Addictive Rimeshade (12 page)

I'll burn, maybe I already have, for you.

I may be reckless, but I can say I did it for the right reasons.

If I rescue you, you'll save me. I love you, and you already love me. You declare it without shame, saying my name like a vesper at midnight, speaking it with the inflection of affection.

We'll cling inside this kiss, living on one breath, touching with each others fingertips, feeling one another's blood coursing the way we once felt the cold sting of rain battering windowpanes the day you called me to my door.

I'll burrow into you, hiding in the blanket of your spirit, and you, you can hide under the cover of my starlit quilt, hewn and embroidered with wishes, soul threads, and the promises I can't say.

I've been dead all my life, now I finally inhale. If they take you from me they slay me again.

I can't weather that pain.

Let me fade into you, falling into your shadows, diaphanous as the heavy sigh you just blew into my hair, caressing my nape with your closeness.

I wish we could become a rainbow, building bridges no one can harness or capture, filling the sky with rapture, boldly celebrating our freedom, sharing our beauty, knowing no one can rob us of it again. The spectrum, to each other, forever joined, the light bonding us as one as surely as the darkness binds us now.

Needing to shout, to rise in action, to run ruthlessly toward the danger and to hell with the consequences, I lace our hands, finger to finger, pore to pore, fate to fate, whispering, “He can't silence the truth any longer. If he's Odin's grandson then he is my enemy. He's my family as much as he's yours, so we have two choices. We either stay hiding like innocent cowards, or you let me kill him when he comes to destroy us. Kin no more.”

“Kin always. Always, Lara. We don't have to like them, we don't even have to love them, but honestly our greatest enemy is the family who rebuke us. The family who harm because of pride, they don't know love. They're ignorant because they believe their own light is blinding, and it makes them fools. We wallow in our den of darkness because we've been cast to its depths for so long it feels safe. Why are we here? It was a punishment which we grew so fond of we now relish it. No sváss, this time we turn the tide, we reverse the roles. We condemn the liars and cast them back where they belong. Their crowns have worn thin and tarnished, the only mirror believing their lies now are the clingers to tradition. If we murder we'll be no better than our accusers.”

“
I can't lose you,” I plead, the desperation in my voice unhinging me.

“
You can't, the map to my mind is planted in your soul.”

His levity in this harrowing moment breaks my fear, making me laugh. Indeed, as he has mine.

Closing my eyes against the impending threat, I drown my sorrow in the deep well of his passion, slipping under the ether of his kiss, diving back to the place where he hides my bliss.

Chapter 11

Pantheons made of rust and dust

will crumble and fall, once and for all

~ The Gemini Journal

Lara:

The more I lie here thinking about Ewan coming to rescue me because of a fib that I'm abducted to be raped, the more I doubt if Deliah will believe it.

If she is married to Ewan, without even inviting me to the ceremony mind you, which makes me wonder just what the heck he did to my sister's mind to pull that one off, well then she's changed. If she didn't see fit to invite me to her betrothal then she'll feel nothing for my fate at the hands of a deception.

She won't believe it, she thinks I'm too paranoid to fall for a psychopath. I'm not her, that's her modus operandi, not mine. She knows I'd rather be single than deal dice with courtship. She knows I'm too afraid to trust, of getting hurt.

If Ewan comes at all it's not going to be on my account. It's because he has an axe to grind, quite literally. I'm merely an excuse to satisfy his desire to exact justice against the one he perceives to be the anti-god of his pantheon. The only threat to his god, and kin.

Already I do not like this Ewan man, and I will do my utmost to sabotage his success.

Leug has left me, gone on an errand he says, abandoning me in an enormous bed with linen of sky blue silk. It's so big I feel like Goldilocks in papa bear's bed. Most of this Hel place is white, brilliantly bright white. So white it hurts the eyes, is boring and uninspired, and it makes me want to go interior-decorating mad.

A canvas this anemic itches the artist in me to splash the tunnels and chambers with creativity. Maybe Hel is white to remind us that we're all creators. We may have adopted his faults, but we also have his strengths inherent in us. We too can create, create life, split atoms, harness light, paint and decorate.

Did Odin really think he could outwit and outplay his own creation when we have his traits? And he is known for his wisdom and his intelligence, so therefore it was just a matter of time before we'd start to see through his tyranny and call his bluff. He's gone, he's history, he created the monster and the saint, what do we need a god for when we are exactly like him? That's a bit like worshipping yourself. Maybe we're all just vessels for his vanity and he gets off having us pray to ourselves.

