by Kira Brady
He caught her hips and drew them to meet his. Her body was slender as a whip, muscled like a dancer. He wanted to feel all of it. Here, alone in the dark, they met as equals. There were no witnesses but the ghosts who haunted their dreams, and the adrenaline drowned out even those.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and raked her fingers over the muscles in his back. A fast, desperate grab on both their parts. Their bodies too long a hands-off zone, but the dark released the forbidden.
Grace must feel it too. The past slid away. This moment existed for only them, and they existed for this moment.
Leif feasted on her lips. She met his tongue stroke for stroke. Sensation spiraled through him. The heat of her greedy hands and the press of her heated body. The tangle of mouths. Her curves beneath his questing fingers, her solid hips, her firm derriere.
Cupping his hands beneath her ass, he lifted her so that she fit tightly against his iron cock. Her legs clamped around him, pressing close. Ishtar, be merciful. He might have come right there.
She never stopped moving. Her nails scraped his skin, driving him wild. He was trying to be a gentleman, but she didn’t want gentle. She said as much with her body snaking around his. She wanted to go so fast she couldn’t think, to cast out the demons that drove her.
He could do this for her. He could make her forget. He could run her ragged until she didn’t remember her own name, squeeze every last drop of passion and pain from her body, leave her languid as sea kelp washed upon the shore.
He wanted to.
He wanted to be the white knight that swept her off her capable feet, the man she turned to when the storm thundered.
She ground herself against him. Her hands tangled in his hair. Her teeth clamped down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. It would heal her, and she took it as her right. The darkness raged up inside him, all semblance of control thrown over for a moment as his primitive self demanded he take what was offered and drive himself into her sweet bliss.
She sucked his tongue into her mouth. He saw stars. But his civilized part heard the sorrow behind her moans. And his civilized part felt the shaking of her limbs and tasted the desperation in her kiss. No man was a saint, him least of all, but civilization depended on man controlling his instincts. Without that fierce self-restraint he was no better than Kingu.
Leif waited a beat for his blood to heal her wounds, and then he softly disengaged. He pressed his forehead to hers. Her heavy breathing bordered on sobs. His forearms supported her weight, while his fingers swept small, soothing circles across her back.
“It will be okay,” he whispered.
The tension slid out of her like a body giving up the ghost. She slipped her legs from around his hips to touch the ground. She fell into his embrace, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. He held her as she cried.
Chapter 16
Leif felt the moment she shut down. Her body tensed as she slammed home the door to her inner self. Her iron mask hid that raw emotion from the world. Too late. She couldn’t hide it from him. Now he knew. She could fool herself, but he’d seen the truth.
She pushed her spines out like a porcupine and untangled herself from his embrace. Reluctantly, he let her go. Anger covered her vulnerability. He could see passion radiating there, and he wanted some of it. She was so vibrant. Alive. Pulsing with a hungry glow that he would never share.
“I got the Tablet,” she said. She pulled the broken stone from her pocket and held it out.
He didn’t take it.
She stuffed it back in her pocket. “Oscar is dead.” Her voice broke.
“I’m sorry.”
“After all this death, I keep thinking it’ll get easier—”
“It never does. The day you cease to care is the day you succumb to the darkness.”
She turned her back on him. “What would you know?” she sneered. “You can’t die.”
“No,” he growled, “but I’ve watched everyone I care about pass on, and I can tell you this: Time does not heal all wounds. It just dulls the pain.”
“You don’t understand. My parents, Oscar, everyone leaves. Who do you miss—Norgard?” She laughed. “He was a psychopath. You don’t know anything about family.”
“My mother had other children, and they had children. I’ve watched hundreds of them pass through this world—”
“Like you care about humans.”
He grabbed her shoulder and turned her to him. “I’m immortal, but I’m not made of stone. You haven’t said good-bye to Oscar or your parents. You’ll see them again. I won’t. When I say good-bye, it’s forever. You know what’s worse than watching them die? Watching them throw their lives away and wasting such a precious gift. Drinking themselves into early graves. Fighting just to prop up their egos. The sins of the father carried on down the family line. It sickens me. You have this soul that shines brighter than a sunburst. If you could only see it as I do. You live in a blink, but you love in a solar storm.”
