Odin glared at me. He opened his mouth and Urd elbowed him. “Daniel, dear, would you mind cutting this thread for me? I left my scissors behind.”

  I looked in my backpack and couldn’t find scissors. My stomach sank when I realized what she asked. I pulled out the box I hadn’t opened yet, the one God had given me before we left the Christian heaven, and lifted the lid.

  Yup. Scissors. I’d expected them to be glorious somehow: made of gold with runes etched along the blades. But this wasn’t Lord of the Rings-the scissors were simply silver with heavy black handles, like the kind my grandmother used to cut frozen mints. I handed them to Urd. She cut the thread and the sky darkened immediately. Kate gasped.

  “What—” I blurted.

  “The sun. I told you that, boy,” Skuld said sharply. “Pay attention. None of this is worth anything if you do not keep your two eyes open.”

  Kate’s face was white. “Wait. I remember. The sun goes out. Then the moon. Then-”

  “The wolves are on the move,” interrupted Skuld.

  “Whoa. Uh, Daniel,” Kate said, staring past me. “Your backpack is moving.”

  It was. I scooted away from it as it jumped once, twice. I reached my hand out tentatively and pulled it open. A fat crow flew out to the tree above us, where it pecked at a chattering squirrel and cawed loudly. Then it dropped to the ground.

  I’d seen a lot of weird shit since coming to Heaven, but nothing like this: a hand burst out of the crow’s breast, and then an arm. The bird split fully in two in a flurry of feathers as a grown man climbed from its interior. The bird skin, forgotten, lay at his feet, and he stretched naked before us. His scarred face grinned, and bile rose in my throat.

  “Thanks for the ride,” he said, hitching his head at me in greeting.

  Kate’s hand was tight on my arm as she whispered in my ear. “Oh shit. That’s Loki - trickster, shape-changer. A real bastard. He’s been imprisoned for hundreds of years with venom dripping in his eyes.”

  Loki blinked, his wide snake-like eyes puffy and red-rimmed.

  Skuld stood and fixed him with a glare. “You’re not welcome here, trickster.”

  Loki slithered – he actually slithered; I didn’t see his feet leave the ground – up to the woman and stuck his face in hers. She didn’t flinch.

  “I could gut you so you’d spill out like a pregnant mare’s bag of waters, hag,” he said. “This day is not marked by welcoming ceremonies. It is marked by war.”

  The horn sounded again and a deep, primal howl answered it, setting my teeth on edge and giving me goose-bumps.

  “Fenrir, my son comes,” whispered Loki. “Are you ready for your rest, All-Father?”

  Odin ignored him and stood, his old body moving smoothly. He bowed to the women. “Ladies. It’s been an honor. Perhaps some other time you can show me how to perfect this craft. I suddenly see merit in it.” He bowed, and his knitting fell to the ground: a sloppy red square.

  “All-Father, it’s not always been good, but it’s always been interesting,” Verdandi said. Urd had tears in her eyes, but Skuld harrumphed.

  “Get on with you, old fool. We all have our destinies.”

  He held out his hand. The youngest handed him the scissors I’d taken from my backpack. When the handles reached his gnarled hand, the blades melted together and elongated to become a spear with a black shaft. He hefted it briefly and tested its weight.

  He nodded once. “It is good enough.” He fixed his one eye on Kate and said, “Kate, It was a pleasure. And if I can give some advice, go with your first instincts.” He turned his back to Loki and walked into the fog.

  I felt breath on my neck and turned to see Loki so close he could have kissed me. I took a hesitant step backward. He held my wax-sealed vial in his hands, the only possession I’ve ever cared about, and my fists clenched when I saw it.

  “Megan trusted you to protect her. You failed her,” he said.

  “What?”

  He didn’t have a chance to reply. The horn sounded again, and more sounds came out of the fog: a snarl, the clink of armor, deep voices. The fog behind Loki darkened, a gargantuan shadow looming over him. It broke through the fog: a wolf whose size defied nightmares. Its fur was matted and its eyes ran with foul yellow stuff like a stray dog’s. But this wasn’t a dog. Not by a long shot.