Deliberately distracting myself from the endless loop of Odin in my head, I look around again, appreciating masculinity with the flair for coziness. Leug's quarters are welcoming, the floor fashioned of warm unglazed earthen tiles, chairs of chocolate leathers and suedes, tables of carved stone, rugs of puffy sepia wool, the walls hanging antique tapestries of his original home.

Staring at them makes me pine for the place we call heaven. It's beautiful, on a subliminal level, the images having communion with my spirit and making me ache with homesickness for a place I've never seen. Asgard looks fabulous, the colors beyond our spectrum, so vivid they burst their ethereal palette into the room, imbuing a cheerful ambiance and splashing cheer in every corner.

Earlier he guided me through a gallery covered in paintings of the fates of his children, a record of their hardships. I'm nervous, tomorrow morning I'll be introduced to Hel, taking the tour around this place, and meeting Fenrir.

He has a big family, one which intimidates little old me from my boring little life, my safe life.

Turning onto my side, I pull his pillow close, hugging it for comfort, burrowing my nose into the downy softness, inhaling his scent, the refuge for my dreams.

It's comforting.
He's
comforting. I don't know if it's because we're alike on many levels, or because he's the man who understands me without me needing to explain my issues and drama. I feel as if we've known each other forever, not for a day. We're that in tune, that comfortable in each other's presence, as one, knowing thoughts in a glance, reaching for each others hands at the same time, finishing sentences. It's freaky.

Sometimes we meet the ones we miss, never knowing we missed them sorely until we see them again, for the first time.

Leug balanced Odin. He has twin grandsons. Deliah and myself are twins! She's so tall and dark haired that I find it hard to believe, but I so badly
want
to believe it. If Ewan makes her happy, well then I hope she has some influence over him. If she can know love then why can't I? It hardly seems fair to murder my first true love before we've even begun. I'm not sure how this supernatural warfare goes down, but I imagine gods can slay gods.

I feel as if my curse shadows and colors this magical relationship. I've walked into a drama at the end of the story, on the last page, just in time to love and lose. I refuse to allow or condone it. This war is futile, it's stupid, and the gods know better than to allow it.

Maybe that's why it still plays out on Earth because up in Asgard he's already restrained and contained, the end war cancelled, but the ones below didn't get the memo, still worshipping a god who has raised them for his wars, for loss, for grief, to die for his cause -violently.

Then they must murder me too. I refuse to be taken by Ewan to his lair, to where he has abducted my sister. How dare he, who the hell does he think he is? It's bullshit. Did they confiscate her cellphone too? I've tried for weeks to get hold of her, without success. I thought it was her psycho boyfriend's doing, Dias, but he's mysteriously missing too.

Men shouldn't rule because quite frankly they suck at it. Like their maker I guess. Bad fruit fall from a sick tree.

There must be a way. I can't murder Ewan because I want Deliah to be happy, although I certainly entertained the idea. It's diabolical but I'd do it. I should have murdered Steven instead of running away from him and Marcy. By not ending him I left him alive to destroy the lives of countless other girls adopted into his home.

Unlike most, I've seen the peace and reality of death. A corpse is just that, decomposing meat, unanimated, whatever makes us human having moved on and uncaring that its dropped the mask of life to be free as an unencumbered spirit. I don't fear death, I fear losing the one reason to live. Leug.

Without him at my side my heart is so empty it echoes with every beat. If I feel like that now, how will I fair if he's gone forever? I won't. I'd be a walking corpse, dead on the inside. I'd die of heartbreak. I'd cry myself blind. I'd wither without the
light bearer
to shine his rays into my soul. My Lucifer.

*

Ewan:

The first time I heard the message, a smooth voice answered the cellular phone, saying, “Lara can't come to the phone right now.”

There was a pause, then a male voice I know too well took over in a guttural snarl, saying, “If this is Deliah phoning, I have a message for you, the fenrir are here, they will banka your vinr if your clan seek böðvar with Leug.” Now I hold the foreign device, needing to utilize this weird technology.

Wolf has Lara, and if we move on his lair he will violate the woman in every manner he chooses, to inflict maximum pain.

That psycho is going to pay for this. On Odin's name I swear it. I wish I knew how these human phones work. I need to call him back, to waylay him, to distract him while I find his location and ambush the bastard.

Where would he take Lara? Where would he hide her to keep her from us?

The phone message on Deliah's phone when she reaches her sister's voicemail (whatever that is), says in the old language, that if we take war to Leug he will rape and batter (pound) Lara. And I don't doubt that he will. He's holding her at ransom and hostage, knowing by doing so he binds my will to smash his bones back to dust.

