by A. J. Aalto
“Deal with this shocker for a moment, Konnie,” I said, entrusting my go-bag to his waiting arms. It clunked and clattered. “Not only did I not get murdered, but I got one artifact, two artifacts, three artifacts.” I showed him three fingers proudly. “And I saved the town of Grimston from the worst band in Undercroft while simultaneously emptying a clurichaun’s garden of pests. And I carried out a legal kill on a child serial killing revenant while exposing a black market corpse desecration ring. And I rescued a yeti from a fight club while protecting a world-class preternatural biologist.” I exhaled on a whistle. “No wonder I’m exhausted.”
“Dr. Baranuik,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “Hail, honored DaySitter. Centuries untold celebrate your gift of submission.”
“Oh, right. Death Rejoices and all that jazz.” I shot him a bright, if tired, smile.
“I have a car. We are expected beyond the Bitter Pass,” Captain Rask said.
“Tell me you didn’t just stand here for a week waiting for me,” I joked.
Rask shook his head as Declan came back with coffee from the vending machines. “A messenger from House Dreppenstedt was sent to the pier to inform me that Lord Guy Harrick had felt your approach and was expecting you would need transportation and protection presently.”
My heart soared. “Harry felt me? Is he okay?”
Rask looked like he didn’t understand the question.
I rephrased. “Is Lord Dreppenstedt still trapped, or…?”
“I am given to understand that the Stonecaller was recently instructed to release those kept in the hall at Skulesdottir,” Rask reported, leading us back out onto the tarmac where the taxis were lined up. He motioned to a dark SUV at the end of the row. It wasn't my former Hulkmobile, but I'm pretty sure it would impress The Rock, and I wouldn't want to have it run over my foot.
Declan and I exchanged a glance; our companions were freed. And so were the revenant court and all of the rest of the undead muckety-mucks. Were they royally pissed off? Were they missing us? I guess we’d find out soon. Declan popped one of his oxy-lipotropin pills to stave off yet another headache from not feeding Malas. He offered me one, but I’d wait for the real thing; I craved Harry badly now that we were close to home.
Home, Marnie? As we climbed in the SUV and sped toward the guard house at the Bitter Pass, I noted how much like home Felstein had started to feel, now that I was free of its confines. Maybe it was because it was Harry's comfort zone. Maybe it was the house Bond that sheltered me through Wilhelm while I was there.
Dark Lady’s mercy. What will the crowned prince say about my forming an alliance with House Rask on his behalf? Guess I’d face that when I came to it, too. I’d subverted more than one expectation on my trip. Probably, I’d never be invited back. Certainly not by the Dreppenstedts. Well, Remy might. Or she might eat me.
The guards were expecting us at the hut guarding the Bitter Pass, or rather, they were expecting Captain Rask, who joined us in trudging through the door into the weird, wild world of the Pass. The river warden waved us through after the mildest squint at my go-bag; perhaps she felt the strange rescue-artifacts within. I had to move my little legs pretty fast to keep up with Captain Rask’s long stride on the paths beyond.
We still had time. There had to be time. My traitor mind showed me a fleet of troll ships piercing the portal and sailing hungrily onward through the icy froth, rocked by savage ocean waves but eager to wreak vengeance on mankind, chanting their battle hymns and sharpening their axes. And at the bow of the first ship, the Scout, his beard crusted with sea ice over his tight, grey-green skin.
Declan and I fell behind a bit. I patted Harry’s battered coat to find the gold fairy coins in the right pocket, and got them ready for the Lord High Treasurer. “Hold it, wait,” I said, fumbling to remove my glove to count the coins bare fingered to be sure I was right. “There should be four.”
Rask grunted ahead of me. He stopped by a funny stump topped by a copper bowl gone green with exposure. He placed three coins in it, one for each of us. “I have the appropriate toll.”
“Oh. Were we supposed to pay in the bowl on the way out? I didn’t know.” I frowned and counted mine a third time. “I should have four left. I have two. Why do I only have two?”
“Where is your Second?” the captain asked.
Batten. Rask hadn’t seen Kill-Notch, either. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. “He didn’t come this way?”
Rask scowled. It was like having a mountain give me the stink-eye. “It is your responsibility to keep him at your heel.” He was right.