Her eyebrows drew up. Her beautiful lip curled. She didn’t believe him. “Jealous?”
“Yes, damn it, I’m jealous. Jealous of a mortal. Sven used to laugh at me.” Leif flexed his arm. “Who wouldn’t want to be Drekar? Power, charisma, sex appeal. My body will never age, never wrinkle, never suffer such indignity as a bruise or scrape. But I’m jealous of you who will grow old and die only to be reunited with your loved ones in the afterlife.” He wouldn’t. Year after year, the world turned around him, and the fires that lit those little mortal lives flared and died. He felt the cold leech into his bones, never to feel that warmth no matter how close he drew to its source. And the shadows and the darkness inside his breast grew heavy, jealousy encased in ice.
Who could blame Sven for wanting to douse that fire?
Her face softened. He didn’t want her pity.
“You know what Sven would tell me?” Leif asked. “‘You still care too much,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t worry; it will fade with time.’ That’s what I’ve always been afraid of. The moment I stop caring about one more pitiful, mortal life will be the moment the darkness has won. I will become the monster Sven was. The monster you believe me to be.”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t lie to me. There is too much between us for that.”
Asgard’s retinue rescued them. Must be nice being so all important, Grace thought. They brought fresh clothes and food and too much wine. Someone had designed and sewed a new outfit for Grace, which a petite blond woman in an apron dress delivered to replace the shredded, blood-and-mud-stained threads Grace had been wearing. In it, she felt like Catwoman. The black leather pants hugged her backside. The new corset top extended over her chest and down to kiss her hips. Movable, breathable, wearable. The thick wool jacket demanded that she cuddle up inside it. Warm and light and, best of all, waterproof.
Freya save her. Asgard was slowly stripping everything from her: her tools, her bike, her clothes, her guards.
In the carriage, Grace picked at the bread and cheese. The wine, she drank. Sitting across from Asgard with the charged air clogging her lungs dragged on for an eternity. If he felt as uncomfortable as she did, he hid it well.
For Freya’s sake, the man had seen her cry. She’d let down her guard, and he’d taken advantage. Tried to convince her he didn’t have a heart of ice. As if they had anything in common. She pressed her spine against the cushioned seat back and held her hands against the black leather pants.
Oscar would have liked the new getup. He’d always complained about her lack of fashion sense. He would have been proud to die in battle and join the glorious dead at Freya’s table. She wasn’t sure what the afterlife looked like, but if the Norse were right, those who died in their sleep were resigned to a dreary existence far away from the golden halls of the gods. Oscar wouldn’t suffer that fate.
She bit her lip to keep the tears from falling. She wouldn’t cry in front of Asgard. Never again.
When they finally arrived in Ballard,
she let herself breathe. Bicycles pulled hitch wagons down Market Street. Steam from the horses’ mouths sparkled in the midmorning sun. The bells on their bridles jingled, chasing away the dead.
The carriage pulled in front of a squat building with a fake A-frame rush roof. It looked like a Norwegian mountain cottage. The rounded front door had been painted dark brown. Rosemaling flourishes and red tulips decorated the dark wood grain. Bunches of plastic roses cheerily popped from the window boxes.
“You think this witch will help?” she asked.
“Birgitta is Heiðr, a Norse heathwitch. Your Tunta was probably in her coven. She’s mortal and human, but she knows small spells and charms. Heathwitch magic is associated with the hearth and home. They were midwives in the old days, and are starting to return to those roots now that the Unraveling has taken out modern medicine. She knows more Norse legends than I do. We’ll ask her about the Shadow Walkers.” Asgard straightened his long crimson coat. He must have a closetful of them. “You can’t fight Kingu if you don’t know your own strength.”