To think I boldly shouted to a hall of warriors;
Gather the arr! We assault at high moon. Mighty arr of Midgard, Asgard, and Utgard, may the might of Búri and his sons possess you, and should we fail we shall meet again in Sindri's hall!

I was premature in thinking I could prevent what is destined. My only hope is to assault him in secret, alone, without the clash of warriors. He is the master of the dead, of the fallen, he would welcome the slaughter.

I can't have that on my conscience, I won't let good men die yet, not until it is a last resort. If I fail he will never know mercy, not in all the eons of his existence, if I fall he will be hunted, forever.

Stopping a lady on the street, looking around the town of Lara's residence which I gleaned from Deliah's thoughts, I smile, saying in my helpless male voice, “Excuse me, how do I return a call on this thing?”

She gives me an exasperated stare, taking the device from my hand, pressing a button, making me look entirely inept.

“
There, it will ring for you, just speak into it the way you use a normal phone.”

I smile my thanks, wishing I'd used a normal phone so I knew just what the Frigg she's talking about.

A warm and seductive voice filters into my ear canal, saying, “You have reached Lara, I'm not available right now, please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. But not if you're selling something, in that case kindly lose my number or be cursed with bad luck for the next seven generations.”

Then an annoying beep blasts my ear.

How do I speak to Leug if I can't reach him, or her? They changed her voicemail back to its original message. She'll never know. Duplicitous assholes.

Clearing my throat, I mumble, “Er, this is Ewan, oh um, your, what's the word.... brother-in-law. Not that I recognize your laws, pathetic as they are – never mind. Oh fuck, I don't know how to use this thing. Tell Leug I need to negotiate. That's if you – oh god damn, Odin's going to get you for this Leug. I doubt the victim can get to her phone, you have it. Listen up, I'm coming for you. Where are you?! Don't be a cowar–”

The horrid device beeps in my ear again, cutting me off mid-flow. I wish I didn't need it or I'd smash it right here, on the street, leaving it to be washed away with the gathering storm. The elemental Æsir up there are agitated, like me.

I hate humans and their technology. They're a plague spread across the world, destroying and killing its host. Maybe this truly is the end. The winter of swords suggests as much. It could be hours, or days, three at most, but the end is here. I am the one to vanquish Leug at the end.

Finally Odin will take me home, and I will be honored, allowed to reign at my grandfather's side, forever.

*

Leug:

Fenrir waits for me in his wolf form, the largest wolf to ever run through the night skies, to tread the mud in the fens.

He knows what I require of him but he shifts as I approach, standing in his piceous shadows, his skin as dark as onyx, yellow eyes glinting intelligence, the godfire within unable to camouflage its source.

I did well when I had children with
Angrboða. Fenrir did even better when he had Sköll and Hati. These three pose the greatest threat to Odin's survival at Ragnar
ök. I am out of time, if I'm to personally ensure the Smith's know what it's like to be the recipient of the pain they visited on the purest children born to this earth, in millennia, I must do so now.

This is the last time I will get blood on my hands. I don't do this, but this situation is an exception. They violated this world's promise of salvation, they tried to corrupt the pure with their evil, they tried to break these girls the same way Odin tried to break my children simply because of what they represented, simply because he had the power and could get away with it.

This is for all of them. For every adult, parent, or person in a position of power, who saw fit to corrupt their station with despicable depravity and avarice.

“
Speak fast,” I order, using the tone below the register of humans.

“
Carmen comes with the book of shadows, Odin's grimoire. It will be waiting for you when you get back. Let me ready for battle with these two. The blood on my tongue will remind me of when Tyr taunted me and I bit off his hand. It will ignite my bloodlust for Ewan and his eagle spawn.”

Nodding at the door, I ask, “They sleep?”

“Yes father.”

“
Good, let's do this.” Changing back to my natural size, I smash the door off its hinges with one punch, crouching to storm the premises, using my shoulder to push over the internal walls of the isolated farmhouse.

The pathetic structure caves under the onslaught of our wrath, Fenrir hamasks back to wolf, his size enormous. Screams give us direction, a man in the nude stumbling over splintered plaster and pebbled bricks, staggering through a cloud of cement dust, straight toward us. I don't hesitate, leaving Fenrir to locate and possess Marcy, taking my rage to Steven.

Slamming my palm against the side of his head I flatten him to the ground, cutting through his flesh with the glass shards scattering the floor. Crouching down, him small as a fox in a cage, I hiss gutturally, “I'm the god of Hel, and I'm here for your soul.”

He screams, defecating, shaking with terrorized seizures.