I’d fucked up, and Batten had fucked off, and I’d done nothing to stop him. But where had he gone? If he was returning to Svikheimslending, he wasn't taking Rask’s ship. Was he booking passage to Svalbard through normal means? And then what? Helicopter? Private ship? Would he remember how to get there? How would he pass the mere tenebrosum?
I had bigger worries than one wayward Jerkface to discuss with the captain, however. “What do you know about the trolls?”
Through a pile of white-blond beard, one thick lip turned up in distaste. “This scout, he has attempted incursions twice in the last five years as the fog thins. Each time, I have confused his path, and after being lost for weeks, he turns back. I cannot maintain this portal every minute; the effort drains me. I am already feeding at capacity to keep up my strength.” Rask turned his face sideways and sized me up as though estimating my worth in battle, or maybe as a snack-sized food source; the result was not encouraging in either case. “This troll’s name translates as Manflay Bonehack.”
“That tells me everything I need to know about him, thanks.” I smiled weakly. Suddenly, this whole idea seemed a lot more foolish than any of my past ideas, and I’d had some doozies.
“Sounds like your kind of guy, Dr. B.,” Declan said. “Bet you have a lot in common.”
I let his teasing cheer me slightly. It wasn’t over yet. We still had a shot at this. “Yeah, cuz I flay men and hack bones all the time. All day long. Hackity-flay. Captain Rask, we need to find the Duchess of the Darkest Corner,” I said. “They put her somewhere. Don’t say you don’t know where, sir. I have a feeling you know a lot about what goes on outside of the strongholds. You’re going to help us release her.”
He hedged, his frost blue eyes mere slits above the wild, colorless beard. He turned his face sideways and eyed the mountains to the east, hesitating at the shadow of the manticore scuttling along the rocks only a moment before we moved on.
Declan spoke up forcefully. “You swore your allegiance to House Dreppenstedt. A representative of the Raven of Night has asked you where Falsefeather is, Captain.” He drove further. “Your first alliance since the days of your Younger, Erasmus, and the glory days of House Rask. The Raven of Night needs you, Lindwyrm.”
I took a different tack. How the hell did I get to be Good Cop and Irish was Bad Cop? That was some sketchy casting, and I was going to have to complain to someone about it. “Captain Rask, you've been struggling to help maintain the fog across the strait for so long. The deeper into madness the First Turned falls, the more you have to do to pick up the slack. You shouldn’t have to carry this burden alone, but someday soon, you may. Unless…” I appealed to him with a hope-filled gaze. “Remy Dreppenstedt already wields all nine Talents at full strength, just as the king does. If I can liberate her, she can call the king’s fog on his scale, freeing you from this burden.”
His eyes narrowed down to slits.
“The scout will come again soon, Captain Rask, unless the orc mystic lied to me. We don’t have time to weigh our options, here.” I adjusted the heavy go-bag on my shoulder. “I have stuff on my back that you don’t even wanna know about, but it’s got a purpose. I didn’t see that before now. I thought the Overlord was just being a dick. I mean, gather three impossible-to-gather artifacts? Capricious and arbitrary, right? Welcome to demons.” I answered the frown on his face with, “Let’s face it, Ol’ Three-Face is an
infernal dillhole most of the time, so it was a safe bet. But he was having me collect this shit for a reason.”
“Dr. B?” Declan worried it out.
“Don’t you see? I thought the gold seed pod was a rescue-artifact because the act of getting it freed the clurichaun from the spriggan infestation, and freed the people of Grimston. The mellified man freed a body for proper burial. My getting the nail freed the yeti from the fight club. But when you put these three things together…” I laced two gloves hands together, and then wriggled them around to indicate a third imaginary one going in. “These items are going to rescue us from the trolls.”
“They are, Dr. B.?” Declan looked dubious, but hopeful.
I thought about the artifacts. The Golden Sap was an elixir. The Lilith’s Heart pod was a psychic booster. The yeti nail, I had no idea about. “Okay, so I’m a little fuzzy on all the specifics. But I’m onto something. I know it!”