A troll big as her shoulder guarded the door. It had long brown nails and snaggleteeth the length if its chin. A tangle of greying hair fell like moss down its back. The squinting eyes fixed on her. Creepy little thing. It had a rune carved into its forehead: Dagaz, the awakening.
Grace pushed the door open and ducked beneath the hanging charms that kept out the dead. Iron and silver bells hung from brightly festive red ribbons. Inside, the store continued the Scandinavian kitsch. Henbane and mistletoe hung from the rafters. On the shelves, Dala horses and Lucia candles squeezed next to plastic Viking helmets and golden acorns for longevity. Aprons proclaimed, KISS ME, I’M SWEDISH, and signs read, PARKING FOR VIKINGS ONLY, with a picture of a longboat. Finnish joke books and gummy candies, gingersnaps and pepparkakor cookies shared a shelf with dried animal livers and a green bottle of newt eyes. In the back stood a large loom strung with red, black, and white yarn. The place smelled like pickled herring and hot apple cider. Cozy, and yet subtly unpleasant.
A little white-haired woman welcomed them with a wide smile. She wore a bright red apron with a white flounce trim. Across her chest HOT GRANDMA was embroidered. She had a rolling gait even though she wasn’t plump. “Regent, my dear boy, so you finally came to visit your old granny.”
“Birgitta.” Asgard’s face softened in genuine warmth. He hugged the old woman. “I’m glad you made it home safe from Oregon. Ballard wasn’t the same without you. Let me introduce you to Grace—”
“Hi.” Grace stuck out her hand. “Granny?”
“Birgitta is my many great’s niece,” he said.
“Ja. But I look old enough to be his grandma. Youngin’.” Birgitta gave Grace a careful examination from head to toe and then yanked her into a quick hug. “Finally, he brings a woman to meet me.”
Grace waited for Asgard to tell her it wasn’t like that. To tell her they weren’t together. That she wasn’t his woman.
“How was your trip to Portland?” he asked.
“Terrible.” Birgitta put a hand over her heart. “The earthquakes ravaged it. But my sweet Sigrid and her family made it through. I told her to move home. She is packing.”
“Good,” Asgard said.
“What brings you, älskling?” Birgitta rolled back behind the counter. A long blue cape with fur trim—just like the one Tunta had worn—and an elm staff hung against the wall. A small Bunsen burner warmed a miniature caldron full of dark ruby liquid. “Your lady’s eyes are red. I have just the thing for tears. Glögg?” she offered. “It is much too early for Yule, but who knows when the spices will run out?” She lit a match and touched the top of the wine-brandy drink. The alcohol caught, sending up a blue flame. She quickly smothered it with the lid.
“We need your help,” Asgard said. “How would you trap and kill a demigod?”
Birgitta laughed. “It is too early in the morning for hard questions.” She poured the glögg into three white handblown shot glasses. “Skål.”
Grace and Asgard each took a glass and raised it in toast. Some of the alcohol might have burned off, but there was still enough to strip paint from the walls. Grace coughed. Birgitta drained her glass and poured more. “That does it right. Now, be serious. How can I help?”
Asgard leaned forward. “Tell her about the Shadow Walkers.”
“Ja. Wait, wait.” Shaking her head, Birgitta went outside. Leif watched her through the open door. Muttering something, she sprinkled a handful of herbs on the troll’s head and pressed her finger to the mark between its eyes. The Troll shuddered like a teakettle whistling steam; then one of its carved feet split from the block of wood and stepped onto the pavement. It climbed off the stump and blocked the door. The club it rested across its palms, ready for action.
Grace gave a soft whistle.
“The heathwitch’s focus is small, household magics,” he told her. “But Birgitta is unusual.”
Shutting the door, Birgitta returned to the counter, pulled out two rush-backed chairs, and motioned them to sit. She poured more glögg. Examining Grace, she pulled down the younger woman’s lower lid and checked her eyes. “Do they flash silver?”
“Yes.”
Birgitta sat in her own chair and took a sip of the strong drink. “Teaching the runes to a human not in the service of the gods is forbidden, you know this?”
