I could’ve, and probably I should’ve, taken a moment to greet my friends—particularly Asher and Oona, who appeared to have made it back safely. Everyone had managed to beat Sloane and me there, but we’d had to make the additional and protracted pit stop at Marlow’s, and the streets had definitely gotten rowdier after that second earthquake. I had a feeling that Ereshkigal had unleashed more of her minions.
Valeska was sitting on the back of the couch, most likely to allow for more room for her wings, munching on kola nuts, and Asher’s grandmother Teodora sat nearby on the same sofa. They were watching the news on mute, so it was only images of carnage and chaos flashing across the screen. Somehow, even in an apocalyptic situation, Teodora managed to look regal, with her glacial-white hair meticulously styled, and a black capelet draped over her shoulders.
Samael was standing at his desk, hunched over Minerva’s giant grimoire, with Quinn, Oona, and Minerva flanking him so they could read as well, while Asher stood alone at the window. His back was to me when I came in, with his battered jacket stretched taut across his broad shoulders, his arms folded across his chest.
When I came in the room, bursting through the door before Godfrey had a chance to open it for me, everyone turned to look at me. I took a second to meet Asher’s gaze and smile briefly at him, which was the fastest way I could convey that I was happy to see him safe, before returning my glare to Samael.
Only Samael appeared to register what I had asked, meeting my insistent rage with mild confusion.
“Mal, we think we’ve figured out what we’re supposed to do.” Oona excitedly tapped the page. “There’s a chart called biguol en friia, and it has nine positions and shows us where to stand.”
“That is super-great, and honestly, I don’t mean to brush over that right now,” I told her, but I kept my eyes locked on Samael, studying him for his reaction. “But I need to know where Odin is.”
“I don’t know, Malin,” Samael replied, sounding calm but concerned in his usual way. “I haven’t spoken to him or heard—”
I slammed my hand down on the desk, startling everyone. “Don’t bullshit me, Samael.”
“Malin!” He straightened up. “I’ve never lied to you!”
“Did you know Odin was behind all of this?” I demanded.
Something flashed across his aquamarine eyes—it might’ve been surprise or realization or disbelief—but then it was gone, and he was left staring at me with a slack jaw and his arms hanging at his sides.
“What are you talking about?” Quinn asked. “Odin was helping us.”
“No.” Samael took a deep breath. “I didn’t know Odin was involved with all of this, but I suspected that it had to be a Vanir god. I didn’t know how anyone else could pull this off.”
I scowled at him. “You should’ve told me! If you had any ideas, you should’ve let me know before I ran around doing his bidding and following his damn ravens!”
“I didn’t know for sure!” Samael argued. “I couldn’t know! I only did what I thought I should to protect you.”
“Fuck protection!” I growled. “If you suspected him, you needed to tell me! I deserve to have a choice about who I want to serve!”
He swallowed. “You’re right, Malin. I’m sorry. I made a grave mistake, and I know I may have lost your trust for good. But right now there are skeletons taking over the city, and we need to figure out what our next move should be.”
“Hold on.” Asher held up his hand and walked over so he was standing between Samael and me. “Are you saying that it doesn’t matter who we’re fighting against? Are you honestly implying that who our enemy is has no bearing on how we’ll fight?”
“Does it matter which Vanir god is pulling the strings right now?” Samael asked. “Not particularly, not for our purposes. I already believed it to be someone from Vanaheimr, and I still believe that our best course of action is performing the ceremony of the Drawing of the Nine.”
“Frigg wrote the prophecy, and if her husband really is the one behind this underworld uprising, then doesn’t that make him the villain?” Sloane asked. “And if it does, how can we trust anything that either of them say?”
“Life very rarely comes down to heroes and villains,” Samael said with a wan smile. “It’s usually just everyone doing what they can to survive, and the best of us will help more than we hurt.
“I don’t entirely know what Odin’s intentions were with all of this or where he is now,” he went on. “But I know that Frigg loved earth, and she considered us all her children. If she could write down a way to save us all, I know that she would’ve, and I believe that she did.
“By all means, if you have an alternative idea about how we can combat this never-ending onslaught of death and decay at our door, I will gladly hear it or take you up on it,” Samael said. “But if not, we need to get to the roof before they kill us all.”
EIGHTY-FOUR
“So do you want to see what we found, then?” Oona asked, not bothering to hide the impatience in her voice, or even waiting for my answer.
She immediately went back to the grimoire. This was Minerva’s book, and, as she explained on a visit once, it had been her mother’s before that. It was larger than Oona’s, both in height and width, and by the looks of it, it had to weigh over ten pounds. The pages were old and yellowed but with an iridescent sheen.
I came around the desk and stood beside Oona so I could get a better look at it. She tapped the page with a nine-pointed star in the center.
Directly below that was a list of names:
Þruor
Hildr
Gondul
Skogul
Ailrun
Mistr
Eir
Rothi
Sigrun
Though there were discrepancies in spelling—probably either accidental or due to translations and language barriers—these were clearly the names of the nine original Valkyries.
“The translation is a little rough, but we think this is called ‘Encharment of Frigg,’” she explained. “It tells us the order we should stand in and what to say and how to hold the swords.”