Captain Rask didn't say anything, but he didn't throw me into the forest like a dropped picnic hamburger, and led us free of the jiekngasaldi and to the pier where the Meita waited. The gangplank was down and his crew was standing at the ready. We hurried aboard behind him. He considered the thrashing ocean, where the fog was close against the shore and his anchored ship.
Feeling rushed, I chased Rask and Declan up onto the deck and flapped my hand at the sails. “Seriously, can we make your boat go super-quick this time? What’s wrong with motors? It’s 2016, now!”
“Perhaps you would be happier taking the helicopter,” Rask suggested.
“There isn’t a—“ My molars clacked together abruptly. “There is a fucking helicopter?”
“Of course.” Rask jerked his head at the closest of his DaySitters and the crew got the ship moving. “One must prepare for emergencies. The Falskaar Vouras are very careful about the health and safety of their mortal companions.”
I rocked forward. “Where’s the helicopter?”
“It flies from Hammerfest to Svalbard, and Svalbard to Svikheimslending.”
I got a funny feeling in my gut. “Would they let anyone on that second leg of the route?”
“Only those who had a fairy toll coin from the jiekngasaldi.”
The words weren’t out of his mouth before I was fishing frantically in the pockets of Harry’s mangled, burnt wool coat to count again. “Two missing.”
“They just fell out,” Declan said. “He didn’t. He wouldn’t. He never would!”
“He did,” I roared.
“No!” Declan’s mouth said no but his face said he knew better and was alarmed at the possibilities. Was Batten there? What was he up to? “Maybe the yeti did it?”
“Don’t you dare smear Betty’s with this bullshit!” I cried. “It was Kill-Notch, that—“ My mouth worked around so many swear words that I couldn’t even spit one out. My plethora of vulgarity had become a curse, and I ended up blurting, “Pus-pisser!”
“When would he have done it, Dr. B?” Declan asked, sparing only a surprised blink at my expletive. “He left us back in Ireland.”
Batten had slinked into the tent outside of Grimston and “made up” with me long enough to put me right to sleep. He’d even cuddled. That was the death blow, right there. Fucking Kill-Notch cuddles, damn him. While I had slept, he’d left the tent. Who knows what he did before he left? I was out cold, very contentedly sawing logs in post-orgasmic bliss.
“That dick-diddling shitpickle picked my pocket after humping my lumps!” I took a breath and tried to regain my composure. “We’ve got this. We’ll find Remy, free her, fix her up, track down Batten, hogtie Batten, kick his shitcan, go face the troll, and save the world.”
Declan nodded. “Right.”
“And then, we circle back and we kick Batten some more,” I said, giving the air a sharp kick to demonstrate.
“I’m not sure how much kicking you’ll be allowed to do.”
“He’s my Second. I’ll kick him as much as I want.” I pointed hard into his pectoral. “I’ll kick him until I feel better.”
Declan conceded. “Okay, Dr. B.”
I craned up at the captain. “Ready to assist your ally, Lindwyrm?”
The massive revenant gazed down at me with his frosty eyes and nodded once, obviously not the least bit terrified of my kicky wrath. The Meita put to sea and pushed ever deeper into the fog.
Chapter 34
“The worm forge…” I mused.
Once Declan and I had settled into a room belowdecks, Captain Rask supplied us with food and drink, including enough karsk to warm our bellies and fuzz our heads. That probably wasn’t wise, but he assured us we had enough time to sleep it off. Declan looked like he was eager to follow my train of thought, positively vibrating with potential, eyes lit up. But he shook his head. “I don’t follow.”
“BugBelly said something about a worm forge.” I pulled up my sleeve to check on the state of my werefox bite. It was still throbbing but not quite as funky-looking. “And what is a forge?”
“A place where metalworking is done. Swords and armor are made. Tools and weapons.” His fascinating lime Jell-O eyes revealed the brainstorming going on behind them. “A place where something is created, usually from molten metal.”
“A place where something is created.” I nodded. “Weapons and tools.”
“They call Remy the Sister of Worms,” Declan reminded me.
“I always thought that meant maggots, death, undead, the grave.”
“Sister of Worms.” Declan repeated. “Sister of Wyrms…?”
I chugged some karsk and hoped that it would shock my brain cells. “Wyrms are dragons. There are no dragons left. Dragons are gone. Asian dragons, European Dragons, Greater Atlantic ones, gone. The only related species left are Gila monsters, bearded dragons, and…”
“Baltic sea wyrms,” Declan finished.