Grace shook her head. “I was taught by an old lady with a cloak like yours. She only spoke Norwegian. Had blue eyes. Chewed snoose. Know her?”
“Ja, but you describe many old-timers. There are few heathwitches of my age. I’ve been training a fresh crop since the Unraveling.”
“Tunta?”
Birgitta shrugged. “Means ‘aunt.’ Ja, but I know a woman it could have been.” She spit over her shoulder. “Not a good heathwitch, if she taught you to cast without knowledge.”
“She showed me how to draw the runes and named them,” Grace said. She held out her wrists to show the runes that marked her pulse points. “And she marked me.”
Birgitta took her hands and ran her thumbs over the marks. She shook her head and muttered a small prayer under her breath. “Heathwitch magic is the magic of life. Birthing and planting and green growing things. These are marks of binding over your life veins. No true Heiðr would do such a thing.”
Leif watched Grace’s face tighten. She took her hands back and studied the runes. “This is how I was taught to do it. What’s wrong with them?”
Birgitta clucked her tongue. “We don’t bind people, only objects. Tampering with human souls upsets the natural order of things and hastens Ragnarök, the doom of the gods. When Odin found the runes, the beginning of written language, beneath the world tree where the dragon serpent Nidhog was hoarding them, he saw how powerful they could be in the wrong hands. With a written language, man could spread ideas like wildfire. Odin cast the runes and divined what the humans could do with them—more creative and powerful than any god could think of—and he saw Ragnarök bearing down on him. Give humans a little power, and they will rise up against their oppressors. So he forbade the knowledge of how to use them from being written down and entrusted the truth only to a select few who were pledged in the gods’ service. The runes have been passed down in secret by word of mouth.”
“Tunta barely spoke,” Grace said. “She showed me how to make the runes and how to draw my will into them to make them work. I have a natural affinity.”
“Norgard was a great admirer of Loki, the trickster god who disobeyed Odin at every turn.” Birgitta reached across the counter and took a small red box with blue flowers in rosemaling across the top. She lifted the lid and offered it to them. Elegant truffles snuggled together, tops decorated with golden dots or drizzled in white chocolate.
Grace recoiled.
Leif shook his head and waved them off. His stomach sank. He put aside his glögg. He had attempted to create a serum that would approximate the feeling of love for Drekar, because a soul in love was the highes
t high his kind could get. His potion had mirrored the love chemical, oxytocin, but he thought it would be used for Drekar sick with the madness.
He had been wrong. He gave the serum to Sven, and Sven twisted everything around. Sven had filled the chocolates in his factory with an untested, unsafe dose and given them to women he intended to seduce. Leif’s experiments had been used for malicious purposes. His work turned evil. “I shouldn’t have to tell you again not to eat those.”
“Ja. Why not? What is an old woman to do with her time?” Birgitta popped one in her mouth.
“Sven wouldn’t care that teaching the runes and binding mortals was forbidden. He liked thumbing his nose at the gods,” Leif said. “He never liked being told what to do.”
“Now who does that sound like?” Birgitta asked. “Once humans had the runes, they used them to craft their own narratives, ones in which humans outwit the gods. They started to think for themselves.”
“The horror,” Grace said.
“Few use them anymore. Now they are an oddity sold by silly old women in tacky occult shops.” Birgitta grinned. She ate another chocolate. “Not all of these are drugged, you know. Only Persephone’s Delight.”
Leif just shook his head.
“And the Shadow Walkers?” Grace asked.
“A few humans can work the magic of the runes if they are trained. Those few are not constrained to this plane. The magic of the runes gives them the power that Odin once feared. A godlike power to cross the realms, to sift away shadow, and walk in the footsteps of the gods.”
“I don’t have godlike powers,” Grace protested.
“But you can banish spirits across the Gate between worlds,” Leif said. “Power over death is the prerogative of the gods.”
Grace held out her wrists again to study them. “Tunta had the same runes on her pulse points. Was she a Shadow Walker?”