“And this is just in your grimoire?” I asked, glancing over at Minerva. “Why would it be in a spell book?”
“This is more than a spell book,” Minerva answered with a hint of indignation. “This is well over a thousand pages long and filled with ceremonies, incantations, potion recipes, and, yes, spells from immortals and mortals. My great-great-great-great-great-grandmother brought together all the magic that she thought to be most vital for this earth, and she bound them together here. Is it really that surprising that a ceremony to save the world would be included?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that.” I lowered my eyes. “I was surprised. Sorry. Go on.”
Oona went back to elaborating on what they’d uncovered and how she thought the ceremony would go down, and I listened dutifully.
While she talked, Bowie decided to venture out from where he had been hiding and sat on my feet, which was something he did when he was scared and wanted to be picked up. I happily complied, scooping him up into my arms and burying my fingers in his soft fur.
I focused on Oona and what she and Minerva were explaining because I knew how important it was, but I relished cuddling with my wolpertinger as much as I could because I didn’t know when—or even if—I would be able to do it again.
With our plan outlined and time running out, everyone set about gathering what we needed before heading up to the roof. Oona started allocating swords and positions—Quinn and I planned to use our own Valkyrie swords Eir and Sigrún, while Asher and Samael were going to use the swords of their mothers, Hildr and Róta, respectively, but everyone else had to be assigned.
While Oona was divvying out the other five swords, I pulled Samael aside.
“Do you have someplace safe?” I asked him, with Bowie nuzzling up against me as I held him.
Samael looked at me quizzically. “How so?”
/>
“Someplace where I can put Bowie so that he doesn’t get hurt. Someplace where he can be okay for a while, in case … in case we don’t come back, someplace where someone could find him later.”
“Yeah.” Samael smiled and gently stroked Bowie’s useless wings. “I have the perfect place.”
I followed him across the room, over to where his display shelves lined the wall. He moved aside a totem to reveal a hidden touchscreen. With a few a quick taps and a palm scan, he was done, and the wall beside him slid open.
There was no evidence of a door. Just a two-by-six-foot section that slowly receded and slid inside the rest of the wall. Beyond it was a short narrow hallway and a hermetic-looking bright white room.
“It’s my panic room,” Samael said as I peered inside. “It’s the safest place that I can offer you right now. Every one of the offices has one, and the Seraphim have a master code so they can get in when this is all over.”
“Thank you.” I smiled gratefully at him, then carried Bowie into the room.
It was a sterile, futuristic room, with plain walls, aside from several computer screens—all of which were currently flashing news about the current situation. Other than the clear plastic table and chairs in the center, there was no furniture, which meant there was nowhere comfortable for Bowie to hide.
I set him down so I could pull off my hooded sweatshirt. That meant I would be performing the ceremony in a black tank top, but I figured I could handle the cold. I knelt down on the floor beside Bowie and made him a little bed out of my shirt, then I bent down and kissed him between his little antlers.
“You are the best pet I ever had, Bunny Bo,” I told him. “I love you, and if I make it back, I promise you’re going to get unlimited cuddles and carrots from here on out.”
When I stood up, Samael was standing behind me in the panic room, and I nearly screamed in surprise.
“You should take this, too.” He held out Gungnir—Odin’s beautiful spear that Samael had been storing for safekeeping. “You may need it for what comes next.”
“It’s needed in the ceremony?” I asked.
He shook his head once. “No. I’m talking about what comes after if the ceremony doesn’t work. This can kill any immortal, and it might be the only chance we have at surviving this.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Why not you?” he countered. “You retrieved it. You should wield it.”
“Okay,” I said, because I didn’t know how to argue with that. I took it from him and then carefully tucked it into the waistband of my pants.
EIGHTY-FIVE
The Evig Riksdag building was significantly shorter than my apartment complex, but the wind seemed much stronger and colder on the roof. Above us, dark clouds of black and red swirled and rumbled with angry thunder.
Oona, Minerva, Sloane, and Samael were carefully drawing the nonagram on the roof’s surface. They had a sacred ash-and-herb concoction that Samael had whipped up while I’d been gone getting Sloane and the swords, and when they used it to mark the lines, it left a silvery-white line that left smoke rising a few inches above.
That left the rest of us standing off to the side so we didn’t get in the way, and waiting for them to tell us when to take our marks. There was bickering between Minerva and Sloane—both of whom had very strong opinions about which direction the center point should be pointed—and I left Oona and Samael to mediate, since they knew more about it than I did.
I went over to the edge of the building, standing as close as I dared with the wind blowing as strong as it was, and I looked down. The skeleton swarm around the building had grown even more, and it would’ve been impossible for any of us to make it through on the ground level now. They were covering every inch of the ground, shoulder to shoulder, with others behind them climbing over them, and they stretched out as far as I could see, coming down every road and climbing up all the buildings that surrounded us.
The odd mushroom-like shape of the Riks building made it difficult for the skeletons to scale, but a few of them had started making it up the overhang. They still had about another twenty floors of sheer concrete and glass to scale before they made it to the roof, but at the rate they were going, it wouldn’t take them that long. The skyscraper next to us was easier for them to ascend, so many of the skeletons were racing up that and attempting to leap over to us, but so far none had been successful.