Three, four, and five-headed cold water dwellers. They hibernated for decades at a time under the glaciers, only came out briefly to mate, eat whales, and lay their eggs. I’d seen some sort of pale larvae tracking the wake of Rask’s ship more than once, drawn to the mortal warmth on board. Preternatural biologists had been arguing for years as to whether sea wyrms were actually a species of dragon or just juggernaut eels, but no DNA had been collected, and the field of “I’m going to get myself killed to take a sample” was still a wide open one, as geneticists are not that ballsy a group, generally speaking. “So, where is there a den of sea wyrms?”
“It would have to be deep,” he said.
I knocked back another doctored coffee. “Remy is Duchess of the Darkest Corner. What’s the darkest part of this area? Where does the sun never shine? Except, you know, the obvious sophomoric answer.”
Declan looked like he was judging the effect of the karsk on my thought processes and decided to join me. He sipped, then chugged. “Hell?”
“An ocean trench. Captain Rask and Duchoslav, the Undertaker. They stuck her in a shipping container and sank her in the deepest spot they could find.”
“The wyrm forge.” He nodded, seeing it. “The Darkest Corner is more of a Darkest Crevasse.” Declan’s hands balled into fists.
I slapped open the flap of my go-bag, dug out my Beretta mini Cougar and holster, making sure it was loaded. “I have to convince Rask and Duchoslav to bring her up.”
“You won’t need to. They just have to show me where she is.” He stood up, weaved a little, and shook it off. “I don’t really want to swim down in that frigid water with the wyrms and such, but to release my mother, I can and will. It won’t kill me, Dr. B. Send me down there.”
I studied his face and was surprised to find that Declan Edgar would follow me through Hell and back if I made that call. He was waiting for me to decide. I wouldn’t have to convince him.
The last puzzle piece clicked into place. “The Ninth Talent, the one DaySitters can’t inherit. The Talent the other revenants can’t inherit. That’s how the king has monitored the waterways around the portal all the
se years. Water dragons. Sea monsters. You mother doesn’t just live in the Baltic sea wyrm trench, she can call them. She’s the only other revenant besides the king who can.”
“Do you really think so?” Declan boggled, sitting back down with a thump. We stared at one another for a long time, taking that last bit of information in. If I was right, I’d certainly made the right choice in nominating her.
I felt our approach to Svikheimslending long before the island appeared through the fog. The Bond drove me out of the cozy cabin, so I put on Harry's coat and went up onto the deck to see it; Declan was stirred by his own Bond to join me there. Though my face hurt from the harsh night wind, and everything in me ached for this to be over, my link to Harry warmed deep in my belly, and his yearning blended with mine until they bled together into a mutually blissful soup of metaphysical connection and need. He was waiting for me. The strain of my challenges began to drop away, shedding from my body like layers of discarded clothing. That was Harry’s doing; the empathic revenant would not enjoy my stress, and true to form, instead of blocking this through the Bond, he was plucking it from my shoulders and infusing me with comfort to protect us both.
I wondered what it would be like to return to this island without a companion. Empty, no doubt; foreboding, with its indomitable grey cliffs jutting out of the polar darkness without the assured welcome of a spot at the house hearth. What would Umayma Eyasi feel like coming back here without Jeremiah Prost? Had she even bothered to return? Would House Prost keep her safe within their fold? Would they consider her a failure for not protecting him? Though I still bore her dead revenant an abiding abhorrence, I felt sympathy for her; it was very likely that she had not been given the choice of becoming a DaySitter the way I had been.
Declan’s sturdy little body moved half a step closer to my shoulder, and I looked up at him in question. His smile revealed uncertainty, and I knew where it was coming from. Would our revenants be angry with us? Though I knew Harry was eager to see me, I dreaded the sharp side of his tongue. Wilhelm would not be pleased with me, and Harry would have been answering for it. Malas would be outraged, probably. We’d nominated the female revenant he and Wilhelm knocked up, turned, and then locked away. We were freeing the one creature on Earth the two of them feared. I was doing it for the good of mankind, but I’m not sure they’d see that as a terribly good excuse.