  Kate swore and I stumbled backward against her. We went sprawling, all the strength draining out of my limbs. The women stood under their tree behind us, silent.

  “Father,” the wolf said, his voice like a sword scraping across rock. “It is our time.”

  “Nearly,” agreed Loki. “Daniel, we have work to do. I know what you carry in here.” He tapped the bottle. “Pathetic. Why do you think you haven’t seen her since you died? She doesn’t want to see you.”

  He tossed my bottle above his head and it disappeared into the wolf’s mouth with a crunch. I gaped as the wolf licked its chops. “Fear,” it said. “It is good.”

  Loki reached up to an overhanging bough of the tree and snapped off a branch. In his hands it became a sword. “Now it is time. Let us go,” he said.

  He strode into the fog in the direction Odin had gone. The wolf leapt over us and bounded toward the sounds beyond that indicated an army’s gathering.

  I crawled forward, still weak from shock, until I found the neck of the bottle lying on the road, the part the wolf hadn’t eaten. I closed my hand around it until it cut into my palm.

  #

  I don’t know when my mother officially snapped. My father said later it was postpartum depression that just never went away. She had seemed normal, a little moody, maybe, but nothing to make me fear her. Then one day I came home from school to find her in the kitchen, crying about a broken computer and scrabbling in a drawer for a knife. She shouted at me to go outside, but I heard my sister Megan crying and I ran down the hall to check on her.

  Megan hid in the corner of her room, clutching her blanket. I hugged her and told her it would be okay, that Mommy was just mad and she’d get over it, and that I would always protect her, but my mother was already in the doorway.

  I don’t remember the rest. Or, at least, I told myself, my father, the reporters, and the shrinks that I didn’t. But the next thing I allow myself to remember I was in the hospital with cuts all over my arms. My father, red-faced and exhausted, was sitting by my bedside, grasping my knee because my hands were so bandaged. He said I was so brave for trying to stop her from hurting Megan. My mother was confined to an institution, later found not guilty of second-degree murder by reason of insanity. My father divorced her and moved us to Tennessee to restart our lives. Megan went with us, her ashes in a jar embossed with angels, with a small portion of her in a glass
vial that I kept by my bed.

  The cuts healed, eventually. I was in therapy throughout high school. I never saw my mother again; my last memory was of her staring blankly at me during my testimony. I told Kate she died before we left home, but she was only dead to me. She died for real four years ago. I did not go to her funeral.

  I was only ten when it happened, but I carried the guilt of Megan’s death for the rest of my short life.

  Loki’s words did their job. Ragnarök began, beasts and gods and monsters clashed on a field beyond us, and I knelt in front of the World Tree and cried.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I expected Kate to snap me out of my grief. I think I wanted her to. She’d always been there to hold me, even when I didn’t want her to. But instead of her arms around me, a sharp kick brought me back. Kate stood over me, her hands on her hips.

  “This is Ragnarök, Daniel,” she said. “We have to be here for this. You can cry later.”

  Rage filled my throat so that I nearly choked on it. She was one of the most cowardly people I knew. Who was she to tell me to man up?

  Then she extended her hand to me and I took it, her quick act of kindness taking the sting from her words.

  A dirty rag hit me in the face. “Clean yourself up, boy,” Skuld said. “You don’t want to be remembered as the one who cried during Ragnarök.”

  I wiped my eyes with a lighter gray corner of the rag and wiped my nose. Kate watched me, unsmiling.

  “Leave him alone, Skuld,” Verdandi said. “There won’t be anyone left to remember who cried here anyway.”

  Urd looked through the fog, frowning sadly. “They will all kill each other. It will be over soon.” She began putting away the knitting needles.

  Kate turned to Urd. “So there’s nothing we can do?”

  Skuld snorted. “Child, this has been prophesied for millennia. Fenrir will devour Odin. Loki and Heimdal will kill each other. Hel will arrive with all of the denizens of her realm. Ragnarök has come. Nothing will change that.”

  Urd made a sound, a strangled gulp. “No. Something has changed.” She studied Odin’s sloppy red potholder closely.