As I watched their relentless struggle to reach us, I rubbed my hands over my bare arms, trying to stifle a chill that I knew wouldn’t go away.
“Do you want my jacket?” Asher asked, his voice soft but clear over the roar of the wind because he was standing right behind me.
I turned around to face him. “Thank you, but no. I’m okay.”
He put his hands on my arms, and they felt like fire compared to my icy skin, so he scowled at me. “You’re freezing. This is ridiculous. You have to take it.”
“Ash—” I tried to argue, but he took his jacket off anyway.
“I know that you’re strong and that you don’t need me, but I do wish you’d let me take care of you sometimes,” he said with a weary smile. “I make a mean vegetable soup, give killer massages, and my shoulder is world-renowned for being the absolute best one to cry on.”
I smiled up at him. “If that’s your idea of taking care of me, I would happily let you do that anytime you want.”
“It’s a date, then.” He held out his coat to me. “And put on the damn jacket.”
“Thank you, but this really wasn’t necessary,” I insisted, but I slipped it on anyway. “We shouldn’t—”
My arguments died on my lips, because a dark shadow had passed over Asher’s face. But it wasn’t coming from the sky—it was coming from within him, rippling underneath his skin.
“Asher?” I asked, but his eyes had already gone glassy, and then he fell back onto the roof, his body shaking violently.
EIGHTY-SIX
“Asher!” Teodora wailed. “What’s wrong with my grandson? What’s happening to him?”
Valeska grabbed her, gently but firmly holding her back so she wouldn’t get in the way of Minerva and Oona, who knelt beside him. He wasn’t shaking anymore, but his body had completely tensed. I could see his veins and muscles bulging in his arms, and his back arched sharply, so his spine was a foot off the roof while his head and feet remained firmly planted.
When he opened his mouth, it was the same distorted voice that had come out before, speaking in that Enochian language that I didn’t understand.
“He’s possessed?” Minerva asked.
“I think so,” Oona replied. She had her hands on his abdomen, trying futilely to push him back down.
“By who?” Minerva asked.
“I AM ABADDON, THE GOD OF DARKNESS AND DESTRUCTION.” Those were the words that came out of Asher’s mouth, but it definitely wasn’t him saying them.
“Move,” Samael commanded, and Minerva quickly complied so he could kneel beside Asher. “How was he possessed?”
“He was marked in Kurnugia,” I said, clinging to his jacket, which was still warm from his body heat. “On his chest.”
Samael grabbed Asher’s T-shirt and tore it in half, as his body strained against the demon inside him. The wounds on his chest were black and festering, the edges curling back as if they were paper being burned.
Samael held his hand above Asher’s chest, and he began chanting something in the same Enochian language. As he did, his fingers slowly began to glow a warm yellow, and then he plunged his fingers inside of the open wounds on Asher’s chest.
Asher screamed in pain, while the demon howled in anger, and he tried to twist away, but Samael held strong. His right arm was wrapped around Asher’s waist, holding him close, while his left hand remained clamped inside the wound.
“Bolape voresa oresa noco! Elasa biab ge de oi goaanu!” Samael chanted as Asher/Abaddon screamed and writhed.
Then it began to happen. Asher arched his back, and his m
outh pulled back as he screamed. A torrent of dark locusts began flying out of his mouth, swarming around all of us in a disgusting, wriggling cloud. They buzzed around angrily, biting at us and spewing a sulphuric stench, but finally they were all out, and Asher collapsed back on the roof.
“Thank you,” I told Samael as he stood back up, giving Asher space to wake up.
“I’m glad it worked,” Samael said as he exhaled. “I’ve never cast out a demon that powerful before.”
“You think you cast me out?” a distorted voice came from behind us, followed by a wicked laugh. “You merely set me free!”
The locusts had come together, coelescing into a dark shadow that soon took the form of a man. Dark gray mist shifted into a relatively human form, and within moments Abaddon stood before us. A tall broad-shouldered man with dark red skin—burnt, like he’d been cooking in the sun for too long—and wild tangles of black hair.
“Thank you for giving me a front-row seat to the end of days,” Abaddon continued with a perverse grin that revealed his pointed teeth. “I was truly afraid that I would miss it.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you still will,” I said and started walking toward him. I heard Oona and Quinn calling for me, telling me not to do anything stupid. But I wasn’t.
A familiar metallic taste filled my mouth, reminding me of the electric energy crackling through my veins. The buzzing around my heart had started, sending a welcome heat through me, and I could feel the pressure building inside me.
“Really?” Abaddon asked. “I am the lord of the most vile city in the entire underworld, as I have been for centuries, and you think that you, one angry little girl, can stop me?”
“You might be powerful in the underworld, but we’re not down there anymore,” I shot back.
He threw back his head and laughed, and that’s when I pulled the spear out from my waistband. He only saw it the split second before I drove it into his chest, but by the way his eyes widened, I think he knew exactly what it was.
From the Earth to the Shadows Page 33
